Eldora Trail 11(ish)k

(not related to the race. Blogs are boring without photos. For lack of race photos, here's some random ones)

Yesterday marked the annual eldora trail....race. It seems the race is always a different distance. 2 years ago, the entire field except payton batliner cut the course to make it shorter. Last year we ran the actual course, and this year, the course was lengthened to a 11k, then shortened to a 10k, because of mud in a swampy area. Nonetheless, it was a great race. Pretty cool in the morning, showed up nice and early to get my packet and (cotton) shirt. Walked a good portion of the course to see just how muddy it was, and most of it was just damp with a large amount of puddles to avoid and often run through. Paul the race director met us at the start to give us the news that it was cut short because his jeep got stuck earlier that week in the mud. Pshhh. After a few laughs, he got on his atv, and told the guywith the megaphone "10 seconds". This was their dialogue.

"10 seconds"

Megaphone guy- "10 seconds?"

Paul- "10 seconds"

Megaphone- "10 seconds"

-Turns to crowd

"10 seconds"

-Silence-

"5 seconds"

-10 seconds later "5,4,3,2,1," and the horn sounds

The race took off, with a few expected people fighting for the early lead. Last year, Matt Byrne took the race and came back this year to defend his title, but didn't have the lungs to gut it out. About halfway into the race, and at the races highest point, Andy Ames and I (who i had been swapping places for the entire race) caught him

as we began the technical downhill (my favorite part of the race). He wasn't sure which way to go, and we directed him in the right area, and we all began the decent. Last year, this was where i passed Andy for good, and again this year Matt and i did the same, however being the powerhouse that he is, caught me on the uphill, and we battled it out until the next downhill where i passed him again. Then came Bernie. Should have seen it coming. He starts ridiculously far back, then out of nowhere smokes you. Then we got to the small pond you had to run through. About 20 meters of the trail was submerged in water, and no way around it. So, being in my five finger sprints, i elected to power throug

h it. Which, turned out to be incredibly fun. This was preceded by a near vertical downhill, where i put some distance on Andy. We got to the newest portion of the race, where you "follow" the lakes loop snowshoe trail. As beautiful as it was, there was no trail, just orange flags everywhere. The trail was incredibly tight, no solid footing, with several logs to jump over :) After about 1k of that, the trail opened up and Andy passed me for the last time going into the scramble across the hillside (no trail). I stayed

hot on his tail, knowing there was only about 400 meters left to the finish. With a final burst of energy i sprinted past him, and burned the final downhill into the finish area, splashing a few final puddles, finishing 5th overall. Ryan won it (duh), Matt got third, Bernie fourth, and Andy about 5 seconds behind me. Improved a lot over last year, very happy with the results. About a month until slovenia, 2 months until the rocky mountain shootout, and just about a week until i move to boulder. Sadly no pics from the event, my dad got one, and the rest are copyrighted. Eh. Oh! Here's a pic from last week's ridge run in the never summer wilderness.