The Jay Mountain Marathon, Sunday, July 25, 2004
Team Gloucester's newest member, Kim Morgan, had a great day at the Jay Mountain Marathon, finishing 13th overall in 5:39. Kim was the first overall woman, outdistancing second place winner and last year's female champion Jennifer Johnson by more than 10 minutes. For those that aren't familiar with the Jay Mountain Marathon, you should know it's considered by many to be the toughest marathon, anywhere. Oh yeah, and it's actually longer than a marathon.
But I'll let Kim tell you about it:
Jay's was an amazing experience, all 28 miles of it. God the mud was unbelievable!! It was over 2ft deep in some places.
The race started out with a semi-muddy trail run which then turned into road, for a little bit, to get to Jay's ski lodge. The run up Jay's or I should say power hike caused flashbacks to Mt Washington; however, the weather was much better at Jay's.
The descent was one that I knew would come back to haunt me, love those quads muscles. The next part of the run, after the descent, was road to muddy trail. This is where I felt like a deer running through the woods, fun! Next, you were on road and this continued for about, guessing, 2 miles.
OK, now the fun part, you ran in a brook for a bit, then through a very long meadow and back into the brook for about a mile or so. The brook was great; however, it was extremely slippery and very sketchy footing. I think this is were I twisted my ankle? still haven't figured it out 100%.
Trail, trail, brook crossings, trail, brook crossings, trail and then the 50ft river crossing. Boy, the water was refreshing! Up the hill about a mile and into a changing tent. Meadow, trail, meadow, trail, meadow, small amount of road running then back to trail. I am dizzy now as well.
The final mile and a half started out with extremely deep mud and turned into a rather nice trail for the last half mile or so. Overall it was a great experience and the weather was as close to perfect as one feels comfortable asking for (slightly warmer than I like but no complaints).
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Hmmm....anyone seeing a team trip to Jay Mountain in the next few years? Sounds like a must-do. If only it wasn't the same weekend as Escarpment.
