2013 Mountain Masochist Trail Run

This  year’s Mountain Masochist was about as different from last year’s as could be possible. The obvious differentiating factor was the lack of 18” deep snow drifts this year, but what probably had more of an impact on my performance this year was a somewhat adequate training base and being mentally fresh rather than feeling like a burnt crumb of toast. Since the cancellation of Grindstone, which I’d been spending several months building towards, I’d had a gentle and slow taper, reinforced in the last couple of weeks by a nasty head cold which left me destitute of any desire for much activity beyond sleeping and eating. 

I drove down to Lynchburg Friday afternoon, stopping at a Jimmy John’s for a pre-race dinner. Hey, it worked for Robin Watkins during her double iron-distance ultra triathlon, why can’t it work for me? Somewhat salty to help water absorption, easy to digest, and pretty tasty!  I washed it down with my somewhat less tasty Osmo Pre-Load hydration drink (based on Science). 

Arriving  just in time for the very tail end of the pre-race briefing, I saw a ton of new faces and a few familiar ones. With 323 people starting the race on Saturday morning, the crowd seemed large and pretty energetic.

I passed the night comfortably in Chalet Subaru, basking in the balmy 55 degree temperatures. I felt less odd about sleeping in my car in a shopping plaza parking lot when I looked to my left and right and saw other people getting ready to do likewise. All in all, we probably had 6 or 8 people snoozing it up in our little enclave in the corner of the parking lot. Despite the glaringly bright fluorescent lights, I managed to get a pretty restful night of sleep, about 6 hours or so.

Awakening at 4AM, I promptly ate a Probar to allow maximum time to digest before the race start at 6AM. I did the usual brush teeth / finish getting dressed / put bib number on / etc. routine, electing to go with just a T-shirt, shorts, and a pair of arm warmers. Although I knew that the start of the race would be higher (and cooler) and the second half of the race would be even cooler than that, the warm temps and the strongly positive weather forecast hinted to me that I’d be OK with the lighter clothing selection. I had plenty of long-sleeve options and extra clothes in my drop bag at the halfway point anyway.

 

Buses lined up to transport runners to the start

I got on the bus with Danny “Ring Destroyer” Mowers, who I barely recognized due to his newly minted beard. We chatted for a bit on the ride up, then he tried to get some shut-eye and I zoned out, trying to visualize what was going to happen during the race, and simultaneously psych myself up and calm myself down.

We had made the fortuitous choice of sitting on the front row of the bus, so when we arrived at the KOA campground, I bolted out the door and scored a sweet spot in line for the port-o-lets. This was key, as the lines got pretty long later on, and getting in early gave me more time to relax on the warm bus later on before the start.

After the bathroom break I headed down to the bright lights, checked in with Clark, and then sat on the bus finishing my “30 minutes before activity” dose of Osmo Pre-Load. With 15 minutes left to go before the race start, I took 2 caffeinated energy gels, which is my go-to strategy for races where I am shooting to go hard and fast.

 

The "Light Bubble" at check-in

 

Stanley contemplates Life, the Universe, and Everything

A quick note on that – once again, I’d made the naive mistake of going into MMTR with the mindset that the “short” distance of 50 miles is something that I could just rev up and hammer through. BAD IDEA!! Not only is 50 miles not really all that short of a distance, the 9,700 feet of climbing and the endless pounding on dirt roads really takes a toll on your body. 

In the spirit of "racing hard", I'd made the decision to travel light and to depend on the abundance of aid stations for my fueling. I new that the sports drink was a Gu product, which tends to agree with my stomach, so I'd left the Osmo Active Hydration drink packets at home and filled up my water bottle with Gu Roctane, which is super-caffeinated and filled with a lot of sugar. In other words, for the first 15 miles I was both wired out of my mind and on the sugar high of my life. 

Elevation profile of the race course

We started out at a quick jogging pace, and reached the mandatory creek crossing within the first half hour or so. Kissing my warm dry feet goodbye, I looked forward to my change of shoes that I had in my drop bag at the halfway point 25 miles ahead. I ran with Gray for a little while, zooming down hills past a bunch of people. I lost Gray and got caught by Jordan and Steve going up some hills, and decided to latch onto them for a little while. 

Chasing Jordan and Steve down a hill with the sun coming up

 

The foliage was absolutely amazing when the sun came up

We flew down all the hills, and ran back up the other side. It was super fun and fast paced, and I felt like I was flying on the descents, but after about 12 miles of this I started to feel like I was working too hard to run up the hills so I moderated my pace down to a "settled in" gait, doing a slow jog / shuffle on the moderately inclined hills, walking anything steeper than that, and running at a comfortable pace on the flats and downhills.

One of the infinite sections of dirt road in the first half

 I ran with John Robinson for quite a while; we seemed to go at about the same pace. Occasionally I  would move ahead of him and occasionally he would move ahead of me, but in general we stuck together for many miles, swapping stories about flying on Aeroflot to Russia and about mountain biking. 

One of the "slow jog" sections up a super long but not too steep dirt road with John Robinson

I can never seem to remember what order the course flows in - especially in the first half. In the second half, you have the nicely demarcated sections of The Loop and the never-ending section of trail that leads you to the final aid station, but in the first half of the course things tend to blur together for me. I went up, I went down, I went past the Lynchburg Reservoir, I went past an AT trail marker. The leaves were awesome, the weather was picture-perfect, and my stomach felt pretty good from grazing on a constant stream of small foodstuffs from the prodigious amount of aid stations. I mean, with 14 aid stations, none of which are separated by more than 5 miles, there really aren't a lot of big milestone goals to reach in this race. After the first few aid stations, it just became a matter of, "OK, only 3 miles to the next".Snack, run, repeat.

Having fun somewhere near Lynchburg reservoir

Rolling Virginia hills before the halfway point - so sweet!

I got to the halfway point at Mile 27 and my drop bag in about 4 hours. I spent a few precious but absolutely-worth-it minutes changing into dry shoes and socks. After spending 3 hours slogging along in sodden Salomons, switching to my bone-dry and super-light La Sportiva Helios felt wonderful. At about 9oz for my size, it felt like having a warm feather on my foot and not much else. I grabbed some lunch (half a PB&J and two Chips Ahoy cookies) and wandered off up the long gentle climb out of the aid station.

Drop bags at the half-way point

I came across John Robinson again after the halfway point, and ran with him for the next few aid stations. For some reason, the aid station after the halfway point where they usually play dramatic cinematic music themes and have multiple uplifting signs with running-themed quotes from the Bible did not have the same impact on me this year as it has the past two years. Perhaps the music was a touch quieter, or perhaps I was more focused on just running and moving forwards. Still, it was a memorable marker in the race, and I knew that The Loop wouldn't be far away.

After an endless amount of dirt road, my legs, which had been starting to feel a little tired around mile 24, were beginning to protest. They were tired, but more importantly my joints were complaining about the beating they were getting from the road surface. Why people would want to run ultras on pavement is absolutely beyond my comprehension; even with a beautiful rural setting to take my mind off the pain, dirt roads put more impact on my ankles, hips, and knees than what I am used to. I started walking more and more, mostly on the "steeper" sections of road, still jogging the gentler uphills.

By the time I got to The Loop, a 6 ish mile segment of singletrack (one of only two short segments of singletrack on the entire course), I was ready for a break from the roads. I could move pretty easily on the downhill sections, keeping something like a 10:00min /mi pace, but the flats were miserably interminable. I actually looked forward to the uphill sections of the roads because it meant I could take a break from running and push a decently paced power walk to recover. Ryan passed me in the last few miles before the Loop, and we exchanged a few words before he moved on at a stronger pace than what I could muster.

The first portion of the Loop is a little misleading, because the trail bed is clear of leaves and debris, and it's just covered in nice smooth moss. The real fun begins when the trail takes a sharp turn to the left, starts climbing, gets covered in several inches of loose, slippery leaves, and the rocks start to litter the trail. I walked a lot, and forced myself into a slow shuffle of a jog for the flattish bits. I knew going in that this section would feel like it would take a long time, so I was mentally prepared for it when it seemed to go on forever. Before I knew it, I reached the intersection where the out-and-back section up to the peak of Mount Pleasant. This section was a bit of a snowy mess last year from the 18" snow drifts, but this year it was just a moderate slog up the hill, dodging the occasional inbound runner. I got up to the top, clambered over the boulders to get to the orienteering punch, and spared a few seconds to take in the stunning view.

The view from the top of Mt. Pleasant

The trudge down to the Loop exit took quite a bit of time, but wasn't too bad. I was moving pretty well despite having sore ankles, and despite the fact that the majority of the little foot-biting rocks were veiled by a thin layer of oak leaves. A woman passed me towards the end (I think she was the third place female) and I tried to jog when she jogged, and walk when she walked. This helped tow me in to the aid station, where I got a cup of delicious hot salty Ramen broth and a bit of cookie.

After the Loop:Out aid station, things kind of run together in my mind like an Impressionist painting - there was running, pain, drinking, eating, suffering, and constant forward motion, but no distinctive bits that stick out to give form to the whole thing. Except for the massive climb right before I got to the last trail section - that stands out like someone rubbing a cheese grater across the painting. It was big, pretty burly, and went on for a good bit longer than I would have liked; but then again, every section after the Loop went on longer than I think I would have liked.

A guy and a girl passed me right before the entrance to the final trail section, and I chased them as best I could. I knew that the section was fantastically long, and that if I had some people to mentally latch on to I would have a better chance of distracting myself from how much I wanted to stop and sit down. I was able to keep up with them until we passed a trailer sitting in the middle of the woods (odd place for that), after which I just let go and kept shuffling forward at my own pace, jogging the downhills and forcing myself to jog as much as possible on the false flats. 

After a time period roughly equivalent to the passage of the Cretaceous period, I finally emerged from the woods at the last aid station, 3.75 actual miles from the finish (not Horton miles). Jordan, being the super nice guy that he is, was standing there waiting for his wife to come through so he could finish with her. I informed him of how thoroughly he had kicked my ass earlier in the day, and set off on my last few miles of the day. 

All day, I'd been avoiding looking at my Garmin for information other than my heart rate and elevation gain. I've realized that constantly dwelling on how far I've gone and how much time has elapsed is a real mind-killer, especially if you feel that you're not meeting whatever goals you've set for yourself.  But now that I had less than four miles to run, I was free to obsess about it as much as I wanted! I realized that a sub 9:30 finish was within my grasp as long as I didn't stop too much. I wasn't worried about slowing down, because at this point I really only had one pace that I could put my motor into. I stopped once or twice for about 15 seconds to stretch my legs and to wiggle my ankles, which at this point felt like someone had been beating them with a baseball bat.

Eventually I popped out onto the nicer dirt road downhill, which turned into the paved down hill, which turned into the flat. I kept telling myself to just jog it in, which I did - nice and easy, not pushing anything. I crossed the line with a big grin on my face, sat down in a chair for a few minutes, watched some other runners come in, and then boarded the bus back to Lynchburg for the post-race dinner and the awards ceremony where I'd get my super awesome Lynchburg Ultra Series sweater jacket. Another awesome MMTR in the books!

A view of The Priest from the bus ride back to Lynchburg

.... epilogue: I did notice that when I got back to Baltimore and couldn't walk without a substantial limp that my right ankle was pretty swollen... but then the next day it felt OK. =D