Bead’s Blog

I met up with Run Sparky Run (Dave) and Cayman (John) to run the the Turkey Swamp 50K at the Turkey Swamp park in Freehold NJ. Melissa joined us to sit out in a chair and cheer us on.

Sadly Anton wasn’t able to join us. He had too much work to do for summer school.

Dave met me at my place and we loaded up the truck with our gear. A couple days earlier he hooked me up with a pair of these cool socks that had a built in gaiter. if you are interested -http://www.zombierunner.com/store/categories/clothing/socks/inov-8/

I brought the ice bath garbage can 1/2 full with water and several bags of ice for some post run releif.

The weather was great. Upper 60’s to start and we ran on slightly rolling trail. It had a few small stretches of sand, some hard packed dirt, but mostly dirt trails cushioned with pine needles. My knees were loving it.

There were multiple events that day with the same start. 10 miler, 25k, 20 miler and the 50k. The course was a 2.58 mile loop and had to be repeated 12 times for the 50K.

It started a few minutes late which worked out for us since we set up our cooler next to the trail for our customized aide station. Melissa was asked to volunteer so she was going to be on the sidelines to cheer and help out.

The first lap was congested to start, and Dave and I were the last runners in the pack to cross the start line. The course had 2 aide stations at 2 ends of the loop. There was one with cooked potato slices and salt, M&M’s, fruit and other snack stuff, and Gatorade Endurance, water and defizzed cola. The other aide station was just a drink station with Gatorade endurance and water.

John started with us but when we stopped for a potty break he got a little ahead of us. He had some ultra experience so I stuck with Dave since I talked him into this folly.

We were going at a decent clip. The cushy, gently rolling, course with shade most of the time and temperature in the mid 70’s was a big help.

There were a few potty stops and I made sure I took a little nutrition on most loops and something to drink at eavery aide station. I supplemented with a little from our cooler. Just before the end of each loop we were treated to the pop musical brilliance of ‘ABBA’, which was on a continuous loop. Irony anyone? It literally became a running gag each time we passed.

Clouds moved in and kept it cool but they also brought the thunder.

We got thru our 8th loop and then on our way around we saw the first bit of lightning. As we got to the start of the loop they stopped us and told us the course was closed by the Park Rangers for safety.

Dave and I completed 9 loops for about 23.25 miles at about 3:38. John was able to squeeze in another loop which gave him just under 26 miles.

We were very disappointed about getting stopped. I felt great and not as fatigued as expected. At the pace we were going we would have done just over 4 hours for the marathon and easily completed the whole 50k under 5 hours.

I guess I’ll have to wait until next year.

We cleaned up our aide station, and went back to the truck. The ice bath garbage can was waiting. 3 bag of ice went in with the water so in got the water level a few inches from the top. Dave and I took turns jumping in and out of the ice bath for about 20 minutes. John stood by and watched and had a good laugh while we complained about the cold.

We dumped the half melted dirty ice and water and changed for the ride home. The ice bath did the trick.