Yeah, Karen did a great job.  She was all excited yesterday about her award, and she has many reasons to be proud about her achievement.  Don’t forget to bring your trophy next weekend.  Congratulations, Karen.  I believe it was your first real trail run; I know that it was for Graham.  You did both very well.

The Otter Creek Park trail (an 8-mile loop) is beautiful but challenging.  And it was especially challenging yesterday due to the weather conditions: frozen soil and covered with snow and ice almost everywhere, at least during the first loop.  Fred, Graham and I had a two-minute late start:  For whatever reason I thought that the race was scheduled to start at 9:00 am (and nobody objected).  We got there in time (so we thought) only to hear that “the race will start in 5 minutes” at 8:30 am.  Karen was smarter than the rest of us, she had driven separately and started together with the pack.  We scrambled to get dressed very quickly, shivering in an ice-cold wind in the start area.  And off we went.  Starting late has its downsides: the whole pack is ahead of you; the trail is very narrow, just enough to put your two feet there, especially during the first half of the loop, making passing other runners very difficult.  We had a lot of those “coming around”, “on your right” calls; but trail runners are very polite and let you pass if possible.  The wind died down in the lower parts of the trail along the creek, driving a lot of sweat, only to hit us face on again after the long and steep climb up to North Point.  We really had to watch every step; at times it felt like ice-skating.  It was easy to spot runners from behind who had gone down: running a trail can be a very dirty business, especially if you fall.  Fred and I had some close encounters but managed to stay on our feet.  Graham was not quite that lucky and got some bruises and a bloody knee (which he showed off proudly after the race).  Plus he learned one trail running lesson: always bring a complete set of change, including shoes, towel, plastic bags, etc. – you will be glad you did once the race is over.  After passing the start/finish line for the second loop, we encountered some additional challenges:  the ice had thawed at several places, leaving us with a muddy and not less slippery trail surface at several spots, but not melting the ice elsewhere – watch out for those areas where you really don’t want to slip and go over the cliff (Dennis, we talked about you).  After the water stop during the second loop (about 3.5 miles from the finish line) the temperature started to drop noticeably.  It got chilly and I was glad that I had not shed my second layer as I had planned during the first loop.  The trail froze over again at a lot of places, making it more slippery than before.  We finished in 2:51 net time (2:53 including our late start), Fred and Graham closely behind; exhausted but glad that we did it.  A slow pace for a road race, but not bad for a trail run and for these weather conditions.  The official results are not up on the web yet, so we don’t know how we finished compared to the rest of the field.  Some hot chilly and bean soup inside the warm nature center helped with the recovery.  We did not hang around to see the marathon runners finish.  One more loop and a 2.2-mile for-and-back – this was more than I would have been able to handle yesterday.

Manfred

-----Original Message-----
From: fleetfeetlouisville@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fleetfeetlouisville@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Camille Estes
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 8:00 AM
To: fleetfeetlouisville@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [fleetfeetlouisville] Otter Creek Trail Marathon

Since I know she will not be bragging on herself, I want to take a
minute to brag on her:

*Karen Thompson Cary* - for those of you who actually know our last
names :) - won 3rd place in the Otter Creek 16 mile trail run on
Sunday! Talk about Winter Warrior!!! Way to go, Karen, I'm so proud of
you! Now she has a cool (and functional) award to show off for her
efforts. Ask her next time you see her!

Hope everybody else stayed injury-free and fully intact this weekend
(look out for those buses, George)!

-K