After Kansas, we had a break from half marathons for a bit. We went to NY to run a 6 mile muddy trail race called the Leatherman’s Loop. They intentionally go through the trail before the race and anywhere that has a bridge over mud, they get rid of the bridge. It was our first time running it, so I didn’t really know the course, but there were so many people it was impossible to get lost. For a good chunk of the first 3 miles, I was near a father and son. It was clearly the son’s first Leatherman Loop. The father kept telling him if he wanted to be a real Leatherman, he had to go through the mud, no cheating and trying to go around it. The son – maybe 9 years old – would always heartily reply that he was going to be a real Leatherman. Some of the times, I was following the people in front of me, and the father and son would crash through the mud next to me – I hadn’t realized I wasn’t on the “real” course because so many people were shifting around the deep mud. We even had maybe a quarter mile section of 8 inch deep mud that there was no way around. I’m sure there were other but I saw one guy near me try to pass someone he knew and faceplant in it!

Overall a super fun race and one I definitely want to do again! Unfortunately it won’t be in the cards for 2020 as I will be running the Sioux Falls Skedaddle in South Dakota the same weekend as the Leatherman. If you’re willing to get some mud on you – it’s definitely a fun trail run!

I also took a trip to Connecticut to run the Enchanted Forest 6 hour. This is a race that I had tried to do in 2018, but then had my stress reaction and couldn’t. The RD was kind enough to offer me a discount on his fall race, the Forgotten Forest 9 hour, which I wasn’t sure I was ready for but was up for trying. Unfortunately, it was scheduled to be 2 weeks after my Tennessee half and 2 weeks before my Rhode Island half. So if you want to read why I withdrew registration from that one, see here. Lou Loban, the RD, is so nice and pays so much attention to detail that he noticed that I withdrew from that race two weeks before. So then in the winter, he reached out and offered me free entry to Enchanted in 2019, given that I had paid for two races now that I had been unable to run in. Lou is so sweet and I cannot speak highly enough of him or the races he puts together. They are incredible!

Now between starting my streak in February and lowering my miles to adjust to it, and the fall on my knee just before Kansas, I didn’t really get as much training in as I meant to before Enchanted, but I knew going into it that I spend enough time on my feet that if I needed to walk the whole thing I could. One of the perks of a job in customer/food service.

I showed up in the Enchanted Forest an hour before race time, and Lou was personally going over the course map with runners. He wanted to make sure that we knew, even though it was labeled – we needed to know to turn around before the bridge. He said there have been many to miss it and also every once in a while one of his neighbors messes with the signs. After he showed us the map, he pulled out some light up flower head bands and some Mardi Gras beads and randomly put them on several of us. I didn’t expect to be able to run with it, but then I did and it became my new favorite accessory!

The run was absolutely gorgeous. The trails were lovely. Lou went around dressed as the Friar. There was the perfect amount of signage/trail markers to not risk getting lost at all (and I’m a decent risk of that). Twice this week, I’ve zoned out on a run and then when I came back to the present did not understand why I was where I was. I knew exactly where I was, and I was safe, but I just wasn’t paying attention and took a different route, one time actively extending my run, without trying to when I had every intention of running a different route. I’m really good at zoning out on my runs and it isn’t a problem, but can sometimes make me worried about getting lost on trails. Fortunately for this race I had no reason to worry.

I made it 6 laps in the 6 hours. A bit less than I hoped but I also felt good about it considering my lack of training. For the most part, I ran the first two, ran/walked the second two, and mostly walked the last lap. I met a lovely woman from central NY and we ran/walked together for about the last two and a half laps. We both knew as we finished her fourth, my fifth lap that we had extra time for our last lap but not enough extra to fit two more laps in. So we both grabbed our oofos from our cars and put them in our packs for the last lap. There was a stream about .2 miles from the finish, and so when we hit it in our last lap, we soaked our feet for a few minutes before continuing on to finish! It was the first time I finished a race in oofos!

Over the course of the day, I met a lot of really nice, great people! Everyone was cheerful and encouraging and it lead to a really amazing day. I can’t wait to do this again next April! At the end – Lou writes on each medal the distance and poses for pictures with every runner!