Conditions were wonderful for the 2020 edition of the Turkey Flats Trail Run. The weather was cool and calm. Weeks of dryness meant a mud-free and mosquito-free run but it reduced the wildflowers and made it quite dusty. The race used an interval start to comply with COVID-19 distancing guidelines so single runners were launched every 10 seconds. Runners liked the relaxed first mile finding their own rhythms rather than being constrained in a pack but it made it harder to know exactly where each stood competition-wise as the race progressed. Winner Peter Byers didn’t really have to worry as he moved to the front and put a nice gap on everybody. Ashleigh Gardner, coming off an excellent high school running career and heading to college down under in Australia, easily out-paced the other women.
This 9-mile trail running race takes place above Colorado National Monument and Glade Park on Pinon Mesa in the Fruita section of the Grand Mesa National Forest in western Colorado. Participants run through aspen groves, lush meadows, pine forest and often a mud hole or two. Start is at 8,876′ with high point about 9,700′.
