2014 Loon Mtn Race

This year's Loon Mountain Race served as the USATF Mountain Running Championship race. This resulted in a very talented field, similar to what the Mt. Washington Road Race attracts.

 Lucky for the women, they got to start at 8am and ran a shorter course than the men. We started at 9:30 and it was already quite hot out. The course slowly wound its way up the mountain and featured a few flat or slightly downhill trails which were quite muddy. More than one person had a shoe sucked off their foot, including one guy who spent 15 minutes searching for his shoe without luck. He ended up running the bulk of the course with only one shoe.

We hit more than one monster climb before reaching the top of the Gondola. There was a huge crowd at this point in the course and I knew the infamous Upper Walking Boss (UWB) could not be that far away.

We had a very steep descent down a rocky, slightly washed out road, which bottomed out at the start of the UWB. There was now roughly one-half mile of a 40% climb between me and the finish. I picked off seven people on the climb. These were very slow passes with an exchange of grunts. I crested the top of UWB with about 200 meters to go. I just started running as one of the guys I had passed on the climb up UWB went blasting by me. I put on a chase, but did not have enough left in the tank to catch him.

 I finished with a time of 1:15:09, which was good enough for 100th overall and 5th in the 50-54 group.

 I pre-loaded before the race with a ThorneFX Elevate shot and Perfect Fuel chocolate. Post race I drank a ThorneFX Chocolate Whey Isolate. Once home, I spent 10 minutes on the Vibe Vibration Plate to help loosen up my muscles and to stimulate my lymphatic system. This was followed up by a power nap in conjunction with the EarthPulse PEMF System.

Next up is the Cranmore Hill Climb.  This should be less painful than the previous two mountain races, but only time will tell.

 The full results can be seen below.

  Loon Mountain Race Results