Notes
Nye and I ran this one together. The morning started very chilly, mountain shrouded in mist. The first climb to the summit was cold and windy. Records show 51 degrees.
The sun was shining by the second summit and all the cold blasts of air felt great. The big struggle was to reign in our enthusiasm for the downhill, the desire to constantly pass people, and the anticipation of new obstacles at every corner. Controlling those, we kept a very good pace and had were able to do some uphill running in the last leg of the race.
This wasn't the championship course, not as difficult as the last couple years by a long shot. What it lacked in imagination when compared to those, it made up with some of the most fun trail running I've ever done. An extremely long section of downhill seemed to be a bushwhack trail, which had been bushwhacked by a couple thousand people The surface was almost universally slippery mud interrupted by roots rocks and scrub-brush. I used all four limbs constantly and made great time, had a great time. I was able to use all my beast flow moves and did a lot of work that felt like it belonged on the mat at the jiu-jitsu gym.
Obstacles were primarily carrying and hauling weight, with lots of walls to vault. We had two sand bag carries, two long log carries, and a bucket brigade for distance carries. There were two short log carries, a hurc hoist, atlas carry, and a double log farmers carry. Plenty of walls, two cargo nets, a couple short rope climbs, and a few log hurdles which were chest high tree trunks to vault. Unfortunately there was no high rope climb, actually no excavated obstacles like mud pits etc. The rope climbs and swinging obstacles under the bridge in the lake were absent, but we did have a nice baptism in the lake for about 50 feet of tripping over deadfalls in the bottom. This was at the end and very therapeutic for exhausted legs.
Nye was having fun most all the time, but had some cramping at the end. I don't think I pissed him off more than a few times with my coaching. I'm very proud of him for pushing way past his body's known limits. He was only slightly behind me at the end, despite having very different training and experience. Unfortunately, he would only say it was hard when asked how it was. I think he's pretty excited to possibly do the fenway sprint and trifecta. He placed awesome, 4th in the 15-19 age group of 24 runners. I was 8th of 34 for the day, 40-44 age group.