williamhathaway.com

I was both really looking forward to this race (being ran on rail trails is novel) and simultaneously dreading it (I don’t enjoy  running outside when it is very hot and humid out).   My training had gone well in the weeks leading up to the race.  I had not been doing anything intense, just trying to run steady mileage and stay injury free.  The plan for me and my friend and twice-a-week training partner Jon was to use this as more of a training run than a race.  We both have goal races coming up later in the year (me trying to qualify for Boston (probably at Harrisburg), Jon is aiming for a 50 mile ultra-marathon).

The week before the race I had my highest training volume ever (54 miles).  I didn’t want to taper too much since this definitely wasn’t intended to be an ‘A’ effort, but at the same time I wanted to make sure I was in a position to finish comfortably and not be risking injury.  In the week leading up to the race I backed it down some running 3 miles on Mon, easy biking Tues, 10 miles on Wed (w/Jon and James), 4 miles on Thurs, and 1.5 miles Fri morning.

Jon, Nate, and I arrived at the Colebrook trail head where the race would begin about 30 minutes before the race started.  We picked up our bibs and race t-shirts and asked about the trail.  The race director had to change the course a little since they didn’t realize until the night before that part of the section they planned to use (towards Lebanon) wasn’t finished.   The race director ended up shifting the course so that instead of running out-and-back 4 and then out-and-back 9.1 we would run out-and-back 6, and then out-and-back 7.1.   This caused a little dorkiness with the aid station layout but overall wasn’t too bad.

I think there were about 30 people that started the race, but I don’t think everyone was there to run a full marathon. Jon and I settled into an easy pace during the start and were probably running around 20th place after the first mile.  The first aid station was at mile two and consisted of an unmanned table with 20oz bottles of Gatorade, bottles of water, and unflavored gels.  I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, took a few sips for about a minute while running and then tossed it to the side near a landmark to grab on the way back.

We caught up to a runner named Tom and stayed with him for about 5 miles and had a nice time chatting with him.  Around mile 7 Jon and I started picking the pace up a little as we headed back up the incline towards the starting area.  We saw Nate coming down the trail around mile 9 on his bike as expected.   The sun was definitely out in stronger force now and there were some areas that didn’t have much shading.  Jon and I were still feeling pretty good and made our way back to the starting area at mile 12.  I stopped for a minute to grab some ice from my cooler and rolled it into my bandanna, we grabbed some fluids and then we headed off towards the Lebanon section of the race.  We hit the half-marathon mark in 1:56.  This put us on pace for a 3:52 finish .  I know we had gone out conservatively for the 1st half but wasn’t sure how much the heat would take a toll on us later in the race as it got warmer out.

Luckily, the Lebanon section of the trail had good tree coverage most of the way, and this mitigated the heat to some extent.  We kept pressing on and started passing runners.  Since Jon and I had ran on this section of the trail over the previous 3 weekends, we had a good knowledge of the trail and knowing what was coming up made the race a lot less intimidating.

Nate, Jon, and I were having a lot of fun chatting and joking through mile 20 or so.  We stopped at an aid station (and I had parked my car by it) to grab some quick food and I replaced the ice in my bandanna (which felt really nice!).  Miles 21-23 were running back up an incline and we were still having fun, but definitely had to put in more effort so had a bit less chatting.  At this point, I could feel some heaviness in my legs, but it was nowhere near as bad as what I felt at the same place in Harrisburg.  We crested the incline somewhere around 23.5 miles and then started the descent back towards the finishing line.  At this point, we were feeling stronger and started picking up the pace.  We saw a runner ahead of us and started trying to reel him in.  When we got to within 30/40 feet or so, he turned off into a side trail.  It turned out he wasn’t part of the race and was just out for a run.  Oh well.

I was looking at my watch and doing some mental calculations. With about 2 miles to go, if we kept under an 8:30 pace, we would just about hit my time from the Harrisburg Marathon.  We started kicking the effort up some more.  I checked my Garmin and it showed we were now running at about a 7:15 pace.  Sweet!

(Here is Jon and I hurdling a cable around mile 24)

I felt fantastic running back towards the finish line.  Ended up crossing in 7th place @ 3:45:03 (2.5 minute PR) with Jon just a few seconds back.  We ran a 7 minute negative split for the 2nd half of the race (1:56 and 1:49).

Besides a bit of ache in the arches of my feet right after finishing I felt great afterward.  Way way better than right after finishing the Harrisburg Marathon.  I’m pleased with the results and I think it bodes well for my ‘A’ race marathon in the fall (probably Harrisburg).

Thanks a lot to Nate for providing bike-based support which meant I didn’t need to wear a fuel belt and it was really nice having an extra person to talk and joke with during the race.  Definitely helped make the miles fly by.

MotionBased

In theory, results will be posted at Applied Race Management’s website, but given there isn’t really any information on the site, I am not holding my breath.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 5:17 pm and is filed under running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.