On July 27, I ran the Xenia Avenue Marathon in Brooklyn Park, MN. This is a relatively small race, sponsored by the Champlin Park High School Cross Country Running Booster Club. I’ve done this race every year since its inception in 2020. It’s close enough to home that I can sleep in my own bed.
Early packet pickup was
available Friday afternoon. I could’ve
waited until Saturday morning to pick up my race packet, but doing packet
pickup the day before made race morning less hectic. It also gave me the opportunity to have
dinner at Rocky Rococo, which is one of my favorite pizza places.
I had the good fortune to
arrive at packet pickup while three friends were there. We talked for about 30 minutes. Then I joined two other friends for dinner at
Rocky Rococo.
The race started Saturday
morning at 6:30 at Orchard Trail Park, which is across the street from Champlin
Park High School. The parking lot for
the park is small, but there was also parking available at the high school.
The course consisted of a
2.2 mile loop that we ran once, followed by a 4-8 mile loop that we ran five
times. Both loops started and finished
in Orchard Trail Park.
The shorter loop was the
only one that had us on city streets.
The longer loop was entirely on paved bike paths.
There were two aid
stations. One was at the
start/finish. The other was in a park
that we went through twice during each of the longer laps. That gave us 15 opportunities to drink during
the race.
The temperature at the
start was 72 degrees, and it warmed up quickly from there. I expected it to get into the 80s by the time
I finished, and the humidity was high as well.
It was too hot to run a fast time, so I planned to stay within my
comfort zone.
I don’t normally drink anything
right before a race. I’ll have a cup of
tea when I wake up, but I don’t usually drink anything else until after I start
running. Today, I made an
exception. I drank a 20 oz. bottle of Gatorade
before starting the race.
We started by running
around Orchard Trail Park. Then we left
the park to run south until we reached the Rush Creek Regional Trail. This is a fairly busy bike path, so we needed
to stay far enough to our right to make room for the occasional cyclist to
pass.
In our first lap, we were
only on the Rush Creek Regional Trail for a short distance before leaving that
trail to run a loop on some city streets.
It was on this loop that we ran down Xenia Avenue. After that, we got back on the bike path to
return to Orchard Trail Park.
At the start of the race,
I felt a light breeze. I felt
comfortable, but only for about a mile.
Then I started to feel the humidity.
My pace on that first lap
was 9:13 per mile. At that pace, it
would take me more than four hours to finish the race, yet I was already finding
the pace to be tiring.
In the past, I’ve worn a
fuel belt for this race, so I could pick up a bottle at an aid station and
bring it with me. I didn’t do that
today, so I was counting on drinking enough at each of the aid stations to keep
from getting dehydrated.
When I reached the aid
station in the start/finish area, a volunteer handed me a cup of Gatorade. I was pleased to see that it was completely
full. I had to slow to a walk for a few
seconds, so I could drink it all.
By now, I was already
sweating profusely. As I started my
first lap of the longer loop, I slowed down a bit. I wasn’t trying to stay on any particular
pace. I was paying attention to how I
felt. I wanted to find a pace that
wouldn’t tire me out and wouldn’t cause me to overheat.
The longer loop started
the same way as the shorter loop, but we didn’t leave the trail to run on city
streets. Instead, we continued west on
the Rush Creek Regional Trail. We ran
through a tunnel under Douglas Drive and continued through Oak Grove Park.
When we reached the west
end of the park, we did a short out-and-back segment. Then we came back into the park and turned to
run past the playground and picnic pavilions.
This is where we reached the secondary aid station. I drank a cup of Gatorade, but it was only
about half full.
Next, we ran a loop
around a meadow on the south side of the park.
That loop brought us back into the park, where we went by the same aid
station again. I drank another cup of
Gatorade. Again, it was only half
full. I wasn’t sure if I was drinking
enough, but I knew the cups at the aid station in the start/finish area would
be full.
From there, we ran east
along the Rush Creek Regional Trail until we got back to Orchard Trail Park.
By the end of that lap, my
pace had stabilized. I was averaging
just under 10 minutes per mile.
The Rush Creek Regional Trail
had lots of shade. Other parts of the
course were out in the open. In the
early laps, I enjoyed the open areas, because that’s were I could feel the
breeze. I needed that breeze to help
counteract the high humidity. As the
race progressed, the sun got higher in the sky.
I still enjoyed the breeze when I felt it, but I also started to feel
the sun. Now, I had a greater appreciation
for the shady sections.
Each time I came through
Oak Grove Park, I saw a group of spectators holding up signs and cheering for a
runner named Zach. They always seemed to
be cheering just as I ran by them. About
halfway through my second lap of the long loop, I slowed down to ask the runner
behind me if he was Zach. He was.
Zach told me that following
me was helping him to stay on a consistent pace. As we continued talking, I learned that this
was Zach’s first marathon. He was
training for a 50K trail race, but his longest run before today was only 18
miles.
Up until this point, I
didn’t have a goal for this race. Now I
had a mission. I was going to run the
rest of the race with Zach and make sure he finished the race. Going from 18 miles to 26.2 is a big step
up. Doing it in hot, humid conditions
would make it even tougher. I knew Zach
was in for some tough miles at the end of the race, and I didn’t want him to
have to suffer through those miles by himself.
At this point, we had
only run about 10 miles, and we were both feeling fairly comfortable with our
current pace.
One of the things I could
do to make the miles pass more easily was to carry on a conversation. I went into story-telling mode.
We finished that lap and
started the next one still feeling good.
We were almost half done with the race.
That I got a split from my watch, and I saw that we sped up to 9:33 in our
13th mile.
When I’m talking, I have
a tendency to speed up without realizing it.
I told Zach that we were starting to go too fast, and I slowed down to our
previous pace. At this point, Zach was feeling
good enough that he didn’t realize we sped up until I said something.
We were in our third of
five laps of the longer loop. The rest
of that loop went OK, but we were both noticing the sun more.
As we neared the end of
that lap, Zach told me he needed to make a bathroom stop when we got back to
the start/finish area. I walked until
Zach caught up to me.
After walking for a
couple minutes, I lost my sense of pace.
I told Zach he should run at whatever pace felt comfortable and I would
just keep up with him. We slowed down a
little at first, but not as much as I thought we would. Then we sped up for a mile. Then we slowed down again. On average, our pace for that lap wasn’t too
different than before.
Zach was starting to feel
hot. As we neared the end of our fourth
long loop, I suggested he pour some water over his head. That helped.
He had some tight muscles, so he also paused briefly to stretch. Then we started out last lap.
Earlier in the race, I
asked Zach if he had a goal for today.
He said his goals were finishing and not walking. I did my best to convince him that walking
was OK. The important thing was to keep
moving forward.
Zach was now ready to
take a walking break. We were in a sunny
area, so I suggested we keep running until we reached the shade and then walk. Zach liked that idea.
We walked through the
next shady section. When we reached a
sunny patch, we resumed running.
When we got back into Oak
Grove Park, Zach wasn’t feeling well. We
walked for a long time. I asked him a
few questions to determine if Zach was experiencing symptoms of heat stress. He wasn’t at all short of breath, but he was feeling
slightly nauseous. Then he said he might
need to take a break.
I wasn’t sure what to
say. On one hand, I thought walking was
better than stopping. If he kept making
forward progress, even slowly, he would eventually finish. On the other hand, I didn’t want to push him
too hard. Before I said anything, Zach decided
on his own that he should keep walking.
When I’m struggling in a
race, I employ a lot of psychological tricks to keep myself going. One of my favorites is to divide the course
into short segments and focus on one segment at a time.
We were in our last lap,
so we were running each segment for the last time. Knowing that helps. I pointed out when we were starting the
out-and-back for the last time. I also
pointed out when we were done with it for the last time. The next segment was getting to the aid station
in Oak Grove Park.
By now, Zach was feeling
a little bit better. He wasn’t as hot,
so he didn’t feel the need to pour any more water over his head.
Just past the aid
station, we saw Zach’s family, and they asked him how he was doing. He explained that the heat was getting to
him, and they all walked with us going around the meadow on the south side of
the park.
That loop was about a
mile. Talking with his family helped
Zach to get through it. By the time we
got back to Oak Grove Park, I could see a difference in our pace. We were still walking, but we were walking at
a faster pace now.
When we got back to the aid
station in the park for the last time, Zach was ready to run the rest of the
race. We had less than two miles to go.
We ran the rest of the
way, but it was rather slow. We finished
the race together in a time of 4:49:31.
This is the third time
this year that I had the opportunity to help someone finish their first
marathon. The last lap was slow, but the
important thing was to make sure Zach finished.
His family was there to meet him, and his father thanked me for being
Zach’s mentor.
No comments:
Post a Comment