Whiskey Hill

About 3 weeks before the Oak Barrel Half Marathon a friend of mine (who lives out of state) asked me if I was running in it. I said I was not but I would see if I could get a spot...turns out they do have charity slots! If you aren't familiar with that race, it's a half marathon in Lynchburg Tennessee (home of Jack Daniels) that goes up what I've heard is a beast of a hill (Whiskey Hill). I had never done the race before because it sells out within hours (maybe minutes?) of opening every year. I signed up in 2020 but...we all know what happened in the spring of 2020. They did actually have the race that fall but it was on the day my son was getting married so I couldn't defer. The only races I've ever signed up for super far in advance have been half and full Ironman races....

I've always heard wonderful things about this race...any race that sells out super fast has to be good, right? I've even been up there to spectate once. Other than knowing the race director, the course goes up a massive hill and people love it, I didn't know anything else about the race at all. But my sweet friend (who I LOVE spending time with) was signed up and she was willing to run slow so I sent in a check made out to one of their charities in order to get my spot secured.

I'd like to say I trained, but, other than running 21.8 miles at Little Rock, and a few 4 and 5 mile runs, I didn't.

Dwayne got up super early in order to come with me to Lynchburg Saturday morning...that was a really nice surprise. (A friend I was going to ride with got sick the day before so I thought I might be going up alone.) The instructions STRESS STRONGLY that you need to arrive early because parking is limited. That fact along with the fact I had to pick up my packet that morning had us getting there about 90 minutes before race start.

I got my packet from a SUPER friendly volunteer-who was FREEZING COLD and still smiling-that included a NICE quarter-zip sublimated pullover. Then I went to wait in the car until it got closer to start time.

About 20 minutes before the start I made a quick trip to a portopotty (there were A LOT of them so the line went FAST) and then I went to hang out in the back of the race crowd to wait for the friend who roped me into this. I got to see several people I had not seen in a while and I got some great hugs! My friend and her husband showed up...more great hugs! After the National Anthem and some announcements that could NOT be heard AT ALL in the back, the race was started and we creeped up to the start line. 

I will say I was nervous. My friend told me her longest run was 8 miles, but she's always been faster than me so I didn't really know if our definitions of "slow" were going to line up. I had been doing a 3/1 run/walk so she said that was good for her so we started that from the get go.

The course for this race is BEAUTIFUL! Like SERIOUSLY BEAUTIFUT! There is ONE part where you go through a cow farm that was eye-watering pungent but other than that blip this is hands-down the best half marathon course I've ever been on! I LOVED IT. It's challenging but I didn't think it was horrific. I think I had built Whiskey Hill up to be so horrible in my mind that when we got there I was like "is this really it?" Don't get me wrong, it's not easy. It is a switch-back steep hill for a bit, but it's nothing like Mountainwood on the Cotton Row course. I didn't feel the need to take a breather. I couldn't have run up it this day but I can actually see getting to the point I could run up it (but I don't know if I would want to because the "cost" of running it might truly be more than it's worth...other than to say "I did it!").

We ended up negotiating on our run/walk intervals because it feels like wasting a downhill to walk there and it's HARD to run uphill so our intervals became haphazard. There were a few times I was really watching the time, wanting to walk before the time was up...but there were also a few times we ran through our walk break knowing an uphill was coming soon.

The best part of the race was getting a chance to catch up with my friend. I love her so much. She moved a while back but when she was here I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her. I have been to see her a couple of times but it's been a long time. She's just fun and smart and super happy...I love being around her so getting to run with her for 13.1 miles was a treat!

After you go up Whiskey Hill you run along the top from about mile 4.75-8.5. After that you get a GLORIOUS, easy downhill to the finish. I was feeling SO STRONG. Like crazy strong. It was a shock how strong I felt actually. It was incredibly encouraging.

Dwayne kept messaging me with predicted finish times and encouragements. He wasn't factoring in the MAIN reason I was running this race was to SOCIALIZE with my friend-not to run the fastest 13.1 mile race possible! I think I'd have been happy if we walked the whole thing-more time to talk! 

As we neared the finish line I fought the urge to speed up so we could finish side by side...it worked we ended up with the EXACT same finsh time! 2:38:25. 

Here's the Relive video of our race...

The finisher party was fantastic! They had delicious Brunswick Stew! They also had "hoecakes", pimento cheese sandwhiches and grilled cheese sandwhiches...I didn't eat those since I'm not eating gluten and dairy. The whole square was shut down for the party. I picked up my finisher socks and bought a Lynchburg magnet; we said our goodbyes to our friends and we headed back home.

I will certainly be online when registration opens up next year to make sure I get in...this race sells out FAST every year. Now I understand why! :D

Thanks for stopping in and sticking around.

Bad Information = Bad Planning

We worked the Little Rock Expo, advertising The Rocket City Race Weekend (we are moving to a two-day event with a 5K and 10K on Saturday, and TWO half marathons and the full marathon on Sunday).

--Okay, I know some of you reading will be wondering...why two half marathons? Well, our half marathon has always been the "BACK" half of the marathon course. That's the part of the course that runs through the Space and Rocket Center and Botanical Gardens. We have to limit the number of runners who can register for that race because we can't flood the back half of the course with too many people. So we worked to make the front half VERY interesting and fun so that we could bring in more people to our wonderful city.... 

Back to my Little Rock Marathon race report...

If you read "Part 1" you know I thought I had done my due diligence in gathering information with regard to doing/not doing an early start at the Little Rock Marathon. 

Years ago Little Rock didn't have an early start at all...everyone started at the same time... which meant the police were out there a VERY long time for the slowest runners. They have a slogan "the race for all paces" because for years they basically didn't have a cut-off. They might move you to the sidewalk, but they wouldn't cut anyone off (at least I had never heard of anyone being cut off). A few years ago they implemented the "early start" for anyone who was going to finish in "MORE than six and a half hours"...saying the cutoff for the regular start was 6 hours. I was caught up in that the last time I did the marathon. I was thinking I would be right at 6 hours and had no idea when I should start so I went with the regular start. I think I finished in JUST SLIGHTLY over 6 hours (and still got a listed finish time).

This year it was ever so slightly clearer-6 hours or less meant a regular start, over 6 hours meant an early start. But I really wasn't sure how we'd finish. I was figuring 5:45-6:15. So I went to the early start meeting and got information...They said early starters were ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED to pass the 6 hour pacers-AT ANY TIME, even at the finish. They also said the "hard cutoff" was at mile 19.2 and was going to be at 12:45pm. That meant with a regular start we had to maintain, at the very least, an average pace per mile of 14:50. I figured there was NO WAY we'd miss that. And, I was right...but...

Well...let me back up and explain why they won't allow early starters to pass the 6 hour pacer (who starts early). That pacer "opens" the race. The police stay in front of the front runner...the schedule of police working the intersections and the aid stations are based on a 6 hour pace starting at 7am. If a faster runner were to get out in front of the 6 hour pacer the police would not be ready at intersections and the aid stations wouldn't be open and ready to go on time. It would set up a very unsafe situation.

If you are a runner and a mathematician you can figure out the leaders of the regular start would overtake the 6 hour early start pace group but that doesn't happen until about mile 18. It's MUCH easier for the sake of having easy to follow rules to say "early starters may not EVER pass the 6 hour pacer" rather than allowing that rule to be fuzzy. I understand and can respect that rule. I can also fully understand why there is a cutoff time on the course. It's at the perfect spot...at 19.2 the course turns left and does a VERY VERY VERY long out and back along the river. Not meeting that cutoff time allows the runners to be turned so the course can be shut down. Totally reasonable. I thought 12:45 was VERY generous...and it turns out it was "too" generous...

But let me start at the beginning

I met my friend in the last corral...where I was supposed to be. She was actually supposed to be further up based on her projected finish time of something like 4:30. Since she had run Snickers the day before she had planned on taking her time with me and just having "fun" running back-to-back marathons. She had never been that far back in a marathon before so she was enjoying the antics that happen with the people who are out there getting our money's worth (costumes of all sorts!). The gun went off and we crawled to the start. 

The race was smaller this year so it didn't take nearly as long to get to the line and before we knew it we were off. We started out next to the 5:45 pace group (there was NOT a 6 hour sweeper/pace group) but we quickly realized that group was NOT running a 5:45 pace so we didn't try to stay with them. We settled into an easy run. Mile 1 12:26. Mile 2 12:45. Mile 3 13:20. Mile 4 12:11. The course was different this year than the other 3 times I've run it so it was fun to try to figure out where we were. I realized we were close to the school I went to in the 2nd grade so I regaled my friend with stories of how my brother and I would walk to a school that we lived almost right beside only to be bussed across town. One day we missed the bus so we set out to walk there. We found a little (TINY) mom and pop store where we spent $.25 of our $1 lunch money to buy a Hershey bar... We started skipping school after that when were realized no one seemed to miss us at school that day! (We did eventually get caught!)

Mile 5 we came upon a friend of my friend's so we started running with her. That mile was 13:39. That was the mile we "stopped" at the first aid station of the day...I got the LAST cup they had! And, they were out of Gatorade! That was NOT a good sign. There were literally hundreds of people behind us. Mile 6 was 14:08...so I told my friend we had to leave her friend so we could stay on our pace target. Mile 7 12:47. 

Mile 8 takes runners back over the Arkansas River bridge....13:45. Dwayne was messaging the whole time giving us updates on our predicted finish time. We were WAY ahead...and at that point VERY (VERY) glad we didn't start early (forcing us to slow down from our overall pace thus far). Mile 9 12:39. 

Mile 10 has one little stinger of a climb and goes past the School of Law. I couldn't help but remember my high school self dreaming of going to Law School there. It's obviously changed a lot but I was flooded with memories. We also had a potty stop...14:00. Mile 11 we made up some time with a 12:29 split. However, we encountered another aid station that was out of Gatorade! This was shocking...it was a hot day and this was too early in the race to run out! 

Mile 12 takes runners by the governor's Mansion--the Governor was actually outside taking photos with people!! I (we) didn't stop because there were a few people waiting to get pictures but how cool that he was out there!! There's some elevation gain there and we were feeling the lack of Gatorade at that point. That mile was 14:04.

Mile 13 seemed like it was faster but we had lost the half marathoners at the split, it was HOT, and we were climbing. The course goes by Central High School--famous because in 1957 the Governor of Arkansas actually brought in the Arkansas Army National Guard to prevent school desegregation. My dad was actually one of the National Guardsmen who was there carrying out the Governor's orders. (Shame on them.) That mile was 13:49. Mile 14 13:54...I was getting worried. We had seen too many miles over the 6 hour pace but Dwayne was messaging our predicted finish and we were still on target for about 5:45ish so we were doing fine. 

Mile 15 is really where the Marathon truly begins...that mile takes runner by the Capitol Building and just beyond that is where the wonderful climbing begins. The Capitol Building is so impressive to me. It's an exact miniature replica of our nation's capital! I love seeing it and LOVE "running" past it in this race. I remember thinking on this day it was the hottest LRM I'd been to. What's "funny" is that they had been calling for storms ALL WEEK LONG. I honestly expected the race to be canceled, or for us to be pulled off the course because the storms were predicted to be BAD. We had maybe 4 drops of rain. At that point I was praying the sky would open up on us just to cool us off! We were slowing WAY DOWN but I expected this and had accounted for it...15:19. Looking at the time of day we needed to cover JUST over 4 more miles and we had like 90 minutes. We had PLENTY of time to make the 12:45 cutoff at 19.2...

Mile 16-18 is the most challenging part of the course. That's the long slow climb that makes you understand why LRM has a dinner plate sized medal!! THIS is where you really earn it. On this day I started wishing we had actually started early-not so much for the additional time as much as for getting us out of the heat 2 hours sooner! 16-16:23. Mile 17 14:07. 

Then mile 18...I was telling my friend this was the hardest part of the whole race but we were WELL ahead of that 12:45 cutoff time at mile 19.2. So she stopped at a potty for an apparently very necessary "visit". By my watch we lost 4 minutes there...but, again, we had like 30 minutes to cover a mile (point two). We were golden even though that mile was our slowest of the day at 17:27. 

Mile 18 to 19 the course goes through Allsopp Park and is a fairly steep(ish) downhill section that leads to the LONG out and back along the river. When I was in high school and college this park had a VERY bad reputation for being filled with drugs! It's a VERY pretty park actually. It's strange because you feel like you are in the middle of the woods there, not in the middle of a major city! That mile I was feeling really good...we were coming up on 19.2, we had PLENTY of time to make that 12:45 cutoff, we were both feeling decent enough to pick up the pace on the flat section so we could make up lost time to make the 6 hour cutoff...SWEET! The biggest complaint was that several aid stations had been out of Gatorade and the gels we expected were NOT at the aid stations! Mile 19 was 13:35.

The course crosses a major road, goes up and over a little "bridge", then turns left at the 19.2 mile aid station to start that LONG out and back... When we were on top of the "bridge" we could see the aid station...we had right at 15 minutes...SWEET!!

Just then a city vehicle sped past us and pulled sideways at the bottom of the little hill, the guy got out of the car and said something to the volunteer...my heart sank... The volunteer pointed to his left (our right) and told the 2 runners in front of us they had to turn...then told us the same thing. 

HOW DID WE MISS THE CUTOFF WHEN WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE ALMOST 15 MINUTES??????? 

I did NOT want to argue with the volunteer-he was just doing what he was told. It was a city vehicle so maybe there was something I didn't know? The aid station was to the left. I considered saying "hey, we need water (and hopefully Gatorade if they weren't out)" and then quietly continue on our way...but that felt very WRONG to me to "sneak" past this volunteer who was just doing what he was told.

I pulled out my phone and called Dwayne to tell him that we had gotten turned...we missed the cutoff and were now DQ/DNFs. That call was placed at 12:33, after we had turned and started walking. (This is important...)

My friend was PISSED. I was devastated. I am the one who made the decision for us to skip the early start. I felt like I must have somehow gotten the cutoff time wrong. I wasn't thinking clearly enough to check my text message to Dwayne. But even if I had checked it right then I still would not have argued with the volunteer. 

We walked all the way to the lipstick stop (LRM has a lipstick station right before the finish line where they give free lipstick and they have a mirror for you to apply it...so you'll look good for the finish line)! Thanks to the idea from a wonderful Marathon Maniac who goes by the name "Lipstick Lady"! Then we ran in to get our 21.81 mile medal with a DQ story.

My friend said she would never to LRM again, but I told her this was a one-off kind of thing...I LOVE that race almost like she loves RCM. She caught them on a bad day-running out of cups at that early aid station, running out of Gatorade, us getting turned on the course by the volunteer...those were not the normal LRM experience!

Later I checked my text message to Dwayne--I was right, it said 12:45...I also went back to the race instruction email...the one that said the cutoff for the regular start was 6 hours (14:53 pace) AND it said the 19.2 mile cutoff was 12:33....

Here's my BIGGEST mistake...it wasn't that I relied on the information given in the meeting. It wasn't that I didn't start us early. It wasn't that I didn't speed us up along the way. It wasn't that I didn't argue with the volunteer. It wasn't that I didn't find a way to sneak around the volunteer who told us to turn. It was that I didn't VERIFY the cutoff time. The information in the instruction email regarding the cutoff pace was wrong and that was clarified in the meeting...I should have clarified the cutoff time rather than just taking what was said without asking. That is on me.

Running out of cups and Gatorade...I blame the weather! :

At the end of the day I still love this race. I don't know if I'll do the marathon again, but most likely I will. I will just make sure I'm trained up enough to not get caught in the early/regular start delima. I'm also going to recommend that they have a 6 hour pacer/sweeper at the end of the regular start. That would have saved us. 

Probably most important...this experience gave me some very good lessons learned for a potential early start option for Rocket City Marathon!!

Thanks for stopping in and sticking around. I know this was long...but so was the race! :D