I'm finally getting around to writing a race report for this awesome race. (I copied this from my blog at beginnertriathlete.com where the pictures were inserted into the text).

It was a beautiful day for a trail race. I was a little bummed to see that only one of the guys I trained with actually showed for this race (Gary Twoey) he finished 14th, btw!), but I don't think they expected me to be there either after only 3 weeks of running.

There were about 200 people starting out and from what I heard, only two DNF'd! 99% completed the race. I think that's awesome! There were quite a few hikers, but truthfully, this race took me from runner to hiker at about mile 12, so hiking, running, walking - just plain finishing was a great accomplishment.

I started out running along with Tara Murray and Dave DeGroote. Tara soon picked a pace that was above my liking (she finished 23rd! I think she was the 4th female) and stayed toward the front of the pack while I drifted to my own comfortable spot. The first mile of the race climbed Spruce Gap Trail. I have written about this trail before in my blog. It climbs a little over 1300 feet in elevation over about 1 1/4 miles. I had made two promises to myself about this race - 1) I would WALK through any rock gardens. After twisting my ankle and not being able to run for about 6 weeks, I learned my lesson. I had almost 19 miles to go in this race and I didn't want to screw it up in the first mile or two and 2) I would keep my heart rate below 165 so that I could last the entire race.

Well, promise #2 was quickly broken on Spruce Gap Trail. You can't even walk up that trail without going securely into Z4. The good thing about the climb was that it thinned the crowd out very effectively. Hardcore endurance athletes disappeared into the woods ahead and hikers waited toward the rear while the "mid-packers," like me, jockied for a comfortable position somewhere in the middle.

At the top of Spruce Gap, the trail turned left onto Kettle Trail and I caught my first glimpse of the root that sprained my ankle back in April. I ceremoniously flicked it the bird while secretly wishing I had a machete so I could teach it a lesson and started down the first steep boulder field descent of the race.
I don't know what I was thinking, imagining that I could run this entire race without "re-twisting" my ankle, but Kettle Trail put that dream to bed real quick. As soon as the descent ended and the trail leveled out, I of course became overconfident and broke promise #1 trying to run my way through a tiny 10-foot rock garden. I rolled my ankle on a round rock in exactly the same motion as my previous injury. The nice surprise was that the pain didn't last! I went light on it for a few down yards and was back to normal.

Kettle became a typical Pennsylvania trail for the next four miles. Lots of rolling hills, a mixture of roots and rocks to dodge and a beautiful canopy of trees to keep the sun at bay. I fell in line behind Dave DeGroote and a 20-ish girl who was having a hard time not kicking roots and rocks. I was trying to tell her not to look so close to her feet, but look out about 10-15 feet and plan ahead, when my "expertise" failed me and I tripped on a root and performed a spectacular face-plant into some nice, soft, mulchy ground. Although it looked dramatic, I was unscathed (ego aside). The girl made sure I was ok, then faded into the trees ahead while I nursed myself back up to speed. Dave never noticed and I never caught up to him. He finished about 10 minutes ahead of me.

Kettle Trail climbed back up to the ridgeline in pretty intimidating fashion.

We had done hill repeats on this trail earlier in the year, but that was when were were only putting in 8 miles total. This hill is about about 6 miles on this race, so that meant 12.6 to go. I took it easy. For the next 5 miles, the trail wound through some familiar and a few unfamiliar places. I recognized the place where the trail split two fallen trees, but had not run on the marshy Bear Meadows Loop before. There isn't much drainage there, so it was inevitable that you trudged through some ankle-deep (and smelly) black sludge at least a few times. This was one time I wished I had dropped the bucks for some water-resistant trail shoes.

We turned on to the Mid-State Trail, then onto Wildcat Gap without serious incident. Wildcat broke out of the woods on Laurel Run Road to offer a beautiful view of the mountains.

I took a small break and chatted in German with some volunteers who I had heard speaking the language since I don't get to use it very often. I quickly realized I had forgotten too much German vocabulary and therefore should stick to English and start running again.

The trail really narrowed here into a tiny 1-foot wide gorge in which I just KNEW and I had to be careful or I would twist my ankle in again. Well, careful or not, it happened, but once again - the pain went away very quickly.

The trail became Sand Spring, then Shingletown Gap, then Charcoal Flats without problems and the miles started to tick by. I had passed two aid stations so far. Although I wore a Fuel Belt with two 8oz bottles, some Clif Shots and my cell phone, I found I was drinking and eating a LOT at the aid stations.

The stations were well-stocked with bananas, Clif Shots, water, Carb Boom, Snickers bite-size, ... you name it, they had it. I think I drank two cups, ate a 1/2 a banana and some sort of Gu-thing and refilled my bottles at each station.

Next, I came to the Shingletown Cliffs. I would have snapped a picture going down these, but, frankly, I was too scared to pull out my Blackberry. It was really about 5 minutes of sliding on my butt and grabbing onto trees and roots. At one point, there was a loud scuffle behind me and to my right, like someone was falling a bit too fast. I couldn't turn around, because I was only about 3 feet from a sheer drop-off on my left straight down about 100 feet to a boulder field and I was focused on getting as far from that edge as possible. Later, someone told me he thinks he was partly responsible for saving my life because he "guided" the falling person just enough that he passed me by about an inch on my left.

I try not to envision it.

So, the third aid station came around mile 12 after crossing a large tree bridge at the bottom of the cliffs. Running up Shingletown Gap Trail, I came across Jim Myers on his mountain bike who had an obvious look of "YOU'RE doing this race" on his face (rightfully shocked). Of course, then he said, "YOU'RE doing this race?" and his look changed to "Damn, I should be doing this race." Then, I almost ran right past the next turn-off because I couldn't believe where the volunteer was telling me to go. There was actually no trail, just a steep climb up a boulder field that disappeared into the trees above.

I recognized the guy standing a few feet up on a boulder as John Wilcock, someone in my running group, so that actually made me truly think it was a joke. It wasn't. I started to climb. and climb... and climb. The climb went on for about 400 feet before breaking out on the ridgetop. My thighs and calves were locked up like rocks and I had to lean against a tree and stretch for a very long time before I could get moving again.

I decided at this point that if I wanted to finish this race, the only way was to walk absolutely ANY kind of uphill or steep downhill terrain and only run smooth downhills. Despite having eaten at each aid station, I quickly found myself without energy a couple of miles after that climb. As I started to wonder how far along the last of the four aids stations was placed, I stumbled upon an unopened pack of lime Clif Bloks in the middle of the trail! I gobbled them down and felt instantly better, thanking the Fates profusely.

The rest of the race was all familiar ground, trails that I had run through the winter and beginnings of spring while training for this race. The only difference was my feeling of complete exhaustion. I was literally telling myself (sometimes out loud) to just put one foot in front of the other. How many steps does one take in 18.6 miles, anyway?

Thankfully, the last 3 miles of the trail is almost completely nicely sloping downhill. I broke out of the woods and trudged the last 1/2 mile on an actual ROAD (yuk) to the finish line where my wife and kids were waiting to run by my side the rest of the way.

BTW - there was awesome food, beer, music and a nice freezing-cold pond at the end. I waded out waist deep and let the water do it's magic to my muscles. All told, I twisted my ankle four times, kicked more rocks than I could count which hurt more than the ankle twists, fell flat on my face twice, fell on my butt twice, almost stepped on a snake (looked like a dark-skinned rattler, but no rattle and only about 16 inches long) and had both thighs and calves completely locked up at the same time. But... I finished. What a wonderful feeling!