Race: Monument Marathon in Gering, Nebraska, located in western Nebraska

Season and Weather: Saturday of the last weekend in September. Lovely 48 degrees at the start but nearing 80 at the end. Dry and sunny.

Getting There and Logistics: There was so much I enjoyed about this race, and the logistics were definitely a highlight. First, we did not have to fly because Gering, Nebraska is only about 3 hrs from our home in Colorado. We drove up through Cheyenne, Wyoming, where we stopped to briefly charge out EV, and then over to Nebraska. Drive was about what you would expect, but no traffic on a Friday afternoon and we arrived at the check in in Gering at about 6:30. Check in was at the Gering Civic Center. Quite painless, no lines, grabbed my bib, grabbed my bag. Very small expo. Swag bag had a few local coupons/brochures, a nice tee shirt, a little corn-shaped ice pack, some bandaids, a bag of dry beans (?). For convenience, we decided to grab dinner there at the race “pasta feed” which was $15/person although they only charged us for 3 since my kids are little. Totally unpretentious meal at the Civic Center but it did the job. No vegetarian tomato sauce (Nebraska is definitely into beef!) but I just ate plain fettuccine and a little bit of salad. Fine.

On our way out of the pasta feed, we saw a park ranger with a table so we stopped to chat with him. He was extremely helpful in guiding us about my family’s plans for the following day, deciding what was worth seeing and what wasn’t for us. More on that below. Then we headed to the Scotts Bluff Hampton Inn which as EV parking and is dog friendly! It was a totally fine spot for the evening and came recommended from the 50 States Marathon Club Facebook page.

The morning of the race, the easy logistics continued. I got to sleep in until 6, for a 7:30 start. There were shuttles from the finish to the start available for those driving, but since my husband had a car, he drove me to the marathon start at Wildcat Hills State Recreation Area. Very easy drop-off and once there, there was a building we could stand in if needed (temp was fine even though I brought no layers so I hung out outside with most others – photo of the sunrise above is from the waiting area) and very nice flush toilets for those needing them. At 7:15 am, the organizers had us line up at the start (marathon was QUITE small so this was literally just a group of us walking over to some cones about 10 feet apart). They had a local community college student sing the anthem, and then at 7:30 we headed off in to the beautiful morning.

I will also note here that everyone I encountered at this race, including SO many volunteers (was this every resident of Gering, Nebraska?), was incredibly nice. I’d thank them for blocking a wrong turn, or allowing me to cross a road, and they’d all say “Thank you for coming.” Well, geez, guys. Also the aid stations were very well stocked – water and Gatorade, gels at several, bananas and oranges at several. Again, just a really well organized race.

How It Went: As I said above, there was a lot I really enjoyed about this race. Like everything about it through the first half, I’d say, only somewhat kidding. But let me back up. OK so I ran Disney in January, remember? My finish time there was 4:38, at sea level, in good weather, on a flat course, on pavement, but with crowds and after 3 days walking around the parks. Since then, I’ve lost 30 lbs (maybe more on that another time), I bought Alphaflys (also maybe more on that at another time), but this race was at 4000 something feet, had some dirt sections (I thought I was told like a mile of dirt but that was… not correct and it was in fact much more in sandy/gravelly/dirt sections), had over 800 feet of gain (which again I didn’t really realize or didn’t think was going to be material), and was a little warm. I also have been working for this training cycle with a sports RD to help me dial in my nutrition plan. Bottom line, I had no idea what my goal time should be for this race. The morning of, I said to myself “oh maybe it would be cool to be sub-4 here and be back to the good old days when I used to run everything sub 4.” I also know I’ve had a decent bit of negative splitting at my better races, so I decided to start hanging out BEHIND the sub-4 page group but close enough to see them. Then at mile 20 I’d catch them and at 23 if I could push ahead of them I would.

The TLDR chart is below, but if you want the whole narrative, here I go. So before the race start, I followed my RD instructions on fueling. I had two Pop-Tarts at the hotel and sipped on a Gatorade for the 90 mins in advance. I also had just a few sips of coffee on my way out of the hotel. I started feeling great. The air was fresh. The scenery was pretty. The course was downhill. Some guys running next to me were talking about the risk of starting too fast on this course and I looked over and knowingly said “Yeah, a lot of [newbie who haven’t run 31 marathons in the past] people are going to trash their legs on this.” I just tried to stay chill, feeling out but trying not to overthink my Alphaflys which I’d only run two three milers in before. At mile 3ish, we had our first aid station so I stopped to pee despite peeing twice at the start area. At least I was hydrated! We headed on down towards town, through lots of corn field areas, basically what you’d expect for Nebraska. It was very pretty. There was one out and back section maybe around mile 10 that was on a dirt road and I assume this was the [single??] dirt section I’d read about on the website. I was feeling good and it was nice and flat so I accidentally freaking booked it on this section. I should say that throughout this period there were aid stations approximately every 2 miles and at each station I was taking Gatorade to try to get in proper calories. I was also nibbling on Stinger Gummies throughout. My stomach has been a little nitpicky lately as I’ve pushed on how much I can consume while I’m running, but I was hopeful that steady eating would keep me from falling behind in my calories.

Around mile 12/13 things started moving uphill a bit as we headed towards Scotts Bluff National Monument, the epicenter of this race. It really looked like we’d just do a steady uphill and then gently loop around (I assumed there was a road back there) the rock structure back towards the finish. Wouldn’t you think that if you saw this?

Well I don’t mind a little climbing; I did some some of my training on trails including the High Lonesome Loop for one of my long runs. So I trudged onward and upward to the monument, stopping to pee once more, but also starting to feel the heat, feel a little nauseous from the running and/or fuel, and wonder if I’d overdone it for the first half:

So I got over the big long hill and my legs, it turns out — in my new Alphaflys — were a bit gassed. There was a steep downhill that I would have loved to crash down, but my ankles were trying to hold up my body, so I had to gingerly shuffle my way down. After that, I was surprised when the course turned onto — DIRT!!!. More dirt? I thought I was done the dirt? Didn’t the 50 Stater on Facebook say it was only a short bit on dirt? What’s this dirt here? It was a lot of dirt y’all. And don’t get me wrong, I LIKE dirt. Maybe even PREFER dirt. But my legs were not in a dirt-friendly condition. My shoes were not rock-friendly shoes (stack height approximately 18 inches). My brain was not expecting to have to decide on the best line between rocks and sand and winding turns to navigate tangents and footsteps. But this is what it was, and I could still see the sub 4 pace group up ahead, who I still planned to catch at mile 20. I told myself to just get to 20 and I bet this stilly dirt would be over and I could just jog it in nicely with them. I decided at this point that I wouldn’t need to even drop them at mile 23 – that was just excessive.

Well. Before all that happened, I ran past a snake.

I do not know Nebraska snakes. I assumed it was a bull snake (it was) but in the moment, maybe it was a rattler — I didn’t get a good look at it as I scurried past. So after passing it, I obviously stopped running and turned around and went back to get a picture and a better look at it. As I was doing so, I saw some women coming behind me a bit away. Would they see the snake? What if they didn’t and it WAS a rattler and they got bit? I needed to be a Good Samaritan (or maybe my legs just wanted another moment of not running?) so I waved to the woman closest behind me and yelled “SNAKE!” and then I wasn’t sure if she heard me so I started pointing and wiggling like a lunatic snake impersonator “SNAKE SNAKE!” Finally she gave me a thumbs up to be like “lady, I hear you. it’s fine. stop doing that.”

And then I had to turn around and start running again on the dirt. I should note that during this time, we were still mostly in the Scotts Bluff National Monument so it was very pretty. Super interesting topography (my husband said it would be a good golf course) and lots of native plants. I would have loved this for a nice shuffle with friends. But here, in the race, when I turned around from the snake incident and looked ahead at the winding path, the sub 4 hr group was nowhere to be seen.

Around mile 24, it spit us out on pavement. I had a big rock in the crevasse in the foam of my shoe. I had to remove it like a drunken person unable to steady on one leg. And then I dragged myself up another little hill. I ran in slow motion to the aid station at the top and could not imagine taking a sip of Gatorade. One of my recent Gatorade encounters was a mystery flavor – perhaps flavors mixed, and not cold – and my stomach had been in a knot for a few miles. Maybe it just needed to process some of the things I’d done to it over the previous 3 hrs. My legs hurt. My ribs hurt. My ankles hurt. If I went faster, I might puke. Onward.

And you know what those (extremely nice) fools threw at me in the final mile?! More GRAVEL.

I saw the finish line. Usually I get a big burst and crush the final sprint. It’s a thing I do almost every race. But this time? The gravel was so deep and loose it was like running through sand and I swear to you there was an incline. Soooo I was just going to jog this one in. I saw my family and waved and hollered at them, and then I crossed the line.

4:11:33. 6th woman in my age group out of 26.

TLDR:

What to Do In Gering and Scottsbluff, Nebraska: We were only in Nebraska for about 24 hours and there were some things we could have done with more time, but we were also trying to balance not making my husband drive too much, not having the kids be restless in the car, and going places we could bring our small, old dog. So we really narrowed in on three highlights that I’d love to recommend to others:

(1) Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. My family went here on Saturday morning while I was running. It was maybe a 50 minute drive up, so my husband wasn’t sure if it was the best use of time, but the park ranger at the expo had recommended it for my kids when we had a nice chat with him. My kids said it was the highlight of the trip (well, that along with the Bucc-ee’s stop on the way home). The Agate Fossil Beds are home to a huge collection of mammal fossils from the Miocene era — apparently Nebraska used to be pretty similar to the Serengeti! There is a visitor center here where kids can be sworn in as Junior Rangers, and they got our US Parks Passport book stamped.

(2) The Mixing Bowl. This is an adorable cafe/restaurant in Gering that we went to right after the race. If my family hadn’t spent the morning at Agate they would have probably had a nice casual meal here during the race. The people working there were SO nice and they had a lovely collection of German-Russian pastries such as grebel (allspice seasoned donut) that they told us about. We always like to try to get some local flavor, so this was a great choice. We grabbed lunch here to go, with my husband getting a breakfast burrito and my kids getting chicken tenders (their fave).

(3) Of course, Scotts Bluff National Monument. Yes I’d spent ninety minutes of my morning in a love-hate situationship with this thing but I needed to go back and see it up close. Stop at the visitors’ center to watch a short movie about the history of the monument and to learn a bit about the Oregon Trail and Pony Express. There is also a cool art collection here that I missed because I needed to go sit in the car and decide if I was going to barf or not. (Not, fortunately.) Go outside and see the replica covered wagons. Then drive up in your car to the summit, take the short walks to the overlooks, and enjoy the views:

Final Verdict: Like it. Highly recommend this race to get to a part of the country you might not otherwise see, enjoy the local hospitality, and take in the lovely sandstone views. Don’t stress if it’s not a PR. Wear sunglasses and a hat.