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The Ultrarunning Index, 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

By the numbers…

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Finding roots on the trail

Sunday, December 25, 2011

The core members of our weekend running group gathered in December for our first-ever holiday party and spent the evening geeking out about running.

As I write this, I’m sitting in the living room of my parents’ house in the Chicago suburbs. Home.

There was a time, not too long ago, when all I could think about was moving back to the city where I grew up. No place on Earth feels quite like Chicago and if you were lucky enough to grow up there but made the choice to leave, part of you always regrets it.

And yet after a decade of living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., I find it hard to imagine leaving.

(Continued)

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Stone Mill: In Which He Grabs the Unexpected by the Throat

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Crossing a creek early in the Stone Mill 50-miler - and not thinking about the distance. (Photo by Bobby Gill)

In the received-wisdom world of ultramarathons, one of the first lessons I learned was to never think about the distance.

On Kevin Sayers’ amazingly comprehensive digital trove of ultra knowledge, UltRunR, one of the best pieces of advice for ultra newbies comes courtesy of ultrarunning expert Karl King:

Don’t let the distance scare you; run from aid station to aid station and the distance will take care of itself.

That tactic has worked just fine in each of the 27 ultras I’ve run since 2008, save one: the Stone Mill 50. Unfortunately, running from aid station to aid station doesn’t work when you have no idea when to expect the next opportunity to rest, refit and refuel.

Instead, those reliable benchmarks become just another aspect to wonder about and worry over. In a sport where the variables are legion and each can individually determine whether your day goes all to hell in a hurry, it’s how you deal with them that matters.

And when I saw my GPS watch turn 20 miles with still no aid station in sight, I knew something was amiss. By mile 20, I should’ve reached the Pennyfield Lock aid station on the C&O Canal, but it wasn’t there.

Hmm. The beginning of questions. Of worry.

Was my GPS unit wildly and unusually inaccurate?

Was the course longer than advertised?

Or had the aid station simply shifted position, as if moved by an occult hand?

Read on, dear friends…

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A salute to those who sit and wait

Monday, November 14, 2011

Sooner or later, many ultrarunners decide it’s time to give something back to the sport.

The most dedicated – or those who are the biggest gluttons for punishment, at least – take on the role of race director for an established event, or start a new one themselves.

But short of staging a race, giving back most often takes the form of crewing, pacing or volunteering. Often it’s to fulfill a volunteering requirement for an upcoming race or return the favor for someone who did the same for you at an earlier race, but other times it’s simply to be part of an event and see friends and acquaintances without having to lace up and run.

Those of us in the VHTRC might feel the urge to contribute more keenly than most, as it seems that every few weeks there’s yet another informal ultra-distance club run available as a free-to-all event completely supported by club money and the hard work of volunteers willing to give up their time and trek out to the boonies to make sure that a few dozen runners can have an awesome day on the trails.

Regardless of whether you volunteer, crew or pace, you develop a new appreciation for the level of effort involved in helping a group of crazies run some absurd distance for fun. And you’ll come to love the sport even more.

(Continued)

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Super Grover, Freedom and the Halloweeny Frostbite Run

Monday, October 31, 2011

Gathland State Park, near Rohrersville, Md., is the site of the War Correspondents Memorial Arch. Among the engravings on the arch are the words "Speed" and "Heed" - appropriate to the day. (Photo by Bobby Gill)

Apparently the price of dressing as Freedom for Halloween is a mild case of frostbite.

A freak October storm was expected to deliver freezing rain and up to 6 inches of snow to the region, but that didn’t stop a few dozen local ultra crazies from turning out in costume Oct. 29 for the Halloweeny Fat Ass Ultra at Spookhill.

In its first running last year, Halloweeny was an instant hit, bringing together some of the best trails around Harpers Ferry, W. Va., including the Appalachian Trail, the C&O Canal towpath and the Maryland Heights Trail, for a beautiful fall 50K. We weren’t going to let a little foul weather stop the show this time around.

With the Marine Corps Marathon on the schedule for the same weekend, only a handful of my usual running mates came out for Halloweeny, but we proved that great minds think alike.

While I’d secretly been assembling a “Freedom” costume (as in “why do you hate freedom?”), Jen and Beth sought Toni’s advice for their outfits. Toni’s suggestion: Dress as “Freedom runners.” Great minds indeed.

Denise, meanwhile, dressed as a cat – long, fuzzy tail and all. And Tom had the best costume of the day – a full-size, bright blue Super Grover outfit, complete with helmet and cape.

The pieces of my costume included American flag running shorts, star-spangled gaiters and arm sleeves, and an American flag-emblazoned do-rag. Not the warmest gear for 30-plus miles in freezing rain and snow, so I added a vest over my bright red T-shirt and stuffed a spare water-resistant jacket and second pair of gloves into my pack as a just-in-case.

When the snow really started coming down, that spare jacket turned out to be one of the things that saved the day.

Read on, dear friends…

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It’s a long way to the top (if you wanna rock and roll)

Monday, October 10, 2011

The Grindstone 100 begins at Camp Shenandoah, a Boy Scout camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

As I paused to catch my breath on the wicked steep, 3,700-foot climb up Elliott Knob, I thought about what ultrarunning legend David Horton had said at the start of the race a couple hours earlier.

In his prayer at the start of the Grindstone 100 Endurance Run, Horton gave thanks for the privilege of running the event. It was especially poignant coming from Horton, a tough-as-nails ultrarunner who chalked up an incredible series of accomplishments before injury recently forced him to give up the sport.

He can’t run any more, but the 118 of us who gathered for the Grindstone 100 Endurance Run could, and did.

So halfway up Elliott Knob, with a nearly full moon and a sky full of stars overhead, with fellow runners trudging past to the left and right of me on a dirt fire road so steep it seemed nearly vertical, I stood up straight and continued putting one foot in front of the other.

In that moment, I was exactly where I wanted to be, and glad for the opportunity to be there.

(Continued)

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Ashes, ashes, we all blow up

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Halfway through my second ring around Rosaryville, I knew I was headed for a crash.

Hell, I knew it just after leaving the starting line, really.

But the way I figure it, sometimes you’ve gotta get your foot all the way into the gas pedal and just see what happens, right?

The Rosaryville Trail Run 50K, at Rosaryville State Park in nearby Upper Marlboro, Md., was my place to do that.

Held on rolling single-track trails with very little in the way of elevation change, the event includes 10K, 15K, 25K and 50K races. For the local ultrarunning crowd, it’s still a fairly new race that takes a back seat to other more established events later in the month.

The 50K course consists of three 10-mile loops, with a little bit extra here and there to get the additional mile necessary to make it official as a 31-miler. With no real hills to speak of, it’s about as flat and fast as a trail ultra can get. The only real variables are the heat and humidity of a swampy DC summer.

So if it’s not an eagerly anticipated “A” race, what is Rosaryville?

A chance to test new gear. To fine-tune fueling strategies. To acclimate to hot-weather racing.

Or to throw caution to the wind and go hard.

(Continued)

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A Shenandoah trifecta

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

On an Appalachian Trail overlook during Day 3 of the Shenandoah trifecta.

It feels strange to not be running right now.

Back here in the everyday, people still scratch their heads, wondering why someone would want to spend an entire weekend running.

But over three days spent largely on the move in the mountains of Shenandoah National Park, a handful of us knew exactly why. The C.S. Lewis quote that my friend Kirstin uses to scene-set her running blog probably captures it best:

“If one could run without getting tired, I don’t think one would often want to do anything else.”

I thought I knew that feeling long before a loosely organized VHTRC trifecta fell into place over the extended Independence Day holiday, three straight days of 20-plus mileage in the Shenandoah National Park about 90 miles west of the DC ‘burbs.

It’s not often that an epic adventure like this comes together. There are a handful of weekends throughout the year when the VHTRC puts together a good couple of back-to-back runs and the July 4 holiday is usually one of those times.

But this time around, the club website quickly filled with one, then two, then three great running opportunities. And then the implied challenge: Who would be up for the full trifecta?

I couldn’t pass that up.

So now, after three days of long mountain climbs, fast descents, bears, beers, jokes, laughter, good food and even better conversations, it occurs to me that I finally get what C.S. Lewis was saying.

(Continued)

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With apologies to my legs, which had not yet fully recovered from MMT100

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Mountain laurel in bloom along the Roaring Plains Trail at the Highlands Sky 40-miler.

As we gathered our gear to file off the bus at the starting line, our driver had a few last parting words of wisdom.

“Y’all might see somethin’ out there that’s big and hairy,” he said, his voice thick with an accent that was pure, unfiltered West By God.

My first thought was “bears!” But he continued:

“Some people call it Bigfoot. Some call it Sasquatch … I call her my wife. So if you see ‘er out there, tell ‘er to come on home — we’re waitin’ on her.”

And thus armed with that bit of advice, I found myself on the starting line of another ultra a month after my first 100-mile finish, this time a 40-mile romp through the West Virginia mountains known as Highlands Sky.

With that 100 under my belt, I figured Highlands would be a walk in the park. But both my legs and the course begged to differ.

(Continued)

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100 miles and runnin’

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

A view of the Massanutten ridge line from an aid station in the valley below. (Photo by Miriam Wilcox)

I was just outside of the Gap Creek aid station when I saw the stormtrooper helmets.

Just off to the left of the rutted, rocky single-track trail, there were three of them, neatly perched atop some trail-side bushes.

It was about 12:30 a.m. on Sunday. I’d already been awake for 23 hours and on the run for most of that time.

With 35 miles left to go in the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100-mile run, I was sleep deprived and starting to hallucinate.

I knew those stormtrooper helmets weren’t real, that they weren’t there. But still, for a moment, I saw them shining bright white and black in the twin beams of my flashlight and headlamp.

That’s when I knew for certain that it was going to be a long, weird night in the mountains.

(Continued)

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