What a challenge!

Jon and I survived our first running of the Umstead Trail Marathon this past weekend!  With very little running through these winter months, it was questionable if we'd even make it the whole distance.

The day started with six of us...  Jon, myself, Frank, Ron, Scott and Eric.  Only Scott and Frank had run Umstead before...  but we all had heard, in great detail, exactly what we were about to face.  Admittedly, I was scared!  We started out, and in the first mile you're already going uphill.  I knew it would be a long day for me.  Jon and I started with pretty short intervals of  5-1.  I remember noticing the 8 mile marker and my legs already feeling those hills...  at this point I knew it would be a REALLY long day!

We continued on at this pace, thru the half-way point.  Feeling fatigued, we decided to drop the intervals down to 3-1.  On a positive note, the trails and park as a whole are absolutely beautiful.  I was very much enjoying the race, visually.  At some point after the half-way mark, we crossed paths with Frank and he took our picture.

That's one thing I enjoyed about the route, is all the down and back sections. You contstantly get to see folks. Some are ahead of you, and in some places, you see folks who are behind you... but there's always someone passing by that can give and receive words of encouragement.  This helps SO much during a tough race. 

Around mile 18, I had some kind of mental breakdown....LOL!  Poor Jon, he was pulling ahead a bit and had to deal with me losing my mind.  My legs were hurting so bad, and I was nearly in tears at the thoughts of having 8 more miles to go.  This is a long way when you are in pain.  I struggled along between miles 18 - 20, and decided that getting upset wasn't helping matters at all, so I gave myself a little pep talk. 

Surprisingly, my legs started feeling better at mile 20.  Maybe it was the pep talk?  Or maybe I took a gel shot and that kicked in.  Around mile 22, Jon and I separated a bit.  He was stopping periodically to stretch his achilles.  I stopped running intervals and was running for as long as I could, until I reached a hill.  Then I would walk. 

Notably, three BIG hills, named Corkscrew Hill, Wheels Fell Off Hill, and Cemetery Hill were all in the last 6 miles of the race.  Purposely planned, I'm sure.  Hahaha!  I walked all of these.  Every step of them.  Although I felt decent, I had no energy to run up a hill. 

Finally, I reach the top of Cemetery Hill and I hit the 25 mile marker.  In the home stretch now...........

I crossed the finish line in 5:32:04.  Jon was next with a time of 5:37:09.  Another neat thing was the announcer calling out each persons first/last name as they crossed the line.  That made it feel really personal. 

During the race, I remember thinking to myself.....  the hell with Umstead, I'll never come back here!!  But after finishing the race, I felt I had really accomplished something.  I would like to run it again next year.  For something that seemed like pure torture at the time, it was pretty fun!