2020 Bucks County Marathon
Nov. 8, 2020
Washington Crossing, PA
I decided to run this marathon because it was actually happening in person and it was only a week different in date from the marathon I had been training for (which went virtual).
I had followed DopeyBadger's training plan, but had some issues with the long runs, which have been chronicled in this journal. I carb-loaded the day before the race, following DopeyBadger's one-day protocol.
The day of the race, I ate a normal breakfast at about 4:00am. It was a 2.5-hr drive to the race, and I ate a packet of Sport Beans and a couple PB Oreos on the way. I got to the start area at about 7:15am - bib pick-up started at 7:30am and the start time was 9:00am.
The race had several covid safety protocols. The port-a-potties in the starting area had their doors staked open and an L-shaped blind was placed in front of each one, the idea being that you go "around the corner" into the potty and therefore don't have to touch the door to open and close it. There was a rope that you strung across the entrance when you went in and there was hand sanitizer right outside. This was clever, but I'm not sure whether it was that much of an improvement.
On the course, runners were responsible for replenishing their own water. There were several water stations placed along the course that had foot pumps so you could pump water into your bottle without touching any of the equipment with your hands. I always carry my own hydration, so I didn't use this.
We were supposed to wear masks until we actually crossed the start line and keep our masks with us so we could put them back on as soon as we finished.
The race was limited to 220 runners, and I'm not sure if that was for covid or because of a limit imposed by the state park. At any rate, they assigned bib numbers by predicted finish times, faster runners getting lower numbers. We were supposed to line up at the start in bib number order and thus there shouldn't be much passing during the race, since the faster runners would start ahead of the slower runners.
Finally, we were told that there would be a 40-foot chute leading up to the start line; when the person ahead of you crossed the start line, you could start running so that in principle everyone should start 40 feet apart. This photo is before the race start.
Well, these last two protocols were not really followed. People were not lining up in bib order at all. The race director shouted directions at us about this (I think) and then we got in some semblance of bib order. The 40-foot spacing did not happen at all. We all jogged through the starting chute a few feet apart. The first few tenths of a mile of the race were on park roads and rather wide, so there was lots of passing and grouping in this area.
I had two 100-cal Maurten gels a few minutes before the race. I had a 24-oz bottle of water with 100-cal of Tailwind that I planned to finish in about the first 10 miles and carried a hydration vest with 2L of water and an additional 300-cal of Tailwind. I brought four more 100-cal Maurten gels with me to eat every 2 miles, and I brought a 100-cal packet of Sport Beans for after that.
I wanted to run about a 10:45 min/mi pace throughout the race to get a time of about 4:45, which would be a new PR by almost 5 minutes. After the very start of the race, the course was on the tow-path along the canal along the Delaware River. It was a mix of fine gravel and packed dirt and pleasantly flat. The course was a double out-and-back: out for a quarter marathon, then back to the start, then repeat.
My first 7 miles were right where I wanted, with splits 10:48, 10:44, 10:42, 10:41, 10:46, 10:48, 10:47. I had my first three Maurten gels on schedule at 2, 4, and 6 miles.
This 30-something woman started chatting me up sometime in there, remarking that she liked my hydration vest and she hadn't brought hers. We were told that since we were going back to the start in order to repeat the course for the second half, we could leave a bottle there to pick up for the second half. She had just left all her water there...yes, she was going to do a half-marathon with no water (she also didn't have a bottle to use the filling stations). Oh, yes, it was her first marathon. But she did 16-mile training runs with no water, so she thought it would be fine. Sigh. I don't mind chatting during a race, but she was not the sort of personality that I wanted to chat with.
So now we get to the temperature. The weather forecast predicted that the day would be unseasonably warm, with a high of about 76 F instead of the average 61 F. At the start time, we were in the mid-50s F, but it was consistently sunny all day. Since it's fall, a lot of the leaves had already fallen, and so there was very little shade on the course. But for the first quarter, we were heading north, so the Sun was on our backs.
When we turned back south for the second quarter, it was full Sun with the direction being right in our eyes. And by then it was hotter and it
felt so much hotter facing the Sun. My HR really started going up, my stomach was feeling the weird bloated feeling like I had in bad long training runs, and my breathing was bad. It was pretty clear that while I could keep up my planned pace for awhile longer, it certainly wasn't going to be for the whole race. I mentally weighed options during mile 8 and started to slow things down. No-water girl had been following me since mile 3 or 4 until now, and I told her I was going to ease up and she should go ahead.
So I've done three marathons previous to this one, and two have been similarly unseasonably hot and sunny and those two have both turned into death marches. Even worse, I was so inward-focused on them that I didn't really pay attention around me, and so I missed a lot of the crowd support and scenery and experience. I decided that since I was going to miss my goal, I would at least enjoy being there. This race was probably the most scenic I have ever done. For most of the course, we were within view of the Delaware River, which was beautifully lined with autumn trees. The canal was nice-looking water and also lined with pretty trees. There were bridges over the canal, which were quaint-looking. The race was not crowded. The first photo below shows the canal and the second photo shows the river.
So I slowed down. I finally ate the last Maurten gel at mile 10 - I hadn't felt good enough to eat it at mile 8 as planned. (I never did eat the pack of Sport Beans.) Mile 8 was 11:21, and then for miles 9 - 13, I did something like run slowly (approx 12:00) for 0.75 miles and walking 0.25 miles. My splits were 13:01, 13:23, 13:06, 12:57, 13:11. I finished my bottle of Tailwind as planned and started on the hydration vest Tailwind at around mile 11 or so. My ears plugged up before I finished the first half.
As I was getting toward the end of the first half, my phone managed to call 911 without my permission. The touch-screen on the phone sometimes manages to type in lots of numbers to dial, but has never actually dialed. Somehow something triggered the emergency call. I realized I was calling someone and pulled out the phone to stop the call. But too late - emergency services called me back to make sure I was OK. They wanted to know where I was so they could let local emergency services know to desist, but they didn't know "Bucks County Marathon". I did manage to remember the name of the park we started in and apologized profusely for accidentally calling them!
For the third quarter of the race, it was so nice to be going north again and no longer be facing the Sun. Even so, I was really feeling it and started alternating 0.25-mi slow running and 0.25-mi walking. My splits slowed down even more.
However, it was nice to see the faster runners coming back down the course. Not too long after I started on the second half, the first male runner (yes, bib 1) came zooming by and I could hear the cheers at the finish line a few minutes later when he got there. I also saw no-water girl, and yes, she had her water - two small flasks. (She ended up finishing in about 5:05.)
After I got to the turn-around to start the last quarter of the race, the Sun had moved enough so that it was quite so fierce in my eyes. My splits were around 14:00. I was realizing just how slow my finish time was going to be and tried to pick it up or do some longer running intervals, but my heart wasn't in it.
My 2L of Tailwind started to have an issue. I had frozen it overnight. I took it out of the freezer at 4:30am and didn't start drinking it until about 11am...no problem at first. But I realized in the last quarter of the race that even by then it hadn't completely thawed yet and I was running out of the liquid part. I made it through almost the whole race by conserving it a bit.
I was also running out of battery on my Garmin Venu. From prior use, I knew it wouldn't be a problem for 5 hours or even 5:15, but I was going to be well past that. I turned the screen brightness down and turned off the bluetooth, but too late...it died at about 25.5 miles. Fortunately it did save the activity and I was able to upload it once I recharged it a bit after the race.
I had estimated that my watch would read about 26.45 mi at the end, so I still had about a mile left. I managed to very slowly run most of that.
I finished in 5:41:39, my slowest marathon by about 16 minutes. The photo below is from after the race.
The race was limited to 220 runners, but only 132 were listed in the results. I don't know if the race actually filled, or if there were a lot of DNS and/or DNF. Probably a combination of all of those. The highest bib number in the results was 195, so it does seem like the assigned most of the bib numbers.
I ended up being 122 out of 132 runners, which was more demoralizing than my time, honestly. I was 43 out of 46 women, and 6 out of 8 in my age group. I thought there were still more than 10 runners left behind me, but the course was open to the public, and so I guess I had that impression from all the other people on the course.
After the race, I was covered in salt and dirt. I think I was underhydrated toward the end of the race because I had not realized that I had stopped sweating until I slammed a bottle of water after the finish and suddenly had a bunch of salty sweat running into my eyes. Also, I realized that I had gotten a sunburn - in November! Not a bad one, but definitely there.
I went to a convenience store bathroom and cleaned up and changed clothes. With my long drive home, I didn't want to be so uncomfortable the whole time. It was a good thing I did that, because an hour into my trip, there was a bad accident on the interstate less than a mile ahead of me - too close to be able to exit. We sat there without moving for an hour. Fortunately the rest of the trip home was uneventful.
My husband and I got Italian meals delivered for dinner and then I had
@DopeyBadger 's PB pie to celebrate my birthday (which was two days before) and me finishing the race.
I'm trying to think of any other details that I'd like to record so that I remember. I may edit this to add anything else that I think of.
The race was well-organized, as I mentioned before, the course was beautiful, so I would recommend it. I may try it again in the future because it's not supposed to be so warm!
It was not the race I was hoping for, but unfortunately what I suspected that I would get, given the predicted weather. My husband says I need to run a race in Antarctica in June, and then I could be sure of having cold weather!
