Fallsburg Festival of Races

Saturday August 18th was the first running of the Fallsburg Festival of Races which included a full marathon, a half marathon and the Wimpy 8k race. The 8k race course was described as "flat, fast, downhill and the wind at your back the whole way, WIMP". :) I don't think the description was 100% accurate but compared to the marathon and half marathon courses this was a cake walk. :) 31 runners came out and ran the 8k.

Race day temperatures were ideal: 48 degrees at the start (yes 48 degrees in August!). Don't expect that in 2008.

I did the half marathon along with 67 other folks. The half marathon consisted of a little bit of paved road, some gravel/dirt roads including what the Little D mountain and some nice trails. Because I was still operating without my running mojo (a little post-Western States blues?) I started out slow and ran much of the first half with Elisa before joining up with my good friend Anne Heathcote. It seems as if Anne forgot to get in any hill training (there were a fair amount of rolling hills in this course) Anne was running the race at what could be described as a leisurely pace. :) This gave me an excellent excuse to run at a leisurely pace myself so I had the pleasure of running with Anne the rest of the way. We were the back of the half marathon pack although there were a few runners who did the early start so neither of us had the honor of being DFL.

18 men and 8 women were brave (crazy) enough to come out and run what was promised to be a challenging and beautiful marathon course. The race delivered this and more. The first half of the course was the same as the half marathon course. The second half included a bit more trail running including parts of the North Country Trail. If you haven't had the opportunity to run parts of this trail you are missing out on some of the best trail running Michigan has to offer. As I mentioned Elisa ran the full marathon. She finished in 4:57:52 and ran nice even splits for the first and second half of the race. It's nice to see her running strong. If you haven't seen Elisa lately know that she has become quite the trail runner. Watch out for her on those downhills. She is one tough downhill runner.

Full results are available here.

Thanks to the race directors Russell and Dan and to all the volunteers. Make sure to leave room on your 2008 race calendar for this race.

The race was one of many races organized by the Old Farts Running Club. Check out their other great races here. Notice that there is a 50k / 100k scheduled for early August 2008! There is also a relay option for those not ultra inclined.

See you out on the trails!