The Pasadena Trail Race Series is a series of four seasonal races taking place in the Pasadena area in April, June, July and October, 2019. Each race has several options in terms of distance and difficulty. To pursue my objective (Don't Let The Old Man In), I signed up for all four races, although I signed up for the easiest option available in each of the four races. To my delight, Tracy signed for all four races also.
LOGO FOR THE OCTOBER RUN
This run, the last in the series of four, was held on Sunday, October 20th. Unfortunately, Tracy caught a cold and sore throat the day before and wasn't able to make the Run. (Readers need to understand that I use the word "run" very loosely. My run is really a shuffle these days, and I switch to a walk often ). So I made my way to the Hahamongna Watershed Park for the start early on Sunday morning, and picked up my race packet there at the Park instead of going in on Saturday to the sponsor's running store. I picked up Tracy's packet also and carried her race number, which includes the timing chip, in my butt pack. This meant that she would show in the race results with a time similar to mine (but obviously in a different age group). Runners in this October Run could select either a 5K, a 10K or a Half-Marathon. The 5K course, which we had selected, shown in the illustration below, was described as 3.12 Miles, a Mixed Use/Truck Trail, and a Difficulty Rating of 2.5 out of 10. As a matter of interest, the 10K course was described as 6.2 Miles, Mixed Use/Fire Roads, featured climb of the Gabrieleno Trail, and a Difficulty Rating of 4.5 out of 10. The Half Marathon course was described as 13.12 miles, Single Track/Rocky Terrain Trail, featured climbs of El Prieto Canyon/Brown Mountain Road, and a Difficulty Rating of 7.9 out of 10.
It seemed to me to be a much larger turnout for this event than the prior events held at Hahamongna Park, but I don't know the total runners from the prior events. The parking lots were absolutely full this morning. As reported after the races, there were a total of 367 runners in the three different races in this event. The start for the half-marathon runners was at 7:30 am and the 10K runners started at 8:00 am. There were 75 runners in the 5K group and we were the third group to start, going off at 8:15 am. The course was well marked and had aid stations each mile (including the longer distance courses).
The photo below shows a portion of the course that was high potential to sprain an ankle - fortunately, most of the course was more like a dirt trial or gravel fire road. The young woman shown behind me in this photo passed me like I was standing still about a minute after this photo was taken.
I was curious how the timing chips would reflect Tracy's time versus mine, since my chip was on my number worn on my chest, and her number was in my butt pack (worn on my butt of course). The race results showed Tracy finishing 2.2 seconds behind me - I guess that means is took me two seconds to cross the timing board at the finish line!!
Below are "Before" and "After" photos. You'll notice that I am holding two medals in the After photo. I bent the truth a little and was given a medal for Tracy in addition to mine when I crossed the Finish Line, so she is an "Official Finisher" even though she wasn't there.
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These days I participate in this type of event simply for the fun of being out on the trails with a bunch of active people and engaging in some type of physical activity. I've lost the competitive drive to try to win my age group, as an example, but nevertheless I'm always interested to look at the results to see where I came in. There were 75 runners in the 5K race, and there were three male runners in the 70 plus age group. One participant was younger than me and one was older, so as appropriate, I came in second.
All Finishers received a T-shirt and a medal like the ones shown below. The medals are made from wood (five levels on this one) and are quite impressive. The lower level is engraved with:
TRAIL RACE SERIES
Half Marathon
5K and 10K
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The people from Run With Us did an excellent job of organizing the race, as they had with the prior events. I enjoyed the exercise and the experience out on the course. Tracy said this was the easiest race she has ever run!