RACE REPORT: God's Country Marathon

Note: Frank and Ron both raced God's Country Marathon in PA this weekend. Fortunately, both have excellent race reports, so I will not bore you with my interpretation of their races. You can go straight to the source. To read Frank's follow this link to his blog. He even has a few photos. Ron's is listed below.

Submitted By: Ron Flemming

This marathon is way off the beaten path up in northern Pennsylvania. It's a point-to-point course starting in a small town called Galeton and ending in another small town call Coudersport. There were 162 finishers.

To get to Coudersport, where we stayed, we had to drive through Galeton and then drive the course, up the hell, I mean hill, into town. Getting to drive and see the course was much anticipated because I had seen the elevation chart and it was very intimidating. Miles 1-17 were all uphill. 15-17 were very steep. Mile 18 was the peak.

We did packet pickup and pasta dinner at the Coudersport fire department and had an early night. The morning of the race we met other runners at the finish and we were shuttled to Galeton in an old school bus. The bus took us back "down" Route 6 to Galeton High School where the start was.

The strategy....Go slooow...I wanted to really pace myself through the peak and have enough in me to run backside of the hill respectably. The first mile or so took us away from the direction of the finish and we did an out and back and then weaved back through a few blocks of Galeton. I think around mile 3 or 4 we got on Route 6 and started the climb toward Coudersport. We ran on the left side of the highway with oncoming traffic. There was plenty of room and not a whole lot of traffic.

I managed to keep a pretty slow pace and worked in some walk-run up the steeper hills and usually while drinking the fluids I picked up at the aid stations. They had aid stations every mile and that was awesome. Every 5 miles they had GUs. The aid stations really seemed to come quick and break up the monotony of the lonely road. Again, there weren't many runners, so conversation was scarce.

Route 6, the longest segment of the course, was pretty much just a country road through the mountains. It was beautiful. But there was the weirdest thing...In between the white line and the actual shoulder of the road, there were caterpillars everywhere...You could hear them popping with each step. It sounded like bubble wrap. I even have a couple stains on the top of my shoes from caterpillar splatter. One guy that ran a little bit in front of me for a while was running almost in the center of the road when there wasn't oncoming traffic...I quickly realized that was the thing to do. There was also a couple feet of packed cinder/small gravel just off the shoulder of the road that was nice to run on, so I took advantage of that as well...which eventually landed me a rock in the left shoe around mile 22.

Back to mile 15....The climb was actually not that bad...It was worse than anything this flat-lander was used to, but I just made sure to pace myself to the point were I never really got concerned. You could have made that hill as hard as you wanted to...I did some hard walking, but once the peak was in view I ran the rest. In retrospect, I probably could have pushed myself harder up the hill, but I'm pleased with how it worked out. Getting to the peak was a great feeling...It was a huge mental and physical boost. Knowing the climb was behind me really put all the worries away and I was feeling pretty good. The mile after the peak was my 2nd to fastest mile...I was stoked about getting over that hill. I swear it felt like I had 100lbs lifted off my back.

So there really wasn't much left...I just ran as hard as I could for the remainder. I really didn't start feeling like I was giving out until I reached Coudersport and those last two miles started getting long and hot. We turned left off of Route 6 and ran into a neighborhood before getting on Main Street Coudersport. I'm really glad they ran the course that way because the last aid station ("unofficial" aid station), at about mile 26, was in front of some one's house and there were lots of people out there and they had a table of home-brewed beer...That was a nice touch to the near-finish.

Once I hit Main Street I really picked up the pace and stretched it out until the end. Even though my time (4:30:35) was longer than the Flying Pig, I felt much better about this race. I felt much better through those last few miles and felt like I was able to finish much stronger than in Cincinnati.

We finished on Main Street right off the side of the Coudersport courthouse. After finishing (and receiving a lame medal) I walked around for a little while to cool down and then sat on a park bench watching runners finish...until caterpillars started taking over the bench and falling out of the trees. I mean they were everywhere.Great trip, great race...Nice rural scenery, friendly people and volunteers and very well supported.

Results:
Ron: 4:30:35 (107th)
Frank: 5:37:45 (150th)
Overall: Link
For a graphical view of Ron's Race click to the right