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Race Photos Official Results "This race is a real ass-kicker!" -Unknown Blue Marsh Trail Marathon Runner Ass, considered yourself kicked - Severely. Moreover, feet, calves, legs in general, body, brain-you're all kicked too. My body has just had the crap kicked out of it by the Blue Marsh Trail Marathon. The first question everyone's going to ask is "How was it?", so I might as well get right to it. It was long. It was difficult. It was everything you'd expect a marathon to be. 26.2 miles, just
like every marathon. It felt a lot longer than that. Little did I know just what a trail
marathon really entailed, or that this "trail marathon" is near the Blue Marsh Ski
Area, over dozens of hills and dales. Up, down, up, up, up, down, down, up, down, etc. And to top it off,
the finish line for this particular marathon is at the top of a hill. There's only one word
for that: cruel.
At first glance, that looks disappointing, and it is. But like any athlete, or anyone at all who's just completed a large task, I need to analyze the positives and the negatives of what just happened. First of all, I finished. I finished! I ran 26.2 miles in one stretch. Second, I did in what is still a very respectable time, especially for a first-time runner, and especially with that first time coming on a trail course. I need to look up some stats, but I would imagine that a trail marathon adds between 5-20% to a runner's street time. In my case, it added about 17 percent to my goal time. Having run a full marathon, I can see that I need to train just as hard, if not harder, because I simply could not run it straight through. I had many walking breaks, which are deadly both mentally and to my time. There are several factors which may or may not have contributed to this lack of stamina, but training is key. Now, what were the negatives of the race? For starters, I had no idea what I was getting into. If I had, I may very well not have attempted it. I'm glad I was ignorant, because it made me attempt something that was harder than a street marathon, and I completed it. This course was extraordinarily difficult, with several steep up- and downgrades, as well as a myriad of scattered hills. The course spanned several hiking trails and possibly cross-country ski trails, and it was murder on my calves. I had not done nearly enough training on hills for this. However, the thought of Tufts' Memorial Steps helped me run over more than one hill. Second, my mental game was very well screwed. I won't say it was entirely shot, but it was not there in any capacity that I wanted it to be. We left the house at 5:45, and we were cutting it close to race time when we got to the last step of the directions. At this point, we got lost because the distance on the directions was incorrect (I'd expect better from the people measuring my marathon). Sparing the back and forth details of exactly what happened, I'd given up hope of even participating in the race when we finally arrived. I had about 3 minutes from hopping out of the car, unstretched and with a desparate need to pee, to the time the race began. Runners were on the line and I had to run, grab my number, and pin it to my shirt. This was a stupid move, as I knew I didn't want to continue wearing the shirt (I wound up moving the number to my shorts a few miles into the race). I then ran over to the line, and had about twenty seconds to stretch. I'm lucky I didn't pull anything, although to be fair, I never stretched too rigorously before my training runs either. A third distinct negative was that much of my training was at night. I did this because it was the most convienant time, and I rarely had the urge to get up early before school or work to go run. As my training runs got longer, it was often nearly impossible to run any time but at night. Night training was a foolish idea, because it didn't give me a real idea of the race day conditions, specifically, the energy-sucking sun. The sun was in and out, and we were in the shade a great deal of the time, but the time spent in the sun, coupled with the humidity, really took their toll. Finally, it's been a long time since I've run any kind of race, and I've never run anything serious. Because of this, my competetive urge got the best of me, and I started off far too quickly. This hurt me dearly in the end, or more accurately, in the middle of the race. I was in third place for the first mile or so of the race, and I ran the first 3 miles in about 22 minutes. This would have been a great pace, and on the street, it might have been acceptable to start off so quickly. But doing that on the hills was hell. My time slipped rapidly from there, which was discouraging. By 8 miles I was up to a 9 minute average and still slipping. I started taking walk breaks far too early because of my quick start. While I had hoped to run it straight through, I instead walked a good 4-8 miles of the race, at minimum. So I've got a lot to learn from in the above list. If I had to replan my strategy, I would have run straight from water station to water station, possibly walking some of the steeper/longer hills, and then stopped at the stations and walked briefly after them. There were six stations scattered roughly equally throughout the course, which would have meant 4 mile bursts. I don't know that I would have been able to keep this pace up either, but the mental aspect of it would have been much better. As it was, I walked a few times up to 14.5 miles, took a 1.5 mile break with the plan of running the final 10 straight through, but when I saw my 4 hour time slip away, I lost hope on that as well. Pace is incredibly important, and mine was ruined from the moment I left the starting line. I also need to run more with others. I met and ran for various distances with a few nice guys in the race (as well as one wise, but rather angry woman who rightly advised me, as she passed me, that my cotton shirt was going to drain me of moisture). However, I wasn't used to the dynamic of passing people. I quickly grew accustomed to getting passed as my pace slipped, and at the end of the race, I passed a couple runners when I realized I had been holding energy back, but mentally, I need a race mindset. Doing more runs would help this. Former marathoner and current Pepsi-guzzler Colin has convinced me to do a 5k with him in a couple weeks, so that's a start. Finally, I need to work on my gear. I came with a grey cotton shirt, and a pair of mesh/(material?) shorts. I actually liked the shorts, but they were too long, and thus, too heavy. The shirt was gone a few miles into the race, handed off to my father, and I didn't miss it for a second. I had two granola bars, and a gatorade bottle of water, a fairly low-budget supply of food item. I'd like to do a bit of research to see what's recommended in terms of eating on a run. I would have been better off if I went with the straight runs to water stations, then stopped to eat and drink there, taking walk breaks after the station. A squirt bottle would send a lot less air to my stomach then gulpinh from a Gatorade bottle. I'll also be looking into sports goo, a vitamin/sugar/salt rich substance favored by some of the runners. Despite my training, I don't think I was quite prepared for the race overall. So there it is, that's how it was. It was long. Really long. It was tiring. It was murder on my calves, who haven't spoken to me since the race ended. But it was a great experience, and I finished. That alone is an accomplishment of which I can be proud. I'd like to take this last paragraph to thank the people who helped me along the way: Colin Legerton and Gerard Reddy, who both provided sage advice and experience. Kevin Graydon, Matt Ross, Seth Meade, Eric Applequist, and anyone else who tapped their horn at me while I trained (A big no thanks to anyone who all-out honked at me, even in support - horns are loud). Chris D, Josh Halpern, Caitlin Hansen, Claire Ho, Steve Kafasis, Shamini (Shammy) Mylvaganam, Lauren (Peeps) Thomas, Brittany Tomney, Julia Sanders, Tara Vance, Matt Watson and anyone else who wished me luck or offered support before my race. Rick, John, Mike, Seth, the funny guy with the knee things whose name I never got, and the other guys I ran with along the way. Dan Brooks, for the ride from Davis (Damned Tufts Shuttle). And an especially big thanks to my parents, who were at the race with me, and provided transportation, a bit of encouragement, and a big back seat to sleep on on the way home. Thank you guys. Thank you very much. And before I forget, thanks to the music that got me through my training (too much to name)
and through the race (in my head, anyway), especially the one-dimensional cock-rock of
Andrew W.K.
"You better get ready to die"
-Andrew W.K. How very appropriate. Fin
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