After letting Emily down by not registering early enough for the Point Bock Run in March, I frantically looked for another race to enter and ran across this Iola Trail Run. Running a 5K is completely doable for us and the idea of a trail run sounded like fun. We've just run road courses in the past. Online registration only because of its "green" nature, organic cotton shirts and the "no paper cups, bring your own wide-mouth water bottle" statement didn't scare us away. We were up for the adventure.
You can see it was pretty darn cold and windy that day. What's with the guy in shorts? Out of approx. 200 runners he was the only one dressed like that. The rest were sensible with hats and gloves and tights. No tights for me. I stuck with something a little less clingy.
You can see it was pretty darn cold and windy that day. What's with the guy in shorts? Out of approx. 200 runners he was the only one dressed like that. The rest were sensible with hats and gloves and tights. No tights for me. I stuck with something a little less clingy.
All the racers gathered to hear the instructions. 5Kers should keep the blue flags to their right. 15Kers keep the red flags to your right. Have fun and oh by the way the 15K is really 9.75 miles instead of 9.3 and the 5K is really 3.5 miles instead of 3.1. I know it doesn't sound that big of a difference and you're right. However after all the straight up and down hills it was killer. Anyway in this picture Emily and I are looking confused because the online registration said the 15K started at 10am and the 5K started at 10:10am, but the guy starting the race didn't make that clear so it seemed like we were all going to start at the same time which is what happened, except for the people standing back by the lodge. They looked up and realized everyone was gone and then started running to catchup. I learned that tidbit from Warren who was hanging with the rest of the kids to cheer us on.
And here we are taking off on our first, but definitely not last trail run. About 1/3 of the trail was double wide cross country ski trails, still snow covered. The other 2/3 was single track through the woods over fallen trees, under leaning trees, straight up hills, straight down hills, over tree roots and grapefruit sized granite. To put it in perspective some of the 15Kers came to the 5Kers finishline and said I'm not finishing the race, that was the toughest course I've ever run. Warren got a little worried about Emily and me, knowing we live in flatland and have never ever run hills like this, but we were having a blast.
Emily crossed first. I just couldn't get any more speed at the end. Way to go, Em!
When reading the sign, emphasize "ICE" because that's how the day was, icy cold.
Emily took 1st for her age group and took home the cheese. A delicious cut of Colby from Oak Grove Dairy in Clintonville, WI. I took 4th for my age group. Monday morning we went for an easy 2 mile run and discussed our plan to start running Partridge trail and watch for more trail runs in the future.
