Successful Bradbury Bruiser Run

Yesterday I successfully navigated the Bradbury Bruiser 12-Mile race course. There were of course a couple head scratching moments, despite the excellent directions and map courtesy of Ian.

I arrived for the run at 7 AM and was greeted by Tom Tero and Jim Gott, both L.L.Bean cronies of mine and fellow runners. Also there was a friend of James's, whose name I can not remember. My aplogies. James's friend is planning to run his first half marathon at Maine in a few weeks and then I believe he is following that up with the BB. Good on to him. James arrived shortly in the veggie car with donned orange lensed glasses. Good times were in store.

We headed out on the trails in a light drizzle and low 60s. Perfect for a run. The trails were in great condition, despite the rain the previous night. Everyone was in good spirits as we set out. There were a couple runners with us who were new to trail running, so the BB course is a perfect introduction. After a couple miles when we hit the Ragan trail we decided that the paces were too different to try and keep the group together. Jim, Tom and myself split off from James and his buddy and proceeded up the Ragan trail in search of Ginn. The weather continued to be perfect as the expected heavy rains held off.

As I said before, the trails were in great condition, likely having just been groomed in anticipation of this coming weekend's 12-hour mountain bike race. The only issue I saw was on the exciting "O" trail. The leaves had been forced from the trees the last couple days due to the rain and winds and obscured the trail heavily in spots. I ran off course a couple times (minor misteps) and had to be corrected by Tom, who is a seasoned Bradbury mountain biker. I think we will have to have a team of leaf rakers out at Bradbury the day before the Bruiser to make sure the trails are clear. Yuck.

In the end we all survived, with the exception of whatever animal Tom had hit on his way to Bradbury that morning which had proceeded to soak the parking lot in the stench of death. The end tally was pretty much right on 12 miles and it took us a bit over 2 hours to run it. My guess is that the race day average will be somewhere in the 2:15 - 2:30 range. Just a big guess, and only race day will tell.

Today I was off from running as I fell victim to domestic duties. I mowed and spread the mulch that has been sitting in my side yard since early July (sacrificed for the VT 100 and then forgotten). I also fixed my dead dryer and witnessed the mysterious resurrection of my malfunctioning dishwasher. Oh yeah, I spent some great time chasing my two kids. A perfect, productive weekend. I will be back on the roads of Freeport tomorrow. If anyone is interested (Chuck?) in running the Freeport/L.L.Bean trails at lunch, let me know. I am now off to do a final read through of my VT 100 race report. Hopefully I can get that thing off my list of to dos in the next day!