Mountain Top Trail Half Marathon

On Friday, September 21st. I worked a half day and then took off for the Ocoee Whitewater Center in the southeast corner of Tennessee not far past the North Carolina Border. The Ocoee Whitewater Center was the site of the kayaking events for the 1996 Olympics hosted in Atlanta, Georgia. My plan was to spend the night in a campground of the Cherokee National Forest, or barring that, stay in a hotel in the area. I left Charlotte around 2 PM. The trip took me 6 hours, including a 10 minute rest stop off I26 in Hendersonville, North Carolina gas up at Whitter, North Carolina, and then a 30 minute dinner at the Waffle King off of Hwy. 64 in Murphy, NC.

I pulled into the whitewater center at dusk. I spoke to a young couple who where in the process of leaving. They informed me that the closest camping was a good 20 minutes or so up the road further West. So off I went. I pulled into the Parksville Lake Campground around 8:30 PM. A fox sauntered by as I pulled in.

The campground was pretty much full. But everyone was quite. I soon put up my Hubba tent (http://www.msrcorp.com/tents/hubba.asp) and I was soon getting ready for bed. On my way back from the restroom I was starting to walk along a footpath with my headlamp on and quickly stopped when I saw directly in front of me about 20 feet away, two brilliant disembodied green eyes appearing about a foot off of the ground. I started walking toward the pair of eyes, and then suddenly they disappeared. . . . It was spooky. I believe it was the fox I had seen earlier . . . still working the campground for dinner.

I woke up the next morning around 6 AM and was packed up and left the campground shortly after 7 AM. When I arrived at the Ocoee White Water Center, the race staff was just arriving and setting things up. I was the first person to pick up my packet. The SWAG included the standard cotton race t-shirt, a sample of something called BIOFREEZE - a gel designed for muscle relief, and a sample of Elete - an electrolyte replacement water additive. At around 9:10 the half marathon started in the parking lot. We ran down the parking lot, then over a bridge, and soon started running up hill. By this time what I thought was going to be a cool morning was beginning to steadily heat up.

As I had seen from the race topography map, the first 6 miles of the race would be uphill, with the first 3 miles being the worst. I thought my road training had paid off as I steadily ran up hill with very little walking. However within a mile or so after the first aid station - around the four mile mark - I began to run out of energy and was wondering if this was just a short term thing. At this point I had already gone through one bottle of water and was half way into my second bottle. As part of the course, we were looped back to the first aid station again at about the 7 mile mark. I knew this meant that from here it would be pretty much downhill. I had expected to pick up my pace, but I was already so worn out that I didn't have the energy to take advantage of the downhill. As it turned out I slogged through the next 6 miles with my energy levels continuing to drop despite taking in plenty of Heed/Water mixture, downing Hammer Gel, and taking advantage of the food at the aid stations. My time was disappointing, but I considered it a good training race to get ready for the Dupont Forest Marathon (Brevard, NC area) in mid October and later the Thunder Road Marathon in Charlotte. I plan on attending this event next year if my schedule permits. I rarely get the opportunity to visit this area of Tennessee and North Carolina. Also the race was not crowded, there were less than 30 people doing the half marathon. And the scenery was good.

I attribute the poor performance to primarily not having enough race specific training for this event. I have been doing some hill work on the roads. But this is insufficient for what was a fa rely consistent 6 mile climb on single track and forest roads. My legs were tired out in the first 4 miles and were shot by mile 7. Secondly the heat played more of a factor than I was ready to admit at the time. During the entire race, I drank four and a half 22 ounce bottles of water and a water/heed mixture. I felt a bit of nausea coming on during the race, so the heat and exertion were strong enough to bring on the first tinges of heat exhaustion. Third, I believe my body had some residual fatigue from the 20 mile long training run I had done the week before. Although this was a lower mileage week and the half marathon distance was in theory and easy distance for me at this point, 6 mile climb had more readily worn me out than it should have.