The Twisted Trail 10K in Forest, VA took place on June 29. It was my first race after the Dam Yeti 50 Miler. Since the Yeti, I’ve been taking it easy and letting my body recover. So I went into this race without any expectations, other than to relax and have fun.

I met up with Charlotte on my way to the race, and we arrived about 20 minutes before the race start. We ended up parking a little over half a mile from the race start, because the closer lot was full, so it was good Charlotte had picked up our packets the day before.

We made it to the start area in time to catch most of the pre-race meeting. This was the inaugural year for the race, put on by the Blue Ridge Trail Runners, and they had a great turnout of close to 100 runners.

Just after 8 AM, we were off and running! We ran down the gravel road behind Charlotte and me in the photo above, and then turned onto the trails. I hadn’t been on these trails before and I was excited to check them out! The first mile was primarily downhill and I was in cruise mode.

Charlotte and I were running fairly close to one another, and we linked up after the first mile to run the rest of the race together. It was a lot of fun running together as we chatted and enjoyed being in the woods.

The trails were gently rolling, with a few predominant hills. They weren’t very technical, so I think this would be a great race for a first trail race. We ran by two water stops during the race, and I enjoyed some ice cold Gatorade at each one. We saw BRTR members along the course at intersections and the water stops, and they were friendly and encouraging. From race start to the post-race pizza, they really did a great job putting on this race.

Before I knew it, we were on the last mile. The race totally flew by and I was honestly a bit sad it was coming to an end. I was having a great time running on the trails with Charlotte.

We crossed the line in 1:35:31. The RD, Rhonda, was there handing out some really neat homemade finisher’s medals. They were sliced from a piece of wood and had the race logo on them.

Afterwards, we hung out at the finish area. They had a good spread of food, water and Gatorade, and even had some pizza delivered. They also had a ton of raffle prizes! I was really impressed with the number of prizes they had, but unfortunately neither Charlotte nor I won anything. Boo.

Before wrapping everything up, we also held a moment of silence for Graham Zollman. He was a local Roanoke runner who passed away during the Eastern Divide 8 Mile trail race a couple of weeks ago. It was a shocking and sudden thing. The trail running community is a very friendly and welcoming place, and even in that Graham stood out as one of the friendliest. Happy trails to you, Graham.