Announcing a New Race Here in Birmingham - Date Adjustment

Marye Jo and I have had a blast putting on the Run for Kids Challenge the last two years and decided we would enjoy doing another race.  Trouble is, what kind of race do we want to put the effort and time into.  It will have to be something special.

Last weekend I ran the Chattanooga Stage Race put on by Rock Creek Outfitters.  Actually the race directors for all Rock Creek events are Randy and Kris Whorton. (They also do the Stump Jump and Lookout Mountain 50 mile among a number of others.)  On the way back to Birmingham, Marye Jo and I decided that is what we want to do.  A stage race right here in Birmingham.  We started planning and have three tentative courses in mind.

It seems most logical is to use Oak Mountain for two of the races.  Saturday I "found" a course that would be mostly on nonexistent trails.  I followed some very old mountain roads (when I could locate them) at the north end of the park, a section virtually never used.  These roads climb Double Oak Mountain to where they joined private lands owned by a local corporation.  If we can get permission to use the land this would be one awesome stage using only about 1.5 miles of the existing park trails.

Another stage would be at the south end of the park and would utilize the lake trail, used by the Run for Kids before climbing up the mountain for a tour of Double Oak Mountain.  For the third stage I would like to use more of the private land owned by the same company that is not contiguous with Oak Mountain State Park but not far away.  The total distance would be in the neighborhood of 50 miles for the three stages.  If we are not able to get permission to use the private land we will probably use Oak Mountain and Red Mountain or Ruffner Mountain.

As in the Run for Kids Challenge, we plan to have two different races in one.  The long race will be something like 14 miles, 16 miles and 20 miles with some very difficult climbs and rough terrain.  We also plan to have a short version with sections about 6 miles, 10 miles and 12 miles on less difficult terrain but still ultra length.

The tentative date is September 28, 29 and 30.  The only problem for me is this is the weekend I have signed up to runt he Gringstone 100 in Virginia.  Well, I have already run one 100 mile race this year and I could still enter the Pinhoti 100, that is, if Todd will let me!