Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

I woke up this morning to an announcement by the Pocono Marathon Committee that the course has changed. Completely.  Apparantly, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has decided to take a bridge out at the mile 19 mark...a location that does not have a detour available to it so the whole course has been changed.

This is the new course elevation:

the red line is the new, the blue the old

As can be expected, the facebook page is filling up with a fair amount of runner freakout. We are obsessive folks, I'll grant you that...but really, those people that are complaining about it being too hilly and a quadbuster are nuts...did they think the original elevation wwas going to be a walk in the park??? No, it is not a flat and fast course.  So what, I like flying down hills & if I have to walk up a hill towards the end, so be it.  This whining struck me as the difference between trail runners & road runners.  You don't hear much whining about hills/mountains/terrain at all during a trail race.  Heck, plenty of runners LIKE hills!

We are 5 weeks out from the race. I am impressed the organizers have been able to revamp the whole thing & are classy enough to offer deferrals to those that just don't want to run it now.

My hats off to them.

I'm told it's still a scenic course...which is important to me...plus hey, if I get tired, maybe I can just lay down and roll a couple miles ;)

Hope it's a fraction of this scenic....Thing 1 & 2 of his buddies running the beach in Costa Rica last week...a classmate took 3 pictures and blended them...she calls it 'Ghost Runner'.  Thing 1 is the 'Ghost'...

Don't you think this is 'Rave Run' worthy????