The Bass got Badder

Which is a good thing.

On Saturday the whole family headed over to Lake Chabot to do Brazen Racing's Bad Bass trail race. The Boy and I did the Half Marathon, and were anxious to try out the new course, and all of us wanted to see if Brazen could outdo last year's medal and shirt.

This is The Boy's second time doing this race (his third Half Marathon). You can tell how nervous and excited his is. Or maybe that's just him being a teenager.

The Boy and I were in the Half Marathon starting corral while the rest of the family waited their turn to start their 5K race. Note the innocence on Darci's face.

It wasn't always like that. Note the bib number - apparently she lived up to it.

The Boy has stopped yawning eventually and we were busy getting our game faces on.

This is a great picture of Mrs Notthat streaking back in on her 5K race.

Once she finished, Mrs Notthat went out to find Darci and run her in. Darci was not being very perky. Mrs Notthat is explaining about the It's-It ice cream at the finish line.

That worked.

Weird Haired Mom and Riley making their final push for the finish line.

OK - now on to the Half Marathon.

About a mile into the race I had to stop at a bathroom (a good thing about this course is that there are quite a few bathrooms while you are around the lake area - a weird thing about this race is that I failed to get a porta-pottie picture). I never saw The Boy again until the finish line.

Me running uphill for the camera.

I love this. You would be amazed at how many people will run right past a sign and a lot of flour arrows on the trail telling them to turn. So Brazen posted a volunteer at the sign with strict orders to not let any Half runners past him, and I'm pretty sure he was authorized to use any force necessary, including tackling, to accomplish that. (This was at the bottom of a bonus hill the Half runners got to do. The 10K runners didn't go up that bonus hill, and instead came up to this point from behind where he is standing. I'm sure things got tricky at times.)

The real hill. Many of us mortals walked up this thing. Mr 10K (on the left and the eventual 10K winner) flew past us mortals.

As usual, the aid stations were nicely stocked with everything you might want (short of a beer and a burrito, but then, I didn't actually ask for them, so who knows). This is at the top of that main hill and served as the 10K turnaround.

A nice obstacle. And there is no truth to the rumor that The Brazen Rabbit put this here just to stir things up. Probably.

A very welcome course change removed a not-as-much-fun-as-it-looks (and it didn't look fun at all) little out-and-back near the end and replaced it with an awesome stretch of single-track trail. Since the trail runs partly through a dried up creek, it's a bit doubtful that this could be used for the New Year's version of the race, but then, running through a creek can be a lot of fun (hint hint).

Darci came out to meet The Boy and run him in. He is SO happy to be so close to finishing.

He is also in a fair amount of pain at this point.

Then Darci headed back out and ran me in.

Darci said "Do that again and you'll have to run yourself in from now on." It's hard to explain this, but I was trying to do a "leap of joy" for the camera. I mostly just succeeded in frightening people (the good news is that I didn't hurt myself).

Mrs Notthat got third place in her age group, beating eight others! She is liking 5K races and it might be hard to get her back to doing Halves again.

And The Boy is now a true trail runner! He fell for the first time, although by all accounts (his), he made it look graceful and almost planned.

OK, maybe not quite a true trail runner since there was almost no blood and probably no skin left back on the trail.

The whole group at the finish line. Everyone was mostly happy (Riley got third in his age group, and a bonus medal, but Darci got fourth in hers and no bonus medal) but a bit hungry.

So Mrs Notthat suggested having lunch at a local health food restaurant.

And that's about it. The Boy and I give the new course layout two scraped elbows up! It was another great Brazen event with well marked trails, nicely stocked aid stations, and It's-It ice cream at the finish line (along with a TON of other great food). The volunteers were also great, helping to keep everything running smoothly.

And the new Bass is definitely Badder.

That's it - move along...

PS: You can see a LOT more pictures from the event at Brazen's Picassa site.