So far this season, I have done a fair number of longer runs (up to 13 miles), but let’s face it – one’s conditioning can’t be as advanced in July as it is in October.  Add the loss of training time due to a nasty cold, and worse than usual allergies, and well, my legs have definitely felt better.  Nonetheless, I have always wondered if I would be able to enter, and complete a marathon, treating it as “just” a very long training run.  Why did I think this was even possible?  For one, there are a fair number of older athletes (*ahem* like me) who run in large numbers of marathons each year, and while they don’t compete for prizes, they appear to have fun chugging along at a more leisurely pace than the younger thoroughbreds.  These people have to have day  jobs right?  An early summer marathon also might be a springboard to more, and maybe longer races later in the season.  So, I set out to find a mid-summer marathon to test some new questions about physical limits.

It didn’t take me long to learn of a race in Waitsfield VT called “The Mad Marathon“, and I thought that with a name like that, it would be a perfect venue at which to attempt this latest experiment.  There was one slight problem with this plan – a marathon with truly minimal training should probably be undertaken on a flat course, and this race has 1000 vertical ft of climbing and descent.  Yikes!  Nonetheless, there I was at 7 am Sunday morning…lined up with about 1200 runners (most of whom seemed to be running in either the half marathon, or as members of marathon relay teams) for the starting gun.

I knew I had to do things differently if I was going to survive this race.  I tend to start of long runs slowly, and accelerate as the run or race proceeds.  In this run, however, I knew that I was cutting it awfully close in terms of my abilities, so I picked a pace which I knew I could maintain for long distances, and stuck to that pace, no matter how good I felt at various times in the race.  I also knew that for a sunny summer run, even in comfortable weather (and nature obliged with high temperatures in the low 70′s by the end of the morning race)  hydration would be even more critical that usual.  With this in mind, I forced myself to take water at EVERY water station, and walk through the station so that I could drink the full cup.  As a curious aside, at the first water station, only about a mile into the race, the volunteer offering me my hydration seemed shocked when I drank the gatorade, and poured the water on my head!  This is another old runner’s trick for staying cool on long runs, but apparently this particular volunteer had never before witnessed the practice.  And speaking of the volunteers – they were great!  Water stations were abundant, amply staffed, and I don’t think that I have ever seen a more enthusiastic bunch.

I am not going to go into the particulars of the race course, as it is well described on the race website linked to above.  In general, it started in the village of Waitsfield, climbed up to the roads high on the east side of the Mad River Valley (where a few past runs, including one a few weeks ago have been posted), did a loop to the north towards Moretown, and reversed its course into East Warren, before plunging back into the valley for the finish line.  I am going to share a few fun quirks of this well run race.  At about the 9 mile mark, I approached a woman who seemed to be struggling on the second of many climbs in the race.  She also had a sign on her back saying “Today is my birthday”.  So, as I pulled alongside her, I inquired if anyone had sung the Happy Birthday Song to her yet that day.  Hearing  that nobody had, I asked her name, and sang her the song before passing her by. I hope you finished the race Barbara!  Another fun little semi-surprise was……free beer!  The catch, was that in order to get the beer for free…..you had to drink it at mile 24 of the race – beer at the finish line cost 3 bucks a cup!  I loved the novelty of this, and despite the fact that I knew it would cost me a few minutes, I was running this as a “Timeless” race, so I couldn’t resist the temptation for at least a few sips of delicious cold beer, even with a few painful miles to go.  I also thought it was funny, that due to Vermont liquor laws, I had to go stand inside the roped in area to enjoy this treat.  Many thanks to my new friends from the Sam Adams distributor!   Finally, the finish line had a little barn structure to run under as one crossed the finish line, and the race announcers went out of their way to welcome each and every finisher by name over the PA system, and say something about where they were from.  The race participants also seemed to come from a lot of different places, for such a small race (only 271 finishers in the full marathon!)  It seemed that a disproportionate number of the entrants were striving to complete a marathon in each of the 50 states, and they found this marathon appealing, since it was a mid summer marathon, a rarity, in a cool climate.

So, here I am, a day later, and I really don’t feel too bad!  The legs are a bit tight, but I suspect I will be able to resume at least short runs in a day or two. I think I will call this experiment a success! Thanks to the organizers for putting together a challenging (hence slow) fun race.  I don’t have any pictures of the race, but the race web page has a lot of nice shots up from the 2011 race, which will give one a great feel for the great scenery accompanying this race.

Google Earth of the race course

A very scary altitude profile

Fast forward to the last few years, and my new found love of trailrunning…..Trail running and long distance running are really NOT the same thing – I can have a great time on a relatively short run through the woods, and many trail running afficionados regularly enjoy running distances which are quite amenable to the average athlete.  That said, once I started getting a taste of the great trails in the area on a regular basis, I really wanted to get out there and discover increasingly lengthy trails and their inherently less accessible sights.  Long term readers will note the increasingly long runs covered in this blog.  I had not abandoned old favorites of course, but I didn’t see the point of doing a blog writeup on my 5th run up Snake Mountain, Silver Lake, or some other old favorite of more reasonable distance.   I have also found that I am much less prone to injury when I spend most of my time on the trails.  The combination of the slower pace that the trails demand, and the varied footing, diminishing repetitive use injuries, have allowed me to do the occasional long run, without sustaining anything but minor annoyance aches and pains.  I also discovered, that if I go slow enough, I can pretty much run forever – or at least 2 or 3 hours – and feel pretty good the next day.

I also recently read the best selling book by Christopher McDougal entitled “Born to Run” in which the author, an aging athlete, wondered why he was hurt all the time by running. This question led to a variety of heretical conclusions on the way distance runners typically train.  Reading this, I began to ponder my own heresy – If a runner can run comfortably for 3 hours, on challenging mountainous terrain like we have here in Addison County,  why couldn’t they finish an marathon without the stress of a daily training regimen?  In my own case, despite my best intentions, life usually limits me to 20-30 miles/week – in other words about 1/3 of the mileage recommended.  Nonetheless, after running the entire TAM 3 weeks ago, covering 16 miles in 3 hours and feeling pretty good, I realized that the marathon distance might not be out of the question.

While most large, famous marathons require registration as much as a year in advance, we have a little-known low key small (a few hundred runners) marathon here in the Green Mountain State every fall.  The Green Mountain Athletic Association has sponsored an October marathon for over 40 years just a little bit north of us on South Hero Island.  There was still time to register three weeks ago, and the registration was a mere 30 bucks!  So, I threw my hat in the ring, and decided to give it a try.  I figured that there would be no dishonor in not finishing, but those who know me knew that I would finish, even if it was after dark and I was crawling.  So, on a cool Sunday morning, I lined up with a modest flock of other runners to give it a try.  I am not going to go heavily into the details of the race – let it suffice to say that a race course which which follows the shoreline of Lake Champlain during foliage season is going to be scenic, windy, and pretty flat.  I really had no idea what sort of time my middle aged body might give me, so I started off pretty slowly, and gradually picked up the pace as my legs allowed, and felt pretty good about shuffling across the finish line in a little under 4 hours.  What is the only way to train?  Whatever works for you!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t willing to lug my camera along the entire out-and-back course, but lets face it – people like to go there on vacation for a good reason.  So, the GPS data will have to suffice.  And yes, my body is very sore.

Google Earth of the course

Yup - Its Flat!