as always, any relevant links are at the end of this post…
This past weekend, I participated in the WORS Border Battle event in River Falls, competing in the 5K Trailrun. I came in 2nd place in the Men’s 30-39 category (of 2 runners in that class) and 11th out of 12 overall. 🙂
Race Report: The Border Battle race was co-sponsored by KORC, the Kinnickinnic Off-Road Cyclists, the local trail club. They’ve made over 6 miles worth of trails at the race setting and I only got to see about half of them on my race. The race started easy enough with a grassy flat, but then took a sharp right turn up a long, steep hill. Woof. Heck of a challenge. The rest of the race of pretty smooth single-track–not too hilly, rooty, or rocky. Still, you had to be careful as the trail was wet from the previous night’s 1.5 inches of rain. There were some good steep down-hills and some unexpected uphills to drain your energy reserves. I finished my 5K at 35:08; the winner, Kyle Donovan, finished at a blazing 20:26!
You can see some photos from the race below. Worth noting are the last two photos–in one you can see the race coordinator, who besides organizing the race, also ran IN the race! In the other image, you can see me holding the Adidas MiCoach that I won in a post-race finish-tag drawing. Looking forward to using that to improve my running!
WORS: WORS is best known for their series of mountain-bike races each year. WORS is the “largest state-series of MTB-races”, with a total of TWELVE amazing bike-races held all over WI during the summer and into autumn. Not known to as many people though, is that WORS also hosts a series of trailruns! This year there will be SEVEN trailruns throughout the state this season. There is an obvious disparity in the popularity of these two events. The 5K trailrun race had 27 total registered racers–men and women, and 25 runners in the 10K race. The men’s Sport Class MTB race had 234 registered racers (the men’s Sport class is one of fifteen men’s and women’s classes for the MTB races).
TrailRunning: Trailrunning is a great sport–easier on the knees than running on pavement; a “whole-body” sport (in my opinion) requiring me to use my mind and body in paying attention to the nuances of the trail; and is a great time in general, as every trailrunner I’ve met has been a fun, supportive, friendly athlete, competitive but not to the point of annoyance.
I’d really like to encourage any runner–casual or hard-core-to consider racing in the WORS trailruns–they really are a great time and get you out to parts of the state you might not have visited before!
A little of my trail-story: I ran cross-country in high school and college, but was never better than a middle-of-JV/bottom-of-varsity runner. I was a very casual runner till I found trail-running/riding. I’ve been trail-running/trail-riding since 2005, when I competed in two WORS mountain-bike races and two trailruns. Inspired by those races, I took 2006 off, and organized my own race–the Riverwest TrailRun–which had over 100 runners! 2007 and 2008 saw me doing running and riding on my own time and in 2009 I got back in for one WORS race. This year I’ve been feeling the running bug again and hope to do one or two more WORS trailruns yet! Though I’m not a terribly competitive trail-athlete, I do love the personal challenge I encounter in all these races.
American TrailRunning Association
More “Troy on the Trails, 2005-2010” pics
Any photos I appear in, were made by my lovely wife, Rachel. 🙂
UPDATED: I used my swell Adidas Micoach last night, for the first time. It was pretty dang cool. Took a little getting used to, wearing a heart monitor and ear-piece, but got used to it pretty quickly.
UPDATED: My friend and fellow photographer, Bill Meyer, made the following suggestions for SE-WI trailrunning:
The Waukesha Co. park system has a web site. Actually Minooka Park on the SE edge of the city of Waueksha isn’t bad either as a number of high schools & Carroll U. use it for their xc meets.
Here is the first link that comes up in a search; http://www.waukeshacounty.gov/page.aspx?SetupMetaId=10720&id=10880
There is bound to be a state park web site with specific details & directions for the others as their are all part of the Southern Kettle Moraine State Forest.
Here is a trail link; http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/parks/specific/kms/trails.html
And the north Kettles has a nice set or trails too. Also Pike Lake State Park in Hartford.”
Thanks, Bill!