Just so you can get an idea of how this race went, here's the letter I wrote the next day to the Race Directors, who asked for our feedback, as well as their reply eMail....
On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 10:35 PM, Digger wrote:
Hi Brandon and Vince; On behalf of myself and the rest of the Pylons from Canada, I just wanted to say thanks. It was a challenging course to be sure,and a great day out on the trails for us. We all appreciate the efforts put in by the race directors and volunteers. It's unfortunate that someone messed with the course markers, and also that a few people may have got lost and complained about it, but anyone who has run trail races for a while knows that's all part of the game. Having said that, a volunteer at the bottom of the hill leading up to the Horseman's camp out and back would have been nice. I myself ran it and got checked off, but I heard some others may have missed the fun of running up and down that very tough hill. One thing you might get a laugh out of is the unmanned water station. When I got there, the jugs that were in the shade were frozen, I'm not complaining, I thought it was funny,I finally figured out I should grab one that was in the sun. A good story to tell people back home. After we finished,we waited by the ranger station greeting runners as they came out of the woods, and none of them complained about only having 5 more minutes to go! Take care and thanks again; Dave. From the RD's to me; Thanks again Dave!! We plan to have a wall of course markings for people to head up the hill next year. We will also try to have someone down there moving runners along as well. The unmanned aid station will have jugs so the liquids don't freeze.
It started very well, we got an extra hour of sleep because of the time change, 7:00a.m. felt more like 8:00a.m. It was a few degrees below freezing, I went with shorts and and a long sleeve shirt.Lots of people there were kidding us Canadians,saying this must be like a summer day for us, but it was actually our first below freezing temperature running experience this autumn.
So the Captain comes strolling up just as the RD yells GO! No starting line group photo this race. We took off and headed right up a long road hill,around a stop sign, then right back down the hill.This allowed the runners to spread out before a quick,hilly loop in the woods. The 1st section was 2.9 miles. Cyrus and Beaver immediately dropped the rest of the Pylons. I got lost for the first time around the 5 mile mark. I was going up a long,steep set of stairs, I just followed the group ahead of me. To bad they were off course. Doh. Oh well, back on course we go and there's the Captain coming up the stairs, right behind me now! A bit later, The Captain decisively passed me (Geoff Roes style), he was really bringing it, having a good day after all his recent bad luck with injuries and sickness. I think it's the Paleo/Beer diet working for him. He's down 11 lbs.  These photos (above and below) were taken from the top of the Army Corps of Engineers Dam That created Burr Oak Lake |
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| Road on Top of the Dam |
We could see the Lodge across the lake from a short road section we ran.
This is part of a road section we ran, looking down from the Lodge Side of the Lake
The crowd got a chuckle when I took out my camera and got a shot of them as I was running into the finish. I was shocked with my time, I would have won the 50+ category by half an hour last year. Not this year,though. Doh.
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| Podium Shoes for Swiss,Cyrus and Beaver |
So, it turned out to be a great day for a run.Swiss got to use the podium shoes. Cyrus and Beaver have neglected to purchase any podium shoes yet.The course turned out to be only 24.5 miles due to tampering, but I didn't hear too many complaints at the finish. That 24.5 includes the out n back section many runners missed. My only disappointment is we will never find out who ran the whole course and who didn't. They marked the race #'s at the turnaround of the out n back, but didn't check anyone at the finish line to see if they had completed it or not.
A young guy we had met picking up our race kits the night before,Mike, said it best. When we ran into him again after the race, he told us he had gotten lost for 15 minutes but just shrugged it off."No big deal. That's trail running!" Well, when we checked the results, we saw he was 2nd overall, 10 minutes behind the leader.If anyone should have been upset, it would be him. But he wasn't, which was pretty cool.
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| So a Toast to the Bobcat Trail Marathon. A Good Time Despite a Few Glitches. "That's Trail Running!" |
So the Pylon results were,
Cyrus- 3:46:35 1st age 45-49 7th Overall Masters Winner (over 40)
Beaver- 3:57:40 3rd age 45-49 14th overall
Digger- 4:21:03 4th age 50-55
Captain-4:23:55 6th age 50-55
Swiss-4:39:39 3rd age 60+
158 Finishers Start of Race Temperature 28*F Finish 55˚F
Congrats to all the runners!
Full Results Can Be Seen Here
Next Post,
Race Recap,After Thoughts and the Amazingly Smooth Ride Home
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