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In any case, what is this 400 buisiness? So, I've done 6 hour races but this is a 400 minute race or 6 hour 40 minute race. Weird but whatever. The loop is a 2 mile trail. The first 1/2 mile to a mile is the most technical with elevation. Lots of single track. The rest is easier. Gonna be tight with 212 runners. Oh well...
That was a loop description but I didn't really explain those extra 40 minutes. Stay tuned...
I woke up early Sunday morning and drove down to Connecticut. It was raining pretty bad and driving sucked. I was stilling doing 60 and 65 but it took me 2 hours and at times visibility sucked. Connecticut - Why not light up some of your highways?!? Oy.
Got in an checked in and set up my stuff. Met a Marathon Maniac named Steve and talked to him a little. Also met a woman named Ricky and talked to her a little. She was injured but going stir crazy with the no running doctors orders thing so decided to come in and do 1 loop. Turns out she was called to sing the National Anthem and man she was good. This woman next to me kept singing too which annoyed me as she wasn't that good but it turns out that they were friends so whatever.
By the way, we were set up at a pavillion but there were heated indoor plumbing and I definitely availed myself of that. Unfortunatly you had to walk over there in the rain and mud which sucked but whatever.
Anyway, finally spotted Albert who got there late. Oh boy. Anyway, time to line up. Set up my bottle near the aid station and filled it up with Skratch. Which bottle did I take with me you ask? I took Myles' Bar Mitzvah bottle which had Bat Man logo on it. Figured it was so different that I would spot it quite easily. That worked well.
We started. It seemed that with the really bad weather mostly everyone still showed up. WOW!
On facebook, the RD posted a picture of the forecast and mentioned rain and some comments were "Wouldn't be a fling without the rain" and "If it didn't rain, would we have to cancel?". Wonderful... That being said, I was very surprised about their turnout.
My plan: My plan was to get somewhere between 30 and 34 (perhaps 36) miles in. Unlike the BUS races, partial loops do NOT count so it's all or nothing. As the RD said, if you ever thought about doing a Marathon or an Ultra Marathon, you can do both at the same time. The magic number was 14 loops or 28 official miles. If you had done 13 loops then you would have had 26 offical miles which is NOT a Marathon. Oy.
First loop was fine. The course was hard and I didn't know anyone except Albert and Illana. I eventually passed Illana. When I finally passed Albert, he of course responded with, "what took you so long?". Wonderful...
The course was tough but I was enjoying myself. It was raining hard the whole time but finally stopped. Sun came out a tiny bit. I did NOT take my wind breaker off. Then the sun went away and it got very cold again and started raining really hard again.
At one point, I decided that 28 miles would be enough. It took 2 hours to get in and coming back into NYC on a Sunday is horrible so leaving early would be nice.
As I was in the middle of loop 7, I noticed the time and cringed. I was having "too much" fun and wasn't paying attention to the clock. The plan of 14 loops may not happen. I started running hard. Real hard. The mud section, I still walked. I was coming up on a woman who had plans on walking this. Why she chose to wear a white jacket is beyond me. She fell before I got to her. Sucked for her...
By the way, I met this dude named Wayne who was gonna walk with an air cast. I joked with him that it was carbon and therefore he had an unfair advantage. Man oh man, I was not jealous of him. Still, bad ass...
Mostly I heard "on your left" or "on your right" or I simply heard another runner come up in which case, I yelled out "let me know when you want to pass". Again 99.9% of the time things were cool. I either moved out of the way where/when I could or they simply said that they were not ready yet to pass. Two seperate runners at two different times tho, tried to ninja their way through. They came up on me very stealthily, I did not hear them at all, and tried to pass. Here's the problem with that. If I don't know that you are there then I cannot be a good guy about it. Same thing happens at road races. Ninja may receive a snot rocket or other some such. In single track trails, it's much more dangerous. The course was technical and I had to choose the most optimal and the safest route for me. For me!!! You get that? Being a ninja and sneaking up on me, means that I do not know that you are there. Twice, ninjas snuck on me and we both almost fell down. Those two runners were just plain stupid. I DON'T CARE how fast you are. You just endangered me. I was not happy with those two morons.
That being again, I will say it again, 99.9 % of runners were pretty cool. I also passed people and gave them ample warning so as not to compromise safety.
I made a new friend. I think her name is Kristen Curley and we ran together a little. She was awesome. Apparently one time, she fell of her bike while riding, three weeks before The Richmond Marathon. What did she do? She ran the Marathon and got a 14 minutes PR. But then she had some pain. Doctor said that when she fell, she fractured something. The Marathon "really" broke it. Bad Ass...
She did fall during this race and decided that 6 loops would be enough. Sad... We started talking because she was wearing an Ironman hat. She's done some Halfs.
After she left, I ran into a trio. It was an 11 year old girl, her dad and a 70+ year old who I am not sure what his relationship to them was. Wow... The girl did 3 loops. She was funny. At one point, as I was leapfrogging with them, she complained that her feet were too dry. I easily pointed out more and more puddles for her and then I started talking to the group. Very happy trio.
So, my plan of 30-36 miles was out. My plan of 28 miles was in jeopardy. I was settling in for 26 miles which is not officially a marathon even tho the mileage was greater. Not happy about it but settling to it.
I met another woman and I can no longer remember her name. She was also settling to the fact that 24 miles was going to be it. We ran at least 1, perhaps 2 loops together and on the last one together she left me. That's ok. She was cool tho. I may have my 2 woman friends mixed up now but she worked as a teacher for 20 years in a prison and now was a special-ed teacher. Nice.
On my last loop, I stayed with Ilana for a little while. She had done the Knickerbocker 60K the week before and was tired. She was also VERY scared of falling and was going super slow on the dangerous parts. Stayed with her for a while but then eventually left her and continuued on with John Zvonek. He did not remember me but we met at some race earlier on. He can not run anymore, I forget why, but was moving with trekking poles. We finished our last loop (12 for me and 11 for him) and stopped.
I got my medal and fleece throw and had to make some decisions. I knew I needed to change clothes but didn't want to walk through the mud to the restroom, change there (I'm sure the floor would be muddy) and then walk back with clean clothes in the mud. The Pavillion was fine except it got real cold the last few loops. I saw a guy changing and he looked at me and told me that it's gonna suck and I should just suck it up because I will feel a lot better afterwards.
I took my gloves off. They were soaked. I took the second pair of gloves off and they were soaked. The chemical hand warmers I had against my skin were also soaked and stopped working. I changed clothes as fast as I could but my hands froze and it was not easy. I was in trouble...
Luckily for me, Albert brought cup of soups and I got a fake beef flavor one. The soup sucked but it was exactly what I needed and I loved it. Didn't help my hands but at least my core temperaure came back up and I felt better. I packed up.
There were 2 astonishing things that happened that should be mentioned. The first was that besides 182 people actually doing the race, it seemed that most actually stayed all the way until the end instead of leaving as they finished. The second was the winner. He got 40 miles in the spring fling which I heard was bad (frozen mud that turned into liquid mud) AND got 40 miles during this race too. WOW!!!
The drive home was uneventful except for one small thing. On the way to the race, I counted 4 rest stops. Cool. I figured I would need them. On the way home, Waze took me all over the damn place and I did not see even one. I did stop at a gas station to get gas and a sprite (I was getting sleepy) which was smart. Still it only took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to get home compared to the 2 hours to get there.
My back was messed up for a few days due to the slant section of the course and more importantly because there were a lot of sections that I ended up hydroplaning and running all bent. It's all fun ;)
