Insanity Update

Last Saturday I ran the DINO Trail Series 15k at Town Run Trail Park. It’s a very flat course, but it has lots of tight turns and quite a few short steep rises, maybe 6 to 8 feet tall. With all the turns and “speed bumps” you can’t ever get in a rhythm. It’s almost 100% very narrow single track too, which makes passing a challenge. Bottom line, this course will tear you up. Brian the RD says the course actually measured 9.5 miles. Whatever the true distance was, it was slightly longer than last year’s course and yet I managed to run it more than two minutes faster than last year. That was a bit of a confidence boost going into this weekend’s event. Since I’ve been training for triathlons I haven’t been getting nearly as many miles running as I should have, but still I seem to be in pretty good running shape. I wound up 4th in my age group. The next day though, I was at a 4 mile race that my son was running. There I ran into the guy who was 3rd in my age group. He said he had realized he missed a turn on the course and cut off some distance and that I actually should have been given the 3rd place award. My recounting of this doesn’t really do it justice, but it really was an extraordinary coincidence running into that guy.

So, tomorrow morning at 3am I’m heading east to Caesar’s Creek State Park in Waynesville, Ohio to run the Dawg Gone Long 50 Mile Trail Run. As of today only 21 brave souls are registered for this new race. It’s supposed to be a 16.4 mile loop that you run 3 times. I guess technically then it will only be a mere 49.2 miles. Only 49.2?!!

I’m riding over there with another local trail runner, Zach Mitchell. He’s using this as a training run for the Oil Creek 100. Zach is a much faster runner than I, but he says he doesn’t mind waiting around for me at the finish.

Busy week ahead too. Job interview on Wednesday, drive to New York Thursday, fly home Friday, then sprint triathlon on Sunday.