It all looked pretty shaky on Friday when the snow was falling and it looked more wintery than most of Winter. Fortunately, despite our collective trepidation, Saturday was pretty nice out at the ole Horse Butte 10 miler. 
Many of you 
know that we hold HB in the highest esteem. It's not flashy, you have to pass the dump to get there, and the area probably gets more traffic to 
shoot guns than it does to run or ride. Oh, and there really hasn't been a single pleasant spring morning for this event in all it's years. Even so, it brings out a hearty crew for some great single track and a fun early season trail run. Several years ago we introduced the Oregon Country Beef hot dogs and are proud to have converted a few vegetarians (not that there's anything wrong with that) and generally increased the caloric and fat intake of the local running community. Sidenote: if you ever go purchase these on your own, DO NOT look at the nutritional info.
Many of you 
know that we hold HB in the highest esteem. It's not flashy, you have to pass the dump to get there, and the area probably gets more traffic to 
shoot guns than it does to run or ride. Oh, and there really hasn't been a single pleasant spring morning for this event in all it's years. Even so, it brings out a hearty crew for some great single track and a fun early season trail run. Several years ago we introduced the Oregon Country Beef hot dogs and are proud to have converted a few vegetarians (not that there's anything wrong with that) and generally increased the caloric and fat intake of the local running community. Sidenote: if you ever go purchase these on your own, DO NOT look at the nutritional info.As for the run, this had to be the best year yet. The weather was decent, the course was perfect, the finisher prizes were homemade by Kathy Harshburger, and the hot dogs and beer were good as ever. Oh, and the race was pretty interesting to boot. The long awaited Max King/Andy Martin race finally took place. Max came out on top, got a course record, and had a great get up (or is that gitty up). Obviously no shame in any of that. Max is fast, Andy is fast, but still fun to see them go head to head. Paul Parsons was third overall and fourth place Masters which earned him a custom embroidered Horse Butte Snuggie (got to love SuperDave). Kudos to Jeff Browning for taking 4th and for riding his bike out there.
On the ladies side it was quite the finish with Kristen Riley taking first only seconds ahead of Amy Freeman. Both of these women have pretty strong FZ links since Kristen works at the shop occasionally and Amy is Rob's fiancee. Ahna Jura had a strong 3rd place finish and Connie Austin took the honors in Master's (complete w/snuggie). The snuggies we're great but Max and Kristen did both walk away with embroidered western shirts (more great SD touches)
Of course, those are just the fast folks and there are great stories all around. Everybody seemed to be smiling at the finish (or at least a few minutes after they finished).
Check out our Facebook page for more pics.
Thanks to all the volunteers, to SuperDaveand Superfit Productions for an awesome event. We're proud to be a part at FootZone and excited to have that first trail run of the year under our belts. Bring on the Rumble. -Teague
