Joe Christianson's Staging Area

This was my 2nd 50 miler and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but more from a mental/emotional standpoint than from physical challenge. The course is really interesting as it feels almost like 3 or 4 entirely different trails stitched together…windy, rolling hills plus open pasture plus just a few more challenging hills.

Tejas Trails does a great job with all of their races and this one is no different. While I highly recommend this race, I’d give two words of advice:

First, both of the last two years the bees got really bad at the aid stations as the day wore on. So if bees aren’t your thing, consider yourself warned.

Second, Tejas Trails uses a triathlon style ankle strap w/ chip rather than a bib chip. I didn’t notice it at the time, but after 35 miles or so, my ankle must have swollen enough that the ankle strap got tight and caused an injury. Just a word of warning to either adjust it looser or change ankles every few aid stations.

Overall, it was an enjoyable race but nothing about it really stood out to me as being exceptionally exciting.

Course: Pretty challenging with all the hills. I live and train in an exceptionally flat area, and the hills around mile 10 really tore me up.

Race production: Everything seemed adequate, but certainly not the best I’ve seen. The pre-race communication and website were a little weak (although I greatly appreciated the weather update e-mail the evening before the race). Course layout, cops manning intersections, start and finish areas were all exactly what you would expect. The splits in the course for the different distances was extremely well marked.

Crowd: Not much for most of the race, but there were a couple of good, rowdy groups out somewhere around mile 9.

Swag: I didn’t care for the design of the shirt, but that’s just personal preference. I do wish it had been a tech tee instead of cotton. The Goodr glasses are excellent and a really good piece of swag.

Overall: It was a fun race and its definitely worth doing. I don’t know that I would travel for it again, but if I was local, I would definitely keep running it.

Running races that start and end at Karbach is always sort of a mixed bag. It is probably the best place in Houston for an after-party, but the course around the neighborhood is insanely boring.

I had a blast at this race based on the number of friends that also ran. If you’re looking for a nice, easy race as an excuse to hang out with friends, this is absolutely the race for you.

I was impressed with the number of volunteers at this race, and it was a surprise to see two water stations on a short 5k course.

One note about the swag…the finisher’s medal and shirt were pretty standard, but the top finisher awards were probably the best I’ve ever seen. The race is a fundraiser for a charity to help children with disabilities, and the awards for Top 3 Overall and by Age Group were all different plates that had been hand painted by the children benefited by the charity.

Running at Brazos Bend is always exactly what you expect…insanely easy course but really, really pretty when you’re running through the swamp. Plenty of alligators to see and more than a couple of snakes to avoid. A lot of the course ends up being jeep roads through the park which are straight and soul-suckingly boring.

As always, the best thing about a TROT race is the people. The volunteers were just as helpful, friendly, and encouraging as every TROT race I’ve done. The race director, Rob, and his crew deserve a huge shout-out for pulling the race off despite a road collapse in the park that totally changed their plans. The easy thing to do would’ve been to just call the whole thing off, but they showed amazing flexibility in getting solutions to the problems.

Overall, I’ll keep doing races at Brazos and I’ll absolutely keep doing TROT races.

I loved this race! Huntsville is just a great place to run…very challenging, but very enjoyable. It is a mentally exhausting place to run because of the constant tree roots across the trail…as soon as you drift away mentally, you’re going to grab one with your feet and end up on your face.

I really, really enjoyed this race and will definitely run this (or Rocky Raccoon 100) in the future.

I can’t recommend this race enough.

First, the people were absolutely amazing. Not just the aid station volunteers, and not even just the medics on bikes (thank God for the one handing out homemade brownies at mile 19), but mostly the spectators hanging out in their lawns in the 30 degree weather to cheer on a bunch of strangers. There were a number of people who set out bowls of Halloween candy, and I saw one table that probably had a couple of hundred dollars worth of energy gels just set out for whoever needed it.

I loved the course. Some fun, challenging hills but all at the beginning when I still had energy to enjoy them. The course ran through a number of different neighborhoods, so you got to see a lot of Des Moines. And the loop around the Drake track is just an awesome, uniquely Iowa idea. I mostly do trail races, so I liked the idea that the last 10 or so miles were through the parks. But I have to admit, it was a little challenging to keep my energy level up once the racers had thinned out and almost no crowds through the parks.

What else…the post race food selection was great. I have more unique race medals, but I don’t think I have any just as straight-up pretty as these two (I did the 5 miler on Saturday, too). The expo was set up well so that packet pickup was an absolute breeze. I love that they have an option for a relay team. I had a number of friends who wanted to run but not marathon distance, so they put together a team and had an absolute blast.

So yeah, overall, I highly, highly recommend this race and I will definitely be back again next year.