Calumet Region Striders Member Information

Huff 50K Experience ..... by Michael Jones

The Huff is a 50K trail run. It consists of three loops around Roush Lake, and can be run as a 50K individual run, a 50K three person relay, or a one loop fun run. This makes it very easy to participate. Like past years, we had a fairly large group going to the post Christmas event. This year we met a friend, Tamara Whitten, and her group from Indianapolis for dinner the night before the race, so we had a large group for dinner. This makes for super anticipation for the next day's race as well as revitalization of different rivalries.

Race day came early on December 27th with the temperature at 23 degrees. It was cold, however the weatherman was predicting that the high for the day was to go as high as 49 degrees. As a result I am standing before the race in shorts and a long sleeve OE t-Shirt (Click for Photo). How strange does that sound? We did stay in the car as late as possible attempting to keep as warm as possible before the start. We scurried to the starting area and hurried to get a group picture (Click for Photo), which we just finished when the cannon went off with a loud boom, the start of the race.

I went out fast because I was cold and because I knew that when the weather warmed up, the footing on the trails would get bad. However, the footing on the first loop wasn't good as the trails were frozen with numerous spots of glare ice. I hit that ice three times falling with no real problems. The first loop was fast. I completed the 10.8 mile loop in 1:29 felt good and at that point Dave Konkey caught me.

We ran the second loop together. The trails had thawed a little and were in fairly good condition. Dave and I talked and enjoyed the weather and ran just about as fast in the second loop. Dave had his GPS on and was checking the mile markers as we ran. They were right on. We completed the second loop in 3:08 and according to Dave's GPS it was an 11 mile run.

I was getting concerned that I had expended too much energy in running the first two loops, but I wanted to get as much distance behind me before the trails thawed and turned to mud. I was still running fairly well. Dave thought that we could run under 5 hours, which for me would be amazing, considering my current PR is 5:19. The trails were starting to melt but were still runable. We passed the marathon point at 3:59, and I was starting to get tired, but I knew there was only a few miles left. Amazingly, the trails really melted and turned to real mud. This mud stuck to your shoes such that your shoes weighed twice as much as they normally would and on top of that your are slipping all over the place. I had a tough time running that last 7 miles taking about 1:08. But I did finish the race with a PR and win my age group with a 5:07.

The day was sunny all day with a high of 47 degrees. What a day! Our group did very will also, Dave finished in 5:01.

Other finishers:

Stofko , Paul Chesterton, IN 27 122 M 8:07 4:11:45
Arndt , Stephen J. Michigan City, IN 52 160 M 9:16 4:47:25
Whitten , Tamara Bargersville, IN 36 285 F 9:26 4:52:46
Konkey , Dave Porter, IN 36 148 M 9:42 5:00:52
Jones , Michael Valparaiso, IN 55 116 M 9:55 5:07:57
Kuch , Robert Valparaiso, IN 54 163 M 10:49 5:35:35
Jackson , Charles Lee Valparaiso, IN 44 90 M 11:00 5:41:37
Craiger , Cara Valparaiso, IN 26 198 F 16:36 8:35:38
Nettles , Wes Valparaiso, IN 33 136 M 16:36 8:35:39

Relay:

Strider Huffets Valparaiso, IN 43 1026 F 9:02 4:40:27
Sue Brown, Summer Watts, Jennifer Hamilton (Click for Photo)