Today was day four of the
Mainly Marathons Summer Camp Series. Today,
we were running at Quarry Park and Nature Preserve in Waite Park.
This park contains 22 old
granite quarries that are no longer in use.
Some of them are quite deep, and over the years they’ve filled in with
rain water. A few have been converted
into swimming holes, making this park a popular summer destination.
The park has a network of
gravel trails. Over the years, Mainly
Marathons has held races on at least six different routes through the
park. Today’s race was held on my
favorite route.
This route goes through
the middle of the park, past a swimming hole with a beach. Then it continues past the observation deck
before we turn around and come back to the aid station in the parking area. Along the way, we passed a few other
quarries. For a marathon, we ran this
route 14 times.
The weather was cooler
today. The temperature was in the
mid-60s at the start and never got out of the 70s. We also had a cool breeze, so I was never in
danger of getting hot.
During my first lap, I
ran the whole way, stopping only to take pictures. During my second lap, I saw a couple of deer
in the woods.
On the hotter days, I did
little or no walking in the first half, so I could afford to take walking
breaks as it got hotter. Today, that
wasn’t a concern. I just needed to make
sure I was staying on pace to finish in six hours. In my third lap, I did some walking so I
could talk to my friend, Karen.
This course doesn’t have
any big hills, but it’s also not flat.
There are sections that are slightly uphill and sections that are
slightly downhill. After a few laps, I
became more aware that some part of the course were more tiring and others were
easier. One of the tiring sections came
just before the turnaround. I continued
to run everywhere else, but I started walking that section.
In lap seven, I ran about
half of the lap with Ken. His pace was a
little tiring for me. Shortly after
that, I started to notice that my legs were getting sore. On other days, I got hot and tired, but this
was the first time I had sore muscles during the race.
At the halfway point, I
was slower than I had been on any of the other days. I had some room to slow down, but not
much. Instead of doing extra walking, I
felt like I had to keep mostly running.
It was a big contrast
with yesterday, when I felt strong in the second half. As I thought about that, I realized I was
probably sore today because I didn’t hold back enough yesterday.
I was checking my watch
every three and a half laps to make sure I was on pace for a six-hour finish. The first time I checked, I was three minutes
ahead of schedule. Halfway through the
race, I had a six-minute cushion. When I
checked again with three and a half laps to go, it was still a six-minute
cushion. I was no longer adding to my
cushion, even though I wasn’t doing any extra walking.
One lap later, another
friend named Karen caught up to me. I
ran with her for the rest of that lap and all of the next one. Running with Karen helped me to stay on
pace. As I started my last lap, I had a
little more than 35 minutes to break 6:00.
The previous lap only took 25 minutes, so I knew I could now afford to
do more walking.
I could’ve walked more,
but I didn’t. Having only one lap to go
made it easier for me to coax myself to keep running. In the first half of that lap, I did a little
more walking but not much. I reached the
turnaround in 12 minutes.
As I thought about where
the tiring uphill sections were, I realized most of them were in the first half
of the lap. Coming back, it was mostly
downhill. With that in mind, I ran the
rest of the lap, finishing in 5:49:30. I
really struggled today, but it wasn’t my slowest race of the series.
Today’s addition to the
chain of medals was a Viking.
During the race, I
enjoyed the cooler temperatures. After
the race, however, I was a bit disappointed.
By doing the race, we all got free admission into the park. On a scorching hot day, like the last four
days, I would’ve enjoyed going for a swim after the race. When it’s only in the 70s, it’s not warm
enough to go swimming. Those quarries
are so deep that the water is always ice cold, even in the summer. I saw a few people swimming, but I decided to
pass on that.
There’s just one more race in this series. Tomorrow, we’ll be coming back to Quarry Park, but we’ll be running a different route.
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