What the Hail?

Every spring and fall I participate in the trail running series in the Duluth area organized by the Northern Minnesota Track Club.  It is a series of races on various trails around the Duluth area on Wednesday evenings or Sunday afternoons. 

Tonights race was Zapp's loop.  It starts in the Fond du Lac area runs through the Mission Creek park.  The trail has some good hills, a couple of creek crossings and is through a very wooded area.  With the dark clouds that were headed our way as we prepared to start, it was inevitable that some form of precipitation would hit us while running.  Since it was in the low 40's, it happened to be hail.  Luckily it was only small hail, only fell for a short time and fell while we were running through a pretty tree covered part of the trail. 

The run starts with a nice uphill section.  The trail is basically single track and pretty easy to follow.  At the top of the hill we get thrown out on the paved Munger Trail for a short section.  With my legs still a feeling a little heavy from my triathlon this past weekend, I used the flat section to see how my pace felt.  After leaving the trail, we then head downhill.  The trail downhill is a little wider than the uphill section, but it has a lot of washout so I spent the whole section trying to pick the best line and not trip and fall on my face.  At the bottom of the hill you hit a couple of creek crossings.  They are not very deep so you can barrel right through them.  Then it is back up the hill again.  At the top we are back on a single track section and there are lots of tree branches hanging over the trail.  Since a lady had passed me on the uphill I was following her through this section for a bit.  After smacking into a few branches that appeared out of nowhere, I figured it would be smart to pass her before the coming downhill.  Onto the final downhill...  This section was a very fast downhill with very tricky footing that was not helped by the fact it was wet.  I managed to keep myself upright and crossed the creek one more time and hit the finish. 

Even with the wet conditions, I was able to cut over a minute from my time last year.  I would say that had a lot to do with having a decent idea of what was coming and being able to pace the run better.  Ended up being a great run and lots of fun.