Athens Big Fork Marathon 2016

 

            8am Big Fork Community Center and it is raining stead temp 38 and forecast is more rain and temp slowly dropping every hour. “Snap,” we take a quick picture and ready set go we are off in the cold rain!  ABF is always the first week in January which is awesome because anything to help burn some calories after Christmas and New Years is a go in my books!  But 2016 the first Saturday fell on Jan. 2^nd which is where I will start my story will begin.

            January 2^nd – 8:30am at the Womble MTB Trail Head – with some of the best guys I can imagine including my 11 year-old son!  18 of us unloading getting our gear on getting tires set to the perfect air pressure.  A few of the ladies had already used the woods so I took the wet wipes for a stroll in the woods and came back after doing my duty.  This is when my good friend Josh leaned next to me and said, “Dude did you crap on yourself?”  I then looked at my left foot nothing, then the right foot, ohhhhhhhhhhh there it was!  I had stepped in my wives poop, yes human poop, not dog poop!  Not a big deal but I would have 2 flats that day with one major break down where I would have to smell that smell off and on during the adventure!   That was free and had nothing to do with ABF but I should have been running ABF Jan 2^nd and then resting Jan 9^th so I could be fresh for Tom Brennan’s OT 50k Switchbacks.

Working on some Poteau Trails

            Taking off slow was the plan and that is what I stuck with going out slower than I had ever gone at ABF, I normally don’t look at my watch going out but this year I did after the 7^th mountain to see I was moving slower than normal.  And the course record holder taught me a trick early when I started racing.  On an out and back course you can look at your watch when 1^st place goes buzzin by and you can double the time when you get to the turn around with a little math.  So I did this with 1^st and 2^nd place and I was 12 minutes behind and I was having a great time at the warm aid station at Athens.  A group from Texarkana always has a great time and have a great aid station and the rain didn’t slow them down they had a fire blazing!  They ask me where I was from and I told them Poteau, OK and they were going on about how someone from Poteau usually wins or several guys in  from Poteau in the front.  I went on to tell them I might try to catch them because I was freezing cold!  So that is what I did I started running to warm my body by running hard.    I went on to move into 2^nd place about halfway back and then 2 miles to go I saw 1^st place!  A part of me was mad because now I had to run hard to try to run him down.  I started picking it up but with a mile left to go he looked back and it was one of the most memorable moments of my trail racing.

            Chris Block went on to look back 20 more times in the next mile but the 6:55 pace for the last mile wasn’t enough to wrap him in.  As we crossed the finished line he looked back and gave me a few choose words and then gave me a hug!

            I love this race and as for now it is my staple marathon I you will see me at this race hopefully 20 years from now with my streak going of finishing the hardest marathon on the planet but one of the most beautiful at the same time!