Won't be there this year, Chuck, but I've run it a few times. It's a fast one! Intense!

 

Steve

Ran it in 07, but not this year.

Looks like you're going to have some deep snow to deal with. Yikes.

 if it doesn't stop snowing soon think about snow shoes or at least screws or yak-traks. I usually head south to get away from the snow.

snow shoes not allowed.

 

Nice.

Wow. 

The race was about 50 percent harder than I expected.  My training was not so good for this event.  I thought my base and weekly miles would be adequate for a relaxed "just finish" first ultra.  There was about double the climbing I expected.  Plenty of pain and suffering on my part.  Finished just ahead of the cutoff with 8:51:43.  The Horton miles factor gave a race distance of over 33 miles.  The winning time of 4:30 was about 40 minutes off of last year's winning time.

The trails were snow covered and even the logging/forest roads became single track as runners followed the footsteps of others rather than break through the deeper crusted snow.  The snow mostly didn't pack into a firm surface; it was more like sand - loose snow crystals a few inches deep.  In some sections the snow wore down and melted - turned to mud.   I guess it was 30 miles of snow and 3 miles of mud.
I ran with my friend and frequent training partner Brenda.  Aid stations were just over 4 miles apart and our plan was to take an hour between them.  We began with an easy pace, walking the uphills and while eating after the aid stations.  We stayed on schedule for the most part during the first half. 

Gradually our pace slowed and in the last half we walked more and more. For the last 10 miles my left knee gave me trouble, maybe IT band? It started as some tightness, then became painful, increasingly painful and we did more walking.
We ran to beat the cutoffs at halfway (4:15), three qtrs (6:30) and final (9:00). made each cutoff by 8 to 10 minutes.  Brenda's gps watch battery died aroung 27 miles so we were unsure how near the end of the course we were as time ticked away.  The final 0.6 is on pavement and only when we reached the road did we know we would finish in time.

As challenging, painful and discouraging as things got, it was still a good experience and fun in many ways.  I definitely want to do more of this kind of running and I intend to show up better prepared on race day.

Nice job under very tough conditions. You didn't give yourself enough credit--5 inches of snow adds a tremendous amount of effort to each step, you did really well and should be proud to have completed a Horton race!

 Way to gut it out. Just curious how much hiking training did you do in training?

 

I know the snow added significant difficulty that caught you off guard but it will add some character building. In the summer time the races can be in mud and equally nasty. Also note that this is the easier or easiest of Horton's races, they only get longer and harder.

 Yep, well my trail running/hiking preparation for this was weak.  A 15 mile hilly effort 2 weeks prior to the race, plus a couple of trail runs in recent weeks.  I was thinking I would be running more and easier during the race and taking it even easier on the climbing portions.  While the pace was not speedy at all, the effort level throughout was harder than I prepared for.  While my hope was fulfilled for a fun first experience into ultra territory, it was a lot of things in addition to the fun.

And that thing about this being the easiest race in the series, that thought wouldn't go away during or after the race.  So now I know more about how little I know about training and racing.  And that's an accomplishment too.

Thanks for the comments everyone

Chuck.