Run the Red Marathon - Stroudsburg PA

After running up and down more hills than I care to count, I reached finish line at the Run the Red Marathon in Stroudsburg PA with a time of 2:39:44.

The trip started out with a 10 hour drive to Stroudsburg, PA on Friday. It is not a bad drive if you like watching the odometer clicking off the miles.

After touring the course on Saturday, I thought I had a pretty good game plan for running the course. Then thunderstorms and lightening rolled in Saturday night. The next morning came with temperatures at the finish in the upper 40s with a light breeze. Not too cold, but okay.

However, when we stepped off the buses at the starting line everything changed. The temperature was around 42 degrees and the wind was blowing about 40 miles per hour.

I was so cold that I didn’t even warm up for the race. I waited until 5 minutes before the start and headed from inside the school to the starting line. In less than 5 minutes my teeth were chattering. And I was wearing extra clothing – a blue shirt that I intended to toss off after mile and a trash bag on top of calf and arm sleeves and my TrySports uniform. Incidentally, somehow I lost one of my arm sleeves after the race. I had no idea how it happened.

I did ditch the trash bag at the start and I gave my hand warmers to a woman standing at the starting who looked even colder than I felt. The blue shirt I never did take off. I wore it all the way to the finish line.

With the bad racing conditions, I pretty much scraped any chance of running a good time and throw out my game plan.

I adopted the strategy of just run hard where I could and endure the rest. To that end, I didn’t check my watch until the very end.

From the start we went single file. I only moved up to find a bigger person with whom I could hide from the wind. But I didn’t have that many options. Runners are just too skinny.
And I felt like I couldn’t get my breath.

I had pretty much resign myself to a bad race. It happens sometimes.

From driving the course, I knew the last ½ of the race was the toughest. In the 1st half the hills are long gradual up and long gradual down. In the 2nd have they are still long up hills but the down hills are short and steep. They are the kind of hills that really pound on your quads.

After 20 miles, I could really feel the effects on my quads and still had 5 tough hills to run.

When I passed the 26 mile point, I check my watch. I was hurting pretty bad at this point. But with just over 2 minutes under 2:40, I suddenly I thought I might be able to still do it. That last 2 tenths of a mile really hurt, but I just did as I done along the course, I pushed all of the pain aside and focused on getting to the finish.

At the finish I looked bad and felt the same but I achieved my top goal that I had set for myself. I had run a sub 2:40 and on a tough day and rough course. Adding to the effort, I had moved up to 5th overall by the finish.

Oh, during the awards the guy asked if I was driving back to Charlotte that night. “Yep” and 10 hours later I was setting at home.