I've wanted to do this race for a few but the dates never worked out for me. This year the Quarryman saw a jump in participation and also in the depth of the field of runners racing due to being added to the CARA Circuit Competition. Like any springtime race the weather can be really terrible or perfect. This year is was great, last year the race was I think 3 weeks earlier and it snowed, in 2012 the race was cancelled (I think by the fire department?) at the 13th hour because of lightening.

Anyway, this is a great race, it was smooth as you could expect, and the race director ran! I always take the RD participating as a sign that things are well handled. I was nervous because I registered on race morning, I stalked the race's facebook page and expressed my concern of a sell-out there, and they responded almost immediately. So nice. The water stops were mostly manned by I think high school kids, they did a wonderful job, they even expertly called out whether water or Gatorade came first. Bravo kids!

The course is tough! But based on cross referencing the leader board with their past races, you CAN run fast here (I did not, however). Counting the hills, or waiting for them to be over is futile, with all the turns (there are A LOT of turns-but impossible to get lost, lots of course support), it's pretty clear that the course is made to intentionally maximize the available hills.

Because of my late entry I can't speak to the shirts, and I actually didn't pay attention to see one, but I'm sure they're nice, based on how great everything else was. For example, there was fairly unrestricted beer (3 kinds!) post race, from those cooler-keg things, and they had cider too (the adult kind!), and pizza, and bagels...and everyone was friendly.

Overall and age-group awards are neat (see photo), actual hunks of rock. I definitely recommend this race but if you haven't being weight training or training on hills, prepare to be sore, I sure was (am).