After the exploding potato to start the race, we took off at a good pace for at least 25 yards, until the real entrance to the trail became bottlenecked. I remember thinking at the time, hey I always start out way to fast so this is a good change.
The first few miles were uphill and I took them at a fairly restrained pace until the crowds thinned out after the first aid station at the top (mile 2.5). From this aid station it was an immediate rapid and rocky descent and I remember thinking - this is going to be fun going up on the second loop (and it was).
After this descent I began running with Rockelle Frazier who obviously had far more trail running experience than I did and was eager to share her knowledge and experiences. In fact Roquelle was actually doing this as a training run for the upcoming ultracentric 72 hour race. She was a strong runner and fearless on the downhills. Overall great company and glad to have made her acquaitance.
The run to the next aid station at mile 7 was my favorite part of the course. It mostly wound up on turkey *mountain* but had lots of runnable transverses and its share of rocks. At some point during this stretch I was startign to realize the terrain was much more extereme than anything I had trained one.
According to the blog of Carey Smith who finished third it was ....
"this trail was VERY TECHNICAL meaning extremely rocky and rooty; it
required your full concentration at all times and was similar to
running through a field of softballs. From this standpoint it was the
toughest course I have run to date."
And for another opinion to make sure Carey and I aren't just whiners, it was described this way by Gabe Bevins who finished 4th on his blog
I remember the course being rocky and very technical but it was even worse than I had remembered. The course had a few really long and steep hills which were mostly out
in the open but other than that it was mainly extremely rocky terrain
with short ups and downs.
more coming soon....
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