2010 ridge to bridge marathon

I had an awesome time running the Ridge to Bridge marathon yesterday. I only met two of my goals (have fun and don’t get a new personal worst), but having a good time made all the difference and this is probably the first time I haven’t had some immediate feelings of disappointment despite not doing as well as I’d have liked. My body is crazy sore today. Usually I’m stiff the day after a marathon and then feeling 90% normal by the second day, but I can tell this one’s going to take a little longer.

Where to start? I fell asleep around midnight (oops) and woke up at 3-something. My alarms were set for 4:25, 4:30, 4:35 and I dozed a little, but ended up hopping out of bed at 4am. The weather forecast for Jonas Ridge was showing 31F through about 8am. Brr. The high for the day was in the 60s and I was trying to not wear three more layers than necessary for the first time in my life, so I put on shorts, tank top, short sleeve (okay, I still wore a lot of layers), and a longsleeve for a throwaway layer (actually the same throwaway top I ended up wearing for my entire first marathon). And then I put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt to wear to the start. Not too much, right?

It’s a point to point course, so they have you drive to Brown Mountain Beach “Resort” (last resort? I don’t know what this place was), park your car, and hop on a bus which drives you to the start up at the Jonas Ridge post office. I left the hotel at 5:25 and got to BMB”R” by 6am and hung out on a bus until they left at 6:30; they were nice, cushy buses with bathrooms and everything. The people I met were really friendly and the time passed pretty quickly and the buses pulled out and s-l-o-w-l-y made their way to Jonas Ridge. There were some incredible sunrise views along the way. I made buddies with the girl next to me on the bus and we hung out and used the bathrooms and waited for the start together. The race is small (300 registered) so we weren’t far back from the starting line which is basically on the honor system using your bib number (your “seed” based on predicted finish time), but I still couldn’t hear what was on the bullhorn. All of a sudden, there was a gun or a horn or something and the race was on.

My legs and feet were freezing and I couldn’t feel my toes for a long time. It took until mile four or five that I didn’t feel like my legs were made of ice blocks. The first six miles of the course were on paved and gravel road that wound around the mountain so you usually weren’t seeing too far ahead of you. There was an out and back from about 2.4 – mile 6 with a water station at that point so you hit it twice. This part of the course was rolling. I felt okay and tried to stick with my 9:20-9:30 plan. The leaders passed coming back around mile four and the first two guys were Brooks ID. The one in the lead ended up winning as well as setting a new course record of 2:40:xx.

After passing the aid station around mile 6, you head into the downhill portion of the course. It was really beautiful with the leaves turning and I can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend morning. Runners were pretty spread out and I spend most of the next hour or so running alone through the woods. Sometimes it was hard to believe there was anyone else within miles, let alone that someone was just ahead or behind you because it was just so quiet. It was a nice, reflective kind of time and kind of let you get ready for the onslaught that is the latter end of a marathon. I ate two Shot Bloks at mile 8 and left my longsleeve at the aid station. I reluctantly took a Hammer gel at about 12.5 miles. I hit the halfway point in 2:02:40. I tried to be conservative on this downhill section and in some places it wasn’t hard to do so; some areas were really steep and I had trouble running at a normal speed anyway. There were a few small uphills that gave some respite.

You come out of the really forested section at mile 15. This course is all forested, but it’s more open at 15. I saw my friend from the bus who was on mile 16 when I hit 15 (at 2:20 or so) and was looking really good. She was trying to pull her PR from a 4:42 to a sub-4 and (SPOILER ALERT) she did it, finishing in an awesome 3:55. Amazing! Anyway, hitting flat road after being on packed dirt/gravel downhill for so long felt like running in jello…my legs were not cooperative. I grabbed water for the first time when I got to mile 16; I had been drinking some Gatorade out of a water bottle all morning hoping it would keep me from having to take as many gels. Water was delicious.

Forged on and I think this section was pretty uneventful. I had needed to pee for a really long time, but now some other urgent stuff was happening. The hills were not gentle on my bladder, but the woods were steep on either side of the road and I hadn’t seen bathrooms/portapotties yet…at mile 17, I spotted a decent place to duck into the woods and there was no one nearby, so I made the executive decision to stop and TCB. Also took a gel here since I was going to have a slow mile anyway (this was my slowest mile at 10:50 or 10:59). I got back on the road and of course not a mile later at mile marker 18, there was a portojohn. I don’t remember much about the next couple of miles. We ran along a creek or river for a long time in this section and I mostly thought about getting to mile 20. Usually I hit the marathon pit of despair somewhere around 18-21 miles when I’m getting tired but still have a long way to go, but not this time. My speed definitely was not great, but the miles ticked by and I was getting somewhere. It felt good passing mile 20 and starting my countdown of having about an hour or so of running left.

I dropped my water bottle at the 21.5 water station. It leaks like crazy (thanks for nothing, Nathan) and I had finished the Gatorade in it, so it was nice to see it go. We continued running along the water. For some reason, I had “ass”umed that we were going to get spit out onto a real road at some point on this section of the course, but it stayed the same very quiet, gravel/dirt road all the way until the end…think like roads to campsites and stuff. To be honest, I got a bit bored of the admittedly beautiful scenery and wanted a change of pace. Just grumpy, but I still felt pretty decent. I do remember thinking, man, not so sure I feel like running Thunder Road in six weeks. But usually at this point I am feeling kind of dejected and it didn’t happen – just counted down, 50 minutes, 40 minutes, 30 minutes to go.

You arrive back at BMBR and see the finish line to your right, across a fence. Sah-weet. Then you run a lap through the parking lot where you hit mile 26 and head for the finish. It wasn’t far and the finish line wasn’t so close that I felt like I was there and then had to keep going (there was a fence, after all), but MAN, running the lap around the parking lot was the worst! You couldn’t see the finish anymore and it felt pretty far. I thought I was going to boot at this point and it was really hard to keep going. I imagine it was probably my slowest last .2 ever because I just could only pull myself across the line. There was no emotional “I did it” feeling, just getting it done.

My finish time was 4:12:45, 46 seconds shy of a PR. But it was a really good day. The course was so pretty and calming. It was just an awesome way to spend a fall morning to be quiet and run through the woods and see the leaves changing. The downhill was rough on my legs and my body is HURTING today, mostly my quads and calves. The volunteers running the aid stations at this race were awesome. Super friendly, asking if you needed anything, offering to fill your water bottle, etc. There were kids at some of them handing out water which I thought was cool. The runners were so spread out that this could never work in a more crowded race, but it was fun to have sweet little five year olds holding out water for you and yelling, “go, runner, go!” I wanted to take cups from all of them!

All of the runners I met were friendly, too. R2B attracts a nice crowd and I can see why people are loyal to the race. It’s super well run; from the moment you sign up, you’ll be getting updates and tons of details of what to expect and how to plan for the race from the race director. I checked my email this morning and already had an email from them with personalized results including my time, pace, place, age group info, overall info, etc. The finisher medal is a handmade ceramic (pottery? not sure the right word) acorn stamped with the race name (also handed to me by a little kid). I felt really welcomed, like someone had been planning for me to be there. Basically, it’s the antithesis of your mega marathon, “bands every mile!!!”, pace groups for every five minute increment, 30,000 person race. Sometimes you want a huge race and it’s exciting, but it can also be pretty overwhelming. Ridge to Bridge did everything they could to get you ready, set everything up to help you finish well, and then let you run your race. Results and photos were posted within a day. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a well organized, low key race with great scenery. Now I’m ready to recoup and get going again; excited about Thunder Road and it’s army of hills.

Results:
26.22 on my Garmin (! wow, usually there’s at least an extra .1 somewhere)
4:12:45 (official chip time)
158/265 overall
1/3 age group