Harvey West/Pogonip 10 miles 8/1/9

Started the 10 mile trek right in front of Harvey West Park, headed straight down towards Costco and right towards the back of Harvey West. This was almost the same trail as the firecracker race I did on 4th of July but in reverse and a whole lot more!! For the next 2 miles they had us doing uphill and it was brutal, I kept thinking come on, lets get real here, you have us start off @ 7:30 in the morning on a Sat. and than first thing we do is a brutal 2miles UP HILL! Give me a break. Well that was just the beginning of it and the worse was yet to come....oh Joy Joy.
We now are heading into Pogonip, and I would say for a good 2 miles we did flat land on dirt trails, I loved this part of it, it is so beautiful along these trails, lots of trees and with plenty of shade to keep us out of the hot sun. That was about when all the site seeing and fun ended and I entered Hell. We now are headed to the top of Hell Hill (not really the name, I felt it fit this name) and we kept going up and up and I was hoping it had a end somewhere, thats when we got to the switchbacks but they still kept us going up, all though it seemed a lot .asier doing the swithbacks than the straight up hill.
The Team in Training Capt's put pictures of our honoree's on posters and posted them all along the uphill trails, so as we are painfully conquering Hell Hill and thinking "OMG I don't know if I can do this, oh my legs,my hips, my butt hurts" just whining a long and than I would look and see one of the posters, WOW now I remember why I am doing this, yes it is hard but it is so worth it. It sure made it much easier for me to finish after seeing the posters, what a awesome idea.
We finally made it to the top and stopped to fuel up and stretch a bit and than turn around and head back down to the finish, we did the same trail back down. When we got down to the streets again I knew we were so close to the end and got my second wind and just picked it up and raced back to the end. Ahh and there at the end the coaches and runners were there cheering us in, what a great way to bring it home!!
As I was driving home I kept thnking that I was beat but really not as sore as I had been before after finishing 10 miles, but kept thinking that it will hit me later or tomorrow I'm sure.. It hit me the next day and for about a week I was a little sore and my feet were swollen like a footballs.