Race Report: Minnesota Brothers Trail Series, Day 4

Today was the fourth and final race in the Minnesota Brothers Trail Series.  Today, we were in Quarry Park and Nature Preserve, which is in Waite Park, MN.  This venue was closer to my hotel than any of the others.

This park contains several old rock quarries that are no longer in use.  Some of them have filled in with water and are now used as swimming holes.  I got the impression that most people come here to swim.  There wasn’t anybody swimming this morning, but this is what it looked like yesterday afternoon.

The course was relatively easy, but not as easy as yesterday’s course.  The trail surface was a mixture of crushed rock, clay and grass.  It was mostly flat, but there were a few undulations.

Besides going past one of the swimming holes, we also ran past this derrick, and some piles of rocks.

Today, we had our best weather of the series.  Temperatures stayed in the upper 60s for the first few hours of the race and only got into the mid-70s by the time I finished.

Today, we had to run 16 laps to complete a marathon.  I had some stiffness in my legs, so I needed one lap just to work into my pace.  I realized after one lap that I was already on a slower pace than yesterday, and I wasn’t likely so speed up.  It would have been tempting to try to run faster each day, but that’s a tall order.  When I realized that wasn’t a realistic goal, I decided to stay within my comfort zone.

For the first lap, the lighting was still dim.  I was wearing tinted lenses, so I had trouble seeing the trail clearly.  I had to strain to see the trail, but I could see that one section had a few roots.  Fortunately, they were big enough to be easy to see, and they were few enough that they were easy to avoid.  I managed to get through this race without tripping and falling.

For the second straight day, Tabatha was the runner going closest to my pace, so we ran together for the majority of the race.

I ate more solid food today.  Today’s hot entrees were brats and hot dogs. They were in buns, but cut into sections that weren’t too big to eat between laps.  I had two brat sections between laps and another one after finishing.  I also ate watermelon, chocolate cream pie, Swedish fish, and lefse roll-ups.  The lefse roll-ups were one of their Minnesota-themed snacks.  On other days, they had chicken wild rice soup and a tater tot hot dish.  (“Hot dish” is Minnesotan for casserole.)

I reached the halfway mark in about 2:29.  I was on pace to break five hours, as long as I didn’t slow down too much.  That was my only goal.

With about five laps left in the race, it started raining lightly.  The forecast included a chance of a passing thunderstorm, but this was just light rain.  It sprinkled on and off for the rest of the race, but it was never enough to get the trail muddy.

Kevin, who does most of the Mainly Marathons series, arranges plastic animals in different places along the route.  It was amusing to see how he kept rearranging some of the animals in the finish area.  After one lap, I saw a duck had toppled the T-Rex.  Later, I saw the T-Rex was back on its feet and had the duck in its mouth.  After another lap, a second duck helped topple the T-Rex again.  Then a bull joined into the attack.

With three laps to go, I could see I was still on pace to break five hours, but I stopped taking food breaks, just to make sure.  In my last lap, I picked up the pace as much as I could, to ensure I would run negative splits.  I finished in 4:54:09, running negative splits by four minutes.  For the third time in four days, I was the first person to finish the marathon.

After the race, I got two more pieces to add to my chain of medals.  One was for today’s race.  The other was for doing every race in the series.

Here’s what the whole chain looks like with the new pieces added.

There was a seven-day series that concluded the day before this one started.  Several runners did that series and then this one as well.  That’s eleven consecutive days of running a half marathon, marathon, or 50K.  They each received a special belt buckle.

Going into this series, I had only two goals.  I wanted to finish each race, and I wanted to avoid tripping on any rocks or roots.  I failed in the second goal, having two falls on the second day of the series.  Despite that, I’m happy with how I did in this series.  Trail running isn’t my strength, but my pacing was consistent, and I never needed to take walking breaks.  I didn’t feel like I was deteriorating from one day to the next.  I also finished the series with only a minimum of soreness in my legs.

Each day, I went to a different restaurant for post-race pizza.  Today, it was House of Pizza in Sartell.  Tonight, I'm going to a post-series banquet at The Pickled Loon. It would have been nice if everyone could attend the banquet, but some of the runners had to leave earlier to catch their flights home.

Everyone at the banquet got a free gift, and there were special awards for people who had notable achievements at Mainly Marathons races over the past year.  They also announced the schedule of races for next year.  The big news is that the Minnesota Brothers Trail Series will be expanded to six races, and the Heartland Series, Minnesota Brothers Trail Series, and Prairie Series will beheld consecutively.  That means there will be an opportunity to run marathons on 20 consecutive days.

Going into this series, there were six Minnesota Marathons I had not yet done.  After doing these four, I thought I only had two left.  Now there are going to be two more Minnesota races next year.  Running them all is truly proving to be a never-ending goal.

Race Statistics

Distance: 26.2 miles

Official Time:  4:54:09

Average Pace:  11:13

Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:  380

Minnesota Marathons/Ultras:  54