What a great day at HAT! It was beautiful, sunny, breezy, less than 50 degrees the whole day, pretty much my idea of excellent race day conditions. I had the pleasure of riding up with Caren, Cathy, Mark and Ken. We arrived with plenty of time to pick up our race goodies and hang out. This was the 20th annual HAT run, with the same race directors the whole time. As always, a great race with lots of food and great volunteers. This year the course was a little different. First you did a 3.6 mile loop followed by two identical 13.7 mile loops. This allowed you to access your stuff twice, which was nice if you needed to dump clothes or pick up other stuff. With the course changes and adding some elevation gain the course organizers said the total climbing was approximately 10,000 feet. My favorite course change is that when you go through that last unmanned aid station you only have 1.8 miles to the finish instead of the 3 or so miles it used to be. Most folks I talked to after the race thought the changes made it harder and added time to most finishing times. All in all I liked the course.
However, I did not finish! I opted for the short version of HAT and did the first 17.3 miles. I had a great time running with Ken, although he did complain that I didn't allow him enough time to graze at the aid stations. But he still let me keep running with him!! Anyway, on to my dnf, my foot has been bothering me (mild case of plantar I think), so even though I felt great and wanted to keep going, I dropped. I figured I really, really want to run Promise Land healthy and how many times do I actually want to run Holiday Lake in order to qualify for the ultra series. So my logic was, sacrifice HAT to save my effort for Promise Land and save my chances of completing the ultra series. Aren't rationalizations great?! The benefit of stopping early was that I got to hang out with lots of fun folks, see the leaders finish, nap on the hillside, meet one of the new race directors, and wait for my friends to finish. Here are my pictures from the day. I look forward to coming back next year and finishing!
4 comments:
I am jealous - looks like a fun day. I don't believe this rumored 10,000 ft of climbing because everyone is smiling so much!
Looks like so much fun! count me in among the jealous! michelle, you made the right decision. PL and the ultra series are all yours!
I wish you guys were there to get some perspective on the course cause it kicked my ass! It didn't seem that different, but oh my, it was a grind for me out there. Still a beautiful day and I really enjoyed. Great pictures Michelle.
It was great being there with you, Michelle! ... you were smart not to stress your foot ... and you really have the Eagle Eye, you know --- many tnx for pointing out those majestic boids (and identifying the trees and other things we saw) ...
and Caren is right: I estimate that the new course is half an hour tougher (for me anyway) than the "classic" HAT (pre-2007) ... significantly more elevation gain and perhaps a bit longer too ... new road segments are not as much fun as the old forest paths, alas ... ^z
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