Tobacco Road Marathon 2011
By: Theoden Janes
For me, a smoking time at Tobacco Road
Ask running pundits how often you should run a marathon, and you’ll get a response along the lines of this one (from Runner’s World contributor Jenny Hadfield):
“Runners who want to race a strong marathon and improve performance and speed should focus on no more than two marathons a year. Running many more than that is pretty hard on the body and mind, increases your risk for injury and slower times are usually the end result. Two per year allows for a full training and recovery cycle to optimize performance and reduce injuries. This is why you don’t see the elite runners racing more than two marathons in a year.”
I can only surmise that her advice is good and sound. She’s got a master’s in exercise science, is a certified personal trainer and coach, and has authored books on running. I’m a moron who three years ago probably couldn’t have run a 9-minute mile without collapsing onto the asphalt.
This isn’t a “So THERE!” moment, but for those keeping score at home: On Sunday morning I ran my eighth marathon (Tobacco Road in Cary, N.C.) in less than a year and a half; since running a 3:43 in San Diego last June, I have lopped about 22 minutes off my best time; I’ve had no injuries to speak of; I don’t feel like I’m suffering from burnout.
Well, OK — I guess it is a So THERE! moment.
Again, though, I have no leg to stand on. I’m no expert. I just a doofus who signs up for stuff and then goes out and runs. Maybe I could be even faster and stronger and more efficient if I was running 26.2 once every six months instead of once every two. Maybe I’m doing long-term damage to my body that I won’t know about till I need to get both knees replaced when I’m 55.
It’s an interesting topic, though. I have a friend, Todd Hartung, who’s going after all 50 states and runs a marathon roughly once a month. His philosophy is that sometimes runners set challenging goals for the one or two marathons they do a year, stress out over the training mightily, then agonize if they have a bad race. He would never recommend his regimen to others, but he does believe that the more marathons you run, the less mentally stressful they become. Plus, you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. In other words, if he has a bad race, he can easily put it behind him a few weeks later — as opposed to letting it roll around in his head for the next year.
Now, I fully understand that not everyone can afford to run a ton of marathons, and that not everyone wants to. But my point is simply that I was able to view Tobacco Road on Sunday as “just another marathon” — and I was able to crush it.
Didn’t train particularly hard for this one. Did a couple of 20-milers late last month in anticipation of doing a marathon in late March, but didn’t actually sign up for the race until two weeks ago. Didn’t even look at a course map beforehand.
I ran a 3:26 in October and a 3:28 in December, then ran a 50k in January. It was just time for another one.
My BQ time, for a few more months, is 3:15:59 or faster. Though I figured that that was still out of reach for me, I decided a week out that maybe I’d try to run Boston pace (7:28 per mile) until the wheels fell off, simply as a fitness test. And this is the whole reason why I used all those words up above as a setup: It was just another marathon. There was nothing at stake. I didn’t spend a lot of time or money on this race, and if I had to take a DNF, I wasn’t going to get all worked up about it.
Anyway, forgive the anticlimactic nature of what I’m about to say, but for the most part I bailed on this idea in the starting corral. Instead, I just gave myself one simple directive: Be aggressive, B-E aggressive. Last two marathons, I ran conservatively and finished with gas in the tank. This time, I hoped to cross the line with nothing left.
The Tobacco Road Marathon is now two years old, and experienced fairly significant growth in its second year thanks to good word of mouth (including high marks here). Numbers for Sunday’s full weren’t too far below numbers for Charlotte’s Thunder Road Marathon, which is now in its seventh year. (1,292 ran Charlotte in December; 1,052 ran Cary this past weekend.)
It’s easy to see why it’s popular: The course is flat, is mostly on the forgiving packed dirt and finely crushed gravel of American Tobacco Trail, and for many miles follows a dead-straight/turn-free path. (Another interesting fact: Nineteen runners broke three hours at Thunder Road, 28 were under 3:00 at Tobacco Road.)
If you clicked on the link in the previous paragraph and looked at the course for the full, you also can see that it doubles back on itself twice. This is cool because if you have friends running it — and I had several — you could exchange “heys” and high-fives with them multiple times along the way. This is for obvious reasons both motivating and fun.
Weather on Sunday was perfect. 40s at the start, 50s at the finish. The entire trail is lined with trees, so save for the last couple miles, wind and sun were virtually non-issues. The only problem with the 20+ miles of trail is that it’s pleasant and serene, it’s also pretty boring. A road crossing every few miles with a small but vocal throng of supporters. Otherwise, a bazillion trees, and not much more. Sometimes it seemed like you could see a mile down the trail (although, wouldn’t you know it, the mile marker always seemed to be just around a slight bend).
Really the only thing to look at was other runners. So that’s what I did. And for the first three miles, leading from the USA Baseball National Training Complex to the trail, I looked at the back of Jonathan Savage’s head. He was pace leader for the 3:30 group, and he’d announced beforehand that he planned to take his charges through the half at a 7:53 average pace, slowing at that point to 8:00. I figured three 7:53 miles would be a good warmup, so I tucked in with his group. (Runner congestion was so heavy for the first three miles anyway that I didn’t have much trouble holding myself back.)
Less than a mile and a half in we started needing to dodge a lot of folks walking the half marathon (they’d started 15 minutes earlier); fortunately, the halfers and full marathoners went in opposite directions at the trail head. Right after the split, I surged past Jonathan and never looked back.
I wish I had some exciting things to say about the next 20 miles, but it was really just a long series of dime-store race “tactics” to help me break up the monotony of the scenery and terrain: I’d find a runner, sit right on their shoulder for maybe 400-800 meters, then move past them to focus on the next runner. I did this dozens of times, and only got passed by a few people. (The most memorable was a Galloway run-walk dude who passed me probably close to a dozen times. I commend anyone for running any marathon in any fashion, but between you and me I found it mildly annoying to overtake/be overtaken by the same person repeatedly and methodically.)
The fun part, as I said, was seeing many of my friends twice along the way. Kelly Fillnow (she was the women’s winner!), Mo Campbell (she broke 3 hours for the first time!), Bobby Aswell, Kathy Rink, Troy Eisenberger, Bobby Grigg, Jamie Dodge, Peter Balletta, and Mark Ulrich (who was a huge personal help to me this weekend — he picked up my packet since I missed the expo, and saved me an hour-plus of tedium by shuttling me to and from the satellite parking lot pre- and post-race).
Beginning shortly after the first turnaround at Mile 8, I spent the next couple hours alternating between confidence and concern. A few of my splits were in the 7:28 (i.e. BQ range), so I fleetingly wondered if I should go for it. I also worried at Miles 11 and 12 when I started feeling the first very-mild pangs of fatigue.
After seven marathons, I’ve generally found that if I don’t hit the wall around Mile 20, I’m not going to. I have no scientific proof that this follows any logic whatsoever and I would never try to convince you that this will hold true for you. But personally, I was really antsy to get to 20 so I could see how I felt. I came through the half at 1:39:38. That was the split I was looking for. My friend Brian Sammons qualified for Boston by going 1:40 for the first half and then 1:35 for the second.
The confidence returned. And then it started fading again. So I refocused on my energy on locking onto a runner ahead of me, easing onto his or her shoulder, hanging there for a couple minutes, then overtaking them. Around Mile 16, I keyed in on an older woman who was wearing a bright Cowtown Marathon finisher tee and looked strong, and she was slowly picking people off, so I hitched a ride with her through the second turnaround. Finally passed her as we went up a long, gradual incline near Mile 21.
My goal was to not get passed in the final 6.2 miles. At this point I was satisfied I was going to avoid a bonk, and was feeling tired but OK as we moved back onto surface streets just after Mile 23. There was a little roll to this final section, and there were some turns to negotiate. The sun was also giving off some heat. A bit of a breeze now, too. Nothing killer at all, but after so much peace on the trail, it inserted a degree of difficulty.
This is the point where you start to break the marathon up into smaller increments in your head. Mile 24 = I’ve just gotta go eight times around the track plus the point-two. Cowtown Marathon woman comes surging past me. And now it’s one foot in front of the other time. I’m also — and I know others out there use the same “trick” — thinking about friends and family who’ve battled cancer and people suffering great tragedies (like the Japanese tsunami victims right now). Thinking that what they’ve had to deal with is real pain, that this is child’s play. In other words, Suck It Up.
Mile 24 was 7:57, and though it was my slowest mile of the day, I’m happy because I’ve run several marathons where my average pace wasn’t that fast.
I keep my Garmin on the Virtual Partner screen, which tells me how far or behind my hoped-for pace I am, so as I neared the final turn into the parking lot of the baseball complex, I honestly was not at all sure what numbers I was going to see on the clock (although I knew I had a big PR). There was a twinge of disappointment when I came around and it was 3:20 and rising, but that disappointment disappeared almost as quickly as it had come.
3:20:43. This was a six-minute PR. This was 29 minutes faster than the first marathon I ran, in November of 2009. This was an aggressive move on my part after a couple races where I wanted to run smooth and steady and finish feeling strong.
This, to me, was a clear sign that I can run a bunch of marathons a year, and get away with it. So there.
—————————————————-
If splits interest you, here they are:
Mile 1: 8:03
Mile 2: 7:35
Mile 3: 7:53
Mile 4: 7:24
Mile 5: 7:34
Mile 6: 7:27
Mile 7: 7:28
Mile 8: 7:42
Mile 9: 7:39
Mile 10: 7:17
Mile 11: 7:31
Mile 12: 7:38
Mile 13: 7:37
Mile 14: 7:27
Mile 15: 7:36
Mile 16: 7:30
Mile 17: 7:36
Mile 18: 7:31
Mile 19: 7:40
Mile 20: 7:32
Mile 21: 7:30
Mile 22: 7:32
Mile 23: 7:38
Mile 24: 7:57
Mile 25: 7:47
Mile 26: 7:53
Homestretch: 7:43
***
By: Bobbie Grigg
Since Theoden named me in his Tobacco Road write up, I’ll take the liberty of writing my first race report. I’ve included a few things that Theoden missed seeing due to the speed at which he was running.
For those of you who do not know me, I’m the guy that usually tags along with Leroy on Saturday mornings which means you’ve seen me very little given Leroy’s “mean-time-to failure” (Heart one day, ankle the next). I have no voting rights in the UCRR group, nor have I been given the combination to the Wine Vault as I’m not a POS. I’m a Middle of Pack runner better known as a MOP.
I arrived Sunday with my parking pass, a must have to avoid the shuttle buses. I found a spot close to the Porta-potties. Not only did Theoden pass me a few times with the trails U-turns, he also passed me a few times in the Porta-potty line. (And you thought his pace on the course was fast.) Waiting at the starting line were the group pace leaders. Each of these guys had yellow balloons with pace times on them. They were know as the Balloon Men, or BMs for short. Yes, even Jonathan can be a BM at times. My goal was to keep the 4 hour BM behind me.
The first three miles are out of the baseball park and onto the streets followed by a left turn onto the trail. Shortly after getting on the trail there was a reminder in the middle of the path that this trail is also used for horseback riding. Or was there a fellow Clydesdale runner in front of me? Now I’m off to the first U-turn at mile 7.5. Guys, one great thing about the U-turns is that you get to see the front side of the runners who’s cute butts and legs keep passing you. Women runners have great legs. There were a few runners in running skirts, which I love, expect there were a couple of guys in skirts too. Theirs were longer and plaid but I did not see any bag pipes, hmm. A couple of minutes after the first U-turn, I saw the 4:00 BM. My BM was still behind me. So now I’m running down the long straight from mile 7.5 to mile 19.5 (second U-turn). Along the way the ‘bazillion trees’ provide a guy with ample opportunities to mark his territory. The halfway mark saw the course’s only race clock. As I hit mile 16 there right on the trail’s edge was the unofficial Tobacco Road Marathon mascot. Yes, a faithful fan brought along her pet goat. You will not get this kind of support in Chicago. Following the second U-turn (4:00 BM still to my rear) and onto mile 20 where a beer table was on the trail. They offered beer in Dixie cups. I’m thinking to myself, if they want more runners from UCRR, they’re going to have to go to pint glasses. But then again there were a flurry of emails going around this group about free beer. At mile 23 its back on to the street for the last 3.2 miles. A few fans cheering, and one yelled to me “Come on 429 you can do it”. How did he know my credit score. Around mile 24, I got a good laugh (hard for me to do after 24 miles). A rather attractive young lady was holding a sign that read “Chaffed Nipples Turn Me On”. The last mile had a slight head wind but it felt good as the temperature was on the rise. As I turned into the parking lot for the last 100 yards to the finish line, I had to look back to make sure, there would be no BM for this MOP today.
PR’d at 3:54:11 (previous PR was 4:18:06 at last Year’s Tobacco Road)
I really enjoy this race and will likely do it again next year.
Cheap hotels; Easy travel. If you do decide to run this race, make sure you buy a parking pass ($5).
***
By: Mark Ulrich
After missing my time goal of 3:30 in Richmond last November, I decided to take another shot at it in March at Tobacco Road. In the days before the race, the forecast was looking great and I was feeling good.
I also had the advantage of having Jonathan Savage as the pacer for my 3:30 pace group. Before the race, Jonathan told us that the second half of the course, particularly miles 21-26 is tougher than the first half, so we would plan to come through the half around 2 minutes ahead of goal pace. He paced us a little faster on the downhills and a little slower on the uphills, employing an even effort strategy rather than even splits. Following this strategy, since mile 2 was all downhill and the easiest mile of the course, we ran it the fastest. At one point during mile 2, we were at 7:15 pace and a guy beside me looked at his garmin with a look of horror and said, “is that right? Are we at 7:15?”. I laughed and told him we were just cruising down the hill, but not to worry. The rest of the first half was pretty unremarkable. Here are the splits from the first half.
8:04, 7:37, 7:55, 7:47, 7:57, 7:38, 7:42, 7:45, 8:00, 7:49, 7:46, 7:54, 7:54
Time though 13.1 was 1:42:33 – 2:27 ahead of schedule for a 3:30:00 finish.
After coming through the half at 2 minutes ahead of schedule and feeling good, I decided to try to maintain that pace the rest of the way, so I’d pull ahead of the pace group at their planned slowdown through the tougher miles. The pace group started to slow down a little at mile 16, so I continued at the same pace and pulled ahead of them. The course was very narrow and tough to run with other people. Troy was also in the pace group but I didn’t get to run with him much at all. Speedy Theoden started with our group but pulled ahead around mile 3. I saw him at the turnarounds and he was cruising at his usual smooth glide. Although Jonathan was our pacer, I never could get close enough to speak to him either until after I pulled ahead of the pace group. As I went by, I gave Jonathan permission to poke/beat me with the stick he was carrying that had the pacer balloons at the end. He let me know he would not hesitate to take me up on the offer if I should falter in the late miles.
Mile 16 to the finish, I ran solo which was fine. Especially after mile 20, people were beginning to struggle as expected so it was a boost to still feel solid with all of the carnage/walking around me. I was really happy that my splits were pretty consistent. When you put my splits beside the elevation map, all of my slower miles were intentionally slow because they were uphill, so my effort was very even throughout.
These are the splits for the second half:
7:48, 7:57, 7:40, 7:54, 7:41, 7:51, 7:41, 7:58, 7:51, 8:08, 8:11, 8:02, 7:46
Finishing time was a new PR at 3:27:04, beating by PR from Richmond by 8 minutes. Overall, the race itself was fairly drama-free which makes it tough to write up a compelling race report. I did discover a few interesting paradoxes when thinking back to this race:
1. Exciting race reports with lots of drama are fun to read but usually have a disappointment as the end result. The well run races usually are solid and steady, without too much drama.
2. The more you struggle in a race, the worse your finishing time. Gutting out the final miles makes you proud that you didn’t quit, but finishing strong nearly always yields better results than a death march.
3. The stronger your race, the less sore you are in the days after. The more you struggled in the race, the more sore you will be. Finishing time is irrelevant on this one.
***
By: Troy Eisenberger
“It comes apart, the way it does in bad films. Until the part, where the moral kick in.” – LCD Soundsystem “All Of My Friends”
The first time I sat down to write this race report, I was listening to this song, one of my all-time faves, heard this lyric, and it seemed to provide the overarching summary I was struggling to find otherwise. I ran the second half 12 minutes slower than the first. If you are wondering what geological formation one could fall off from that would best represent those splits, my friend Jonathan Savage informed me yesterday that it is a cliff. However, even though with the unraveling, the big picture, the moral, is nothing but positive.
It was not my first time off the cliff. My last marathon, featured a similar 15 minute decline with 1:53 at half way, leading to a 4:08 @ Ridge-To-Bridge…and dear God don’t make me mention Thunder Road. Despite having the same 2nd half struggles, I’m very pleased with the overall results. I’d post splits, but since my Garmin is convinced I ran sub-6 for mile #9, and then over 11 for #10, I’m not sure they matter all that much. My Garmin is kind of an asshole. Noteworthy details of the race weekend included:
A great trip up and overall experience with my buddy Mikey Mac. He drove me to the race, gave me a place to stay and I got a home-cooked meal, and just great banter and laughter throughout the weekend. On raceday Mike and I headed toward the start, dropped off Bobby (Aswell Jr)’s race packet that I picked up the day before. Bobby and I jogged over to the start where I ran into Jonathan Savage (amazing pacer and running resource), Theoden, and Mark. I name drop slightly to say, yes I have friends and marginal social skills for all those doubters worried about my comic book and Rubix Cube collections, but mainly to say it is awesome to see people you know at a race. For many entrenched in running groups as awesome as UCRR this might seem like a given, but after running many races only knowing at most 1-2 people, and my last marathon only knowing a guy I met on the internet (long story), the feeling of a community is great for calming the pre-race apprehension. Oh yeah…onto the actual race…
I settled into the 3:30 pace group. For some reason I thought this would be shoulder-to-shoulder running with Savage and Ulrich, but was hanging on at the back of the pack early. Jonathan was wearing a paper hat that seemed like something a well-behaved child might get from a fast-food restaurant – think a Burger King crown, but not quite as refined. Mark and I chatted quickly, rapid phrases exchanged confirming…
“How’s it going?” – Troy
“Really good. How ’bout you” – Mark
“Good…really good” – Troy
We would later exchange glances at the 19 mile turnaround that confirmed….
“I feel good and I’m getting faster:” – Mark
“%^&*$” – Troy
I felt strong through 10, capable through 16, then really started to feel tightness inside my left leg turning into knee pain around 18. I would have loved to get under 3:30, but my original goal was sub-3:40, and after finding there was no 3:40 group, I decided I’d rather take my chances in a pace group. I did less time negotiating in this race than I previously have done, but had some 15-30 second walk sections with pain in the inside left leg (probably smart), and aching soreness in my hip flexors (need to learn how to just this suck this up in future races) over the last 7 miles.
I did my best (see previous references to cliffs) to dig deep at the end. My gentleman friend Jason Rose, told me to go hard or go home, and that made me worried if I didn’t try hard enough, I would be forced to live in Cary for the rest of my life.
I finished, staggered around, ate an orange, forced Mark to take a picture with me where I stood on top of a milk crate to look less than 2′ shorter than him, drank a Shotgun Betty, and then headed back to UC with Mike. So yeah, sucks to finish so much slower on the second half, but to set my “old enough to drink” best time by 30 minutes was good enough for me. Thanks to everyone named in this report, also for Jack who got me with UCRR on Saturdays, Hazel who got me with UCRR on Sundays….di and Dave D. and the rest of the “Roughtalkers” in Concord.
I hope this always feels like a “milestone marathon” for me, the one that moved me into (or back into) a new time neighborhood, and that one day this will serve as a milestone for the next time the clock reads something that rings of significance. Mark’s excellent race report details that running steady pace tends towards less enthralling race reports. Hopefully this will be @ New River, where you won’t have to sift through all of my tangents and drivel, and can just read the letters “p” and “r”.
link to opening song:
