Seven Marathons in First Half of 2016

So here it is in late July 2016 and I have not entered any posts on my blog this year.  None of the seven marathons merited an article to themselves (or my imagination is just lacking right now).  But I will attempt to summarize a bit on each of them.

Carlsbad (CA) Marathon, 1/17:  I flew out to San Diego on my own for this one, rented a car and drove the 30 some miles north to Carlsbad.  A marathon that runs along the beach sounds pretty flat.  Wrong!  The first half winds toward the beach and away again, culminating in a steep hill at about halfway.  Getting back to the beach area, I found that the road was on incredibly up and down rolling terrain.  There was never a real flat section to it.  But Southern California in January is a great location for a marathon with the temps staying below 60 until the end when the sun was beating down.  It was interesting seeing surfers in wet suits heading for the beach.  Time: 4:40:04, 1^st 70-74.

Birch Bay (WA) Marathon, 2/14:  Ricky Singh went with me to this one.  Having just been to an event close to the southwestern corner of the contiguous 48 states, this one was certainly the most northwesterly one, Birch Bay being right up near the Canadian border.  My lasting impression of the Seattle area and the 90 miles north is of constant rain of some sort.  I don’t know how people live there.  Birch Bay is a tiny town on the bay of the same name, serving as a possible summer getaway for some people, but in February only locals are there.  I never saw the mountains around the bay because of the cloud cover.

  We showed up the day of the race and drove into the town to pick up our numbers at a local restaurant.  Then we drove back to the state park, had to pay for parking at a time that no one would be there (except for runners) and lined up.  Even with a half marathon, the entire group was under 200.  Sixty of the 75 marathon registrants actually showed up, the rest probably bagging it because of the rainy weather.  We started, ran four miles to get through the town, did two nine mile loops and headed backed to the park.  In the first loop, the humidity became fog in the lower areas of the wooded road.  In the second loop there was more drizzle.  I had started with a plastic bag over my clothes, but the bag was ripped by15 miles, so I chucked it at a water stop. 

  Near the end of the second rolling loop I was feeling pretty tired.  There I got exposed to the wind coming off the bay.  It had picked up quite a bit.  I ended up walking a lot as I just had no energy to push through the wind.  Ricky, whom I had passed at about halfway, was faring even worse as he became nauseous.  He finished almost a half hour behind me.  Time: 4:52:48, only 70+ in the event.

Chattanooga Marathon, 3/6:  This one fell at a good time and I figured the temps would be good in early March in Tennessee.  I was correct on that score.  I flew to Atlanta and drove up to Chattanooga because another leg of flying there was prohibitively expensive.  The day before I picked up my number at a rock gym downtown.  I asked if I could take a shower the next day and they agreed I could.  That allowed me to simply leave my motel, not worrying about late checkout.  This was also where the race would start the next day.

    Note the person below the plexiglass of the building.  There are climbing routes outside.

After eating, I found my motel and then visited Ruby Fall just a couple miles from the motel.  It was a long wait to get in (probably because it was Saturday), but worth seeing the falls and the stalactites. 

  The next day the weather was great.  The race turned out to be a fair size.  Off we went. In the first four miles I was averaging 9:51 miles.  In the fifth mile there was a turnaround.  I got to the mile 5 sign in 8:48.  Well, I knew that was off.  Up a step hill, which required some walking, and back down the other side.  I was looking for the six-mile sign.  But only 10:08 after mile 5, I crossed the 10K mat.  Now I knew the mileage was way off.  That was confirmed when I got to mile seven in another 7:22 (remember, I never saw mile six).  So by the math, my pace had gotten down to 9:20 after doing the first four miles in 9:51 pace.  After mile seven, the course got hillier.  I passed halfway in 2:09:53.

  In the second half there was more hills.  My pace seemed more normal with uphill miles as slow as 12:38 and downhill as fast as 10:03.  It was definitely more reasonable for the course - that is until I got to the last mile. The last few miles back into the middle of town were more like the early miles – fairly flat.  I was running about an 11 minute pace for 24 and 25.  So imagine my surprise was I attempted to pick up the pace for the final mile that it never seemed to end.  It took me 15:05 to do mile 26 and 2:30 to do the last two tenths.  Something was wrong – again.  I decided the distance cut early in the marathon had been made up in the last 1.2.  When I got home, I recorded my official mile splits, but also an extra set based on where I thought the splits were.  I assumed the entire distance was correct. 

  A few days later news traveled through the 50 states running community that the course was short, by a quarter mile.  It had apparently happened at the turnaround in mile 5.  Of course that should have meant only mile 5 should have been off if they had marked where their miles were supposed to be in advance.  Obviously they had made up the mileage points as they marked the course.  I am informed that if I want a plaque from the 50 states club that says I did 50 “certified” marathons, I will have to do another Tennessee Marathon.  I’m looking at November in Nashville.  Meanwhile, I’ll never recommend this one.  Time: 4:39:53; 2^nd 70-74.

Lake Lowell (ID) Marathon, 4/22:  This venue is located about 15 miles outside of Boise, ID.  It was strange to be flying in and seeing snow on mountaintops and then descending into 80 degree weather.  Lake Lowell is an artificial lake/reservoir.  It is out in the middle of nowhere, only some farming country.  Not much to see, but the skies were crystal clear and dry, which did get a bit warm near the end.  The main annoyance for me was the two-mile bridge across the reservoir.  There were two paved lanes and a gravel area on one side.  Going out, with the lighter morning traffic, I could run in the lane until a car came and then get over on the gravel until the car passed.  But coming back, the traffic in that lane would be coming up on me.  Everyone had to stay on the gravel.  I found it impossible to run on with the fairly large stones, not fine gravel.  So I had two fifteen-minute miles of walking.

  The altitude was also a factor at several thousand feet.  After a few early miles in the 10s, I was running in the 11s the rest of the first half and 12s and 13s in the second half when I wasn’t walking.  With about a third of a mile to go, I tripped on a crack in the pavement and fell forward.  It was not as bad as the two falls in 2015 when I cracked a rib each time.  I did tear up my hand and knees.  I held up a bloody hand for the photographer who was taking pictures at the end.  Ricky was not bothered as much by the conditions as I was and he finished under five hours.  This one worked out for me in terms of scheduling, but there are better ones in Idaho, even though they advertised this one as the flattest.  Time: 5:15:59, 1^st 70-74.

    As David Lee Roth once said, "You got to bleed for it baby!"

Delaware Marathon, 5/8:  This was the 13^th consecutive time I have run the Delaware Marathon.  There are only a handful of us (less than 12) who have done them all.  It was a bit warm this year.  I did the first half in just a little over a ten-minute pace.  Then as has happened in the past, the wheels came off, starting when I was running along the sunny Christina River area to start the second loop.  Time: 4:47:51. 1^st 70-74.

Fargo (S.D.) Marathon, 5/21:  Ricky Singh went with me to this one.  We flew into Minneapolis and drove four hours to the Fargo area.  I would say that this is the must-do marathon event in North Dakota.  It is the nearest to Minneapolis, making for cheaper travel, just barely over the river from Minnesota and the weather was mild enough, if a tad warm in the latter miles.  We started and finished inside the Fargodome, the stadium of North Dakota State, the school where Eagle draft pick Carson Wentz starred.  That meant we could dress down at the start without being cold and enter an air-conditioned environment at the end when it was getting warm.  The course wound around Fargo, across the river to Moorhead State University, and back. 

  By 20 miles, I was warm and slowing.  After stopping in a portajohn in the 22^nd mile, my will to push hard was gone.  I got in a conversation with a younger woman, whose husband, kid and parents were waiting at the end and I was content with 13-minute miles.  Nearing the stadium, I saw a man who could have been in my age group, so I asked the woman if she felt like picking up the pace.  So we did run a fairly strong last half mile.  However, I discovered later that if I had not been talking and had been trying a bit harder, I would have placed in the age group, instead of finishing 4^th.  Time: 4:55:02

Heartland Series, Clinton (IA) Marathon, 6/8:  This race really had no official name.  It was put on by Mainly Marathons, which conducts series of marathons.  For instance, this marathon was the fourth of seven marathons in seven days.  People travel around to a number of close states and the outfit sets out marathon courses for them to run.  In the 50 States Club newsletter the outfit invited anyone who had never run with them before to do one marathon for free.  I signed up to do it and urged Ricky to do it also, but he forgot and had to pay a fairly substantial fee before we traveled out there.

  The day before the race, we flew into Chicago, drove out to Clinton, IA, had some lunch and then went to check into our motel.  Turns out the advertising totally misled me as it was a real dump.  We left after seeing two rooms and started looking for another.  The first two places were all full with a lot of the rooms rented to runners.  We found another one that looked a bit rundown on the outside, but fine inside.  That evening we went to the restaurant that I had read the runners would meet at for dinner.  We ate on the deck overlooking the Mississippi River and had good conversation with a couple from Michigan.  They were traveling with the group.  The man had done a marathon that day, just across the river.  The woman was going to walk a half marathon the next day.  The man would be working for the outfit, getting paid a bit, which helped to defer the expenses and helped the outfit with experienced people who knew what runners needed.

  The next morning we met in the dark for the 5 a.m. start.  We would be running out and back on the paved path on top of the levee.  Each time out and back, we covered 3.275 miles and when we got back we would take a rubber band and put it on a wrist.  After we collected seven of them, the eighth time back we finished at the timer.  The weather, which had been predicted to go into the upper eighties, was much better.  It was cloudy and the temperature was in the sixties.  Halfway through, it started to drizzle, which helped me stay cool. 

  After starting out slowly and going back and forth past Ricky, at about five miles I started feeling better.  Part of my incentive to pick up the pace was spurred by the fact that Ricky had gotten into a conversation and pace with a young woman.  Her talking was bothering me as I preferred to concentrate of my own signals about how I felt.  So I took off.  Each time I saw them I could tell I was pulling farther ahead.  It was great that other runners would encourage you as you approached each other or passed by.  I was eventually passed by a number of the faster runners, just as I passed slower participants.  Ricky stayed with the woman for the entire race.  He said she helped him with her encouragement.  I don’t know how he does these marathons without any training inbetween.  He finished in 4:56.  My time:  4:44:57.  The series does not give awards, but I was the only runner over 70.