I heard about
Cook Forest 25K from Coach Heather, who ran the race last year. I was looking for a race near Becky in Pittsburgh so I could stop by for a visit. We made plans to get a cabin near the race start for Friday night.
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| on our cabin bedroom door |
The cabin was a couple kilometres from the start, and the first km was on road, but the rest was all trail. I sensed that Becky didn't believe me when I said I'd run with her, because the two road halfs we'd done in the past, I finished a good 20-30 minutes before her. But that was in the fast road days...things have changed.
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| Giving some serious side-eye to that dog owner. |
I thought the race was going to live up to the nickname 'Rocksylvania', but only the first 5K was technical. There was a humongous climb off the first road section to the fire tower, and there were a few big climbs, but in between was very, very runnable.
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| The Fire Tower. |
There were a lot of interesting rock formations, like this:
And this:
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| Love how it looks like the huge rock was propped up by the tiny stick! |
Finished in what was probably a personal worst time for 25K, but I had no intention of racing this, as I had to wait for Becky to go to her house anyways. Also, she finished about a minute ahead of me.
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25K-ish (27 on my watch).
I was the only Canadian registered in the race! |
Left a mark on the cabin wall:
The weather was absolutely amazing (high 23, zero humidity), which was so unexpected for August. It's crazy how much weather changes your perception of a race. If it was gross and soupy humidity, I would be writing about how miserable this race was.
Still didn't stop me from cooling my legs off afterwards in the Clarion River:
