Terrapin Mountain 2023 Trail Half Marathon
I woke up at 4:30 a.m. cold enough to crawl out from under the covers to get my jacket and snuggle back in under my blankets to fall back asleep for—just 30 minutes. Shoot, I thought I had an hour. I was camping in my van, and waking up in the dark cold to start a race at the exact minute the sun comes up is like “wwhhhhyyyyy….” But it gets better after that. A little better.
This was year number three of Terrapin Mountain Half Marathon for me, and as usual, my feet were cold and numb for the first mile. Which is lucky because that is just before the first creek crossing. So it’s good to be warmed up by then, because the fastest way through the multiple creek crossings is straight through. I love splashing through a creek as someone next to you tries to tip toe across on rocks. It must really ruin their day. Not that I like to ruin their day, but no one likes running for hours with soaking shoes. We could possibly just all agree to try and stay dry, but I consider one of my greatest trail running strengths to be fearlessly splashing through cold creeks—I’m not going to waste that.
I hauled uphill thinking I didn’t remember this being so hard. I really didn’t feel great at all. It was more of a me vs the mountain sort of race. And the mountain won. No it didn’t, just kidding. Well, maybe it did, I guess it’s actually hard to say really.
I started singing my favorite Jawbreaker song to myself, and everything instantly shifted to feeling more positive. Suddenly, I was at the first aid station around mile 4. If I knew the first 4 miles would speed by that fast, I would have run harder, I thought to myself. But shortly after that, as I hiked the steep and rocky trail to the top, I realized that my legs have never in my life hurt so much from “walking.”
Running across the top of Terrapin Mountain feels like a special mystical world way above and separate from every day life. One that is only accessible by a special effort, keeping it a secret spot from most level-headed individuals. A mysterious man on the top of the mountain told me I was in 9th place. That perked me up a bit. I was really shooting for top 5 (I was 6th the past two years), but at that point, 9th sounded fantastic. Later, I questioned the existence of this elusive hiker. Was he real? Where did he come from? Did I imagine him? Still not sure.
I had a strong finish. My high school cross country coach would have been mad at that finish. Because if I was able to finish that fast, I should have run faster somewhere else. That is definitely accurate, but in my defense, this race is extremely difficult to pace. I’m not even sure if it is possible to pace. My strategy was basically run up hill for 5 miles as hard as possible, run downhill for 2 miles without falling on my face, use whatever I have left on the last 6 miles—running the last downhill 2 of those 6 miles as fast possible. Actually, that will probably be my strategy for next year, because this year I forgot the elevation profile of the course and was surprised every time there was another climb on the last descent.
I finished about 7 minutes faster than the past two years, which put me in 9th place out of 229 women. Seven minutes is a pretty significant amount of time for a race one has done twice before in nearly the exact same time. And maybe why it felt so hard?
I didn’t do a great job of following to-do item #2 on the race check-in sign that read “Have fun!” I honestly forgot until the last mile. I will try harder on that one next time. That may sound like a joke, but it isn’t. Because if it isn’t fun, there is really no reason to wake up in the dark cold to do it.