On July 23, I ran the Xenia Avenue Marathon in Brooklyn Park, MN. This was the third straight year that I did this race. It only takes 35 minutes to drive to Brooklyn Park, so this race is too convenient to pass up.
This was my third
marathon in six days. I didn’t plan it
that way. When I signed up for the race,
I didn’t know I would also be doing days 3 and 4 of the Summer Camp Series.
Packet pick-up was Friday
afternoon at Orchard Trail Park, which is also where the race starts. Race morning packet pickup was also
available, but driving up to Brooklyn Park on Friday gave me an excuse to have
dinner at Rocky Rococo, which is one of my favorite pizza restaurants. This is a chain that’s all over Wisconsin,
but they only have one location in Minnesota, and I don’t get up to the
northern suburbs that often.
A couple days before the
race, we each received an email with pre-race instructions. Among other things, it advised us that there
was a chance of a morning thunderstorm.
The race would go on, rain or shine, but if storm sirens went off, the
race would be suspended.
The race started Saturday
morning at 6:30. Our course was one
short loop, followed by five laps of
longer loop. The short loop
included about one mile of residential streets.
The rest of the course was on paved bike paths.
Parking at Orchard Trail
Park is limited, but we could also park across the street at Champlin Park High
School. This race is a fundraiser for the
Champlin Park High School Cross Country Running Booster Club, and several of
the students were race volunteers. When
I arrived for the race, the students directed me to the parking lot.
After parking, I consulted
the weather app on my phone. The forecast
had improved. There was still a thunderstorm
in the forecast, but it looked like it wouldn’t arrive until
mid-afternoon. The time limit was eight
hours, so everyone would be done by 2:30 PM.
The temperature was in
the upper 60s. That was a few degrees
cooler than I expected. Humidity, however,
was high, and I also expected it to warm up significantly during the race. This was my third hot marathon this week, so
I paced myself accordingly.
Before the race, I saw at
least half a dozen runners who I knew. I
also saw dozens of runners I didn’t recognize.
The race has grown since the first year.
I lined up in the middle
of the pack. That seemed about
right. About half of the runners were
faster than me, but the runners right in front of me were going at a pace that
was comfortable for me.
The course started with a
loop around Orchard Trail Park. Then we
left the park on a bike path that took us to the Rush Creek Regional Trail. We followed this trail for only a short
distance before leaving it to enter a residential neighborhood. Then we ran on streets for about a mile. This was the only park of the course that
wasn’t on bike paths.
Until I got to the
streets, I stayed behind the runners in front of me. There wasn’t much room for passing on the
bike path, and we were still packed together. On the streets, I had plenty of run to run at
my own pace, but I continued to go at a relaxed pace.
About halfway through
this section, we turned onto Xenia Avenue.
The race is named after this street, even though we were only on it for
two blocks. This was an excuse to give
the race a name that started with “X.”
After completing a loop
on city streets, we returned to the bike path and retraced our route back to
Orchard Trail Park.
When I finished the short
loop, I was surprised to see volunteers holding cups of water and
Gatorade. In previous years, this was a
cupless race. There were bottles of
water and Gatorade at the aid stations.
You could pick up a bottle at the aid station, but you needed to carry
the bottle with you until you finished it.
I wore a fuel belt, so I
could carry a bottle with me between aid stations. As I went through the aid station, I picked
up a 16 oz. bottle of water from the table.
I took a walking break while I drank about half the bottle. Then I put the bottle in my holster to save
the rest for later.
After the short loop, I
needed to do the longer loop five times.
The long loop started the same way as the shorter loop, but we kept
going west on the Rush Creek Regional Trail.
There was a tunnel where
we needed to cross Douglas Drive. This
was the only street we crossed, so we never had to contend with automobile
traffic.
After the tunnel, the
trail continued through Oak Grove Park.
On the west side of the park, we did a short out-and-back.
When we returned to Oak
Grove Park, we left the Rush Creek Regional Trail and turned to run past the
playground and picnic area. This is
where a second aid station was set up.
As I neared the aid
station, I took a walking break, so I could finish my bottle of water and
discard it at the aid station. I always
drank either before or after an aid station.
I walked while drinking, and then I continued walking until I had walked
for at least a minute. That was my
run/walk strategy.
There were port-o-potties
in the start/finish area, but Oak Grove Park had permanent bathrooms. I was drinking so much that I had to make two
bathroom stops during the race. Both
times, I used the permanent bathroom.
After going through the
park, we did a loop around a meadow just south of the park. Then we went back through the park, which
brought us past the same aid station again.
The aid station in the
start area only had bottles of water, but this one also had bottles of
Gatorade. As I came back to the aid
station, I picked up a bottle of Gatorade.
It was a 20 oz. bottle, so I only drank a third of it before putting it
in my holster.
After that, I had a
consistent pattern of picking up a new Gatorade bottle every third time that I
reached an aid station. That worked out
to a bottle per lap. I was drinking more
in this race than I did in my previous race.
After each of those races, I felt dehydrated. Today, I was determined to drink enough.
We finished the long loop
by returning along the Rush Creek Regional Trail until we got back to Orchard Trail
Park.
Some sections of the
trail were serpentine. Usually, I try to
run the tangents, but there was a lot of bike traffic on the Rush Creek
Regional Trail. I’ve learned from
experience on this course, that it’s safest to keep right at all times. Sometimes a bike will come rapidly around a turn,
and the rider won’t see you until the last second.
The course was
well-marked with signs and chalk arrows.
In addition, there were volunteers stationed at every turn and junction.
It's worth noting at this point that the volunteers were all encouraging us. At one junction, the volunteers were blasting music, dancing, and cheering enthusiastically, while also making sure we knew which direction to go.
There were volunteers on
bikes leading the first runner in each race.
As I was nearing the end of my first lap of the long loop, one of these
volunteers rode past me. Then I saw the first
runner in the half marathon. He was
already nearing the end of his second long lap.
He finished in 1:22.
Early in the race, I was
going faster than I did in my last two races, but I didn’t feel like I was
working hard. For the first nine miles,
every mile was between 10 and 11 miles, and that pace felt comfortable. After that, I began to slow down. My next several miles were slower than 11
minutes. I attribute that to conditions
getting warmer. It wasn’t warming up
rapidly, but the temperature was rising.
Early in the race, it was
partly sunny. Along the Rush Creek
Regional Trail, we had lots of shade, but other parts of the course were more exposed
to the sun. By late morning, it was cloudy. Not having as much sun exposure helped. I didn’t feel nearly as hot today as I did in
my last two races.
Early in my third lap of
the long loop, I saw another volunteer on bike go by. He was followed by the leader of the
marathon. I wasn’t quite to the halfway
mark, but the leader was already a full lap ahead of me. He went on to finish in 2:45.
At the halfway point, I
was on pace to finish in roughly 4:41.
That’s much faster than my other two races this week. I expected to slow down in the second half,
but clearly, I was going to break five hours by a wide margin.
I maintained the same
effort for the rest of that lap. With
two laps to go, I started to pick up my effort.
At first, my mile times were still slower than 11 minutes, but as I kept
working, I started to bring some of them back under 11 minutes.
The chip mat at the
start/finish line was the only one on the course, but there were volunteers
recording bib number as we ran by some of the remote corners of the
course. In my second-to-last lap, one of
those volunteers said, “one more,” as I went by. Indeed, I only had one more full lap, but I
still needed to run about two miles to finish my current lap.
As I neared the end of
that lap, I heard a runner approaching quickly from behind. I turned my head in time to see the lead
woman go by. I knew she was the winner, because
she was the only woman to lap me.
Early in my last lap, I
saw one of my friends going in the opposite direction. He asked me if we were going to beat the
storm. I said, “no problem.” I didn’t have any new information since the
race started, so I wasn’t expecting a thunderstorm any sooner than 3:00 PM.
A minute or two later, I
thought I heard thunder. As I was
running through Oak Grove Park, it seemed like it was getting dark. This part of the course is under a thick
canopy of trees, so it was always a little bit dark, but it seemed like it was
darker now than it was earlier in the race.
I wondered if the clouds were getting thicker and letting less light
through.
The out-and-back section
just west of the park is out in the open.
When I got there, I thought I felt a drop or two of rain. I didn’t see any drops hitting the pavement,
but I had to wonder if a storm was about to start.
I only had a few miles to
go, so I was going to be OK. I had
friends on the course who still had two full laps left. If a storm started now, their races might be
jeopardized.
I didn’t hear thunder
again, and I didn’t feel any more drops.
I pressed on and finished the race in dry weather. As I was coming into Orchard Trail Park for the last time, I felt a strong breeze. That's when I realized that I never noticed any wind before that.
I finished in
4:47:45. My second half was seven
minutes slower than my first half. That
was disappointing, because I felt like I was working much harder in the second
half than I was in the first half.
After the race, I was
talking with my friend, Tom, who had finished several minutes earlier. When I mentioned hearing thunder, Tom said he
heard that too, but he thought it was an airplane, not thunder.
As we were talking, we
saw a bright flash of lightning. Several
seconds later, we heard a rumble of thunder.
I hurried to my car, getting there just before the rain started. At first, it was just raining lightly.
By now, it was in the upper
70s. For runners still on the course, a
little rain would actually feel good.
Lightning, however was another matter.
That’s never a good thing.
As I was driving to Rocky
Rococo for lunch, I heard a loud crack of thunder. It was so loud, it startled me. If I wasn’t sitting in my car, I would’ve jumped.
A few minutes later, I
was indoors, getting pizza at Rocky Rococo.
I never heard sirens, but I can’t say for sure that I would’ve heard
them indoors. Where I live, they’re
pretty loud, but every city has its own storm sirens.
When I left the
restaurant, it was raining a little harder.
It wasn’t a downpour, but it was a steady enough rain, that you’d get
soaked if you were outside for a long time.
As I was driving home, I saw lightning once or twice, but I never heard
any storm sirens.
After I got home, I
periodically checked the race results.
My friends all finished the race.
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