Being Human at Red for the Red Marathon, 9/18/2010

I learned a big lesson starting around 9am this past Saturday while in the midst of the mountainous Run for the Red Marathon in Watauga County, NC. Vanilla yogurt mixed with a generous amount of ground flaxseed is not a good post hard-effort dinner! As I reflect I can only think about looking in the mirror and saying “duh!” to the reflection.

Those of you who know me, know I am pretty picky about pre- race meals and usually stick with a lite meal of sandwhich, soup, and some wine the night before. However, this past Friday, I goofed. I should have been thinking and paid more attention to doing what I was doing!

After work on Friday, I went on a favorite dirt road run, down by the New River. Driving back home, I met a car in the middle of the road. I was able to pull off to the right and slide to a stop in the gravel, yet the other driver was going a bit too fast for the grade and corner and put her brakes on and the car smartly slide right into mine.

Looking up the road...

Ugh. Her car-none-the-worse-for-wear…Mine-not driveable

 We called the police. The trooper came and did the wheel/measuring thing and determined she was indeed going too fast. I waited for the tow truck. Got transported to the garage and finally driven home and I promptly got on the phone with our two insurance companies. Now it was after 8pm. My planned for 9pm bedtime to ready for a 4:40am wakeup would not happen this time.

I was alone, with George canoe adventuring in Algonquin Park in Canada with my brother Ron and his wife, Michele. At least George had ridden up to Canada in Ron’s truck so I had George’s truck to use until Monday morning. I opened a bottle of homemade blueberry wine, poured a generous glass and proceeded to do daily chores and get ready for the next day. By 10:30pm, I was ready to sleep, yet knew 2 glasses of wine and a Clifbar was not an ideal dinner, so I went to bed with one of my favorite snacks: a container of vanilla yogurt –and for added calories, I thought I’d add some cereal-yet we were out-so ground flaxseed came to mind and I added a couple tablespoons…

Fast forward 10 hours…

To make a icky story not too gross-In the future:

I will not ignore cramping when I run and only wish it would go away

I will always carry TP

I will wear dark colored shorts for days of extreme effort!

Except for the many pit stops (behind weeds and in the open) with limited success using tulip poplar leaves for personal hygiene, I had a great run!  …Yet I was certainly uncomfortable enough that this is not going to happen again in the near future. I let my guard down and got lazy and didn’t think!

This was the inaugural year for Red for the Red Marathon and Half Marathon to benefit the Watauga County Red Cross. This organization is also responsible for creating and hosting the tough Blood, Sweat and Gears Century Bike Ride which is a destination event for cyclists that want a stellar challenge (I have ridden this event a few times in the earlier years-and it is a toughie!) Now BS&G fills to it’s limit very early each year with riders from all over the US!

The idea behind RFTR Marathon was to mirror the reputation and toughness in a road mountain marathon. It’s the BS&G, the first year saw 100 riders, RFTR Marathon had around 35 starters.

I think this marathon is going to grow quickly! Saturday’s route was the most challenging paved route I have run.  To top things off, this time of year in the NC High Country is glorious! The goldenrod was glowing and tippy tops of mountains beginning to change color, mist and fog lifted as the sun burned it off and seemed to celebrate our efforts!

We started at 7am. I expected to run between 3:15 and 3:30 due to the ups and downs. I ran 3:29:34, and was pleased, though I wished I was smarter the night before and prob’ly would have run sub 3:25 and enjoyed the last 10 miles much more! Live and (hopefully) learn! According to the results, I was 3^rd overall and 1^st woman.

Glen Bailey and I after our different runs on Saturday

The morning was a special treat for me too, as I got to celebrated one of our high school’s own cross-country runners who ran the ½ marathon. Glen came in 3^rd overall  and seemed really pleased. I hope so-I was very, very happy for him! Complete results for both the Marathon and Half Marathon here.http://wataugaredcross.com/red/results/2010results.txt

New River Trail 50k-coming up on October 9^th! There are 146 runners registered as of this morning! Yay!