Remember to hydrate!

Holiday Lake

Michelle Reports:
Let's start with the temperature, about 14 degrees to start the day! Here I am, bundled up in my long tights, 2 long sleeve shirts, wind
breaker vest, headband, gloves, and then there's Brad Mongold in shorts and contemplating whether to wear short sleeves or long
sleeves. For the record, he went with the short sleeved shirt. He did at least wear a hat and gloves!

Results are not up yet on Horton's site so I'm reporting from memory, please excuse any errors. The clothing choices must have worked for Brad because he came in second, I think the winning time was around 3:50 and Brad around 3:55. When I saw Brad at about mile 13 for me and mile 21 for him, he was the picture of intensity, with a frozen beard, about a minute behind the leader. Bill Potts was way up there in the standings too, around 4:40, and Robert Gillanders around 5:06. The MD contingent of WVMTR'ers also had a strong turn out - Joe Kilcoyne 5:4?; Mical Honigfort 6:13; Lorrin Harvey 6:46; Michelle Price 6:49; and Angelo Witten at 7:05. Angelo gets bonus points for this one, he ran it after doing 80 miles of Rocky Raccoon last weekend. His wife Anne gets even more bones points, she came to see Angelo finish and pick him up after the race with their 4-week old baby, Cruz, in tow. I believe that Cruz has now surpassed his two year old brother who came to his first ultra at 5 weeks old.

Other than the cold, the weather conditions were ideal, no mud, no rain, bright sunshine, all in all a beautiful day. This was my first Horton race and, as advertised, the aid stations were great, the volunteers friendly and helpful, the course very well marked, very good pre-race meal, and very nice finisher shirts. The scenery was nice but nothing compared to your WV races.

Thanks to Bill Potts for the tip to go to Pina's in Dillwyn (sp?). Several of us went there to eat after the run and had a great late lunch before driving back to the DC area.

Mical's Pix

Gap-to-Gap Training Run

Michelle reports:

For the short version of the story, let's just say it was a really tough and rocky run. Amanda, Katie, Angelo, feel free to add your observations!! Keith Kipling sent out an email that said the elevation gain for the 26 miles was 5560 feet, ascent of Bird Knob alone was 1700 feet. Let's just say this would be a good training run for Highlands Sky and many other runs. Bill, Amanda, Katie, Angelo and I carpooled out for the event, it was an amazingly warm day, I would
guess it got up to about 65 degrees. You guys know I hate the warm stuff so I wish it had been colder! And I'm sure it would have been smarter not to run 13 on the Greenway the day before, to steal a quote from someone on Sunday, I'm a slow learner. Thanks to Bill and the aid from VHTRC, we all had all the fluids and food you could imagine. We also had lots of great company out on the trail.

I would highly recommend the MMT training runs to anyone that has the time. My quads still hate me for the descent on the Old Waterfall Trail, but they are recovering slowly!

Sue Norwood took these pictures, her husband sent out the link on vhtrc, they will give you a flavor for the trail. She didn't do Bird Knob so no pictures there. I wish I had brought my camera.