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With nothing going on in October, I desperatly needed something for November. While trying to cut down traveling but NOT really wanting to do a race where we seriously climb, I found this race. The drive wasn't too far away and it seemed "easy" enough. I signed up for it and so did Jamey and then of course realization came along as to what it is that we signed up for.
Race description: A timed event on a rolling country type course at Gurski Farm/Williams Park in Brookfield, CT. With an approximately 4 mile loop, there's plenty of single track and rolling farm trails and you get to see your fellow competitors quite a bit in an awesome trail running community environment. There's even a 4 hour option for those of you that want to get your feet wet a bit in an event like this.
Doesn't sound too bad at all, right? They even go on to say: The course will be an approximately 4 mile loop with a mix of single track and farm trails. The terrain is fairly rolling with nothing too technical.
Really not too too bad, right? And then we got an email with these 2 little gems:
And things got real... We need about 6 or 7 loops and each loop is about 650 feet of elevation... Wowsers. Didn't I say that I wanted an "easy" race without too muc climbing and close by? Oh well...
And there's the date. It's the same date as the NYC Marathon... Going there should be no problem. Coming back, will we hit crazy traffic? And of course now we have to deal with the "Are you doing THE marathon?" and "Did you do THE marathon?". Of course the answer is YES but not NYCM... There are other marathons people...
Weather: Yeah... It sucked. It was bitter cold. Really bad...
We got there early and it was a bit of a walk from the car to the only 2 port-a-potties. Apparently, they put them in the wrong place. Whatever. Not happy about it but ok. Checked in and sat in the car a little to warm up. Then walk again and hellos to people. I saw some of my favorite people: KarenMurray and her hubs Glen Anderson. They really are nice people. They did a really hard race the day before but still showed up. They decided that if it was really rough, then they would just do 1 loop and call it. That is exactly what happened but THEY HUNG OUT AND HELPED AT THE AID STATION BECAUSE THEY ARE THE AWESOMEST kind of people...!!!
Did I mention that they were awesome? Did I mention that it was damn cold?
I also saw Caitlin Rossi which was nice too. We talked a bit.
I also met my sister-from-another-mother-runner AKA Taylor Febus AKA Karen's daughter. Why was she so dear to my heart? Because she was the only one else who was freezing or maybe the only one else who was man (or woman in this case) to say it. She had almost as many layers as I did and gloves as I did. I know I look like a complete Wuus but here was someone else who was just damn cold. By the way, she came in first for females in the 4 hour race. She was (on your left) awesome... LUVED seeing her out there just kicking butt. She did 21 miles in those 4 hours. First for females or 5th overall.
What else can I say about this race before I get into it...? Hm... I was shocked at how well this trail race was marked. It seemed to me that they were going for the most marked trail race ever category. And, they leaf blowed the trail the day before which was awesome.
Now, let's see what I can remember.
We started at the school and almost immediatly climbed and into the woods. There was a lot of single track and rocks. Jamey had a high count of almosts and actual falls. I can't really remember too much more except for 2 things.
The loopy bridge - It really is a great name for this bridge. It was kinda of suspended and every step shook that bridge. I have a video of it. Take a look for yourself. Thinking back, it's a miracle that Jamey did NOT fall off that bridge.
Most stupid and Less stupid: You get to a point where you are faced, as in life, with a choice. The sign says: To your left is LESS STEEP. To your right is MORE STEEP. For the first loop, we tried the MORE STEEP. It was pretty bad. From them on, we went to the LESS STEEP. Let me explain what LESS STEEP means: You still climb the same really bad hill but instead of a straight onslaught, you add more distance by snaking back and forth. It also still sucked and gave you more distance but was slightly easier in that it was slightly less steep.
The loop ended with the nastiest downhill of all onto a fake turf and then eventually to the start/finish. We kept joking that we will roll down the hill at the end. We didn't tho.
Jamey and I met and ran with people but I just cannot remember names any longer. We did run with a dude whose father was a teacher. His name is perhaps David and it was funny because he changed clothes every loop but then caught up with us. He did less than us tho.
We did at one point see a runner staying with a runner who was clearly in trouble. He asked us to get help. He didn't know her but he stopped for her. How awesome is that? How awesome is that as we got there, 2 women walking their dogs, also approached from the other side and one of them was a nurse and she stayed to help too? So we left and who do we see if not the RD running our way approaching from the back of the course. We stopped to tell him what happened but he already knew about it and asked for where it was. We told him by the tennis courts and he understood. He thanked us, turned and took a shortcut to get there. I did see the runner who stayed behind later and he told me that EMS came and took her. She had issues at a great place on the course in that there was an entrance to the trail right there from the road.
Unfortunatly for us, the course and the clock were not our friends that day. Combined with Jamey really having a hard time, it was not our day. If we had finished our last loop a little faster, I would have gone for another loop by myself but as is, there was not enough time and so we stopped with a total mileage of 25.2. So close and yet so far away. Jamey was apologetic but I was fine with it. It wasn't a DNF but rather a good training run. It's all good.
