A week after my last marathon adventure, my legs had started to return to normal, and I was ready for another run. I had gotten in a bit of relaxed, slow running earlier in the week, so I did not want to push things. For the last bunch of years, I had heard great things about the Tyler Arboretum 10K Trail Run, but I always seemed to have some conflict or another that prevented me from running it. The run, organized by the Delco RRC, is supposed to be a great “moderate” trail run, providing hills of the more rolling variety and wider trails, but still a fair number of obstacles along the way.  I decided I’d give this one a go for my first race back after the marathon.

Prerace

I had never been to the Tyler Arboretum before, and once I pulled in, I realized I had been missing out. The grounds are huge (450 acres), and as Spring was just starting to take hold, much of the foliage was starting to bloom. Volunteers were directing parking in the main lot, and registration was only a short walk from the parking lot.

I had neglected to sign up in advance, so I made my way to the day-of-registration. I was happy to see they still had plenty of shirts for walk up registrations, and I was even more happily surprised at the shirts they were giving out. They were nice tech tank tops.  The material they were made from was more like the stuff that I’m used to getting at large marathon events, not the typical cotton tees or cheaper tech shirts I usually see at smaller local events.

The race shirt was a nice tech tank top.

Another nice surprise was that every entrant got to take home a tree as well.  They gave me the choice of two varieties; I forget what the second was called, but I chose the Kousa Dogwood. The little guy has quite a bit of growing to do, but I’ll be re-potting him soon, and I’ll get him in the ground this fall after he’s a bit more established.

The Tyler Arboretum was giving out Kousa Dogwoods at the start. This one has some growing to do.

There was also a goodie bag to pick up, and plenty of water at the start, but other than that not too much going on.  I headed back to my car to drop off my stuff and milled around, enjoying the grounds until the race started.

The Race

After the previous weekends unseasonably warm weather, things had cooled off a bit, and it was a bit chilly at the start. The sun was out though, so I was expecting a bit of a warm up.  The start was about a quarter mile from the registration area.  Once everyone was assembled in the starting area, there wasn’t a lot of room; the trail was pretty much packed, and many people spilled over onto the sides.  That was fine by me, as I was thinking something along the lines of a 9:00 or 9:30 pace would be fine by me. For some of the faster middle of the packers though, I could see this being a problem. The start line organization could be an area of improvement for the race in the future.  Once the gun went off, things did clear out enough to be runnable rather quickly though.

The course followed the Arboretum trails through the grounds, doubling back on itself several times.  Most of it is what I would consider “rolling” hills. In a normal trail run, I’ll often walk parts of some of the tougher hills, believing that eventually, my uphill walk and uphill run approach the same pace on steeper climbs, and the rest really helps overall.  The hills on this course were all pretty moderate, and mostly short, so I ended up running just about all of them.

The course featured for creek crossings (same creek, 4 crossings).  The first crossing came up at a little after mile 1, and thats where I ran into some trouble.  The vast majority of runners back in the pack with me didn’t want to get their feet wet, and were queued up to hop across the rocks and get across the stream.  I opted for the more direct approach and veered off to the side to charge through the stream.  Big mistake.  As I planted on my first step in the creek, my foot slid down the side of a rock, and I rolled my ankle.  I hopped my way out of the stream, and kept going.  The pain subsided enough for me to continue running, albeit gingerly, so I figured I’d finish the race and assess the damage later.

Around mile 2, I rolled my ankle again, this time having to pull up off to the side of the trail to shake things out.  I was still able to run, but was in a fair amount of pain if I tried to add any speed on the downhills.  This developed into an interesting race strategy for me.  Uphill, I felt fine, and tried to push the pace as on the climbs.  Downhills were more of a slow hobble. Other than my ankle issues the course was beautiful.  The entire thing was wooded, so even though the sun had started to warm things up, I stayed pretty cool in the shade. The scenery was great, and the bulk of the race passed by pretty quickly.

The end took us back across the start line, across a small bridge, and then up a slight grassy hill  back to the registration area.  I came across in 57:46, a few minutes slower than my planned pace, but still standing which was an accomplishment in and of itself. The winner posted a 36:37 which shows just how runnable the course was as far as trail runs go. There were 364 runners in total finishing the race: a nice sizable crowd for a local race. I definitely would do this race again, and I’d highly recommend it as an “intro” trail run in the Philadelphia area for anyone that hasn’t really tried trail running before.

The Post-Race

As I’ve already said, the race itself was great, and the post race was just as good.  I said it earlier, and I’ll say it again; the grounds are great.  It was nice to hang around and just enjoy the arboretum.  The sun had really warmed things up, and the ending of the race made it ideal to grab a seat in the grass, stretch, and watch some of the other runners coming in as I recovered. When I finished stretching, I took some more time to explore the general area. The recent rains and snow storms had caused one of the trees by the registration area to fall, and it had not been completely removed as of yet.  The shear size of the thing was pretty impressive, and it was probably one of the smaller trees in the arboretum, relatively speaking. I didn’t have a ton of time to explore too much, but I’d like to get back to the arboretum sometime and more fully explore the grounds and trails they have there.

One of the arboretum trees had fallen near the registration area.

The arboretum aside, the Delco RRC did a great job with the post race spread.  There was plenty of water and juice as well as bagels, bananas, and a number of cookies, brownies, and other treats. The awards looked like they were hand-crafted “tree-themed” plaques and medals.  I knew my less than stellar performance wasn’t going to net me anything with the high turn out, but if I had won something, it certainly would’ve been one of the more unique awards in my collection.

Overall, the race was great.  Delco RRC really seems to have its act together organization wise, and I couldn’t think of a nicer setting for the run than the Tyler Arboretum.  I’m sure I’ll be back next year if my schedule allows.  My ankle did get a bit worse after finishing and likely I strained a few ligaments in my foot.  For now, it looks like I’ll be off and doing only light running for the next few weeks. I hope to be back up and running by the time the Broad Street Run rolls around at the start of May.