Conveniently located just over an hour from Atlanta, GA we welcome you to the beautiful Pine Mountain Trail system of FDR State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia. PMTR is one of the oldest and storied trail runs in the country. First started in November of 1980, this 19 mile & …
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Conveniently located just over an hour from Atlanta, GA we welcome you to the beautiful Pine Mountain Trail system of FDR State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia. PMTR is one of the oldest and storied trail runs in the country. First started in November of 1980, this 19 mile & 40 mile ultra marathon event will test your endurance and your ankles over rocky single-track trails. Since its inception, the course has seen a few different routes and distances. This year, we are starting the course (19 Miler / 40 Miler) back at the “Liberty Bell” park area. This will give more runners a chance to finish within cutoff times and enjoy more time out on the trails.
The trail surface is very rocky in spots, and often leaf-covered. This makes training on uneven surfaces a very good idea as the constantly changing footing can be rough on tender ankles. Yes, you will most like smash your toes into sharp rocks repeatedly. Most likely, you will fall a few times. The topography is rolling hills. No major climbs, but plenty of smaller hills and long gradual climbs, rarely flat. Elevation profile information is not available for the race course (If someone runs it with a gps and sends me the data, I’ll be happy to post it), but the elevation of the Pine Mountain Trail itself is between 899′ and 1395′. There are a few minor stream crossings, roughly ankle deep, which you may or may not be able to cross without getting your feet wet, depending on your skills and the water levels.
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Course poorly marked
The course is poorly marked and the terrain is unforgiving. You can expect to run several additional miles because of a poorly marked course. MORE
The course is poorly marked and the terrain is unforgiving. You can expect to run several additional miles because of a poorly marked course.
Poorly Marked Fat Ass or Hash
The Pine Mountain Trail Run is an iconic event through some ruggedly beautiful terrain a handful of volunteers still turnout. Hopefully one of them will take the reigns as RD … MORE
The Pine Mountain Trail Run is an iconic event through some ruggedly beautiful terrain a handful of volunteers still turnout. Hopefully one of them will take the reigns as RD while this event still has people willing to race it. This year, 40 of 56 registered toed the line on a dark and rain soaked December 1 morning. The DNS’s were mainly due to the forecast, which included lightening. All things considered 40 starters was a good showing and communications from the RD, through ultra sign up were clear and promising. It was the first 6 miles of the course where things got sketchy. Through a series of poor life decisions the RD sent 40 runners into this portion of the course to navigate 3 turns; in the dark. Bold move if the course was excellently marked. The first miles were not. It was after the sun came up that I saw the first blue marking tape hanging from a tree branch. They were dispersed at about 6 per mile and concentrated at road crossings. None of which helped to navigate trail intersections. At 6 per mile and visible after an hour plus into the race they were infinitely more useful then the nonexistent arrows, nonexistent instructions on which way to turn at intersections or even the tape that was strung across closing the trail we were supposed to take to exit a loop. It was on this loop when I passed another runner moving in the opposite direction. He was kind enough to point out that after two trips from the direction I was headed the one thing he was sure of is that I was going the wrong way. We pooled our knowledge to identify the one trail and direction neither one of us had run on and in. Combined we had run an extra 8 miles and lost an hour of moving time in a 46 mile race with a tough cutoff time, considering the terrain. At the first aide station, mile 9, the charmingly clueless volunteer informed us we were tied for last place; because all the other people she’d seen came and went before us, then pointed us in the wrong direction. A note: Misdirects like this do happen and this one was easy to see because the folks running the 19 mile race had all come from this direction and about half the volunteers seemed either clueless or miserable which I can’t be seeing intrinsic to people kind and invested enough to volunteer at an ultra. The course was much better marked and the experience was a whole lot better from mile 9 to mile 39. Where I was told that the RD had instructed volunteers to pull anyone who hadn’t passed before 4:15 PM off the course. Especially at the aide stations with posted cut off points where they congratulated us stragglers and told us we were well ahead of the cutoff time and should be proud of still being out there unlike the other 10 or so people that had gotten lost. At the end of the day I had a good run in beautiful countryside and met some true legends of the sport if I’d DNF’d because my training was lacking or it just wasn’t my day it would sting, but only a little. When I was pulled from the course with running left in me after being sent out, in the dark, on an unnecessarily complicated first section of a course marked by someone that didn’t understand that marking an ultra course can involve walking more than 30 feet from the road: It’s still just a sting. But it stings a little deeper.