Don’t throw out your old sneakers!
By Steve Dalusio
Forget your watches, GPS’ and especially your pedometer. Forget about a nice leisurely trail run. And most definitely forget about wearing your best trail shoes and lucky socks. Why? The Evansburg Challenge is all about getting muddy. Run the last Sunday in October, by the same people who put on the Winning Kick series, the Evansburg Challenge offers a hearty 10 mile trail for those who dare. I must admit, it was the scariest thing I’ve seen this Halloween. You have to be a little skeptical when you toe the line in Evansburg State park. The race director tells you its flat, it’s not! The race director tells you it’s about %40 muddy and wet, it’s more like %80 (and the dry parts are the rocks). Even the race start of 10am, means sometime during the 10am hour (we started around 10:30. I was even warned by Linda Barton to count how many times I fall! So save this year’s worn out running shoes for this race next year.
So what’s so good about this race? Everything! About 300 runners between the 10 miler and the 5 k were greeted by a very cheery support staff! The race start of 10am, on the weekend we switch our clock back an hour means that I didn’t have to have my pre-race pancakes at 6am and I actually saw my kids awake before I left for this race. The small field of runners were joking and passing warnings at the start. And the runners were the friendliest bunch short of Saturday at Betzwood.
The race started off on a short paved road then quickly jutted into the woods for a meandering 10. I have no sense of direction and if it wasn’t for the markers I would have been completely lost. Because of the rain the night before, and because of a sadistic race coordinator, I was ankle deep in mud within the first 5 minutes. Some people tried to run around the mud but eventually they decided to head straight through it. If you decide to try this race, heed the warnings at the start and double and triple knot your shoes, because that sucking sound you hear may be your shoes being left in the mud as your foot continues on its way (I saw 5 people that this happened to). Luckily the people behind those unfortunate ones were kind enough to pull their shoe out and hand it to them. The race isn’t all mud, there are two creek crossings that you can wash your shoes off of (and your ankles, and shins, and even your knees in some point :-) and numerous stream crossings, all of which add to the beauty of this race.
Not one of my fastest races (I was 2 minutes off pace from Broad Street), with many spots where I had to pull myself up the hills. And plenty of places where you have to scratch your head and think “is it left or right here?”. But thoroughly one of my most enjoyable races, ever! 5k’s are great, Phila Distance Run and Phila Marathon are fun, but if you want to regain your spirit, like playing a 2 hour game of follow the leader with 300 of your friends, you have to try this race. You get wet, muddy, you trip, stumble, and even fall, but you really feel like you’ve finished something when you come up the final hill (the race director does acknowledge this one), and run through the shutes you know you you’ve earned your t-shirt.
Oh and Linda, I only fell once.
