DELAYED SNEAK ATTACK AT GUNPOWDER FALLS

Kingsville, MD - Well, the first step is to admit to an addiction. After two days of intense training (90 min trail on Fri and 2h05' Trail on Sat), Gabriel felt it would be best to catch up with an old buddy over some serious speed at the BRRC Gunpowder Trail 5 Mile.

Jesse LeBeuff is his name, and Gabriel and Jesse had been meaning to catch up on another long run. With a string of recent race results at the BRRC Trail Series, Gabriel had the premonition that Jesse would be lining up. And so, with heavy legs and minimal warm-up, Gabriel lined up on nice warm morning.

Perhaps Gabriel conceded too much information to Jesse pre-race (like his 2+ hour run the day before), because Jesse tore off the starting line like a bat outta hell. Gabriel could not keep up and was content not to keep up. This single trail was flat and rocky. If the whole course was going to be like this, Gabriel may not have had a shot. He was hoping for some technical climbing to make his move and put the hurt back on Jesse. But 1.5 miles into the race, they were still winding on flat singletrack over rocks, and it looked like this was Jesse's backyard, the way he maneuvered all the turns, picked the good foot placements. Gabriel just shrugged.

And finally, after a nice river crossing, they started the ascent of the mound. Gabriel immediately pounced, made up the 20-30m deficit in a few seconds and pressed on the uphill climb, making Jesse chase. Thankfully the climb was substantial in length and Gabriel got some breathing room. The river crossings were hilarious, especially the 20 ft walk the plank tree trunk (seriously, if this came later in the race, he would be in the river). But Gabriel pressed when he could, working on running on top of his form, working well on the descents and pushing the flats.

The result was a stunning CR, taken from the 28:04 set a year prior by resurgent Peck (2:25 at Chicago and 30:52 at Pike's Peek 10K last week). So, it was a good feeling to get such a CR on tired legs and feeling like he ran at 80% on the trails. Alas, onto bigger and steeper mountains!