On July 22, I ran the Xenia Avenue Marathon in Brooklyn Park, MN. I’ve done this race every year since it’s debut in 2020. It’s about a 40-minute drive from where I live, so it’s too convenient to resist.
At first, I thought I
would have to miss the race this year, since it fell on the same weekend as the
Deseret News Marathon in Salt Lake City.
Then it occurred to me that I didn’t need to fly to Salt Lake City until
Sunday, so there was no reason I couldn’t do a local race on Saturday.
We had our choice of picking
up our race packets on the morning of the race or on Friday afternoon. I opted to pick up my race packet on Friday. I didn’t mind making an extra trip to
Brooklyn Park, because it gave me a chance to stop at one of my favorite pizza
restaurants for dinner. It also made
race morning less hectic.
I learned on Friday that
my bib number was 2622. I couldn’t
resist adding a decimal point with a magic marker.
The race started at 6:30
AM on Saturday. I left the house at 5:15
to give myself plenty of time to drive and park. The race started and finished at Orchard
Trail Park. The park has a small parking
lot, but there was more parking available across the street at Champlin Park
High School.
It was a warm day. You have to expect that in July. The temperature at the start was in the low
60s, but I knew it would get into the mid-70s by the time I finished. My plan to cope with the heat was to stay
hydrated and run at an easy pace. I
would’ve gone at an easy pace anyway. This
was my third marathon in five days, and I have another one on Monday. I might race hard on Monday, so I didn’t want
today’s race to leave me feeling sore or tired.
The course was mostly on
paved bike paths. It consisted of one
short loop, followed by five laps of a longer loop. Both loops started in Orchard Trail Park. After leaving the park, we followed a short
trail that led us to the Rush Creek Regional Trail.
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On our first loop, we only
followed the Rush Creek Regional Trail for a short distance before leaving the
trail to run into a residential neighborhood.
We did a loop on city streets for about a mile before returning the way
we came. It was during this loop that we
ran along Xenia Avenue for about two blocks.
There were two aid
stations on the course. One was in the
start/finish area. The other was in Oak
Grove Park. We went by that aid station
twice per lap, so in all, we had three opportunities to drink on each lap.
This race is a fundraiser
for the Champlin Park High School and Champlin Park Middle School cross-country
teams. Several of the students were race
volunteers, either as course marshals or staffing the aid stations. The course had several turns, but it was
extremely well-marked, and there were course marshals at every turn.
I knew several of the
other runners. Some were local runners
who do most of the local races. Others
were friend who traveled here from other states. In the first lap, I spotted three friends, Andy,
Heather, and Angel, running together. At
first, I was a short distance behind them, but after about a mile, I caught up
to them. I ran with them for the rest of
that lap.
The five remaining laps
started the same way, but we continued along Rush Creek Regional Trail, through
a tunnel under Douglas Drive, and through Oak Grove Park.
After running through the
park, we did a short out-and-back and then turned around to re-enter the park.
Next, we turned to go
past the aid station in Oak Grove Park.
Then, and we did a loop around a meadow on the south side of the
park. After that loop, we got back onto
the Rush Creek Regional Trail and returned the way we came.
The first time I ran this
race, it was during the pandemic, so they didn’t use cups at the aid stations. Volunteers would set small bottles of water
and Gatorade on the tables, and we could grab them as we went by. Because of this, I’m in the habit of wearing
a fuel belt for this race. My usual routine
was to grab an 8-ounce bottle of Gatorade and drink half of it. Then I would put the half-empty bottle of
Gatorade in my holster and finish drinking it just before the next aid station.
This year, they had small
bottles of water, but the Gatorade was in cups.
When I finished the short lap, I drank a cup of Gatorade. When I reached the aid station in Oak Grove Park,
I saw Gatorade bottles on the table, so I grabbed one.
The water bottles were
only 8 ounces, but the Gatorade bottles were 20 ounces. I drank about five ounces and put the bottle
in my holster. The next three times I
went through aid stations, I drank a little more from the same bottle. After that, I just drank from the cups of
Gatorade on the tables. There just wasn’t
any need to carry extra weight between the aid stations.
For the first four miles,
our average pace was faster than 9:30 per mile.
We all thought that pace was too fast, but Andy kept pushing the
pace. Angel and Heather followed, a
short distance behind Andy, and I followed a short distance behind them. I found the pace to be a little bit tiring,
but I stayed with them in the hopes that they would gradually slow down.
There was a building with
bathrooms in Oak Grove Park. The first
time went by it, Heather, Angel, and Andy all made bathroom stops. I continued on my own, but I slowed down to a
pace that felt more comfortable. My next
mile was a full minute slower.
By the time we finished
that lap, the others caught up to me again, and it was only a matter of time
before we were running faster again.
Thankfully, it wasn’t quite as fast as before. For the next several miles, we were averaging
about 9:45 per mile.
The short lap was about
2.2 miles, and the five long laps were about 4.8 miles each. By the time we finished our second big lap,
Andy was starting to take walking breaks.
I continued to run. Now I was
following Heather and Angel. Without
Andy as a rabbit, we slowed down a little, but we were still averaging between
9:45 and 10:00 per mile.
At halfway, we were on
pace to finish in about 4:20, but we needed to gradually slow down. During out third long lap, Angel’s ankle
started to bother her. She had to walk
briefly and then continue on her own at a slower pace. For the rest of the race, I ran with Heather.
I let Heather set the
pace, and we gradually slowed down. For
the next several miles, our pace ranged between 10:00 and 10:30. For the first time, I found the pace to be
comfortable.
For a while, it seemed
like we might break 4:25. By the time we
started our last lap, it was apparent that we would be a little slower than that,
but there was no doubt we would beat 4:30.
We slowed down a little
in our last lap. For the last five
miles, our pace ranged from 10:30 to 11:00.
We took more time going through the aid stations.
The temperature had been gradually
climbing, and we really felt it in the last lap. We got some relief going around the meadow
where we felt a nice breeze.
After our last trip around
the meadow, we didn’t have any more loops or out-and-back segments. For the last mile and a half, it was just a
point-to-point race back to Orchard Trail Park.
That made it psychologically easier.
As we got back onto Rush
Creek Regional Trail for the last time, we both noticed that it was getting
cloudy. That also helped.
I eventually finished in 4:26:35. Heather finished a few seconds behind me. Heather was happy to break 4:30 for her
second straight race. I was happy that
we slowed down in the second half.
Heather and I waited in
the finish area until Angel finished.
Then the three of us started watching for Andy. We weren’t sure how far behind us he was, but
we saw him finish before anyone needed to leave.
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