Some adventures in road and trail running.
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Friday, June 22, 2007

WS 2007: Checking the Trail

I am hanging in Squaw Valley waiting for the big WS 100 day tomorrow.
After the long day of travel from Boston yesterday and arriving after midnight I was very happy when I found out we were not heading out to check out the trail until after 8am!


With Bill S, Cian M, Stacey B we headed out on the Granite Chief trail. The weather was awesome...warm but not hot. This year there is NO snow left. Night and day from last year.
The Granite Chief trail is a steady 4 mile climb with some amazing views and open granite running. Cian and I attempted to make things fun but Bill and Stacey just kept claiming we were lost :-)
We then connected with the Pacific Crest Trail to jaunt over to the Western States trail. A little hill up and we crested out at Emigrants Pass at 8800 feet. We then ran backwards the first 3.5 miles of the race: map. The huge difference on this part of the course is again NO snow! Running it backwards is the way to go!

After cleaning up and doing some shopping at the Western States store it was time for the Runners preparation meeting.


Lets just say that there are lots of stinkin' fast runners ready to attack the course tomorrow. They lined up the top ten men and women contenders and I think that there were about 5-10 more men and women out in the crowd who are potential contenders. Everyone looks just as ready as all the drop bags laid out on the road near the starting line. Tomorrow is going to be a great day to watch and play a small part in!

2 comments:

vswanson said...

Wow!!! Where DO YOU FIND these courses...and when is the 'Everest 100' attempt??? Don't we live in an amazing world!

Darin, thanks so much for all the great posts...very enjoyable, am very proud of you!!

Dad

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