by Dave Presby
I. Building a Base II. Warming Up
III. The Race
Within seconds of the start, it became quickly apparent who would emerge as the eventual victor. At the sound of the gun, a runner sporting a white singlet and shades shot off the line like a cannon from the far right side of the road. The rest of us at the front of the pack watched in collective awe as he sped down the middle of Main Street between the fog-enshrouded buildings of Bar Harbor, leaving us in his tracks.
During the first half mile, he became smaller and smaller as he widened the gap, until he appeared no larger than a blurry speck. Eventually, the thick blanket of fog hanging over Bar Harbor swallowed him up, and he wasn’t to be seen again until he collected his award for his first-place finish.
As expected, the warrior in yellow also had a strong start, gradually pulling ahead of me as I settled into an early third position. The first mile of the course lead us down Main Street towards the harbor before bearing left on West Street, beginning a gradual climb. The streets were mostly deserted at this early Saturday morning hour, save for a few locals milling about in front of coffee shops and cafes, seeking an early weekend breakfast. Over the water, the sun’s rays had begun filtering through cracks in the dense layer of fog, illuminating the silhouettes of the three sleepy cruise ships resting peacefully in Frenchman Bay.
I cruised steadily up West Street, feeling the familiar spring in my legs that all runners hope to experience during the early miles of a race. My Garmin beeped just a few feet shy of the first mile marker. I looked down and saw ‘6:30’ blinking on the electronic display, which was very satisfying considering that the mile felt relatively effortless. As I continued up West Street, I noticed the warrior in yellow had all but disappeared as he climbed the hill ahead.
No sooner had he rounded the bend and vanished, I became aware of steady footsteps approaching just behind my left shoulder. I continued pressing onward at my current pace, not daring to glance back. A course marshal directed us through a four-way intersection and into the first major climb on the course… a grueling ascent of a hundred and seventy five feet up West Street Extension.
As I began climbing, the footsteps to my left grew louder. Eventually, their owner pulled alongside… a male runner who looked to be in his early thirties. He was wearing gray shorts, a red singlet, and a gray ball cap. I could immediately tell he wasn’t planning on sticking around to be my running buddy. As he passed, I tucked in behind and tried to keep up, riding him up the hill. After about thirty paces, I realized that I’d better let him go, as I was already pushing the menacing climb more quickly than I’d planned this early on. I backed off, reassuring myself that this was a training run, and watched the eventual third place finisher pull ahead.
At the top of the hill, another marshal was waiting and waved me to the right onto Duck Brook Road, a narrow two lane drive that entered National Park territory. Before passing the next mile marker, I looked down at my Garmin, which had just signaled the completion of mile two in ‘6:55’… an extremely respectable split given the nearly two hundred foot climb I’d just survived.
With a relatively flat stretch ahead, I picked up the pace and began putting money in the bank. During the next four miles, I settled into a groove, reeling off splits of 6:22, 6:29, 6:41, and 6:25. Although the elevation along this stretch climbed nearly a hundred feet, the gain was gradual, rolling gently along. As such, I had plenty of opportunity to gain valuable time and recover on the gentle downhills after pushing the uphills. I saw Dad twice during this portion of the race. He was first waiting for me at the far side of Duck Brook Bridge, a majestic triple-arch stone structure courtesy of Mr. Rockefeller. As I turned right off onto the carriage road and began crossing the bridge, he appeared on the other side.
“Alright, Dave. Let’s GO!” he called out, as he snapped a few pictures. “Looking GOOD, Dave!”
Once across the bridge, I turned left and continued onward along the carriage road, with Dad yelling encouragement the whole time. After a brief climb, I enjoyed a lengthy, gentle descent to the next intersection. I made another left at the signpost and headed towards the popular Eagle Lake, which was about a mile away.
Dad was waiting for me again just before the next stone archway, this time with a small crowd of spectators near the second water stop, who all began chanting, “GO DAVE! GO DAVE! GO DAVE!”, in unison. As a bonus, I’m fairly certain that several water stop volunteers attempted to do the wave as I ran by. Having spent over forty years as a Presbyterian pastor, it was no surprise that Dad could inspire and lead a crowd. I gave a quick wave, acknowledging my new cheering section, before passing through the arch under the heavily-traveled route 233, making my way to the most popular stretch of carriage roads on the island.
While Acadia is home to over forty five miles of carriage roads, the six-mile loop around Eagle Lake is the most heavily-traveled section, attracting a huge number of hikers, runners, and bikers on a daily basis. In addition, the lake itself is a paradise for paddlers looking to escape for a few hours on a canoe or kayak, hoping to catch a glimpse of a bald eagle, an osprey, or perhaps a loon. Each year when we camped, we always made a point to run the loop once or twice during the week.
The first two miles along the west side of the lake rolled gently upward, before reaching the second major climb of the course just before mile seven… a devastating, unforgiving ascent of almost two hundred feet around the southwest corner of the lake, weaving between North Bubble and Connor’s Nubble, two of the island’s lowest mountain peaks. I ran my slowest split of the day along this stretch, clocking in at a modest 7:23 for the seventh mile. Several years ago, I would have been extremely disappointed with this split, especially after exerting such an intense effort. But I’ve run enough hilly courses to know that significant time can be made up on the downhill stretches, and a perfectly executed race is greater than the sum of its parts. With this in mind, the relatively slow climb to the highest point on the course didn’t discourage me one bit.
Unfortunately, I ran into trouble during the downhill mile that followed. As I began the rapid descent along the southern tip of Eagle Lake, I felt a twinge in my left hamstring, which immediately went numb. Not wanting to lose precious seconds, I tried to maintain my intensity by taking a long stride with my right leg to make up for the short hop on my left leg, which I could barely bend at the knee. I felt like a crippled pirate on a peg leg, hobbling and pogo-ing along awkwardly on my temporarily handicapped limb. I was most grateful that there weren’t any race photographers along this section to chronicle my heinously pathetic charade.
During this particular stretch, I also had an embarrassing and frankly bewildering encounter with a stocky runner lumbering along behind a stroller. The elevation profile dropped about a hundred and fifty feet during the eighth mile, which normally meant that it was time to lay down the hammer, making up time lost from the previous climb. As he had weight, momentum, and gravity on his side, the gentleman piloting the stroller was also moving along at a surprisingly brisk clip.
While I certainly wasn’t poking around at my current 6:45 pace, my ailing hamstring was preventing me from making up the ground that I’d lost on the previous climb. With gravity squarely on my side, I had no excuse to be moving any slower than a 6:15 pace. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally caught up to father bear and his cub. As I pulled alongside, I felt my hamstring twitch and bunch up a second time. Regrettably, I had no choice but to slow down again as I tried to shake out the knot. For the next half mile, I couldn’t escape my neighbors to the left no matter how hard I tried. After almost a minute, the jogger finally acknowledged my presence.
“You know, for being in fourth place, you need to be moving faster right now.”
Um… What???
“My hamstring…” I blurted out in frustration, motioning towards my left leg.
“I’m pushing a stroller,” he answered coldly.
How does this miserable asshole know that I’m in fourth place?
“You need to get moving,” he ordered once more.
Is this really happening?
For the remainder of our downhill journey, he matched me stride for stride. Even the infant in the stroller appeared to be perturbed with my presence, looking over and glaring at me with toxic disdain.
Finally, the carriage road leveled out as we rounded the southeast end of the lake. After a brief flat section, we began climbing again. Finally feeling relief in my hamstring and renewed life in my legs, I regained my focus and charged the gradual ascent, determined to make up lost time from the previous few miles. At this point, I managed to pull ahead of the pesky pair, finally leaving them behind on the climb. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to welcome an uphill during the middle of a race.
As I rounded the north side of the lake, I caught sight of Dad a hundred yards out, along with a small group of spectators.
“Fourth place,” he yelled out, as he again lead a small crowd in cheering for me. “You’re a solid fourth place! Keep it up!”
I nodded in acknowledgement, flashed a dopey grin, and followed the course marshal’s gesture, making a sharp right turn off the carriage path down a gravel access road, which eventually spilled out onto the right shoulder of Route 233, rejoining civilization.
The next mile was very familiar to me, as I had ridden or driven this stretch of road literally hundreds of times since my childhood and recognized almost every landmark, whether a mailbox, telephone pole, or some other man-made structure. After decades of visits, even the granite outcroppings, individual trees, or other unique evidence left by nature were familiar.
As a passenger, I had always taken the long, gradual climb for granted. Today, for the first time in my life, I traveled on foot along the familiar stretch, making my way up the long, winding ascent towards another one of Rockefeller’s stone bridges, which crossed Route 233 at the summit. Although the ensuing climb was over fifty feet, the feeling of solid asphalt under my racing flats gave me a psychological boost, and I powered ahead along the wide, paved shoulder.
As the road wound gradually around the bend, the stately stone arch spanning the roadway panned slowly into view. My legs were near spent from the climb, but I kept churning them rapidly, trying to relax my hands and face, along with the rest of my upper body.
A wave of relief swept over me as I crested the hill and passed under the archway, beginning the rapid descent towards Bar Harbor. Cars continued whizzing by me from behind as I approached the mile twelve marker a few hundred yards ahead. About ten yards before the marker, my Garmin beeped to signal the completion of mile twelve in 6:46… a solid effort, given the steady climb I’d just survived. I was well beyond the point of finishing under 1:25. However, I estimated that I could finish somewhere in the mid-to-upper 1:26 range, with a spirited final push. This would certainly be a solid effort given the hamstring issues I’d dealt with earlier.
Up ahead on the right, the Kebo Valley Golf Club was fast approaching. A course marshal directed me through a right turn off Route 233 to a side road, which wound around the back of the clubhouse. At this point, the elevation dropped even more drastically. I threw off the training wheels and shifted into high gear, letting the momentum of gravity help carry me down the hill. The road weaved back and forth between a pair of fairways, mirroring the rolling terrain of the finely groomed course. My Garmin read 12.7 miles, but I knew I was already running long by almost a tenth of a mile.
The road dipped dramatically once more before another marshal directed me through a four-way intersection and immediately to the left into a gravel parking lot. A row of orange cones snaked slightly to the left before disappearing into a thicket of deciduous greenery along a gravel path. I glanced down at my watch and broke into an all-out sprint through the woods, realizing I needed to burn rubber if I was going to break 1:27. Eventually, I burst out of the trees into the ball field adjacent to the YMCA where the race started. As I sprinted furiously towards the finish line, I heard Dad once more.
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