Piney Woods Trail Fest 50K
As a relatively new transplant to the Midwest (4 or 5 years now), I’m still not used to true winter, so we’ve taken to signing up for races in the early spring to keep us moving through the worst of winter. In years prior, we’d sign up for the Illinois Marathon in Champaign in April. This year, we were planning to travel and see family in Texas around the beginning of February, a cheaper/easier time to travel for holidays, and worked into our schedules, so we found a race. It was listed as a trail race, Piney Woods Trail, but due to a rainy season, they had to reroute most of the course onto dirt roads. We arrived and had a relaxing day of eating and catching up with family, and the next morning woke up early to eat and hit the road for an hour drive around Houston. Weather was ideal, overcast and cool, relatively low humidity, temps in the low 60’s. The course was about a 10 mile route, with 10 mile, 20 mile, and 50K runners doing 1/2/3 loops. This was supposed to be just