Last year Dad and I ran the Towson Turkey Trot.  If you recall my race repot for that race we were suprised by a course change that made the course mostly uphill.  We opted to do a different turkey trot this year.  Yes, the one we chose was still hilly, but at least we knew it was going to be hilly beforehand.  We chose to go to a hilly race instead of finding outselves shocked on race day. 

Thanksgiving day Dad picked me up and we headed up to the world famous Bulle Rock golf course.  When we pulled into the gate we quickly got an idea of how hilly the course really was.  We got a little lost but eventually found our way to the residents clubhouse.  We were immedeately impressed as we walked in the door of the clubhouse.  They had plenty of snacks, coffee, water and fruit to get everyone prepped for the race.  Dad and I registered for the race, but they were out of t-shirts.  The took our addresses and said they would have more shirts printed and ship them too us.  (As a side note we still haven’t recieved our shirts.)

It was cold that morning so Dad and I spent as much time in the clubhouse as we could before making our way out to the start line.  It was a smaller race so the there wasn’t much of a crowd at the start, but amongst the spectators were two yellow Labradoodles. 

The race started downhill, but it was only a mask for what as coming.  We made our way toward a pedestrian brdige.  As we made our way down a small path that zigged and zagged I saw the steepest hill I have ever seen in a race.  I was actually nervous as we approached it.  I knew if I didn’t run it I wasn’t going to make it up the hill.  Later Dad said that he tried to walk it and his feet actually were sliding out from underneath him.  I was hoping to find a picture of the hill to use in my blog, but I never was able to locate one.

The course was an out and back, so after some more rolling hills we did eventually find ourselves back at the really steep one.  This hill was actually only about 15 feet of pavement, so I sucked it up and charged down the hill before making my way back up the pedestrian path.  As we headed toward the finish I came across one of the Labradoodles that we saw at the start.  We made small talk with the owner and I reached down to scratch the dog’s cheek.  He leaned right into me just as Tillie would if she was standing next to me.  It brought a smile to my face.

As we approached the finish we came across the folks that were walking the 1 mile fun run that was also held that morning.  Since they were walking 5 abreast I ran into an all too often slow runners challenge – how to get around them without plowing them over.  People around the finish started yelling to watch out for the runners and they eventually scooted out of my way and I sprinted across the finish. 

For the first time I stayed around post-race to see the awards ceremony.  I was surprised to see that the leaders weren’t elminated from the running for the age group awards.  It actually made for a very boring award ceremony because the same people won everything. 

After the race Dad and I decided we wanted to take it on again.  We want to see what we can do when we know what to expect from the hills.  We will be returning to Bulle Rock next year.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 8:02 pm and is filed under Race Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.