Tunnel Hill Run - My latest PW (personal worst)

On Saturday, I ran the Tunnel Hill 10 Mile Trail Run. The Tunnel Hill trail is located in Southern IL and is part of the federal Rails-to-Trails development program. The trail was created when an old railroad was removed from the area, thus the Tunnel and the various trestles that are a part of the trail. The entire trail is 43.1 miles long and is beautiful this time of the year with the changing leaves. This picture of the tunnel is from the Spring.

The race starts at Tunnel Hill and runs on the trail all the way to Vienna. Due to the logistics of running on the trail, the field is limited to 200 runners. I have run this race 7 times, every year except for one since I started running. It's one of my favorites; I look forward to it every year.

My best time on this run was 1:21. Not too shabby, but I probably could have run it better that year. I was young and just enjoying the day.

My worst time up until now, was last year at 1:34.
This year, I did enjoy the run in many ways - the weather was beautiful, the fall colors were beautiful. I hadn't run since Columbus, so it felt great to just get out there and run. About 1/4 mile into the race, we run through the tunnel. The tunnel is pretty long, and it gets DARK in there. All you can see is the shoes of the person in front of you. It's always neat to get in the tunnel with people who have never been there before. There were a lot of first timers around me this year.

As the race went on, my body started to say, HEY! You needed to train! Miles 5-8 were especially tough for me. At about the 8 mile mark, the song 'Teenagers' by My Chemical Romance came on my ipod and gave me the boost I needed to kick it back in gear. By that time, I had let too much time slip past me, so I was happy to just run out the last two miles and finish strong.

That is what I did. My official time was 1:44:15.
I was the only one in our group that rode down together to not get at least an age group award. I've only won one age group award there in all the years I've run it. And, that was not the year I PR'ed. I got lucky one year when nobody else my age ran.

Shanna won first place overall for Women in 1:09.
Garrett won third place for his age in 1:12
Barbie won 2nd place for her age in 1:20
Tim won third place for his age in 1:13.

Here are some after pictures. The first is me, Shanna and Barbie:

And, another one of me, Shanna and Garrett.

I will say that I enjoyed the day very much. It was great to get to a race and back in the groove of things. My least favorite part of the day was the Chub Rub. Ye-OUCH! I have never had this so bad before. It must be time to start working my thighs.