De Leon Springs is a rather small community in western Volusia county, Florida (most widely known for Daytona Beach). It is about 100 miles of a drive from Gainesville. There is a pancake restaurant called the Old Spanish Sugar Mill Restaurant nearby in a state park. Other than that, there is really nothing attractive to me about this place. But for some reason, going on 28 years now, this insignificant and relatively remote community has seen fit to offer a half-marathon race. Seeing an opportunity to run in an event a good three weeks from my long-planned Ocala Half-Marathon on January 22, I signed up yesterday and ran it this morning. The conditions were not hospitable: there was intense fog throughout the drive from Gainesville to De Leon Springs, and the fog and humidity made the race not enjoyable at all. Although the temperature was in the low 50's at race's start at 8 AM, by the end it had warmed to an unpleasant level. And then again, there was the race course itself...
The De Leon Springs Half-Marathon runs mostly down one street and back: County Road Three. The view is monotonous, to say the least: straight and flat, with trees, trees, and more trees. Add that to the fact that the race wasn't closed to motorized traffic and you have a frustrating situation. Still, no place is perfect and I approached this New Year's Day adventure with a positive attitude.
At the race's beginning I got a good-looking red, long-sleeved tee-shirt with De Leon Springs Half-Marathon on it. At the end I got a medallion (picturing that aforementioned sugar mill) to hang around my neck and show that I actually finished the 13.1 mile race. Other than that, I got very little...
There were a couple of spots along the race where Gatorade was offered; other spots just carried water. After the race was over, no Gatorade was to be found. I later saw some other runners walking to their cars carrying some fruit that was apparently being offered somewhere (but I didn't see any). But that's all O.K. because...
Running 13.1 miles is in itself a pretty grueling activity. To get all steamed up over the lack of creature comforts is to miss the point. In truth, there was enough rehydration offered to the runners, although it may not have been exactly what some of them wanted. I did have a beef with the shortage of toilet facilities but, having anticipated this possibility, I took care of "business" before I got to the race site.
I mentioned that I didn't really enjoy the run, for the various reasons given. Late in the race, although I was generally passing the runners in front of me with only one "competitor" passing me, I felt weak and sore. But much to my astonishment, as I crossed the finish line, I discovered that I had completely wiped out my previous half-marathon personal record time by more than two and a half minutes, officially finishing at 1 hour 56 minutes 07 seconds (here is the race results website). So go figure. It seems that lately, some part of me pushes me harder than I had intended. The result has been faster runs without the fun I am used to having.
I think, all of this event's shortcomings notwithstanding, that it is pretty dang cool that such a tiny town as De Leon Springs would hold such an event. Kudos to them! I suppose, though, that they would do a lot better with the runners' opinions of them were they to provide more toilet stations, not just at the starting and finishing points, but also at intervals along the race course (I saw none along the run). I have read a couple of very negative reviews about this race from 2011 and it seems that this scarcity of facilities was a very big deal to those individuals.
So now I go back to shorter training runs in preparation for the Ocala Half-Marathon. I wonder what the weather will be like on that race day morning three weeks from now. Last year it was around 26 degrees when the race began...
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