On July 14, I ran the second race of the Mainly Marathons Summer Camp Series. For me, it was the third day of six on a row, since I also ran the last race of the Heartland Series.
I haven’t been getting
enough sleep. Yesterday, I had an early
dinner and made a point of getting to bed early. I slept well for a few hours, but then a
thunderstorm woke me up. It was a
violent storm, and the thunder was too loud for me to get back to sleep. Even after the storm ended, it was at least
an hour before I finally got back to sleep.
The good news is that the
thunderstorm came during the night and not during the race. The weather today was similar to Friday. It was 65 degrees at the start, and it
gradually warmed up to about 80 by the time I finished. There was one difference, however. The humidity was much higher today.
Today’s race was in Sauk
Rapids. Our start/finish area was in a
small parking lot near the boat launch at Sauk Rapids Municipal Park. Our course was a paved trail near the
Mississippi River. Our laps were shorter
today, so we had to run 16 laps to complete a marathon.
I saw a friend in the
start area who isn’t doing the series, but decided to drive up to run today’s
race. I was talking to Karen before the
race, and we both started the race at the same pace.
Karen and I both had
similar goals. Neither of us wanted to
go too fast, but we didn’t want to take longer than five hours. We ended up running the whole race together,
while talking the whole time.
Yesterday, I felt stiff
at the beginning of the race. Today, I
had an easier time getting started. Karen
was letting me set the pace, and I started a little faster today than I did
either of the last two days. For the
first five or six laps, I was averaging about 10:15 per mile.
It was a little difficult
to know for sure what our pace was, because our watches were telling us
different things. Karen’s watch was
consistently giving a longer distance than we actually ran. My watch was reading a shorter distance. As a result, we were seeing different splits
from our watches, even though we were running at the same pace. By the end of the race, our watches were half a mile apart.
I usually run by myself. Having someone to talk to was a welcome
distraction. It made the laps seem to
pass quickly. After our first lap, I
forget to stop and drink some Gatorade.
I was careful after that to drink after every lap. Since there were more laps today, I had more
opportunities to drink.
Because of the overnight
storm, there were a couple of puddles on the course. In our first lap, we ran around on the
grass. By our second lap, one of them
was already drying up, and we could run through it without getting our shoes
wet. The other puddle was larger, and we
had no choice but to go around it, even though it meant briefly running on mud.
We knew we were going
kind of fast, but it seemed pretty easy in the early laps. I have a tendency to speed up when I’m
talking to someone. After about five
laps, we eased up a little.
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| photo credit: Kevin Brosi |
After eight laps, we were half done. We were on pace for 4:30, but we both knew we would need to slow it down in the second half. We could afford to slow down quite a bit and still keep our times under five hours. That’s fortunate, since the heat and humidity started to wear on us in the second half of the race.
I started to feel like my
throat was constantly dry, even though I was drinking more and more after each
lap. Karen was monitoring her heart
rate, and sometimes needed to take a short walking break if it got too high.
After 12 laps, we were
three quarters done. To be on pace for a
five-hour finish, we needed to run the first 12 laps in 3:45. We finished our 12th lap in 3:28. so we were
17 minutes ahead of schedule. That gave
us room to not only slow down, but also take more walking breaks. By the last two laps, we were taking two or
three short walking breaks per lap.
My left heel, which
bothered me yesterday, felt fine today.
That was a pleasant surprise. The
ice/heat treatment I did yesterday was effective.
There was a young guy
named Antoine who was running his first marathon. From time to time we noticed him. He seemed to be handling his first marathon
well, despite the increasingly difficult conditions. Halfway through our last lap, we asked him
what lap he was on. He was also on his
last lap.
With half a lap to go, Antoine
was running just ahead of us. I was tempted
to catch up to him, so we could accompany him to the finish line. We didn’t, because he was speeding up, and we
didn’t want to work that hard.
We finished at our own
pace. When we finished, we discovered
that Antoine had won the race. Neither
of us was paying enough attention to realize that there weren’t any faster
runners. Karen and I tied for second
place, finishing in 4:51:23.
I got another piece to
add to my chain of medals. Today’s medal
was a monarch butterfly.
Today’s race went
surprisingly well. In my previous two
races, I felt tired, even going at a slow pace.
Today, I had more energy, in spite of the lack of sleep.
After the race, I
finished my Gatorade. Then I ate a few
pickle slices. One of the volunteers
asked me if I wanted some pickle juice. When
you’ve been sweating profusely, drinking pickle juice is an easy way to quickly
replace salt. I drank a glass of pickle
juice and then drank a glass of chocolate milk.
When we were both done
snacking and rehydrating, we waited for a few minutes to see another friend,
who was about to finish a lap. Then we
started walking to our cars. Before we got
there, we each realized we had forgotten something, so we walked back to the
finish area.
Antoine was still there,
sitting on a bench. I asked him how he
felt. He said, “Not good.” Then he said he felt like throwing up. Karen was concerned that he might be
hyponatremic. She and the volunteers
encouraged Antoine to eat or drink something with salt. Then he threw up, which made us more
concerned.
By the time we left, he
seemed to be feeling better. By now,
everyone in the finish area knew they should keep an eye on him. By the time I left to drive back to the
hotel, I saw that Antoine was up and around, and he was walking back to his
car.
I brought a bathroom
scale from home, so I could weigh myself before and after each race. When I got back to the hotel, I weighed
myself. I was both surprised and relieved
to see that I didn’t lose any weight. I
still felt thirsty, so I drank two glasses of chocolate milk.
I didn’t feel the need to
do another ice/heat treatment for my heel, but I did do a number of stretches
after getting cleaned up. I still felt
thirsty, so I’ve been continuing to drink water.
I’ve run three marathons
in three days, and I’ve got three more to go.
After yesterday’s race, I was feeling pessimistic. Today, I feel better. I need to get more sleep though.
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