Living in the PNW means living between 30 and 85 degrees with only a handful of exceptional days. Saturday was an exceptional day as Friday's snows and a clearing overnight left us at about 10-14 degrees and sunshine for the morning of the race up in the hills just east of Salem. Definitely running cold for us rain-mongers.
I got there early to help with registration which was sooo cold despite layers. Lots of people were no shows but at least 10 or so pretty fast dudes showed up so there was going to be a race. Good, it was worth the trip.
Same course as last year's mudfest but very different feeling as running the frozen mountain bike tracks was like running on some very poorly poured concrete. Had to keep the ankles on high alert as you never knew what angle (or in which rut) the paws were going to hit underneathe the couple inches of snow on the trail. Logging road sections were fine and dandy.
It was a pretty spectacular morning for a quick run through the woods. The light snow that covered the forest and blew down from the trees above was highlighted nicely by a low sun that shown right through the canopy especially on the hilsides. The falls area was covered in giant daggers of ice and really slick in a couple spots.
Took off with last year's winner, speedster Matt (someone told me he did a 1/2 marathon in 1:08 or something-- that's 5:11 pace type shit) and Thomas (who's fast and has a couple wins another local race at Buck Mtn. that is very similar to this one). I figured I'd hang with them as long as I could--since it wasn't a 5k or a long race I figured I couldn't get into to much trouble. My quads felt spent right from the start which was weird. And that's how it went until the last mile and half or so when Matt built his lead into something substantial (a minute) on the logging roads. I was running close to Thomas until I decided to push for the last 1/2-3/4 of a mile. The push paid off and I finished the race in 49:09.
Very fun day. Stuck around for the awards and had some coffee and a beer with Mike Tyler, Eb Engelmann, Thomas and a few others before making my way back down to the valley for the weekend's Christmas shenanagins.
I also caught up on the 50 mile race in Marin (holy smokes) and the kid's XC race up in PDX. The next day I spent a little time chasing results for friends running CIM down south. Lots of great races!
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