Well, State #47 and overall marathon #82(?) was a soggy one this morning at the Sugarloaf Marathon, Maine.
Left Toronto at 6am on Friday to beat the Victoria Day long weekend traffic out of town. Google and the GPS had the travel time at around 8 ½ hours. Things went pretty smoothly with the first gas and eat stop just before the Quebec border. Made the mistake of buying a gas station chicken Caesar wrap, which had a hard stale bottom side. Lunch was a huge improvement, stopping at The Musi-Café in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, just north of the Maine border, with a great Swiss and mushroom burger with frites and garden salad. Not sure if anyone in the States remembers the disaster that the original Musi-Café in downtown Lac-Mégantic was destroyed in back in 2013 where an unattended freight train of crude oil tankers cars rolled out of control into town and derailed, exploded and killed 42 people and decimated the downtown. Thirty of the victims were in the Musi-Café. It’s new location, part of a new downtown area overlooks the old location which is still an empty field with rail track running through. The federal gov’t has promised to reroute the rail tracks.
Arrived at my hotel in Kingfield, ME, just a few blocks from the finish line and 18 miles from Sugarloaf Resort. The Herbert Grand Hotel is a 101-year-old establishment, and is on the National Registry of Historic Places and certified "haunted". The rooms have no TV, and the internet is spotty. My third floor back corner room had no Wi-Fi signal so I had to trek to the lobby to get internet. They had TV in the lobby, along with a pool table, Buffalo head and another TV in the adjoining bar that sells only alcohol produced in Maine. It’s good I brought a book to read, that I read completely through chillin’ out all day Saturday in the hotel lobby. Kit pick up was at Sugarloaf Resort 3pm-7pm. I got there just before 4pm, and there was a line up of over a hundred people as they only had two stations for the marathon pickup. They eventually opened a third by shuffling a 15K race official over to the marathon desk. Still had a 100 or so in line when I left with my bib and shirt 45 minutes later.
Saturday carbo load was at the only restaurant in town across the street from the hotel. It was busy of course with the majority of hotel occupants were being runners. I got a space at the small restaurant bar for a plate of linguini. Sugarloaf Resort was putting on a carb load dinner as well, but it was priced at $27+tax.
Didn’t sleep well Saturday night, even though I had a fabulous sleep the night before. Wake up call was 4:30am, as the buses to the start boarded at 5:30am for a 7pm marathon start. My usual breakfast of sport drink, bagel with peanut butter and a banana. Coffee fortunately was put on by the hotel staff. A small free luxury, since they were charging us runners a $$$pecial event pricing for rooms. I’m glad I could pay most of the hotel cost in travel points I had. They were also charging anyone who wanted a late checkout past 11am an extra $30 fee. I was too cheap to pay for this and was ready to just do a sponge bath in my car at the finish line parking lot. After leaving my keys at the desk, and loading the car, I gave a fellow runner, and fellow Canadian a ride to the finish area. Lots of Canadians at the race, being so near the boarder, and you could tell the Canadians running next to you, because their GPS split chimes were set at every kilometer, and not mile.
Quickly bordered the buses and we were off to the start line 26 miles north on a secondary highway that brought me into town from the Quebec border on Friday. So, I got a second look at the course, but this time through foggy windows with smattering of rain falling. For those that have taken buses from a start to finish line, such as Boston, it plays on your mind how long it takes, and you’re about to retrace the distance on foot. Just over half an hour drive to get to the start line at a camping ground next to the highway. We were the second bus there, so no line up for the porta potties yet. Then an hour wait for the start at 7am, taking shelter from a light drizzle. Temps were around the low 40F to start and only went up to about 50F to finish. Bit of a headwind, but not bad. I choose a long sleeve shirt, shorts, light gloves and running cap that keep the rain off my glasses for he most part. A wide variety of clothing choices by everyone else, from jacket and tights, to shorts and singlets. Most women were in capris tights, saw a couple of shirtless men.
Start at 7pm was delayed a bit as the final bus was delayed due to traffic on the two lane highway. But off we went in a misty drizzle, filling up the southbound lane for a good ten miles, till we lengthen out to just half a lane. Traffic was still allowed on the highway, since it was the only highway to get anywhere in the area. Southbound traffic was in the northbound lane and northbound traffic was partly on the road and partly on the shoulder. The locals seemed to figure it out, and only saw a couple of yahoos going too fast. Even though the organizers asked that support crew keep off the highway, I was able to pick up a dozen or so vehicles doing the hopscotch following friend and family.
Rainy drizzle never let up, and slowly increased in intensity, with the last 10K with a pretty steady rain. Thanks to all the volunteer and spectators that came out to help and watch. Looks like the finish line medical tent had a few cases of mild hypothermia to deal with.
Finished in 4:12:46, a 9:39 mile pace. Not bad with the rainy condition we had, but hoping for a sub 4:10, as the course was a net downhill and a popular BQ friendly course, with only three significant hills. First half went by in 2:05.50, so pretty even split. Last couple of K were actually the fastest K splits for me, under 4”km when I averaged 5:50”km, as I stupidly accepted a Strava Challenge to run your fastest mile of a marathon in the last mile and the sponsoring company would make a small donation to a charity.
