The last two months have been pretty hectic between work and wedding planning thus...here we are again. Another long stretch with no blogs. Sad face. I actually have three or four different blogs that I've started but haven't been able to finish but I'm forcing myself to sit down and catch up on what's been going on. Mainly a bunch of races with a couple of adventures thrown in for good measure.
All of the events take place at the US National Whitewater Center just outside of Charlotte. Amanda and I made the three hour trek from Atlanta to Charlotte on Friday night, skipping the festivities that night in order to try and get some sleep before the race. In the morning we made the short drive over to USNWC where I grabbed my number and wristband and started my prep. Tuck Fest is a really cool event in that once you pay the registration, you are free to enter as many events as you want. Obviously, there are a few events that require proof of skills - whitewater kayaking, top rope climbing, things like that.
Going into the race, I spent some time going over the course but it was pretty much that same as last year with a small exception at the start. On my warm up, I worked my way around that area and found out that the race opened with 400-600 meters on a dirt road before dipping into the woods. Good for me, since it would give me a chance to see how people were going to go out. I didn't really know what to expect from the field. Last year this was a La Sportiva Mountain Cup race so that brought out a heavy hitter or two. It wasn't a mountain cup race this year, but the USNWC has a half marathon series, so I didn't really know who would show up.
Coming off of the 1:16 half that I ran at Peach Jam, I felt pretty confident that I'd be able to run at the front, but that race was on a flat greenway. After an easy two mile warm up, I switched shoes (La Sportiva Mutants - great shoe but the course was a little hard packed for them) and made my way to the start.
At the gun, I went right to the front and quickly settled into a good tempo, which was about the same pace that I'd run at Peach Jam the week before. I felt confident that I could go out a little harder and back off once I got into the woods with that race under my belt, so I decided to go for it and try to see how the rest of the field would react. I was a little bit surprised that no one went out with me at the start and 200 meters into the race I was already on my own out front.
Once I entered the woods, I tried to settle in a little bit and just keep stretching things out. The course is definitely more challenging that it appears. Last year was a complete mudfest so I wasn't really thinking about the time I ran. I figured that I'd be way faster since it was dry. To my surprise the course had some real bite to it, or it was long. One of the two.
The course is two laps of a six point something loop, with a one lap race starting 30 minutes after the half marathon. The first few miles are very bumpy. No big elevation changes but a lot of short, steep climbs. It was also a little more technical than I remembered with scattered roots and rocks. Once things straighten out a little, probably around four miles in, it's a little less punchy. There is one substantial climb up to the power lines but other than that I found the second half of the lap to be a little more forgiving than the first.
I felt pretty strong on the first lap. I moved through the early miles well and then really got into a good rhythm on the back half. After about five miles, I took a couple peeks back but couldn't see anyone so I relaxed a little bit and told myself to try and maintain through the rest of the race. I rolled through the first lap in 50:28 with what I assumed was a substantial lead.
Despite what I felt like was a little bit of a slow lap, when considering the effort, I felt fairly comfortable heading into the second lap. It also seemed like it might have been a little long, but I'm not going to be that guy that says 'my GPS says the race is really 14 miles' I think the course has a lot more bite than bark.
After cruising along for the first two miles of the second lap I started catching up to the tail end of the quarter marathon (one lap race). This wasn't as frustrating as last year, but I still had a couple of issues getting by people. Most were encouraging and worked with me when it came to passing, but I got a couple of dirty looks and one guy (unintentionally) caught me with an elbow in the ribs in one of the narrower sections.
The up and down and constant passing really started to take a toll on me after about four miles on the second lap. Even when things opened up a little bit I was firmly planted on the struggle bus. I glanced at my watch a couple times and figured that I was in for a really slow second lap. I tried to focus on catching the people in front of me but that became more mentally exhausting than encouraging as the miles wore on.
Once I crested the climb up to the power lines I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me. I was only about a mile from the finish and as long I kept moving forward I was going to get the win. It was such a different experience from the week before. At Peach Jam I felt completely comfortable and in control for 95 percent of the race. I had a couple of short rough patches but even at the end I felt like I was running very relaxed. Tuckfest was the total opposite. Some of that is probably due to the drastic difference in courses, but mostly I don't think I factored in cumulative fatigue (that's another blog for another day).
I made the final turn onto the last section of gravel road and picked off a few more of the one lap racers ready to cross the finish and enjoy my victory for the rest of the day. I crossed the line in 1:41 , just about even splits. Not bad considering my second lap felt at least 20 minutes slower. With a smile on my face, I started scanning the crowd for Amanda when I heard one of the guys at the finish line say...
"Did you just finish the half marathon?"
"Yeah."
"Nice job bro, second place."
"Ah, what? Not possible. No one passed me."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I led from the first step and never got passed, so it's not possible for me to have finished second." - That's how it sounded in my mind but in reality it was probably more like "No. Can't. First." - Cut me some slack I just ran a half marathon.
If this is starting to sound familiar, that means you read this blog, so first thanks, and second yes this happened last year. In last year's race I was second the whole way behind La Sportiva's Ryan Woods. I ran with him for a few miles then he dusted me. He won but in the process he had to pass the guy that "finished second" some where on the second lap. When I came in they gave me third. Fortunately Ryan helped me straighten it out since the only way the guy could have gotten in front of him was to cut the course.
Flash forward to this year and we have almost the same situation. Admittedly, I was pretty salty about it. I try to be diplomatic at all times when I'm at races. I know the RD and the volunteers work hard to make sure everyone has a good experience, but two years in a row of someone cutting the course and getting away with it did not sit well with me.
I did my best to calmly plead my case for winning. I felt like I had pretty solid evidence. I was leading by a wide margin, which someone had to see, and I ran even splits, so in order to beat me this dude would have had to run major negative splits. That's not impossible, but it seemed pretty unlikely to me. I was a little worried that maybe I screwed up and ran long, but I ran even splits so again that was pretty unlikely.
The RD asked if we tracked the race. We both had, cutty mccutterson on his iPhone and me on my Garmin. He decided he'd take a look at the GPS maps and make a decision after that. I had to walk to the car and grab my phone, which turned out to be a good thing. On the way to the car, I was heated. I was ready to leave and say I was never coming back. Amanda must have really enjoyed my bitch sesh.
By the time we made it back I calmed down and showed the RD my phone. He compared the two and immediately realized that the other guy cut a section of the course. The RD says "I have to DQ you, give me a minute" and he walked away. At this point the other guy goes, "Sorry bro, the same thing happened to me last year."
Get a load of that shit...it was the SAME GUY! The same dude that cut the course last year cut the course again this year. WTF. It's not a hard course to follow either. How does that happen?
Looking back, I made a mistake by not spending the extra money to get a chip, so I'd have an official time, but I'm not running in their race series so it seemed like a waste of 10 bucks. This other guy though, he was running in the series so I got a peek at his splits. Homeboy ran 52:15 for the first lap - pretty solid - then 46:10 for his second lap. He cut out six minutes, nearly a minute per mile. According to Strava, I was 50:25 and 50:36 for 1:41.
I was happy to get everything sorted out and once I cooled down a little bit, both literally and figuratively, things were - as Local H said - copacetic. It didn't dawn on me until a little while later, because I was being selfish, but the guys that got second and third nearly got hosed too. They were definitely happy to have things figured out before the awards though.
We each got a man can of Bell's Oberon and a cool medal with the guitar logo on it. The beer was excellent by the way. It paired very well with the tacos I had later.
Here's what the race looked like on Strava:
After the race Amanda and I walked around and checked out all of the vendor tents, played some corn hole, tried out slackline (only about four inches off the ground). We grabbed some food and beer and found a spot along the side of the whitewater course and watch people hitting the rapids in kayaks, rafts and on SUP boards.
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| An awesome day |
We listened to some cool music and relaxed for a couple hours before we decided to hit the whitewater ourselves. I was hoping to enter the Tuckfest photo/video contest but we're still working on Amanda's shooting (she loves the vertical shot) and I didn't realize there are a few settings you need to adjust when you are shooting in slo-mo on the iPhone. Next time I'll stick to the GoPro. I did get some good stuff from whitewater rafting that I'll have to put in a video later, but I digress.
Whitewater rafting was AWESOME. Amanda was a little nervous when they started telling us to expect to fall out of the boat, but we ended up with a good group and some how all stayed out of the water. We started off with a couple of runs down the class 2 and 3 rapids, which were like the green circle sections. We got soaked pretty early on, but once that was done with it seemed like everyone relaxed a little.
After a couple runs down the easier sections we tackled the black diamonds. I'll admit I was a bit nervous going down those. I figured I'd probably end up in the water and told myself to remain calm if that happened. I was the only guy in the boat, so I wanted to make sure I didn't look like an idiot if I fell in. Fortunately, we rocked it. We blasted through the rapids and drops with only a minor stall in an eddy. If you are ever in the Charlotte area I highly recommend going to the USNWC and doing the whitewater rafting. It was awesome. Next year we are planning on hitting it two or three times throughout the day.
Next we made our way to the ziplines, but a two hour wait was not our idea of a fun time, so we decided to try out one of the ropes courses. This was a poor choice. My legs were toast, the wabble factor was cranked up to 11. Also I'm not a huge fan of heights. I do okay on things like that when I'm moving through them but I got stuck behind one kid that was having a bad time, so I was stranded 30 feet in the air on a swaying tree platform. Not cool. After that I had to rescue a little girl that couldn't reach one of the little switch points. This meant I had to take the black course aka the hardest one on my shaky legs. I was done with the ropes course pretty quick.
Following our misguided adventure on the ropes course, we made our way back to the whitewater channel and stage to grab some more food and beer. We hung out long enough to catch Red Bull's Alex Morgan do some slackline over the whitewater, which was pretty gnarly. He ended his...session...sesh...I don't know...back off Warchild...with a back flip into the water so that was cool.
After the slackline performance we decided to stay for a song or two of the headliner, Langhorne Slim and the Law (the song in the instagram post above) then headed back to our hotel. It was a long day but definitely an awesome one. Staying the extra night was a great call. We zonked out at the hotel as soon as we got back, but we were able to relax in the morning and take our time heading back to Atlanta instead of getting back super late on Saturday night.
Two trips to Tuckfest are in the books and it's starting to become one of my favorite weekends of the spring/summer. The race is pretty tough, but it's good work on some challenging terrain, plus it brings in an element of unknown when it comes to the competition, which is nerve racking but good.
