This race has the goal to promote running among women, usually around here in your standard race women represent 20% of the whole field. In this race the race fee for women is 8 euros vs 10 euros for men, and basically all the women through the age group prizes will receive something (most of the prizes are really valuable, like gift cards from different retailers). Besides that it is a tough, hard core race that still recruits more than 150 people each year and this year the % of women approached 40%, meaning that it was a big success. The course is brutal, just steep uphill then steep down hill and again and again (800m total altitude change) on a single track rocky/root infested trail. My goal was to go out hard and keep it that way until the end. My splits per km say it all: 3:33, 4:09, 6:02, 13:27 (that was a long walk on four limbs up to the top of the hill), 8:18, 4:59, 4:41, 8:01, 6:38, 6:27, 6:09, 7:24 (for the last 0.3Km). When a single k it takes longer than 3k combined there is something really "funny" about a race, the race director did an incredible job on some steep hills digging "holes" in the trail to improve the footing, but the race still remained incredibly hard. The course is really scenic because is completely in the shade of beatiful trees around the tallest peak around (1200m above sea level). In a few days they will post in the same website linked above the pictures that describe much better the beauty of this course. Overall for me a great race on a cool sunday morning.
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