Timp Trail Marathon, shhh, don't tell anyone this is a great race

I suppose I shouldn’t advertise this, but if you want an awesome spring race, go run the Timp Trail Marathon.  Marc and Shaun do a great job and I have no idea why this race does not fill to capacity.  I’ve been there every year since it started and it gets better each time.  Seriously, go run it.

While my time this year was a lot slower than the last time I ran it, I ran slower on purpose and I still had a great time.

I carpooled with my friend Curtis and we managed to arrive and get checked in after the start of the race, like 5 minutes after.  Needless to say, there was no one around other than Marc’s wife Jessica to check us in.  Since we started late, Curtis and I decided to just pretty much take it easy and just enjoy the run.  He had never run this race or any of these trails before, so it was fun to give a blow-by-blow account as the miles went on.



Curtis and I going for a stroll          Photo: Lori Burlison

As usual for this race, the weather was iffy for most of the time.  Cloudy, cool, a bit of light rain here and there.  Not the downpour of last year, but still, if you want some questionable weather to run in, this race seems to always have it.

This race has a bit of everything.  Nice easy cruising, a couple of nice climbs, including 700’ in 0.5 miles and one of over 2000', gorgeous scenery (especially going up Grove Creek Canyon), some super technical downhill, shoe sucking ankle deep mud if the conditions are right, and some screaming downhill single track at the end.

So, nothing eventful happened.  I didn’t take any pictures but you can find plenty online.  I ran my second slowest time here, just under six hours, but I really didn’t care too much.  I had put in a lot of miles during the week and a fast (for me) time was not in the cards anyway.

 

Great homemade chili at the finish line, the finisher medals are pretty unique, and the shirts were great.  Non-tech shirts.  I have enough tech shirts, so having one I can just wear around is nice.

About time I finished                 Photo: Lori Burlison

Both the men’s and women’s course records were pretty much blown away.  Britta Trepp, my awesome Buffalo Run volunteer coordinator managed to crush her existing course record by something like 10 minutes.  Yeah, she's that fast.

 



 

Shoes - I wore my La Sportiva Crosslite 2.0's. Yeah, I think I'm going to switch. I wore those same shoes for the Zion 100 and my feet were trashed after. I figured that for 26 miles, I would be ok. Nope, once again my feet hurt at the finish. I think I'm going with my Altra Lone Peak's for my next race.

Nutrition - Not much, it was only 26 miles. Ate a wonderful chocolate chip cookie at the 12 mile aid station, ate some Trader Joe's trail mix, drank about 40 oz. of water and couple of cups of coke.

Added bonus, restaurant review time.

So I thought I'd throw out a restaurant review since I haven't done that in quite awhile.  Saturday evening after the race, Karen and I went to Twigs Bistro and Martini Bar at Farmington Crossing.  We had never been there before, but had heard good things about it.  It didn't disappoint.

They have a selection of 36 different martinis, plus a great selection of other adult beverages.  Their food menu is filled with lots of interesting dishes.
since it was a martini bar, Karen and I decided to start out with a martini.  With 36 different ones on the menu, picking one out was kind of hard to do.  I started out with a black stiletto and Karen had an ultimate lemon drop.   

Both were excellent.  We had the butternut squash flatbread as an appetizer.   While the flabread was very good, the accompanying sauce overwhelmed the subtle flavor of the squash.  Definitely just put a very light drizzle, if any, of the sauce on. 
For the main course, I ordered the crab mac and cheese, and Karen ordered the pepper salmon. 

Now normally I'm not a big fan of shellfish and usually won't order shellfish anything.  This, however, was good.  Definitely would order this again.  Karen loved her salmon.  I didn't get a picture of that.
After dinner, we ordered another round of martini's.  This time I had a classic martini while Karen ordered a blood orange.  Once again, both were excellent.
Price wise, it can be a bit expensive ordering a couple of drinks, dinner, dessert, etc., however, since we don't go all out very often, we decided it was worth it. 
So, we ultimately judge a restaurant by whether we would go back again or not.  For Twigs, we'd definitely go back.  It's a great place if you want to get some great food, hang out with friends, etc.

 

Isn't she a picture of  beauty and sophistication?