Ledyard Mini Loop - Trail Race

Ledyard, CT

Saturday, April 17, 2021

Not sure I would have even have known about this inaugural race if I hadn't received an e-mail directly from RD Rob Hanna.  He and his wife had run every race in our WTAC Fall Trail Race Series last fall, and he was simply e-mailing me to ask if the WTAC could help promote this race.  Sure.  (There ended up being four WTAC runners out there today, but can't tell if that's a result of the promotion or not.)

The format is run as many loops of a 1.3 mile course as you can in either 2 hours or 8 hours.  Well, I certainly wasn't going to be running 8 hours (but kudos to those that did).  On the other hand, a 2-hour rotation, while still not my forte, is indeed a possibility and I'd like to get some kind of race in.  As I will not be running the Clamdigger with everything going on, I opted in, so at least I get one trail race in before Shad Bloom three weeks later.  The 8 hour course was 8am - 4pm, and for the 2 hour, you could choose to start at either 8am, 11am, or 2pm.  Only 8am was remotely attractive.

Race day:  To set the stage, it had rained quite a bit the past two days, and the sun was not out today.  Translation:  mud, puddles, and streams.  Yes!  I arrived, checked in, caught up with the RD, and Bill and Sharon, and went for a very short warm-up.  It was 39° and breezy when I arrived, so with the start/finish conveniently adjacent to a pavilion with picnic tables, I opted to start with a thin hat and thin gloves, figuring I could easily ditch them if I warmed up.

Race start:  About 20 of us started socially distanced in a field adjacent to the pavilion.  We had to have our face masks on to get into formation, but then could remove.  I've gotten into the habit of wearing running shorts with a zipper to many races during COVID for this reason.  At any rate, I saw two much younger and fitter looking runners on the starting line, so I lined up behind the two of them in the 3rd place.  There was a brief countdown and we're off.

Lap 1:  As we started running, I noticed that both of them had hydration packs on.  Hmm.  Does that mean they're running the 8-hour "ultra" version?  But then I thought, no matter the distance, with the pavilion and tables every 1.3 miles, why would you wear a pack for any distance?  Anyhow, I quickly caught and passed the first young guy (whom I'd later find out was indeed running the 8-hour ultra), and then trailed behind the leader (who was also in the same race as me) for a good 1/2 mile or so.  I caught up to him on the sustained uphill portion of the course, went past him just at the top of the hill, and then I thought I pushed it downhill but he stayed right with me and was just behind me when we crossed through the start/finish to start Lap 2.

Lap 2:  I started to put some distance on my competitor.  This would be my last lap with no one in front of me, almost, as at the end of Lap 2 I passed one back-of-the-packer.

Lap 3:  This was the first of many laps where I would continually be passing people.  I said hello to Faith (running 8-hour ultra) and Sharon many times, and when passing Bill usually he or I would try to find some clever quip to say to each other.  As I passed him the first time towards the end of my 3rd lap, he said to me, "I thought I would at least make it to the 3rd lap before you passed me".  This confused me (that doesn't take much) as it was the 3rd lap and then a light turned on - it's MY 3rd lap; it's HIS 2nd.

At the conclusion of lap 3, this was the only time I would temporarily go into the open pavilion, as I shed my hat and gloves.  The next time I saw Bill, the comment was "I see the gloves are off now!".  Yup.  I'm ready to do some damage.

Laps 4 - 10:  'Round and round we go.  My fear was I would mentally tire more than physically, but I didn't.  A second fear was having to slow for other runners, but I never did.  There was always enough room to pass and quite often runners would hear my dinosaur-like panting and either get out of my way completely (which wasn't necessary) or apologize (again, not necessary).

Race photos (the first three from me pre-race; the rest from RD Rob Hanna):

The very first lap start was socially distanced in a field;
after that, this served as start/finish of each lap.

Then you quickly came to this bridge.  It should not surprise readers
that know me to learn that many times I took the "Fun Way"!
This was especially true if anyone was on the bridge ahead of me, as I certainly
wasn't slowing down or waiting.

Sections of trail in a few places were just
flooded across the whole trail.

So...
I guess you COULD pussyfoot around and try to keep
your feet dry as in this pic, but WHY?

Yeah, I never once took this bridge,
at 9 o'clock in above pic.
Something about the shortest distance between
two points being a straight line, and that
bridge was several feet out of the way.

Bill's quip here (to the RD taking the pic) was
"Did you get this pic?  I'm beating Jeff"!

And it was posted on FB with this caption (above pic)

Apparently we had a good laugh about it
as I caught up

And here's a still of that 5-second video
of me running downhill in the mud

Lap 11:  Making note of the clock counting down at finish line, I calculated I was running about 11 minutes per lap, so finishing up my 10th lap with about 14 minutes to go, it was a no-brainer to go back out for one more.  Besides, I didn't know how far back my next competitor was and if he had time to make an 11th lap (he didn't, but I didn't know that), so off I went.  I got a lot of encouragement from other runners out there on this my (and their) final lap, and was able to pick it up just a bit.

Final results:  11 laps, 15 miles, 1:55:20, 1st of 27 (in combined 2-hour races).  Full results here.

My splits (4th column) were much more consistent than I had 
imagined.  (The 1st lap isn't accurate, because start was slightly different),
but the rest are.  

Post-race, looking back now, I had a lot of fun.  Am I champing at the bit to sign up for another multi-loop trail race?  Well, no, but I wouldn't hesitate it as much now.  This was a fun, low-key, local trail race with water on the course and mud.  How can you beat that?