Paleozoic Trail Runs
Carboniferous Spring

5th Annual Spring-Season Paleozoic 50-Km and 25-Km
Trail Runs!

Our spring celebration of "going long" made use of the Sag Valley trails of Palos Park.  We've charted this specific racecourse five times now... the others being Silurian Fall in 2016, Ordovician Spring in 2015, Cambrian Spring in 2014, and Carboniferous Fall in 2013.  This was the ninth running of our biannual race, which has always offered the event distances of 50 kilometers and 25 kilometers.

Saturday November 12, race-day conditions: low temperature of 40°F, high temperature of 49°F, NNE winds, with speeds that ranged from 10 mph to 21 mph, with maximum gust speeds of 26 mph, sunrise 6:47 am, sunset 7:08 pm.  Historically, March 25th has averages: high temperature of 50° F, low temperature of 34° F.

Weather-wise, this was an extremely wet day in our five-year history.  The racecourse was supersaturated by overnight and race-day precipitation, which totaled .45 inches.  The seasonally predictable puddle, that occurs approximately five kilometers outbound, swelled to a depth of eight inches, and spread to a length of 50+ meters swamping the racecourse.  Stretches of shoe-sucking mud punctuated the trail, along with other unavoidable puddles.  Our satellite aid station battled shifting tides of rushing run-off throughout the day.  Grassy sections of our finish area parade-loop became more slippery and muddier under each step!

Volunteers Scott Finger, Celia Corral, Andrew Owings, Jessica Lomax, Stephen Wrought, Erik Weinberg, Jonathan Mireles, Heather Vree, Crystal Medina, Tom Kohler, and Patti Downey reported early-morning at Palos Park Woods-North, Grove #1 for aid station set up and to greet runners at the 7:30 am check-in / packet pick up.

Our 50-Km event was underway at 8:30 am, followed by our 25-Km, which started one hour later at ~9:34 am.  A quarter-mile grassy parade loop circled runners past cheering spectators, then off they raced the varying Sag Valley Trail system of unpaved paths.

At midpoint, an unmanned aid station was set trail-side at approximately 4.4-miles outbound.  Full-service fare, staffed by Tom and Patti near the terminus of the Green Trail at Will-Cook Road, served as our turnaround aid station.  Paleo-Carb 50-Km runners completed two full laps of our out-n-back racecourse, while Paleo-Carb 25-Km runners splashed along a one-lap tour.

At the finish, awaiting all runners... customized finisher-medals, vegetarian minestrone and white chicken chili, along with a rain-proofed-roofed shelter for relaxing and replenishing.  Top overall and masters runners earned very special awards.  Top-three age division runners collected special pint-glass awards.  First-time ultramarathon finishers earned "My First Ultra" pint-glass awards.

Congratulations to our swift runners of Paleozoic Trail Runs - Carboniferous Spring!

• Paleo-Carb 50-Km...
  Top Male Open: Coree Woltering, 27 of Ottawa - 3:37:28.8 * New south-course record!
  Top Female Open: Erin Troy, 34 of Portage, MI - 4:57:08.7
  Top Male Masters: Jean-Bernard Flanagan, 50 of Libertyville - 3:48:48.9 * Past champion, and new masters south-course record!
  Top Female Masters: Susana Ochoa, 43 of Chicago - 5:18:30.5

• Paleo-Carb 25-Km...
  Top Male Open: John Stuligross, 26 of Madison, WI - 1:41:54.3 * Past champion!
  Top Female Open: Laura Lackner, 40 of Evanston - 2:12:02.1 * Past runner-up!
  Top Male Masters: Les Hockenberry, 44 of Flossmoor - 1:59:42.1 * Defending masters champion!
  Top Female Masters: Ann Heaslett, 53 of Madison, WI - 2:18:48.5 * Three-time masters champion!

Timing, webcasting, and finish-line scoring... all managed by us, through our RunRace website at RunRace. Check out Results and our Webcast through the links...
Results: Results on RunRace
Webcast: Webcast with Checkpoint Splits

Let's give a rousing "shout out" to our race volunteers, many of which are accomplished runners, all of whom performed "beyond the call!"

• Palos Park Woods-North Aid Station: Celia Corral, Jessica Lomax, Heather Vree, Crystal Medina, Andrew Owings, Scott Finger, Stephen Wrought, Erik Weinberg, Jonathan Mireles.
• Satellite Green Aid Station: Tom Kohler, Patti Downey.
• Keepers of finish-line paper trail: Andrew Owings, Scott Finger, Erik Weinberg.
• Supplies delivery, aid station shuttling: Erik Weinberg.
• Post-race soup overseer: Stephen Wrought.
• Spillover remote parking shuttling: Michelle Thom.
• Paleozoic Imperial Blonde brewmasters: Tom Kohler, Adam Zamora.
• Course Marking / Course Cleanup: Dale Leonard, Bill Thom.

Check out our gallery of photos below, captured mostly at our primary aid station, Palos Park Woods-North.  These photos have been optimized for display on the internet... if you'd like a "high-resolution" original contact me and I will reply with an email attachment... be sure to specify which photo(s) you'd like.

Congratulations to all runners of Paleozoic Trail Runs... summoned by the primordial instinct to go-long, who toed-the-line and answered-the-call, in our spring version - Carboniferous Spring!

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Jeni Goodwin, Paleo-Carb 50-Km, #30
Jeni's blog: Running with a Smile