Rough Creek Marathon

As my training for my upcoming StumpJump 50k was coming to a peak a couple weeks ago, I decided to register for trail marathon to get in a solid, long training run while enjoying the camaraderie of a race setting.  I registered and ran the Rough Creek Marathon two weeks ago on September 14th.

The Marathon was directed by Endurance Buzz Adventures which also put on the Whispering Pines 50k that I ran in June.  The race was at the Rough Creek Lodge in Glen Rose, TX which is about an hour and a half southwest of Dallas.  It was an early morning waking up and driving to Glen Rose to get to the start line for the 7am start.

My training plan called for a 5 hour run so that was roughly my goal to finish in.  I wanted to run a smart race and not push it too hard and tire myself out for the last couple of weeks of training.  The race was 27 miles total, two 13.5 miles loops.  After the first couple of miles of the race, I settled in the front group with 3-4 guys.  I stayed with the lead group for about the first 10 miles of the race.  I felt comfortable with the pace most for the first lap.  The temperature was great, as the sun was just coming up.  There was an area on the course called the Rusty Crown that involved some very steep, technical and rocky ups and downs (as seen on the profile map below) which required walking and sometimes scrambling.  Other than these sections, the course was very runnable.  Before I knew it, I had finished the first lap in just under 2 hours (which would have been enough to win the half marathon race).

As lap 2 started, things started to go down hill.  The sun started to heat course up very quickly.  There are very few trees in this area of the Texas hill country and therefore no shade to hide from the sun in.  I made it about 3 miles into lap 2 and began to walk...a lot.  It became very obvious that I had pushed way to hard in the first lap.  As it heated up, it became tougher and tougher to take in calories and my energy levels started to decrease rapidly.  The last 10 miles of the race were brutal.  The sun was blistering, my entire body was cramping, and just walking was very uncomfortable.  I considering dropping out a few times but ultimately carried on to the finish.  After finishing the first lap in 2 hours or so, I finished the race in 5:44.  My second lap took almost twice as long as the first which is awful.  Lots of lessons learned for StumpJump which is my ultimate goal.  The trails and elevation gain in Chattanooga will be a significant challenge for me with almost 5000' of gain and 5000' of descent.  Dallas doesn't allow for much elevation change in training.  I will take my lessons learned from training and prior races and hopefully have a great race in Chattanooga...in much cooler temperatures!

Shout out to Sara for enduring all my long training runs and waking up very early to come out and support me for my races!  One week from today we will be in Chattanooga for the StumpJump 50k.

Totals:
January:  61.66 miles
February:  76.42 miles
March:  113.26 miles
April:  121.5 miles
May: 130.7 miles
June: 46.51 miles
July:  101 miles
August:  122.2 miles

Year: 773.25 miles