Fleet Feet Dirt Cheap Trail Race 4
Posted by john on July 17, 2008 in Running
Yesterday was the fourth, in a series of six, trail races sponsored by Fleet Feet. I have really grown to like this series. There is good food after the race, plenty of people participating in the race and always good weather. This race was at Mendon Ponds, which was the same venue as the first race in the series (except the course was run backwards). I rode my bicycle to work yesterday, so I ended up having to ride my bike to the race from work and then home after the race. It did rain substantially in Rochester, but Mendon Ponds barely got even a light sprinkle (which is good news for bike riders!).
The course started at a flight of stairs, so we went off in time-trial mode, which is one runner every 5 seconds (we line up by bib number so the scorers can figure out how far off the clock we were). I really like the time trial configuration because the paths are not crowded and it is a lot easier to run. It also makes determining your place fairly difficult (which might or might not be a good thing). The course provided some good elements - wooden bridges, fields, a bit of road, plenty of trail and some killer hills (I had to walk up two of them). There was also a few mud pits - at one point, the fellow I was following found a deep mud pit (he fell in up to his shin, and that stopped him pretty quickly).
I ended up with about an 8:13 pace (which is excellent for me on trails) and was very happy with that. I might have been able to do a bit better if I had not ridden my bike to the venue, but I am not overly concerned with placing (yet). There was plenty of food after the race, but I decided that I should head back home on my bike before the weather came in.
The next race is at Webster park, which was a decent course - there is even a stream we get to run through!
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