Spinx Runfest: There's No Place Like A Finish Line

Thanks to my friend Matt, I ran the Spinx Marathon in 2016 and 2017. We met while running a trail race in 2016 in Atlanta and he invited me to come race in his hometown in Greenville, South Carolina. I was fresh off running 100+ miles those years and decided to run in costume in order to not take myself seriously. 2016 was the year of the donut and 2017 was the year of the beer stein.

Since that time, it just never worked out to go back. I was racing something else each year and it always fell at a time I was tapering or recovering.

But this year, I had a free October! And there was nothing on my race calendar until another marathon in December. So when Matt asked if I was interested, I got Adam to take that Saturday off so he could relax in bed and I could go run a marathon.

I was only a few weeks off Berlin so I just did some maintenance runs in between. The goal was once again to treat it completely for fun and to just go enjoy running 26.2 miles. I found a Dorothy, alá Wizard of Oz, outfit and hoped it wouldn't be crazy warm.

On race morning, I got up from my house shortly after 3am to get on the road around 3:45am. I loathe mornings, but when it comes to race day, I'm like a kid on Christmas. I packed my coffee, muffin, banana, and prerace Snickers to snack on during my 2 hour drive and hit the road.

Matt's friend Eugene let us park at his house and then drove us in his golf cart with his wife, and another friend racing to the start a few blocks away. The weather was pretty ideal for racing and I was a little bummed that I was running just for fun.

Matt introduced me to a bunch of his running friends and then it was time to part ways so he could go line up with the fast kids. I tucked in the middle and hoped I was around enough people with lights to navigate the first few miles. This is 100% a road race, but it starts at 7:00am in late October so the first few miles were dark dark once we got on the paved Swamp Rabbit Trail.

They played the national anthem and then it was go time!

I had hoped there were pacers like there had been in years past, but they didn't have them this year. So it truly was just a run by feel kind of race and the feel I wanted was easy. Well, as easy as a marathon can feel.

I spent the first few miles trying to not trip in the dark. A few people had headlamps on and were using the flashlight on their phones so there was enough ambient light. But I did feel myself relax a bit when I finally was able to fully see.

The air was nice and crisp and the sunrise was a beautiful pinky orange. Usually I tune out my surroundings when I'm racing hard so it was nice to soak it all.

It was a little bunched up in the beginning, but by a few miles in, we were spread out pretty nicely. I was trying to not be a dumbass so I did look at my splits every few miles in the beginning to make sure I wasn't going too fast.

I had gels to take every 35 minutes. Kind of a weird time, but 30 minutes seemed like too often for this effort. 35 meant one at 35 (duh), 1:10, 1:45, 2:20, 2:55, 3:30. My loose aim was 4 hours so 6 gels would get me there. I forgot my plan initially and took one at 30 minutes in because I was on autopilot. My eat timer on my watch beeps every 30 minutes and apparently I had a Pavlovian response.

I started running behind a guy for quite some time around mile 3 or 4 and stayed with him until the late teens. He was keeping a very steady pace with very little surging.

I got lots of cheers from the small crowds of spectators for my Dorothy costume. A couple people asked me where Toto was and I told them he was too slow to keep up.

Despite having run the course before, I didn't really remember too much from 8-9 years ago. As I got closer to the turnaround, I kept my eyes out for the frontrunners who'd be making their way back. I cheered them on as they flew past on the other side.

I was hoping I wouldn't miss Matt in the turnaround loop because there was about a mile or so where the course didn't double-back. Luckily, he was FLYING! I whooped loudly and we high-fived (quite perfectly, I'll add) as he went by at some 6:30 pace or something. That made the next few miles go by even better for me because I knew he was having the race of his life.

Anyway, Dorothy meandered through the one hilly section of the course in the mile-ish loop and then started to head for the turnaround. My pacer-who-didn't-know-it had what looked like his dad handing off fresh handheld bottles to him. They fumbled one of the drops and I slowed for a second to make sure he didn't need what was in there. The dad reassured me he was good.

A few miles later, I was feeling ready to kind of push the pace a bit and get done with the dang thing. I decided to pass my pacer friend and do my own work.

The good thing about running relatively easy and with your head in the clouds means that I had no idea that we were mostly going very slowly uphill on the way out. And when we got to the second half, I was excited to realize it was mostly downhill. Ignorance really can be bliss.

My legs got tired way before my engine did in this race. Maybe it was the mostly flat terrain, maybe I was used to everything hurting!

I played a little more leapfrog with some people in the final miles, but kept my comfortable hard more comfortable and less hard. When we got to the final mile, I was as happy as one could be finishing a marathon “just for fun” on a ridiculously beautiful fall day. I had that feeling that I wanted to just really enjoy it, but also, I'm ready to be done!

The finish line is inside the Fluor Field Stadium which is a really fun way to finish. We entered onto the warning track and rounded the outside of the field until we were almost to home plate to finish. I decided at the last second to jump up over the finish line and it made for a pretty hilarious photo.

Marathon #57, check!