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1st Annual Bun Burner 24 hour Club Run (at Rowlett Creek)

by Rick Carr July 2, 2010 Thank you all who came out to the 1st Annual Bun Burner 24 Hour Club Run at Rowlett Creek this past weekend. Everyone who I talked to had a great time and thought the run was well planned and fun to participate in. I am glad and hope to make the experience even better next year. I am personally glad that there is a club impetus to increase the number of club runs we offer and make more opportunities for members to experience the wide variety of trail running opportunities we have in North Texas. We posted that we were grilling hot dogs with the hopes of enticing people to bring friends and family, to run and sit around and chat afterwards or in between loops. We will do the same again next year and of course camping is an option – which Alan McLain and his son took advantage of this year. I billed the 24 hour club run at Rowlett Creek Preserve as the “Bun Burner” but perhaps next year we will call it Baby Badwater. It was hot!!! Of course we knew it would be and that was one of the obstacles we looked forward to overcoming but I had not anticipated it being as difficult as it was. The trail is very well marked and maintained by our friends at DORBA and the trail steward Jack Sparkes was very helpful in getting the word out to the bikers and also to the City of Garland that we would be out there. The Garland Paramedics kindly paid us a visit Saturday afternoon to make sure everyone was ok. With 14 loops and over 16 miles of single track trail this is one of the longer trails you can run in the area without repeats. DART is building a new rail line into Rowlett presently and loop 6 is closed due to construction. So at present there is only 13.6 miles of trail and we made use of them all. Running clockwise there are trail markers at every trail split indicating which direction to go for which loop. I provided small cards with a numbering system to indicate what numbers to follow – if you followed the numbers you could not get lost. To my knowledge Deborah did not even get lost. We marked the trail with additional markings of flour the day before (that is Deborah and I did – in fact Deborah was an invaluable helper for me as I coordinated the event; thanks Deborah!) but even these were not necessary as you simply had to follow the well worn bike trail to find your way. With the possible exception of getting back on trail 4 from the old Miller Road section of trail 5. For some reason it is easy to miss the marker for trial 4. There are 2 bridges that the trail crosses under in 2 different places. Here the trail disappears only to appear again directly across from where you enter under the bridge. The Rowlett Creek run was open for 24 hours starting at 9 AM on Saturday and ending at 9 AM on Sunday. Runners were welcome to come and go as they pleased. Some people came to run in the morning, some in the evening and a few brave souls ran all day long. The run was “self” aided with a single aid station in the parking lot pavilion with lots of water and ice provided by the club and other running snacks and drinks (pretzels, chips, cookies, gu, coke, sprite, etc.) provided by runners who shared with the community. Thanks to Gary Gordon for bringing lots of sports drink and Paul Stone for the Heed mix and Heed gel. Paul also donated some “Stuff Its” which are inserts for damp shoes to aid in drying and keeping them from mildewing. The sole aid station was strategically located at the mid-point of the short loop which was 8 miles long. However several runners chose the long loop which adds 5 additional miles to the north side of the short loop making it 9.6 miles between aid for the north loop. These additional miles also have most of the hills. Nothing very high, mostly knee knockers – short up and downs, and a few pretty steep 30 to 40 foot climbs. Some runners commented that they had not judged their water needs properly. Perhaps next year we will add another water stop under the Firewheel bridge – perhaps not… Several people signed up to complete a full 24 hours. Eunsup Kim completed 4 of the long loops (for a total of 54 miles) walking the whole way. Very methodical and very strong. Deborah Sexton tallied almost 40 miles before stopping due to some physical issues. Most of the trail is wooded and provides shade but it is hot nevertheless without wind. I don’t know what the humidity was on Saturday but that no doubt added to the difficulty. There are a few sections of a half mile or so which are in direct sunlight so sun was advised and was available. The evening brought cooler temperatures and some nice breezes. A nice clear sky made the full moon bright overhead quite an awesome sight. Here is the list of runners I have. There were others who came but did not sign the mileage tracker – for example I did not know Bill Rumbaugh showed up ran and left before I got back in from a loop I was doing. If I missed you please let me know. We will be posting this to the club website and Deborah will have a link to some pictures she took of the event. I only have miles if the person signed the tracker and logged their miles. Miles are estimates. Steve Ortlip – 17.6 miles Sylvia Pas – 20.3 Shawna Brown – 20 Deborah Sexton – 40 Dan Hamilton – 5 injured Steve Barlow Josh Vasquez Mike Padilla – 8 Conner McLain – 8 Alan McLain – 16 Alberto – 21 Eunsup Kim – 54.4 Lorrie Gray – 13.6 Ken Gray – 17.6 Gary Gordon Samantha White 13.6 Kay Scott – 13 Tony Mathison Keith Fulenwider 18.5 Rick Carr – 34 Kevin Boudreaux Stacy Boudreaux Bill Rumbaugh Thanks again everyone for participating and supporting this event. It was a lot of fun. Thanks Tony for helping me pack up. Regards, Rick Carr
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NTTR / special events
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