North Country Trail Marathon - RunMarathon

Started out towards the back of the pack, we ran a little loop through the parking lot and out to the main road before getting on the trail to spread things out a bit. The first 2 miles or so was pretty much lined with runners the entire way, with a lot of walking at most hills. There were some big groups together and I got ahead of them on a long hill as they were impossible to ever pass on the run. Hit the first aid station and grabbed a Gu and water. Hooked up with a decent group to run with at a good pace til aid station 2 where I got to see Karen as she had volunteered. It was real nice to see her and get a smooch :) , along with another Gu and water and an S cap.

Shortly after leaving aid station 2 at around mile 7 or so, I was pacing along with another group of 6, well being the last guy was a bad choice as the other 5 really stirred up a nest of yellow jackets or some other unfriendly stinging bugs and I got drilled by three all on the left leg. One hit along the patellar tendon just below my knee cap, another along the shin, and another on the inside of my leg. I kept running but I believe I altered my running style, as I ended up with some real bad left hip pain by mile 10. Not sure if it was ITB or not as it never affected the outside of my knee like in previous issues with ITBS. I would stop and try to stretch it out the best I could and ended up doing a strange shuffle of a run, but it worked.

I ran with various groups as we always seemed to get shuffled up at aid stations or others going off into the woods for other purposes. I ended up with one group that had 3 others in it that got stung after aid station 2, so I wasn't the only unfortunate one.

After sometime around mile 12-14 the trail got tougher, with a lot more longer and steeper hills where I had to walk up and it still felt like my HR was spiking. The course stayed pretty tough til mile 25. Going down the hills really hurt my left hip, so I would keep control of my speed then run down as easily as I could because it hurt less then walking down.

At aid station 21, I refilled the camelbak bladder, and stopped and put vaseline on toes of both feet as they were feeling a little sore. I'll have to remember to lube my feet next time I run for this long. Looking at my time here I wasn't sure I could break 5 hours any longer, but kept going to the next station. I ran with no one just before this aid station all the way to the end, things were real spread out now. At times it was just good to see a marker in the trail to know I was still going the right way.

I hit aid station at 24.1 miles and it was a huge boost to know the next aid would be the finish, after leaving here I found myself on the last long uphill followed by another painful downhill section, but then the course flattened out, so it was nice to finish the last 1.5 miles or so with a good run.

I was pretty uncomfortable by the time I crossed the finish line, but was quite happy to be done running.

I added this marathon after my HIM in July to see what kind of pain is involved with a marathon just in case I pull the trigger on a IM dist race next year. I had limited time to train, but in the future I'd do more long trail runs as most of my long runs were on rail trails which didn't give me the full affect of over 7700 feet of climbing of this route.

Not much of a warm down. Grabbed my finisher's mug and gave Karen a hug and kiss it was just good to be done! Walked around a bit and enjoyed some cold beer and a burger. Chatted with some other folks.


Needed more time training out on the trails.


It was a really great race overall on a great course on singletrack with great footing.

My only minor gripe being that the wife volunteered her time and after getting back to the finish area a few hours later was told by one of the organizers that she couldn't have a shirt or even purchase one. I'm not sure what they were going to do with extra shirts they still had left over. After seeing another volunteer with a shirt, she chatted with the original lady that had taken her out and back from the aid station and she hooked her up.

They had alot of folks sign up in the last few days before the event (real nice weather probably helped that) but managed to keep everything well stocked, and made sure they had enough for the folks doing the 50 miler.

I can't imagine doing 50 miles, but of course I never thought I'd do a marathon either. I'm glad I made this my first marathon.