The Delaware Trail Marathon is held in my hometown of Newark, Delaware. Although Delaware is a small state, there is an extensive trail system in North Delaware and Pennsylvania along the White Clay Creek. There are probably 30 or so miles of trail - the Delaware Trail Marathon uses 13.1 miles of trail to make a two-loop course. The trails are much less rocky than anything in Central Texas. They make up for that by being pretty impassable muck whenever it rains - the clay turns muddy and sticks to your feet in huge clumps. Another obstacle is downed trees along parts of the trail - the end of each loop felt like a steeple chase. Probably the most fun was wading through White Clay Creek, getting knee deep (more if you wanted) in freezing water for about 100 feet. Marathon runners got to go through the creek four times on the race. Course support was excellent - there were 8 aid stations on the course with friendly volunteers (some you would see twice on one loop), and you did two loops, so there was probably no more than three miles between aid stations at any point. Volunteers helped at the road crossings, of which there were probably 5 or 6 per loop, mostly by the aid stations. These didn't seem to be much of a factor for me in the run. If you didn't want to run a full marathon, you could also enter the half marathon, 10K, or 5K, or an odd combination called the Triple Crown - do the half marathon, then the 10K, then the 5K. My race actually went really well for the first half - did the first loop in 2:21, which is fast for me, considering this is a trail marathon with one major hill climb/descent (like Hill of Death), log jumping, creek crossing, etc. The rest of the trail is very runnable though, nice flowing singletrack. Things were looking pretty good for a sub 5 hour finish, as it was starting to heat up to about 75 or so, and I was starting to slow down. Cruising up the big hill at mile 22, I got to the top in front of a group of runners, took off down the flat trail at the top, and WHAM! hit my head into a low tree branch on the trail. That opened up a nasty wound on my scalp, dripping blood all over my face, race number, glasses, etc. I started walking down to the creek for the final creek crossing, because there wasn't any place to drop out of the race before the creek, and I felt pretty bad but wasn't in major trouble. It was about a half mile walk in the sun down to the creek. Most of the runners gave me a a real double take, because I looked terrible! The thing about a cut like that is that it bleeds terribly, no matter what. By the time I got down to the creek, it had stopped bleeding, which I took as a good sign. Rinsing off in the creek, I got the blood of my face and arms, and looked less like an axe murderer victim. I still had three miles to walk out, so I decided to drop out at the next aid station. One of the interesting things about this race is that the aid stations were unmanned after 12pm (7:35am start), which to me seems a little early for a trail marathon. So when I got to the 2 miles to go aid station, there was no one there, I was feeling better (still didn't feel like running though), and I figured I might as well keep walking to the finish. I ended up adding about 40 minutes to the time I wanted, but I did finish the race, looking not quite as bad as I could have if the creek hadn't been there. I wasn't going to let the volunteers put a medal on my though, as both they and the medal would end up pretty disgusting. I took a shower at home, cleaned all the blood out of my hair, and had my mom and sister take a look at the cut - both of them said it actually was only a quarter inch or so, so I didn't end up going to the ER.