Ohmigosh, what a race! Definitely the most grueling marathon out of the 26 I've done so far (not counting the Pisgah ultra). 26.2 miles on a lot of rock strewn trails with a handful of steep climbs and lots of rolling hills in between. Although there was obviously a great deal of physical fatigue involved, the mental fatigue was much more daunting than in road marathons since nearly every footstep had to be calculated.
Anyway, staying true to form, I went out a lot faster then I should have in an effort to stay with the top 5 runners. But I realized how unreasonable the pace was a lot earlier than usual and started running a more sensible pace when I was only about 7 miles into the race. So I'm making progress. And it paid off! Although I walked the hills (like everyone else) I never had to stop and walk due to exhaustion, which I certainly can't claim for very many past marathons.
I had one serious fall with about 4 miles to go when I was pretty delirious and less capable of watching my footsteps. It was a total wipe-out which really scratched up the right side of the body. I popped back up, looked down at the side of my knee and saw a quarter-sized patch of white where skin was supposed to be and it was oozing blood. I then made a commitment to avoid looking at it again until after I finished. But I kept the pace very conservative after that...it would have been a shame to have another serious wipe-out so close to the end and risk not finishing.
The right Achilles tendon was tender throughout the race, but the left ankle was more of a problem since I managed to roll it no less than nine or ten times. It was kinda like Star Trek when the Enterprise is under attack and the shields get weaker with each direct hit from the Klingons. With each ankle roll my ankle's shield strength dropped a notch and I was worried about how many more hits it could take before blowing up!
Nonetheless, I managed to finish and even covered the last two miles at a decent clip, but that was out of pure desperation to bring the ordeal to an end, not out of a desire to pick up a place or two. I THINK I finished 13th overall (haven't found on-line results yet), so I fell just short of my top-ten goal. But I managed to skooch just under the elusive 4-hour mark with a 3:58-and-change, which I'm pretty happy with in light of the Achilles and the wipe-out.
But like I said, it was a grueling race. Sattler is as tough as they come (Ironman finisher last year) and he was a total zombie for about half-an-hour after he finished...I couldn't get a word out of him. Then for the first 15 minutes of the car ride home he threatened to vomit all over the inside of my car if I attempted to talk about the race! But his superhuman effort paid off with a finish that was just 30 seconds under the 4:30 mark.
Well, I'm glad this one is behind me. And I'm relieved that I can still validly claim that I've finished all of the 26 marathons that I've started, but this one definitely presented the biggest threat to that clean record.
My training buddies will be happy to know that I capped off dinner last night with a bottle of Belgian White "Long Trail" beer. How appropriate!
Go Glastonbury. Good update.
http://scottlivingston.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/nipmuck-trail-marathon-celebrating-25-years-of-muck/
Posted by: Scott Livingston | June 03, 2008 at 08:27 PM