Race Review - 2014 Super Spartan, Las Vegas

Last year we were talking about some OCR things we wanted to do for the 2014 season. For one, we wanted to a race in another state. This pretty quickly morphed into "Why don't we just shoot for a Spartan Trifecta, then?". So our first stop in the quest, was to be the Super Spartan in Las Vegas. We chose this race because it's the closest Super to us, and with the UT Beast and the CO Sprint we figured we'd put together a sort of 'Southwest Trifecta' for 2014. We didn't really consider the fact that this would be a destination race for many people. When we arrived at the race, it was a whole other world from what we're used to here in Colorado.


IN THE BEGINNING

Neither my racing partner, nor I, are big gamblers. We had no desire to stay on the strip in some dirty hotel room. Been there done that. We did the whole "Vegas Baby!" trip several years ago for the SEMA show and wanted to stay off the strip this time, so we got ourselves a sweet little VRBO rental in Summerlin instead. We also wanted to get in a little rock climbing, and Red Rock Canyon was right down the street from our rental. Bonus!

We road tripped it in, stopping to take in a couple sights along the way. It was a long haul for sure, but airfare plus a rental car and the fact that we had a lot of gear (clothes, race bags, climbing equipment, etc.) we figured it would be a better option.

The added scenery of a road trip.

THE VENUE

We had an afternoon start time, so we slept in a bit and still had plenty of time for breakfast and to tape up our problem areas before driving the 30 minutes to the event location.

Parking was on site ($10), which is always nice, but it was a bit of a cluster when we got there. We sat for about 10-15 minutes, not moving in one of four lines of cars before something magical happened (like some dude who knew how to direct traffic showed up) and we were directed to a parking spot far enough away from the gates that we had to ask for directions. There was a sea of cars (and several cabs dropping people off, which was different) and the shear size of the event began to unfold.

Packet pick up was quick and smooth and we wandered around the grounds taking in the huge number of people there. This was easily the biggest obstacle race we'd ever been to and it didn't really dawn on us as to why at first. We figured longer races, like the Super would have smaller turnouts. For us, it was simply the closest Super to CO and offered the additional aspect of world class rock climbing down the street. For others, it's definitely a destination race. There were over 7,000 finishers for the day and many well known competitors were in attendance. There was even a wedding ceremony shortly after we arrived.

Before.

In addition to the Las Vegas draw, there's also the promise of seeing a lot of the big names in OCR as well as a couple specialty runs, namely the Hurricane Heat and it's big brother, the HH12HR, which is also a Peak Death Race qualifier if you're into that sort of thing.


THE RACE

We wandered up to our start and lined up in in the rear behind a 6 foot wall for a little bonus obstacle to start the race. Our heat was packed with people and clogged pretty quickly on the first narrow steep downhill section.

The race took place in some sort of gravel quarry. It was dry, dusty, full of pits and mounds and, for obvious reasons, very rocky. I nearly turned my ankle in the first 100 yards or so and quickly learned to pay attention to my footing. I saw at least one guy who looked like he had a race ending sprain and there were a lot of cramp stretchers and hobblers, including ourselves later in the race.

Lots of this.

I've got to say, I wasn't a huge fan of the quarry. We had to stop a few times to dump rocks and dirt out of our shoes and many of the obstacles just consisted of running up and down the gravel piles. The sharp, coarse stone made the wire crawl particularly unpleasant. It was jammed up when we got there, was a particularly long one to boot and took way too much time to slog through. The guy just in front of me walked out to do burpees instead and I considered it too. It would have been a lot quicker for sure, but I wanted to do every obstacle so I stuck through to the bitter end.

Not much of this.

This was the driest race to date for me. The races here in CO are loaded with water and mud. This one had the wire crawl, a water tank you submerged in and one other muddy hill that I can remember, aside from the water at the base of the rope climb that was about it for wet. The dry, dusty desert conditions made this pretty much a must to have water with you on the course, in my opinion. Although they had several water stations spread over the 8 mile course, sometimes they were so backed up that if you had even just a small a water bottle, skipping them could shave a lot of time off.

Interesting choice.

Aside from the gravel pits, there were less obstacles than I expected. The staples were there: rope climb, spear throw, tire flip, tire drag and pull, monkey bars, pancake and sand bag carry, etc. And there was the gravel bucket carry, which was new to me. But all in all, it was about the same as the CO Military Sprint in number of obstacles, or perhaps even less. I guess the biggest things were the length, there's a lot more running between obstacles, and the environment, the hot dusty trail was a bit of a drag for sure.

The gravel hills tended to erode and/or get worn down into deep tracks. People, being herd animals, would naturally just follow the person in front of them, stay in the rut and meander along. This causes delays when you get someone who's timid about going downhill, which there seemed to be no shortage of. Do yourself a favor and break away from the group and bomb down those hills. You shave time and get in front of a lot of slower racers in short order.

Practice those farmers carries and this one isn't so tough.

We finished in 2:41 deciding to run together for the entire event, rather than our usual 'every man for himself!' approach. We both managed to run clean races, meaning we completed every obstacle and had zero penalty burpees. Dave nailed the spear throw for the first time and my hit put me 3 for 3 on what is probably the most hated Spartan obstacle. We were happy to lock in our first blue medals and get the first piece of the 2014 Trifecta Pie without paying too dearly for them.

After.

POST

The fairgrounds had quite a bit of content. The challenges like slosh pipe, pull-ups, traverse wall, etc. that have become a part of the Spartan, were all there. Unfortunately the actual contests all went down while we were running, so we sadly missed a lot of that, which I do enjoy.

The place was packed, this was just one small corner.

We wandered around a little bit, had a couple beers and some food, but being late in the afternoon, a lot of people had already left and the dust storms started to kick up so we split to go soak in the hot tube and eat some well deserved steaks.

This is probably an event you want to run early, if possible. We didn't know what to expect, so we had a noonish heat, which of course was hot, packed with people and a few backed up obstacles. Running elite would be fun, because you'd get to see all the OCR superstars and get chicked by all the bad ass females that you've come to know and love through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Plus you'd probably be able to really get into the meat of the festival and chat it up with people a little more.

This was one of the few events where we really didn't get to meet and talk with too many people. Maybe it was the non-local vibe, the shear size of race, the fact that we ran so late in the day, or (likely) a combination of all three. There were some bar hopping meet ups going on later in the evening, but we had another big day ahead of us so we laid pretty low, which also contributed to our solitude experience I'm sure.


CONCLUSIONS

I expected it to be harder. In my head, I thought it would be a Sprint x2, at least. It was that in length, but not in obstacles. The venue was more of an irritant (stopping to empty rocks out of shoes, the sharp stoned wire crawl) than a challenge. In fact the hardest part was probably just running in the dusty hot conditions for me (I would've killed for a tube of ChapStick about halfway through), and that was more of just an irritation as well. My partner suffered some pretty bad calf cramps, which was probably the hardest thing for him, since we had to stop a lot and that dragged the race out. Keep in mind the only other Spartan I've done is the Military Sprint (twice) at Ft. Carson, which I've heard is one of the tougher sprints, and we came in with a huge elevation drop in our favor, so my expectations might have been a little higher than most. There certainly were people having a very tough time out there.

The event itself was well organized as you'd expect from Spartan Race. Plenty of vendors and booths, music, beer and the merchandizing tent has grown significantly, even if it is a bit on the pricey side (I think my hoody was $60 with $5 off from bag check coupon), but they do have some cool offerings. The Las Vegas Sign shirt was going fast, already sold out in large by the time I saw it, so get your gear early!

Overall I liked it and *might* do it next year if it's in the same place and will likely do it if it's at a different locale. People at the event said it was at a nearby lake in 2013, which sounds more to my liking. It's a good stop on your trifecta quest and if you're into gambling, partying or rock climbing, there's plenty of extra stuff for you to do while you're in town. If I had to do it again, I think I'd have extended our stay another day or two to explore more of Red Rock Canyon, because it was a truly amazing place and we only got to see a small piece of it. I'd also run an earlier heat and maybe hit the strip with my fellow Spartans for the full experience.

Save some time for the local sights.

Drink Clean - How to enjoy alcohol without being a lazy fat ass

Let me start by saying, if you're looking to be a serious competitive athlete, this is probably not a post for you. If you're looking to win the Crossfit games, or a Spartan Beast, then drinking should just not be a part of your life. Or it should be in such a small quantity, that you could be considered a non-drinker. If you drink a handful of times a year, then it's probably not going to matter how or what you drink.

This is for the weekend warrior and the after work drinker. For the person who works out, but still drinks often. For those who are pretty fit, have cleaned up their food intake, but still enjoy those after dinner drinks or those weekend brews. Or, for the person who just likes to drink a little too much, maybe.

This is not about how alcohol affects your metabolism, food cravings, mindset or inhibitions. This is not an alternative to treating a serious alcoholism problem. It's simply just some ideas on how to help lower alcohol intake without abstaining completely.

Basically, in my experience, there are a couple options:

1. Drink less
2. Drink smarter
3. Do both

My racing partner and I both enjoy drinking. We also understand how it can affect our workouts and race performance, so we are continually coming up with schemes to minimize the impact of drinking on our bodies and our training. So I'll share some of what has, and hasn't, worked for us over the years.

First, some "drink less" options.


Token approach.

We came up with this when we were trying to dry out for a summer full of races, but also had some "drinking engagements" (read: family reunions) coming up. The idea was you had 4 drinking "tokens" to spend each month. The token could be used anytime and was good for that drinking session or day. You could also bank them, if you had a vacation or something coming up.

The problem with this was, we tended to try and squeeze too much out of the tokens. Drinking to excess, the way one might binge eat on a "cheat day", whenever we would spend a token.


No more than 2 approach.

Pretty simple. Drink pretty much whenever you want, but never have more than 2 drinks. This way you can have a drink with dinner and a night cap. Or a couple beers with the guys, etc., without overindulging and feeling like hell the next day.

This is a pretty good one if you are disciplined. It can be easy to rationalize that 3rd, 4th or Nth drink after the buzz of 2 quick ones sets in, though. Or you may find yourself fudging it by drinking bigger drinks (think martinis, margaritas and 40oz. beers) to squeeze the most out of your "2 drinks".


"I only drink on weekends" approach.

Again, pretty simple, but if you really tear it up on Friday and Saturday, you'll probably miss some good weekend training opportunities. Also, if you start deciding the weekend doesn't stop until late Sunday night, you may end up screwing up half your week when you're too hung over to train on Monday as well.


Earn it approach.

This basically stemmed from the post-race beer(s) tradition. We will typically dry out for a couple weeks or a month prior to a big race, then celebrate our awesomeness with drinks afterwards.

In an attempt to expand this idea to everyday life, I began to institute it at home. For me, I work out at lunch everyday, then when I get home I habitually poor myself a drink when I walk in the door. So, to break this habit, I began doing some of those 30 day challenges you see posted around the net. I'd pick 2 or 3 and do them right after work, then eat dinner, and then allow myself to have a drink.

This works pretty well. Often times, after pushing through a particularly hard challenge, I won't even want a drink, or if I do, it's not going to be more than 1. We decided it needed some tweaking though, as the ramping up of the 30 day challenges can get a little ridiculous and then when you start a new one, the reps are too low. So we came up with a "maintenance" schedule. You can find it here. Alternatively, I will run in the evenings, with similar results.


Don't drink until after __ O'Clock.

This one I came up with when I began to get burned out on the evening workouts. If you're pushing really hard during a daily routine, going again at night can be at best hard motivation wise, and at worse, detrimental and injury provoking.

To deal with this I came up with a don't drink until after 8:00pm rule. The time will obviously vary, but the general idea is to get through the habit of having a drink right when you get home, or with dinner. For me, I get home from work around 6:30 and try to be in bed by 10:30. So 8:00 gets me through the hump of dinner and into the last couple hours of wind down time.

This was also to combat weekend day drinking. I was getting into the habit of being bored on Sunday afternoons (my usual rest day) and drinking early... which turns into drinking too much and feeling like hell on Monday. Staving it off until later has made me more productive at home and in the gym.



Now, some "drink smart" ideas.


Cut out the mixers.

I've long been a bourbon and Coke drinker. Probably one of the worst combo drinks out there. Tons of sugar, caffein and of course the alcohol.

Cut out the cola and you save a lot of calories (and whatever other crap they jam into those cans). Replace it with water, club soda or go full manly-man and drink it straight or on the rocks. Which leads me to the next one.


Drink better.

Drinking cheap liquor in copious amounts is easy, especially with mixers. Drinking cheap booze straight can be unpleasant. Class it up a bit and buy a bottle of the good stuff. The extra expense will help keep you to that 2 drink rule, and the quality will help cut out the mixers.

This works for beer and wine too. Savor that nice bottle of wine for a couple days, or spread that expensive 6 pack of craft beer out for a week. Get away from downing that sixer of light beer in an evening.

Combining this with the "earn it" method above, is a pretty good approach that works well for me.


Drink cleaner.

There are a lot of new "skinny" cocktails making waves lately. The NorCal Margarita is a prime example. Or just the regular old vodka and soda is a solid choice. Cutting out the sugary liqueurs and replacing them with drier alternatives is especially helpful in those situations where you'll likely have more than 2 drinks, such as nights out with friends.


Lastly: Don't drink at all.

Really this is generally the best option I have found. To simply not drink for some set amount of time. Cut yourself off on a certain date and stick to your guns for a set period of time. I've done this for as short as a week and as long as a year. Stopping for a solid month can do wonders for your training and mindset, and I highly recommend it at least once a year.

It will test your restraint and discipline if you are a daily drinker for sure, but you'll feel really great in just a few days if you can stick it out.

Winter Solstice 2014 Pentathlon

Yes, again, a bit (2 months) late in the posting, but here's the results from quarterly testing from January 12th.

Below are our numbers. As always, participant's age is next to their name, change from last quarter in black and overall from the beginning in red.

Wade (40):
Burpees (39) (+1) (+1)
Sit-up - 78 (+2) (+38)
Broad Jump - 83" (+2) (+3")
Sit & Reach - 1.5" (+1.125") (+1.25")
Mile - 7:44 (+:28) (-:46)

Kellan (14):
Burpees - 37 (+4) (+4)
Sit-up - 92 (+12) (+44)
Broad Jump - 65" (+0") (+10.75")
Sit & Reach - 1.0" (+.25") (-.5")
Mile - 6:58 (+:32) (-2:34)

Thoughts:

We both really suffered on the mile times this go around adding about half a minute each. This is probably due to neither of us getting much running in as the temps outside have dropped. Time to step it up as race season is right around the corner.

Kellan is improving rapidly. Being a growing teenager hitting puberty probably doesn't hurt, but he is also a pretty focused and disciplined young man. Way more than I was at his age, that's for sure. His mile time his the fastest to date, beating the time he posted at the track and field regionals a week prior by 2 seconds.

Race Review - Mustache Dache

The Mustache Dache in Denver, CO was held in late November at Central Park in the Stapleton neighborhood. The Dache supports the Movember, the men's health organization, and encourages you to grow a mustache for race day.

Us in all our mustachioed glory.

The crowd was substantial, considering the weather was in the teens that morning. I arrived late but was able to get through registration fairly easy. For some reason, after you got your bib, you had to find another person to scan in your RFID chip so you could get timed. It was a bit of a cluster, and seemed overly complicated, but it worked out. The official T-shirt was handed out here as well.

The race, like many 5k jaunts, was a single heat and had a large number of participants. The first part of the race was on a slight down ward slope, and even though were were relatively in the front of the pack, it bottle necked rather quickly. My racing partner Dave (who was gunning for me at this race) was able to make some quick moves to the front and got a good lead on me, while I got stuck behind some people who couldn't seem to get over and let me pass.

No one messes with The Jesus.

The course wound down a slight decline then back up. Overall, a pretty flat course with only about 15 ft. of elevation change. Just about the 1 mile mark I was able to catch Dave and ran with him for 100 years or so before I was able to pull away. The sun came out and although the temps were still low, the rays were enough to make me ditch my headwear to avoid overheating by the 2nd mile.

The course was laid out well, so that there was only a little overlap. I prefer a loop or some change of scenery, rather than laps or out and back running, so this was pretty good. There was a final turn in towards the finish that was straight as an arrow, perfectly flat and you could see the finish gate about .1 mile off in the distance, allowing for a really nice kick to the end.

Route via my Polar Trainer.

The after race content was small, but solid. A lot of protein packed goodies and a mustache medal were handed out at the finish. They also had awards for top 3 in several age and sex categories. Many of the trophies were pint glasses, which was ironic because due to some sort of Denver Parks regulation, they couldn't have their beer vendor on site. The highlight of the festival grounds had to be the mechanical bull, but with no beer and single digit temps, it fell short of its epic potential.

The bull.

Not a bad race, but not really anything special unless you are really into mustaches. Organization was decent, but could have been better, course was well laid out, but a bit boring and lack of free beer made for a quick post-race departure. There were a lot of cool customs and the crowd was friendly. I even got invited to a snowshoe race while using the urinal post race. Price was fair and anything that gets me out in the cold Colorado weather for some outdoor exercise is always welcome.

I placed 72nd with a time of 24:11 and Dave came in 81st at 24:57. Both respectable times for us.

Autumn Equinox 2013 Pentathlon

Yes, a bit (2 months) late in the posting, but here's the results from quarterly testing from Sept.

We decided to change it up a bit and substituted burpees for the push-up portion this time and will continue that route for now. Burpees are measured in max reps in 2 minutes, just as the push-ups were and the sit-ups are.

Below are our numbers. As always, participant's age is next to their name, change from last quarter in black and overall from the beginning in red.

Wade (39):
Burpees (38) (NA) (NA)
Sit-up - 76 (+16) (+36)
Broad Jump - 81" (+1) (0")
Sit & Reach - .375" (-.625") (-.25")
Mile - 7:16 (+:26) (-1:14)

Kellan (14):
Burpees - 33 (NA) (NA)
Sit-up - 80 (+9) (+32)
Broad Jump - 65" (+5") (+10.75")
Sit & Reach - .75" (+.5") (-.75")
Mile - 7:03 (-:29) (-2:56)

Thoughts:

Burpees were rough. I'm always amazed at how hard they get after about 20 reps.
I was not feeling the mile this day at all. It was really hard on me for some reason, and I felt a little ill during it. I stayed home the next day was congestion and sneezing, so maybe that was a factor in it, although the other events didn't seem to suffer.
My broad jump and flexibility have been pretty static from the very beginning, not sure why.

Kellan is improving rapidly. Being a growing teenager hitting puberty probably doesn't hurt, but he is also a pretty focused and disciplined young man. Way more than I was at his age, that's for sure. His mile time his the fastest to date, beating the time he posted at the track and field regionals a week prior by 2 seconds.

Race Review - Commando eXtreme - Benghazi Tribute

Prologue.
This 3rd installment of the newly formed Commando eXtreme series just happened to fall on my 40th birthday. With such a rare opportunity to race on a milestone birthday, I decided I not only had to run this race, but I needed to make it epic.
And how else can one make an already hard race harder, but to add some weight? So keeping with the militaristic theme (CeX prides itself on being the only race produced entirely by US Navy SEALs), I decided to wear a small rucksack with 2 10lb. steel plates in it, thus adding a little over 20lb. to my normal 175lb. body mass.

Commando eXtreme - Benghazi Tribute
This race was held at the Spruce Mountain Guest Ranch, which is a beautiful piece of land tucked between the mountains of Larkspur, CO. The facility was top notch, clean and organized. From what I can tell, they host a lot of corporate events and weddings there, and now the occasional obstacle race. Probably the fanciest place I've seen an obstacle race at, me being used to motocross tracks, Army bases, parks and the like.

Course map.

The Benghazi Tribute mission is, of course, dedicated to the 4 Americans (2 of whom were SEALs) killed during the attack on the U.S. Consulate on September 11, 2012. Before our start we had a moment of silence for the fallen and the National Anthem played.
Then we were ordered to "bring it in" by the man with the mic and proceeded to do a few push-ups and squats to get a little warmed up for the race.

Drop and give me 20! Or at least 5...

The start line is a stack of hay bales, known as Jump Start. This is the first race I've run that literally starts with an obstacle. This was going to be fun and likely a pretty hard race.
I started out in the very back, so as not to slow down the hard chargers with my extra bulk. Within a quarter mile I was able to pass a couple slower runners and get into my pace and groove with the extra weight.

That's a tough way to start a race.

The obstacles came quick and often. 28 in all, strewn over the course which I'm guessing to be about 4 miles long (I've seen nothing official and will update if I can find it). There are a couple long stretches of running, mostly up slowly ascending hills, but the longer spots are also interlaced with natural and static obstacles like a half frozen stream and marsh, dry(ish) creek beds, half buried ranch equipment and cattle fences to crawl under or over.
Somewhere in the first mile or so I plunged into icy water and my toes would remain pretty much numb for the remainder of the race.

Hating life right about now.

I really liked the main obstacles. They were well thought out, sturdy and quite challenging. The designers made good use of angles, turning a simple cargo net climb into a tough rope up and over scramble. They also integrated several obstacles into the cattle pens scattered about the property, the Slide for Life single rope traverse being a memorable one. I was nervous about the monkey bars. I don't have the best grip strength to begin with, was carrying extra weight and they came near the end of the course after several arm smoking obstacles, but I was able to negotiate them relatively easily.

Simple and effective.

The hardest and quite possibly the most creative obstacle, in my opinion, was the Dancing Donuts. This piece of work is a string of inner tubes and pontoon type floats loosely hooked together along the shallows of a freezing pond. This thing tried it's damnedest to pitch you into the icy water and took what little strength I had left to negotiate it. Menacingly it's the last obstacle before the finish (which was another hay bale obstacle), when you are all but completely fried.
It's obvious these guys know what they're doing.

There were a few, what I call, fitness obstacles throughout the race. Ranging from lunges and bear crawls to tire flips and dips. These were manned with staff to keep you on track and explain the movements if you weren't familiar with them. The entire course had adequate staffing and one water station right around the halfway mark.
Also, this course was relatively dry (if you managed to not fall in the lake). I'm guessing events earlier in the season had more mud, but being colder I think they may have spared us the additional burden and hypothermia risk.

Can Do, the ammo can farmer's walk.

As far as difficulty, I'd rank the Commando eXtreme a bit below the Spartan Military Sprint at Ft. Carson this past Spring. With the extra 20lb. it was probably harder overall, as you might imagine. I completed the CeX in 1:07, towards the rear end of my heat.

If anyone from Commando eXtreme is reading this, might I suggest a finishers medal for people who complete all missions in a given year? I think that would make a solid goal for our local racers.

One hour and seven minutes later.

Epilogue.
Commando eXtreme is a challenging event with stout obstacles and top notch organization. Being a local event with smaller heats allows for some creative and taxing obstacles that would likely get backed up at some of the larger events. This race is worth your time and money for sure. I'm eager to see what they have in store for 2014.

Running a race with a 20lb. ruck is incredibly hard. I managed to get halfway through the race without stopping, but was exhausted shortly thereafter and spent more time trudging than I would've liked during the 2nd half. Not sure I'd do it again... but I probably will.

So tired.

You might also like:
Spartan 2013 race review
4 races in one day

Race Review - Panerathon 10k

The Panerathon is a 5k/10k charity event hosted by Panera Bread with all proceeds going to Food Bank of the Rockies. Both the 5k and 10k routes are USATF certified as well.

It's held at the Penera Bread in Westminster and the path shared some of the same route as the Holy COW 5k we ran back in August during our 4inOne race record. The 10k is runners only, but walkers are welcome on the 5k route. We chose the 10k, which would be the first straight certified 10k for both my son and I.

We showed up cutting it close to our start time. This is a pretty good sized event and we had to park a good distance away from the start. We breezed through the packet pick-up and we were lined up to start when the race master asked everyone to check that their timing chip was secured to their shoes. We didn't get chips with our bibs, and I had assumed they were micro chipped bibs and didn't even look.
We scrambled back towards the pick up tent when I noticed a separate tent marked timing chip pick up. We were able to get our chips laced into our shoes literal within a minute of the start time!

Both 5 and 10k start at the same time and use the same route for just over a mile, then the 10k splits off for a 3 mile out and back where it then merges back in with the 5k route. The route was nice, using mostly paved park paths the wound along a creek, over some bridges and under some overpasses.

We started off pretty strong, but slowed down through miles 3-5 when Kellan started having some trouble breathing. He refused to stop however, and pushed through the pain and got his wind back on the last mile to the point that I couldn't catch him on the last incline and he bested me by a few seconds.
He came in at 57:56 and I at 58:01, making my under 1 hour goal.

The overall 5k winner, Jason Graham, came in at 19:04 and Mark Mulholland won the 10k with a time of 36:26.

Our results.

After the race, they had games and several booths in the fairground area. Panera provided a ton of food for all participants with bread and sandwiches coming hot out of the front door.

The even was well organized, inexpensive and the course had pleasing, rolling ups and downs without being too difficult. The 10k course dips down to just under a 100' at the low point before rising back up to the finish.

It was a great race to cut my 10k teeth on and I'd definitely recommend it to new to 5 or 10k runners and welcome the chance to run it again.