Pinckney Trail Half Race 2017

This was my third go-around racing the Trail Half and I was excited as ever.  This year's training has been some of my best ever.  I was finally approaching this race with preparation that had me at about 100%.  With that came higher personal expectations so I felt a little bit of the self-imposed pressure. 

Pre-race

This was the warmest morning I've experienced at the Trail Weekend.  The temp was around 50° which meant I could do my pre race routines without having to huddle in my car with the heat running.  I left my place about 5:40a this time and made a stop at Panera in Ann Arbor for a bagel.  I also ate an apple and an oatmeal square along the way.  I kept a banana in the car which I ate about 10 minutes pre-race.  Upon arrival I found that this year they were checking for the Michigan State Park Pass at the booth as folks drove by, a change from previous years.  Thankfully they had that streamline and it didn't slow up traffic.  I pulled into the lots just before 7am and had very good parking as usual.  I went to registration where they had folks filling out waivers and then grabbed by shirt and bib.  I did a bunch of walking around, ran into a few people I knew and ran about a half mile warmup on the trails.  I hit the bathrooms once about 7:15a and found the desire to do so again about 7:45a.  I hit the bathroom by the bike trailhead and the line didn't free me up until about 7:52am.  This left me 8 minutes to change clothes, get my bib on, and hop on over to the race start.  I made it with about 90 seconds to spare.