Rugged Raccoon 25K

My first Happy Trails race of 2019 was Rugged Raccoon 25K. I thought it was on new to me trails, but upon looking at the map, realized I ran there in 2015 during the Avon thru run.

Agnes and I signed up for the early start, a) because we are slow and did not want to be stressed to hit the cutoff and b) wanted to be home before the wee hours.  So this was technically a night race but for us, only the last 90 minutes or so were in complete darkness.

I was kind of relieved to see quite a few others opting for the early start, the first kilometer or so was on road, through the campground. The trails were very very runnable, punctuated by the occasional muddy section. I heard people saying "OMG SO MUDDY!!" but compared to Palmer's Pond and Round the Cape, it was absolutely nothing.

Déjà vu.

I saw a side trail named Field of Burrs on the map, and was careful not to step off trail there, since burrs (and unleashed dogs and mosquitoes) are my nemesis.

After being overcast for most of the day, the skies started clearing, making for a beautiful sunset.

Wildwood Lake: The Golden Hour.

Magical pine forest at dusk. Photo by Agnes.

I can't say enough about how gorgeous this trail was. Lots of magical pine forest (my favourite)! and I loved how the course was just one big loop, so the scenery was always new.

Cleaner shoes, for a moment.

I had checked to make sure my headlamp was working, but what I failed to notice was that the light was quite dim, due to old batteries. What can I say, I was sitting at my desk, it was hard to tell. Thankfully, Agnes had a spare headlamp, and combined with my headlamp worn around my wrist, was quite adequate.

We had stayed ahead of the last pack of early starters, but Agnes said "look! someone is catching up!" and that kept me motivated to stay ahead. The course was very well marked, but we missed one marker at a road crossing, and the person behind made the same mistake, it was Ryan, the leader of the regular start. Fortunately we only were off course by a couple hundred metres but still lost a few minutes there.

Agnes took off with less than 5K to go, I was getting lapped by a lot of the faster regular starters. I was still running a lot, despite my fear of tripping in the dark. The final kilometer was on the park road again, I really turned it on and finished strong. Due to a new request by Happy Trails that everyone stick around for 10 minutes after finishing to cheer on fellow runners, there were a LOT of people at the finish, and I heard people yelling my name but could not see who they were, it was appreciated anyways!

My finishing time was quite slow despite running most of the race at a hard effort, walking through the muddy sections really slowed things down.

Next Sunday I run my first road 5K in many years...then Sulphur 50 mile!