Race 24 Race for the Fallen Half Marathon

Now I do not know if this is cause/effect, luck, both, neither, but for the first in the two years since I started  walking/jogging/hiking, I have not had a cold  - until last weekend.  It was one of the those with flu like symptoms - it couched me for a few days and I did not get out and exercise for three days.  Again, it's been two years since the last one!  Lucky I guess...  Anyway, through the week I was back and forth on doing this  race (that I had already signed up for) or not.  I decided to do it.

This morning I did the Race for the Fallen Half Marathon at Red Top Mountain.  It is a trail race that benefits the Police Benevolent Foundation.

http://raceforthefallen.com/

So I was up pretty early for the 50 mile trip to Red Top Mountain State Park.  Luckily traffic at 5:30 AM Saturday in the Atlanta area is not too bad.  It is a huge park and it is way off the beaten path.  I actually enjoyed the peacefulness of the park after checking in, it was still dark and for the most part all I heard was crickets.  It was nice.

It was a small race, probably less than 200 people so all the logistics were pretty simple and easy.  We all gathered as the sun was rising over the trees and we were off!

This was a trail race.  We had all kinds of surfaces: started on the road for a mile or so and once in the woods, dirt, roots, gravel, and hills.  There were plenty of hills to make this a challenging course.  For the most part, woods are woods.  And within a certain geographic  area in the country, they all look pretty much the same when you are in them.  

As the race progressed, I could tell more and more that I was still not 100% since getting the cold.  It was just harder.  They had 5-6 aid stations with water gatorade, orange slices, and bananas.  A few of them were out of gatorade by the time I go to them but that is pretty typical for smaller races especially for back of the pack folks.

I did a little research about the the name of this park "Red Top Mountain", the "red" comes from the iron ore content.  At one point during the race, we were going around a lake and I noticed the "red" across the lake - I guess that is what they meant?

Also, I did come across a very unique tree.  I have never seen this on a tree before so I thought it was worth a picture.

The only odd thing that happened during this race was the mile markers they had out on the course.  I recalled at mile 1 and mile 2, my Garmin was spot on.  I don't think I checked every mile after that but at mile marker 6, my Garmin had 6.75 miles.  Hmmm...  And then at mile marker 7, Garmin had 7.8 miles.  This actually plays mind games on you when this happens on the course.  Which is right?  Is my Garmin broken?  Then, somebody had a whoops when laying the course and mile marker 10 was before mile marker 9 (they swapped them).  By that point I had no clue what was what.  However, in the end, when I crossed the finish line, my Garmin read right around 13 miles :)  I guess the lesson here is to not trust mile markers!

Race 22 - Rope Mill Trail Run

I read the race description on the Mountain Goat Adventures website:

"This won't be your run-of-the-mill trail run...expect a course with a bit of everything including buff singletrack, ATV trails, knee deep river crossings, embankment climbs, coasteering, and some craggy scrambling."

Hmmm...  I've never done a race with a river crossing, but what the heck, it's warm outside, and I have no idea what coasteering or craggy scrambling are, but again, what the heck.  So I signed up.


This was my 3rd Mountain Goat Adventures race and Lisa (Race Director) always has something important to tell us about the race just prior, so all gathered round and listened:

Once again they had a 10 mile and a 4 mile version of the race; I signed up for the 10 mile.  So at about 8:00 AM, we were off.  The first couple of miles were uneventful.  However, we all knew that just after mile 3, we'd be in the river.  I caught glimpses of folks in the water as I made my way along the river and just as promised, at mile 3.1, there it was:

Okay, I really did know better, but I wanted to get pics of the river crossing...

Yep, it just wasn't my shoes and socks that were wet after I fell into the river!  Oh well, I'll try to dry the camera out later : )


Okay, the river crossing was checked off the list and now we were looking to do some coasteering or craggy scrambling.  So we carry on on the course and all of a sudden - BEES!!!  People were getting stung left and right, I got stung twice, immediately started running as fast as I could to get away from the bees.   So we were about a hundred yards up from the bees when the trail takes us down an embankment to riverbed, with about 6 inches of water in it.  Well this was not a crossing, the trail was actually in the river bed.  So we are all queued up in the 6 inch deep water making our way through the river bed, when all of a sudden, -BEES!!!  Once again, GET.OUT.OF.THERE as fast as humanly possible.  Got three more stings this time.  


This was no longer fun.


But the crowd thinned out, the 4 milers were gone, hanging with some other back of the pack folks, and no more bees.


So Jeff, Amanda, and I are moving along at similar paces, talking, laughing a bit - okay this is becoming fun again.  We come around a bend and notice a girl walking very slowly and we ask her if she is okay.  She (Katie) was having an allergic reaction to the bee stings!  Jeff and I stayed with her and Amanda headed for the next aid station to get help.  Gave Katie some Gatorade, checking her breathing, observing her, this was getting serious.  She felt like she was going to pass out, so we sat with her waiting on help.  At that point, Jeff stayed with Katie and I took off for the aid station to measure the distance.  Got to the aid station, they were on the phone with 911.  Wasn't too long before Race First Aid, Fire Rescue, and Police were all there, on bikes.  This was way too much of an adventure.


Back to the course.  The bee stings were hurting like hell, but I'll take that any day over an allergic reaction.  Once again, a few uneventful miles, but uneventful was so welcomed by this point.  When I got the end of the trail I cross paths with one of the Race First Aid guys and inquired about Katie.  He confirmed that she was getting the medical attention she needed.  That was good to hear.


I finished the course, but I have no idea what my time was.


I still have no idea what coasteering or craggy scrambling are.


And yes, the answer was "D", all of the above...     : )

Race 18 Battle of Allatoona Creek

This morning I did a 9 mile trail race named Battle of Allatoona Creek.  This race is part of a series of trail races put on by Mountain Goat Adventures.  It was a small race, maybe 100-150 people.

I enjoy doing trail races in general, but this one caught my attention more so because of its proximity to where the Battle of Allatoona Pass took place during the Civil War.  I really do not know if the actual battle took place where we did the race today, but it is definitely in the same area.


They had a 5 mile race and a 9 mile race.  Each race started with the shaking of a cowbell.  The 9 mile race took us in a different direction for about 3 miles through a huge meadow:

They had us zig-zagging a bit through this meadow, I suppose this is how they made it into a 9 mile race?  That did bring up a question in my mind - why 9 miles?  I do not recall ever seeing a 9 mile race, have you?  This of course popped in and out of my brain during the race with questions like, did they start out by saying this is going to be a 9 miles race or did they find a venue for the race and basically stretched a path to 9 miles?  Hmmm...  I don't know.  Either way the first third of the race was in the meadow.


After the meadow we hit the trail!  

the trail was marked very well, really no way to get lost

As a back of the pack type person in these events, especially the smaller ones, I don't  see many other people as I progress through the race.  But somewhere around mile 6 or 7, I saw another person about 30 yards ahead.  This person was doing a slow jog and I was walking.  A few minutes go by and I come around a bend and see this person jogging towards me.  This was odd because we were suppose to be going in one direction on the trail.  She sees me and said that she thinks she lost her sunglasses when she fell a little ways back.  Since I am not really doing these races for time (or to win : ) so I said I'd help her look for them.  She then invoked St. Anthony saying "Something's lost and can't be found, please St. Anthony, look around".  I think we spent 4-5 minutes going back over the trail, we never saw any sun glasses and she basically said the heck with it.  She goes back to jogging and I'm walking along.  About a minute after that I hear her shout out a laugh and her two arms go up in the air - so I figure she found them.  She turned around  and said "I didn't wear my sun glasses today - it was just a senior moment".  We both smiled and she went on.


Around mile 8 I saw a sign that I really did not expect to see in the woods, on the trail:

It was just odd after being in the woods for awhile with no signs of civilization, to come across this...


For post race food, they had my favorite - PBJ sandwiches!  They also had bananas, Gatorade, water, cookies,...  Besides getting a technical t-shirt in our swag bag and such, we also got a few things that were very appropriate for trail activities - technu Extreme poison ivy scrubs and first aid antiseptic pain-relieving gel!


My watch time for the 9 mile trail race was 2:00:10.  It was a good race. 

Race 17 Northeast GA Spring Half Marathon

About two months ago I came across this half marathon.  I could tell it was a small one, maybe 100 people or so.  However, I could not find any information on time limits.  I'm a back of the pack kinda guy and wanted to find out this.  So I emailed the race director and he responded back with:

From
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:38 PM
Subject: RE: Question on Northeast Georgia Spring Run Half Marathon

7 days  - seriously, no limit , we wait 

> Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:29:30 -0800
> Subject: Question on Northeast Georgia Spring Run Half Marathon
> To: nega-run@hotmail.com
>
> Hello,
>
> Do you have a time limit for race completion for the half marathon?
>
> Thanks,

Ha!  This has to be one of the greatest responses to that question - ever!  So with that response, I added this half marathon to my calendar.

Another great thing about this race, my daughter also joined me in doing this half.  The race was in Blairsville, Georgia, which is about 90 miles north of us up in the North Georgia mountains.  As there is no direct (interstate) route to get there, we had a nice ride though the winding mountain roads to get there.

We got up there with plenty of time to spare.  Again, this was a low key half marathon (they also had a 5K and a 1 mile walk) with maybe a 100 people and what I really thought was great - proceeds from the event benefited the American Red Cross and Union County groups including Special Olympics, Family Connection, Meals on Wheels, Shop with a Cop, Christmas Give-a-Gift, and Community Easter Egg Hunt.  What a huge contrast to the Georgia Half Marathon we did last month with 10,000+ people doing that race.  We got checked in a hung out for awhile just waiting for the race to start:

At 9:00 we were off.  With so few doing this race, I knew I would be on my own for the most part.  The first couple miles we were on a nice country road.

What impressed me the most, about 50% of the people who passed on this road (in cars & trucks), waved!  The people of Blairsville were just really nice people.  A bit further on down the road I saw this in a front yard - it just seemed like a good picture to take.  : )

For awhile I was thinking that the odds of me getting lost were pretty high.  There were times that I saw no one in front of me and no one behind.  However,  they did a great job in signage and markings on the roads to make sure none of us got lost:

There were a lot of hills.  My favorite section was when we spent a few miles in an area with plenty of trees:

However the last four miles or so, were on a main highway, 65 MPH type.  It was good that they had a lane coned off for us:

Once again, it was great having my daughter there with me.

It was a great day!

Garmin Stats:


Time: 2:39
Average Heart Rate: 146, 89% of max
Calories Spent: 1280
Distance: 13.1 miles
Steps: 49,804




Postscript:

I would like to share a little bit about the significance of my finish time today of 2:39.  I lost my Dad to pancreatic cancer in 2007 and miss him so much.  One of the really neat memories we have of him is his story about 239.  My guess would be that every restaurant in between New Jersey and Florida where he had eaten has heard the story about 239...  He would typically bring this up when ordering beans (like baked beans in a BBQ place).  He would say you can only eat 239 of those beans and just wait for some to ask why...  his answer, the next one is too farty!  So now, in our family, we just remember and think of Dad when anything with 239 comes up.  And today it came up.  It was emotional and my eyes were filled with tears as I crossed the finish line.  I was glad my daughter was there.

Race 16 Georgia Half Marathon

Months ago my daughter said she wanted to run her first half marathon and picked this race as her first half.  That was all the motivation I needed to sign up for it.  :)  We were up early - coffee, bagel, banana and we were ready to go.  We decided to take Marta (the subway system in the Atlanta Metro area) down to the race instead of driving downtown.

The weather was unseasonably warm so dressing for this race was more like summer time,  Heck, just 2-3 weeks prior, she visited and we went out for a longer distance with tights, gloves, hats,...  So this was quite different.  Of course the only other people we saw on the Marta train were all doing the race.  This was good as far as not getting lost!  The train pulled into the Peachtree Center station and we walked downtown a bit and made to the race with plenty of time to spare and virtually no waiting for the porta-potties.

This was a pretty big race with 10,000+ people doing either the half or the full.  It was still dark but the crowds were getting bigger and bigger.

As race time got closer Jen had to get to her corral and me to mine.  I was so glad she suggested doing this; it was great watching her go through the process of preparing for this race.  As a dad, it just felt good!

I made my way to my corral - it was just a sea of people ahead of me.  At one point I saw a sign to the left that said "1/4 mile to Finish Line"

And we were off!  It took me just over 11 minutes to get to the starting line.  Yes, this absolutely qualifies as a back of the pack guy :)  I've done enough of these mega-races to know what to expect for the first few miles and this race was no different: jockeying for position, side stepping, watching for potholes,...

They had incredible race support the entire race.  There was actually some competition that we (racers) are suppose to vote on which crew provided the best support.  They were all good, lively, encouraging, and some where quite funny with their signs.  Actually after catching these signs out of the corner of my eye, I doubled back just to take their picture:

The sun was starting to come up as we rounded the corner by Ebeneezer Baptist Church and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site:

They had great support for this race - plenty of water/gatorade stops, great traffic control, they just did an excellent job on this race!

As we made out through Little Five Points I noticed this sign that read "We're all here 'cause we're not all there!"

Next we made our way to the Jimmy Carter Library and the Carter Center:

Even as we made our way past Piedmont Park around mile 9 or 10, it was still crowded!

Towards the end of the course we went through the Georgia Tech Campus passing the Yellow Jackets football stadium:

It was a great race; it was a hot day for a race too!  As we passed through the finish line, they gave us water, chocolate milk, medal, cold/wet cloth, and a pre-package end of race food bag from Publix.

I found Jen at our designated meet up place after the race.  She looked in pain and had ice wrapped around her knee.  The knee pain started at around mile 6 and she is not sure from what.  Maybe shoes?  Maybe a twist?  Not sure.  She is going to follow up this week with it to see what's up.  She was very happy to have finished her first half marathon but was disappointed with her time as this slowed her down.  I told her a finish is a finish - and that is what matters.

Garmin Stats:


Time: 2:43:43
Average Heart Rate: 139, 85% of max
Calories Spent: 1277
Distance: 13.1 miles
Steps: 50,512

Race 15 Thrill in the Hills Half Marathon

After a lot of back and forth on should I do the full marathon (26.2 miles) or do the half marathon (13.1 miles), I finally decided to do the half at Fort Yargo State Park today.  The race is known as "Thrill in the Hills" and it is put on by a company called Dirty Spokes.  Side note - if you ever happen to have the opportunity to participate in a race put on by these guys - do it!  They are great at doing these races.  


Anyway, I had originally signed up for the full.  But about a month ago, I noticed that they were doing a split start.  The full marathon was to start at 8:00 AM and the half at 8:30.  So as I am a back of the pack person (meaning slow), that meant if I did the full, I would be passed on the trail by many of the half marathoners.  I calculated that I would be passed by more than 300 runners during miles 4 through 7.  And this would have been mostly on a single path in the woods!  


The morning of the race I was up early, 4:30ish, eating my race morning PBJ sandwich and coffee.  Checked the weather one more time, figured out what to wear, dressed and headed out the door.  Fort Yargo is only about a 30 minute drive.  Arrived there as the sun was rising.

Enjoyed the serenity of the sunrise for a bit and then headed over to picnic shelter #5 for race packet pickup.

What a great day for a race in the woods!  It was a bit chilly at 38 degrees, but once you get moving on the course, it's pretty nice!    Folks started gathering for the start and shortly after that we were on our way.

After a half mile or so on the road (for thinning out) we hit the trail in the woods.  My guess, there were about 400 doing the half marathon.  By the time I got to the woods we were single file queued but it didn't take too long to get going on the trail.

Given a choice of road race or trail race - for me, trail race!  It's just so great being out in the woods.


By about mile 2, spacing was pretty good.  From that point on, it was never crowded.  And actually at times I could not see anyone in front or behind me.


Once again, 13.1 miles in the woods - there is potential to get off course (lost).  The race director had a link on their website for turn-by-turn directions for the entire course so I printed it out and put a copy in with my race day gear.  You know, this only helps if you actually bring the directions on the course - which I did not!  :)  This was not a big deal though, they had enough yellow squares marked on trees on the trail.  So there were only a few short periods of time when I thought I might be off trail - but I never was.

A few people passed me early on in the race and a few was no big deal.  But as I went on through miles 4, 5, 6, and 7, I was pleased with my decision to switch to the half.  It would have been crazy having 300 or so people pass me during that time.  :)


On the course they had great volunteers at miles 3.4, 6.2, and 10 with plenty of water/gatorade.   Although they did have actual porta-potties at the race check in, while on the course they had thousands of virtual porta-potties, aka trees :) you just have to remember to bring your own TP!

This is the 2nd year in a row for me doing this half marathon.  Last year I finished in 3:07, this year I finished in 2:54.  I guess I am in better shape this year?  Hopefully I can do it again next year and see what happens.

Post race they had pizza, bananas, gatorade, and water.  The pizza was great!

Garmin Stats:


Time: 2:54
Average Heart Rate: 139, 85% of max
Calories Spent: 1244
Distance: 13.1 miles
Steps: 51,100

About Fort Yargo:

After the race, on the way out I stopped and took these pictures.

Preserved from 1793

Also, as a tie in to retirement, met some folks there who are from New York (retired) and stay at Fort Yargo (and work there for free rent) each winter.  This is another line of thought that will be fun thinking about during long walks.  

The possibilities...

Race #11 - Tashka 25K

Tashka 25K - Trail Race– December 10, 2011

Distance Event:  #11 
State: #3 - Alabama

The full name of this race is: The Nicholas Wilson Memorial Tashka Trail 50K & 25K.  It is a trail around Lake Lurleen (near Tuscaloosa, Alabama), one lap around the lake for the 25K and two for the 50K.   The event was limited to 300 people and my guess, about 125 participated.  I did attempt to find who Nicholas Wilson was and why this race is named in his honor but was not successful.  I signed up to do the 25K.

Pre race:

As this race was a 4-5 hour drive it was not realistic to wake really early and drive so I took a few hours off of work and headed towards Tuscaloosa on Friday.  Once in town and checked into the motel headed over to the Athletes Foot store for race packet pick up.  Talked with the folks there for a bit, got directions to Lake Lurleen State Park for in the morning and headed back to the motel.  On the way back spotted an Olive Garden restaurant - plate of pasta and a beer at the bar – back to the motel, get things ready for the morning and get some sleep.

Woke up at a ridiculous time 2:30 AM!!!  Actually to my body clock it was 3:30 as this was in the Central Time Zone.  Still…  Eventually began my standard race day stuff – coffee, bagel, checking the hour by hour weather report to figure out to wear, listening to my race morning music on the iPad, and getting dressed.

Wow – it was really a good thing I got directions to Lake Lurleen the day before, this place is way out in the woods!  I was very happy to see other cars – they had to be going to the same place at that hour, in the dark, in the woods.  I like to be early and I was.  It was about an hour before race time so I had plenty of time to use the porta-potty, walk around a bit, and try to stay warm.  It was about 31 degrees with a 5-10 mph wind.

The Race:

We started the race with a young boy jingling a strand of jingle bells.  Runners were high fiving him as they passed.  He was smiling and grinning from ear to ear as I passed him.  The 25K and 50K folks all started out together; the first quarter mile or so is on the road leading to the trailhead.  Much jockeying for position takes place during this part because once you get on the trailhead there are two incredibly steep single track inclines.  So there is a time advantage to not be towards the back as virtually everyone single file walks up both inclines.  I am a back of the pack type of guy because I walk/jog and I do not want to hold up anyone who is running so I did have to wait for a bunch of folks ahead of me to make their way up the inclines.   Once at the top of the two inclines most were already out of site and it was just me and a few other back of the pack folks.

With so few doing this race (~125) the back of the pack was pretty scarce; there were just a few of us so for most of this race I rarely saw anyone else.  They had four (I think) check in points/aid stations.  It was always nice to see the volunteers at each station.  They were great volunteers, smiling, greeting, encouraging, nice people! 

The trail was covered with leaves.  This is normal.  However, this makes it nearly impossible to see or know what is under the leaves (rocks, roots,…).  I only fell once – tripped over something, fell face first but luckily put my hands out quick enough to stop my body from crashing into the ground.  I lost count of how many times I almost tripped (20-30 probably).  Trail races are more difficult than road races because of things like this.  Trail running requires one to look down more than ahead.  Both are necessary but the placement of each foot must be calculated while running in the woods.  On the road, not so much, you need to be aware of pot holes and such but not every step.  It is more of a challenge doing a trail race.

I did not plan on this, but I started this race last.  There was no one behind me when the race began.  When doing these races, I am not racing against anyone else, I am not out there attempting to be faster than anyone else, I am simply out there for health, fitness, enjoyment, and finishing the race under the official time limit.  For me the competition is me – well at least the thoughts in my head saying things like ‘you cannot do this’, or ‘cannot take one more step it hurts too much’.  Therefore it does not bother me when someone else passes me and likewise I do not feel any sense of accomplishment when I pass someone.  With that said, starting dead last was a pretty neat thing.  No one passed me during this race.  I have never been able to make that statement before J On the other side of that, I did get the opportunity to pass a number of people during this race and I rarely get a chance to make that statement also.    

Being out in the woods and doing a race like this for three or more hours will take your mind in many places. The thoughts I have are typically all over the place and they can and do contradict each other at times.  For instance, during this race my thoughts went from never doing another trail race as long as I live to signing up to do the 50K instead of the 25K next year. 

The only negative part of the race, and this has nothing to do with the race or the people who organized the race, was the amount of trash left on the trail by the runners (way beyond, I mean way beyond the aid stations).  I do not understand the mentality of throwing trash on the ground in the woods (or anywhere).  

I only felt cold once (after be warmed up after the first mile) while out on the trail.  It was where we came out of the woods and followed the trail along side of the lake.  The wind that was coming off the lake made it feel colder that it actually was.  But you felt it immediately.  With only two miles to go it was very tolerable – the end was near and that is always a huge motivator. 

I crossed the finish line at the 3:29 mark.  I forget how many seconds it had.  So basically it took me 3.5 hours to do 15.5 miles.  My first 25K!  I loved what we got at the end of the race instead of a medal – a pint glass with the topographical image of Lake Lurleen with the race name over it and a pair of running socks!   I will use them both and I am sure the beer WILL taste much better in that pint glass!  The after race spread was the best I have ever had: pizza (warm and plenty of it), Panera Bread  bagels & bread, hamburgers (made on the grill right there), soda, water, coffee, cookies, pretzels, bananas, candy, and their world famous potato logs (they had these at the aid stations also).  I’m sure they had others things but that is all I can remember. 

This was a fun event, nice trail, nice people, nice day,… just everything was good.  Garmin stats: 3 hours, 29 minutes, average heart rate 139, 85% of max, and 1352 calories spent - it was a good workout.