My Holiday Lake Experience

By Joel Sweigart

In the fall of 2001 my focus was, like most years, on having a successful archery season and keeping up with what’s happening in college football.  Probably the farthest thing from my mind was preparing my 187-pound overweight body to run a 50k race.  Little did I know that was all about to change when I placed an innocent phone call to my friend Jim Bath to borrow some painting equipment.  You see Jim explained, as only Jim can, that he thought it would be a good idea for me to consider running this race called The Holiday Lake.  After very little convincing, I was in.  I hung up the phone and rushed to wake my wife to share with her my momentary lapse of sanity. 

What I initially thought might very well end in a few short weeks, turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  On my first training run in late October I struggled to make it just four miles.  A week later I attempted and did something I hadn’t done since high school, run for six miles without stopping.  Shortly after that Jim and I began getting together for our first of many “long runs”.  The first one went seven and half miles and I was ecstatic.  One week later Jim and I had to measure our run after completion and I was amazed that we covered ten miles.  I wanted to tell everyone.  It was at this point that I began noticing something pretty cool.  That was that these bodies that God has given us do respond when pushed.  Not only was I able to cover more and more ground on the long runs, the pounds were melting away as well.

By late November my weekly miles were up to thirty-five to forty and I felt like I had been fitted with a new body.  Lower back pain that I had experienced at 187 was now gone as my weight dipped into the 170s.  My belt was in a couple of notches and my suit pants re in need of a tailor.  Jim and I also began to find new places to train.  On Thanksgiving morning we ran along the Susquehanna River and through an adjacent mountain for a total run of seventeen miles.  I felt like my legs would fall off.  We did that run a few more times and once on one of the worst weather days we had all winter added three miles for a total of twenty.  It was after that run that I knew I could and would complete the Holiday Lake 50k. What I thought was going to be pretty smooth sailing in mid December and January turned out to be pretty challenging.  In addition to dealing with a packed work/travel schedule, I also struggled through two bouts of the flu.  One attacked my respiratory system and the other was of the always-pleasant stomach variety.  Thankfully God gave me the ability to work through those issues and I ended up logging a total of nearly 500 training miles leading up to the race.  At the time of the race I weighed 169 pounds and felt ready to go.  Still I hadn’t gone more than twenty-two miles in one run and really wasn’t sure how my body would respond when the miles got into the upper twenties, not to mention above thirty.  Anyway, it was time to find out.

At the start of the race I couldn’t help but feel a little like a Lemming as I fell in line going into the woods.  I was glad to see my wife waiting for me at the aid station number one.  I got their in forty-five minutes and had assumed we went about five miles.  We obviously hadn’t.  Over the course of the next couple of stops I really wrestled with how to run the race.  You see I had already abandoned my strategy of staying with Jim to the turnaround and I really didn’t know when to walk to conserve energy and when to run.  Again I reverted to the Lemming mentality and simply did what those around me were doing.  I remember at station three my wife began to ask me if I was pushing it too hard.  All I could say was that I didn’t think so and that I felt pretty good. 

I made it to the turnaround in three hours and felt like I was in good shape to run the second half.  I also remember how happy I was to get my trail shoes off and put on a pair of running shoes.  So after a few peanut butter and jellies and 600 mg of ibuprofen, I was off again.  Shortly into the second half I ended up running for a while with two ladies and a sixty-one year old man named Ray.  In the course of conversation Ray told me that about a 150-mile endurance race he was going to run in the always-pleasant Monaco.  I’m not sure if it was Ray’s story or something else but I suddenly felt the urge to really run.  It was awesome getting to the next couple of aid stations and having my wife look at me with shock as to how quickly I was arriving.  Still I knew that the wall was out there waiting for me.  I just didn’t know when I would find it.

I kept that pace for a while longer.  It was an awesome feeling to fell that strong and be passing other runners as I was approaching the length of a “normal” marathon.  Eventually while passing through the tree farm a nice woman caught up to me and introduced herself as Kathy.  Kathy and I chatted for some time as we covered some ground between stations two and three.  Then somewhere between stations two and one I realized something.  Kathy was moving out in front of me and getting smaller and smaller.  I was no longer doing the passing.  Yes, the wall had found me!  With my tank on E and my legs now screaming, I ate a Fig Newton and a handful of M&Ms at the last aid station and reluctantly headed off.  I was so happy to be running downhill for the first mile or so of the last section.  Then came the woods and I suddenly realized that I was now getting the chance to answer those questions that I had going into the race.  I was going to learn how I’d respond with nothing left but a desire to finish.  When I came out of the woods I was disappointed to learn that the course didn’t cut across the parking lot instead of the uphill through the ropes coarse.  Finally, the finish line was in sight.  I crossed the line to the applause of all who finished ahead of me, including Kathy.  I was especially happy to be greeted by my wife who told me great job and that she was proud of me.

So in the end I finished the second loop faster than the first and surpassed my target of 6 to 6 ½ hours with a total time of 5:54:09.  I was just as excited when Jim crossed the line in almost an hour less than his previous PR.  Most importantly I learned a few other things along the way.  I learned that limitations are usually put on us by us.  I learned how much fun it is to finish something that quite frankly once seemed out of reach.  Finally, I learned that before calling Jim Bath again to borrow equipment I might just buy it myself.  The cost will definitely be less.