Chehaw Cheetah Chase - Race Report 2012

Saturday April 28, 2012 was the Cheetah Chase.  The race was located at our local Zoo, Chehaw.  The race was done on single track mountain bike trails in the park.  The race had a 4 mile and 8 mile option where the 4 milers ran with 8 milers for almost their entire race together.  I signed up for the 8 miler.  This was my first time to do any kind of trail run.  So I was very excited and a little bit nervous.  There was over 100+ runners at this event (first year of this event) and I it looked to me that a majority of them were running the 4 mile loop. 

My original plan for the race was to run/walk it.  I find that if I’m going to run for more than an hour I can go faster at the end if I start out run/walking.   I wanted to do a 3:1 but I didn’t think about the single track course.  What I quickly learned is that because the course was single track I couldn’t more over to let people by so I had to keep running early on.  I only took walk breaks when the course opened up.  There was a few time when I’d had the opportunity to take a walk break but there were spectators.  I remember them cheering me on, saying “don’t give up” or “you’re doing so good”.  I would just smile and keep walking knowing that I still had another 6 miles to go. 

Here's me about Mile 1.

Once the 4 milers split off from the 8 milers the course got very quite.  I would go for long stretches where I wouldn’t see anybody.  It felt very Zen just running thru the woods.   I got to one section of the course that was very swampy and they only thing I could think of was not getting my foot bite off by a gator.  I figured that if a snake got it me I could still get out and get help.  But if a gator took my off I was going to have some problems. 

Above:  I'm near mile 4 (I belive that' Lake Chehaw behind me)

Below:  Is the Final 50 yds. The guy to my right was ahead of me for the last mile.  I didn't win the sprint but I made it look real close. 

Other than worrying about gators I really enjoyed running thru the woods.  I one point I remember enjoying it so much that I quite looking for roots and rocks on the path and I almost ate it.  Earlier in the race I saw one guy go down hard (only his pride was hurt).  When I finished I heard that there were several runners that had fallen. 

All in all it was a GREAT Race and I hope to run it again next year.  I came in 8^th in the 30-39 Age Group with a time of 1:17:30.  You can CLICK HERE for 4 Mile Race Results and CLICK HERE of 8 Mile Race Results.