I ran the Larch Hill XC race (3 miles) this morning in 26:39 (about a 2:30 improvement over last year). Nice weather for the race today--sunny and about 48-50 degrees. There wasn't as much standing water and mud on the course this year, but there were puddles right at the beginning so I did have cold wet toes for the whole time! The hay barriers were higher this time...last year some of them were just one bale high but this year almost all of them were two stacked on top of each other so I had to vault over them or step up rather than being able to clear them almost without breaking stride like I can when it's just one bale. The only one that was one bale high had another one right in front of it so it was too long to jump clean over. Overall the race felt a little harder this time but I think that was mostly because of the time of the month...does anyone else feel like they're running in lead shoes right before their period? And besides it turns out I was going faster as well, so I was working harder. I was the only one in VFFs this year (last year there was somebody else wearing them). There were a couple of guys behind me at the beginning who could use some form work--their footsteps were LOUD!! I was relieved when they passed me b/c then I didn't have their stomping throwing off my rhythm. I guess I can't be too hard on loud runners though, because later on I was right behind some people and my breathing was pretty loud at that point so I was probably kind of an annoying person to be running near...