Sunday, December 05, 2010

Shellburg Falls Trail Race Report and Pics

Zach and I signed up for the Shellburg Falls race right after finishing the Silver Falls Half Marathon. It is put on by the same group and was sure to be just as fun. Plus it was only 7 miles! Ha! Well, it turned out to be MUCH harder than the half marathon, even at about half the distance.

Check out the elevation profile!

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The big climb is clear, but even this scary looking graph doesn’t reveal how huge the climb was. Omg it was incredible. Everyone walked up it, even the fast guys up near Zach (he doesn’t often have to walk even on steep climbs!). It was so steep I was kind of crawling using my hands at some points. I think that mile took me 18 minutes, no joke. :O

The course was beautiful, but every single step of it was challenging. When we weren’t going UP we were descending steep, slippery downhills. There were stretches on gravel road that were also super steep. Oh and we had to hurdle about a dozen trees in the first mile!

It certainly was a tough run! I thought it was far more difficult than the half marathon and in my opinion, not quite as fun. I just never got into a groove. But it was an adventure and I loved that part of it. Zach did so good- he is amazing. He finished 16th overall! So speedy. I was happy with my time too:

Official results:

1:13:34 (10:30 pace –not bad given the 18 minute one-mile hike/climb in there!)

9/30 30-39 Age Group

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A few more pics from the day:

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One of the roads we ran down:

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After the race:

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After the race, we drove by a U-Cut tree farm and picked out a cute tree for the apartment:

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Santa

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Will post a picture when we finish decorating it. I’m finally starting to feel in the Christmas spirit. :)

Thanks for reading. :)

11 comments:

Jo Lynn said...

I wish *I* could get in the Christmas spirit. Maybe it's because I work in retail, I don't know. I'm just hoping it will slip by without me having to do anything.
Your time on the race was excellent - great job. ;)

Petraruns said...

Gorgeous - lovely race and beautiful tree. The time doesn't matter - and is pretty good anyway - these things are experiences.

SavvyFitChica said...

Nice job on the race! Looked hard and cold :)

Love the tree... I might be picking up an artificial one this week sometime. I can't resist! I feel in the spirit this year more than previous years!

Alisa said...

Damn that race looks hard! Justin said during the Ultra there were climbs people were walking. That's just insane.

Beautiful views and awesome looking tree. Hooray for the Christmas spirit! Start blasting 103.3---it's all christmas tunes all the time during Nov and Dec.

Kim said...

awesome job jen! and it looks like you and zach had so much fun cutting down the tree and sitting on santa's lap ;)

Marya said...

Looks like another beautiful trail course! I walk hills that are much easier than those... ;)

Looks like you are really enjoying yourselves out there on the trails! Hope you keep finding some good runs!

Ewen said...

I wish we had races like that! 10:30 pace tells me how tough it was. Beautiful pics again. All of Santa's Christmases have come at once ;)

My Life said...

Love, love your race photo! And the ones of the trees, beautiful! And the one of you on Santa's lap... what'd you ask for? :)

Anonymous said...

Awesome job to both you and Zach! Gorgeous pics!

Marathon Maritza said...

Great job to both of you guys, those pics of the race look both beautiful and tough!

Love the Christmas stuff pics!!

Tania K said...

Thanks for a greaat read