Overview: 41 miles North-to-South from Difficult Run to Occoquan. Michael Bur organized the run to coincide with the grand CCT opening event celebration. Early registrants were Mike, Jaret Sieberg, Vicki Kendall, Anstr Davidson, Quatro Hubbard, and John Anderson. The weather was dry and 75 degrees.
Jaret: Speaking of everyone, anyone know what happened to Q?
Kerry: Q turned up at the end after the search party had been dispatched. Turns out that Q ran the first FFxcounty 100K. He didn't want a good thing to end, so he kept on running after mile 40.
Jaret: That's sounds like Q. Why stop with a 41-mile training run when you can turn it into a 100K without additional aid? Glad to hear he emerged in one piece.
Q: Good point, Jaret. Though it is hard to go without additional aid while on trail in the wilds of southern Fairfax County. Every wrong turn that I took in Lorton and Occoquan led me to a convenience store or a soda machine - even I couldn't turn it into a true death march experience with so many junk food options presenting themselves to me, so long as my cash held out.
Want to echo the earlier appreciative nods to Barb, Helen, Ed, and Dr. Knipling for providing aid at one or more points on the trail, and to acknowledge Bur's wisdom in having us go from north to south so that we could take advantage of the "gazillion" (to quote Jaret) Trail Day aid tents as well. And I need to also thank the search party - Kirstin and Barb - for venturing out with a Big Gulp and some KFC to find me when I turned out to be a bit overdue at the finish. They made the mistake of looking for me ON the trail and thus didn't find me (and poor Kirstin had to drink virtually the whole damned soda herself - I really owe her after all of that).
Two lessons learned: do whatever you have to do on the southern portion of the CCT (where the markings become much spottier) to stick with the one guy who has actually run the trail before (Jaret); and make sure that you get a clear idea of where the finish is from the run director (Bur) . . .
Gotta run,
Q