Vinod Kurup

Hospitalist/programmer in search of the meaning of life

May 7, 2011 - 2 minute read - Comments - running

Philosopher's Way Trail Run

I ran the 15K Philosopher’s Way Trail Run today. It’s on the eastern end of Carolina North Forest. I’ve been running a lot on the western end of these trails so I had never seen any of these trails before. The weather was perfect - sunny and mid 50’s - and the trails were in good shape. I only got a little muddy. The race was very well organized for such a small race. The only minor annoyance was the beginning of the race where a couple hundred runners turned from a 20 foot wide course onto a single track bike course. Everyone came to a halt and we all walked for about a quarter mile. I didn’t really start running smoothly until about a mile in and the next 3 miles were spent passing and waiting, passing and waiting. That in itself is ok … it’s part of trail running. I would’ve just extended the time that we were on the wide track to give time for people to string out a bit more. Like I said … minor annoyance.

Once we got moving, I had a blast. I just love running in the woods. I felt unstoppable until about mile 7 and then I lost my gumption and my thighs started to complain. I held on to the people in front of me as much as I could, but one person did pass me at the end, the only person to pass me in the last 5 miles. I think I saw 1:33 as I finished, but my GPS time was 1:29:09. I think it stops the clock whenever it thinks I have stopped and it got really confused on the trails. It recorded my final distance as 6.0 miles which is 3.3 miles too short. I had suspicions that my earlier trail runs were underestimated, but never thought it was this inaccurate. My B goal was 1:30 so I was close and I definitely hit my C goal.

I’ll definitely be doing this run again next year, if I’m free. I’m currently posting my runs at dailymile (a cool site built by two UW grads), so follow me there!

Canon Powershot S95 Learning Android Review

comments powered by Disqus