Keith Knipling, run director, giving pre-run orders in the dark.
Marlin Yoder running "uphill" in front of me on the Bird Knob Trail
View from the top of Bird Knob looking West, I think. Clouds and later rain kept us company with temps in the 40's.
Marlin running ahead through some field after Bird Knob
"The" Catherine Furnace http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=15892
Marlin running towards me after a "P" break
Catherine Furnace aid station Gary, Dave and Q having fun, as usual
Marlin and moi...Marlin and I made a good running team until I started to drop off of his pace...then he stopped early and went home. My guess is he would have finished 4th. Gary took the photo.
Yellow trail at the top of the Orange trail, I was going color crazy by the end of the day. We had Orange, yellow, pink, purple and Orange again!
Marlin on a typical Massanutten trail... ...no running here!
Another great aid station... I believe this is Wendy and Pam.
This was a great view in real life
...and along come Jamie. After this shot, I could no longer stay with these two swifties.
See, I'm alone now and will be for the rest of the day! We go that a way...
Oops, I was wrong. I caught up at the aid station and we left together. That says something, they are spending time there, while I blow through too quickly. A couple of hikers enjoying the trail, as well.
Creative course marking
Dennis "The Animal" Herr Dennis came out to help the runners.
The road to the vista...look closely and you might see Dennis. This was real steep, too steep to run and it just doesn't look it here.
Massanutten Vista aid station, run by Sophie and her daughter, Virginia.
Dennis, Quatro, Sophie, Marlin, Gary and Jamie. This is around mile 27 and everyone was still smiling :-)
The view from the Vista
I don't know, it looked nice, so I took the shot. Views like this is why I am in this sport...
I forget which aid station this is....it's after the Vista and before the return to Catherine's, around mile 33?
Mike Bur and Tom Corris, two of the VHTRC elders...
After I left that aid station, I walked up a long hilly road and ran into Keith running down...he told me to be sure to tuen around at the top of the purple trail, so I did and the next few shots I took left to right.
Tree changing color with view of the Shenandoah Valley behind it.
Top of the trail to the right.... View is washed out in this photo, but take my word for it, it was great and worth the climb.
That a way, as the arrow made of branches tells me... We came through this intersection earlier.
The purple trail and more creative marking, here we take a left back down to the drop bag aid station off of the Orange Massanutten trail.
Last shot I took...this is a typical Massanutten trail, somewhere on the Orange Massanutten trail! It started to rain around now and was getting too dark to take photos (and I was starting to not feel too well).
