overtaking haynes

now that i live only a couple hrs from the catskills in NY i decided to give the escarpment trail run a try and see what was so difficult about it. this is hands down the most ridiculous course i've ever raced and i've raced many. it was really fun, there were no views despite running along a high mountain ridge the whole time. there would have been a couple if it wasn't cloudy and then raining and then crazy thunderstorms with hail by the end (thankfully i was in my car by then). I didn't know how i would feel. i had lost confidence in the last couple weeks since iceland since i hadn't been running that much trying to recover and didn't feel that great while running. There were 175 people who signed up and at the start we had to run through a mud pit up almost to the waist from the huge storm the night before. i settled in, i think in 11th place going up the first 2000ft climb. there is apparently 10k of elevation gain in the 30km race which i don't doubt. i hate the first climb more than anything because everyone is establishing position and you don't know how many faster people there are than you. it's just nice getting that settled after the first hr and then you know if you feel good you'll stay put and move up and if you don't at least you control you own destiny. so i got up to the top and there was all this poison ivy and shrubbery that was irritating my legs. after about 45 min i got to the top and i caught up to 2 guys who had passed me on the climb and annihilated them on the downhill which was especially sketchy because you couldn't see what you were running on. i'm not exaggerating. then the next climb wasn't as long but involved climbing with your hands and was sick steep for about a mile. one of the guys caught up to me who i found out ran a 4:08 mile last yr but apparently was partying more this year. i again crushed him on the downhill and would not hear his footsteps again. the rest of the course didn't bring any huge memorable climbs although it did go up still. a lot of sitting on rocks so you didn't slip and i caught up to another person and then in the last mile i passed 2 more. there was one place near the end in the fog where i could have easily fallen off a cliff if i wasn't careful. would have been nice to have a warning sign. i was talking to a guy who beat me this year who last year fell 10 feet off a rock only 100yds from the finish and broke 4 ribs. i'll probably do this race again. i felt pretty good and realize that i have really good endurance. i can just keep going, maybe not as fast as i would like. the winning time was 2:59 and i finished in 3:25 which i guess is respectable. overall i'm pretty satisfied. i'm glad all the big races are out of the way now and i can go back to the weekend trail racing series of shorter distances. just the cape cod marathon to go i guess to prove myself.