My first leg of the WBR started at about 7:20 pm. It was a 7.4 mile climb up to Avon pass on a dirt road. The uphill grade is a challenge, but it's actually quite runnable. It's also shady, which was a change from the first four legs, which looked like a hot death march.
At the end of mile 2, I noticed what appeared to be some kind of tan colored wild beast lurking in the grass next to the road up ahead of me about 150 yards. A Cougar? Bobcat? Wild Boar? Wolverine? Sabertoothed Jackalope? I was not feeling like I wanted to get close too to find out and slowed down considerably and even stopped briefly for a moment. I thought it might just be a dog, but I didn't see any humans anywhere nearby. When our van pulled up along side me, I pointed it out, they drove up and saw the fearsome creature. It was a dog. And not a particularly wild or fierce one. It was just enjoying the early evening, snitffing the flowers and watering the soil. I lost at least a minute in this adventure.
So I kept climbing, and despite my not-quite-Wild Kingdom hiatus, I started to pass a few runners and finished the leg fairly strong.
Here are the splits: 1) 6:40; 2) 7:40 (dog mile); 3) 6:40; 4) 6:35; 5) 6:40; 6) 7:00; 7) 7:34.
So total time was 51:34, which was a little more than a minute off of my projected time. I would have hit it pretty easily without my slowing at mile 2.
I handed off to Jon who took off at a rabid pace and tore down the backside of Avon pass toward Huntsville.
I'll give myself a mile of easy running for the little warmups and cooldown in this section. | 