The Twilight Zone

A few weeks ago Shelly Girl and I decided to meet after school and head over to Bluff Point in Groton to run the Twilight Trail run. We have done the 7.4 mile race before but it had been several years and we wanted to see if our older bodies could handle this fast course. Due to distance or terrain or both most of the races we do have significant hiking sections. Bluff Point is not that race. If you are looking for a tempo workout on a course roughly Bash distance this is a good race to run.

We arrived at Bluff Point about an hour before the 6:00 p.m. start. After registration, and catching up with some former students, we went for a warm up run. Since it is close to where I teach Bluff Point is very familiar to me so, in addition to warming up, I wanted to show Shelly Girl a few key spots before the race. At about six o’clock everyone lined up. There is also a 5k race that starts at the same time so there were a good amount of runners waiting for the gun to go off. Both Shelly Girl and I noticed that we were the only folks we could see with trail shoes on. You can definitely get away with road shoes on this course, but it also made me wonder how these folks would do on a course like the bash. In any event, the gun sounded and off we went.

The first section is pretty much a cart path out and around Bluff Point. The trail is so easy that it is difficult not to go out too fast. Luckily, I had learned this lesson in the past and I just took a nice easy pace. I was amused when a couple of my high school students strided up along side of me. Seems like it was very important for one to kick my butt and for the other to run with his teacher. I love my students but I was not interested in either scenario adding more thinking to my mind. Both boys went ahead and I was very happy to be on my own.

I got out to the point and really enjoyed running along the next section of the course, which has wonderful views of Long Island Sound. The cart path trail continues and the running is easy. Suddenly I noticed that both of my students up ahead of me. I did not want them to feel bad, so I did not say much as I went by them, but I could not help laughing a little bit to myself. Ah youth! Shortly after this point you enter the one section of single track on the whole course. It was lovely! It was downhill and I enjoyed just letting loose. I got to the intersection that separates the short course and long course runners and headed out to Haley’s Farm. After missing a water stop and a brief but tiring section along some railroad tracks I arrived at Haley’s Farm. This is a wonderful section of cross country running and we actually call this section the “Sound of Music section” because of the open fields and stunning vistas. There really is not much of a trail in this section. You are either running on grass or some more cart path type terrain. As with the rest of the race there really is no challenge except to go fast as you are able. I was both happy and nervous to be pushing my pace for an extended amount of time. I made it back to the return trip along the railroad tracks and decided , with one mile to go, it was time to give whatever I had left. I caught up with four other runners and drafted off them for a bit. After seeing my pace was a bit faster I moved ahead of them but they went with me. I really did not want to race anybody but I did not want to lose to anybody in my age group this close to the end so I asked if any of them was over 50! Ha! Nobody spoke up so I just relaxed and made my way to the finish. After getting a drink I went back to the finish to see Shelly Girl come in and soon enough she came flying by looking really strong. She missed breaking the one hour mark by nineteen seconds, but was about thirteen minutes faster than the last time she ran the course and she won her age catagory. She is a rock star! Oh, when we were hanging around after the race one of the guys I ran with at the end confessed to not speaking up and saying he was 52. He thought if he said he was over 50 I would take off. He was right! 🙂

Bluff Point is a definite do race if you like a very fast course, on easy terrain with wonderful views. Plus the Friday evening 6:00 p.m. start is kind of cool.

See ya on the trail.

Lefty