Yesterday was the Peoples Forest Trail Race in Barkhamsted (Pleasant Valley), Connecticut. This Greystone Racing promoted event is one of the shortest (7 miles) on the New England Grand Tree Trail Running Series schedule. Compared with last weekend’s Ultimate XC: Vermont Edition (33 miles), Peoples is a sprint!
Debbie rested her legs after the beating they took last weekend at Jay, and chose to hike a bit in the State Forest with Shep. Since we were reversing roles this weekend, it was my turn to run. I’ve had a long layoff from competition. My last trail running race was 7 Sisters in early May. So, I guess you could say that I was ready to go.
Marc Robaczynski smashed his own course record and ran sub-45 minutes. This is an insane time considering that multi-time Grand Tree Champ, Ben Nephew, was 2nd more than four minutes back. Ouch. Ben won the Escarpment Trail Run last weekend again. Escarpment is a race more suited to his technical skills and endurance, but that is not why he was second. Marc is just plain fast. His 5K road times are consistently in the mid-15’s, which is pretty good for a working man. He made a mockery of our Grand Tree percentages. Now, Peoples isn’t Jay, but it also isn’t a cross country race. Aside from a short dirt road section and some fields, it really is a pretty technical race, and there is definitely a lot of up and down. The race just runs fast, especially because of the short distance. I felt OK and waged a fun battle for 5th place, but I ended up 6th in 55:22…11 minutes behind Marc. Teammate, Wayne Prescott, ran too. This was his first trail race, but he has a lot of running in his background. He shared his own thoughts about the run. The results aren’t available yet, but I’ll post a link when they are.
The pot-luck post race snacks were excellent again and many of us enjoyed a cool dip in the Farmington River, which is 50 feet from the finish line. The race was finished and we were packed up before the thunderstorms rolled in.
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