Start of Dash Point Marathon - photo by Steve Sanders
I ran the half marathon last year at Dash Point and remember it being harder than it should have been given the specs of the run. This year I decided to sign up for the full marathon anyway because it fit in my schedule at about the time I would be ready for a marathon. We previewed the course the week before and, again, I found it harder than it seemed like it should have been. Four laps, each with about 650′ of elevation gain shouldn’t be that hard but this course has stairs, log steps, some very steep short sections and no piece of straight trail longer than about 30 yards so it is indeed harder than it ‘should’ be. I also wasn’t totally sure I would be able to finish as one day in my taper I did a 4 mile/2600′ climb that caused my left hip to hurt like crazy. I decided to just take a full week off running, do a light run to be sure I wasn’t in pain and then go for it figuring I could drop out at the half point if needed.