This was the first time I had ran this trail race. I had never even ran at the location the race was held. The location is off a main road headed in to the state prison. It was easy to find the museum were the race started at and was packet pickup. The race was started an hour early due to bad weather that was expected to come for the afternoon. This was not a big issue as I get to the location of the race early. The race started out on a fresh new gravel pathway. All the trail was clearly marked and had been well taken care of in days ahead to prepare for the race. The race was not bad it was pretty well directed and managed. The swag included a "trucker" hat, metal pint glass, hoodie. The race was mostly ran on trails but due to the bad weather and conditions of some of the trail due to the amounts of rain we have had locally the race had to be shortened to 15k. I greatly enjoyed the race. The race was a cup free race so you must have something for water at the aid stations. After the race the local group Friends of Fort Pillow cooked chili that was wonderful. I would definitely recommend this race to people.

This was my first time running this trail race. Me and a few fellow runners from our local group decided to run this race. The race is held inside a state park. The packet pickup at the race went very smooth and fast which I was really glad since race day packet pickup was the about the only option for pickup. The race director held a pretty informative meeting/overview discussion with everyone before the race. The race started in an open field to get some spacing between all the people. Naturally the day of the race it had been raining and was lightly raining all through the race, but this just made the trail/mud race that much more fun. The course / trail was very well marked and easy to follow. I would say the hills and the down hill are pretty steep in some cases but still manageable. You run through 3 or 4 creeks. None of the creeks are very deep maybe just over the ankle deep in water. Only drawback I had with the race is that there was only one aid station at the turn around point for the 25k, but it did have lots of food options and plenty of water and Gatorade for people. The finishing metal was really neat. They had used a piece of wood and burnt the tree logo into it from the logo and put the dates for race on it. Also 25k people got a hoodie and at the finish line you get a really good cinnamon roll. Well managed race and I greatly enjoyed it will definitely do it again next year.