A Race To Benefit The Fight Against Lupus
Saturday December 4, 2010.
Location: Just a bit north of Iowa City, Iowa
Distances: 50K and 25K
Surface: park roads, crushed gravel, highway roads, dirt and grass trails, one feet-soaking water crossing
Race size: Capped at 100 runners total.
Temperature on Dec 4: Average high = 39. Average low = 22. Record high = 71. Record low = -3.
Chance of rain? Low, but you never know. May or may not be windy.
Aid Stations: Three. One at start/finish. One at ~6 mile. One at ~11 mile.
How to get to the starting line: Click here to plan your route.
If you are interested in this race, in either running it OR helping with it, and would like periodic updates, please send an email to chemsmith1@gmail.com and ask to be added to the Hawkeye 50K/25K updates. Or use that email for any questions as well.
Previous Email Updates
The course: The course is a 25K loop (15.5 miles, so 50K runners would do two loops). The course right now is about 0.6 mi too short, but I'll fix that by race time!
Course Map. (Open Course Map in a new page. Notes: This says the distance is 15.18 miles but I think it's longer. My Garmin had difficulties in the foliage. Also my pace is slow, even slower than I normally go. You may go much faster!)
It's really a cool course, roughly 1/3 crushed gravel, 1/3 road, 1/3 grass & dirt trail. There will likely be a water crossing, roughly "ankle-deep." Overall it's fairly flat but hilly enough during the grass/trail portion to add some extra difficulty if you're feeling tired.
Pictures of the course! (Open Pictures in a new page.)
Videos of the course!
Note: there almost certainly will be a water crossing. A best guess is that it will be about "ankle deep." The videos show no water at the crossing, but I learned that the lake was lowered to do some shoreline renovation, and this will not likely happen again soon. See the picture at the bottom of the page for how the spillway looks with water.
Lake Macbride is particularly beautiful in the summertime.
Peaceful trails.
You will carefully scamper down this just before crossing the spillway.
The spillway with water. You will carefully cross through this.
Most likely the water will not be quite this deep on race day.
Check out the Hawkeye 50K Facebook page.
Looking for nearby races? Check out Running Wall
Go Hawkeyes!
Inaugural Email (Jan 4, 2010)
Update #1 (Jan 29, 2010)
Update #2 (Mar 10, 2010)
If you don't like running in wet feet, the start/finish area is only about 1.6 miles from this crossing. 50K runners could change socks/shoes if desired. Or a friend could meet you just beyond the crossing with shoes and socks.