Tell City Indiana Marathon

Many times when I look at my travel schedule for work, I try to plan ahead of time for a nearby marathon to knock off of the 50 state list.  In June, I was going to be working in the North Eastern most corner of Arkansas and only 3 hours away was a trail marathon in Tell City Indiana.  When people think of Indiana, they picture a flat state with no hills to speak of.  This is true for most of the state however the southern part is the exception to the rule.  The website described this as having the most elevation exchange of any marathon East of the Mississippi river falling short of Pike’s Peak and Mount Lemmon.  It also tells runners to expect this not to get a PR or a Boston Qualifier on this course.  I desperately wanted to knock off another state and figured I would see how tough this race could be.  The entire course was to take place on a 2 lap mountain trail and turned out to be every bit as rough as the entry form suggested.

The race was taking place on the Indian Celina trail in Tell City Indiana on a warm June afternoon.   There were quite a few runners that showed up with the course offering a 10k, half marathon and Marathon.  It was difficult to discern who was running in which race due to all of us starting together and us being painted with numbers instead of bibs.  The only goal for this race was to finish and not worry about time or pace, the hills were too tough to keep any type of pace.  Most of the hills were slick due to rain early in the morning which lead to a lot of fast walking up the hills and sliding down on the other side.  I did not have any idea where I fell into the mix of other marathoners nor did I really care.  If I finished in the top 10 or dead last was not a factor that weighed on me during the first loop.  I knew that there were plenty of people in front of me and just as many behind.  The course had many ups and downs and even a few fields of tall grass on uneven ground.  This was one of those races where you just keep moving forward and enjoy looking at nature.  After the first loop is when things started to change, one of the volunteers at a water station informed me that I was currently in 3^rd place.  I could see the 2^nd place runner in front of me, we had been trading positions for the entirety of the first lap and the 4^th place runner was in me immediate line of sight when I looked back.

The first lap was taken with caution with me slowing to cross the rivers with care not to get my feet wet to prevent blisters.  I had also expended energy in taking up conversations with other runners nearby but then it all became personal business during the second lap.  I had planned on keeping pace with the second place runner and then trying to sprint past him during the final mile at the finish.  One thing I am blessed with is closing speed but my main curse is that with my size, I suck at running up hills.  The man in front of me probably weighed 130lbs soak and wet.  I would pass him on the flat parts and down hills but he was very consistent with his pace on the up hills. This soon became my demise on the longest hill of the course, he kept his tough pace and I faltered behind until he disappeared over the summit.  I tried to pick up the pace barreling as fast as I could through the flats and down hill sections hoping to see my adversary.  The streams that I had once carefully crossed, I plowed through with absolutely no caution like a hungry beast looking for prey.  Finally, I came out of the forest with only a quarter mile till the finish line to happily take the 3^rd spot.  I talked to the other guy after the race and he told me that he had been running scared trying to urgently stay ahead.  He beat me but 3^rd place overall for any marathon is something that I can sleep easy over.  I finished just over the 4 hour mark but to put it in perspective, the guy who got first finished in 3:53 but he ran a marathon earlier in the year in 2:30.

The one thing I have learned about trail races is that it has a different type of running atmosphere.  These type of races do not care about medals or swag bags and this one was the same.  Instead of a medal, I received a handmade wooden trophy and got a neon green running singlet with the race emblem on the front.  After it was over, I headed home pleased that marathon #13 was now officially in the books and looked ahead to one of the coolest races that I have ever  heard about coming in August.