Notes
More trails for my first trip to Yellow River State Park. Today with Drew, Rebel, Hazard, Siafu, Formal, Corso, Balto, and Hero. I had a loop planned and mostly got it right. The problem being many roads and other paths also crossed the trails (though the trails were marked very well so I probably shouldn't have had a problem).
We started on the Shortcut Trail then onto a road. From there I did find the correct descent trail, but somehow got off of it and we did a loop back to the road. Hazard then thought he could find a nice overlook (he did eventually). Then we descended on the Bluff Trail which was fun. Now next to the river, we stayed flat for over a mile, finding much more people around than anticipated. Apparently there was a Flyathlon (fishing and running). But it didn't seem like we were in the way. Now I just needed to find the right road to send half the group back early, success.
Siafu, Drew, Formal (2010!), Rebel, and I took the extended hill route, and this was 1 heck of a hill. I fell off the pace maybe halfway with just Formal behind me. I still felt strong, but 3 straight days of decent vert (for me) slowed me down. The descent side was the technical side, then back to the road and happily found the rest of the group at the cars.
I think I can successfully claim that for all the bachelor parties the past 12 years, this might be the fittest running bunch (at least by median and number of runners, not fastest).