Quadracool: Bang Bang! Pistol Marathon RR

It took a tiny race and 49 marathons, but I finally won one!

After I finished the Jekyll Marathon in January, Boston was slated to be marathon #49. In my head, I was thinking that it would be pretty neat if I could make Boston #50. But I had to tackle Rocky Raccoon 100 first AND feel good in recovery to throw another marathon into the mix.

I took nearly 2 complete weeks off of running after RR100. I did a fair amount of walking and hiking, but really tried to embrace recovery. I slept and ate a lot, did some puzzles, read a bunch of books, and enjoyed the down time. When I finally got the green light to run again from my coach, I was happily in the mindset of I get to rather than I have to.

I eyed a few races in mid-March, but was cognizant of the fact that I needed to feel physically and mentally ready to tackle 26.2 miles before signing up. So I waited a few weeks and did some easy running. Both my body and mind felt good so after texting with my coach, I decided to sign up for the Pistol Marathon.

The Pistol is known more for the ultras it puts on over that weekend, including 100 mile and 100k distances. The ultras started on Saturday and the marathon/half-marathon distances started Sunday. All distances share the race course so it was pretty motivating to see people grinding out the last portion of 100 miles/kilometers while in the midst of my own race!

I drove up Saturday and Google took me on a super scenic route through the northern section of Georgia and southeastern section of Tennessee. In my bubble of suburbia, it’s always a good reminder that life is not the same for everyone. And not necessarily for the worse, but just different. I passed by huge farms with sprawling estate homes and dilapidated shacks with roofs and porches sagging. I shared the road with a horse-drawn carriage and slowed to 25 mph through one stoplight towns. As I neared Alcoa, I actually got a little sad that I was not heading up the snow covered Smoky Mountains to the east.

I checked into my hotel, dropped my gear off, and did a quick search for a pizza restaurant as that seemed to have worked for my last couple of races. The place I found opened at 5:00 pm and though I’m normally a 7:30-8:00 pm dinner eater, I was hungry for dinner and walked in the door at 5:01 pm. It was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had (prosciutto, arugula, fresh gooey blobs of mozzarella, crispy AND chewy crust) and I washed it all down with a Blackberry Farms IPA.

The remainder of the evening was spent watching March Madness games and finishing Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis. I nodded off easily, starfished in the king-sized bed to myself. The race didn’t start until 8:00 am and was a 4 minute drive away so I felt like I got plenty of sleep and relaxed a bit in the morning. I ate my now-traditional pre-race muffin, drank some coffee, and was out the door shortly after 7:00 am.

At bib pickup, they had a ton of useful giveaway items which I was excited to see for such a small race. They had a shirt, hat, gloves, buff, Injinji socks, and individual use chafe packets (a highly useful drop bag item!). I brought a good pair of gloves, but decided to wear the giveaway race ones in case I warmed up and needed to toss them.

Narrator voice: she did not need to toss them. The only other time I’ve finished a marathon wearing gloves was Boston 2018. Luckily, though the Pistol was cold, it was blissfully dry.

With such a small race, I was able to park close and drop off my goodies at the car and wait until the last minute to step back out into the cold. I left my Snickers bar in the car overnight and I thought I was going to break my tooth trying to get a bite of it. Luckily, I persevered, teeth intact.

I second-guessed myself for a moment when I stepped out of the car and thought that maybe my long sleeve shirt was overkill, but ultimately decided to wear it and be annoyed if I had to wrap it around my waist. Narrator voice: she did not remove the long sleeve shirt. A few minutes outside of the car and I was shivering, ready to get running because I was so cold!

The race director gave a few instructions regarding the course for both the marathoners and half-marathoners, including mentioning that it was an equal gender start so half of the start line was for men, half for women. I was a little nervous about being on the start line, but decided to put myself up there.

When the gun went off, runners went whizzing by me in the beginning as I tried to get my very cold legs moving. The full and half started together so it was hard to know who was in which race until we got to the loops/out and backs. I started out feeling a 5 out of 10 and felt that way most of the day. Not particularly bad or good, just in the middle. Nothing inherently hurt, but I only had a few miles of feeling really in the zone.

The course is shaped like a barbell with two very small loops on either side and one long section in the middle. Once the first barbell was complete, marathon and half marathon runners also had to do a 1.5 mile out and back to complete the total distance. The field quickly spread out within a mile or so, but I was never alone for long stretches because there were still plenty of 100 mile/100k runners on the course at any given time. They were shuffling along bundled up in their warm clothes and I tried to smile and yell good job to as many of them as possible.

I did run behind a few marathon/half marathon runners for a while, letting them set the pace for stretches at a time. Occasionally, I’d pull back a bit so as not to be on their heels and be THAT runner. But eventually, the field spread out enough that I was pretty much on my own to do the work.

Because the race is mostly set up for the ultra distances, the hydration stops were definitely a stop. A couple of times a volunteer handed me a cup of water, but that was the exception rather than the norm. I probably spent a minute or two of race time trying to separate a cup from the pile, pouring myself a cup, drinking it, and then discarding it in the trash. This got harder and harder as the race wore on because my hands were so cold even with gloves. Regular road marathons will spoil you!

It was easy enough to follow the markings on the first out section and I was feeling good about having the lay of the land as I came back to the start/finish at mile 10. However, like a lemming, I followed another runner clockwise around the loop when we should have gone counter-clockwise. The woman that would go on to win the half marathon was coming back out and told us we were going the wrong way (huge thanks to her!). It was only maybe a minute total error, but ugh!

As the field went to complete the 1.5 mile out and back, I now got a better view of who was in front of me. The half marathoners wore a reddish color bib (the full wore yellow) and the only woman ahead of me was indeed wearing a red bib. I saw a few other men ahead of me at this point, but wasn’t paying too much attention to which ones were wearing red or yellow.

Going back out on the second loop, I was ticking off the boxes as I tend to do in the late miles. Get to the turnaround point (14.6 miles), aid station (15.6 miles), less than double digits (16.3 miles), next aid station (18 miles), etc. I found myself going to the well a bit nearing the 20 mile mark. I told myself it was okay to back off a bit, get some water in me, save the pushing for the end, but don’t get too comfortable.

I was doing runner math to find out how much I could slow down and still hit 3:30 or 3:40. But then I told myself to not think about just jogging it in. I needed to give it an honest effort. Somehow, I got myself back to the happy place and I headed back to the finish line in good spirits.

The race director gave me a pat on the shoulder as I was heading back out for the final spur, telling me “great job.” 5k seemed like such a short and long way to go after 23+ miles. But I broke it up in the half mile sections and worked to chew them up as best I could.

There was one runner ahead of me in this section and the gap between us stayed about the same until we got within about 1 mile to go. I stayed behind him until the last gnarly hill with about a half mile to go and then overtook him at that point. I would later learn that he was leading the race and that by me making that final move, I ended up the winner. Honestly, it probably would have intimidated me if I had known so I’m kind of glad that I was just running my race, clueless to my overall placement.

As I came across the finish line, I was stoked.

Stoked that I didn’t feel any worse for the wear after racing so soon after RR100.