Race Report: Lower Potomac River Marathon

Race Report: Lower Potomac River Marathon

Wow…well, I finished AND I was smiling – my two goals. That and I stayed in low zone 2 the bulk of the time.

The Lower Potomac River Marathon is a small race – limited to 200 runners – and organized by the Chesapeake Bay Running Club. But for such a small race there were people from all over – I was surprised when I looked at the results. The race was held in Piney Point, Maryland, way, way down off of Rt. 5. It started and finished at the Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship. Ever heard of it? I had not! It was a nice facility – more about that later. Of course after training in the winter the high for race day was to be about 70. Nice…not! But that’s ok. I wore a sleeveless shirt. I also purposely stayed in low zone 2 because I knew the heat would get to me…which it did.

So first, I got up at 4:00 AM race morning, mind you my body thought it was 3:00 since the clocks went forward an hour. LOL I was out the door by 4:40 AM and drove about 82 miles to the race site with no traffic but it was dark and hard to see all the signs at times. However no driving mishaps. I got to the race site at 6:15 and checked in and picked up a pretty nice technical T shirt. I then went back to my car to get my stuff to drop off for the special needs tables, which they had at two locations: mile 14.6 and mile 22.9 – they were across from each other on the last leg…see below. Then I just hung out till the start.

The weather at the start was really nice – kind of cool and a bit breezy. I knew that wouldn’t last though. The course was basically an out and back with 5 different segments. The start/finish was one of those. After leaving the facility the first two segments were little ones and were both along water so there was a nice breeze. We first went up and over a little bridge to St. George Island where we went down to the end of a one lane road and back part way to go down to the end of another road and back. Then back over the bridge to the third segment. The third leg was down a street called Lighthouse Road, and there was a lighthouse at the end of the road…and a museum with facilities…that flushed! Lighthouse Road was a pebble beach along one side (my left going down) and homes along the other (my right going down). The beach was Zen garden-like – very cool looking and pretty. The turnaround was at the lighthouse with the museum and flushing facilities. I took advantage of those facilities. I think this was at 10.5-ish miles. Then back out to the main road and now on to the fourth segment.

The fourth segment was the killer. This was just before (or after?) mile 11 to the turnaround at mile 18.8-ish and back to the finish, basically. The 26 mile marker was just before the turn back into the race site. This is where both the hills and the heat came out to play. And the sun made a pretty good appearance, too. Now the hills weren’t too bad. But they were there. Oh, and the water and the nice breeze went away. I just kept plugging along at low zone 2. When my heart rate got too high I just walked the hills. I made my next stop at the special needs table at mile 14.6…here they had a port-a-potty. Yes, I stopped again. After visiting the port-a-potty I filled up my Camel Back with my first replacement bottle of HEED and grabbed more nutrition. It was time to move on. This part gets pretty boring – just out, out, and out to the turn-around…then back. Of course there were a few more ups and downs (the hills that is), too. They had orange slices at the turn around though – and these were oranges that had all been peeled and sectioned! This sure made them a lot less messy. I took a few – and they tasted delicious.

Finally on my way back. That was a nice feeling. Mile 19 was just after the turn around. It sure was nice seeing the mile marker numbers go higher and higher. At mile 21 or so they had another port-a-potty. Yes, I stopped THERE too… Then on to mile 22.9 to the special needs table and filled up my Camel Back with my second bottle of HEED. I think I got half a banana here… the pretzels they had were like eating cardboard though. Somewhere along this portion I ran by a little farm and there were three sheep hanging around together .Their coats were quite full – they must have felt the heat yesterday too. I wanted to ‘baaaa’ at them, but did not… Just a little over 3 miles to go…up and down…and finally I saw the 26 mile marker with the turn to the finish. Boy was that cool. And at the finish there was a cute little girl handing out really cold water and a nice lady to take the stub off my race number and give me a finishers’ medal.

My finish time was 5:37:51…this included my approximately 15 minutes of ‘pit stops’. My watch time was 5:22:18. I guess I was pretty well hydrated! LOL. I was 43 of 48 women. And 130 men finished – only one man finished behind me. I was 13 out of 15 in my age-group. Not my best marathon but I finished and I was totally smiling at the finish line. I have to say, that there were so many friendly people on the course. The volunteers were all incredibly nice as were so many of the runners. I spent a lot of the race smiling. One woman was an ultra marathoner. She was running with a Lei around her neck! I think that would give you weird chaffing. There was another woman I kept going back and forth with throughout the day. I finished ahead of her but waited till she came in – she was all the way from California. She was pretty happy to be done, too. And as for recovery and other such things, I was able to eat at the runners’ post-race meal – they had lots of pasta with meat sauce to go around. Of course, you had to go down three stairs to the dining room – who thought of that? But it overlooked the water and was very pleasant. They also had a locker room facility where you could shower after at no charge! It was nice to clean up and change for the ride home.

On the way out of town I drank a bottle of strawberry Recoverite. Then of course, maybe an hour (or less?) into the ride home I had to make yet another pit stop (good grief) but I also got more food…mini sub to order and a chocolate milk at Wawa…where the Girl Scouts were selling cookies…now I have some Thin Mints…I guess I earned a few. When I got back into my area I stopped for my favorite fast food calorie fest – a mashed potato bowl from KFC. Then I finally got home and was able to sit in a cold bath for my legs. Then on went my compression tights and after eating my calories my feet went up and stayed up for the most part. And I am walking just fine and doing stairs fine too, today! Oh, and I had absolutely NO CHAFFING and NO BLISTERS! All in all I’d call that a successful race!