When I signed up for this race, I made sure to pick an easy course for my first trail race. I am not experienced in running trails, so I just wanted to try one. Due to heavy rain, the original location was flooded so they moved it to another park nearby. This course was rated challenging. I was definitely nervous because the original race location was rated easy. They also made the course longer than the original one.

The week of the race we had packet pick up at the REI in Kennesaw, GA because they were a sponsor. It was an easy way to pick up your race goodies. Plenty of parking and you could shop for any needed gear when you went to pick it up.

The morning of the race I made sure to get there at least 45 minutes before the race started. There were bathrooms, porta potties, and several vendor tents set up. We had plenty of options for parking so that was great. They released the runners running the 8 mile course 10 minutes before us. Then they blew the horn and we were off. The course was definitely challenging. By mile 2 my legs were burning. It felt like it went on forever. The trail was muddy in some spots, but not too bad. It was a nice wooded trail, but really hilly. We gained 545 ft in elevation over our race. I was so glad when I finished. After finishing, we were offered snacks and drinks and they were showing the race results.

Overall I'd say this would be a hard race for a beginning trail runner. If you are more experienced and looking for a challenge I definitely recommend this race. I'm glad I did it, but I would have preferred that we rescheduled the race at the original course than switch to one that was a lot harder.