26 January 2014

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Our entire ultra training group before race start.
This is my first ultra marathon finish race report since 2012, when what seemed like a minor ankle injury during a soccer match just 4 days after my second Pinhoti 100 attempt turned into something a lot more major and complicated. Less than 12 months after what hopefully will have been my last surgery and hospital visit for a while, I was able to toe the starting line of the Mountain Mist 50K.

I wasn't really prepared to run this race. I was making progress in my recovery, but I continued to take two steps forward and one step back. Just 2 weeks before the race, I went back to my ankle surgeon to check on an issue. Thankfully, he reassured me that everything had healed perfectly and cleared me to run. Unfortunately, an intense one week work related class kept me from training yet another week and before I knew it, race day had arrived. Further reassurances from some of my fellow training buddies whose training hadn't gone according to plan, either (read: severely undertrained is an understatement) convinced me to try to run. The goal was to finish under the 8 hour cutoff, so I would get an official fourth finish at Mountain Mist.

I met up with Rich at his place at 6:30am to make sure we wouldn't miss the 7am race start check in. It seemed Mike was running late, so my antsy @$$ decided to head up the mountain ahead of them to get checked in and mingle with some of the familiar out of town runners that I hadn't seen in a while, most of them GUTS runners from the Atlanta, GA area.

Our entire training group had signed up for this race: Jerry Abbott, James Duncan, Ed Johnson, Mike Trice, Richard Trice and myself. Thankfully, everyone made it in time for our obligatory pre-race group photo. Half of us were ready to PR and the other half was ready for a long day in the woods.

Ed, Jerry and James lined up near the front of the pack while Rich, Mike and I found the tailend of the field. I planned to run conservative from start to finish. It had worked perfectly for me during the Rocket City Marathon and it was in line with my new mantra, keep it slow and steady, speed is not important right now.

The race course had been modified this year to allow for a larger field of runners and to allow the front of the pack to spread before entering single track trail that would make passing more difficult. However, this approach really only worked for the front pack. The back of the pack continued to create trains at just about any uphill and downhill section of the race.

The three of us in the back kept to our slow pace and it worked. None of us really had a serious drop off in physical or mental determination to finish this thing. Well, if we did, none if us verbalized it. The result was a long trail run with a positive attitude and engaging conversations through the day. The only complaints to be heard were related to the windchill that would frequently chill us to the bone throughout the day and keep us from shedding ANY of our three to four layers.

As the day progressed and I realized that I was likely to finish this race, I became even more enthusiastic. I was still able to run ultras after all and I was actually able to finish them. I realized that I might still be an ultra runner after all, albeit without any speed. Who cares, I can work on speed later. Rich and Mike were a large factor to me finishing this thing as I'm not sure I would've stayed the course for almost 8 hours without their company and reciprocal encouragement. The scenery provided an amazing backdrop to our adventure with frozen waterfalls, and the ever popular stone cuts. It made climbing waterline trail and the other sections almost "a walk in the park". Well, it was a walk based on our actual pace:-)

When we started to hear the cheers at the finish line about 1.5 miles out, I started to get choked up just a little. We all relied on each other to finish today's race from start to finish, so it was only fitting that we decided to cross the finish line together, not holding hands in a "Kumbaya" kind of way (we wanted to maintain some type of manliness), but next to each other nonetheless. We were the last of our training group to finish, but it seemed today provided to be a challenging race day for all of us, with times slower than initially anticipated. However, a finish is a finish and that is all that mattered to me. After all, I am one of the ones lucky enough to be able to be out here, period. Hopefully, there are many more ultra attempts and finishes in my future. With friends and running buddies like these, I don't see why not:-)

First ultra marathon finish since my return thanks to the Trices.


Jerry ran so fast, he was gone when the last of us finished:-)

12 January 2014

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I signed up for this one last minute. The goal was to have a good time and to finish without hurting myself. I managed to do just that. With a finish time of 1 hour 46 minutes, I ran it 20 minutes slower than last time, but that's ok. My mantra for this year is to enjoy every mile run without any regard for pace or PRs. I want to stay healthy. I figure a year at easy pace will allow me to do just that.

I arrived at the race with 20 minutes to spare, enough time to pick up my race packet and chat with Benj and Cary and some other folks I hadn't seen in a while. It had been raining heavily the days prior, so we all knew it was going to be muddy, but I don't think anyone was prepared for just how muddy it really was. Actually, muddy was an understatement. Half of the course was literally under water.

It was a lot of fun to watch folks try to avoid the water and puddles for the first 2 miles. By then, every single runner realized that there was no way to avoid it and started to finally just plow through it. I used this opportunity to use my awesome Christmas present from my wife (GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition), recording all but the last 10 minutes of the race as my battery died. However, I haven't been able to edit the video just yet. Apparently, 30GB of HD video requires a lot of computing power. Oh well, it's gonna take me a while, but I hope to end up with some cool footage from this one.

My race plan as to start slow and to keep it steady. I did that until the last 2 miles when I tried to pick it up just a little. I crossed the finish line slightly winded, but within 5 minutes, I felt recovered, no stiff muscle feeling or any other painful movements for that matter. While I used to love to gun for a PR every chance I got, I do prefer not having aching muscle and joint pains after an event and being able to go for a run the next day without extreme muscle soreness.

I was glad to see a lot of familiar faces. Mountain Mist is next, but I will be glad just to toe the starting line.


US STATES WITH 100 MILE RACES COMPLETED (15)

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COUNTRIES WITH ULTRAMARATHONS COMPLETED (13)

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RACE CALENDAR

  • Mount Mitchell Heartbreaker 50M (Old Fort, NC) - March 23, 2024
  • Oak Mountain 50K (Birmingham, AL) - March 30, 2024
  • Southern States 200M (Delta, AL) April 12-16, 2024
  • Cocodona 250M (Black Canyon City, AZ) - May 6-11, 2024
  • Mohican 100M (Loudonville, OH) - June 1, 2024
  • Bighorn 100M (Dayton, WY) - June 14, 2024
  • Crazy Mountain 100M (Lennep, MT) - July 26, 2024
  • Eastern States 100M (Waterville, PA) - August 10, 2024
  • SwissPeaks 360 (Valais, Switzerland) - September 1-8, 2024
  • Indiana Trail 100M (Albion, IN) - October 12, 2024
  • Rim To River 100M (New River Gorge, WV) - November 2, 2024 (WAITLIST #99)
  • Charleston 100M (Mount Pleasant, SC) - December 27, 2024
  • The Montane Winter Spine 268M (Edale, UK) - January 12-19, 2025

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