Trestle Run // Playing Catch Up...Again...

The stretch of the year from mid-April until mid-June is always kind of crazy for me. I go from being in the middle of the offseason for work with seemingly all the time in the world to 'oh crap, we're running out of weekends' in a three or four-week span. Of course, that means I've fallen behind on blogging once again. Between Ragnar - my last blog - I've actually been up to quite a bit as I try to get the most out of the few remaining weekends that we have before work ramps up at the end of July. With all that said, here's a rundown of what I've been up to and into over the last month and a half or so.

What I've Been Up To
The week after Ragnar, Amanda and I went up to Charlotte for Tuck Fest - a four-day music, outdoor sports, and lifestyle festival at the US National Whitewater Center (USNWC). This will be the subject of my next vlog, hopefully. This was the fourth year that we've attended Tuck Fest and it's grown a lot since our first trip. This year, the festival was expanded from three days to four and they moved the half-marathon up to Friday. That ended up being an awesome change because we drove up Thursday night and turned the trip into a long weekend.

I ran the half on Friday and was able to pull off the win, my third straight. I ran really well on the first lap of the course, building a nice cushion, so despite my utter collapse in the second half, I was able to hang on. After the race, we hung out and enjoyed some food, beer, and music.

The next day we returned to the festival and spent the day doing a bunch of different activities. First, Amanda rented a bike and got 7 or 8 miles in riding alongside as I ran. We moved on to the whitewater where we had quite the adventure, losing everyone in the boat except our guide when we went down the competition channel. I got some great footage of that on my GoPro. The fall, the swim, and the rescue. Hands down the best thing I've gotten on the GoPro.

We decided to chill out after that and did some flatwater kayaking and more eating and drinking. On the final day of the festival, I went over early to jump in the trail 5k, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I ended up grabbing second

The next weekend was the Draft, which meant three straight days at the office. It's a brutal weekend that doesn't lend itself well to any kind of running or training. It's also the start of the busy part of the offseason. Draft, rookie minicamp, OTAs, and then a minicamp all over a 6-8 week period from the end of April until the middle of June.

Over this month and a half span I've thrown in a bunch of Dirty Spokes races, including a 7 miler at Harbins Park, 5 miler at the University of North Georgia, and the Peach Jam 1/2 Marathon. I picked up the win in each of those races with my running steadily improving with each outing. The 1/2 wasn't the most amazing time I've ever run, but after a start that I worried was too fast, I ended up running really strong over the last 11 miles and taking a nice win with a really solid effort.

Here's the Strava info from the race...

Other than a bunch of local racing, we've also tried to make the most of our weekends with some cool day trips. We spent some time up in the North Georgia mountains scoping out waterfalls and some really cool rapids. We used some loyalty points to get a free one-night stay up in Chattanooga where we hit up all of our favorite spots.

Through Strava and Dirty Spokes races I was able to connect with a group of guys that live in my area and all train together. They graduated from Augusta State a few years ago and are all currently training for a 50k in the fall. I might not be an ultra runner, but it's been awesome getting a chance to run and train with people for a change. I've been jumping at any chance to catch up with these guys and get some good miles in.

Rad Run // Chattahoochee Hills
With the Dirty Kanza wrapping up awhile ago - and my close personal friend Ted King taking the win - I got curious about what gravel roads Georgia had to offer. I found a 20-mile gravel bike route called the Dirty Sheets down in the Serenbe/Chattahoochee Hills area and decided to see if I could find a way to adjust it to a 10-15 mile route that I could run and that Amanda could handle on her bike. I settled on a 10/12 mile route depending on one early right or left.

I started working on the route on a Sunday night and spent the rest of the week being irrationally excited about doing a run that would be 75 percent dirt/gravel. We woke up early on the next Saturday morning and made our way south of Atlanta to Cochran Mill Park in Palmetto, Georgia. The parking lot was steadily filling up with road and mountain bikers as we got ready. Due to the low traffic in the area, there is also a very popular 35ish mile road ride called the Silk Sheets in addition to the gravel route that I found. Cochran Mill Park also has a trail system great for mountain biking and trail running. I didn't check out any of those trails on this trip, but it's definitely a good excuse to go back.

Amanda and I set off on our route with an easy first mile on the road before turning onto the gravel. Things were going smoothly early on, so smoothly that Amanda decided we should go for the 12-mile option. She wasn't having a ton of fun on the rolling hills we encountered and we ended up retracing our steps and taking the 10-mile cut through. We still ended up running 12 because we waited too long to turn around, but that didn't really matter. After a short spell of difficulty, Amanda rallied and ended up having a blast the rest of the way.

Six-or-so miles into the run, we hit the pavement for a two-mile stretch that cut the route from 20 miles to 10/12. We saw five cars and a 25-person peloton of cyclists. It was pretty easy to see why this place is so popular among riders. After the two-miles of pavement, we hung a right and got back on the dirt for the final 3.5 miles of the run. The first mile of this section was the same as most of this run, a regular dirt road. With 2.,7 to go we came up to a yellow gate that marked the end of the road for motor vehicles. From here on out it was doubletrack with a few rutted out sections and some singletrack. The people from SORBA Atlanta warned us that this trail was in the worst condition of any in the park and they were planning on working on it in the future. It really wasn't that bad. Amanda actually enjoyed the last couple miles more than anything else.

We'll definitely be returning to Cochran Mill Park and the dirt roads in this area. I'd love to knock out the entire 20-mile route at some point. I don't know when that would be, but I think it would be a really cool long run to do. I'm also eyeing this loop for when I get my Cannondale Slate. If it comes in during the summer, this will be one of the first places I take it to ride.

After we wrapped up our 12-mile jaunt, we made our way to Serenbe which is a cool but kind of weird town made up of four hamlets - their words, not mine - with the goal of creating a sustainable community that is connected to nature. We visited two of the hamlets, grabbing lunch at a neat little cafe in one and King of Pops in the other. Serenbe also has an inn, horse stables, and an organic farm. It was a pretty interesting place to visit, but part of me felt like there was some bizzaro, the Village, Divergent, World's End, stuff going on. I realize this is ridiculous but there's a 30 percent chance everyone there was an alien robot or something.

What I've been into...
Dylan Bowman's Lost Coast FTK


I really like what Red Bull does in supporting their athlete's passion projects. A few years ago Red Bull did a video with Tim Johnson where rode up Mount Washington in the winter on a fat bike, which is insane. These adventure projects are really cool to see and it's always good to see what some of these top-tier athletes are like outside of a race day. The Lost Coast is particularly well done as it was produced, shot, and edited by the Ginger Runner Ethan Newberry. If you have never seen his YouTube channel, I highly recommend it. His long-form videos on the Barkley and Western States are really good, and his reviews are excellent as well.

#TheWanderer
Speaking of passion projects, Salomon TV has teamed up with one of its athletes to produce a series called the Wanderer. The first episode takes place in Maine in and around Acadia National Park. It's a pretty interesting series that follows Kalen Thorien as she ventures from the USA to Europe and then Japan while taking part in various outdoor sports. Just like Red Bull with Dylan Bowman, I think it's really cool that Salomon is willing to work with its athletes to showcase things that both the brand and the athlete are passionate about. Of course, if you want to be cynical, this is essentially a three-part commercial for Salomon gear but this is the kind of commercial I can get into.


What's Poppin' on IG

Great Adirondack Run 2018 ✔️ WIN ✔️ COURSE RECORD ✔️ #litework #WEWILL #run #trailrunning #trailrunner #underarmour #mountains #adk #adirondacks #NY #highpeaks

A post shared by Wild Ferenc (@wildferenc) on Jun 9, 2018 at 6:30pm PDT

Josh Ferenc - now running for Under Armour - set a course record at the Great Adirondack run in early June.

w a c o #bigslide #gopro

A post shared by Austin Hittel (@ahittel) on Jun 3, 2018 at 4:36pm PDT

My buddy Austin Hittel was in Texas and went to one of those giant ski jump slip and slide parks. It looks awesome and I need to go to one.

Winning with style... Thanks for a great race @pinelandfarmstrailchallenge

A post shared by Joe Reynolds (@reynoldsjosephp) on Jun 1, 2018 at 2:10pm PDT

Joe Reynolds took home the win at the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge up in Maine. I've got more on Reynolds, Maine, and Pineland Farms coming in the next blog.

Up Next
This is how long it took me to finish this, but we had our annual two-week tour of New England so that'll be the next thing I cover on here - plus the Peachtree Road Race and the Dirty Spokes Trail Series finale.

Tuck Fest 2017

It took me a while to get my first real blog-worthy race of 2017. This year has been a little bit of a whirlwind. The Super Bowl run at work [insert 28-3 joke] meant that the season stretched and extra two months and while I am certainly not complaining about that, it did mean it took me a little longer to get both my offseason and running legs back under me.

The other reason this year got off to a hectic start is a little heavier. My mom passed away in March after a long but courageous battle with cancer. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer four years ago and fought through some incredible challenges. The last time we talked, she told me her goal was to make it to Tuck Fest weekend so she could hear all about it from my brother and I. Prior to that conversation and in one of her signature surprise moves, my mom entered me into the Tuck Fest half marathon, bought three All-Sport passes for the USNWC, and booked hotel rooms and a flight for my brother, so we could all spend the weekend in Charlotte and enjoy the festival.

It was a little bit of a tough weekend for me because of all of this, but at the same time, I went into it knowing that she'd want me to enjoy every single second. That was my refrain for the weekend since I was coming into a very tough race underprepared. I'd run a few solid shorter Dirty Spokes races in the weeks leading up to Tuck Fest, which helped me mentally bounce back from a rough go at River Gorge, but as we made the drive to Charlotte from Atlanta I couldn't help but wonder why I felt it was necessary to run the half marathon. Maybe next year I'll opt for the shorter seven-mile race.

With the race on a Saturday morning, Amanda and I drove up to the Charlotte area on Friday night and met my younger brother Dann at our hotel. We grabbed dinner, burrito bowls at Qdoba - which I was little worried about at first but it was pretty plain so my stomach actually handled it fairly well. After eating we called it an early night and I started digging through all the stuff I brought to get my race gear ready.

Tangent alert! - I spent a lot of time during the winter and spring trying to figure out what trail shoes to go with this year. I ran Thrill in the Hills (half marathon) and River Gorge (10.2 miles) in a year-old pair of Montrails that left me with some wicked blisters on my left foot so I knew I needed a change up before Tuck Fest.

After weeks of research and hemming and hawing, I settled on giving the Hoka One One Speed Instinct a shot. They were my first pair of Hokas, but with a little lower stack height than some of their other offerings, I thought they'd be good for some of the longer trail runs/races on my calendar. While they tend to run a little hot, I'm a fan of this shoe. It's cushioned but still responsive and it has held up fairly well in the couple races I've put it through. It's not the most nimble shoe and I don't know that I'd wear it in a shorter race but it was a solid choice for this race.

Okay, where was I?

Following a restful night of sleep at the Hampton Inn, we packed up the car and headed over to the USNWC for the race and then a full day of outdoor activities, beer, and music. The start of the day and the race were fairly uneventful. I saw a few familiar faces on the starting line but outside of La Sportiva's Jason Bryant, I didn't really know what to expect from the field. My race plan going in was not to lead until we made our way through the first section of mountain bike trails. I have a good general knowledge of the course but all you really need to know is that it's long. Two laps are easily 14 and probably a little longer than that, but whatever the case, I knew going in it would be 50+ minutes per lap on a good day. I also know this course beats you up with a bunch of small steep climbs. No one single climb is too difficult but combined they make that second lap brutal.

Things looked like they were going to plan early as two guys jumped to the front at the gun. I've learned not to judge people by what they are wearing but one of these guys was wearing under armor boxer briefs. Not tights or compression shorts or something like that, actual boxer briefs like you'd wear as underwear on any normal day. Now, he was ripped, so I'll give him that but it was a little much. The other good looked comfortable running at the front so I settled in behind him and figured I'd hang there until either I fell off the pace or he slowed down. Either way, I'd stay relaxed for as long as possible. Or so I thought.

As soon as we came up on the entrance to the trails he swung way wide and I had to take the lead. That ended up being for the best as I just settled into my rhythm and started to string things out a little bit at a time. The first lap was pretty smooth. It's quiet on the trails and still fairly cool when you are running along the river. I made it about halfway through the first lap before I really felt like I was in a race. As I've said in previous blogs about this race, the quarter marathon (one lap) race goes off 30 minutes after the half, which means people everywhere on the second lap. I tried to use the first lap as a refresher of the course so I'd know what to expect for the second without having to think about it while dodging the other people.

Things went about as expected on the first lap. I rolled through the start/finish at 50:16 - turns out I was nearly three minutes up on Jason Bryant (52:58) - and tried to refocus for the 50+ minutes I had left in the race. One of the smarter things I did for this race was that I rationed my nutrition throughout. I only brought one Untapped packed but I took a little bit at a time every 15 or so minutes after the first 35 minutes. I'd always in the past just shot the whole thing at some point in the race between 30 and 45 minutes depending on the length. I don't know if it actually helped, but mentally it was good to know I had that little bit of a boost still sitting in my pocket.

The second lap unfolded as predicted. All the little up and downs and the building heat really started to wear on me about an hour and 15 minutes into the race. I was able to stay in control for the most part with one exception. As is customary with this race, someone went the wrong way. The past two years it was the same guy, cutting a big chunk off the second loop (12 minutes last year) and claiming he came in before me. This year, somehow the guy from the beginning of the race ended up out in front of me on the trails around nine miles into the race. I was so confused and so was he. I don't think he ran through the start finish. I think he missed a turn and ended up on the maze-like trails somehow. Anyway, that little bit of panic gave me a little bit of a shot of adrenaline and carried me through the next couple of miles before fatigue really started to set in.

Fortunately, I've hopped on the struggle bus in more or less the same stop the last two years, so I knew I just had to grind through a few more miles before I'd be done. I crossed the line in 1:43:21 to take the win ahead of Jason Bryant (1:50:31). My second lap was substantially slower than the first 53:04 but all that really mattered to me was that I got the win.

Here's what it looked like on Strava - yes my watch said 13.9, so there is no way this race is a half marathon. It's somewhere between 14 and 15. One lapper for me next time.


I didn't really care about the time or that fact that I ran slower than last year. I knew my mom wouldn't have cared about that. She would have been happy that I won, but she would have been happy that I gave it a go no matter how it went. The only real negative from the race was that I couldn't give her a call at the end of the day and let her know how it went.

After the race was done I met up with Amanda and Danny and tried to cool myself down. I made the mistake of sitting down, which meant everything locked up as soon as I stood back up. I ended up winning a $50 La Sportiva gift card to Outfitters, the gear shop at the USNWC which I used on a running shirt. It was cool that they had prizes this year but I would have been happy with a beer like last year too.

After the awards, we made our way over to the main section of the park to do some whitewater rafting. We had a great time, even though I was cramping up every time I shifted my weight to try and keep from falling out of the boat. Fortunately, we only had five in our boat so I could stretch my legs out when we were paddling easy, but yeah whitewater rafting like and hour after a trail half marathon...or 15-mile race...whatever.

We decided to take it easier for a bit after that and got some food and beers while we listened to the first band of the day. I felt a little bad that I had to bow out of the ropes courses and ziplining but I was legitimately wrecked. We walked around for a bit and saw some of the different vendors and did a Bell's beer scavenger hunt then we made a good call and went down to the Catawba River to check out their flatwater offerings. We got a couple kayaks and ended up paddling around and swimming for a while, which was I needed. Something nice and relaxing. Although in our two-person kayak I did most of the work while Amanda soaked up the sun.

We hung out for most of the night watching people brave the full force rapids. They have five turbines that create the rapids but normally only run four, so when they kick up the fifth it gets pretty gnarly. We stayed for the beginning of the last band of the night but then made our way back to the hotel to zonk out for the night. I didn't know any of the bands from Saturday, but the Revivalists played Friday night and Nathaniel Ratliff and the Nightsweats played Sunday (might have gotten rained out though).

We went back over in the morning but some nasty thunderstorms rolled in and put a bit of a damper on the festivities on Sunday. We grabbed coffee and walked around a little but ended up bailing to go get lunch at a cool resturant that had bowling and games before dropping Danny off at the airport.

We did find this cool iPad photo booth they had set up and got the above picture taken. As you can see this was when I had my sweet beard. To be completely honest, it looks way more legit in the picture than I remember it being. I might have to bring it back for the summer.

Tuck Fest was really fun this year if a little bittersweet. I was really glad to get to spend the weekend with my brother. I know my mom would have been really happy with how much fun we had. Tuck Fest is already on the 2018 calendar. Maybe next year I can talk my brother into the deep water solo climbing contest or some bouldering. Shoot, maybe we'll get up there earlier on Friday and do the obstacle race.

I've got what I hope are a few blog worthy things planned over the next few weeks, so hopefully I'll get this thing going again.

Tuck Fest 1/2 Marathon - La Sportiva Mountain Cup

A few weeks ago I was checking out the La Sportiva Mountain Cup schedule to see if they had any races that I'd be able to go to. They are holding one in Georgia, and I stumbled upon one at something called Tuck Fest in Charlotte, NC. I did a little more digging and decided to make a weekend trip out of trying to nab a few points in that series. Tuck Fest, as it turns out, is a pretty rad festival held every year at the US National Whitewater Center featuring three days of outdoor events including trail running, mountain biking, whitewater rafting, kayaking, SUP, dog jumping, live music, and beer.

Tuck Fest has a cool model where you sign up (35 bucks) and you can compete in as many events as you want. You can also buy a sport pass from the USNWC to try the whitewater stuff, ropes courses, and zip lines. On top of that, admission to the festival was free. Despite the fact that this race came at the end of what would be five straight weeks of racing, I found a couple cheap hotels near by so Amanda and I decided to make the trip.

We hit the road around 4 on Friday afternoon and made pretty good time getting up to Charlotte, it's about a three hour drive from where we live north of Atlanta. We debating heading over to the USNWC for a few of the Friday festivities, but we had both had a long week and needed some rest so we grabbed dinner and headed straight to the hotel. Hotels are the big difference between when I handle the logistics of a trip and when Amanda handles them. Granted we were trying to do this on the cheap, but I booked a cheap hotel by the airport where she would have found something nicer. Not to be disparaging towards the particular hotel we picked, but I'm pretty sure it's been the setting for an episode of Criminal Minds or CSI or something.

Surprisingly we both got a pretty good nights sleep and headed over to the race about an hour before the start. I grabbed my number and wristband and got in a quick 1.5-2 mile warm up on the last section of the course. I didn't really know what to expect of this course or who would show up. I figured there'd be a few guys there since it was a Mountain Cup race. The series has been won by guys like Rob Krar and Jordan McDougal in the past. I also struggled to find much more than a basic map for what the course would be like. Those factors combined with a hectic week had me feeling rather apprehensive about how the day would go.

Here. We. Go.

As I made my pre-race prep I spotted Ryan Woods from La Sportiva. He won the series last year and finished second to Rob Krar a few years ago, he's pretty good. I figured he'd be there but I didn't recognize anyone else. I told myself not to worry about it and just run my race. Maybe I could pop a good one since I wasn't expecting much. I saw one dude that was decked out head to toe in Newton gear, but other than that things looked pretty standard on the starting line. Now about the course.

Tuck Fest 1/2 Marathon - 2 Loops

We started at the Adventure Pavilion with a parade lap around a small loop in the parking lot. After that the course dipped into the woods and onto the rolling single track. It snaked through the woods along side the man made whitewater river before looping around to run along the Catawa River. After about three miles of twisting trails things opened up a little bit with more double track, and some powerline trail before hitting more single track and then spilling out into the parking lot for the final few hundred meters. That's the quick and dirty run down of the course. It doesn't sound too bad on the surface. It didn't have a lot of climbing and it opened up in the second half, switching from tight, twisting trails to runnable double track. Pretty sweet right?

Oh wait, I forgot to mention that it rained every single day for the week leading up to the race. That made the course a little wet. And by wet, I mean sloppy and that's before everyone ran a lap on it. 

The start

I didn't get a great jump off the line. The ready, set, go start caught me a little off guard. As you can see from the photo above, Ryan Woods got out to the front right away while I was a few yards back in the middle of the scrum. I knew that he was the man to beat, so on the sharp down hill that followed the start I moved to the outside and fell into stride behind him. A couple other guys settled in behind me and we had a four man lead group featuring Woods, myself, a guy with headphones, and Johnny Newton. I swear I could write a dissertation on running a trail race in headphones but we'll get to why that's a bad idea later. On the starting line the Newton guy sounded like he was just out for a run. He had he Go Pro on and was talking about treating it as a long run. At first I thought, okay maybe I don't need to worry, but I got my doors blown off by a guy pushing a double stroller once (true story from when I lived in Philly. The dude was pretty legit though he ran like 16:30).

This is what a poor start looks like

As I was saying, our four man lead group materialized pretty early and that's how we entered the trails. Once we hit the single track my decision was easy. Hang on to Ryan Woods for as long as I could without going into the red. I figured that would at least get me clear of the guys behind me. I stayed 3-5 yards back of Ryan keeping my eyes glued to the trail in front of me and looking to see whether I should follow his lines or pick my own based on how much he was slipping and sliding.

Misty morning photo by Amanda Hein

Things weren't too bad early on. The trails were muddy and slick, but since we were the first ones to hit them we were able to find decent purchase. I stuck with Ryan for the first couple of miles but when we hit a section of trail that featured some climbing he started to open up a little bit of a gap. I took a few chances on the ensuing down hills and was able to mitigate the damage, but I decided that I should follow a similar plan to the way I ran River Gorge. Things are starting to round into shape for me, but I'm still not quite there, so I knew that I didn't want to use up too much in the early going and blow up later on. I backed off a little and made the decision to really work the flat sections and just try to say on my feet on the ups and downs. 

Headphones was hanging pretty tough for the first couple of miles but when we started to hit the ups he fell back and by four miles I was running in no mans land. The course spilled out onto powerlines a couple times and I could still see Ryan, so I tried to give it a little gas on a couple of the points, which kept me racing. That turned out to be important. Early on I didn't realize that it was a two loop race. That's my own fault for not paying close attention at the pre-race meeting. Once I heard follow the yellow signs, I was like 'I got this'. I realized it had to be two loops around five miles. I new I was getting close to the finish and when we crossed the top of a hill on the powerlines I knew we only had a mile+ to go because that's were I did my warmup.

Initially, that was a great realization. Coming into the race, I was worried about not knowing the course and now I got a good clean look at it on the first lap and could plan out exactly where I wanted to attack the course and were I could recover. If you've ever run on powerline trail you know they have a lot of up and down. It seems like you are always climbing or descending. This course featured a really tough powerline climb up to the parking lot about a half mile before the split/finish and it was super muddy. However, when I crested it I could see Ryan ahead of me and after a check of the watch, I figured he had about 45 seconds on me. That gave me a nice boost of confidence going into the second lap. I doubted that I'd be able to catch him unless he had a major issue in the second half but I felt good about where I was. I downed some Untapped before hitting the woods for the second loop and tried to go to work again.

As soon as I hit the single track the second time around I knew it was going to be a long lap. The trail was absolutely destroyed. It was a battle just to stay on the trail in some spots and finding solid ground was not happening. Early in the second lap I started passing people from the morning's other race, the quarter marathon, aka one loop of the course. This is where I started to have a few issues with the race organizers. They started the half marathon at 8 and the quarter at 8:30, I came through the start of the second lap around 45-50 minutes, which means the quarter marathoners where only on the course for 20 minutes before I started my second lap, so I started to catch them after about a mile. 

The course was a muddy disaster and there really was no way around that. Everyone had to deal with it and I made my peace with that fact on Friday afternoon. I wore my La Sportiva Mutants and even then I still struggled in sections after they became caked in mud. I was stomping my feet on the rock steps and wood bridges that were scattered through the woods. It was probably the muddiest, sloppiest races I've ever run, but that wasn't my issue. My issue was that I was hitting pockets of 10-15 people at a time on the muddy single track, which made it impossible to race. It turned into me trying to get by one group as quickly as I could so that I could recover enough to alert the next group that I was coming.

At one point, I started to get a side stitch from yelling "runner back" and "on your left". After a while it devolved into grunting sounds. This got really frustrating really fast. We've all run races where we have had to deal with lapped runners or something like a short course vs. long course situation, but I'd never seen anything like this. If this is what my guy Zak Noles was talking about dealing with out in California I don't know that'd ever run a race. It was brutal. I'm not trying to sound like a douche, I get that it might come off that way. I have respect for everyone that got out there and ran that course and I really hope everyone had fun and worked hard. I tried to cheer on people that I could, but it was incredibly frustrating to be trying to race and dealing with the mass of people in front of me. The trail would have been tough enough after it had been trampled, but deal with a slippy* (as they say in the UK) trail and trying to dodge, dip, dive, duck, and dodge people the whole way was miz. 

The race organizers should have run both races starting at 8. The quarter marathoners could have run one lap, finishing up the final hill while the marathoners ran two, turing left into the trails before the final hill. That would have spread everyone out, especially on the back end, and it would have been less confusing at the finish because you would have had a greater number of quarter marathoners finishing before the bulk of the half marathoners came through. The idea behind Tuck Fest is for everyone to come out and have fun and try some different stuff and that's awesome, heck most of the events were untimed. I'm not trying to poo-poo the event, I actually really liked it, but if you are going to host a competitive event like a Mountain Cup race you have to keep that in mind. 

Fortunately, I was running in no man's land so it didn't really matter in the end, but there would have been no real way to make any kind of headway on the second lap. I guess that also worked in my favor since the guys behind me were dealing with it too. It is what it is, as they say. Now normally, this is also were I'd make my case against headphones in a trail race but that kind of goes without saying. There were a few people that could still hear me and a couple of people that I basically ran into because they were oblivious. That's spilt milk at this point, but don't you worry, my anti-headphone plea is still coming.

Sorry, I got a little off track there. Mercifully I made it out of the tight single track and onto the second half of the loop. That first three miles probably took me 25 minutes and I was completely covered in mud and totally shot from clawing past people, but I tried to keep focusing on catching and passing the next person ahead of me. I told myself that if the guys behind me didn't struggle as much as I did with the crowds (not really possible) that I could be in real trouble. 

I tried to battle the best I could, but I remember looking down at my watch with around two miles to go and being at 1:17 or something like that and thinking 'holy shit!' When I crossed the final powerline section for the final time, I was toast. I passed a few people on the way down and the climb back up was hilarious. People where slipping and sliding all of the place. One guy looked like he was on skis going backwards it was so slippery. I hopped into the knee high grass on the side of the trail just to try and find any kind of solidish ground.

When I crested the hill it felt like my shoes were full of cement and the ground was so muddy it actually looked and felt like I was running in peanut butter. I took a few deep breaths and literally kept plodding to the finish. When I finally hit the finishing stretch which was a short steep climb up a gravel road I opened it up a little bit to catch one more guy before the finish and crossed the line completely gassed. 

I was covered in mud all the way up both legs and my shoes were caked, but I finished second and that was pretty sweet. Except when the guy at the finish said "nice work man, you're third." I responded, "Uh...what...no...not possible". I looked up and the headphones guy was standing there. I was so confused. I said "but I never got passed". I was a little worried that in the scrum of people I took a wrong turn somewhere and ran extra, but at the same time I was pretty certain that I followed the course correctly. I was also only about 1:45 or 2 minutes behind Ryan Woods who was the winner, so me taking a wrong turn didn't really make sense unless he did too. Luckily he came over and vouched for me saying that I should have been second and that he had actually passed the other guy later in the race.

Once I heard that I knew that the other guy must have cut the course. There's no way that he could have gotten in front of both of us without cutting off good chuck of the course. I was able to work it out with the guy and we swapped the second and third awards. The first guy from the race seemed to think that was all that was needed as he said "We don't record the times, so as long as you guys are cool that's cool. I love runners."

Normally that would have been fine. I knew the time and I knew that my time was right, so I didn't really care, but I had to circle back with another guy at the finish to make sure we sorted the finish order out. I felt a little silly and didn't like complaining about the finish but since it was a Mountain Cup race an there were points on the line, I wanted to make sure that things got straightened out. I guess I won't really know until La Sportiva posts the points but hopefully it will all workout.

Wild Endurance powered by Untapped

I talked to Ryan Woods a little bit after the race about how insanely muddy the course was and how the finish worked out. Amanda and I walked around a little bit after trying to get a lay of the land for the rest of the day and to see if they had showers. She was glad the race was over as the way the finish was set up was giving her an anxiety attack, especially when she saw the headphones guy finish second. She said "Not to be a jerk or sound mean or anything, but I knew there was no way that someone wearing headphones would finish that high." Barring another double stroller guy situation I agreed.

Normally, I'm not anti-headphones, I just think you need to be responsible if you are going to wear them. I feel like I have some run in with somebody that can't hear whats going on around them in at least half of the races I run. If wearing them gets you out the door then, go for it, but trail racing is different than road racing. Sometimes you can zone out but there are usually a few instances were you can take a wrong turn if you aren't paying attention. I think that's what happened to the guy that ended up finishing third. It's likely that he would have still finished third, but I have no doubt that he  got caught up in his music and took a wrong turn, cutting off a least a mile of the course and probably more.

Tuck Fest also hosted a couple 5ks, a kids 2k race and a family adventure race, so there were three or four different color arrows. There was one spot in particular that had yellow (the half & quarter) going straight while blue and red arrows turned left. If I had to wager I'd say that's where he went rogue. As I type this I realize it's not really that big of a deal as long as things got sorted in the end, but I felt a little bad for the guy. I think he initially thought we were saying he took a shortcut on purpose and I don't think that's the case. I think it was an honest mistake, but I also think it could have been avoided. I blame the headphones!

Here's what the race looked like on Strava:


After all the craziness got sorted out I ran a a short cool down, about a mile and made my way to the showers. It took a good 10 minutes to scrub all of the mud off of my legs and I was wearing calf sleeves so from my ankles to the back of my knees were actually pretty clean. The rest of me though, was covered in mud.

They should have changed the name to Muck Fest

Normally, I pride myself on having an efficient stride. I remember States my junior year of high school at Franklin Park was a mud fest and I had the cleanest uniform of anyone on my team. All of that went out the window at Tuck Fest. Everyone was completely covered and you could tell that a lot of people went down. There were also plenty of people that didn't prepare for how muddy they were going to get because I saw a bunch of people caked in mud and wearing the race day shirt because it was the only clean thing they had.

I showered and changed and then Amanda and I spent the rest of the day taking in the festival. The USNWC campus is awesome and the festival was great. We did a loop after the race and saw people kayaking and SUPing on the man made whitewater rivers, we saw some jumping dogs, zip liners and checked out the ropes courses as well as the rock climbing and bouldering walls. It was kind of like a mini mountain games. I was fading fast an hour or so after the race so we grabbed some food and a beer and listened to a couple of the bands which was really cool.

We spent most of the day walking around to the different events and sampling some of the different beers that were sponsoring the festival. We watched a ton of the dog jumping and even saw the number 1 ranked dog in the country. It jumped 28 feet! We also caught a mountain bike trails show which was pretty cool and spent some time just hanging out watching people on the whitewater. We made the decision to make this a two day trip next year and try out the ropes courses and whitewater rafting.

 We decided to hit the road around five with since we were looking at a three hour drive home. We ended up stopping in Greenville, SC where we just missed the finish of the USA Cycling Crit national championships. Greenville is about half way between where we live and Charlotte so we stopped at Mellow Mushroom for pizza. It's a pretty cool little city and we are going to have to check it out further another time. We walked around a little before grabbing dinner and saw a bunch of the pro cycling team cars, no Phil Gaimon sightings, but maybe next week at Athens Twilight.

Overall it was a solid race and a great weekend trip. It really felt like we got a full weekend of stuff in on Saturday but we still had Sunday to relax a little and take care of some stuff around the house. I read an article on Outside.com about MicroAdventures (there's a book by the same name that I need to get) and while it's something we've been doing, little weekend or day trips, but the article really hit home and I want to make sure we keep doing them. I guess that's the 7R gene in me #wildendurance.

The race was solid. I accomplished what I went there for, to grab some mountain cup points and to finish on the podium. I've now got podium finishes in three states this year. I'll have to try and make it to SC and Alabama at some point and see if I can keep that tally growing. I'm throwing the time out the window because of the mud, but it was a good day of work. It also felt good to finish up a block of five straight weeks of racing. My legs are definitely feeling that stretch of racing, but I think it helped get me into better shape as I was also able to string together four straight weeks of 50+ miles.

My goals for the next couple of weeks are to keep steadily increasing my mileage but also to keep things relaxed for a few days and recover a little bit. I will probably try to work in a day off as well. The next race on my calendar is the Dirty Spokes Harbins Park trail half marathon, which will be my third half marathon of the year. I'm not expecting much with the Draft and rookie mini camp coming up at work, but it will be good to see where I'm at in a couple weeks.