The "Where I've Been At" Saga, Part 4: Massanutten Mountain Trail 100-Mile Run Race Report

And now, the (maybe) exciting conclusion . . .

After the North Coast debacle (short version: about 50 miles in about 8 hours, then totally gave up because everything hurt too much), you might think that I wouldn't want to attempt one of the most difficult 100-mile races a week later.  And you would be right - sort of. 

As I woke up from my uncomfortable slumber in the back seat of Laurie's Nissan Versa at around 3 am, while North Coast was still going on around me, my first thought was that there was probably no way that I was going to be able to run MMT a week later.  But after staring at a neon-lit kite flying around in the night sky for what felt like a really long time, I looked down at my phone, and saw a missed call from Dave Snipes.  I called him back, and we talked about what was going on at North Coast, and, after we had finished talking, he said that he would put together drop bags for me for MMT.  No discussion about whether or not I should run the race - apparently, I was running it.

He wasn't the only one - Mark Rodriguez made hotel reservations, the girl I'm dating (after ragging on me for my plans apparently being ill-conceived and not entirely thought-through) immediately started discussing what she thought I needed to do in the next week to be ready for MMT, Meg Harnett got in touch with me about possibly pacing me at the end of the race . . . even my mom sent me a text message saying that she "had a good feeling" about the race.  So with all of that energy directed towards my running MMT, as the week went on, it seemed crazier and crazier to question whether or not I should run the race, in spite of the facts to the contrary.

And with the MMT 100, the facts are these:  The race is 103.7 miles (the current "official" distance, although I suspect that this measurement is a little short) of ragged, rocky, relentless mountain trails, punctuated only occasionally with gravel road sections to make you feel extra-terrible about not running because you're too tired from picking through rocks to run anymore.  Last year, I had a total meltdown at around 64 miles, but still managed to finish . . . in almost 32 hours.  That's a long time to be awake, and the prospect of another 32-hour slog after everything I had been through in the past month was not at all appealing, and, furthermore, seemed somewhat likely, after how poorly North Coast went.

But the week prior to MMT was occupied with travel to and from Israel, and by the time I got back on Friday, there was no time or opportunity to re-consider - Mark and Sniper had already put together my drop bags (with some assistance from Mike Bielik, who left some Hammer Gels with Sniper for me after the Bull Run 50-Miler) and made hotel reservations, and my girlfriend had planned the day around me leaving for the race.

I arrived at the Holiday Inn in Woodstock around 10 p.m., got to sleep around 11 p.m., and was up bright and early at a little after 2 a.m. for a 4 a.m. race start.  At least the 3 hours of sleep that I got was sound sleep, and I didn't feel too tired at the start line, or, for that matter, too cold, even though it was in the mid-40s (although my nagging sinus pain was suggesting that I may be coming down with a cold).  Most of the people I saw before the race (Jason Lantz, the eventual winner, Ryan O'Dell, 10 minutes behind me at the Winter Beast of Burden 100-Mile Run a few months ago, Jack Pilla, most recently of pulling-off-the-ground-at-the-Bandera-100k fame) looked at least a little bit cold, tired, and nervous, which made me feel a little better about my chances.

And when I say "chances," specifically, I mean my chances of finishing the race in under 24 hours.  Finishing any 100-mile race in under 24 hours is generally regarded as an accomplishment of note, but at MMT, finishing the race in under 24 hours is very difficult.  Each year, about 200 people start, and typically, only the top 10-15 runners finish the race in less than 24 hours - not to mention that about 40% of starters fail to finish the race.  But ever since I first came out to MMT, to pace Sniper in 2009, finishing this brutal race in less than 24 hours was a goal of mine.  Of course, considering my past month, finishing at all would be a minor miracle.  Then again, having made it to the starting line after all of that, and being presented with the opportunity to achieve this goal, there was also no thinking about whether or not it was realistic, given the circumstances.  Here was the opportunity, and I had to do my best to make the most of it.

In contrast to last year's start, this year's start, on the paved road, felt awful.  I was nowhere near the front of the pack, and all I could think about as we ran down the road was how much I wanted the road to end, so we could get on the trail, where hopefully this would hurt a little less.  Amazingly, once we turned onto the trail, I started speeding up, and passed a number of people who were ahead of me during the road section.  With my trusty dual-headlamp setup (one on the head, one around my waist), it may as well have been daylight in front of me, and I was running fairly comfortably over the rocks.

Unfortunately, my stomach was a little less comfortable, and I spent a total of about 30 minutes during the first third of the race taking "bathroom breaks," mostly in the woods, with the exception of the "real" bathroom break at Elizabeth Furnace.  Other than these unscheduled stops, I was mostly feeling okay - taking what the terrain would give me, and backing off a little bit as it gradually warmed up.  Much of the first third of the race is a blur in my mind, punctuated by loops of "Someone's in the Wolf" by Queens of the Stone Age and thoughts that a sub-24-hour finish might be possible.  After the first 20 miles or so, I wasn't gaining on anybody, but I wasn't losing ground, either.  I was mostly running alone, with a nearly blank mind.

The race only started to become distinct in my mind when I reached Habron Gap, knowing that the next section, nearly 10 miles long, in the mid-afternoon heat, to Camp Roosevelt (mile 64-ish), was the one that ruined me last year.  In my mind, if I could make it through this section relatively unscathed, I should be able to finish strong.  I had also skimmed times from last year, and realized that if I made it to Camp Roosevelt around 5 p.m. at the latest, I had a good chance at finishing in under 24 hours. 

In spite of the seemingly never-ending yellow trail to Camp Roosevelt, on which I ran out of water and wound up walking the last mile and a half of, just to be safe, I made it to Camp Roosevelt not feeling too bad at all, and was in and out of the aid station quickly (just long enough to drink some Gatorade from my drop bag), prompting the volunteer in charge of the aid station, who had been there last year when I spent three hours there, to comment on my improved "through" time.  It was around 20 minutes after 5 p.m. when I left the aid station, and while I was thrilled that I was still in the 24-hour-finish ballpark, I was trying to keep restrained, as the last third of the race is notoriously difficult, and any number of things could happen to mess things up.

And sure enough, not long after, mini-disaster.  All this time, I had been waiting for my cold to sneak up on me and ruin my race (which it never did), but I hadn't anticipated that my left contact lens, which had been bothering me since earlier in the race, when I took a branch to the eye when I took my eyes off of the trail for a second to drink from my hand bottle, would actually fall out of my eye.  But there, on Kerns Mountain, picking through some of the nastiest rocks on the course, with 30+ miles to go, I felt the lens loosen, blinked, and then it was gone.  I spent a few seconds looking for it on the ground, before I realized that (a) I wasn't going to find it, and (b) even if I could find it, it wasn't going back in my eye.  I would just have to re-learn to run over the rocks with compromised depth perception.  As it turns out, this is not easy, and my feet were hating me the entire time.  (Miraculously, for as many times as I stumbled, I didn't fall to the ground - sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.)

Fortunately, I made it off of Kerns Mountain before the sun set, and just after sunset, I was climbing Bird Knob, and now very seriously thinking about going sub-24.  I had been running fairly conservatively up until this point, and feeling relatively good the entire time.  But now that I couldn't reliably run over the rocks, I got the feeling that I was going to have to be careful on the really technical sections, and run every runnable section as quickly as I could.  I had already lost 10-15 minutes by walking the flat section at the end of Kerns Mountain, and I lost another 10-15 minutes by walking the flat section at the end of Bird Knob.  But when I made it to Bird Knob, and had three major sections of the course left, and was still looking at a potential sub-24-hour finish, I decided that perhaps this feeling should be more than that, and that I was going to have to buckle down and run everything that I could.  And considering the safety net that I had following the upcoming purple/pink trail section leading to the Picnic Area aid station (Meg Harnett was waiting to pace me, if I got into trouble), now seemed like the best time to put this plan into action.

In spite of lots of rocks, and not being able to see very well, I somehow made it to the Picnic Area at around 19 hours, 35 minutes, leaving me a little over 4 hours to complete the last "16" miles of the course ("16," because with the rampant mis-measurement of the course, plus the rugged terrain, this "16" miles is more like 18 miles).  I bounded down the steps to the Picnic Area aid station, where somebody offered me a chair, and, after looking at my watch, I flatly responded "I think that's a really bad idea right now."  I also turned down Quattro's offer of a shot of Jim Beam, instead choosing to twin-fist Gatorade and Coke (it really seemed to be doing the trick).  I was happy to see Meg, and although I didn't need her services, I thanked her for being there, and continued down the trail without much delay.  At this point, I was a man on a mission.

From here to the finish, the journey is painstakingly clear in my mind, and I could recount it in overwhelming detail, but for the purposes of keeping things simple:  I rock-hopped the best I could down the orange trail to the 211 road crossing.  I reached the wide white Massanutten Mountain Connector Trail on the other side of the road and was pleasantly surprised to find a few flat stretches that were runnable.  Then I was displeased to find that the section beyond the connector, leading to the yellow trail, was a lot more uphill than I had anticipated.  (But overall, between the two sections, the total amount of runnable trail was as I had expected.)  I hauled down the rocky yellow trail as best as my vision would allow, then turned right onto the road to the Gap Creek aid station, and, seeing that I had taken only a little over 2 hours to complete the last 9-ish miles, felt very confident about my chances in the last section.  Twin-fisted Gatorade and Coke at the aid station, and then I was off.

I struggled up Jawbone Gap for the second time - this time around, it was much cooler, which made the climb easier, then decided to walk the rocky backside to the road, even though it was downhill - far too dangerous and unnecessary to try to run at this point.  Once I reached the road, after one final pause to urinate on the trail (because really, who puts one of the nastiest, rockiest sections of trail less than five miles from the finish that DOESN'T have some sort of malice in their hearts?), I began a deliberate, rhythmic run, at just around 3 a.m., an entire hour left to cover the last "3" miles (probably more like 4+), all on roads and easy trails.  As I made the final turn to the finish, I knew that I had my sub-24, but instead of being overwhelmingly happy, I was just frustrated that I still had to run the "Chapel" trail behind the camp (in deference to this being a "trail" race), instead of taking the more direct route on the road, as vehicles would.  In "protest," I began walking, much to the chagrin of those waiting at the finish, who could see me (well, my headlamp, anyway) from far away, and, after requesting that I shake my headlamp to confirm that I was a finisher, demanded that I run through the finish line, because otherwise, they would run out of applause.

And, with minimal fanfare, 23 hours, 32 minutes, and 19 seconds later, I was finished.  In relief, I dropped my hand bottles on the ground, and had an awkward moment with the race director, since he was there to shake hands with every finisher, but the way I had dropped my bottles made it look as though I wanted a hug instead (it wound up being a handshake).  Then I sat down and started shivering uncontrollably - maybe that was the illness finally catching up to me.  The volunteers wrapped me in a blanket and tried to feed me (shredded chicken), but I really couldn't eat, and within a few minutes, all of the pain that I had been ignoring the entire race hit me, all at once, and it was so overwhelming that I nearly vomited.  Fortunately, 3 or 4 minutes of being hunched over a trash can, not vomiting, seems to work just as well as actually throwing up.

Eventually, after sitting at the finish line in my blanket for what seemed like forever, seeing four more people finish under 24 hours (and one person finish just 6 minutes past the mark), and making no real attempt to move, I decided that I needed to try to shower and sleep, and I made it as far as my car (which a volunteer had to lead me to), where heat was plentiful, before I passed out with the engine running, waking up a couple hours later, sweating profusely, as the heat had been on full blast.  Finally, I drove to the showers, cleaned up, and came back to the finish line just in time to see Meg pacing somebody in - I was glad to see that she had the opportunity to experience part of the course.  We hung out for a while at the finish line before I drove her back to her car at the Picnic Area (where she then proceeded to go out for more running), then drove back to the finish line to watch others finish, and wait for the awards ceremony and my beautiful silver belt buckle.


Yes, it is beautiful, and I feel okay saying that, even if it sounds a little silly, because other people saw it up close and in person and said the same thing, too.

For reference, the over-24-hour finisher's buckle, from last year.

Even as I write this now, with about a day to reflect on what happened, I'm still having trouble processing it all.  Of course, I always hope for the best, and I always want to believe that every time I start a race, I completely have it in me to achieve my goal.  Many times, though, that doesn't happen, and considering the circumstances, I was fully expecting this to be one of those times.  All during the race, the buckle was changing from silver to pewter to silver to pewter again in my mind. 

The best I can come up with is that with this race, I approached it with a healthy sense of balance.  Not just the kind of balance that you need to run over "trails" that are better described as rock piles, but the kind of balance over the week prior to the race that put training, sleep, nutrition, family, and friends in the places where they belonged.  That balance allowed me to step up to the starting line with a clear and healthy mind, and to approach each section of the race with an appropriate level of emotional investment.  And that approach allowed me to focus on my goal of running sub-24-hours, and not get too caught up in "racing."  In truth, there was at least an hour of slack time in that performance, and under better circumstances, I may have attempted to push harder.  But I'm very happy with the way this turned out - the storm clouds of last month really did have a silver lining.

Week in Review - 8-14 May, and Massanutten Mountain Trail 100 Mile Run Race Report

I'll be brief with the mileage, since the mileage was brief (mostly), and the race report is the meat of this post:

8 May - 1 mile, Patterson Park (10 minutes)
9 May - 7 miles (45 minutes), out of what was supposed to be a 1-mile "garbage run" - just felt good and kept going, through Patterson Park in the dark
10 May - 1 mile, Patterson Park (10 minutes)
11 May - 4 miles, in two laps around Patterson Park (32 minutes)
12 May - 1 mile, at APG (10 minutes)
13 May - 3 miles, Patterson Park (24 minutes)
14 May - 70 miles, Massanutten Mountain Trail 100-Mile Run (0400-2359; remaining 31.7 miles run from 0000-1147 on Sunday, 15 May 2011)

Total Minutes: 1331
Total Miles: 87

The point is, mostly a taper week for MMT, then the race. Still debating the merits of the taper; I think in this case, it was neutral.

Now, the race report:

It's hard to believe as I type this that at one point, about 20 miles into the race, I was thinking that there might not be much to write about. However, considering the epic nature of arguably the most difficult 100-mile race on the East Coast, it's not surprising that as the day progressed, I accumulated more and more race report material (along with pain, fatigue, and other unpleasantness), and the end result is what you read here.

To those who have been following along, it should come as no surprise that my goal for this race was to run as fast as I could, compete well, and place as high as possible. My strategy was essentially to run my own race, and only if things were close in the last 15 miles or so, to start pushing beyond my comfort zone. With all that still in mind, it wasn't unnerving to me that at 0400, a semi-circle formed in the front row behind the starting line - nobody seemed to want to take the lead.

Since the first 3.6 miles were on a road that was intermittently pavement and gravel, I did the honors. It wasn't intentional; it was the pace that felt comfortable to me, which put me a few seconds ahead of the chase pack, including Karl Meltzer. Karl mentioned that he was having flashbacks to a few years ago, when he was chasing a Korean guy who was ahead of him by about two minutes all day long (and ended up winning the race, and setting the course record). This was either good or bad, depending on how long I could maintain this intimidation factor.

As it turned out, of course, the answer was "not long," since within minutes of reaching the trailhead, Karl, along with about 7 other guys who were better at running rocky trails in the dark with a headlamp than I am, passed me. While it never feels good to be passed, I wasn't too worried, since my race strategy essentially consisted of staying within my limits, running comfortably, and letting the people who went out too fast come back to me, while I kept my pace steady.

Once the sun rose, and I could see more than a few feet in front of me, this strategy seemed to be working. Up through Elizabeth Furnace, I continued with my "even effort" approach, power-hiking the climbs, running relaxed on the flats, and stepping quickly on the downhills, working my way back to (guessing about) 5th place.

Unfortunately, after Elizabeth Furnace (around mile 33), things started to fall apart. For one thing, this was the start of areas that I remember distinctly from the training runs this past spring, and for another thing, this is one area where I distinctly remember running poorly at the beginning of Training Run #2. So when the two guys (Jeremy Pade and Jason Lantz) who I had passed on the previous downhill passed me on the climb, this took some of the wind out of my sails. When we reached the downhill on the backside, and I started running to retake my position, I found that although my legs weren't sore, I had no energy. My feet started slapping the ground uncomfortably, and, for fear of blowing out my quads, I slowed. Another person passed me. When I reached the road (Shawl Gap aid station), I sensed trouble.

From there, things got worse. The road was fairly exposed, the temperature was rising, and the humidity was high. All of this, combined with imprecision in my nutrition, and an early effort level that may have been just a bit too much, and suddenly, I was relegated to walking most of the next 3.1 miles on the road, when I should have been running them, so of course more people passed me on the way to the next aid station (Veach Gap). Not good.

The potential nail came after the 9.5-mile stretch following the road. Without going into too much detail, the constant ups and downs, the rocky trails, and the length between aid stations left me at Camp Roosevelt, Mile 63.1, very close to giving up. The last section had been several hours of running and feeling okay for about 5 minutes, then feeling awful and dragging myself forward for about 20 minutes, ad (physical) nauseam. Knowing that the next 38 or so miles were only going to get more difficult, I was losing confidence in my ability to finish the race. It also didn't help that Camp Roosevelt was about 6-tenths of a mile (downhill) from the finish area.

I sat at Camp Roosevelt for a long time. I tried eating cookies, brownies, potato chips . . . if it was on the table, I tried it, up to and including Slim Jims and dried mango. Nothing seemed to be helping my energy level. I walked around the aid station little, I sat down, I sprawled out on a picnic table, wrapped in somebody's jacket. I even drank a few sips of Brittany Zale's Rolling Rock. Nothing seemed to be working. All the while, people were coming into the aid station to cheers and clapping, and leaving to even louder cheers and clapping. The aid station volunteers were encouraging; they didn't want me to quit, but I just wasn't ready to go yet. I wasn't ready to quit, either.

Finally, at about 10 minutes to 9 p.m., things started making sense to me. I realized that part of the reason why I couldn't quit was that when I curled up as though I was going to give up, I could feel my bib on my stomach. This reminded me of how at the pre-race meeting on Friday, as the race director was saying that if you were dropping, you had to turn in your bib (for accountability purposes), I clutched my bib to my chest fiercely as I stood next to Sara and said "not turning this in." I had waited too long for the opportunity to run this race, and I wasn't going to let go that easily. I thought about what Dave Snipes said as he passed through the aid station about an hour ago. A woman was saying that she was pacing somebody else, and that she was going to "drag me along" with them for the rest of the race. Snipes responded that I knew the course, and that it was (if you're not feeling well, which I wasn't), a good 14-hour walk to the finish over the last 38 miles, and that I shouldn't let somebody force me into doing it. I decided that it was my decision to come here, and it was my decision to finish or not to finish, and that it was time to make that decision. Since I was curled up on a picnic table, trying to sleep and failing miserably, even though I had slept only about 3 hours the previous night, and been awake for 18 hours since then, I knew what my decision would be.

I got up, put on my bottle belt, my hat, and my headlamp, and shuffled out of aid station purgatory towards the next section of the course, nearly 3 full hours after I had reached the aid station, to the loudest cheers yet.

Of course, the boost from this was short-lived, and within 15 minutes of walking down the trail, I started feeling weak and listless again. I tried my best to tell myself that I was just out for a pleasant walk in the woods at night, and at times, this was effective, but it didn't help that I was heading up another huge, muddy, rocky climb. Still, I pushed up and over, and after another nearly 6 miles of excruciating pain, I found myself at Gap Creek/Jawbone I. The aid station was lit up like Christmas, and again, when I sat down, I was having a very hard time getting up and moving forward again. I spent perhaps another half-hour here, again, questioning whether or not the 6-mile chunk that I had taken out of the remaining distance was enough to convince me that I could finish. The aid station volunteers were again very encouraging, and continued to tell me that I looked good. Finally, after a much shorter bout of self-doubt, I headed out on the 8.4 mile stretch of course to the Visitor Center.

This 8.4 mile stretch was my lowest point. I was not about to run and potentially break myself, but walking meant slow progress, and it was after midnight now, nearing the 24-consecutive-hours-awake mark. All this time, in the back of my mind, I couldn't forget the last training run, when I did this in the daylight, and it went so much faster. In fact, the part of the training run that had gone the best - the rock-picking, randomly-climbing-and-dropping trail fiasco on Kerns Mountain - at night, in the fog and rain, by the light of my headlamp, was a demoralizing disaster. While I had held my position over the last stretch of course, people who were WALKING were overtaking me here. They were all very friendly and supportive, and tried to get me to come along with them, but the reality was that I just couldn't make myself walk that fast. As I stumbled in to the Visitor Center, after what seemed like an interminable stretch of road (which is how roads tend to feel when you've relegated yourself to walking them), I was thinking that maybe now was the time to take my souvenir rock from the Visitor's Center and go back to camp.

Not so fast, though, because the aid station captain (who reeked of alcohol), was running frantic ultramarathon triage. Outside, the rain was pouring down, and broken runners were pouring into the tent and flopping down onto folding chairs, while the aid station captain and his assistants were rushing around with cups of soup, egg salad sandwiches, and trash bags to use as makeshift ponchos, trying to get the runners out as quickly as possible. For my part, I wrapped myself in a blanket and napped for about 20 minutes, until Captain Liquor woke me up, and told me that I was his project, and he was going to get me out of there. Not wanting to argue with a drunk, lest he grow belligerent, and wanting less and less to DNF, I complied, and took off my shoes so they could bandage my feet, and ate the soup, and put on the trash bag, and shuffled off to climb Bird Knob.

It was at this point that the pain stabilized. Perhaps food was finally digesting. Perhaps the trash bag was keeping me warm enough that my muscles were getting the blood flow they were craving. Or perhaps, at 5 in the morning, I had gone past the point where quitting made any sense at all, as I had already been out for a stupid-long time. As miserable as it was not to run the flat section at the top of Bird Knob, I was now convinced that things were at least not going to get worse. Plus, the sun was rising as I reached the top, which, in addition to allowing me to put away my stupid headlamp, was pretty to look at.

I had reached the turning point at an opportune time, since the aid station at the top of Bird Knob, in stark contrast to the mayhem at Vistor Center, was small, subdued, and seemingly bored with this whole endeavor. With their mumbling, forced, "keep it up, dude," attitude, I was convinced that if I had asked them for a ride back to the start, they would have told me that I could hang out there until the aid station closed, and then, after they packed up, if there was any room in any of the cars, maybe I could come with them. If I ever wanted to see my friends and family again, I had no choice but to continue the walk down the road to the pink and purple trail, and the Picnic Area.

Along this silly-colored section of the course, I started seeing crew and volunteers who had seen me back at Camp Roosevelt and Gap Creek, when I was so close to calling it quits. The little boost I got from the little joy they seemed to be taking in seeing that I hadn't quit was enough to get me to start running again when the pink trail started going downhill. I was afraid to attack as hard as I had on the training run, but the fact that this section was now feeling closer to training run speed was a huge mental boost, not to mention that I was passing people now that I was actually running again. As I barrelled down the rocky trail at near-top speed, torn-up feet and growing quad bustage be damned, I hoped that this momentum would carry me through the 9-ish miles from to Gap Creek/Jawbone II, arguably the most difficult section of the course.

Then I got to this section, and decided that "doing" was better than "hoping," so I power-hiked the easy downhill trail section to Route 211 (the part that is apparently there to lull you into a false sense of security), and then, doing my best Mount-Whitney-at-Badwater-last-year impression, I attacked the awful white trail climb. Now I was (relatively) moving, at nearly 15-minute mile walking pace, putting distance on the guy who had left the last aid station just after me, and passing people on the trail ahead of me. I was getting that "rush" that I felt at the end of Badwater as I felt myself come back from the dead, and to top it all off, after braving the rock-pile climb to the top, I ran down the yellow trail to the road, and, for a while on the road (although I returned to walking, for fear of burning out before the last 5+ mile section). I reached Gap Creek/Jawbone II with a huge smile on my face as the aid station volunteers welcomed me back, to which I could respond only with laughter. There was just no other way to explain what I had been through for the past 10-ish hours since I left that aid station the first time.

Deciding that there was no sense in lingering the second time around, I crossed the road to climb Jawbone (again, now muddy and slippery from all of the foot traffic through), and this time, go over the top and down. Because I fouled up this part of the last training run, I hadn't seen the back side of Jawbone, but I vaguely suspected that it was steep and rocky, and my suspicion was confirmed. Yes, just one last reminder that Massanutten "rocks" before the finish. Now, with about four miles to go, I wasn't afraid to give it a little more gas, and I passed nearly a dozen people between the top of Jawbone and the finish, powered by my vigorous walk, my reckless abandon on the downhills, and my 7-minute miles on the road section leading to the finish.

I ran the entire last road section all the way through the line, finishing in 31 hours, 47 minutes, and some-odd seconds, to the cheers of the crowd, and the welcome-back of the aid station captain who had suffered through me at Camp Roosevelt for 3 hours. Dave Snipes handed me a grape soda for some reason (that seems to be his thing after we run), and after that, I don't remember too much in detail, other than food went in, the tent came down, and the shower happened. Sara returned for the post-race awards ceremony, and to drive me home (and ran to hug me when she finally found me - I ran to meet her, which was perhaps evidence that more of my struggle was mental than physical), and we had some pleasant together-time as I gave her the brief summary of my struggle, and she gave me the brief summary of her car struggle (the makeshift parking lot in the field had turned to mud, making it very difficult to get the car in and out).

Although the race didn't turn out as I had planned, in some ways, it was better. Since I hadn't finished a 100-mile run since Beast of Burden last August, I had a feeling that, despite my strong training base, my first 100 back would be a little bit difficult, especially with the DNF ghosts of Grindstone and Oil Creek haunting me. And, in truth, I think that those experiences had some effect on my mental state when things started to fall apart. In that sense, it was very important that I finish a race that's this difficult, to reaffirm that I can do this, and, moreover, that I'm at my best in these types of races. In retrospect, I probably had more in the tank than I thought, but the mind-body coordination wasn't there. The teaching points from this experience (careful pacing early in the race, consistent nutrition, high weekly mileage, training as much as possible on rugged trails) will serve me well at the Old Dominion 100 in three weeks, in my quest to complete all of the Virginia 100s this year (which includes revenge of Grindstone in the fall). Perhaps most importantly, though, I'm excited about my still-nebulous plans for adventures between now and Badwater, and, prior to this race, I felt as though I needed that kind of energy to motivate my training.

Plus, I got a new belt buckle (for now, the pewter one, but next year, definitely the sub-24-hour silver version), so I can finally put away the Beast of Burden buckle:



In conclusion, the buckle is cool because it has a bear on it. :)