Tecumseh Trail Marathon (Bloomington, IN)56th Marathon
12/6/2008
55th Place
4:10:51
The Tecumseh Trail Marathon is run in Yellowwood State Forest, between Bloomington and Nashville, IN. The course is about 90% single track, with a lot of rolling hills (much more than I expected). It is put on by D.IN.O (Do Indiana Off-Road) who put on a lot of trail and off-road triathlon races throughout Indiana. They did a very good job of putting this race on. It was well marked with pink flagging every 100-200 meters. There were aid stations every 3M or so, so you didn't need to carry water if you didn't want to (although I did). At the finish, they had hot soup, cookies, hot chocolate, sandwiches as well as a heated shelter for all the runners to warm up in.
Logistically, this is a point to point race, meaning you have to ride a bus to the start. It is an hour ride, which is probably why the race starts at 10:00 AM. However, the race actually started at 10:20 because we needed to wait on all the buses to get there.
I personally did not have as good a race as I had hoped for. Well, maybe I did. I just went out too hard, not expecting the hills to really take their toll on me. I was on pace for a 3:40 at the half way point (which would have put me in the top 20), but the hills drained me over the last 10M, causing me to slow a lot.
The weather for the race was just plain awful. It was 22 degrees at the start, with a wind chill below 10. It also started to snow about 8:00 AM, causing the trail to have about 1/2 inch of snow on it. Normally, this would be OK, but the snow didn't let up the whole time I was running (again, normally this would be fine). What made it tough was the packing down effect of the runners ahead of me, causing the trail to be slick in a lot of sports. I fell twice (my dad fell 12 times) and twisted my ankle at least three times. But, that is part of running a trail race.
Overall, the race is awesome. The course is challenging and beautiful. The race organization is great. I just wish it was in Sept or Oct, when the weather is a bit more predictable.
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