Tomoka Marathon Race Report

What: 26.2 miles
Where: Ormond Beach, Florida
When: March 23, 2019
Finish Time: 4:46:25
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2234447525


Pre-Race: 

In my mind, I was sure I was never, ever, ever going to do a road marathon. I liked the trail. Nice, soft comfy trail and running on the road was not my style. Road running was too stuffy and times were too important, so I couldn't possibly want to do a road marathon. But then I read Marathon Whisperer Denise Sauriol's Book, "Me, You, and 26.2" and I warmed up to the idea. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Also, Tom was told that if he got a qualifying marathon time he would be invited to the Lincoln Marathon as part of the Florida National Guard Marathon Team. So we found Tomoka and it seemed like a great fit since it was scenic and only an hour and a half from home.

We had done Long Play 33 1/3 Trail Race just two weeks before and I had done the Santos Epic 50mi bike ride the week before, so I had a lot of confidence going into the race - no matter how hard it was, there was no way I wasn't going to finish. We arrived at the race and I naturally got a bit stressed about the parking. It was hugely crowded and we ended up parking quite a ways from the race start. We did make our way to the start area, did the standard portapotty waiting, kissed each other goodbye to find our pace groups.


Race:

Tom went up to the 3:30 group and I went back to the 4:45 group. My last experience with a pace group was at a beach half-marathon where the pacer went much faster than her pacing time, so I wasn't too bothered if I fell behind or didn't stick with them the whole time. After the race Tom told me the story of the 3:30 pacer - he was a minimalist runner in sandals and the "fwip fwip" sound got to Tom after the first mile or two, so he went on ahead of them because he could not imagine listening to that sound for hours on end, lol.

The pace group was really nice. I think there were about 20 of us together and the miles flew by with everyone happily chatting and running. About 3 miles in, I realized I had to pee. So I started keeping an eye out for unoccupied portapotties at every aid station. I finally realized I couldn't take it anymore around mile 8 and spent several minutes waiting at an aid station for one. I didn't catch back up to the pacing group and that was fine.

The aid stations were really great, every 1.5-2 miles, water and gatorade; a couple had orange slices and gels. I elected not to carry a handheld, so I just stopped at each one and drank a cup of both drinks and went along my way. I did bring headphones, but didn't start using music until I was about 20ish miles in. I didn't necessarily need it, so I listened with one ear bud so I could still chat to people around me in between bopping around to the music.

I felt great the entire race! My fastest mile was actually mile 23 because once I realized we only had 5k to go, I got a huge rush of energy and excitement. The course was absolutely gorgeous and very flat except for one part - the bridge. In the last mile of the race there is a bridge, and right before the bridge there was an officially aid station with beer! I had a beer from some lovely folk and then tackled the bridge.

Once I crossed the finish line, there was post-race beer and pizza! Also, Tom killed it and got 2nd place male in his age group. We lucked out by having great weather - cool with very low humidity. I read a couple other race reports where it was brutal heat and humidity, so I'm unsure if I would do the race again unless I was purposefully running it with someone else for funsies. I had a ton of fun during my race and if I had been focused on getting a good time I think this would have been the day to kick butt!

 

Santos Fat Tire Festival - 50mi Epic Ride

Where: Ocala, FL (Santos MTB Trails)
Date: March 9, 2019
Distance: 50 miles (but GPS had me right around 46)
Finish Time: Approx 6.5 hrs moving time, total time probably closer to 8hrs
Place: n/a
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2202638356

So…this was a drunk decision. After Tom and I ran the Long Play 33 1/3 Trail Run, we had BoneSaw & Jamie over to drink bees and play games. After talking about their upcoming Epic, I stupidly agreed to do it with them. I don’t even own a mountain bike and had never been mountain biking before. The longest I’d ever ridden on a road bike was 30 miles and that was damn near torture by the end. At that point, I had maybe ridden about 10 miles over the previous 6 months.

BUT – I had signed up, so I rented a mountain bike from the lovely folks at the Santos Bike Shop (I picked it up the day before since we would be starting before the shop opened) and met Bone and Jamie at the trail head bright and early on Saturday. The event wasn’t any type of a race, so people could start whenever they wanted. The only time constraint I had was that I had to have my rental back by 4:30pm.

The event would have three sag stops (which is what they call aid stations in biking?), two with aid station fare and the third in the middle would have a full lunch provided, so 5 stops in total for fueling. They were great! Very enthusiastic volunteers, lots of good food, and my favorite thing was the oreo topped with peanut butter and a banana slice I had at the first stop.

But before I could get there, I had to learn how a mountain bike worked and how to navigate the trails. I will say straight up that I was petrified and was worried I wasn’t going to make it. I also did not shift gears the entire ride because I had a death grip on the handlebars and my hands ended up being so, so sore from squeezing them so tight the entire time.

About 3 miles into the ride, I full on hit a tree. My body slammed into it with such for that for a moment I thought I was wrecked and would have to end my ride right there. After dusting myself off, I realized I was fine, my helmet saved me from damage, but I would have a huge bruise on my thigh (and as of the day of writing almost a year later, I still have a slight indentation from the bruise)

Besides that big scary moment, the rest was fine (minus 4 other times my handlebars clipped trees and I fell). It was a nice ride because my endurance was so high from running. There were challenging parts past the Landbridge section and I didn’t know how to handle myself on the various hills and dips, so there were some places where I had to walk the bike up over those areas rather than ride. I also made sure to avoid any of the “features” because I did not have the experience to take them on.

I stayed with Bone the entire time and both of us got a little frustrated by how many times we had to pull over for faster folk on the trail. Because people could start whenever they wanted, many people started mid-morning and were passing us due to them being faster.

Around mile 40ish I was ready to be done, and kept repeating to myself that I just had to keep going and I could have my beer that was in the cooler in the truck. We eventually finished and I checked out that absolute stunner of a bruise that had developed.

I definitely want to do it again next year and would have done the October 50 mile epic ride had it not been on the same day as Gate2Gate. I know I can shave off at least an hour or so off my time, so I look forward to doing that if the dates work out!

  

 

Long Play Trail Run 33 1/3 Race Report

Where: Ridge Manor, Florida
When: March 2, 2019
What: 33 1/3 mile trail race (half marathon and 10k also offered)
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2187012372/overview

Goals:
Finish (under time limit) – YES
Finish under 7 hours – NO
Have Fun – HELL YES


Training

After my 50k in October, I took a little break and had planned a different race for the spring, but life happened, so I decided to do this race rather than something a little more ambitious. I convinced my boyfriend to sign up too, so we got our training plans squared away and mostly followed them.


Pre-Race

A couple days before the race, the aid & hydration station locations were announced and it also included the drop bag locations; the drop bag locations were announced as being at mile 9 and mile 25 – to me that seemed a little too early and a little too late to make any type of a difference (spoiler – they were actually at mile 8 and 28 and I didn’t touch my drop bag the whole race). I diligently checked the weather reports 10x a day and as it got closer, realized that we were looking at highs in the mid-eighties and high humidity as well, yowzers.

We woke up bright and early at 3:45, drank some coffee, ate breakfast (toast and tempeh), and headed to the race. Bib pickup started at 5:45, but two ladies were taking advantage of the early start (to allow them an extra hour on the course) and left at 6am.

During the pre-race announcements, we learned that since trails are tricky and never measure up exactly how you want them to, we would be starting the race with a 2 mile out and back on the paved Withlacoochie Trail before returning to the trailhead and jumping onto the single track.


Miles 1-8

I made my way to the back of the 70ish people there and my boyfriend made his way closer to the front of the group. At 7am sharp the race started and we took off on the pavement. I really liked the way the race started with all the room there because it allowed people to naturally spread out over the miles and find their place before we got into the single track trails.

First couple miles I had nice little bits of convo with fellow runners, commiserated with a couple ladies during the section of awful, deep sand horse trail. Around mile 6, I passed Terri Hayes, one of the ladies that had the early start; she’s a beast - 75 years old and does tons of races every year, I first met her when I volunteered for the 11pm-7am aid station shift at a 100 miler back in January.

Around 7.5 miles, a guy came up to me asking where the aid station was and that he swore it was supposed to be at mile 6. I was feeling really great then and said, “I’m not sure, it’s a ~mystery~!” and he replied that, “At a race this long, there shouldn’t be any mysteries.” I thought I was very amusing but commented that probably due to the 2 miles of pavement at the start, it likely meant that the aid station was 6 miles into the trail, not the race. He sped up (to get away from me?) and the aid station was about a half a mile later. That station was run by a lovely couple who brings homemade goodies to races, they had brought them to that 100 miler and I knew I had to snag some cookies. I grabbed a couple cookies, a handful of chips, a pb&j quarter, refilled my tailwind bottle and headed out.


Miles 9-18

Nothing really remarkable for the first 2ish miles after the aid station until I heard a, “YEAAAAHHHH!” from far away. I had heard that sound once before and it was when volunteering for another race in the Croom tract last October. I had never met him, but I knew it was a guy who yelled every time a runner came to the aid station and that it was known to bring runners back to life just hearing it. For a mile I heard, “YEAAAAAAAAAHH!” or “GOOOOOO!” and I knew I’d be coming up to the aid station. Gave a huge thanks to guy when I got my yell, grabbed some chips and trotted away.

Mile 15 was absolutely gorgeous. By far one of the most gorgeous parts of the entire course; beautiful ferns and palms and trees and roots. I actually maybe teared up a little bit because I was so thankful to be feeling so good and have a chance to be out in these awesome woods!

By the way, I am a ridiculous sweater. I sweat a lot and I have tried all the things to keep me from chafing, but my body is constantly finding new and interesting ways to chafe. I use both 2Toms and SNB, but neither of them stand up to the test of long runs without reapplication and my body chooses new spots to chafe in nearly every time. I felt the telltale sign that one of my normal chafe spots was about to start going off, but luckily I was close to the mile 18 aid station and got some lube on it. They had trail toes and I didn’t have issues the rest of the race, so I may experiment with using that for my worst chafe spots. I still chafed on my neck, lower back, underarms, upper shoulders, and sides, but it was all mild.

After applying the trail toes, I grabbed some chips, swigged some gingerale, refilled my tailwind and water, grabbed a rice krispie treat, and gave the run bum a little bit of shit about being a snowbird before I continued on my way.


Miles 19-25

The heat and the hills started to get to me so there was quite a bit of power hiking during this section. Also, I say hills, but I’m Floridian and it needs to be taken with a grain of salt since the total elevation gain for the whole race was around 1500’. I decided it was time to get some electronic distraction going, so I got my headphones and listened to a couple podcasts. As I got closer to mi 25, I heard the, “YEAAAAAAAAAH,” and started to get pumped. Went into that aid station where I was offered a fireball shot. At first I said no, but I really love peer pressure, so I ended up doing a shot with one other runner and the three people working the aid station. Grabbed a pb&j quarter, some chips and happily went on.


Miles 26-33 1/3

Kept on going, walk breaks where needed. Thought about the road marathon I’m doing in a couple weeks and how different it would be from this race. Got to mile 28 and the premium homemade goodies at the aid station, so I grabbed a cookie and a brownie and felt so, so grateful that these amazing people exist and give up their time to volunteer and make races like this happen. Switched from a podcast I couldn’t concentrate on to music after the aid station – should have switched to it sooner, tbh. Did some more walking because there was a bunch of awful sugar sand and I was tired, but shortly after the sugar sand I was revived by the views since the end of the race is where the most gorgeous part of the trail is as it winds along the Withlacoochie River.

Got to the last hydration station at mile 31 (there were 4 or 5 of these along the course, no food, just water and tailwind jugs on a table) and turned my phone out of airplane mode to text my dad and my boyfriend about how I was about 2 miles away. My dad texted back that my BF had said it was more like 3+ miles and I got BIG MAD. Luckily the anger and frustration passed quickly since ‘Til I Collapse by Eminem came on and that was exactly what I needed. And it was 2.5ish until the finish, not 3+.

Kept pushing through and finally saw the trailhead! Ran in and finished at 7:07:21; I got 31st overall and 11th lady. Didn’t quite meet my goal of under 7, but I was okay with that because it was a blast. Got my awesome wooden record finisher’s award and a Neil Diamond LP (they gave records to all finishers, my BF got a record of 50s love songs, lol). I parked my butt in a chair, drank a tasty beer, and discussed the race with my dad and BF. My BF ended up finishing 8th overall, 6th dude, at 5:37:32.

Huge, HUGE thanks to A-1 Ultra Events. I’ve now done two of their races (this and Sweat, Swat, N’ Swear 25k last August) and volunteered at two (Long Haul 100 and the John Holmes Trail Run, which they co-direct) and they’ve been absolutely wonderful. Definitely going to do more of their races!