MM #11943

The Hill and Dale 8 Miler is held the first Saturday of January in the Meeman-Shelby State Forest just north of Memphis, TN. The route is about 75% paved road and 25% paved trail. The scenery is great - trees everywhere! Proceeds go to Friends of the Forest.

One awesome thing about this race is that it has a 'no race shirt' option and costs $8 right up to the week before the run. After that it's $15. With a shirt it's $20 or $30. There is no swag bag and no automatic bling - you have to place to get a medal. So in essence, its a tough, timed, Saturday morning run through the forest with a few hundred of your closest friends.

The route was nice - rolling hills and killer hills in the forest. The first 2.5mi were on the paved park road....an out and back from the start line then into the forest. Miles 2.5 through 4 were through the forest including about 6 killer switchbacks and a hill that's nearly impossible to run up or down. Miles 4-6 were back on the paved road, an out and back then back through the forest (and the hill/switchbacks) for 6-7.5 then the final half mile on paved road. There were a handful of aid stations with only water - would've been nice to have some Nuun. Maybe there were port-o-potties....I honestly didn't notice.

Post race was great. There's a building at the start/finish that was packed with coffee/hot chocolate and three tables full of cookies, fruit, chips, burgers, black bean burgers and hot dogs. Great time of warming up and filling up before driving home.

The race is put on by the Memphis Runners Track Club. Breakaway Running provided the aid station volunteers and their running team was out in full force. There were approx. 400 finishers - a good sized crowd that made some parts of the course seem very crowded.

This run definitely is a tradition kind of run. The people there all seemed like this was an annual thing and the field was mostly 'runners'.....there weren't a lot of walkers or clearly inexperienced runners. It was my first time and although it was really a brutal experience after 4 weeks of holiday sloth-like living, I'll definitely be back!