Running through the woods in Indy
Eagle Creek Trail Marathon
In the race photos I am smiling. But I know it’s at least a partially forced smile. One of those photos is from the turnaround point at the ½ before heading out on the second loop. You can tell I’m soaking wet and my singlet is plastered to my body like a wet T-shirt contest gone horribly wrong. I look a little worried. And a little tired. But that was probably just the lighting right?
You know the thought that is running through my head in that photo.
“I could just stop. Right Here.”
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On Saturday morning I ran the Eagle Creek Trail Marathon. It was held in a park near the center of Indianapolis called Eagle Creek Park. It was a two loop course with a wide variety of surfaces and a goodly amount of technical trails.
On the trail difficulty scale of 1 to 5 this one maybe got to a 3 in places. Not bad and certainly no more technical than the trails I regularly train on. There were single track sections that were fairly narrow. There were a good dozen fallen logs to hop over or limbo under spread around the course. There were a handful of steep bits that went up and down 75 foot ridges that had some roots and washout.
All of this was the fun part.
What it didn’t have was any rocks, any mud or any bugs. That was the best part – no bugs at all. I’m so used to being bedeviled by biting flies that it was downright peaceful in the Indiana woods.
The trails were well marked, well maintained and had a nice dense canopy of hardwood that made those sections really pleasant.
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The race started at 7:30 AM on Saturday morning. I had been looking for a trail race that weekend, maybe a 50k, but I found this one and it sounded interesting so I signed up for it. I like to get off the roads in the summer and do something different. Whether it’s a triathlon or a mountain bike race. This year I decided to switch my summer routine to trail running.
I treat my training broadly as a series of seasons. There is the spring season that starts roughly at the beginning of the calendar year and culminates with Boston and Groton. There is the fall season that is usually a road marathon or something else interesting in October or November. The summer season starts in May and culminates in a late summer event of some sort. That typically lines up well with the triathlon, mountain bike and ultra-calendars.
This year I decided on trail running for my summer season and the event, actually the first of two events ended up being the Eagle Creek Trail Marathon. Both my sisters live in Indy and that made the logistics easier and the event more inviting for me.
The Saturday start almost caught me. It would not be the first time I’ve shown up on Sunday for a Saturday race. This was further complicated when I realized I had a meeting starting in Atlanta Monday morning at 8:00 AM!
No worries. I made my plans to head out to Indy Friday afternoon, run the race Saturday, hang out with m y sisters for the weekend and jet down to Atlanta on Sunday.
…
Everything went to plan and I rolled out of bed at 5:00 AM Saturday and drove down to the park. I stopped at Starbucks for a cup of coffee on the way. I got there just after 6:00, got my bib and made my first porta-john stop. I didn’t get a shirt because I signed up late and that kinda bummed me out because the shirts actually looked nice.
I lubed up well, stretched and went for a warm up jog with plenty of time to spare.
…
It was predicted to get hot, but normal July hot, not that outrageous hot you get in the Midwest sometimes. The morning was 75ish but so humid that there was fog. It was going to get up into the mid-80’s. Not a bad day but warm enough for me to have to deal with a high sweat rate. From experience I knew I’d need to be prepared to keep up with 24 oz. an hour or more in this kind of weather.
Usually I’d just wear my water backpack and not worry about it but I didn’t want to drag that along in my suitcase. When I looked at the support and the two-loop course I figured I’d just bring a bottle to carry because worst case I was guaranteed to be able to pick something else up at the 13 mile lap finish.
As is my habit I wore my Brooks baggy shorts with the bike lining to have a better chance at avoiding terminal chub rub on my manly thighs. In one of the side pockets I squirreled away a baggie of 8 Endurolytes with a rubber band around them to keep them from slipping out. In the key pocket I put a small tube of Aquafor in case something started chaffing.
I wore my Squannacook racing singlet and a 2016 Boston Marathon tech hat. I brought a fly hat – which is just a race hat with a bandana pinned to the back Laurence of Arabia style to keep the flies off your neck – but was thrilled to not need it.
One challenge I did have going in was a sore Achilles tendon that I’d been training on for a couple weeks. I had aggravated it, of course, right after I registered for the race.
I found some old KT tape in my runner’s closet and threw that in my bag. I was a bit worried that the tape might be too old and like a Bandaid you might find in the bottom of a drawer from ten years ago or a dried out condom in a teenager’s wallet it might have lost its ability to be tape.
I managed to apply the KT tape to the Achilles when I got up and hastily put my tech socks and a thin pair of calf sleeves over it to hold it in place. I had visions of it failing in the race but it hung in there only rolling off a bit on the sole. I think it helped. As long as I didn’t toe-off aggressively, or land on it funny, the Achilles shouldn’t be a problem.
I wore my new road Hokas. When I say ‘new’ I mean new to me because they are last year’s Clifton 2 model that I got at discount as they were moving to this year’s models. The Mizuno trail shoes I was training in bruised my feet and gave me the Achilles issue so I wasn’t going to wear those.
I was a bit concerned that these Hokas would be a bad choice if the trails were super technical or muddy because they have no lugs at all on the outsoles. It turned out to be a fine choice because these trails were dry, and not that technical and there were some road sections that would have been hard with aggressive trail shoes.
I decided not to carry my phone. I had no place to put it and I wanted to have my hands free in case I needed to carry an additional bottle. I train with ear buds but I typically don’t race with them. I don’t need music to keep me entertained and headphones just get in my way when I’m racing. On more thing to worry about.
I carried one of my 24 oz bike bottles with a slightly strong mix of UCan. My strategy, if you could call it that, was to have enough fuel but to use the water on the course. Each time I ran through a water table I would top off the bottle. This way my slightly strong UCan got weaker as I diluted it at each water stop along the way.
I mixed the rest of my UCan into another, smaller, bottle with water to create a strong slurry. I calculated that for the time I was going to be out there I’d need 4-5 scoops total for nutrition. My main bottle had one big scoop and the secondary bottle had the rest.
It sounds complicated, but essentially the main bottle was for hydration and fuel while the second bottle was like a big gel pack that I could refresh the first bottle with when it got too weak.
While I was waiting at the start they announced that there was a drop table at the finish line for the marathoners who were doing two loops. I decided to leave the slurry bottle there and do the first loop with just the one bottle.
…
The course was interesting. It was basically a ragged, two-loop, out-and-back, from one side of the park to the other with a lollipop on the far end. It had some road sections, some gravel road sections and some technical trail. Overall the variety of the course made for some great landmarks. You always had a sense of your progress and where you were.
There was plenty of support on the course with water every couple miles. I was never at risk of running dry even in the heat.
…
Let me walk you through this course.
The 13 mile loop was about 10k to get across the causeway to the other side of the park, then another 10k on the other side terminating in a short lollipop.
The race started in an open field and continued through a gap along a field road for about ¾ mile that was a bit dicey because it had tire ruts and uneven ground and you had to choose you spots wisely. Then it progressed onto another ½ mile or so of flat fire road with some washouts that we had to leap.
Next was the first bit of technical single path that crossed a couple of ridges separated by a rabbit trail through a dry swamp.
This popped out onto a tar park road with no traffic then ducked back into the most technical bit that had some dead fall and scrambles.
All of this got you through the first 3 – 4 miles and dropped you into a parking lot with a water table.
Then we ducked back into a short rabbit trail system and popped out on the causeway. This was by far the worst part of the race. It was a major road across the water with zero shade. The causeway was about ¾ of a mile of highway with no less than 3 roadkill carcasses baking in the sun to keep you company. I had to cross this wasteland 4 times.
When you darted back into the trails on the other side it was then a 10K with a lollipop. These were well travelled trails. That is the busier side of the park. There were lots of people out walking their dogs and such, but the trails here were wide and no one got in my way. At one point a dog came trotting towards me carrying a 4-foot stick crosswise in its mouth, which could have gone poorly, but we avoided any Newtonian interaction.
On the way out you go down 3 big wooden stair cases of about two stories tall. We got to run up those stair cases plus one more on the return side of the lollipop on the way back. That was fun.
At one point there is a giant tree trunk section, maybe 8 feet in diameter, on display which must have been from 100 years ago before the area was clear cut and grew back. The trees in the park looked to be 40 or 50 years old. Certainly none of them were 8 feet in diameter!–
The end turn around on the back side was a 1 mile lollipop loop where ½ of that followed a dirt causeway out along a gravel fisherman’s walk into the water. There was some full sun here but also some shade and you were close to the water. This was a bit exposed but nothing compared to the oven of tar on the other causeway. You had some nice views of the lake and the people doing various boating things.
Once you completed the lollipop you were at about 8 miles in and you just returned to the start the way you came. You got to do all the course features four times but the fisherman’s causeway just twice.
I liked this layout because you really knew where you were after the first pass and knew what to expect. They had mile markers every so often for the half marathoners and the math was easy to just add 13 miles the second time around. For the most part my Garmin was spot on the miles marks that they had out.
That was the other thing I liked. They started us at 7:30 and then launched the ½ marathoners at 7:35. A handful of them caught and passed me out in the lollipop section but for the most part you were passing them on coming the other way on the way back in. This was cool because it gave my mind something to do instead of worrying about the heat and it got me out of my head.
There were 64 marathoners, 241 ½ marathoners and 107 10Kers – but I probably never saw them!
On my second loop it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns because some of the way-back-of-the-packers from the ½ did not understand the basic mechanics or rules of yielding to oncoming traffic on the single path. For those of you who don’t know I think you’re supposed to yield to the faster runner in general and always yield to the runner coming up hill.
This also meant I got to see the leaders coming back and who was in front of me or behind me. The marathoners had solid blue bibs and the 1/2ers had white bibs so it was easy to tell them apart, although late in the race a lot of the guys took their shirts off and you couldn’t see the numbers.
…
Since my training has not been going so well this summer and my Achilles hurt and it was going to be hot day I had to have a strategy.
The thing is I wasn’t trying to race. I was just out to finish without hurting myself and not crash. I knew I didn’t have the volume to race a marathon, especially a trail marathon and I didn’t want to death shuffle the last 6 miles in the woods in the heat. That would be awful. The specter of that potential awfulness helped me stick to my strategy.
The question was; “what should my goal time be?”
On a technical trail course you can plan on your pace being 1 – 2 minutes per mile slower than your road course speed. I figured I was probably in 4:00 hour road marathon shape so I added 30 minutes and set my goal to finish 4 ½ to 5 hours in the heat. Starting at 7:30, that meant crossing the finish around lunch time.
My plan was to force myself to take a 2 minute walk break every 20 minutes. Not a stroll but a fast hike. During these hike breaks I would be able to check my hydration and nutrition and electrolytes and make sure to keep on top pf everything. This would allow me to save my energy and spread it out for the distance.
This all sounded just fine to me. A nice easy long trail run with breaks to manage my energy, manage my fluids, mange my fuel and manage my electrolytes. A sound plan…if I could have the discipline to stick to it!
And I did.
The breaks allowed me to calm down and meter my energy. Of course I started out too fast in the first couple miles. When I glanced at my watch around the first mile split I was running close to a qualifying pace and I thought to myself “Wouldn’t that be funny!” The first break allowed me to reset, let some runners go and focus on my own race.
On the first loop I didn’t feel like taking the breaks. People would pass me. But I had a strategy and I was executing it. I tried not to be slavish about the break times and I looked for opportunities to combine a hike break with an uphill or a water stop so I could kill two birds with one stone. But I consistently stayed within 2-3 minutes of the 20 minute alarm that I have programmed into my Garmin.
…
The first loop was a mixed bag. I had some people around to talk to. I passed one woman early who failed to navigate a log and took a digger. I told her and the guy helping her that it wasn’t a trail race unless you were muddy and bleeding – that’s part of the fun!
I got passed by another young lady who had a very enthusiastic cheering section following her around the course. I could tell from a ¼ mile away how far ahead she was because I would hear the cheer rise up from a water stop up ahead.
The first loop was extremely humid. It was only 80 degrees or so but it was jungle humid and this had me a little worried. I was soaking wet. The sweat was running down my legs and filling up my shoes by the time I got the causeway. I was worried about having the right balance of fluids and salts. I was worried about blisters and chaffing because I was so wet.
As the day warmed up into the second loop the humidity burned off and even though the temperature was hotter it didn’t feel as stultifying. In the trails the canopy cover was thick and total with only a bit of filtered sun creeping through. These sections were very comfortable.
On the steep ridges and the stairs I power walked. There’s no sense in wasting energy trying to run up steep ridges. This is one of the secrets I learned from ultras. You lean forward at the waiste, get low to the ground, swing your arms and sort of stride while you’re falling forward up the hill. It uses a different set of muscles, saves your energy and you go just as fast as you would if you were trying to run.
Another key to technical trail running is to not waste your energy. You don’t’ fight the trail. You flow over it like water. Don’t leap over logs, flow over them. Don’t jump down the steep hills, shuffle down. You want to take short strides and save your energy.
On the first loop I realized that open highway section was going to be the hardest bit. The heat there was really pounding me in the full sun. The first time across I was chatting with a couple guys Robbie and Brian about qualifying times. When we got to the end of it I realized my head was a bit fuzzy and I didn’t feel great so I let them go and worked on recovering.
This worried me because I was only 10k into the race and I wasn’t feeling well. I recovered in the woods and out on the lollipop but was trying to figure out if my fluids or electrolytes were off somehow. The same thing happened on the second pass over that strip of black-top furnace. When I got back off it my head was fuzzy and I was beat up – so I figured it out. That bit of full sun with the heat coming up off the road was probably 20 degrees hotter than the rest of the race.
Coming back off the lollipop I started to catch runners who had passed me in my walk breaks. I’d pass them, they’d catch me etc. but the tide was turning. I pulled up beside one guy and said “Did you miss me?” He caught me on my next break on one of the road sections and he was limping. He had taken a tumble in the deadfall section and wrenched his knee. He dropped at the 1/2.
Coming into the turnaround I got passed by the leaders coming back out and was able to tell them what place they were in and how far behind they were.
I rolled through the finish line for the first time soaking wet and tired at 2:09. I tried my best to muster up a smile for the camera but you can tell I’m faking it. I briefly thought about calling it a day. Such is the risk with a loop course. There was a hipster looking dude with lots of tattoos wearing a marathon bib sitting on the ground looking dazed. I grabbed my slurry bottle off the drop table and headed back out. I high-fived bad knee guy as he was coming in.
On the way out I got to see all the ½ marathoners and marathoners behind me coming in. Somewhere in there a guy yells at me “You’re in the top 15!” I wondered what the cutoff time was for the marathoners to make the ½. I knew there was one. I hadn’t bothered to remember it. Based on the results it looks like the cutoff was 3 or 3 ½ hours because the last marathoner finished at 7:19.
“Huh” I thought to myself. “That’s curious. Small field.” Waiting for the start I had glanced over the winners trophies. They were giant chunks of sedimentary river rock, maybe 12 inch onm a side and 3 inches thick. At the time I thought “I hope at least three other guys show up in my age group because that is NOT something I’m going to put in my suitcase.” Turns out there were 7 of us in the 50-59 age group.
The second loop felt surprisingly cooler because the humidity had eased. I kept up my breaks and was quite enjoying myself. At the water tables I’d pour a slug of UCan slurry from the second bottle into my bike bottle and top it off with water thus boosting my energy levels back up. My head cleared and I made sure to keep taking an Endurolyte every other break.
I had my eyes on that open road section and made sure I focused through it and avoided getting beat up. I knew the moment of truth was around 18 – 22 miles where there was always the possibility of your body quitting on you if you screwed something up.
I passed two more runners as soon as I hit the road causeway. I was a bit surprised. They were walking.
Runners were few and far between by the time I got out into the other side of the park. I passed Brian who I had met and let go 10 miles earlier. He told me that Robbie had dropped at the half. I got passed by a surprisingly talkative young couple and wondered where they got all the energy 19 miles into the race. Coming into the lollipop I collected another walking dead who I assume was in the marathon but he had his shirt off and was in full-on stagger mode and didn’t want to talk to me.
Out on the causeway I heard a runner closing on me from behind. Which is never something you want to hear. This guy pounds past me wearing a full camelback and I can hear the ice cubes sloshing around in it. I realize he’s probably just left his car with some grand idea of going for a run in the park. He sloshed to a halt, out of gas, and I slogged by. I told him it wasn’t healthy to run in this kind of heat and everybody knew running was bad for your knees.
Then I hit the ground. Coming down a ridge I let my mind wander, caught a toe and did a full on superman. It was too steep to tuck and roll so I took it on my right hip and knee and slid on the palms of my hands. I was still picking bits of grit out of my hands later in the evening even after a shower.
It wasn’t because I was tired or dragging my feet. Just the opposite. I wasn’t paying attention because it was so pleasant in the trails under the canopy and I drifted into auto-pilot. It was around mile 22 and I had plenty of energy and felt great.
As soon as I hit the ground my left calf cramped up hard and so did my right foot. I got up and hopped around a little trying to calm the spasms down. There were witnesses. I assured them I was ok and stumbled off.
I guess I had been running with a bit of limp favoring the Achilles and this, plus all the sweating and the miles had primed me for some cramps. Now I had to nurse the pace the final few miles and avoid making my legs mad.
The other annoying thing is that when you roll a sweat-soaked human in dirt it’s like dipping a donut in sprinkles. My clothes were soaked. There was no way to wipe the dirt off. You just spread it around. My kingdom for a towel.
Up to that point I was really running well. I was running from my core with good form. Good turn over and short strides. It was nice and cool in the canopy. I was all alone except for the dog walkers. My left quad was starting to talk to me but I focused on my breathing and relaxed into the run.
I knew all I had left was the park road section then those two ridges and I was home free. I focused on trying not to toe off too much and just grind away to the finish.
On the last ridge I picked up some long tail ½ marathoners and was surprised because we were 4 hours into the day. I asked, in all seriousness, “Did you get lost?”
And they scowled and said “No, just slow.”
I pulled through the last aid station with 1.1 miles to go. I was limping a bit with the Achilles starting to ache, and trying not to toe off. “You all right?” The guy enquired.
“No it’s cool just some cramping” I smiled.
“Can we get you something?”
“No”, I smiled, “less than a mile to go I’ll be fine.”
As I pulled back into the long fire road section I sited two people up ahead. I didn’t pay them much mind because I was really just focused on finishing. My mind surfaced the concept of trying to catch them but I reminded myself that the only person I was racing was myself. I continued to grind.
I was focused on breathing, staying off the Achilles and not triggering the crampy bits. Just plodding along at a 10-11 minute miles. Grinding it out to the finish. I knew it was all flat from here and all I had to do was not do anything stupid. So many times at Boston I have seen these poor bastards go down hard with cramps in the last ¼ mile on Boylston when they try to kick to the finish.
The next time I look up I notice that, through no extra effort on my part, I’ve halved the distance to those runners. I’m reeling them in. God help me. My inner 16-year-old cross country runner wakes up and smells blood.
We turn onto the last grass field road section with about two football fields to go. I can see it’s a woman trying to encourage the shirtless man who is suffering. Shortly they are joined by a man who is also giving encouragement.
The runner is doing that shuffle-stagger-walk that I’ve seen so many times. I’m still grinding away and gaining on them like sand through the hourglass. Like a slow motion snail race. If he could run I wouldn’t catch him, but he can’t.
There’s less than 200 yards to go I can see the turn to the finish at the end of the field. I’m going to pass him. My inner 16-year-old reminds me that I’d better make it look good. I tidy up my form a bit and pull up to them. The other man is telling him to lift his legs. I try to be helpful and say “run with your core”.
He sees me and puts on a desperate surge to try to distance me, which isn’t hard because I’m plodding along like a glacier. I let his surge go. I’m not going to challenge him if he feels like sprinting. We’re at 26 miles! – I’m not doing anything stupid. But, this isn’t my first rodeo. I can do this all day. I let him run out the line but he can’t sustain it and collapses back into the stagger. Then I see the telltale mental collapse.
I grind on by.
I put the gas down as much as I safely can and push forward into the last cut through the field edge to the finish. There’s a gaggle of half marathoners walking in the gap. I give them a get out of my way signal and they scatter to the sides of the trail like kittens.
I see the finish across the field. I stretch it out and pick it up for the cameras.
…
I finished 15th overall. My sisters were there to cheer me in. They are quite amused that the guy who I passed at the end is a tall, athletic, 20 something with six-pack abs. I didn’t really notice when I passed him. It was at 26 miles I was lucky to be able to still see the trail.
I checked the results. He was in the 25 -29 age group. Curiously I beat him through the half by 3 minutes so he must have been the talkative one that passed me up on the back side. I beat him by 30 seconds so he must have had some sort of event in the high miles. It looked like a classic bonk not an injury.
Let that be a lesson to you kids. A marathon is a long race. Learn to manage your pace, your fluids, your nutrition and your electrolytes. Or you may get passed by a sweaty senior on the bell lap.
…
They had awesome Snow-cones at the finish. I had two. They also gave me the largest finishing medal I’ve ever collected.
My sister Jody then tells me that I came in second in my age group. I was pleasantly surprised. It was not my intention to place. I wasn’t’ trying to. I couldn’t really fathom how a 4:42 marathon could get me a prize! If this race was in New England I would have finished 30th in my age group! And the guy in front of me only beat me by 10 minutes.
I wandered over to the bored race organizer table and told them I thought I’d won something. He unceremoniously hands me a box from a pile. I told him he’d better check the compute because in all likelihood there had been a mistake.
Luckily I wasn’t fast enough to get a giant chunk of the Indiana substrate. I got a bathroom tile size ceramic coaster with a nice logo on it that would fit nicely into my luggage. Since I was on a roll I talked them out of a shirt too.
At the end of the day it was a good race. I ran my plan and had a good day and I will take that. I had a great relaxing weekend with my sisters. All in all an excellent outing and a fine adventure.