this is a great trail, many thanks to the maintainers. the trail was well-cleared, distance was posted every half mile, and most of the road intersections were marked with road signs. the blazes were numerous and so i only got lost a few times despite all the intersecting trails/roads. there are also quite a few marsh/bog areas with boardwalks so i was able to keep my feet mostly dry. i tried to pick a dry spell to do the run, even still there were lots of spots in the trail where it was muddy or large puddles spanned the whole trail/road. there are quite a few spots to get fresh water of decent (not great) quality if you want to run unsupported.
it's a flat trail - strava had it at 2k vert for the out and back, my garmin had it around 2.5k - it's all pretty runnable if you have the energy for it. quite similar to sections of the paumanok path in long island - pine barrens, flat, quite a bit of sand mixed in there. the main difference here was the entire trail felt very remote - there are some road crossings but 99% of the course is on trail or sandy jeep roads with no nearby buildings.
i had some difficulty on the 2nd half - my garmin was giving out slow splits (which took a while for me to realize and that put me in a bad mental state), then my headlamp battery died prematurely. i did the last 3 hours or so on iphone light, i got a bit cold, and slowed down too much as a result. so room for improvement there but it was still a very enjoyable experience.
ran unsupported, gpx attached is from the phone which tracked better than the garmin. gpx includes a bit of extra time on the ends, actual times from my watch.
out: 8:55:10
back: 10:08:53
total: 19:04:03
Comments
Really nice work! Congratulations.