Rock/Creek Scenic City Trail Marathon

I had no idea what to expect as I've never run the trails and hadn't competed against any of these guys before. All I know was that Matt Sims had run a 3:11 on it before, and I wanted to beat that time. I actually wanted to run a sub-3 on trails, just to know that I could.

As planned I met Dane Mitchell before the race. He was the favorite having set course records in 50k's and a 15:05 5k. After the gun went, he and I and Owen made a little pack behind the 4 or 5 competitive half marathoners. The trail was quite fast and forgiving; not very technical. Our pace was about 6:30's to 6:50's depending on the part we were going through. Before the first loop was over, we had passed all of the half marathoners and Dane was pulling away. I was left in no man's land for the next 13-14 miles. I did notice that I had become dehydrated in the first hour and tried to make up for this the rest of the race. At about the 15 mile mark my foot hit a stone and I went down hard, bounced and said out loud to no one, "That hurt." I got up and limped couple of steps, brushed off the dirt to find some areas on my right knee, calf, hip and shoulder with no skin and some blood. Fortunately the dirt was keeping the blood from continuing to ooze. I started jogging slow and found that I could soon run with no problem.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I drank, had a couple of gels, and prayed that Dane was dieing and I might catch him. I kept pushing hard hoping to at least break the old course record. Near the end I could smell burgers and hear people and then all of a sudden there was the finish. I kept my pace through to the end, not really know when I would come to the finish.

Results: 2nd place OA with a 2:56:27. Felt fine too, not hurting, not really sore, just kind of a numb feeling. Shows that the training is working. Well, time to really get down to it. Summer is only so long and there's a 1000 miles to be eaten before August.