North Country Trail Run - Marathon 2015

Start/Finish Line area pre-race

Even before I had run my first marathon in Chicago in October 2014 I had already signed up for my second. In hindsight I may call that a bit crazy, particularly after having been very humbled after finally running the Chicago marathon. In reading up on some of the finer trail races in Michigan I came across the North Country Run and was instantly impressed with everything I had heard. It seemed to be incredibly well organized and took very good care of the runners. I was also intrigued by the prospect of running the entire course on hills in the Manistee National Forest. I found out that sign-up was happening around the end of August (2014) which was only a few days away. I started following them on twitter to find out exactly when the sign-up opportunities opened and I quickly realize that this race was going to fill up fast! With some irony, the sign-up window opened as I was doing a trail-run on the Poto Trail at Pinckney and I pulled over, got out my smartphone, and did the sign-up right there on the trail.