Friday, May 12, 2023

Race Report: 2023 Maple Leaf Marathon

On May 12, I ran the Maple Leaf Marathon in Fairlee, VT.  This race is part of the New England Challenge.  The New England Challenge used to be a six-day series, with marathons in each of the six New England States.  This year, the series has been split into two parts.  Part one of the series took place last week, with marathons in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.  Part two, which is taking place this week, includes marathons in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

I’m just doing the Vermont and Maine races.  That way, I can have a day off between races to travel from Vermont to Maine.  I’ve always found the most difficult part of a multi-day series is driving to another state immediately after finishing a race.

Deb and I flew to Boston on Thursday and drove to White River Junction, which is about 20 miles south of Fairlee.  The drive time is typically about two hours, depending on traffic.  There are closer airports, but we were able to get a direct flight to Boston, and we couldn’t get direct flights to a closer airport.

Our flight was on time, but then we experienced a few delays.  It took longer than usual to get our luggage; it took longer than usual to get our rental car; and it took longer than usual to get out of Boston, because of an accident that backed up traffic inside the I-90 tunnel.

After checking in at our hotel, we only had about an hour for sightseeing before dinner.  We drove to two nearby covered bridges.  The first was the Quechee covered bridge, which is close to some waterfalls.


Next we went to the Taftsville covered bridge.


Our last stop before dinner was a bridge over the Quechee Gorge, where we could get good views in both directions.


We had dinner at Lui Lui, which is an Italian restaurant in West Lebanon, NH.  West Lebanon is right across the river from White Plains Junction.  Deb has some dietary restrictions, but the restaurant made her a dish that wasn’t on the menu.  I had a pizza (no surprise there).

The race started at 6:00 AM, but I needed to be there at 5:30 for packet pickup.  That meant getting up early enough to be ready to leave the hotel at 5:00.  Deb was volunteering, so she also needed to be there early.

We had to leave the hotel before they started their breakfast service, but we both had leftovers from our dinner the night before.  I don’t generally eat much before a race anyway.

The temperature at the start was in the upper 40s, with intermittent light rain.  I was expecting the rain to stop shortly after the race started, so instead of wearing a rain poncho, I wore a Tyvek jacket.  I was planning to wear it until the rain stopped and then tie it around my waist.

The course was a loop around Lake Morey that was a little over five miles.  Before the first lap, we had to do an out-and-back that was just over half a mile each way.  Then we had to do five complete laps around the lake.  Of the six races in the New England Challenge, this is the only one I had never done, so I was seeing this course for the first time.

I wasn’t sure how fast I wanted to run this race.  On one hand, I’ve been improving with each race, and I wanted to see if I could beat the time I ran two weeks ago at the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon.  On the other hand, I’m racing again in two days, so taking it easy wouldn’t be a bad idea.  I decided to started running and see how I felt before making a decision.

When we started running, there were about half a dozen runners who started fairly fast.  I let them go and started at my own pace.  The first quarter mile of the out-and-back was flat.  Then we started up a long hill that was fairly tiring.  I had to slow down going up the hill.  I didn’t know if the course was going to be flat or hilly.  If this hill was any indication, breaking four hours probably wouldn’t be realistic.

After the turnaround, I started down the same hill.  To run down the hill comfortably, I had to adjust my stride.  I picked up so much speed going down that hill that I ran the first mile in 8:56.  That was faster than I wanted to start.  I could tell it wasn’t a sustainable pace.  After only a mile, it already felt tiring.

By the time I finished the out-and-back, I had already lost sight of the runners ahead of me.  As I began the first full lap around the lake, I was completely alone.  I couldn’t see anyone ahead of me, and I couldn’t hear anyone behind me.

I made a sharp left turn and started running along the east side of the lake for the first time.  I didn’t get far before I encountered a hill.  I started to work up a sweat, so I had to take off my jacket.  I wanted to keep it on until the rain stopped, and I could still feel drops, but I was too hot with the jacket on.

After the first hill, there was another one.  I quickly realized the entire course was going to be gently rolling hills.  None of them were steep, but I haven’t done much in the way of hill training this year.  I was forced to slow down.  Breaking four hours wasn’t realistic.

By the end of the third mile, another runner passed me.  At first, I wondered if it was the leader of the half marathon.  Their out-and-back was a mile longer than ours.  This guy was going faster than me, but not fast enough to have made up a mile already.  Apparently, he started at a more conservative pace and was speeding up.

Over the next few miles, I gradually slowed down.  By the fourth mile, I had slowed into the 9:30s.  By the end of my first lap around the lake, I had slowed into the 9:40s.  Even then, my effort seemed a bit tiring.  It didn’t feel sustainable.

By now, the rain had stopped, yet I didn’t feel comfortable taking off my gloves yet.  I was expecting the temperature to climb into the 60s by the time I finished, but my hands were getting colder.  I was feeling a cold breeze over the lake.

By the end of my first lap, I had passed several runners who seemed to be walking the whole way.  A few of them were doing the marathon.  I can only assume there was an early start option for people who needed extra time.  The others were at the back of the pack of the half marathon.  They were just finishing their out-and-back as I was finishing my first full lap.

There were two aid stations.  The aid station in the start/finish area had water, Gatorade, gels, and a wide variety of food, including some hot food.  The aid station near the far end of the lake had water, gels, and some candy.  I always drank Gatorade at the main aid station and water at the secondary aid station.  I didn’t eat any food during the race.

In my second lap around the lake, my mile times continued to degrade.  A few of my miles were slower than 10 minutes.  I didn’t feel like I was slacking off.  I still questioned whether my effort was sustainable.  My lack of hill training was painfully obvious.  I found the hills to be tiring.

Before I finished that lap, the two fastest runners in the marathon lapped me.  By the time I finished 11 miles, they had already finished 16.  They were both on pace to break three hours.

During the third lap, I reached the halfway point.  I was on pace to finish in roughly 4:16, but I expected to slow down in the second half.  Up to this point, my pace was gradually getting slower.  I might stabilize my pace in the second half, but I wasn’t likely to speed up.  I wasn’t motivated to push too hard when my time wasn’t going to be fast anyway.  With another race coming up on Sunday, it made more sense to conserve energy.

In the 14th mile, I started to feel some light drizzle.  Now, I was worried about getting cold.  I picked up my pace a little, in hopes that my extra effort would help me to stay warm.

The rain only lasted for about 15 minutes.  My pace, however, stabilized at just under 10 minutes per mile.  I maintained that pace for several miles.  I even started to run the same pace in uphill miles that I did in downhill miles.

Shortly after the rain stopped, the sun came out.  As I started my fourth lap, I started to feel the warmth of the sun.  I was starting to get sweaty, so I took off my gloves.

The road on the east side of the lake was well-shaded.  When I was in the shade, I wondered if I had taken my gloves off prematurely.  The road on the west side of the lake had more patches that were exposed to the sun.  Over there, I felt warmer.

When I started my last lap, I looked at my watch.  If I kept up the same pace for one more lap, I would break 4:20.  I wanted to take a few pictures of the lake, and I knew that would slow me down.  Because of that, I didn’t expect to break 4:20.

My first picture was looking across the lake from the east side.  It took me awhile to get my phone out of my fanny pack, and it also took a while to find a place where I could take an unobstructed photo.  I expected that mile to be really slow.  It was 10:02.  That was so encouraging that I wondered if I could speed up enough between photos to maintain the same average pace in this lap as I did in my previous two laps.


As I got farther around the lake, I eventually stopped to take a picture from the west side, but looking south.  I had to settle for a partially obstructed view.  That stop didn’t take as long, and then I worked at making up the time.  I sped up significantly in that mile.


With a mile and a half to go, I reached the top of a tiring hill.  Then I saw the back of the sign that marked the turnaround for the out-and-back that the half marathon runners had done at the start of the race.  From there, it was about a mile and a half to go, and it started with a downhill section.  I sped down the hill, but stopped briefly to take a picture of Lake Morey Resort.  I needed to get back to there to finish.


I had one more tiring hill to climb.  Then there was a level section.  I saw the sign that marked the turnaround point for the out-and-back section that those of us doing the marathon had run earlier.  Now I just had half a mile to go, and the first half of that was downhill.

I ran that last half mile fairly hard – perhaps harder than I should’ve under the circumstances.  I finished the race in 4:17:13.  I was surprised by how fast I ran the last lap.  I ran positive splits, but by less than a minute.  It makes me wonder if I would’ve run negative splits if I wasn’t stopping to take pictures.

Each race in this series has a finisher medal in the shape of the state.


I wasn’t taking in many calories during the race, so I made a point of eating some of the aid station food before we drove back to the hotel.  Then I had a banana and my last slice of leftover pizza before taking a long hot shower and doing some stretches.

While I was recovering from the race, Deb did some shopping.  Then we spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing.  We started with two more covered bridges.  This is Middle Covered Bridge in Woodstock, along with views of the stream.


After stopping at an ice cream shop, we went to this bridge, which doesn’t have a name.  It’s not as attractive as the other bridges, but it was only a mile from the ice cream shop.


Next, we went to Sugarbush Farm, which makes maple syrup and cheese.  To get there from Woodstock, we had to take some dirt roads that looked increasingly sketchy.  As we got closer, we started seeing signs directing us to the farm.  Here’s the sign we saw when we got there.


We tasted various cheeses and syrups, and we learned about the process for making maple syrup.  While we were there, we bought some extra sharp cheddar, wicked sharp cheddar, sage cheddar, very dark maple syrup, maple butter, and a few other small items.

While we were at Sugarbush Farm, we learned about a glass store where we could watch a glass blowing demonstration.  It just happens that this shop was right next to Quechee Covered Bridge.  From a balcony behind the shop, we got a different view of the falls and the bridge.


For dinner, we went to a place called Wicked Awesome BBQ.  The name pretty much says it all.

This was my fourth marathon in Vermont.  To finish my fourth circuit of marathons or ultras in every state, I just need to run marathons in Utah, West Virginia, and Oklahoma.  All of those races are scheduled for later in the year.

Tomorrow, we’ll drive to Portland, ME, where I’ll be racing on Sunday.  Stay tuned for another race report. 


Race statistics:
Distance:  26.2 miles
Time:  4:17:13
Average Pace:  9:49 
First Half:  2:08:17 (estimate)
Second Half:  2:08:56 (estimate)
Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:  481
Vermont Marathons:  4

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