It took me awhile to get out of bed this morning. Eventually I got rolling and made the two hour drive. It's not far, but not close either. By the time I got there, Destrie had already got her run done for the day. We didn't get to connect at all.
The weather was so much nicer than we've had. It was slightly chilly, so I wore my lightweight orange top. It was finally warm enough for shorts and no gloves were needed. I brought Injinji socks, but I ended up with two of them for the same foot. Luckily, I had compression socks with me. I ran in those. I also wore my new Altra Lone Peaks for the first time.
I had a trail map and was hoping I could follow things alright. It starts off with a long and gradual climb. This was probably the worst one in the whole run. I was breathing heavy and it was early. My legs were very tired from the last two days too. They probably could use some rest.At least with uphills, there are usually downhills to follow. However, those seem so short. I was going both up and down early on. The course was a modified version of the actual race course. I came across a couple runners. Then, there were a few dogs coming down a hill. I had to stop. The puppy nibbled on me a bit.
This was some nice singletrack, although I'm sure it looks better without everything brown and dead. It is smooth, with very few rocks. It flows pretty well too. I'll give it that.
I knew to basically go left most of the time, but I was glad to be carrying my map. At one point, I crossed a creek and came out on a road. I was confused. I think I saw the trail, but it wasn't blazed. I noticed that in continued on from a nearby road. I just ran to that part.
It was more ascending after that. There was an icy uphill. There was ice here and there, but most of the trails were clear. It was early and I was already kind of tired of the rolling hills. I came out to a park road. It had a sign for the trails. The trails confused me and I was running around the perimeter of a field.
I then saw hikers, who I had passed earlier. They were up ahead on a trail. I decided to follow them, after some bushwhacking. They had a dog, but luckily, they gave me a lot of room to pass in the wide open field.
This field part was kind of boring, but it is fast. I saw two mountain bikers here. Then, it was back into the woods. I was now on the green blazed trail. There are so many different colors and it is confusing. A hiker was kind of unsure of the correction direction too.
I continued straight on. I was going the right way. I passed a few horses on this singletrack. I saw some earlier, when I was lost in the open field too. The green had more up and down. Just as I was getting kind of depressed and beat up by the rolling hills, I saw this odd shaped tree with a plaque. Destrie has taken photos of it. That made me smile for a bit. Then, it was on to more rolling trail.The trail went up and up and up again. I was being careful, so I hiked a good chunk of this stuff. Deciding what to run and what to hike will be tricky. Everything is runnable, but it will beat me up by the end if I run the whole thing. Maybe I really need to work on slowing down even more up the hills and then hammer the flats and downhills.
The top was cool because you could see a creek through the trees. I then went downhill. I ran by a parking area. At the bottom, I came to the red blazed trail.
The red blazed trail was called the Ridge Line Trail or something like that. Of course it would be climbing again. There was quite a bit of it early. I was just happy to be around mile 6 at this point. I was making some progress.
The frustrating thing about this trail was that it did go along the ridge, but it also went up and down, up and down. It weaved its way around some seasonal streams too. I was happy when I saw a road coming. I thought it was near where I had parked. It turned out that I wasn't.
There was a creek to cross. This time, it was quite deep. I had no desire to get my feet wet. I figured that the water would be cold. It looked like there were more rocks up the creek. There were never quite enough of them though. It always seemed one rock short.
Eventually, I just sucked it up and ran over a shallow part. It was very cool and my feet were freezing for a bit. Complicating matters was that there was no way back to the trail without bushwhacking. Of course this area was full of thorns too. It was hard to even get through. I cut myself up a little, but eventually got to the road.
I had a little trouble finding the trail here, but it wasn't too bad. It was only marked as the blue blazed Mason-Dixon Trail. I saw that trail earlier and it confused me. Now, I knew it went back to my car though. I ran on the road for a bit, then it was another climb. No surprise there. I was approaching 2,000 feet of elevation gain.
Eventually, the trail was blazed both red and blue again. This ridge part was more of the same. Up and down singletrack. I had nice seasonal views of the Susquehanna River.
One of the problems with my new shoes is that they are a little too big. On the steeper downhills, my toes bash against the rock plates. I'll either have to deal with it or tie them tighter. The toebox is super wide, something I love!It wasn't too long and I was to an open view of the Susquehanna River. That was the only clear view I saw from the top. There was a bench there too. I had some downhill after that. I was totally surprised when all of a sudden, I came out to my car. I was expecting another 1.5 miles to 2 miles. I had only run 9.4 miles and the loop said 11 miles on the description. I wasn't complaining though.
This was a fun course on a day like today, where I was only doing less than 10 miles and about 2 hours of running. All the rolling hills will bother me though, come race day. I don't mind a rolling course, when I know what I'm in store for and know how to attack it. If I don't know the course though, it frustrates me. At least I've seen it once. Maybe I'll get there again before the race. I do prefer a course with long ascents and long descents.
It was at least a productive run and I know what to expect now. Since the course is two loops, I'll be conservative early on. I did enjoy the snow free run and it was a good workout. The weather was reasonable too, although I was sweating a lot by the end.
9.42 miles - 2:05:19 (13:18 pace) 1824 feet
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