ALLEGHENY FRONT TRAIL RUN, HUH?

PHILIPSBURG, PA - Alright, and so Gabriel set off with his family for a weekend of hard running and quality family time, post-race. The Allegheny Front Trail Run was a newly founded race, and since Gabriel had already experienced a portion of the trail at the Mile Run Trail Half Marathon and felt it's technical nature would prepare him for TransRockies, it was a sound decision to attempt the Hemlock distance (12.3M).

However, as he learned from this winter's local 50km, new races aren't always the most organized or professionally organized, as there are many growing pains for race directors tackling such monstrocities as trail and ultra trail runs.

Immedialtely upon setting off, Gabriel noted that the course markings were going to be suspect. He took a commanding lead in the offset, but on a three-mile stretch of dirt road, Gabriel was caught by a pretty powerful and smooth runner. Gabriel entered the six-mile checkpoint in the lead by a couple of strides, stopped to take a GU and some water, and then set off again on the singletrack, flying past his opponent and attacking the terrain and trail. Soon, he re-reached a fork in the trail and the volunteer started sending Gabriel into the same loop he had just run. Knowing the course map, Gabriel stated, "this is my second loop!" and so the volunteer stated, "oh, uh, go straight" and Gabriel headed into the darkness of singletrack.

However, this did seem the right trail and soon he found himself on a trail heading back to the start (named Seneca, was this the 30M trail finish?) and his confidence was high as he was hammering hard on the trail. Remembering this was the entrance, Gabriel committed to the pace, but soon enough, he encountered traffic, continued to run hard, found himself in the middle of the forest, and then found himself at the 6M check-point, ugh. Amazingly, within 5-6 minutes, the second place runner also found himself at the 6M check-point. Two lost leaders. A 5 min car ride delivered them to the finish line, but all was well. It was the effort that mattered on this day, and Gabriel got in 85+ min of hard tempo running on technical trails.

The rest of the day was spent racing go-carts and on rides in a great water/ride park in PA. Great day.