Sun 25 Jan 2009
Ran Chilly Cheeks this morning – a 7 mile trail run in the hills north of Reading, PA. I did it last year too but forgot how difficult it was – lots of ups and downs, bushwhacking up steep sections on all fours, slippery spots, rocky, etc. Definitely the most difficult of the 3 Reading trail races. Had fun though and…well, shoot. I thought I did a lot better than last year but I just looked up last year’s results and I was only a little over 1 minute faster. Oh well. Still had fun. And I didn’t wipe out at all. Saw a bunch of others wipe out but I stayed vertical for all 7 miles. But a mental note for next year:
Mile 5.5 to mile 6.5 is a BEAR!!! Steep ups and downs. Save some energy for it.
Not quite as cold as last year. It was in the low 20′s this year but I was still wishing I had a pair of Katie’s fancy-schmancy $55 gloves with the built-in snot absorbers. 
The stuffed animals and the scary looking clown along the one uphill stretch were a nice touch this year – along with the usual beer stations (gag!) and notes tied to trees reminding us to be careful so they don’t have to drag our sorry carcasses out.
One trail run down, 2 more to go – Ugly Mudder (7 miler) in February and Mt. Penn Mudfest (9 miler) in April. Then the Lehigh Valley Half Marathon in May and off to Colorado in June for another full marathon. Woot!
Here’s the last bank we had to CRAWL up – about 50 yards from the finish line.
Oh yeah…no sightings of flailing-legs guy this time.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:13 am
This picture just convinced me never to run a trail run!
Congrats on the run – go Mickey!
Krumy
January 26th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Holy canolie, this looks hard! Good luck on the runs coming up. I’m sure you’ll find the fun in it, despite names like “Ugly Mudder” and “Mudfest”….. Oy!
January 31st, 2009 at 9:14 am
From the race director:
“My utmost respect for the 491 gnomes, gnutjobs and newts that signed up to tackle the Chilly Cheeks this past weekend. These folks of limited cranial matter navigated a path of snow, leaves, mud, dirt and other demented surfaces, some seemingly going “straight up”. Despite the potpourri of surfaces, the most blood we had was from a couple of scraped hands from a slip or two on ice and that was about it. The results have been up on http://www.pretzelcitysports.com since Monday afternoon. The bartender at the Liederkranz kicked the last of the finishers out the door about 4:45 that afternoon. Congrats to Wesley Bonilla who set a new course record and became the first person we have ever seen run the entire way up Mt Whaddafug.”