Sehgahunda Trail marathon
Garmin stats: 25.62@15:23
Time 6:34:11
Well, that was hard. Flew up to Rochester on Friday and stayed at my brother Jim's house. A few months ago I saw that there was a 12 hour race practically around the corner from his house at North Ponds Park called "Mind the ducks", called to ask if he wanted to run 12 hours of 1 mile loops and he said he'd already signed up for a race that day. His daughter Kelly was also doing it (her first trail race and second marathon distance race).
Friday was a beautiful day and Sunday was supposed to be nice also, but there would be rain today. My wave was starting at 7:45. It was barely sprinkling as we lined up. Jim and Kelly were starting 15 minutes after me (I put down a goal time of 5 hours). Start area was at the Mount Morris Dam visitor center on the Genessee river. Race would head south (up river) to a picnic area of Letchworth Park called "Parade Grounds" (historical site from Civil War). Net climb from start to finish about 300 feet , but with the ups and downs, race site said 900 feet of climbing (Garmin came up with 4200 feet).
The course would run on a trail parallel to the river, but the race checkpoints were on a road, so you had to make the climb from the river trail up to the road and then back down to the trail. Jim warned me that the first two checkpoints, if raining, would get muddy. Hoping I'd pass those before the heavier rain started.
Heading out with wave two, I hung back slightly but was soon passed by the other people in wave 2 except for one woman who was running around the same pace as me so we would pass each other back and forth. Just over two miles or maybe three, first running from wave 3 caught up to me. There was a relay option so some of the runners were going pretty fast.
Made it up to checkpoint 1 about 5 and a half miles in with no problem. Although, there was something confusing happening. As runners were coming down from the checkpoint, some of them were yelling at me to get to the left side of the trail which I found odd. Usually with two way traffic you keep to the right. Confused by this, I remembered that the race directions said "pass to the left". I'm pretty sure they meant pass to the left when coming from behind and not when coming head on. So, some people wanted me to stay to the right and some to the left. Oh well.
Back to the main trail. Rain was picking up. Still kind of light. I had on shorts, short sleeve shirt, arm warmers, and a light long sleeve shirt. Checkpoint 2 was a little more slippery going up and down. These side trails got muddy quicker than the main trail which was probably harder packed. Coming down from checkpoint one, I saw Kelly and not too far behind her was Jim. Coming down from checkpoint two, Kelly had moved a good distance ahead of Jim and was gaining a lot of ground on me. Before the race Kelly kept on saying how unprepared she was for this race. It didn't show at all. Years and years of competitive Irish dance made her a natural on the trails.
After checkpoint two I stopped to retie one of my shoes which was way too loose. I saw my pace slip away. I'd try to catch back up to it but could not get much back. The trail crossed a bunch of little streams, some were almost dry and some were big enough you could barely keep from getting wet by stepping on stones in the middle.
The trail started to get quite muddy. I started to slip a lot. I was not wearing trail shoes. I've gotten away with no trail shoes for far too long. Florida trails do not have many hills and very little mud with the sandy soil. This was steeper and muddier. Fortunately, even with the increasing rain, there were a lot of sections of trail that were not too muddy, otherwise I would've been pushing the cutoff.
Just before things got better, things got really, really bad. There were a couple of small uphills I had to go up on hands and knees just to go up without sliding back down. There was a section of trail which slanted down to the right while steeply going down ahead, this bit of treacherous downhill brought me to the last steeep checkoint climb. There was a woman who was running near me and helping to encourage me, she made it up to the top just ahead of me but then dropped out once she made it up.
Saw Nancy and my parents one last time before I'd see them at the finish. The downhill back to the trail was one big slip and slide, grabbing onto what I could to not fall down hard. Finally made it to the bottom, then a little bit more tough trail before it leveled off. The trail narrowed with tall vegetation on either side.
Then, coming into some trees, there was a signt "Caution: Trail Monkeys Ahead", with next sign saying "Whet the heck is a trail monkey you ask?", then, up in the trees the trees, lots and lots of toy monkeys. Then after the trail monkey section, course came onto a gravel road. Just over 5k to go, still, one more 300 foot climb, but after going so slow for so long my legs just wanted to take off. It felt like I was flying (although really it was only 9:30 to 10:00 pace but seemed much faster than the 18 to 22 minute miles over the list 8 or 9 miles).
Caught up to a few people here and there. One more short section of trail from the road, then back onto a short section of paved road with one last short very steep hill going into the Parade Grounds parking lot, and then finally the finish line.
Jessica caught a video of me finishing as she was standing under the shelter next to the finish line. She had made it ok with her 7:00 am flight from Tampa to Buffalo with Charlotte in tow (she was able to get picture in the cockpit before the flight took off) to car rental and then drive to Letchworth park, arriving just after 12:00 (just in case I finished by 12:45).
Got some food and waited to see Kelly finish. She came in just ten minutes after me which meant she beat me by 5 minutes. Not bad at all for her first trail race (but just missed age group award to a woman named Sophie). Nancy showed up just after Kelly finished. She had seen Jim at the last tough checkpoint. He'd fallen and hit his head but was ok to go on but it would be close to make the cutoff time.
My parents showed up and were also waiting for Jim. I was in and out of the car a few times to warm up. Rain had me thoroughly soaked and once I stopped running didn't take long to start feeling really chilled.
Nancy was waiting for Jim just outside the parking lot. I went with her down the road a little bit and then onto the last stretch of trail, finally we saw him in the distance and met up with him then climbed up the road with him as he ran toward the finish area. He made it with about 15 minutes to spare.
On the way back to Jim's house I stopped by the "Mind the Ducks" race which still had about an hour and a half left. I was wearing my finisher medal and Sehgahunda hoodie. One of the volunteers saw me and said to her friend, oh look he finished. Turns out she had also run but missed a cutoff time so DNF'd, but despite that headed to this race to volunteer. It was fun to stop by and say hi to the race that started all of this.
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