2011 Hellgate 100K Race Report

It has been said that the Hellgate 100K is a "special" race, for a number of reasons. It was certainly a "special" race for me this year. And here's why . . .

As you may know, I've dedicated this past fall to "redemption" in races that I've failed in falls past. First The Ring, where I still didn't finish, but made it further than my previous attempt. Then, North Coast, where the story was the same, except that I did it in spite of a dry respiratory system as a result of pacing at the Wasatch 100 the week prior. Then the Grindstone 100, which I finished in 27-and-a-half hours, in spite of pretty much coming straight off a plane from Israel to go to the race. But the crown jewel this fall was Hellgate. Reference my 2009 race rehash on this blog () and you'll see that "things didn't go well" was an understatement. So, out of all the "redemption races" that I had planned for this fall, Hellgate was the one where I wanted to put in my best effort and my strongest finish.

To that end, all of my crazy running-related adventures this fall (Richmond Marathon finish-to-start, then start-to-finish, Stone Mill 50+ miler and Philadelphia Marathon on back-to-back days, etc.) had been geared towards preparing for Hellgate. Cold weather, late nights, lots of running in the dark, lots of consecutive miles on little rest. To top it all off, from the Sunday prior to Hellgate to the previous Monday, I put in a 130-mile running week, one of my highest-mileage weeks this year. I felt strong after that week, and with some strategic tapering before the race, I knew I had a good shot at achieving my goal: primarily, to finish, but ideally, to finish in the 12-13 hour range (going one better than Sniper's prediction of a 14-hour race for me, and spiting my unseeded #70 bib), and hopefully, with a time in that range, finish in the top 10 men. Regardless, I came into the race confident that, although some may be faster, nobody was going to be tougher than I was. I was fully prepared and unafraid to risk life and limb to finish this silly race.

This time, I wasn't going to go it alone. A Baltimore local, Henry, contacted me before the race, and we worked out a plan to travel down together, and to use his white crew-cab Ford F150 as the crew vehicle for my two crew members/pacers, Hope and Mark, both relatively new to the ultrarunning world, but sufficiently excited about this race from all the talking-up I had given it in the prior months, on this blog and otherwise. So after going to my little sister's chemistry thesis presentation at Goucher (aww, she's growing up!), congratulating her, and getting the requisite good luck wishes from her and from my parents, we loaded up the truck, and at a little after 2 p.m., we were on our way down to Camp Bethel.

We arrived just after 6 p.m., a drive that was thankfully without incident, in plenty of time to eat the pre-race dinner of pasta and lasagna (meat and vegetarian, and, I hate to say it, but the vegetarian lasagna was better), chat with the other runners, and make ourselves at home in the cabins. At around 8 p.m., the pre-race meeting started, and after a little over half an hour of Horton's usual horsing around, and the typical questions about how much snow/ice/water was on the course (none, a little, and a lot, respectively), we went back to lounging around in the cabin, laughing, joking, and pretty much acting like we weren't about to start running in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in a few hours.

At 10:50 p.m., the caravan left the camp, and we began the half-hour drive to the starting line, all still in good spirits. The amount of "dead time" before Hellgate is a blessing and a curse. It's nice to have all that time to relax and do what you need to do . . . but only if you can really relax. And, for me, the nerves had somewhat set in the whole time, but became really apparent on the drive out there. It's hard to see those same sights by the side of the road that I saw in 2009, and not think about how badly that went. I kept telling myself that this time, although it looked the same, would be different. Between that, Hope and Mark's threat to abandon me for the "Monster Maze" that we saw advertised on billboards along the way, and our riotous laughter over Henry's bottle of Boost and a Starbucks coffee drink mixed together, which looked like, well, liquid poop, I started the race with those negative thoughts at least relegated to the back of my mind. (For me, Natural Vitality's Energy 28 and their liquid multivitamin would be my stay-alert boost of choice.)


(The above begs the questions of how much caffiene is required to make one's heart explode, and what would such an explosion look like - topics discussed at length prior to our little run.)

At midnight, we were off, and the first section, arguably one of the fastest sections of the course, went by without incident. In stark contrast to 2009, when I went out a little bit hard, and felt exhausted immediately, I stayed within myself, and found that I was still up near the front of the pack, without killing myself. I decided not to push to run with the lead pack, as they were clearly racing hard from the beginning, and considering that I didn't want another DNF, it was an unecessarily risky strategy. The famed creek crossing came and went without incident (after several shallower impostors, which would be the order of the entire race), although being nearly up to my knees, I nearly took a cold, wet spill. Before I knew it, I was at the first aid station, Forest Service Road 35, and already feeling better about this year.

We began the first climb up the gravel road, and I found that, again, in contrast to 2009, I felt strong, and this felt doable. I passed a few more people going up the climb on my way to the second aid station, Petite's Gap, where I saw my crew for the first time, and was proud to come in looking strong (and, as I would find out later, in 15th place). Although I didn't want to jinx things, I began to think that this would be a very special race . . .


(Apparently ready to attack the Petite's Gap aid station . . .)


(. . . and then guzzing something gross)

But of course, we all have to have our low points, and about a mile out of the Petite's Gap aid station, I suddenly started feeling weak and exhausted. Maybe this was because it was around 3 a.m., or because I hadn't eaten enough, or that I realized that it would be a relatively long time before I saw my crew again (no crew access again until the fourth aid station, at this point, 13-15 miles away). Whatever the cause, I struggled in the next gravel road section, and on the trail downhill, where the leaf-covered jagged rocks were making rapid progress very difficult for me. A lot of people passed me. I started having flashbacks to 2009, as I was feeling very much at this point the way I did in 2009. I kept telling myself that this was different. I ate a banana, drank some water, downed a gel, and kept pushing forward, and by the time I reached the third aid station, Camping Gap, I was starting to feel in control again. Unfortuately, I had dropped plenty of places, and perhaps at the rate I was going, my aspirational goals were out of reach.

But still, I had an obligation to myself, and to my crew, to give it everything I had, and to run a respectable race, regardless of how long it took me to finish. So as soon as I started feeling better, I started pushing a little, a la Badwater this past summer after Panamint Springs. I turned on the "grind" gear and began cranking out 8-9 minute miles over the thankfully wide and runnable (but rolling) grassy trail. And slowly and steadily, I was passing people. I reached the rocky downhill trail, and here it occurred to me that I should turn on the headlamp that I had around my waist, to supplement the one on my head. This was the first time I had ever used this light setup, and, as it turns out, this is the correct light setup. The waist light covered the near-field, and the headlamp covered the far-field, so I had a full 3 feet of visibility in front of me. It may as well have been daylight. So now I ran down the rocky trail with far less incident, and passed a few other runners. After what seemed like a long time (and probably was, considering that this was possibly the longest section of the race between aid stations), I reached the fourth aid station, Headforemost Mountain, and my crew - a huge mental boost. I was now in 20th place (again, as I would later learn), but making a comeback, in stark contrast to 2009 - in 2009, I nearly dropped at this aid station, and only continued because Sniper came through and urged me to come along with him. Far better circumstances this time . . .

And so it went into the fifth aid station, Jennings Creek. The next section was about six miles, half of which was wide, runnable downhill, and I was really able to pick up the pace on that section, especially with my new headlamp setup. I passed some more people, reaching the Jennings Creek aid station in about a hour - encouraging. As I crossed over the bridge to the aid station, running strong, I remembered in 2009, when Sniper had dragged me to this one, and I was really messed up, and a woman at the aid station was giving me some sort of pressure-point massage to try to improve my situation. Strange, the things you remember . . .

I began the big long climb up a gravel road towards the sixth aid station, the moon full and bright, but still no eclipse (it was apparently not visible where we were). I distinctly recalled the suffering in this section in 2009 - my legs hurt terribly, and every step was more difficult than the last. This time, though, I kept putting one foot in front of the other on the gravel road climb, then down the trail, then back up the gravel road to the sixth aid station, Little Cove Mountain, where I had given up the ghost in 2009. As I neared the aid station, besides noticing that the climb did not seem nearly as steep and awful as it had in 2009, I saw two of my friends, Jeremy and Patrick, walking to the aid station. As I realized when I was leaving the aid station, Patrick was about to drop - I definitely felt for him, since he looked much like I must have at that point in the race in 2009. Jeremy jogged up the hill with me for a bit, and told me that I looked strong, and was on pace for a mid-13-hour finish - also encouraging, considering that earlier in the race, I thought that all hope of that was gone.

I continued down the trail to the seventh aid station, Bearwallow Gap, now in early daylight, feeling confident about the progress I was making and the finish that I was shooting for. This section took some of the wind out of my sails, with some really rocky, ragged single-track that slowed me significantly. But I persisted forward, and made it to the Bearwallow Gap aid station to find David Horton sitting there, waiting to check me in, and Mark ready to pace me through the next section. Mark told me that somebody had just come through a couple of minutes ago, looking to be in bad shape. More encouragement . . .

Mark and I braved some steep uphill, as he regaled me with tales of skinned bear carcasses in the vicinity of the perhaps aptly-named previous aid station, and how Horton had made Hope sing an "Oh Holy Night" (his second favorite hymn, next to "Amazing Grace") duet with one of his Liberty students. Eventually we neared the ridge, where the trail flattened a bit, and we started picking up the pace. The last part of this section, a gradually-rising gravel road into the eighth aid station, Bobblet's Gap, was frustrating - I felt with the grade as shallow as it was, I should try running, but at the same time, there was still too much race left to risk blowing up now. When I reached the Bobblet's Gap aid station, Hope was ready to take her turn as pacer, and the aid station volunteer told me, surprisingly, that tenth place was just ahead of me. With a fresh pacer and a place to chase, we set off down the gravel road.

We rolled easily down the road, at a little better than 7-minute mile pace, passing not one, but two runners ahead of me. Unfortunately, in the one part of the course where the markings were tricky, we ran right past the turn-off onto the "forever" trail. Fortunately, another person who was out running the course on his own had made the same mistake, and was just up ahead to tell us that he hadn't seen a course marking. We figured out our mistake and got back on track, but in the meantime, about ten minutes and the two people that I had passed had passed me back. Oh well, time to pass them again . . . but it wasn't going to be easy. The trail in this part of the course was the rockiest, raggedest trail yet, and being as tired as I was at this point, footing was becoming a more significant issue. I could hear Horton's voice drawling in my mind, taunting me: "Come on, boy! You're weak! You're soft!" as I picked my way through the rocks as quickly as I could. Hope tripped, but didn't fall, and about thirty seconds after that, I tripped and hit my right knee - hard. Good thing I had been wearing tights - otherwise, that knee would have been really bloodied. I walked for a couple of minutes to make sure that I hadn't done any serious damage, and once I was satisfied that things were okay, I resumed running again, having passed Aaron, who was in tenth place, and rolled into the ninth aid station, Day Creek, with a little over 6 miles to go, and Mark ready to pace me through the last section of the course. Shaun, who had been up near the front of the pack, but gotten lost a couple of times, was also at this aid station, ready to drop (a situation that I could sympathize with), so Hope got the job of driving him back to the finish line.

The last section of the race was an uphill grunt, much akin to the climb up Mount Whitney at the end of Badwater (except only about half an hour of fast-walking to the top), followed by a very fast downhill on a wide trail/road back to camp. Walking briskly (but not easily), I passed the other runner that I had passed on the downhill in the previous section before getting lost, and, once we reached the top, all I had to do was hold on for dear life down the hill, and I would finish in ninth. I told Mark that we would jog and ease into it, but within a minute, we were running sub-7-minute miles downhill, 63+ miles into this race, and I could feel the emotional floodgates opening. I thought about all of the disappointment and hurt and anger that surrounded my attempt at this race in 2009, and how I had turned it all around to run the way I had today. I thought about how awesome my crew had been, and how thankful I was for them, and I also dredged up a memory that I hadn't thought about, or talked about, until then . . .

After my DNF in 2009, and hours sleeping in cars at Little Cove Mountain and then at Day Creek, when I returned to Camp Bethel, I threw what could be most kindly described as a temper tantrum (which involved some literal throwing of things). I was frustrated and angry, not just about the race, but about a lot of other things in my life, and it caused something of a scene, enough that David Horton took me aside and gave me a stern lecture about my behavior, at which point I started crying, unable to keep it inside. Horton said a prayer over me, that the Lord would help me find peace with whatever was troubling me. As the finish line came into sight, tears welled up, and I realized that I had found that peace in the race. Nothing can change what happened in 2009, but having crossed the line in 13 hours, 11 minutes, to be welcomed back with a congratulatory hug and kiss on the top of the head from Horton as tears streamed down my face, 9th male finisher, achieving my top-10 goal, I felt that things were back on the right path again.


(This is what finishing Hellgate looks like.)

After getting all of the tears out, I took my shoes off, to find that my toes were bloodied, from being wet and going sockless, and wearing shoes that were just a little bit too big for my feet. My crew called Horton over, and he agreed that, so far, it was the best blood he had seen today (although he threatened to deduct points for my orange toenail polish, despite my argument that it matched the color of the course markings). Considering that the blood went through my shoe, and was foaming out of the side, I'd say I deserved plenty of points for creativity - certainly more interesting than the run-of-the-mill skinned knee. My lead in the best blood category would stand, so not only did I walk away with a sweet top-10 Patagonia hooded shirt (the only men's small that he had in the bunch, as if it were planned . . .), but also a red fleece Hellgate blanket and a very fitting "Best Blood" award (especially considering the figurative blood, sweat, and tears, that had gone into making this race what it turned out to be).


(Bloody foot, left)


(Bloody foot, right . . . regrettably, I don't have a picture of the blood froth through the shoe, but trust me, it was gross . . .)

As redemption goes, this one was particularly sweet. Following the progression from The Ring to Hellgate, I steadily improved and grew stronger this fall, and each race built to the next - especially Grindstone, since my finish at Grindstone was what gave me the right to enter Hellgate. I feel good about having turned things around, over the course of this past fall, and during this race. This was perhaps the first fall in a long time during which I actually got stronger, as opposed to burning out. Looking ahead, I can't say for sure which races will be on my schedule for 2012. But in the meantime, I will be out there, training harder than ever, because making any race as awesome and memorable as this Hellgate will be a lofty goal for years to come.


(Top-10 men in the top-10 finisher award, doing our clumsy best speed-skater impression - also, in the bottom right, my shoes - if you zoom in really far, you can sort of see the blood on the left one near the pinkie toe area)



(. . . and me and my crew/pacers, mid-race, proving that sometimes, the someday when this, too, will seem pleasant, is the same day.)

Grindstone 2011 Race Report

(Pre-epilogue: See above; posting late, because, after the race, it took me a full 12 hours, from 6 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday, to drive back to Baltimore - 200 miles - due largely to a blockage on I-81 North, around mile 259, rumored to be due to a truck carrying bales of hay that caught on fire, and which the fire department was unable to extinguish, which left me sitting at a virtual standstill on the highway for four hours. Add in three or four intermittent hours of sleep in the car at random off-highway location, and a totally ineffective cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee from a rest stop, due to a random piece of plastic that fell in when I was pouring it, and brewed into the coffee as it cooled, eventually almost finding its way into my mouth, and the return trip was almost more mentally stressful than the race . . .)

At Grindstone in 2010, I had a terrible showing; I dropped out just 22 miles and a little over 6 hours into the race, a little after midnight, totally spent in every sense of the word. So of all of the races that I'm re-trying this fall, for the sake of improvement over my past performance, the bar for Grindstone was the lowest. That said, the bar for the desired finish was arguably the highest - my goal was to go under 24 hours if possible, which would likely put me in the top ten, or even top five, and would be no easy feat on a course this brutal - over 23,000 feet of gain and loss over 100 miles.

The road to Grindstone would not be easy, though. Due to my work schedule, I had to leave Israel and come directly to the race - the air travel time alone (including the painful trudge through international security checkpoints), from Tel Aviv to Philadelphia, and then from Philadelphia to Baltimore, was 18 hours, after which I would still have a little over 3 hours left to drive to get to the starting line of the race. As it turned out, the 3-hour drive turned into a nearly 6-hour drive, as traffic at the 495/66 West interchange was at a dead standstill, at 10:30 a.m. on Friday. No, I didn't see that coming, either.

I showed up at camp at 3 p.m., with the start of the race at 6 p.m., having missed the pre-race meeting at 1 p.m. I had wanted to nap for an hour or two, but seeing as to how friends were there, and were excited about the race, that never happened. That left me running on about 6 hours of intermittent sleep on the plane, which arguably put me in about the same place sleep-wise as I was with this race last year. Nevertheless, for some reason, I had a quiet confidence about the race. Although I had no specific basis for this belief, I was convinced that everything was going to be fine, that I was most likely going to run well, and if that didn't happen, then I was surely going to finish the race.

After a brief prayer, and David Horton's exhortation to "make wise decisions" on the trail (e.g. keep eating, keep drinking, pay attention to course markings and don't get lost), we were off, right on time at 6 p.m. In the interest of being wise, I had done some homework and come up with a sub-24-hour split chart, based on splits that others had run in previous years for each section to go under 24 hours. According to the chart, I needed to make it through the first section in about an hour, and the second section in about two hours (for a total of about three hours for the first approximately 15 miles of the race) . . . and that was about as far as I went in following the chart during the race. Although I carried it with me during the race, I was nervous about looking at it, for fear of putting undue pressure on myself.

At any rate, the first hour passed, I passed the first aid station on time (actually, about five minutes fast), and night fell. Time for 12 hours of running trails of varying degrees of technical by headlamp (an area where I definitely need to improve). While I climbed to the top of Elliot Knob quickly, and came down efficiently, via a gravel road, as soon as I hit the next section of rocky, slightly downhill trail, my pace slowed, and people passed me, because I just couldn't see what I was doing. Fortunately, since I was deliberately going out "slow," I took this as an opportunity to keep the pace in check, and save myself for the daylight, when running over this type of terrain would be less of a challenge. I made it to the second aid station in a few minutes over three hours - again, right on schedule. At this point, once I made it a step beyond this aid station, technically, mission accomplished, so this was a big boost going forward.

And so it went, sort of, for the rest of the first half of the race. I wish there were something more exciting to say about this, but there really wasn't - my vague plan for this race was working out well, and external circumstances (i.e. sleep deprivation, darkness, cold weather) seemed to be irrelevant.


My best over-exposed iPhone photo of the wooden bridge just before the North River Gap aid station - nope, the woods at night aren't scary in the least. :)

Even my highly inexperienced one-girl crew/pacer showed up at the right aid station, on time, and was appropriately totally business about things (more about that later). I made it through half of the race in 12 hours and 46 minutes, accomplished by a steady march forward at anywhere between a 12 and 15-minute mile pace, feeling like I hadn't run at all, even though I had 51 miles behind me. I was optimistic about the rest of the race. (Not to mention unconcerned enough about time that I stayed at the top of the turnaround long enough to take the below picture, and attempted to post it to Facebook right then and there, only to be thwarted by an intermittent data connection.)


A beautiful sunrise - better late than never.

This optimism continued when I picked up my pacer, and we ran from mile 52 to mile 66 in about 3 hours, including the dreaded "7-mile-climb" section in about 110 minutes, on the fast side of the split chart for that section. That left me with a little under 8 hours to finish the last 36 miles, which seemed challenging, but achievable.

Gradually, however, this started to slip away. More mentally than physically tired at this point, the little things that I would ordinarly be able to ignore were now making life difficult. My feet hurt intermittently, I felt heavy and out of balance running with my hand bottles (and, at the risk of TMI, being, um, "bound up," according to my pre-race weigh-in, to the disturbing tune of 10+ pounds heavier, as a result of air travel, which always seems to do that to me), and I was generally fatigued from being awake for so long and having gone through so much. In response, I started to slow . . .

And, on the way back, it turns out that the climbs are different. On the way out, they tend to be steeper and shorter; on the way back, they tend to be longer and more gradual. Especially late in this type of race, the latter is far worse. My walking got slower and slower, until I was struggling to even move forward at a typical 3-mile-per-hour pace. How much was mental, and how much was physical? Well, my pacer came out and paced me two miles in to the last aid station, and the last three miles to the finish, and once I picked her up, my walking pace picked up dramatically, without feeling cripplingly strenuous. So there was definitely a significant mental aspect to all of this. Also, the fact that just about everything in the last 30 miles blurs together in my mind as I write this (with the exception of my pacer mentioning that she saw a baby bear in the middle of the trail coming out from the Dry Branch Gap aid station, taking a mighty dump right where some poor runner would probably inadvertently step in it, and where I would have stepped in it, had she not pointed it out) is strong indication that mentally, I was suffering through some significant impediment.

I crossed the finish line in 27:30:55, 18th overall (a little worse than my 14-seed, but not totally out of the ballpark) hugged the totem pole, as is tradition at Grindstone, and then proceeded to receive a lot of comments about how it looked like I hadn't just run 100 miles, probably because I hadn't really run much of the last 30 miles of the race, and had strolled relatively leisurely through the first 70+ miles.

In retrospect, I would like to have gone faster, had I had my pacer to lean on for the remainder of the race, I almost certainly would have gone faster this year, and I'm sure that I can go faster there next year. But this was a huge, meaningful finish for me, considering that it's the first race in over a month in which I've had a proper, relatively satisfying finish. It's a great confidence boost going forward, and I'm really looking forward to taking the next step towards once again consistently putting in strong performances under duress, that show no signs of said duress, at Hellgate in December.

And that aside, perhaps the real guts and glory story here is my pacer, who, despite the notable limitations of (deep breath) not having run a race longer than a half-marathon (and that only a few weeks ago), not having run longer than 14 miles at a time, much less that distance on steep, rugged trails, never having been to an ultra, never having driven around that relatively obscure area of Virginia, particularly alone at night (and having to show up late due to work commitments earlier that day), never having run with a headlamp on trails at night (and navigating at this race with a bottom-of-the-line Petzl), and, as it turned out, being afraid of being alone in the woods in the dark (a fear that could have been validated by her bear encounter), and on top of all that (for whatever it matters; not being a girl, I wouldn't know), being on her period, bravely paced me through 19 miles of the race, 14 of which were consecutive, and legitimately at or faster than typical sub-24-hour finish pace, in addition to another 9 miles in transit on foot by herself to pace me. I'm reluctant to over-lube the hype machine here, but . . . that's hardcore, and if she ever decides to do one of these races, everybody up front should probably look out . . .


The physical evidence - as rugged and spartan as the course I took to get it.

Week in Review: 21-27 August, and Fall 2011 Preview

I realize this post is coming late; I wanted to wait until I could confirm a little bit more of my "fall preview" before I posted. So, with minimal ado, first, here was what my last week of running looked like:

Sunday: 1 mile easy (10 minutes); post-BoB shakeout at Patterson Park

Monday: 15 miles (110 minutes), out to the Fed Hill group run and back, meandering here and there to make up miles.

Tuesday: 1 mile warmup/warmdown (10 minutes), with 4 miles of treadmill hills (35 minutes, 1615 feet of gain) in the middle

Wednesday: 10 miles (70 minutes), along with the Wednesday Night Canton Run crew

Thursday: 1 mile warmup/warmdown (10 minutes), with 4 miles of treadmill hills (35 minutes, 1658 feet of gain) in the middle, followed later by 15 miles (110 minutes) of hilly running on York Road towards Towson, followed by pontificating about ultrarunning over a Slurpee to a stranger in a 7-11 parking lot

Friday: 13 miles (95 minutes) "early" morning, around the Inner Harbor/Fed Hill; later, 6 miles easy (60 minutes) around Patterson Park/Canton

Saturday: 7 miles pre-hurricane-Irene (50 minutes), out to Hopkins Bayview and back, and that felt like enough.

Total Time: 640 minutes
Total Distance: 77 miles

All of which leads me to an interesting point about this past week, before I move on with the aforementioned fall preview. If you replace this past Saturday with the Saturday prior (when I ran Beast of Burden), my 7-day miles over that period total 177, which, as far as I know, is a new high for me. Funny what a difference a day makes, because otherwise, it sounds like I had a sub-par 77-mile week. Just more evidence that 100 miles per week is pretty arbitrary (but at the same time, not something that will convince me to change my strategy as far as that's concerned).

Okay, finally, on with what I REALLY want to write about, which is my schedule for this fall. If you've been following this blog at all, you know that I've had probably more than my fair share of failures in the fall. This is partially due to my typical training cycle (which tends to lead to a mid-to-late summer peak), combined with the fact that, for whatever reason, fall seems to be an emotionally difficult time for me. From where I am now, though, I think that my training has been consistent enough throughout the year to put up some good performances this fall, and emotionally, well, as far as I can tell, things are at least trending better. This weekend kicks off what I'm calling the "Fall 2011 Redemption Series," where I attempt to take on every race over the past couple of years that's gone poorly for me, all in one season, and at least better my previous attempt (if not be very competitive, depending on the race). It all starts this weekend, and goes down something like this:

3-4 September - The Ring (http://www.vhtrc.org/news/theRing) - a 71-mile circuit around the Massanutten Mountains on the "orange" trail. Last time: I got lost and didn't finish.

9-10 September - pacer, Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run (http://www.wasatch100.com/) - Along for the ride as motivator, photographer, and companion, as Dave Snipes runs the final race in the 2011 Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.

17-18 September - North Coast 24-Hour Endurance Run (http://www.northcoast24.org/) - US 24-Hour National Championship Race; enough said. Last time: Stopped at about 50 miles, due to sore feet and general burnout.

24-25 September - SURPRISE (I'm still toying with a few things here, but I promise it will be awesome, whatever it is.)

1-2 October - Another wild card. (If 24-25 September is a bust, maybe this one will be something cool instead.)

7-8 October - Grindstone 100 (http://www.eco-xsports.com/events/grindstone/) - Debatably the hardest 100-mile race on the east coast. Last time: Stopped at around 25 miles, due to everything was wrong.

15 October - Baltimore Marathon (pacing 3:20) - Support the hometown race. :)

22-23 October - Wild Card #3. Surely something fun will come along . . . ;)

29-30 October - Halloweeny 50K (http://www.vhtrc.org/news/node/379) and Fire on the Mountain 50K (http://www.phdispatch.com/FireontheMountain50K.html) - Because 30 is a big age (maybe), celebrating twice on my birthday weekend, with two races that are just over 30 miles.

5-6 November - Wild Card, part 4.

12 November - Richmond Marathon (pacing 3:10) - Because really, why not?

19-20 November - Hmm . . . let's make this one a Wild Card for now, too. ;)

26-27 November - Tamest wild card of the bunch; seems to be a quiet weekend in general.

3-4 December - Wild card, at the moment. ;)

10-11 December - Hellgate 100K (http://www.extremeultrarunning.com/) - That 66.6-mile race that starts at midnight. Last time: Did not finish due to all sorts of problems.

Rest of 2011 - "Off" (maybe . . . ;) )

I think the above schedule (which, of course, is subject to change, and has a fair amount of change built in, anyway) ensures that I hit all of the major races (save Oil Creek, which, unfortunately, is on the same weekend as Grindstone this year) where redemption is required, while still allowing for a fair amount of flexibility to throw in some new stuff, and perhaps to even nab a few PRs at shorter distances (in my quest this year to PR at EVERY DISTANCE).

Of course, brilliant ideas are always welcome, particularly those that are a new sort of challenging and/or stupid . . . ;)

2010 Grindstone 100 - Failure Report

Because people are going to ask, and because I'd rather not repeat the story dozens of times (it's far too complicated for that), and because I have an awful lot of thoughts to organize, here's the story of my spectacular failure at the 2010 Grindstone 100. If you pay attention, you might also learn something about the course and effective race strategy, should you be interested in attempting this race in the future.

First, a little background: There were four key factors that, prior to the race, doomed this effort to failure. First, mentally and emotionally, I came in drained, due to circumstances in my work, school, and personal life that are beyond the scope of this post. Second, I decided not to buy a lower-back pack for my water bottles - I thought that it might have helped, but in the past, I've carried two bottles in my hands in similar races, and survived, so I thought that it might have smacked of "trying too hard." Third, I decided not to buy a brighter headlamp, for the same reason why I didn't buy the pack for my water bottles. Fourth, I decided to forego sleep the night before the race, reasoning that it would be better to nap in the afternoon for a few hours, and then wake up about an hour before the race.

With that out of the way, I was excited for Grindstone. Although my last two races had been failures (The Ring, because I got lost and wandered 15 miles off-course, and the North Coast 24, where my arches fell, and the pain became too much to bear), I was confident that (except for the four things that I mentioned above) I had addressed all of the issues that stood in my way of a strong performance. Unfortunately, my plan began to unravel before the race even began. My attempt to sleep prior to the race was a failure - I was too excited to sleep, and wound up tossing and turning, getting maybe 15 minutes of sleep, and starting the race sleep-deprived. As I chatted with friends prior to the race (it seemed as though EVERYBODY I was even remotely friends with was doing this race, only adding to the excitement), I could tell that my mind was hazy, and the thoughts weren't forming clearly. This was a bad sign.

We took off from Camp Shenandoah after a prayer from David Horton, and a group performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and for the first mile, I felt fairly good. My legs felt strong, my breathing felt steady, and in spite of my sleep-deprived state, I thought that maybe my physical strength would carry me through. Then, somewhere in the second mile, the first mini-disaster struck. I was "leaning forward and letting go" on a downhill, as I've discovered is the most efficient way to take these, and I caught my foot on a rock (the first of many) and fell, twisting my ankle and knee. I clumsily struggled to my feet, to find that although the injury was not serious, it was bad enough that I had to walk about 50 feet before things fell back into place, and the pain subsided enough to run again. But the psychological damage was already done - as if I hadn't had a drought of confidence enough from the results of my previous two races, I now could not be confident that I was mentally together enough to attack the downhills.

This fear was substantiated when I ran off course at the first opportunity, having to backtrack up a hill to the turn that I missed. I had only wandered about a quarter-mile away, but it was enough for a number of people to catch up with and pass me (another mental blow). Still, it was early in the race, and there would be time to make it up later, so I continued to push on the downhills, looking out as best I could for the random stray rocks on the otherwise clear path that could spell my doom, and power-walking the steep uphills. For a while, I thought things might come back together.

Then it got dark.

I turned on my headlamp and my flashlight, to find that, in this environment, while my flashlight was passable, my headlamp was useless. I would have to rely on my flashlight, which, as I mentioned, I have in many other races, but now, the flashlight had a nasty tendency to shut off when jolted hard (as is the intermittent case when running over rocky, uneven terrain). Further, the flashlight was strapped to my water bottle. Again, nothing new, but in my foggy, sleep-deprived state (which only worsened as the night wore on), the moving light spot in front of me, further confounded by the water bottles flitting in and out of my peripheral vision as I ran, all complicated by the seemingly random occurence of rocky, technical sections, would pose a challenge that would exceed what little mental and emotional energy I came into the race with.

My last "good" section of the race was the climb up the gravel slope to Elliot Knob. I power-walked to the top, putting distance on the people behind me, and gaining on the people in front of me. It was just a little bit brilliant to stand at the top of the dark, desolate, wind-swept summit, putting my foot up on a chain-link fence so that I could "punch" my bib to prove that I had been there. But of course, on the descent, I was cautious, since I hadn't seen the turn-off on the ascent, and in spite of my caution (which always hurts on a downhill), I still missed the turn, and wound up walking back up about a quarter-mile with another runner, who, fortunately for me, but unfortunately for her, had also missed the turn (otherwise, I might have gone much further down before I decided that I had missed the turn). As it turned out, her temporary companionship would end up being one of the first nails in the coffin, since what little confidence I had at that point was shattered when it became obvious that she was picking her way through the flat, rocky section of trail much better than I was, and I had to let her pass . . . and then another runner, and then another, and then another . . .

I made it to the second aid station, and leaving the aid station, the climb was fairly non-rocky, and I still had some legs, but now the mental strain of the circumstances was becoming overwhelming. It was getting colder (probably in the low 40s), and my feet were wet from earlier stream crossings, and the combination of all of this made a normally climbable hill a nearly impossible obstacle. It was at this point that I began periodically stopping by the side of the trail, questioning why I was even here in the first place. Runners passed, asking if I needed help, and I wished that there was anything they could do to help me, but at this point, what could I ask for? Warmer clothes? Dry shoes? A brighter headlamp? Something to put my water bottles in so that I wasn't so off-balance on the precipitous descents? The truth is, while any one of these things might have helped, I doubt that having one, or two, or even all of these things at this point would have been enough to turn this race around. The 15ish dark, miserable miles that I had struggled through had drained what little I had mentally and emotionally, and short of a friendly face, or a good night's sleep, having even the slightest material improvement would not have made a difference.

With all that thrown together, the half-track downhill (yes, the course might claim to have single-track trail, but, in truth, most of this trail is barely wider than a person's foot, especially when you have feet as grotesquely wide as mine) broke me. I could barely see where I was going, I had no confidence in my ability to descend without tripping and falling, and EVERYBODY was passing me. Regis and Mosi had passed me a long time ago, but when Snipes passed me, and I couldn't keep up, I knew that I was done. I tried my best, but already not being able to see, and then being on a trail crowded with people who were clearly navigating the terrain much better than I was, was too much. I couldn't plan my next step without feeling a vague sense of panic, and I couldn't break into a run without feeling a wave of entire-body discomfort that made a convincing argument that there was no way on earth that I could run more than a few feet, even though aside from my sore ankle and knee, I was perfectly nourished and hydrated, and not the least bit sore. The little bits of the course that I did attempt to run were short, because I was nearly tripping every 50 feet or so over even the smallest rocks on the trail. And on and on it went, this failure spiral, or whatever you want to call it, until I was reduced to an idiot in shorts and a t-shirt in the woods, on a remote trail in the middle of nowhere, wearing a "5" on my shorts that I clearly was not going to live up to, wanting nothing more than decent food, warmth, and shelter.

From the second aid station to the third aid station, I spent nearly 3 hours, from about 9 p.m. to midnight, struggling, shivering, and wondering when on earth I would reach the third aid station, and first crew access point, so I could drop out and go home. After what felt like an eternity, especially since a substantial section of the course was "flat, but leaf-covered, with random rocks that you will no doubt twist an ankle on" that was especially demoralizing to walk, when, given my physical condition alone, I should have been able to run, I finally struggled up a short, slippery dirt hill to the aid station, one hour before the cut-off time, and somewhere in the vicinity of tenth-to-last. My crew of one wasn't here (a work emergency, coupled with bad D.C. traffic, prevented him from getting to the area until around 1 a.m.), but fortunately, another runner was dropping, and a woman who was going back to the start kindly volunteered to drive us back. As I walked the quarter-mile to her car, shivering violently, all I could think about was getting into a heated car, covering myself with a blanket, and sleeping. Which I did, for a short time, until we reached the camp, and I was thrust out into the cold again. I struggled to collect my things and drive my car to a place where I had cell service, so I could call and tell people that I wasn't dead, just temporarily defeated, and that I would return in near-perfect physical condition. My crew finally showed up, and I thanked him for his effort, apologized for my poor effort, and he left to take some pictures of the night sky. At this point, any more driving seemed unbearable, so I slept in the back seat of my car, wrapped in a sleeping bag, parked in front of a CVS and Big Lots. The parking lot was well-lit. I was exhausted. It didn't matter.

I woke up around 7:30, after having slept soundly, feeling less bad (but still too awful to think about being on the course), and felt very little regret about dropping. I had no idea what to do with myself, and briefly entertained the option of going out on the course, but everybody looked fantastic when they were passing me, so I doubted that anybody needed my help (although, in spite of any supporting evidence, it would be reasonable to assume that at least some of these people were now not doing so well), and even if they did, I didn't feel as though I was "together" enough to help them. So I drove home, and now I'm here, and that's my life story.

The moral of this is, Horton courses -2, David - 0. In case anybody was wondering what it takes to finish one of his races, you need to be physically and mentally at the top of your game, because the courses are designed to tax you by switching things up constantly. The downhills are steep and not very rocky, except for the few rocks that are right in your way at the most inopportune times. The uphills aren't very rocky, but are so steep that walking is a challenge. The flats are as rocky as possible, to make running them as difficult as possible. All of this is varied to the maximum possible extent, so that when you are in a good place physically and mentally, and up for the challenge, completing the course is very satisfying. When you're in a bad place, the variation is unbearable, since there's no way to get into a mindless rhythm, and sooner or later, you're ruined. My sincere congratulations to everybody who finished Grindstone (which, as far as I could tell when I quit, 22 miles into the race, was EVERYBODY, except of course the guy that dropped when I did).

All that said, I'm not sure what I'll do about Oil Creek. Physically, I can get my body and my gear together to do it two weeks from now. Mentally and emotionally - only time will tell. Life is improving, but who knows if I'll feel as though I have enough energy to take on another 100-mile race two weeks from now. In the meantime, though, I plan to do everything I can to get my running and my life back together in the next two weeks, while enjoying both as much as possible (and really, the latter implies the former). Maybe not at Oil Creek, but at some point, I am determined to be on top again.