Helen Holiday Half 2017

Helen Holiday Half Marathon

This was a fun weekend! Nearly 7 months before this race, a few weeks before registration opened for RunBum’s Helen Holiday Half, Kelli Kilpatrick sent out a group message about getting a bunch of folks together from SW Georgia to rent a cabin and run the race. Erica and I were definitely in!

HHH was my first trail race I ever ran, which was in November of 2015. It was my first Thanksgiving holiday together with Erica, and we had opted to spend it in Helen. Naturally, I did a search to see if there was a 5k or something going on that weekend, and found the half marathon… on the trails! I had run trails from time to time, but never with a huge crowd or during a race. I also hadn’t run further than 10 miles in about 9 months. I was a road runner through and through, focusing primarily on the 5K (having run 15:49 earlier that Fall). The trail race was a blast. I couldn’t believe how chill everybody was at the beginning and end of the race. Everybody was talking with everybody else, regardless of how fast they had run or well they had done. Having gotten used to the intense competitiveness of the road running scene, this was decidedly refreshing.

When I saw Kelli’s suggestion, I checked with Erica and registered.

The Fall semester came and went with the HHH on the back of my mind, then suddenly it was a week before the race and we hadn’t made arrangements for a cottage! It was going to be cold so we decided not to camp. I was able to find a dog-friendly place less than a mile from the start of the race. After getting into a freezing cold cabin at 10pm, we bundled up and went to sleep. (We were nervous that our dogs, who can let themselves out to pee whenever they want to at home, would pee on the rug inside the cabin, so we each got up once to let them out during the night. Addi still peed on the floor, but when everyone was already up and she had just been outside. She’s a bitch).

Instead of listening to the pre-race instructions, I was saying hello to all of the SW Georgians who had come up for the race. There were a lot of us! After all, I had run the race before so I knew what to expect.

The race begins down a hill of about 50-60 meters, and across a bridge at the bottom where the runners follow a gravel road around to the entrance of the park and onto the main road. Or at least, when I ran it in 2015, this is what we did…. I was heading straight for the bridge and everyone was yelling at me to turn before it. Were they joking?

They weren’t joking. Not 100m into the race and I had already run off course. Fucking road-runners, am I right?

We also would not be following the gravel road out to the main road; we would be turning onto the trail. I began to wonder if the course would be completely different! What had I gotten myself into running to the front like this?? Within a mile we were across the street circling the Unicoi lake, which is mostly fast and open trail. By the time we finished the loop (maybe mile 3?) I had already built up a several minute lead. But then I entered the woods the way we had come out after the first mile. I was following the flags, but they were the same flags that marked the first mile of course. Either the same part of course is run twice, or I was way off track! I froze. Went backwards. Stopped. Went forwards. Stopped. Then decided to run in reverse back to where I had re-entered the woods, kicking myself for not listening to the pre-race instructions, or reading the course description again. Then the second place dude came running towards me. “What ar-yew dewing?” he asked in a French accent.

I think this is the wrong way.

“I dewnaa theenk sew.” But I convinced him to run backwards anyway, until the next two guys came running towards us.

“This is the right way” they told us. That’s all I needed. I passed them all again at the first crossing and slowly built up another lead.

The course is mostly runnable, with a few stretches of a steep pitch, but never for very long. I hiked a few of the steep parts, and ran hard on all of the downhills. It really is a fun course to run.

As I was approaching an hour and 14 minutes, which is what I had run in 2015, I realized that the entire field had cut the course that year, joining the 10K runners prematurely. There is a river crossing around mile 10, and there’s still maybe 1.5M of running. But in 2015, there was like a quarter mile remaining. Anyway, the river was cold, so the 100 or so steps that I took after crossing it were without proprioceptive feedback—you know, the feeling you have of your feet in space. There was nothing, so I was happy that I did not step on a rock because I wouldn’t have been able to make a microadjustment to prevent myself from eating dirt.

I was convinced that the Frenchman was right behind me, closing in, because I was feeling whooped. My heart rate must have hit 180 as soon as the trail pitched upwards. Eventually I heard the music and knew I only had a descent down the trail, then the ascent back up the hill to the finish. I finished with 1:26 on the clock and on my watch, which was adjusted to 1:28 officially.

I bundled back up then hung around with Erica and the SW Georgia folks while others finished. We went out to get lunch afterwards, and drinks later that evening.

On Sunday morning, before we left for home, a group of us hiked up Mount Yonah (about a 4.5M round trip to the summit).