Afton Trail Run

I got the chance to run another one of the races in the Minnesota Trail Running Series. The hills of Afton make The Big Dam Hill look like a gopher mound. All in all I had a great time except for maybe the last three miles of the race. I think I got a little dehydrated and was very weak crawling across the finish line. It was a fairly cool overcast day for the 4th of July but, the high humidity caused a lot of us to sweat profusely. I think I lost a few pounds in water weight by the end of the race.
Afton is a beautiful State Park nestled along the banks of the St Croix river just a little north of Hastings. John Storkamp (race director ) does a fantastic job with this race. The tech shirts and finishers medals are designed by John , I wish I had half of his artistic talent. At the finish line there was hamburgers , hotdogs, chips etc to eat.
My hats off to John and the volunteers at Afton they do a great job and I'm looking forward to next year. I'll be more prepared by then :-)

Dam overlook pictures

(here is a sample picture of Jim Hannon )

I just put a link to the dam overlook pictures up . These pictures were taken by Stacy Gjere and I think they are some of the best race photos I have ever seen. Be sure to click on the link and watch the slide show on full screen to get the best view.

Maybe next year we'll actually have some sun in the pictures :-)

More Records

In addition to the 10 mile over all, the female 10 mile, and female 5k course records. Several age group course records were set.

5k Males

20-29 Kieth Koser 19:38

5k Females

19 and younger Chloe Kidd 24:54
40-49 Roxanne Ready 21:49
50-59 Cathy Torgerson 30:06

10 Mile Males

19 and younger Adam Hanson 1:45:58
20-29 Ben Marvin 58:08
30-39 Kelly Mortenson 59:22
50-59 Jim Hannon 1:06:58

10 Mile Females

20-29 Cindy Blenderman 1:11:38
30-39 Leah Polzine Campbell 1:16:21
40-49 Constance Sjoquist 1:16:07
50-59 Lin Gentling 1:32:36

Records galore

Ben Marvin ( right picture, yellow shirt)smashed the course record with a blazing fast time of 58:08 in the 10 mile run.That's a 5:49per mile pace on a somewhat tricky trail run! Cindy Blenderman (top picture ,black shirt)beat her own record with a time of 1:11:38. And Roxanne Ready (upper right picture,blue shirt)upped the record time in the 5k with a time of 21:49.

The cool wet weather wasn't great for spectaters, but it sure made for some fast times.

Pictures,pictures,pictures

Thanks to Jim Li for the pictures posted on the right. There will much more from the dam overlook area coming soon.

More pictures

Here is a link to Renee Saxmans slide show from the racehttp://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd88/rsaxman/june%206%202009/?action=view&current=304fe983.pbw

Registration

On line registration is now closed, But you can still register race day or you can mail in a form to Larry Pederson.(his address is on the form)