Stumpy Pond Trail ½ Marathon Recap 5/11/19
Today, I headed down to the Ann Springs Greenway for the
Stumpy Pond Trail ½ marathon. I have not run on the Ann Spring Greenway in
years. Add to it, I have never run on some of the sections of this race so I
was going to be doing some new exploring.
Running was going to be rough for this race. The temperature
was in the mid 70s but making life miserable for all of us runners was the
humidity. It was absolutely awful.
The course was marked pretty well. There a few long sections
where I could have used some confidence markers. However, after the race I was
talking with one of the guys that marked the course. He told me that they didn’t
believe in confidence markers. I understood him but just because he didn’t
believe in them that doesn’t mean that they would be nice to have for the
runners. After all, in those long sections with no markings, I am left question
if I missed something along the way.
We had a long leadout in to the trails so the runners well
strung out as we entered. I settled in to a comfortable pace and worked the
trail. There were no real long climbs but boy does it roll. In some sections, I
felt like a yo-yo.
I was churning along through about 7 miles when we finally
turned to head back to the finish. This section of the trail had no wind
blowing, and I was starting to overheat badly.
Those final miles were a struggle.
I finished in 1:51:41, placing 6 OA, and 1st MM.
I hadn’t won a MM in several years, and I was pleasantly surprised to win it.
I was glad that I did this race. I spend a lot of time running on the
WWC trails. Getting the chance to run some different trails is always nice. I would
venture down there again for another run.
Overall, most of the trails were very runnable. There were
only a few sections where they got technical, and I had to really watch my footing.
Tails from the Trail
The Cool Down Runner
Comments