On Dec 21, 2019, I ran my first trail marathon at the Otter Creek Recreational Area, in Brandenburg, Kentucky. It was the toughest race I’ve run, and that was pretty interesting, as it was actually the shortest race I’ve completed since 2015.
I’ve been running trail ultra-marathons since 2015. Back then, I had never run more than 13-miles, when I did my self-ran Riverwest Trailrun+. A hometown friend challenged me to train with her for a 50K trail race. She knew I was a trail runner, and she really wanted to do a 50K, but needed someone to help her keep motivated. I hadn’t pushed myself, distance-wise, in quite a while, so I agree to parallel-train with her. I call it “parallel-trainin”, because at the time, she lived in Belize, and I was in Wisconsin! We would each train on our own and update each other as we made progress, then meet up in July for the race, in Kewaskum, WI, when she was next in-country to visit her parents.
Over the next few years, I ran that first ultra – the Junkyard Dog 50K Trailrun in 2015; ran my self-run #RunAroundSconnie and a half-marathon at the Milwaukee Running Festival in 2016. In 2017, I ran 52.2 miles at the Titletown Ultra Run, and paced my friend for 40 miles, through the night, as she ran the Hennepin 100. In 2018, I relaxed. I ran, but focused on just maintaining some muscle tone and never really went long. Then, in 2019, while observing the Six Days In the Dome race, I met the race director of the Otter Creek Trailrun Races. He was in West Allis, volunteering at the run, and after hearing about his race in Kentucky, I decided then and there that I was going to run it. I hadn’t run a formal race in over a year, needed a goal to train towards, and heck, hadn’t been on a road trip in quite awhile. It sounded perfect – running in a new state, on a trail I’d never before experienced, and it was “short” compared to what I had run in recent years – it should be EASY…right?
The Otter Creek Trailruns are like many races, in that it is a few races run at the same time. On that Saturday, there were three different races happening – 1-, 2-, and 3-lap races (with the marathon being the three-lap race), totaling a little under 200 runners. It was a mainly a “locals” race, with only a few of us runners from outside Kentucky (I was the only competitor from Wisconsin!).
The trail had two aid stations: near the start/finish, and then at about the 5-ish mile mark. The trail up to that aid station was fun – hills, but not too scary, plenty of changing terrain, single-track, but not too technical. The trail AFTER the aid station…was challenging – for me – other people seemed to handle it pretty decently, but it wiped me out. There were 4 significant hills that were either extremely steep, or seemed to go on forever.
The first lap was pretty good. I maintained a steady 3-4min/1-min run/walk pace, while wearing both a fanny-pack with a camera and snacks in it, and a Camelbak filled with electrolyte water. I would stop every so often, if the scene warranted it, to take a picture. The camera store I work for, Mike Crivello’s Cameras, had loaned me a new Olympus E M-5iii camera for the trip – a camera that is supposed to be good for adventures, being both lightweight and weatherproof. So, I was trying to be good about documenting the run for both my and the store’s social media accounts.
The second lap began, and about a mile and a half into, a woman caught up to me and started to chat…
“You seem to have a good pace…I think I’m gonna tail you, if you don’t mind…I’ve been watching you….you’re good and steady with those packs on…were you in the service? Seems like you’re used to carrying a backpack…” and that is how I met Debbie.
So, for about the next 4-ish miles, I led a small group of people who needed some pacing – two young men running their first trail marathon, a woman who was doing the 2-lap race and running out of steam, and Debbie. We talked, joked, ran, walked, and just kept moving till we got to that aid station.
And after we got to the aid station…I was out of steam myself. The trail just chewed me up and I struggled to find my mojo. I’ve never felt so…incapable. I could NOT find the energy. The hills did me in.
Debbie was still with me, though and we kept on moving, even if it was slowly. I told her more than a few times, that if she wanted to move on faster, she was certainly welcome go on without me, but she stayed with me. We kept talking, kept walking, tried to run for some stretches, and returned to walking at a mildly fast pace. She and I completed our second lap, had a good visit with the aid station crew, and started our third lap with a good amount of renewed vigor. We saw her husband out on the trail and chatted a bit with him, and not longer after that, we encountered one of the young men we’d run with earlier. He was alone and walking slowly. He had pulled a muscle in his leg, and was not just trying to get to a part of the trail where it crossed the park road, and his girlfriend would pick him up.
Though Debbie and I were feeling a bit more energy, we quelled that to walk with him. No one wants to be left out on the trail, feeling like they failed in some way. Once we saw him to his girlfriend, Debbie and I were back under way, walking, shuffling, jogging, talking. It was a beautiful December day in Kentucky. The trail was fantastic – challenging, but not too intense; the landscape was varied and never boring. There were creeks, and the Ohio River nearby. We went miles without seeing any other runners, and were certain that we were the last runners on the trail. We passed the aid station, and it was vacant, though still stocked. We fueled up and kept moving, knowing that with every step we were closer to the finish line. This was the slowest race I’d ever run, and I was so eager for it to be done. It was getting later in the afternoon, and we’d been on the trail for over seven hours. We finally crossed the finish line at about 7 hours, 29 minutes. I came in 59th…out of 62 runners.
I had a lot of time to think on this run – and how it could have been better; how >I< could have been better. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do race-wise in 2020, but I AM feeling the need for some redemption this year.
