New South Trail Marathon Recap 3/23/19

Today, I ran my second New South Trail Marathon at the US National Whitewater Center. I finished 4^th overall in 4 hours, 8 minutes, and 34 seconds. This effort placed me tops in my age group. I am happy to get in another solid run this year.

My day started with me leaving the house a few minutes after 6 AM for the short drive out to the WWC. One of the perks of running this marathon, I get to sleep in my own bed, and I only have to drive about 20 minutes to reach the WWC.

Time passes quickly. I placed my drop bag in the designated area. Chatted with Dave, Jenn, and Jenny for a few minutes before heading to the starting line.

Because the temperature was in mid 30s, I wore a thin pair of gloves. They were just enough to ward off cold. Later, they came in handy to whip away the sweat.

The course changed in a few places from last year. Due to construction along the channel, we entered through the North Main trail to Figure 8, and they changed the Parkway trail so instead, we ran up the parking lot road to the Academy trail.

The leaders were out quickly. I settled in to 4^th overall by mile 5. From then, I was solo for the rest of the race. It is a lonely way to run a marathon but then this is the way of trail marathons tend to go done.

The race does come with some nice perks. The race hoodie was awesome. Fits like a glove. Postrace for the marathoners, they had a pasta lunch. This was definitely worth it. Nothing like finishing a race, a full spread of food is put right in front of you.

I did hear that one runner got turned around in the parking. Not sure how this happened, they had setup plenty of cones and barriers to direct us across the parking. The other weird happening, I was churning along on the thread trail when I met up with another runner heading in the opposite direction. But he was wearing a red marathon bib. I did a double take because it did throw me off to be meeting someone wearing a marathon bib. I don’t know happen to him. I kept going in the opposite direction.

I did do one smart thing today. I took my reclining lawn chair. After the race, I found myself a comfortable spot, and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and cheering on those coming to the finish. Felt good give some other support.

Tails from the trail.

The Cool Down Runner