The Winter Trail run series came to an end on a not so wintery day at Soaring Eagle.  The race was dubbed Frost Eagle but should have been called Soggy Eagle or Muddy Eagle given the torrential downpours the day before and the amount of mud and muck on the course.   I did the short distance which was 5 miles but this is the longest distance I’ve tried to run since slowly trying to get back into shape the last few months during this series.  I opted for my new Altra Olympus shoes just because I wasn’t sure how the distance would be, I figured the extra height could keep some surface water off my feet (Ha, the water was almost a foot deep in places!)  and my feet had been bothering me a bit after running where I was getting some neuropathic pain and sensitivity again on top of the constant numbness, hoping that the extra cushion would keep that from happening.

As usual I worked registration for the event and we had a new twist, we had the WebScorer folks there and were going a trial run of their new chip timing bibs.  The only part of this that was a bit cumbersome was that we were afraid the chips would short out in the rain so had to put a piece of foam over each chip on the bib before handing them out.  Slowed things down a bit but we managed to get all 300 racers done in time even starting a bit late and having a lot of day of registrants.

The course was a big figure 8 covering most of the main pipeline trail and then two loops on each side of that trail.  The pipeline has had a lot of work over the last few years trying to make it drain better.  It is working in places but there were still spots that were more like a mud run than a trail run.  I’ve seen it worse, I lost a Luna sandal in the muck one year there.   The mile down the pipeline went fast and the crowd had thinned out by the time we hit the single track so it wasn’t a conga line there.  I was keeping a pretty good pace given the mud, water and general slick conditions and the Olympus felt solid in grip.  It just sucked having to step into a big puddle at the bottom of a dip not knowing if there was a root or rock there waiting to trip you up under 4-10″ of water.

We hit the aid station at the figure 8 crossing and I just kept running, getting past a few guys who stopped but who I had been unable to pass for a section.  I had been running with another runner, Patrick Burns, for much of the single track and we stuck together through the second loop laughing at the huge puddles and getting covered with mud.  It was actually pretty fun.  We came back out on the pipeline for the last stretch and crossed the finish line pretty much together at 48:44.  I finished 26/64 for males and 36/165 overall.  Before this event I was in 17th in the standings for men, not too bad for a guy who is still sick and has numb feet.