I decided to take a run of the course to see what this fine young lady was talking about and determine which shoes I should wear during the race. I was pointed over to the corner of the soccer field where I signed in and off I went. After 200 yards the course crossed the road onto a farmers field. Right away I started to understand what this girl was talking about. The ground was squishing under my feet and I was in the middle of an open field. What were the woods going to be like? The answer came quickly. MUD!!! Mud and water!! Footing was going to be a problem. The trail rose and fell often and made many turns through the mud. This was going to be fun I thought to my self.
I headed back to the starting area and met up with Scott Clark and John Tuttle. I gave the guys my take on the course and I told them that I was wearing my cross country spikes with the 1/2 spikes. The looked at me like I was crazy but my mind was set. Flat bottom shoes would not work on this course.
Soon all kinds of people were showing up and I noticed Jim Johnson's car, it's very tough to miss. Jim came jogging over after his warm up run and he decided on the Inov-8 212's. These are neat trail shoes with long rubber spikes covering the bottom. They were a good choice for this race.
Andrew, Laconia's x-country coach called all the runners to the starting line and set us off. I could see that Jim and Scott took to the lead right away. I started quick but controlled. Right after we crossed the road John Tuttle pulled in front of me. I decided to just hang on his tail and see if I could find his weakness. The field was wet but my spikes were holding really well. When we entered the woods and headed down hill I could see John slipping all over the place. I was running like a cat up a tree and was reeling in John. Then the trail headed up and it was dry. John shifted gears and took off. He broke my sprite and I would never get any closer to him. For the next mile and a half I was running in no mans land. The next runner behind me was more then 200 yards back, so I just kept pushing as much as I could and sloshed through the mud.
There was one little twist in the course that I think hurt all the runners. As we approached the point were we crossed the road from the start they turned us back onto the swampy field for one more fun filled lap of about 1/4 mile. I finished to lots of hoots from runners who had already finished. After finishing I joined in with the other runners and called in the people still out on the course.
JJ, Scott and I went out and did a nice cool down run. JJ won the race with Scott finishing 3rd. I on the other hand finished 15th in a time of 22:20. JJ set the course record at 16:45...way to go big guy!!
It wasn't until after the cool down that I noticed how mud covered I was. Mud was all over my back sided from me kicking it up. Seeing I wasn't running near anyone for most of the race, my front was clean, except for the drool from my effort.
This race was so much fun that I might run more of these during the fall season.
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