October 18, 2020
If 2020 has done anything for runners, it’s helped us become more creative with our goals. The majority of our traditional races were canceled this year due to a certain pandemic, leaving us with the choice of either waiting around for life to return to normal, or to come up with our own ideas.
I had not planned ahead for a fall race going into this year, although I had considered going outside of the Maritimes for a marathon. As reality set in this spring, it was clear that any fall race would have to be closer to home.
The idea of creating my own local marathon route intrigued me. I began tossing around some possibilities back in late winter, when I still was not sure what I would do in the place of my planned Nova Scotia Marathon race in Barrington in July. I played around with a couple different loop routes near Parrsboro, but I eventually opted to create the “Cobequid Trail Marathon” with some friends in Truro, and had a great day with them.
But I did not abandon the idea of my own local marathon, and, even before the Truro run, I had it pretty much fully formed in my mind.
Rather than a loop or an out-and-back, I decided to create a point-to-point route. There is just something more epic about a race where your finish line is far away from the start line, and you don’t have to backtrack over any already-covered ground.
I first looked at running from Parrsboro to Amherst, but the 55K distance was a bit too far. I wasn’t looking to run a road ultra. Then I wondered about running from Parrsboro to Springhill, and found the distance on Google Maps to be a much more amenable 45K. With some tweaking of the start/finish points, I could work that into 42.2!
Then I looked at the terrain map and discovered the final 17K of that route would be pretty much all uphill. I wasn’t looking to create an “easy” route for myself, but I wasn’t looking to put myself through any unnecessary punishment either. The solution was to run it in reverse, starting in Springhill and finishing in Parrsboro.
The terrain map for that route looked like a dream. Not only were the first 17K, from Springhill to Southampton, almost all downhill, but the next 15K through West Brook and Halfway River was entirely flat. The next 4K was the toughest, with some rolling hills through Lakelands, but the final 5K was a gradual decline into downtown Parrsboro. I had to try running this.
There was also a cool historical aspect to a run between the two communities, both of which had been economic heavyweights in their day. Springhill was once a booming coal mining centre, while Parrsboro was the busiest shipping port between Halifax and Saint John. A train ran for 80 years between the towns, shipping Springhill coal to Parrsboro, where it was loaded on to ships and taken all along the eastern seaboard.
Unfortunately, two mining disasters crippled the Springhill industry, and the train made its final run in the late 1950s. Today, there is very little to remind us that it was ever there. In commemoration of that train and the historic link between the towns, I decided to name this marathon The Coal Run.
Now, I just needed to put some feelers out and see if anyone wanted to do this with me. I sent the idea to a handful of local runners to get their initial reaction to the idea, and they were all very positive. I created a Facebook event for Sunday, Oct. 18 and invited those who I thought might be interested, and then began my own training.
My body was feeling pretty good after the Cobequid Trail Marathon, and I continued training at that same level, after taking a week off for recovery. Everything went smoothly, with no injuries and no unexpected hiccups.
The only worry I had about the run was weather-related. Fall is hurricane season in the Maritimes, and most days seem to be windy days. When I would occasionally run on parts of the Coal Run route during training, I would often notice a headwind whenever I ran in the direction towards Parrsboro. It was a bit disconcerting. Point-to-point routes can be fun, but not if you’re pushing against the wind the entire way.
There was nothing I could do about the weather, so I just kept training and tried not to think about it.
I wasn’t expecting a big crowd of runners to join me on the day of the run, and I didn’t get one. In fact, the only one who gave me a firm “yes” was Sheldon Morris, and I was thrilled to have “Shaggy” along for the adventure. Whether it’s on the road or on the trail, or even in an Ironman, this guy is a gladiator who always leaves it all out there. He once cramped up during the first kilometre of the Boston Marathon but still managed to finish the race, walking/jogging/hobbling the entire route in pain for six-and-a-half hours. He ended up in the hospital, but he got his unicorn.
Although I’ve known him for years, and we have been to many of the same events, we had never really had the chance to run together before, so I was excited for that.
It was also somehow fitting that just the two of us would be doing this run, him being a Springhill guy and me being a Parrsboro guy. His grandfather was a coal miner, while my grandfather worked at the shipyard in Port Greville as a boy. Everything about this just seemed to fit.
As a final touch on the coal theme, I had this idea of carrying a piece of Springhill coal in my pocket all the way through the run, and then tossing it in the ocean when we reached Parrsboro. Sheldon was able to track down some coal for us – two pieces each – one for the ocean and another to take home as a souvenir.
Although it was just the two of us doing this run, I received a lot of well wishes from other friends who couldn’t be there. Recalling the belly issues I had at the Cobequid Trail Marathon we ran together, Matthew White sent me a bunch of ginger chews that he uses. Jody Mattie, on his way to his own adventure at Cape Chignecto park, delivered them to my door before I even got out of bed on the day of the run.
It was a crisp morning of -2C when Sheldon and I met up for the 8 a.m. start time. I would have liked to start in downtown Springhill, but had to settle for the outskirts of town in order to make the distance work. The start line was in front of an old abandoned-looking building near the Springhill Institution. I joked that we could have also called this run “The Prison Break.”
Marlene dropped me off, and I stored what extra gear I had in the back of Sheldon’s vehicle, as his wife Audrey would be serving as our support crew for the day. I was planning to run in my “Where’s the Fire?” tank top for the duration, but decided at the last minute to throw some long sleeves overtop for the first bit. I was glad I did that, as the air was cool.
Sheldon told me at the start that he didn’t know how much he’d be up for on this day. Normally, he could run circles around me in any marathon, but his running in 2020 had been more sporadic, and he hadn’t been getting in the mileage that he is accustomed to. Apart from the virtual Boston Marathon that he ran/walked in September, he had not exceeded 21K in a run yet this year. He told me he would play it by ear, and that even if he didn’t run the whole thing, he would still support me the rest of the way.
In the early part of our run, I told him how much I appreciated him coming out and joining me for it. It would have been not near as much fun to run it solo.
“I would have still done it by myself, but…” I started to tell him.
“Well, you still might,” he said.
Even though I trained for this as I would any other race, I didn’t put a hard time goal on myself. I thought it would be fun to just go by feel, and we ran at a comfortable pace of around 5:05-5:15 pretty much all the way through.
That Springhill-Southampton section really was a nice way to start a marathon. It’s not entirely downhill but it’s pretty close, as you gradually drop 140 metres in elevation over the 17K stretch. Plus, there was barely any traffic on a Sunday morning.
Remember my slight apprehension about the weather and the wind? It turned out to be a non-issue. There was barely a breath of wind when we started out, and the day stayed that way. The only breeze I recall feeling was one that was occasionally at our backs. It turned out to be a beautiful fall day.
Audrey was waiting for us after about 10K with water or anything else we might need, and we were both feeling pretty good. After that, we saw her at about every 5K or so. We just started calling each 5K increment an “Audrey,” i.e. “We only have 2 or 3 Audreys to go!”
We saw few people on our travels, although we were greeted by the smiling face of Ken MacKenzie as we wound our way through Southampton. Always a generous source of positivity and encouragement, Ken had traveled from Amherst to wish us well, and even provided me with an Amherst Striders hat. I wasn’t expecting any swag from this run, and I ended up with a piece of coal and a new hat! Thanks Ken!
As we moved along the flat section through West Brook and Halfway River, we soaked up the beauty of the day. The blueberry fields were blazing red, and the sun was sparkling on Newville Lake. I love fall running.
My long sleeves made it to around 20K. By then, the sun was shining and the day had reached a comfortable temperature. Sheldon and I continued to chug along. He got a kick out of how I checked off every community we passed through – “Leamington… done! Mapleton… done! East Southampton… done!”
I felt great, and if he was struggling, he showed no visible signs of it, at least not until after we made it over the Lakelands hills and reached the final climb of the route into Cross Roads. This was our own “Heartbreak Hill," with about 5K left to go. At that point, he told me he was going to walk up the hill, and he convinced me to finish ahead of him.
I was reluctant to leave him behind. That wasn’t my plan.
“I promise I’ll get to the finish line,” he assured me. “You’ve trained for this. Finish strong!”
I had to admit, I was curious to see what I had left in the tank. With one last fist bump, I forged on.
I was certainly feeling a lot better than I had during my previous marathon, where I was pushing for a PB and had the July heat working against me. I picked up the pace, and managed a sub-5-minute kilometre and my second-fastest time in the Cross Roads segment I had created on Strava last winter.
Heading into Parrsboro, I made the mistake of switching from the road to the sidewalk. Parrsboro’s sidewalk starts across from the Glooscap Restaurant on an old asphalt section that was put in many years ago and has apparently never been touched since. Broken up and very uneven, it took all my attention just to keep from tripping, and it definitely affected my rhythm. I knew this going into the run, but I did it anyway. Stupid.
The asphalt sidewalk changes to cement by the RCMP station, and was much improved from there to the finish at the end of Main Street, in the Art Lab parking lot. I asked Michael Fuller beforehand if we could use that spot as the finish, and he not only graciously agreed, but he and Krista Wells even showed up to cheer us on, and opened up the building for washroom access or anything else we needed. They even provided finisher’s tape for Sheldon and I to run through! Marlene and Audrey and my mom cheered and took photos.
I finished with a time of 3:43:42, which was just fine with me. True to his word, Sheldon arrived only minutes later, smiling all the way. From there, we drove over to the Parrsboro wharf, and tossed our ceremonial coal into the sea. The perfect finish to a perfect day. Thanks to everyone who was a part of it.
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