Finding this park was very easy. Even though I had never been there, I just plugged in the location and followed my GPS. When I got inside the park, a volunteer was waiting for me to direct me to the parking lot. I was one of the later arrivals, (25 minutes before the start) so I got the later arrival parking which was maybe 200 meters from the start. The early arrivals were actually able to park alongside the running course and could keep their vehicles open for access during the race. Next year I'll make sure to be early! The course starts around the parking lot at a pavilion and moves out onto a paved bike trail. There were lots of Frisbee golfers out cheering us on later in the run, but it was dark when we started. Some 50 milers started an hour earlier with the early start option and headlamps were a must for all. Once beyond the frisbee golf part of the park, there is a well-stocked aid station with Gu, bananas, watermelons, sugary drinks, candy, and pastries. The volunteers would even keep your labeled water bottles and fill them up for when you hit the station coming back! There is a narrow 1-lane bridge that requires communicating with any traffic but is not a huge event, and this leads into the rolling hills on the course. Nothing too terrible--I didn't notice the hills on lap 1, but lap 8 they were grueling. The turn-around is at the 5K which is unfortunately at the top of an incline and looks down on you tauntingly. You run the same way back, and once passed the aid station, instead of going back towards the frisbee golf part of the park, there is a trail that is reminiscent of high school cross country for about 1.75 miles. This leads you back to the start where there is another well-stocked aid station for a total of 10km per lap. My GPS read 49.1 at the finish of my 50 miler so it's rather accurate for distance.

Elevation/Aid stations: As mentioned in the previous paragraph, there were some rolling hills but it was nothing significant to report. It's a good flat ultra, and if you're going for a PR it would be flat enough to be considered a PR course. The aid stations are great quality and the volunteers are so helpful and eager to get you towards your goal. Bonus: They had dogs to pet!

Scenery: There's about a mile of bike path at the beginning of the loop that I wasn't too fond of due to it being wide open fields that got warm in the afternoon. Once you get to the park there was a little more to look at and there was decent coverage. Following the bike path the bridge leads to a nice wooded area so covered in trees that when it rained on my last lap I didn’t get wet until I was out of the woods! The trail section of the run is neat too and helps the miles go by quickly.

Swag: Okay, finally to the important part! Top 3 placers in their respective gender category for overall and masters received nice drinking glasses with a screen printing of the race name on it. All entrants received a rather generic looking t-shirt that you can see in the attached photo. 50K finishers received a medal. I don't know if this is standard for this race, or if it was just for this year since this year Autumn Leaves was a designated race for the Road Runners Club of America series. 50 mile finishers received a silver belt buckle also visible in the photo.

I'm always just so impressed by the great community running brings together, and this run was no exception to that. The volunteers were on-top of everything and ran this race without a hiccup that I noticed! Finishing and hearing "it was so much fun watching you run out there" is something I won't forget! I would recommend this for anyone wanting a fast race, a mentally challenging race (8 loops for 50 miles!), or someone who wants to experience the cream of the crop when it comes to camaraderie in the Ultra running community.

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