Tecumseh Trail Marathon is a point to point trail marathon just outside of Bloomington, Indiana where the University of Indiana is located. It goes from one state forest to another. We drove down the night before the race, picked up my race packet and HH registered for the 5 mile fun run. Even though the race started at 10:30am, there was still a 1 hour bus ride from where you park at the finish line to the start line. The race was started about 10 minutes late and we were off. Luckily the first 2-ish miles were on road or logging road so the 700 runners could shuffle and spread out. It was a bluebird sky morning, cool but not freezing, and there had been very little precipitation in the week leading up to the race. It was well run in general, however I felt that 700 runners were too much for the trail, especially one that many people are running trails for the very first time and have yet to develop any sense of trail etiquette (the main one being step aside when you are on single track and holding up people that are running faster than you and bunching up behind you). We were warned to wear blaze orange as we would be running through active hunting areas but only about 20-25% of people actually did this. A few times at aid stations I was told by bystanders "man, you want to be visible today" as I was wearing a blaze orange vest.
Love the area but until the race cap is decreased will not be doing this as a repeat and will stick to smaller trail ultras. No pictures, but I found this link of a video that some folks filmed while running the race this year.
4:50:10 ("chip timed" but there was no timing mat at the beginning, making this a gun timed only event)
Approx 3,100 feet of elevation gain with 3,400 feet of loss (per my Garmin)
Up Next: Jan 22 Indoor Icebreaker Marathon Milwaukee, WI (repeat state, #30 marathon (or longer))
