Saturday, October 28, 2006
Horror Hill Race Report -- Scarey!!!
"Due to the bad weather, today's race has been cancelled!" joked the race director to the group huddled up to the starting line. It wasn't a nice day -- steel gray skies, a damp and chilly wind, flecks of wet snow, mud everywhere. It seemed like the Horror Hill 5 K Trail Race north of Waterloo had been well named.
I knew two of the other four geezer guys (50-59 year old age group) -- Dave McCann, the oldest registrant at a "crotchety" 59, and last minute registrant, Ron Bonar, a dignified, but elderly 56 year old.
Though only 5 kilometres (3.1 miles), the race was two circuits of a 2.5 K loop trail with wet grassy slopes, muddy slides, ankle twisting forest paths, and cardiac stressing gravel slopes. It was truly the toughest run I have ever done. My time of 31:35 was far from a personal best on the distance, but I was proud of my 28th place finish (out of 48 runners) as one of the oldest entrants and of my 3rd place finish in my age category.
Better yet, it was really fun to finish early and to welcome Ron Bonar at the finish line at a time of 32:48 (yes, I finally beat Ron in a race!) and Dave McCann crossing strongly at 39:15 in 37th place (not bad, old boy!). We were covered with mud and glory!
A great, but not a nice day! Click here for more pictures. GG
