By Kev Hawn
Trails 4 Tails is an eight mile, five lap course for 40 miles. We have ultra runners and relay teams complete the 40 miles. The mix of a loop course and relay teams makes for a positive emery atmosphere at the finish line. This was our eighth year and we had some respectable records from past years.
Dan Toland took the lead from the first step and ran a killer pace finishing the first eight miles in 1:01 and the second in 1:00 even. At that point I pulled out the past results and checked the event records to verify that it was 6:07. At the start of the fifth lap Dan was positioned to easily break that record. I pulled the results again to confirm the relay team record was 5:16. This was set by a 4 person team who cranked some impressive laps back in 2011. It looked like that could fall to an individual on this day. I walked part way up upslope from the finish line to get a better view of the last tenth of a mile of the course. Dan crested a small rise and cruised in to finish in 5:12 to take the overall event record.
For the women, Danielle Stout was running her longest race ever. She looked good and had some that positive energy every time she passed the clock. Danielle finished in 8:12 for the women’s win.
Sniff-R-Butts, a relay team from Westminster, have won the relay division of T4T 40 mile five out of six years. As the last lap started, there were five teams within about 20 minutes of each other and I was back on the hill again to see how this was going to end. Abbey Gruber ran anchor and rolled in for the win in 6:22 and the sixth win for Sniff-R-Butts.
A great day to share the trails and some interesting finishes at T4T.