I Like To Run & Cook: The Northface Endurance Challenge/The Bear Mountain, NY Half Marathon

13.1 Miles
3:04:33 Time
14:06 Pace

The Northface Endurance Challenge/The Bear Mountain, NY Half Marathon

Introduction

The NF Endurance Challenge was my first legitimate trail race with technical conditions. The few Holiday Marathons (rather 1/2 and 3/4 marathons) I have ran you could actually run, and by that I mean run the entire course if you are in good shape. There weren't rocks you had to be careful stepping on or fallen trees you had to jump over. I saw one person who I think twisted an ankle and decided not to continue to the race, a person with an ice pack wrapped around his ankle at the finish and a few people almost tripping, including myself. I rolled my ankle a few times. One was semi serious, or atleast serious enough for me to hear "are you ok" from someone behind me. Not sure how it happened, but my thigh was sore for awhile after the race and overall I am still somewhat beat, and also drained from the heat.

First Half

The first few miles were semi technical. Some uphill with branches and other trail objects you could trip over. There was room to pass, though most people that were running near me were going at a somewhat similar pace. The first aid station came up, which luckily had GUs, GU Brew (which I had never heard of) and water. Not sure if the GU is vegan but I had a part of a packet at each station. There might have been some Nuun too, atleast a later aid station had some. I sampled a little of everything and then poured some water over my head to cool down. Then we got to an open area near the parking lot (we actually had to park a few miles away and take a bus to the start.) Even though it was pavement, I didn't really want to pick up my pace at this point and I kept going at my steady pace.

Second Half

For the second half, I remember the trail got vary narrow and steep. You really couldn't pass anyone and you had to be careful. After a climb so to speak, we seemed to be almost at the top of the mountain and we could see over trees. Then we had to start going down which was a little sketchy, as it was still narrow and you had rocks to go over. Another aid station came up (I think this was about mile 8.9, based on what a volunteer said) and the volunteer mentioned we still had another hill coming up and then the course was easier until the end. The hill was basically what we had been dealing with, rocks and some muddy sections, but of course I, and I assume the other runners were quite beat by this point. I was almost jumping for joy when I saw the next aid station as I was really starting to feel weak. The terrain became much more relaxed and it was quite nice running with fewer people on the course. I still needed to walk and at times I said "that's it, I am done" but I forced myself to keep running for a bit. The end came up sooner than I thought and it was nice being cheered by some spectators.

Based on the timing information, I seemed to bonked toward the end.

2.6 Mile Mark
31:20 Time
12:03 Pace

8.3 Mile Mark
1:46:37 Time
12:51 Pace

Conclusion

Believe it or not, with the time I ran, I finished with bottom 25% of the runners, including some people who didn't finish. Not great, but normally when you hear someone ran a 3 hour half marathon you think they finished last. I am also new to this level of trail running so I didn't know what to expect. Only a handful of runners went below 2 hours. I actually thought I was one of the last to finish because I started at the back of the pack and I didn't think I passed that many runners. I think I heard someone mention that you can add an hour to your typical road half marathon finish time to get an expected finish time for this race. I ran my only street half marathon back in September, Yonkers, and ran it in like 2:17 something, so maybe I would do a lot better if I tried one today, though I am not really interested in doing that.