2012 was the 30th edition of the Mountain Masochist Trail Run, marking (as race director Clark Zealand put it) 30 years of Masochism. It did not disappoint.
This was the second year that I've run MMTR, so I was somewhat familiar with the pre-race proceedings when I arrived in Lynchburg on Friday night after a long but uneventful drive. I picked up my packet and listened to the tail end of the pre-race briefing, which confirmed my expectations - there was going to be some snow on the course. "How bad could it be?" I said to myself, "I love snow!" and proceeded to get my things ready for an early morning.
After a 4:15AM wake-up call, I got dressed and hopped on the bus to the start, which departed at 5:00AM sharp. I sat next to Tim, a first-time ultra runner from Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. We talked about running for a little while, and arrived at the starting area much quicker than I remembered from last year. The course started in a new spot this year, apparently due to some changes in policy from the Forest Service.This new start meant that we would get to run on more trails (a Good Thing) but that we would have a no-avoiding-getting-your-feet-wet stream crossing about 2 miles in (a Not-So-Great Thing).
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| The buses idling in a cloud of diesel smoke early in the morning. |
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| The crowd at the start line. |
I joined the throng at the starting line under the portable floodlights with about 2 minutes to spare. With a brief prayer, we were off. After a very short jaunt around a pond, the runners jammed up against the entrance to a trail (this is normal).
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| Traffic jam! |
We got onto a paved road for about a mile, which was the last pavement we'd run on until the very end of the race. In short order, we reached the stream crossing and tunnel that meant "wet feet". A lot of people tried to shimmy around the edge of the water on the first part of the crossing, but I knew we were going to get wet anyways so I just plowed on through.
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| Getting our feet wet 2 miles in. |
The new sections of trail were great, very typical of the jeep trail / fire road style of terrain that I remembered from last year. The sun coming up over the big Virginia mountains was a real treat.
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| The sun starting to rise. |
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| String of headlamps making their way up the hill behind me. |
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| More incredible sunrise scenery. |
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| It was shaping up to be a great day to be in the mountains. |
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| Mike slowly starting to outpace me (already!) in the first few miles of the new start to the course. |
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| Coming around the bend to an awesome vista. |
I don't know the course well enough to say when the new course joined up with the old course, but eventually things started to look a little familiar. I breezed through the first couple of aid stations, pausing only briefly to gulp down some water. I had a hand bottle full of concentrated Perpetuem and about 40oz of water in my hydration pack. The nice thing about MMTR is that with the majority of aid stations being less than 5 miles apart, you have plenty of opportunities to refill as needed.
I started to feel tired about 15 miles in. I'm not sure if that was due to poor recovery from Grindstone, inadequate training, or too much pizza and beer on the couch instead of spinach and blueberry smoothies, but it was definitely happening. My strategy was to just keep chugging along. I was confident that I could finish and just kept the expectations bar low. As long as I could finish, I could claim my Lynchburg Ultra Series jacket.
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| Trudging up one of the many dirt road climbs. |
The weather was absolutely perfect for running, and I was dressed perfectly for it - no complaints there. I had my new shoes (in the correct size this time!), my Terrapin Mountain shorts (a popular choice), a smooth synthetic T-shirt, lightweight cycling gloves, a breathable long-sleeve shirt, and a fleece hat which I could slide back and forth on my head to provide varying levels of ventilation. Even though I was chilly at the start, I never got too overheated or cold as long as I kept moving.
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| Appalachian Trail sighting! |
I got to the halfway point at about 5 hours and 30 minutes into the race. My drop bag was waiting for me at the aid station, and I took a couple minutes to put on a dry pair of socks (awesome!) and re-stock my pack with a couple gels. I also downed a five-hour energy to try and give my dragging legs a little bit of lift. I remembered from last year that the "norm" was that the second half of the race takes about the same amount of time as the first half; even though I was coming in to the halfway point a bit slower than I did last year, according to that logic I should be able to finish in about 11 hours.
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| On one of the roads just before the halfway point. |
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| Starting to see some snow! |
That didn't take into account... "The Loop" (cue ominous music). I remembered the loop as being a pretty long section of singletrack trail, with some technical sections. It was a little bit harder than the rest of the course, but no big deal. However, this year, it had between 6"-18" of snow on it. And the race organizers had added a summit climb, presumably to make up a little bit of distance.
The snow bogged me down a bit in the first part of the loop - my right knee was starting to protest a little bit, and having to constrain my stride to the width of the track that had been trampled didn't help. Then I got stuck behind people who, as slow as I was going, were going even slower. This held especially true on the out-and-back to the summit of Mt. Pleasant, when the snow got real deep and we started to encounter people coming back down from the top. There was just no way to get around the conga line, so I settled in and dreamt about all the boot ladders and skin tracks that I'd set in years past. However, there would be no sweet descent after this climb.
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| Snow on the ground heading into The Loop |
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| Headed up the climb to the summit of Mt Pleasant. No, I wasn't the person slowing all these people down. |
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| Still climbing up Mt. Pleasant. |
Reaching the summit of Mt. Pleasant was a real treat - a 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains, sunshine, and no wind. I punched my bib with the orienteering punch and snapped a few photos before turning around and starting the descent.
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| Panoramic vista from the top of Mt. Pleasant |
The descent went about as well as could be expected, and before I knew it I was back on The Loop, headed towards the aid station. This part got a bit tricky, as some of the descents were very steep, and my knee was really starting to complain. My run/walk ratio started to skew towards the walk side of things. Sniper passed me a few minutes before the aid station, giving me a few words of encouragement.
At the aid station, one of the volunteers was tending a crock pot of Ramen. I asked for some, and she said, "Are you sure? I just put the noodles in!". I said yes, and she gave me a cup. Sure enough, the noodles were crunchy, but it was hot and salty and I didn't care. I asked for some Ibuprofen to help quell the complaints from my right knee, and started chewing the tablets by accident while trying to swallow them with some of the ramen. Ew. The good news at this aid station was that the race organizers had pushed the cutoff back by a half an hour, since the snow was slowing so many people down.
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| One last climb on dirt before we got into the woods. |
Things picked up after I left the aid station. Running on a firm dirt road seemed to make my knee complain a lot less. I was still moving pretty slowly, just because I was tired, but it wasn't pathetic.We trudged up the last dirt road climb to the point where we got into the woods again. I remembered this spot from last year - eery, lots of rustling leaves, and white streamers trailing from branches in the breeze. It went on forever.
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| Running in this narrow trough crimped my style - and made my right knee complain. |
This year, when we got in the woods, it was covered with snow. I was pretty tired at this point (around mile 40 something), and was pretty happy to do a speedy walk. I got into another conga line going up a snowy hill, and then passed them a little further on. Every so often, I would try to trot a little and would be surprised that it didn't hurt. Being mentally prepared for this section to take a long time was a huge boon, as I was just able to settle in and grind without constantly wondering why I wasn't at the next aid station yet.
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| Snow in the woods. |
After a great long while, I got to the last aid station, which I knew meant I was just about home free. I had almost an hour and a half to travel 4 miles, and I knew that those miles were all easy downhill miles. I grabbed some food and took off at a shuffle pace. Shortly after leaving, I passed some poor woman puking her brains out on the side of the trail - it looked like she'd chugged too much Pepsi too fast. I asked her if she was OK, and she said "Yeah, I'm fine" in between spewings and waved me on. Say what you want about ultra runners, they don't give up easily.
After about 2 miles, the snow blessedly gave way to solid dirt. I was running with a group now, and could feel the excitement - we were almost finished. I even passed a couple people. Another mile and we were on a private dirt road, tilted sharply downhill. My knee felt great, and my legs felt great - I let gravity take over and hammered down it as fast as I was able to (which, according to my GPS data, was about a 8:00 pace). The last quarter mile of the course is a flat section of paved road. I kept the pace up as best I was able to, passing one or two more people. Eventually a crowd of cheering people heralded the finish line, and I crossed it five minutes under the 12:00 mark, with solid high-fives from Sniper and Clark Zealand.
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| The Finish! My favorite part. |
I haven't been so emotionally buzzed to finish a race since the last time I finished Masochist. I was so happy to be done that I was laughing so hard I was almost crying. Congratulations to and from other runners. We made it under the 12-hour mark, which felt great. I got my drop bag and hopped on the bus, ate some food and watched the awards ceremony, and then drove home.
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| Top 10 female finishers. |
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| These three hardy souls have finished this race ten times. That's 500 miles of Masochism - bad ass. |
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| Looks like the ultra-running bomb went off in my car again. |
