Sunday May 6th (el seis de mayo - if anyone was wondering....it's an old college joke, no worries) was the inaugrial Medved madness 15 mile trail run and relay at Mendon Ponds Park.
The trail run was put on by the guys at Medved Running and walking and was a great event, albeit a little hairy out on the course.
I was stoked about another trail run as I absolutely LOVE getting out on the trails and slopping thru the muck and the mire. I love it. This race was no exception as they had about a 15 yard dash THRU part of the lake. The only beef I had with the race was that the course was not really well marked in the middle leg.
The race was being marked by these little multicolored ribbons in trees and placed at strategic locations on the "trails". You may have noticed from the title of this race report that the distance of the event was in quotes. That is simply because everyone got lost SO much that we each ran a different distance of race. It was originally slated to be a 15 miler, but people with Garmins on had a rance from 13.3 miles all the way to over 17 miles, so it was a little hairy.
The first really bad section was where the first 10 guys were strung out about 200 yards between them all (I was in this section) and we lost the trail while going thru a field. Everyonne kind of stopped so there was 10 guys just standing around, then after a minute or two, there was 20, then 30...and we had been looking for the trail for about 3 minutes now. There were like 5 different ways it could have gone and no one wanted to go down a path because we were all worried that it might be the wrong one and everyone else would take off. Long story short, all the work we had put in in the previous 6 miles to gap the people behind us was gone and we were a pack of 30 now. We found the trail and I guess you could say the race started from there.
The course was brutishly hilly (as it was in Mendon) and the mud was ankle deep in some sections. It was a good muddy fun race to do and there was a BBQ afterwards before the awards so that was always fun. The finish was gnarly as my buddy Greg B. blew by me in the last 1/2 mile and I tried to chase him down at the finish and THIS was the result. I'm on the left gritting my teeth. We both finished same time, but he was like a FOOT in front of me for 6th place. Greg's got some good speed and it showed in the last 150 yards of this race. I was just happy to have a good race to the line.
All in all, it was a fun time and a little cold, but good racing conditions. I was stoked to have a lengthier distance of race to do rather than the 5k every weekend in town. I'm liking the whole "race for more time than you spend driving to and from the course" deal... my finish time was 1:42:10 and it was good for 7th overall and 2nd in the age group (Greg edged me out for #1 spot...) Results are here and I look forward to mashing the trails again. Cheers folks, I'll report during the rest week next week. Train hard.
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