Hairy Gorilla Half Marathon Trail Race
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Because who am I kidding? What I thought was going to be a year where I maintained and extended the distances I was running - hasn't been. The good news is, I've run enough half's that I can finish one even when I'm really not in shape for the distance. But it isn't pretty and the recovery afterwards isn't especially fun.
It's never really clear what HGH will throw at us. One year we had so much snow that the park required the race to be cancelled, and there have been others where it was a perfect fall morning. The main thing I'll remember about this year is the wind and the cold. The temperatures weren't anything especially traumatic - right around 40 degrees at the start - but the windchill was brutal, and the temperature actually dropped while we were running.
But, thanks to the 45 minute early start I was given (thanks guys you're the best!) I was able to officially finish the entire race... with my slowest time yet, but I did finish.
I do miss the older courses, though... one of the things I enjoyed the most about this race is that it followed trails that aren't used in any other races at Thacher, and only had a couple of short stretches where we ran back on the same trail we ran out on. The current course is essentially two lollipops, with a lot of overlap with the Indian Ladder 15k, and I miss running on the trails we no longer use. I still visit them on my own - but it would also be nice to still have that variety during the race too.
2018 Event Totals
Run 262.7 mi, 70 hr 44 minBike 62.4 mi, 5 hr 5 min
Snowshoe 17.5 mi, 5 hr 12 min
Kayak 0 mi, 0 hr 0 min
states visited: CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT
