GAC Fat Ass 30k at Bradley Palmer

(The TMR crew. Photo courtesy of Stephen)

It was early. It was dark. It was cold. It was 6:15am and we were headed south, to Bradley Palmer State Park for the GAC Fat Ass. We were, however, treated to a beautiful view of the full moon, low in the sky, above the traffic lights as we headed down Rt. 196 to get on the highway, which was a nice treat. We arrived at Bradley Palmer to find the parking lot filling up fast, and stopped by Jamie's car to say hello to him, Stephen and Mindy, before heading down to the food table to drop off the goodies we had brought. Ian, Emma, Jim and Shauna showed up soon after. This was our first Fat Ass experience, and the GAC did a great job! They had several very friendly volunteers manning the food table, and all participants are encouraged to bring goodies to share. There is no registration fee.

The start was a 9am. A few minutes before 9, I headed up to the bathroom. People were still milling around, and streaming in from the parking lot, so while I knew I was cutting it close, I thought I was OK. I guess not! By the time I got back to the parking lot, it was just Snowman, Ian and Emma. Oops! Everyone else had taken off. Ah well. It wasn't really a race, and I wasn't planning on running the whole 50k, but I did feel badly that I had held everyone up. After 1/2 a mile or so, we saw a string of runners in the field, Mindy included, and picked up the pace to catch up to the group.

The course was a 10k loop, with the option to run anywhere from 1 to 5 loops. I had planned to run 2 or 3. I was wearing my Inov-8 screw shoes and was glad for all the extra traction. It seemed most people were either wearing screw shoes or Yak Trax, although there were a few hardy souls out there braving the icy and snowy conditions with just regular running shoes. The course was a mixture of soft, fine snow, crusted over snow, hard ice, packed snow, and a bit of pavement. I would have rather run on the hard ice the whole way, as the soft snow definitely took a lot of energy to get through, not to mention a fair amount of ankle turning, but this is January after all and if we're silly enough to go running in the woods, it's no one's fault by our own :-) The loop took us through several fields, on some wide woods roads and on one great up hill single track section. A good mix.

The pace was slow enough that we could talk as we ran, and it was fun to chat and catch up with the various Trail Monsters are we cruised along. Each lap took right around an hour, and we all stopped at the food station to grab gatorade and a bit to eat. I had a few Munchkins, chips, a Nutter Butter along the way. I was feeling a bit tired by the end of lap #2, mostly from the continual uneven footing in the snow, but knew I was going to do a third lap, even if it was a bit slower. I lost the group I was running with on the single track section, but ended the loop running with Jim and Snowman, which was nice. My 30k took me 3:02 and I was happy to stop, change into warm, dry clothes, and hang out by the portable heaters, eating and drinking and chatting with Shauna and Jim, who also stopped after lap #3, and Jamie, Emma and Mindy, all recovering from injures, who had done 2 laps each. Ian and Stephen were joined by Snowman for lap #4. He was feeling strong, so more power too him, but so much for only doing 2 or 3 laps! :-)

All in all, a great morning and fun running and hanging out with the Trail Monster crew! Thanks guys :-) Thanks also the the GAC for putting on such a fun race!

Flora and fauna notes: The park had a suet feeder, which was attracted all sorts of chickadees, cardinals, nut hatches, tufted titmouses and juncoes, along with the sparrows. We also had some great views of a beautiful red-tailed hawk, who passed through the area by the food tables, and landed in the pine tree right above us. As Jamie said, he's so close he could poop on us :-) Very cool (well, not the pooping but the range in which we got to view him!)