Goodwater Trail Marathon race report 2023
Hey, my first official new race report on my new blog. Woo. Meanwhile I'm backdating the other stuff I think I might care about (race and trip reports, mostly) to when they actually happened. Hopefully. Work in progress.
Originally this trail marathon seemed like a good idea because we were signed up to do Swimrun Coastal Dunes in March, and I wanted motivation to keep my running distance up. And a fun off-season goal. AND despite living in Austin my whole life, and hearing about the Lake Georgetown loop since I've been trail running, I've never made it out there.
As a bonus, the marathon is one loop, a full circumnavigation of the lake. How fun is that? Especially after the 4 summer-hot loops at the Texas Trail Festival Marathon last year.
As a second bonus, Matt decided to go out with me, and do the 16 miler! We'd both be undertrained for the distances we registered for, so we figured we could spend the next days hobbling together, which is always more fun.
I wasn't UNtrained. I did a 15 and a 17 mile run in the month before the marathon, but both were on the road, and the longest trail run I did since Swimrun Austin was a 10 miler at Bull Creek/Forest Ridge/St Eds. So I knew it would probably hurt by the end, and after, but that I could probably get through it.
I knew nothing about this loop, other than that it was around 26 miles, so I googled it, and mostly found reports from hikers, saying that it was probably best to do it over 2 days, and that there were spots that were technical, bad footing, rocks with divots in them, etc. I wasn't sure what that meant for trail running, or how much of it was technical, but at the start line and the first few miles, several of the runners reiterated that it was technical. Hooboy.
Super small field for the marathon. Probably 25 people at the start line, but Matt and several others were doing shorter distances, just starting earlier than their published start times.
When we started, a group of us ended up running together for several miles. I wanted to make SURE I didn't go out too fast, and this group was going pretty much exactly the pace I wanted to be going, so I just paced off them. 4 people in front of me, 2ish behind me (hard to look behind you on technical trail). The folks ahead of me were chatting, and I'd chime in every once in a while, but mostly I just listened and was quiet.
I did bring my aftershokz in case I NEEDED them to get through, but they were in my pack, all zipped up, so I would have to really want them in order to stop and get them out. (Spoiler: I never got them out.)
I stuck with that group through the first aid station at mile 4, then I HAD to stop to take off my long-sleeved shirt. It was low 50s at the start line, supposed to warm up into the lower 60s, and I would have been fine starting in just my short-sleeved shirt, but I was already nervous and apprehensive in the morning, and it's easier to be calm when you're not also cold. So I started warm, knowing I'd take it off before very long.
And so at mile 4, I stopped and took off my pack and took off my shirt, tied it around my waist, refilled the water bottle I'd been drinking out of, put my pack back on, and then took off on my own for the first time. Nobody else had stopped, they'd rolled straight through.
Given how small the field was and how conservative my pace was, I figured there were very few people behind me, and probably I wasn't going to see anyone else for the rest of the race, all 22 miles of it. Until the double marathoners started coming back for their second loop (they reversed direction for their second marathon).
I took off again and just enjoyed the reduced stress of being able to go exactly my pace, not worry about keeping up with the person ahead of me, or leaving enough space between me and the person ahead of me, or worrying about the person behind me, which always makes me nervous and more likely to trip.
I came out of the woods and into a field, and it was pretty, and the first time there were no real rocks or roots, so I got out my camera from my flipbelt and took a few pictures while running. I decided to take one more, and as I did, suddenly I was on the ground. Oops. Of course, the one non-technical part, and I manage to fall because I'm messing with my phone. Typical. I was fine, though. Picked up my phone and made sure it was functional. Lost some skin on my left thumb, my right elbow, and my right knee, the knee being the worst. It was bleeding, but it was all just skin, no bone or other important underpinnings were injured. I walked a few steps to lower the adrenaline level, then started running again, super super conservative at first.
Spoiler: This is the only time I physically hit the ground, but absolutely NOT the only time I tripped or caught my toe on something or lurched forward in an attempt to fall.
Back into the woods, and this was probably the hardest part mentally for me. For some reason, the rocks and roots in this section were just terrible for me. I was catching my toes on something every 5 minutes. I was trying to be so careful, but just kept tripping. It reminded me of the Tinajas half marathon I did, I think at Colorado Bend? For some reason that particular style of rock just defeats my lack of depth perception, and I can't get my feet clear of it. SO frustrating. And I knew I was going to be exhausted and probably fall a lot more if this continued for the rest of the race. I wasn't looking forward to 20 more miles of that.
But eventually, without actually fully falling anymore, I made it to a trailhead, and it spit me out onto the road. I could see the dam up ahead, and I knew I was almost at the mile 8 aid station, where Matt would turn around to go back the way he came to finish his 16 miler. Unfortunately the dam was Up, so I knew I had some climbing to do. But it was very, very gradual, on the road, and at least I got some relief from constantly trying to trip over things.
The mile 8 aid station was a full, if unmanned, aid station, and I refilled my one bottle again, and also decided to grab a salted caramel gu. I had been taking a gel every 40 minutes, but figured if I could get an extra one in, and still stick to my normal schedule, I'd have more energy for the race.
Meanwhile I had caught up to a person at this aid station! He took off before I was done, but now I knew I wasn't just hours behind the entire rest of the field. And because the road over the dam was so long and straight, I could see a couple other people way up ahead of me. Not entirely alone out there!
The dam was long, and even though it had a view of the lake, it wasn't particularly scenic, but since I was on the road, to pass time I got my phone out again and made a dad-joke video and sent it to some folks so they'd know I was alive. No falling this time.
Coming back down the other side of the dam, the guy ahead of me pulled off into the trees, and so I passed him. There was as hill up the other side, still on the road, and my slow easy jag pulled me up beside another person who was walking, then passed them right before we headed back into the woods and it leveled out. We both basically started running the same pace when we entered the woods, and it was right when we came upon two other guys running together, who had been part of my original group at the beginning of the run, and we all just started running in a group again. And then the guy who'd ducked off the trail earlier tucked in behind us, as well. And I THINK he had a friend with him who seemed to appear and disappear? Again, behind me on a technical trail, impossible to tell what's going on.
But now I had 3 guys ahead of me and 1-2 guys behind me, and somehow that seemed to make me LESS prone to tripping over things. I'm not sure if it just made pay more attention, run at a different pace that was more stable, or if it was just coincidence. But I tripped over a LOT fewer things for that section.
Meanwhile, THEY were tripping over everything. The guy behind me was constantly making tripping noises and yelling "FUCK!" He was wearing cup headphones, so couldn't hear anything anyone said, so never responded if anyone asked if he was okay. The guy in the middle of the 3 ahead of me was carrying two handhelds, and tripped so many times. He put out his arms like a plane every time, and I told him I was excited to see when he actually took flight. Like.. up. Not down. And then the guy directly in front of me was tripping frequently, too, and eventually he was the one who actually fell. He picked a pretty soft place to do it, which is good since there was so much terrible rock out there. He was fine, but he decided to walk for a bit, and the other two decided to stick with him, so the guy behind me took off, and I wished them well and headed off at my own pace again.
As we had entered the woods after the dam, one of the guys asked if I'd done this race before, and when I said I hadn't, he gave me the brief lowdown on the rest of the race. He said this section was called Cedar Breaks, and it was maybe the most technical of the race, for quite a few miles. And it was. It's this really jagged limestone with pits in it, and we joked that it was basically a human cheese grater. Really hard to run through it, and impossible to zone out at all.
Then he said it was jeep trail for a while, through the Tejas aid station. Then after that, there was more jeep trail, and then the last mile or so, which.. was really hard. "You have to earn that finish."
Right after I left the group, I came out into a section that was less wooded, very stereotypical Hill Country trail. Until now, there were some ups and downs, but not really any significant elevation. This section had 4 or 5 big scree hills that lasted a couple minutes each. Definitely walked up those.
There was an aid station, unmanned (they were all unmanned) and just water and Tailwind, around mile 14.5. When I hit mile 16, I made a little mental note, since that's how many miles Matt was running, so he'd be finishing relatively soon. When I passed mile 17, it was the longest I'd run since, as far as I can remember, the Texas Trail Festival Marathon (at least contiguously). And I was looking forward to getting to mile 20, so I could start counting down instead of up.
I hit the last aid station, unmanned but fully loaded, sometime around mile 20. It was a big trailhead, and there was a very kind path leading to it. Somewhere just before that, I saw my first and then second double marathoners coming back out. Insane. They looked better than I did, and they had 12 or so miles on me, and lots more to go.
After the aid station, I was past 20 miles, and I just had to gut out the last 10k or so. No problem.
Except those last 5 miles felt like they took 4 hours.
I kept hoping for jeep trail, just so I could zone out a bit. So I could get some miles in a little faster, because the faster you run, the sooner you're done. But the sun had finally come out at this point, which was a thing I was really hoping wouldn't happen while I was out there. And the jeep trail was completely exposed. And not a big open path, but a rocky, grassy trail that was hard to figure out the best place to be. And there was nothing exciting to look at. And the miles went by so incredibly slowly.
I had gone into this telling myself that I knew I was undertrained, but I didn't care how long it took me, and if I fell apart, I'd just walk it in the last miles. But at mile 22, the thought of walking 4 miles, of how long that would take me, I just couldn't stomach it. I wanted to be DONE already. So I kept trudging forward.
I mean, aside from when I got to mile 24, and there were two PUPPIES being walked, and of course I had to stop and pet the puppies for a minute, which was a good time for everyone.
And then that last mile. Which was probably 1.5 miles. And I don't think it was the most technical part of the marathon, but at that moment, it felt impossible, and I felt so clumsy, and there were just broken up jagged rocks sticking up out of the ground everywhere, and a gradual climb, and I knew that the marathon was long, but I wasn't sure HOW long, and I couldn't look at my watch anyway without falling.
So I just tried to go as fast as I could without stupidly falling in the last mile, complained to some hikers I passed, who assured me I was almost done, and then FINALLY I heard some cheers ahead (I had passed a guy on the jeep trail, after creeping up behind him for a very long time as he ran-walked, then I guess he got reinvigorated when it got stupid and technical and passed me like I was standing still, which for all intents and purposes I was), which I assumed was the guy in front of crossing the finish line, and THEN I turned a corner and could see festive flags! And then there was the finish line! I was SO happy to see that damn finish line.
And then 26.5 miles later, I could finally stop! They joke that it's the world's shortest ultra (since anything over a marathon is an ultra).
Then there were dogs and pizza and Matt told me he had a great race, and it was just a good day. The last few miles were interminable, but that fades almost immediately at the finish line, when all you can feel is proud of running a stupid amount of miles on a stupidly technical trail.
And with that, my off season is officially over (I mean, after a couple days of recovery), and we're back on the wagon to begin training for Rockman 2023: The Year Rockman Finally Hopefully Happens For Us.
26.52 miles. 5:56:01, 13:25/mile. 1722 feet of elevation.
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