Castlewood Cup 10Mile

Wow, it's been a while since I have put anything up here. I'm just going to throw some quick entries up and get this blog up to date.

The Castlewood Cup was a 10 mile, trail race, held on February 28th. It was about 28 degrees outside, but with the windchill it was closer to 10. Don't be too surprised, my family stayed home. The race started with a cross country style start and a loop through a big open field. Once through the field it was straight uphill on a wide trail that slowly tapered down to a single track. The single track locked you into your place for a while, as it was pretty hard to pass. We worked our way down some switchbacks and proceeded through some flats and then back onto a different trail in the park. The trails weren't too extreme, but the hills were steep enough to cause many of us to walk. At times you were stuck walking even if you wanted to run, less you felt like trailblazing around twenty people in front of you. I was in no rush!

About half way through the trail they had a perfectly placed water/Gatorade stop. I grabbed some Gatorade, since I was carrying my own water (10 miles is too far for me to go without water). The second part of the trail winded its way through the woods and was probably the best portion of the trail. The trail just meandered through the woods, with rarely a major hill, yet still enough elevation change to make things interesting. We worked are way through this second trail and finished up the race on the flats. The most notable portion of the last 1.5 or so miles on the flats was right at the last mile marker. I had read that the race included a water crossing and never gave it a second thought. I figured there would be some rocks, or a tree, or a bridge, or someone to carry me. I was very wrong. The crossing was about 10 feet across and six inches or more deep. I trudged on through and found the cold water to be very comforting initially, but running the last mile with cold, wet feet wore out its welcome.

I finished the race in 1:41:33, with an 11:02 pace. My results are based on a 9.2 mile distance. The 10.1 mile race had some course changes, so they determined that the distance was a bit short in the end. I was pretty happy with the results and look forward to doing it again next year. Big River Running Company did a good job putting things together and the people in attendance were a lot of fun.