Zumbro 2011

View of the Zumbro 100 start/finish from the West Scenic Trail.

Sorry for the lack of blog action - Facebook is easier.

Headed down to the Zumbro River Bottoms to help out and cheer for my buddies running the Zumbro 100 Mile trail race last weekend. In it's third year, there were about 23 runners and 50 volunteers. Weather turned out to be excellent and the trail was in near perfect condition - just a few spots of snow and mud.

Located in the Richard Dorer State Forest, this is a gem of a trail in the bluff country of south eastern Minnesota. The course consists of 5 laps of a 20 mile loop through some beautiful country. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll just shut up and post a few.

View of start/finish area from the top of the West Scenic trail early in the loop.



A little further down the West Scenic trail.



Running through a tunnel of trees shortly after leaving the West Scenic Trail.



On the gravel road between aid stations 1 & 2.



Second place finisher Matt at the tail end of the Ant Hill trail on lap 2.



Along the gravel road between aid stations 3 & 4.



Pine Trail Overlook, shortly after leaving aid station 4 and less than 3 miles from the end of the loop.



Rail Road Bed Trail - almost home!



New course record holder, Adam early in his third loop.



Women's course record holder, Susan running strong after 40 miles.

Congratulations to all of the runners who toed the line - you are an inspiration! Thanks to retiring RD's Larry & Colleen and new RD's John and Cherie for putting on a world class event!

Recent Spectating and Pain Free Running

One thing that I've been reminded of with my Achilles tendon tweaking is that the older I get, the longer it takes to heal. Apparently, this trend continues as we age. One of my 100 year old exercise class participants recently told me, "I just don't bounce back like I did when I was 85." Point taken.

Last weekend, I ended up heading down to Zumbro River Bottoms to support several ultra buddies who were participating in the second running of the Zumbro 100 mile trail race. Since the course was a little different this year (and even "sportier" than last year since Larry took out the flat part), I really wanted to get out on the trail to check it out. I also didn't want to do anything stupid that would set me back, since my Achilles tendon still didn't like uphills. Ended up just hiking from the start/finish area to AS 1/4 for about 6 miles of very pretty trail.

Zumbro River from Pine Trail Overlook

Got to visit with Jen who was manning the AS and Donny who had started sweeping the course. Alicia was also there and we got to see a few runners come through on their last loop before heading back to watch the finish. The weather for that weekend was absolutely perfect - it was tough to maintain the discipline to not run and re-tweak my Achilles! Everything was feeling great after the hike, though it did get a little stiff and sore later that evening. Not painful, just tender. My calf also felt like it was on the verge of cramping, but never really did lock up. I decided that my game plan worked perfectly: I stressed it enough to keep it rehabbing without overdoing it.

Today I ended up at Hyland Lake on another perfect day to support my buddies who were running at Trail Mix. Since the parking area gets ridiculously crowded for this race, I didn't get out there until after 11 am when most of the 25K runners had left. The rehab had been going well since Zumbro, so I decided that I would take a stab at running in the Vibram Five Fingers for the first time in 6 weeks. Hyland is the perfect place to try since the trails are soft, flat, and non-technical.

Saw a few familiar faces in the finish area: Eve and Kim had already finished first and second for the women's 50K. Decided to head down the trail in the reverse direction to see if I could find anyone I knew. Les was on his way in to finish his 3'rd lap, Shelly wasn't far behind. Did a little running on the Lake Trail and it felt wonderful! Got almost as far as the AS that intersects Lake and Hill trail junction when Wayne came along. I ended up running back to the start/finish area with him - still pain free running :)))

Decided that I would head over to the ski hill to catch another section of the course, but.... the course had been changed and there was no ski hill section. Went up and over the ski hill to get back into the park, but didn't see any sign of the course in that area. Ended up calling it a day after running about 3 barefoot miles..... 3 pain free barefoot miles....and heading home.

Time to get back to increasing miles, but still not do anything stupid by trying to do too much, too soon. Will probably decide at the last minute whether to head out to Afton with the gang tomorrow (50K fat ass starts at 8, picnic at 3), or go back to Hyland and try to figure out what this year's Trail Mix course was. I don't suppose anyone who ran Trail Mix captured the course on their Garmin and would like to share?

See you on the trails!

Zumbro 100

Well, The Master was at it again. This weekend marked the inaugural running of the Zumbro 100 trail races down at the Zumbro River Bottoms, which is part of the Richard J. Dorer State Forest southwest of Wabasha. For those who may not know, RD Larry is known for putting on awesome trail races, and is perhaps the only RD who does 2 100 mile races per year (along with another 10 miler -In Yan Teopa - just a couple of weeks after his other little race).

The main event was the 100 mile race consisting of 5 laps of the same 20 mile loop; the fun run was 100K starting at midnight for 3 laps over the same terrain. Since I am no where near qualified to be doing even the kiddie race at this event, I opted to do a single lap sweeping the course with Wayne and Alicia and score a free sweatshirt :)

The weather was absolutely perfect - overnight lows in the 20's and daytime highs in the mid-50's. No ticks, mosquitoes, or other biting insects. No timber rattlers hiding under the deep leaf litter. No horse pies on the trail. Abundant sunshine. A full moon overnight. A dry week prior to the race so that the course was in perfect condition.

I had never visited this area before, so I was excited to get out on the trail to see what it was like. I was envisioning something similar to Afton: lots of hilly climbs up and down the bluffs with loose gravel making the downhills in particular somewhat slippery. I have to say I was a little surprized at the difficulty of the terrain! This course is probably the second most challenging of those that I have run in the midwest, second to the Superior Hiking Trail. There was deep sand, lots of baseball sized rocks, fairly steep climbs (almost 55% grade according to my Garmin), and deep trenches full of leaf litter hiding many of the roots and rocks. These trenches made me feel like I was on a bobsled course at times. Can't imagine trying to navigate some of that stuff in the dark! Justin took some nice pictures of the course last week on a beta run.

It was lots of fun seeing many of my trail buddies for the first time after a long winter, although I missed meeting up with several of them since I was still out sweeping when they finished their races and left. Larry tried to catch us up with who finished and who didn't when we finally returned from the forest just before the cutoff time, so I'm looking forward to hearing their race reports over the next few days.

Zach, Steve G and Steve Q all earned their first 100 mile buckle! Kim Holak beat everybody in the 100K - I'm not sure who the first place male was. Matt finished the 100K, Maria didn't, and I'm not sure about the others in that race. Winner of the 100 mile was Dallas Sigurdur followed by Scott Meyers, Dale Humphrey, and Garret Mulrooney. Susan and Rob finished the 100 mile in fine form after completing another 100 miler at Umstead just last weekend. Wow!

Congrats to Larry for another great race and to all who toed the line!

And just so you know, Larry is already planning a new route for next year to "take out that flat part."

Afton

I finally made it out to Afton for the first time this season! Got about 20 miles in doing 2 laps of the Africa Loop, Back 40, Nigel's Hill and Campground Hill. Actual mileage was somewhere between 19.2 - 20.4 depending on which software you use, so I went with 19.65 miles after doing the "gravity elevation correction" thing on Motion Based.

Trail was in very good condition for early April, though the Back 40 was pretty slippery in spots later in the day as the mud began to thaw. Saw Alicia, Tom, and Nancy as well as lots of people backpacking and walking their dogs. The park seemed amazingly quiet without any boat motors humming on the St. Croix.

Here is the elevation profile for my run:

...works out to 7185 total vertical feet for the 2 loops. The plantar fascia on my right foot was talking to me a little bit after 15-16 miles and is a little tender today, so I'll have to watch that. Boy was my pace pokey, but I was basically walking the uphills and navigating a little mud - probably what I'll encounter at Chippewa in a few weeks.

Next week, I'm planning on being down at the inaugural Zumbro 100 helping out - not sure what my assignment will be yet but it should be an awesome race!

Edit: Looks like I'll be sweeping the course at Zumbro, which will allow me to get another 20 miler in before Chippewa . See ya there!