Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, and we were off, 344 people heading for a lap around the parking lot of the Harper’s Ferry National Park Visitor Center, before an out and back tour of Murphy Farm, then heading down to the Lower Town of Harper’s Ferry. The 7:30 a.m. start time had comfortable temperatures in the low 60s, with cloud coverage keeping this range for most of the morning. The 10th Running of the Freedom’s Run Marathon (and half marathon and 10k and 5k and Kid’s Fun Run, but I was not a participant in any of those, so they are not part of this report, except for tangential half marathoners you’ll read me disparaging during the second half of the run) took place on October 6th, 2018, sixty-seven years to the day of the birth of my father. The old man’s birthday wish was to watch me and younger brother Keith suffer, in exchange for all of the pain we brought to him over our lifetimes. A marathon is hardly enough payback, but that’s the most we were willing to give him (we’re cheap bastards).
October 6th was also a big day for Brett Kavanaugh, as he excitedly boofed to the tune of a Supreme Court nomination, helped in no small part by the support of West Virginia’s own Joe Manchin. Running through Antietam National Park with its series of confederate statues, and later seeing a life-sized orange cutout of our current president giving a thumb’s up (I responded with a single finger salute in return), I couldn’t help but feel proud to be a part of America’s second not-so-civil war in the making. But aside from wearing a blue shirt, and flipping off a cardboard Trump, I tried to keep my politics out of the race, and I will likewise minimize the politicizing for the rest of this report.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung to us ahead of the race start, in lieu of the National Anthem. The civil war union song was touching on this overcast morning, and a nice change of tune from the usual patriotic track…
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on
I have to say it does not hold a candle to the majesty of Comrade’s Shosholoza (but 20,000 people in harmony compared to a few hundred is not a fair fight).
The small race sent us off on the aforementioned early course after crossing the very official strip of duct tape across the parking lot, with me positioned somewhere around eighth place early on, and yo-bro K settled in closer to mid-pack. One of the front packers was presented as a total badass who had won JFK before, so I knew not to try to hang with him or anyone around him, or especially the crazy guy sprinting away from him in the early miles. I passed the impressive dude pushing his wheelchair-bound child right around two miles in, offering my mad respect for his challenging effort (he said he’d done this once before, so he knew the terrain – gravel trail, big hills, and a crazy set of spiral stairs), before being passed by a girl who seemed to be going way too fast for this early stage of the race (something I am familiar with). My first mile was a 6:51, hitting two at 14:17, and three at 21:15 before I lost the markers for a while.
The third mile down to Lower Town (there’s a Funky Town reference needed here) was very scenic, with a stream to our right, and a cliff carved on our left to flank the road we were on, steadily downhill to the historic village, site of abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 rebellion. We crossed the Winchester and Potomac Railroad Bridge at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. The race director told us at the start that this crossing would be an ideal picture to capture the beauty of the area just after sunrise; when I (jokingly) asked the runner behind me if he’d mind taking my picture, the sneer I received had me quickly explaining that I was only kidding. At the end of the narrow bridge (definitely not a good place for a bunch of tourists to stop for pictures while runners are trying to squeeze through), we hurried down some steel spiral stairs that were fortunately dry (my angry non-photographer friend told me that the last time he ran the race, in the rain, the spiral stairs were Bon Jovi-esque – Slippery When Wet).
For those curious (as I was), the courageous chair pusher told me that he would either wheel the stroller down on its back wheels or hope that a nearby runner would grab the front and help him down with his son. I later learned that a helpful race volunteer took up this second option to help him out.
Camera-shy guy took a slight lead over me after the bridge (he boldly charged down the dry stairs to make up for his previous struggles when they were wet), putting me back around eighth or ninth again (I lost track), as we entered the C&O canal for a long, flat, quiet stretch along the Potomac.
A few minutes later, another runner caught up to me. This was getting ridiculous. Before my new nickname became turnstile (I’ve been called worse), I thought I’d try to keep up this time. This latest passer seemed much friendlier than the previous two (the girl who charged past like I was standing still, and the guy who feared I’d stop and stand still to take a picture), so we chatted it up on the easy part of the course.
Sage is a badass. She told me that she’d won the race twice before, but was coming back from serious injury, and only hoping to run a 3:15 this time around to restore some confidence before deciding if she was up for the effort to nab another Olympic Qualifier (a little more impressive than a Boston Qualifier, which was all I was shooting for (and also to beat Keith by a sizeable margin). I thought I could run between 3:10 and 3:15 on the day, with 3:15 being the BQ for 40-44*). As Sage and I traded stories (hers were much more impressive than mine), we passed Mr. Bridger, and espied sprinter girl coming back our way in front of us. I told my new running buddy that there was a bullseye on that other girl’s back, but either her eye for tramp stamps is not as sharp as mine, or more likely, she was more patient than me. Either way, we ran her down a short time later, with the girl immediately giving up the fight without even returning our greetings and well wishes. Her early glory hallelujah would not last the full 26.2 miles, as she fell like a nameless confederate soldier (too harsh?).
Sage said that she needed to run 7:30 miles, but anything better was bonus. We reeled off a series of miles in this general range, though the markers along the towpath do not seem to be perfectly spaced and were not synched to the course in any way (we started on the easy trail somewhere around marathon mile four, at just short of C&O mile marker 61, heading up in number). Regardless, before we knew it, the conversational pace had us exiting the park at (marathon) mile 15, sometime around 1:52?, and running up the first big hill of the day. There was another runner we’d seen ahead of us along the trail for a while, and I’d questioned if he was in the race or just an illusion. Struggling up the hill, he turned out to be another guy who’d gone a little too hard in the earlier miles. We trampled out his vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored (a little more BHOTR for you).
For what it’s worth, I was running on day 98 of a current streak, after a year plus of half-assed training (the Teddy excuse). When Keith proposed this marathon, I postponed serious training until three months before, before deciding to see what damage I could do in that period of time. I’d amassed around 640 miles leading up to this big day (exact figures were lost when my work computer was upgraded, losing six years worth of daily run tracking; I’m still pissed about that). I’d lost approximately fifteen pounds during this training cycle (exact figure unclear because “Teddy” broke the scale in our house; it reads at least ten pounds light at the moment, so I have my suspicions that Sai actually manipulated the device and blamed our son). In other words, I was pretty fit, for me (though still fat by ultra standards, I’m sure). There are enough decent hills in my neighborhood and on my Thursday trail runs that when the inclines of Antietam came my way, I took them in stride.
Sage and I had discussed that the key to running the hills was to suck at them less than the competition. Her training had maxed out at 12 miles, while I’d gone as far as 18.5, so I had a slight edge after the halfway point of the race. We both weaved in and out of the back of the pack half marathoners who were sharing our course at this point, they in their third mile while we were in our sixteenth (we had an hour head-start on them). It was like a slow-moving slalom, without the snow. I’d create some separation on the ups, and she’d catch up on the downs, and we’d continue conversing about running, family, etc. as we clicked off the miles toward the end of this ordeal. Around mile 20, she fell behind a few seconds, and did not immediately return, forcing me to part the sea of slow halfers (not heifers) alone for the last 10k.
Antietam was pretty, as far as civil war battlefields that were the site of 23,000 fallen soldiers in a single day go, with rolling hills on the park road through the farm fields of gory on this cloudy day. There are monuments to union and confederate soldiers lining the route, though I opted not to stop and read the placards because I was being chased by a fast girl, and presumably, somewhere farther behind, a slower-yo’er-bro’er named Keith.
Leaving this national park, I was excited for the last four miles of relative flatness described by the race director. However, he must have been confused, because we were still running up and over hills, just now alongside a highway. As we hugged the shoulder (the road was not closed for our small caravan of a thousand people, spaced out over several hours (~350 marathoners + ~650 halfers)), I continued to pass people who had the benefit of thirteen less miles on their legs (not counting the ~1.5 mile warmup I made Keith run), but who had the misfortune of only getting the hardest parts of the course). At each mile marker I did rough mental math trying to figure out how fast I had to run to beat 3:10, versus how slow I could go to still beat 3:15. It was more tiring than the running, so I generally just kept trying to push myself at the same relative pace.
The inevitable wall that has hit me in all but one of my marathons was surely waiting beyond the next bend of the road, but with each mile down, I feared it less and less, until at mile 25, I realized that I had this race in the bag. Even though we were in Trump country, I was happy with no wall. We crossed a long bridge taking us out of Maryland and back into West Virginia, which told me that we were close to the finish at Shepherd University. The Bavarian Inn on our right was only a short walk from the finish, another sign of the impending finish line. We made a left turn, up one last cruel hill, took a long way around a parking lot, and headed for the stadium. Birthday dad was waiting on the right, while Sai and Teddy seemed distracted on the left, and I ran through (giving dad a high five on the way) before unleashing my furious kick to pass one last half-marathoner and crossing the line in an unofficial 3:12:33 (7:20 / mile pace).
Less than thirty seconds later, I heard the announcer cheering in the women’s champ, my pacer Sage, whom I congratulated on her return to racing. We agreed to meet again at another race, though I assured her that her sub-3:15 confidence-booster would lead to her leaving me in her dust the next time out. She quickly bolted the scene to take her daughter to gymnastics, being too busy to bother with the awards ceremony.
I ended up in fifth place overall, and first in the 40+ age group. I’m not sure if I passed a couple of marathoners without realizing it in the mix with the halfsies, or if some guys dropped out, or if I just can’t count. But the guy who took off like a madman at the beginning apparently was legit, because he won the race in a 2:48, with second being seven minutes back, followed by third around 2:59, and fourth five minutes after that. In other words, I was smoked by the top four, and even if I had run sub-3:10, it wouldn’t have made a difference in my overall position. I surmise that a podium position will require more than three months of training and/or younger legs.
*I later learned that because the 2019 Boston entrants had to run 4:52 below qualifying standards to get in, the BAA decided to lower the 2020 standards by five minutes. 3:10 is the new BQ. Oh well, His truth is marching on.
Keith came in just under 4:35, maybe ten minutes behind the guy pushing his kid. He struggled on the day, feeling light-headed most of the way. Something about not training well, not having any hills in Iowa, and allergies contributed to a disappointing finish for him. But he finished, earning an admirable eighth marathon medal, and the right to enjoy some post-race beer. We do have an unanswered question though: In his quest to check off multiple states, since Freedom’s Run started and ended in West Virginia, but spent the bulk of its miles in Maryland, does it really count for claiming either state?
Key takeaways:
- Freedom’s Run is a gorgeous race. Great scenery. If you want big crowds, go to Chicago or New York. If you want nice views and no people, this is a good option.
- The race is well organized. Aid stations were appropriately spaced and stocked, it was impossible to get lost, and they had a very nice post-race setup at the Bavarian Inn across the street.
- It’s not an easy run. There are a lot of hills in the last eleven miles.
- Sage Norton is one tough mother. I pity the girl who tries to drop her early in her next marathon.
- It is possible to run a solid marathon on three months of solid training, but more would be better.
- It is possible to survive a marathon on less than solid training, but it is not advisable (Keith!!).
- The Battle Hymn of the Republic is a catchy tune.
- Happy 67th Birthday dad. Eleven people aged 67 or older completed the race this year…
Traipse Reports - Trips and Races 