Kentucky Cryptid Series - Wolfman 7 Miler - 8/10/2025

This race had been on my radar for a little while, but I had kind of forgotten about it. Playing on my phone a couple of nights before I came across it again. The race venue, Iroquois Park, is about a mile away from my house, so I said why not and signed up. It could be a fun workout.

Leading up to this week I had finished a pretty solid block of training from late June into early July. Going into the end of July I had a mean bout of food poisoning that lasted a few days and rolled straight into a weeklong Florida vacation. We stayed plenty active in Florida between covering miles in the sand, paddle boarding, and swimming. On top of that there were copious boozy beverages, fried sea creatures, and sweet treats consumed so I wasn’t exactly in what I would call race shape once we got back home.

Morning of the race I went through my typical race day routine. I woke up a couple of hours before the start then got some caffeine and carbs in me. With the start line being roughly 1.5 miles from my house I had no choice but to get a nice warmup jog into the event.

With the course being a relatively short 7 miles, I knew it would be an intense effort from start to finish. I knew I didn’t want to lead the first few miles for risk of burning out. Once we were off, I hung around the 4/5 spot for a while. The beginning of the course took us up the knob near the base of the park’s South Overlook, then down across Rundill Road onto the horse loop heading clockwise. The lead pack stayed tight for the first mile and change, but once we hit the first downhill of the horse trail gaps started widening. I moved into fourth, making sure to keep everyone in sight. The kid who was leading quickly began to fade as we neared the horse arena. I was now in third.

The front three had pulled ahead and were moving at a nice clip. I started chatting with the guy in front of me after running together for a bit. Guy had a great name, Austin. He is a college track/cross country athlete at school up in Indiana. Dude was not winded at all during our chat. I figured he was going to literally run away with it. As we neared the end of the horse trail and jumped on the Red Trail, the other Austin took the lead and started to pull away. Chris, in second place, and myself were now neck and neck heading to the top of the hill. I got around him near the top where we quickly turned back to go down the stone staircase. I flew down the stairs giving myself some breathing room.  

Well, I went too fast and blew straight past a right hand turn. I stopped, looking around for pink flag to show me where to go. Soon enough, I saw Chris near the bottom of the stairs then turned right on a path going back uphill. He saw me looking clueless and was gracious enough to yell down to get my attention. From here I chased Chris until the end. He started to escape my view after a few minutes. Mentally I had relegated myself to third place and maintained my pace until the last half mile or so. On the final stretch of the horse path before the finish line Chris popped back into view and I decided to push again. I made up some ground, but it was too little too late. With a quarter mile to go I turned around and what do you know, the other Austin was about 100 yards behind me. I gave it the beans and crossed the finish barely ahead of him.

At the finish I was pleasantly surprised by my lovely ladies, Katie and the three little ones. I got some sweet finish line hugs from the littles and chatted with my compadres for a bit before heading over to the playground with my family.

Considering the leadup to this race and my training focus of 2025, I was content with myself. For the last couple of years the only events I have entered are marathon distance or longer, so speed has not been a focus. Pacing and race strategy in events less than a couple hours long is very different, and I seem to have forgotten how to maintain that 85-90 percent intensity range required. I have gotten so used to “easy” pace, zone two stuff that I have neglected threshold work. I think I still had some pace in my legs that would have got me across the finish first, but I did not go into the pain cave to get there.

Either way, that was fun!

Lessons learned from this one…

1. Study the course map the day before. Go over it a few times then look at it again. Know every single turn and road crossing. If possible, walk or run the course ahead of time. Get to know it.
2. Practice running intensity. Get in a weekly interval or speed workout. Sign up for a monthly 5k or do a park run to build not only speed, but the mental muscles needed for sustained intensity.