Trail run delivers ‘Insane Terrain’ – Elkin Jonesville Tribune
Trail run delivers ‘Insane Terrain’ Elkin Jonesville Tribune
Matthew Beshears crosses the finish line in first place. – Courtesy photo | Vicki Whelan, EVTA
Nancy Ball takes off in the Insane Terrain 5K Train Run. – Courtesy photo | Vicki Whelan, EVTA
Custom trophies await their recipients. – Bill Colvard | The Tribune
A runner races along Elkin’s trails. – – Courtesy photo | Joe Mickey, EVTA
Runners navigate the diffult “insane” terrain on Saturday. – – Courtesy photo | Joe Mickey, EVTA
A runner races along Elkin’s trails. – – Courtesy photo | Joe Mickey, EVTA
Robert Ball, Richard Moore and Edna Grusskopf before Saturday’s Insane Terrain Trail Run. – – Bill Colvard | The Tribune
Runners prepare to run over “Insane Terrain.” – – Bill Colvard | The Tribune
Raven Poindexter comes in second. – – Bill Colvard | The Tribune
Second place finisher Raven Poindexter, left, and first place finisher Matthew Beshears cheer Sawyer Poindexter as he crosses the finish line in third place. – – Bill Colvard | The Tribune
Julian Charles traverses the trails in Saturday’s Insane Terrain 5K Train Run. – – Courtesy photo | Joe Mickey, EVTAThey came. They ran. They walked. They tripped. They fell. They threw up. And the terrain, as advertised, was insane.
The 7th annual Insane Terrain 5 & 10K Trail Race brought out runners of all ages and skill levels from near and far to raise money for Elkin Valley Trails Association to maintain existing trails and build new ones.
“I am not a runner,” said Elkin resident Teresa Smith. “I run from the law and to the refrigerator to get beer. But why not come out and help raise money for a good cause? How could anyone not do it?”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, marathon runner Edna Grusskopf traveled to Elkin from Atlanta to do the run. Prepared for the event’s theme, she sported a shirt that read, “Running is a mental sport and we are all insane.”
“I’m feeling insane. We’re insane, and we’re feeling it,” she said before the run began. Grusskopf said she was excited because she doesn’t get to do trail runs. She ran her first marathon in Toronto and is running another one in Chicago next year. After training for Atlanta’s Peachtree Road Race, where she concurred it was about a million degrees and about a million percent humidity, Elkin’s cool, autumn air was feeling good to her.
Elkin Valley Trails Association (EVTA) board member Robert Ball, who has been a driving force behind the run since it began, said, “We tried to make it as hard as we could. It’s a typical race, but we use trails.” All of the funds raised by the run are used to finance building new trails and maintaining existing ones.
The 10K course uses all of the mountain bike trails, and the 5K uses 50% of them, according to Ball, who characterized the run as a “heavy 5K” and a “heavy 10K” as the courses are longer than usual in order to include the newly christened Joe Hicks bridge.
Future runs on the trails could include a marathon to Stone Mountain from Elkin or from Stone Mountain to Elkin.
“That’s always been in the back of my head,” said Ball. When completed, the Elkin to Stone Mountain trail .is going to be about 26 miles long.” (A marathon’s distance is 26 miles, 385 yards.) “Sixty percent of that is in trail now,” he added.
Before Ball sounded a bullhorn to start the runners, he told them there would be course marshals at all the turns, and that there were orange markers in trees about every quarter mile, “to give you confidence you’re not lost on the trails.”
Thirty-one minutes and eighteen seconds after the starting horn, Matthew Beshears, age 14 and a cross-country runner for Elkin High School, crossed the finish line in first place.
“It was pretty hard, with all the hills,” he said afterward. “It was steep, and there was a bunch of roots.”
Next to cross the finish line was Raven Poindexter, 14, a first-year Elkin cross country runner.
Close behind her was 12-year-old Sawyer Poindexter, who exclaimed, “I threw up at the finish line.”
Cross-country mom Christy Harrison yelled from the sidelines, “Puke and run! Puke and run! Don’t stop and puke. Puke and run!”
She said that was the advice she gives her own child who runs track. “I’m impressed with anyone who can do that. Nothing is chasing me that hard to make me run like that,” she added later.
“That was a bit of work. It was a good run,” said Edna Grusskopf after crossing the finish line.
Linda Capamaggio of Elkin added, “It was a great race for a great cause. We’ve got to get more people involved. I can say it was a great race because it’s done. That was a great mix of a road race without pavement and a trail run.”
“Seriously?” Leora Henkin of Winston-Salem said she was thinking to herself when she got out on the trail. “The downhills were hard, it was rocky. The roots. The leaves. It was more like a horse trail. I turned my ankle once, but I didn’t fall.”
“I started to fall,” said Smith, “but I caught myself.”
”I got a little dirt,” said Grusskopf, indicating the side of her running shoe.
(Heavy) 5K Results
1-Matthew Beshears
2-Raven Poindexter
3-Sawyer Poindexter
4 -Julian Charles
5 -Jonathan Haye
6 -Benny Lisk
7 -Brett Ketvertis
8 -Grace Harrison
9 -Kristy Wood
10 -Tommy Ashley 25
11 -Pam Lisk
12 =Richard Moore
13 -Robin Edwards
14 -Kay Garris
15 -Josh Absher
16 -Thomas Liles
17 -Gary Haynes
18 -Teresa Smith
19 -Finley Ball
20 Edna Grosskopf
21 Kayla Thompson
22 -June Transou
23 -Cicely McCulloch
24 -Brittany Simmons
25 -Linda Capamaggio
26 -Donna Garris
27 -Karen Grdijan-Seibe
28 -Lauren Herndon
29 -Leora Henkin
30 -Martha Holden
31 -Rachel Pelton
32 -Sydney Ball
33 Nancy Ball
(Heavy) 10K Results
1 -Nancy Sutton
2 -Terry Sizemore
3 -David Steiner
4 -Lorraine Sizemore
5 -Scott Stout
6 -Jenda Crouse
7 -Jennifer Reavis
Reach Bill Colvard at 336-258-4035.