Thursday, May 1, 2008

More Trail Changes

I have been running trails at the Huntsville State Park for 13 years. Because some sections of the trail wash out and overly expose the roots, the park occasionally re-routes around the washed out sections. Obviously, this changes the distance of those segments of the trail. This is not a real problem for training on the trails, but there are four major races held at the park, Rocky Raccoon 25K & 50K, Sunmart 50K & 50M, Rocky Raccoon 50M & 100M and the Hog's Hunt 25K & 50K. Trail re-routing changes the distances for these races.
Katy and I ran the outer loop this morning. What is usually a 6.7-mile course is now probably 6.8 due to re-routing on the segment of the trail between the Nature Center and the south perimeter road. We had a good run. Katy slows down to run with me (Coach Bill told her it was okay a couple times of week) and I speed up to run with her. Thanks, Katy.

1 comment:

Curtis said...

I enjoyed the new changes on the trail. I think it'll make for quicker records on each of those races because you can really blaze through those trails.

What each of the races need to do is adjust where the aid stations are positioned. It's not hard to do that. Hogs & Rocky 50 can move the highway in about 100 meters. Rocky 100 moves the outer trail aid station in about 100 meters. Then the races are back at appropriate distances. I haven't run Sunmart so I don't know how they should adjust to the changes. I like the at least Joe does measure the run on a regular basis.

I'm glad you had a good day at the trails. I'll see you out there soon. Curtis