by Blaine Moore –
Yesterday was the 1st annual Bradbury Mountain Breaker, a tough 2 loop course up and down Bradbury Mountain that took the runners over some very rocky and rooted trails with knee deep puddles. As you can see in the picture to the right, the “Go Straight Ahead” arrows were more accurate than usual, also telling you to “Go Straight Up”…
I did not run; I got course change duty as the first two laps took different trails back down to the bottom and I had to change the course markings at the top between loops. My camera gave out relatively quickly, so I didn’t get too many pictures of the runners and most of them are as they are trying to summit, which involved more walking and climbing than running for almost everyone (read: the smart ones.)
Peter Keeney won the race in 1 hour 10 minutes and 41 seconds, after having run in second place for a good part of the race. He was followed up about two minutes later by Scott Dorrity and Floyd Lavery.
Katherine Creswell and Amy Ahearn led the women’s race, coming in together in 1 hour 18 minutes and 24 seconds.
There were no broken bones during the race, thankfully, although there was one dislocated finger and many cuts and scrapes. I didn’t need to use the first aid kit up at the top of the mountain, but the ones down at the finish line saw their fair use.
The post race refreshments were provided by volunteers and runners, so there were lots of goodies such as cookies and brownies and home made granola. I assumed that there would be plenty of sweets so I baked a couple of loaves of bread which disappeared pretty quickly.