Adams County, Run with the Amish, My Last Marathon (?)

Pre-race photos

I signed up for the Adams County Marathon in November of 2015.  I didn't know the course or much more about the race except that it had a coupon code that made the marathon $40 instead of $85, it was within driving distance, and it had same day packet pickup.  That was good enough for me.  I wanted to run another marathon due to my injury before Columbus last year.  I knew that I could have finished much faster last year if I hadn't been injured and I wanted another chance at doing that.  I also thought that if I had to drop to the half that $40 was not a bad price for a half marathon.

September 23, the day before the race, both of my feet decided that they were going to hurt like never before.  I knew that this was due to nerves and was largely psychological but I still didn't like it.  I did not feel ready for this marathon at all.  I had learned that the course was extremely hilly and my training over the summer had been lacking due to the heat and the humidity.  I had considered dropping down to the half many times but my coach and my friends convinced me that I could finish it and possibly PR at the race.  I was going to do this.  I even asked my students to predict my finish time and promised a prize to the student who had the closest guess.  Even though my feet were in pain I went out for a very slow shake out run, around a 12 minute mile, that night and hoped for the best in the morning.

September 24th I got up at 3 in the morning to get dressed and drive the two and a half hours to the race location.  I left home around 3:45 and my GPS predicted that I would get to the race shortly after 6 am.  I expected a lot of winding country roads to get to the race so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to go slower than the GPS expected.  It turns out that most of the drive was on straight, flat, well-lit, wide state routes and interstate routes.  The last 15 minutes of the drive turned into the back country roads with steep hills, no lights, and sharp turns but I had plenty of time to traverse this short part of the drive due to my early start.  I noticed that this drive took me along the race course.  I could see mile markers and tables set up to be water stations.  I hoped it would be friendlier on foot.

I got to the race site shortly after 6 am and I was the third car to park for the race.  I did initially miss the entrance but so did the person ahead of me and I followed them to turn around.  I picked up my packet and played on my phone while waiting the 2 hours for the race to start.  Around 6:30 I noticed about a dozen people walking on the road with hydration belts and head lamps.  This made me wonder if I had missed the race start.  It also confused some other runners waiting in their cars.  We all popped out of our cars to see what was going on.  Apparently they have an early start option for those who want to take it.  I wish I had known and had brought my headlamp.  The forecast for the day was looking warm and that was another thing I was worried about.  Had I been able to start early I could have avoided a bit of the heat.

The race started at 8 so people started steadily arriving after the early group started.  Around 7 I decided to get out of my car and hit the port-a-pots, time to get ready to run.  Since I didn't have any friends at this race with me I roamed around the starting area.  Even though I am a Half Fanatic (#14011) I don't have a shirt to show that I am one.  I saw many fanatics wearing their shirts at the race so I went to say hello to them and introduce myself.  I knew that many other fanatics had met friendly runners just by wearing their shirts at races.  I was hoping I could do the same.  Half Fanatics also tend to get a group picture and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it.  After getting our picture everyone headed to the starting area.  There were no corrals or pacers so we simply set ourselves in place.  I tried to move towards the back of the group.  Since I had paced two half marathons at a 2:30 pace my goal was to do something similar, keep that 2:30 pace (11:27 min/mile) for the entire marathon and come in under 5 hours.  Since a 2:30 half is easy for me, this should be easy too, right?  This meant I wasn't planning on shooting out of the start.

Calf sleeves, blue shirt, orange shoes.  I had so much energy
at the start.

The race started and we were off.  As we got onto the road it was a slight uphill, but I knew that would be coming so I just tried to keep myself steady.  Then we had a rolling downhill, alright, I can do this.  This continued for the first few miles.  We passed a water stop around a half mile from the start.  Though I didn't need it yet, I knew it would come in handy.  The race was a double loop and that water would be great at mile 13.5.  Then at 1 mile out we came to the turn for the 5k, they went left on a street and we kept going.  The street they went down had a downhill and uphill that were pretty gentle and it seemed like a lot of the course would be like this.  Around mile 3 we passed a farm where horses were out near the road.  They saw us running and decided to join in.  Until they ran into the fence that surrounded them, they were running right alongside us.  It was really cool.  The views of the foothills and the farms were gorgeous and the mist that covered them just made them more beautiful.  I was keeping my pace well and I was feeling good.  I didn't feel tired or winded and I had hope.  I didn't want to stop and take pictures since I was doing well on my pace.  I figured that if I fell from my pace I would have lots of time to take pictures on my second time around the course.  I was running by 3 girls in yellow shirts, all from a group in Columbus.  They were doing the marathon too and we figured we would be spending a lot of time together since we seemed to be around the same pace.  I talked to them a lot during that first loop.

Half Fanatic Group Picture

We came to a right turn by a cemetery, went up a short hill and that is where we saw the start of the real hills.  It started with a major decent, not incredibly steep but it was a long way down.  I clicked in like a roller coaster and enjoyed the ride down because the uphill was immediately following.  The uphill wasn't particularly steep but it was a long way up.  I just chugged up the hill steadily trying to keep my pace.  When I reached the next mile, I was still good.  I had kept my pace steady through that major hill.  The next hill was not so kind.  We had passed mile 6 and were heading to the halfway point of the loop when we hit a super steep downhill.  I don't tend to slow myself much when going downhills because I'm good at catching myself and I feel like I would trip if I tried to slow down.  This generally gives me a great boost but I wasn't expecting how steep and long this hill would be.  Before I had finished it I had hit a 5:48 min/mile and I wasn't slowing down.  The hill kept going and going and I knew I couldn't do much to stop myself so I kept repeating "Oh, crap" on the 2nd half of the hill.  This made a few runners laugh but it helped me stay focused on staying upright.  I enjoyed going down, but I knew there would be some climbing to make up for that decent.  When we got to the bottom of the hill we turned left into what I call, The Valley of Names.  Along the sides of the road, dotting trees and posts, were numerous colorful signs cheering on runners.  It looked like the Amish community had written out and posted a sign for every runner in the race.  I thought it was very sweet and slowed a little to look for my name, not too much, but I wanted to find it.  After the valley was a short uphill and more names.  I hoped that the climb could be a series of short climbs, I could do that.  Then we got to the opposite of the downhill, the hill you climb that is so steep you feel like you are kissing the pavement.  This was where I lost my pace.

I know it is hard to tell from a
picture but the elevation on this,
whew.

I had to slow down and walk up this hill, it was killing my knees trying to run it.  I told myself that I had banked 2 minutes of extra time and that I could and should take my time on this hill.  When I reached the mile 7 marker, I was one and a half minutes behind pace and I was feeling those hills.  I knew I had to have good miles for the rest of the race if I wanted to hit my goal and that I would probably have to walk up that hill again on my second loop.  It was starting to look bad but I refused to give up.  I tried to get back on pace during the next mile.  I was close, 11:55, but I would have to pick it up.  That's when I ran into the next big climb and this one was winding.  It seemed short and I tried to chug up it, then it turned and went up some more, then another turn and up some more.  By the time I reached that first turn I was exhausted.  When I saw it continue I knew I couldn't keep my pace, I walked again.  This was while I was next to a guy on team RWB.  He was carrying the flag and planning on running the marathon.  We talked a bit and he has done many Cincinnati runs.  While we climbed he commented that these hills were, "like Eden Park on steroids."  I couldn't have agreed more.  The hills just didn't end.  I got to the end of these climbing miles with a 13:36 min/mile and a 15:01 min/mile.  I knew that since I had to do this again that all chances of coming in after 5 hours were gone.  Now I had to reconsider what I wanted to do.  Should I just finish the half and be done or should I go out for another loop of punishment and finish the full.  I just wasn't sure.

At this point we were nearing the 5k turn again, only this time we had to go out and back on the little road.  The worst thing was that the mile 12 marker was just on the opposite corner, we could see it, but we had to go nearly another mile to get to it.  Along this road was another group of signs on a fence.  I continued to look for my name since I didn't see it in the valley.  I finally found my name and it did make me happy and gave me a small boost of energy.  I picked up my pace because of that sign and knowing that I was entering the smaller hills.

My name among the signs

I neared the finish/turn around and the RWB guy had decided to be done after the half instead of going for the full, it was really tempting.  There were 2 things stopping me though: 1. My students predicted a marathon time not a half marathon time so I needed a marathon time to choose a winner (I need to set an example of commitment and dedication) and 2. I had decided this would be my last marathon and it didn't feel right to cut that short.  I knew the race had no time limit so I decided that I was doing that 2nd loop but I didn't care how fast I went.  I was going to take pictures and have fun.  As long as my body covered the distance I would be satisfied.

At the turn around they had a water stop.  I stopped there to prepare myself to handle this loop again.  As I was drinking a woman next to me asked if I was ready to tackle the second half.  I told her that I was as ready as I could be and we continued on our 2nd loop together.  She asked if she could stick with me and I was happy to have her company so we decided to stick together as long as we could for the rest of the race.  We started talking and getting to know each other.  Her name is Terri and she was there for her first marathon.  We were both struggling with the course and felt we could do better together.  She kept telling me to leave her if I needed to go faster but I told her that I just wanted to finish the race.  Before we got to the cemetery again we could hear someone behind us.  At this point we were pretty much alone on the course.  Little did we know that only 37 of the 61 registered marathon runners would finish the race.  37 runners spread out over 13 miles does not lead to a lot of crowding so we were surprised to hear someone coming from behind.  Her name was Jennifer and she asked if she could join us.  She had been on the road on her own and had been nearly hit by a truck.  She was worried about her safety on the course.  We told her that she was more that welcome to join us, but we were going slowly.  Jennifer was trying to qualify as a Marathon Maniac since she had just done the Air Force Marathon the week before so she just wanted to finish too.  So now we continued on as a trio.

Asking for feedback at the top of a hill

One of the best things about this race is the amount of aid stations along the course.  There's a water station for at least every mile where they have fruits, water, Gatorade, candies, and helpful people all along the course.  Even when some of the volunteers went home they left the aid stations well stocked for all the runners to use for whatever they needed.  Jennifer, Terri, and I always had water and fuel when we needed it and never felt like we were dying to find the next water stop.  The second time around it had gotten a lot hotter, near 90, and we were feeling it.  There's not a lot of shade along Amish farms and the sun was pretty brutal, there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  This is when the aid stations started giving out bottles of water and Gatorade and we were grateful.  The race director was also driving around, checking on runners, dropping off popsicles to aid stations, and stopping in the middle of the road to give runners ice.  We had been worried about passing out without anyone noticing, since there were no crowds and no other runners near us, but his diligence along the course helped relieve our fears.  I am glad that they were looking out for us.

While the 3 of us were together we tried to run down the hills whenever we could, including a service road that went down a hill, over a small bridge, then right back up (which I remember from the first loop but not how it fit in with the rest of the course).  We talked a lot, stopped at water stations, took pictures, and enjoyed the course.  I even did some live videos to Facebook so that I could share the course with my running buddies.  Our main worry was traffic.  Jennifer's close call on the road would not be our last close call.  The roads were not closed at all and drivers did not seem to care that we were participating in a race.  When there were over 200 half marathon runners and over 100 5k runners on the course we had the numbers that would make the cars go around us but with only 37 marathon runners on the roads, the cars didn't have to move.  We were a slight annoyance that they could speed around without moving over much.  The same truck that nearly hit Jennifer nearly hit me when he came back around.  He didn't move over at all nor did he really slow down.  Luckily Jennifer got a picture of his plate this time and we waved down a sheriff to pass on this information.  It was dangerous on those roads.

New friends: Me, Jennifer, Terri

Finally we got to the 5k out and back and the fence full of signs.  Some of the signs were gone but we knew that we were almost a mile away from the end of the course.  I decided that I was going to take my sign.  I was sure it would just get thrown away and I would only have to carry it for a mile so I grabbed it.  We found Jennifer's sign and she grabbed hers too.  We were guessing that the other signs had disappeared the same way.  We got to the mile 25 marker and decided to try to run the last mile.  We tried, but we didn't get too far, our legs were so tired from the hills.  We kept moving forward though.  As we neared the last uphill Terri could see her husband waiting at the top of the hill.  He ran off as soon as he saw us so he could meet her at the finish.  When we crested the hill I could see the finish.  I told the girls we should run for it and that if I lost either of them I would come back out for them.  Jennifer and I pushed together and she finished just a tenth of a second before me.  Terri followed us very shortly after.  It was my worst marathon time ever, 6:22:04.

As we cooled down in the shade, drinking water and eating post race goodies, an Amish woman approached Jennifer and I.  She asked which one of us was bib 61, Jennifer, and handed her a bird feeder and told her that she got 1st in her age group.  Then she asked if I was Ruth, I nodded, and she told me I had gotten 2nd in my age group and she handed me a basket.  Jennifer and I were in shock.  Both of us have done better at a marathon and both of us are in competitive age groups.  We never imagined that we would ever place at a marathon, especially when we went so slowly on the second half.  I asked Jennifer which age group she was in, since she said it was competitive.  She said the same age group that I am in.  Since she started behind me at the beginning it turns out that she finished about a half minute before me according to our chips even though we crossed the finish together.  Ultimately we were both ecstatic to have placed in our age group at all at a marathon and we were happy for each other.

Age group awards

Overall there were many good things about the Adams County Marathon.  The support from the aid stations, the views, placing in my age group, helping someone complete her first marathon, and the price were all good things that I enjoyed at this race.  I did not enjoy the temperature in the 80s and 90s and the course was brutally hard.  I know the the weather is beyond anyone's control and I should have looked into the course before signing up but they made this race very difficult.  The one thing that the race could improve is the traffic.  I know that shutting down roads for a long time is an inconvenience but there really needed to be some traffic control.  There should not have been numerous times when a car came within inches of hitting me.  What makes it worse is that there were runners on those roads until near 6:30 in the evening.  The last runner came in at 11 hours 30 minutes and they were out there alone for a long time so they had a lot of traffic passing by them as they went.  I am just glad that he made it to the finish safely.

I am proud of many things in this race.  I am proud that I finished when so many gave up and I wanted to give up.  I'm proud that I was able to help other women along the course.  Could I have gone faster and placed 1st in my age group?  Maybe but I felt a lot safer with my friends.  We each took turns encouraging the others to run so I think we finished stronger together.  I am proud that I completed the race in a smart way instead of pushing myself foolishly.  I came away from the race sore but no more injured than the week before.  I kept myself hydrated and fueled so I didn't risk passing out.  I want to run for the rest of my life, if I can.  It is not worth risking a permanent injury for a slightly faster finish.  I am also proud that out of 37 finishers 24 of them were women and despite my poor time I placed 22nd overall.  There are many things to be happy about with this race and I choose to focus on the positive elements.

So, is this my last marathon?  I honestly don't know.  I know I don't want to do one next year and I don't think I will ever return to this race again (the 2017 race is cancelled so it is not even an option) unless I want a challenging half marathon course to run.  I also know that my body needs time to heal.  My plantar faciatis has ebbed and flared through the year and marathon training did not make it feel better.  I need to give it rest when it needs it so I can't push paces and distances in a short period of time to try to complete another marathon.  Will I one day return to the marathon?  Maybe, but I will take a few years to train well for it if I do.  I don't want to say I'll never do another but I this point I can't say that I am planning to do another marathon any time soon.  So I am done with marathons for now but don't count me out just yet.  After all, I did place in my age group.