Great course. Started out quite thick with runners, but there was a nice 3/4 to 1 mile worth of road shoulder before we got into the trail, then the next mile of trail was 3-5 person wide easy going trail with one climb. By the time we got to narrow trail it had already thinned out quite a bit.
My goal for the day was to take it easy, try not to hit any proverbial wall until well beyond mile 20. The idea of walking the last 10 miles of a race just isn't really appealing to me. Based on my splits according to the race, it looks like I kept it around 10-10:30/mile up to the 11 mile mark. That's probably fine, it certainly felt easy and I didn't feel my heart rate was too high. My Garmin on the other hand was all over the place. It's started having a hard time keeping up with me and the mileage lags behind while the pace looks much slower than I'm actually running. Things starting turning into work around mile 18, but I felt like I still had something left in me and I was glad to run right through mile 20. In fact, as it turns out I ran the first 26 miles of this race in the same time I ran the Sioux Falls marathon the prior weekend on roads.
The last 8 miles were probably where things got tough and walk breaks didn't just happen on the hills. I also started having some side stitch issues at this point which didn't make running any easier. Regardless, forward progress is always a good thing and I was able to run/walk it into the finish.

I'm happy with this time given my level of training for the race. (sorry, I haven't used my training log here in a while) I probably wouldn't run a marathon the week before a 50k in the future if time was something that mattered to me.

Lots of walking around the finish area, got my shoes off and a quick ice bath for my lower legs. Then a little more walking and food. Was pretty sore immediately. Any amount of sitting, especially on the ground, was followed by what must have looked terrible when I tried to get up.


The usual, training. I'm starting to realize that running faster at these longer events is all about the ability to maintain my pace longer without fading. I don't need to get faster at shorter distances, I just need to be able to run on these trails at my 10:30 pace for a longer amount of time.


Great race, I highly recommend it. Especially for someone's first foray into the ultra or trail running world. This was trail running no doubt about it, and way tougher than any road race, but as far as trail races goes it's an easier one. Super well organized, great festival feel at the end of the race. Lots of families, people relaxing in the sun, good beer and good food.