Patapsco Trail Fest

Brian and I signed up for the Patapsco Trail Fest which was a 13.9 Half Marathon Course.  Little did we know that course was actually a full 15 miles (we found that information out at the starting line). 

This was going to be an overnight trip as Patapsco is located in Maryland and is about 3 hours and 45 mins away if you take the turnpike… which by the way, costs almost $20.00 to take.

So we asked Linda and Ed to see if they could watch the dogs and when they said yes, we booked the trip.  A camping trip.  Yep, tent and all! This would be officially my first time really being far from home and camping in a tent.  I was excited!

So after training for a few weeks and getting in the mindset to do a Half Marathon the day finally came.  We packed up the car with food, water, camping and hiking gear and were on our way to Patapsco State Park. 

When we arrived, we checked in and then went to set up camp.  We found a perfect spot that wasn’t too far from everyone but still far enough to have our space.  The tent was so easy to set up and we then we took an adapter for my car and blew up my air mattress.  We really got some strange looks but we were sure sleeping comfortably.  It was nice because they did have restrooms with a potty. 

When we checked in we each received two beer tickets and one food ticket.  We immediately grabbed a beer and relaxed as we settled in our surroundings for the weekend.  We ended up using my food ticket for pizza and that filled us up for dinner.

We did explore the trails a bit and went to bed super early for a 5:45am wake up. 

It was morning before we knew it and the tent was COVERED in spiders but I was still having a blast and so was Brian.  We got up, did our business packed up all we could into the car and ventured to do the day of check in.  We were both nervous as we approached the starting line at 7:50am for a pre-race briefing.  They gave us the briefing, let us know we would be doing an extra mile that we didn’t know about and countdown began.  We started with a slow run and then were bottle necked down our first trail. 

The next thing that happened scared all the runners on the trail.  A blood curdling scream… what was that?! Then we saw them… DEER!  Three of them running up the side of the hill but the screaming didn’t stop.  That’s when we realize that a runner was actually hit by one of them and pushed down a hill that was a pretty far fall.  Luckily a fallen tree stopped her from going all the way down and there was an EMT that was actually running that tended to her.  We tried to stop to help but we were made to move along.  All of us were in shock for a little… not really able to believe what just happened!

We came to our first river crossing and I took off my shoes as we went through.  The current was so strong and Bri held my hand the whole time we crossed.  I put on my shoes and we were on our way.  Bri wore his shoes and he was a trooper as we pushed on.  We both crashed at about 7 miles in after some really brutal hills.  The sun was out and it was HUMID.  The trail was extremely technical with rocks and boulders you had to maneuver around. We finally, after what seemed like forever, were approaching mile 10 where a water station would be and we would turn around and head back to the starting line. 

I fell.  I don’t know what happened but my foot caught a tree root and I went DOWN.  My knee was bruise and my arms hurt but Brian helped me up and we pushed on.  After the aid station where I had a few pickles and Brian chose chocolate chip cookies we moved to the next river crossing which reached my waist this time! I couldn’t believe how deep it was and that this was all part of the race… I also loved it.  I love me a good challenge. 

So we get down to a flat area and we were going without signs for a long time.  I was getting nervous that we missed something.  We finally reached the last aid station and had about a mile to go.  We crossed a crick and were on paved road when we realized that the hill to the entrance of the park was the one that we were going to have to run up.   I remembered driving up it and knew it would be absolutely brutal.  It was. There was no quitting.  We pushed and pushed and pushed and made it to the top.  We could see the finish line.  We were almost there!  We decided to jog- I don’t know how we were running but we were and we crossed the finish line just over 5 hours. 

We did it.  A Half Marathon together!

We were handed our medals (which actually were the wrong ones and they gave ours to other people by mistake but at least it was still half marathon ones- As I write this, Brian is trying to get us the ones we should have gotten).  We got another pizza to celebrate, packed up the car and headed home to shower.  We are so proud. It was truly a challenge…. CAN’T WAIT FOR OUR NEXT ONE!