Susan Donnelly

Since I’m headed to see my parents over the holidays, this was the last race I could schedule into the year.  I’ve never run it and have been looking forward to it.  Rob last ran the race in 1993 when he says it took everything he had to finish.  He remembers it being really tough.

The only catch for both of us was injury.  My hip flexor was still unhappy from Ozark 100 and Rob was still healing up from a separated shoulder and heel injury.  We both needed to take it slow here so didn’t miss any running in the upcoming weeks, especially during the holidays.

On the map, the course looked kind of a lollipop with another lollipop at the top, if you can picture that.  It meant we diverged away from the returning runners twice, which would be nice.

We navigated carefully to the start and still arrived perilously close to the start with little hope of finding a parking place in time to pick up our packets and get ready to go.  Janice Anderson’s husband Craig appeared like an angel out of the darkness with and escorted us with a smile to “VIP parking.”

It was still somewhat dark and 28 degrees outside the warm car.  Every breath turned into a little cloud as Sarah Tynes (RD) herded the runners up to the road for the start.

Out

After receiving the Sarah Lecture on flagging and whatnot, we started, looping a crescent around the picnic shelter parking lot to the trailhead into the woods.  In this low area of pines, it looked just dark enough to kind of, almost, need a headlamp to navigate safely over the roots and rocks lying in wait under a thin layer of needles and leaves.  Not that it helped.  Rob fell in the first couple of tenths.

We climbed a small, rocky bluff with a great view of the reddish sunrise.  No more headlamps.  It was going to be a warm and sunny day.  For winter, anyway.

While everyone else furiously negotiating places, I was trying to negotiate with my hip.  It complained viciously, every step, and I couldn’t seem to work out a truce.  Miles passed and nothing convinced it to cooperate.  I couldn’t even talk comfortably, so halfway listened to the conversations while keeping eyes glued to the leaf-covered trail.  Could I finish?  Should I?  This thing needed to heal soon and not linger into next year.  There were trails I wanted to run!

As usual, Rob had said I’d be two hours ahead of him.  Yeah, right.  That obviously wasn’t going to be the case even though the very runnable trail wound through some choice bouldery bluffs, beautiful curves, and fun rock gardens.  It was so very frustrating to come around a corner and see a delicious bit of trail I’d love to fly through, only to have to hold back.

So I did what I’d been doing in training since Ozark – shortened stride and avoided wobbly or slippery footsteps like the plague.  Eventually, I got to a point where the hip wasn’t getting worse.  An armed cease-fire.

That managed, I chatted a little with Jo Lena Pace about her new house and the almost-remodeled kitchen.  Both of us were hoarse in the cold and it was all too easy to imagine sitting in the warm, sunny, Tuscan-inspired kitchen sipping a mug of hot chocolate.

After the first aid station, I had a bit of trail to myself.  With eyes mindlessly spotting stealth rocks and roots cloaked by the leaves, ears started to listen to the morning…steps swishing the leaves, tiny rivulets gurgling, voices appearing and disappearing in the curves, the bird community chattering and singing, and the first gunshot of the day.

A lone set of footsteps slowly crunched up behind me and held, right as I heard a larger-than-squirrel rustling to my left.  I glanced up to the left to see a dark, shiny buck running parallel to me (and just a tiny bit faster…) on the adjacent bank, muscles rippling, white tail up and all.  He was magnificent.  I pointed to the buck as he disappeared and turned back to the other runner to ask if he’d seen it, but he had earphones in.  Shame.  A few minutes later, a gunshot burst from the direction the buck had run.  I sent out a prayer and hoped it wasn’t him.

The third aid station had our drop bag.  A couple of other runners were already there and Rob arrived shortly after.  I ditched my headlamp and wool Buff, assuming it would get warmer.  Just past the aid station, the trail rounded a shoulder and came into the breeze.  Ack!  Where was that Buff?!

Now that the line had thinned, all was peaceful and quiet…until the yelling of someone in distress broke the silence.  Jo Lena, a switchback below me, was trying to cross a huge tree that completely barred the trail.  Oak bark doesn’t make comfortable sliding when you’re wearing shorts.  She was not a happy camper.

And a minute after the tree, neither was I.  One shoe kicked a rock at the other ankle bone and rolled it on the bone again for good measure, taking the rest of me down in the process.  It hurt so much I could hardly breathe.  The tidal wave oh-so-slowly subsided and thankfully no one came by while I pulled myself together.  Sigh.  Well, Rob was close behind.  Why even pretend to race today? I sat and waited a couple of minutes for him to catch up (“hey honey, take a spill?”  Hm, how perceptive…).  With weight on it, the ankle tried to act broken.  No way.  Some tough love and it eventually cooperated so I could run.

Moving along, Rob and I soon pulled in behind Jo Lena at the start of the outer, turnaround loop, so the three of us stuck together for a while, trading places off and on with Jason Sullivan.

At the farthest aid station, Rob introduced me to friends and old-time ultrarunners Larry Robbins and Doyle Carpenter, names I recognized.

The trail was turning out to be much prettier than I’d expected and kept changing it’s look, showing off, and why not?  Loblolly pine forests with needles carpeting the ground, rock outcroppings with view of the valley below, open oak-hickory woodland, trail lined with bright green velvety moss, creeks lined with green rivercane, and waterfalls appearing out of tunnels of green mountain laurel.  There was a good reason this was a state park.  My friend Shane would enjoy this trail (mental note – get him signed up next year).

Back

The aid station at the end of the far lollipop loop had several volunteers, with Janette Maas front and center.  What a happy surprise!  I hadn’t seen her since the Cumberland Trail 50k.  She’s planning to try her first 100 this year – yay – go Janette!

Heading back toward the start, the low winter sun was now pleasantly in our faces, clearly shining up the beaten-down leaves of the trail.  I love winter sun like this.  Rob and I traded places here and there with Jason Sullivan, who always seemed to be on the other side of a tree when I tried to snap a pic.

Just outside of the mile 28 aid station, we came upon a guy who had sprained his ankle back at mile 6.  Now the size of a grapefruit, the ankle didn’t appear too happy about the intervening 22 miles.  Neither did the attached runner.  Incredibly though, this was the only runner we’d seen all day who even remotely looked like DNFing.  People were running well.

There were no other runners on the trail nearby, just us and an occasional pair of horse riders on adjacent trails.  We had the place to ourselves.  The day had warmed and fittingly, we passed one last blue gentian by a stream and a couple of itty bitty goldenrods hanging on for their last glimpse of sun.

The motto for the rest of the day was “easy and comfortable.”  In no hurry, the miles still disappeared in conversation.  One runner’s Italian-flag shorts got us talking about the 70s trend of flag shorts, then buying our first running shorts, then the old brands like Dolphin (anyone remember those?), then what brand was the shamrock logo on my first blue with gold trim (guy’s) shorts, then Rob listed the brand names he could remember, then we found the answer, Sub-4 (wow, there’s some old trivia!).  Sun in our faces, peaceful woods, good company…the right ingredients for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Oops, but what about the hip!?!  Oddly enough, I’d forgotten it because it felt much better than on the way out.  That made no sense (not that I wanted it to hurt).  How could this be?  Rob theorized that the opposing muscles had relaxed enough to support the hurt muscles better.  Hm, well, whatever.  It was just nice for the blanket of pain to be gone.  Maybe it would leave for good.

At the mile 34 aid station, Rob’s found some mini chocolate muffins to satisfy his low blood sugar and I got to feed a couple of pretzels to a volunteer’s beautiful brindle-colored dog.  Perfect, simple pleasures.

A few wispy clouds filtered the late afternoon sun but there was probably still plenty of time to finish in the light.  We descended what had to be the last downhill and caught up one more time with Jason, who was leading three other guys in the darkening woods.

Almost done?  Slow pace or not, this race slipped away faster than most.  We just started – how could we be done?  Where did that time go?!?

As I was marvelling over the fast day, we trotted out of the woods and Sarah yelled from the far side of the grassy field, “it’s about damn time!”

The Finish

Really a good thing we weren’t faster – the finish tent was now blocking my car in.  So much for VIP parking!  Sarah proudly presented us with a great finisher’s vest and a hug and we went inside the picnic building to scarf some hot veggie chili.  Ahh.  It’s a good life.

Having Friday and Saturday to get other stuff done was nice but it was also tough to have everyone (including us) ready to leave the instant they were done.  Monday morning comes early but we at least managed to chat with Jeff Bryan, Janice Anderson, Sarah Tynes (RD), David Ray, Jo Lena Pace, Janette Maas, and Andrew Hackett before everyone scattered to the winds.

Talking on the way home, Rob was surprised to realize the race wasn’t as hard as he remembered.  True, he’d run it when it was a 46-miler instead of a 40, but the footing and course toughness weren’t remotely as bad as he remembered.  And now that he thought about it, it was one of the first trail ultras he’d done after years of road and not knowing what to expect, the new experience wasn’t a happy one.  He had decided never to return to this one and didn’t…until I needed to schedule something different than Hellgate 100k in December.  Here he was, 17 years later, an all-out trail aficionado running all the trails he can get.  He’s come a long, long way.

My own long view extended ahead to the upcoming schedule.  This was just one of all the races and fun, exploring runs coming up.  Ok, so I didn’t run today like I wanted to but investing in healing time was worth it if I could run pain-free, sooner.  To run a little faster today just to get a different number on the clock just wasn’t worth a setback.  And really, how could some number but more important than the experience?  Good memories come from fun you have.  One number was just as good as another as long as I got to finish and see the whole trail.

I’d been wanting to do this race since 1997, and for one reason and another, didn’t get there until now.  I’m really glad I did.  The experience was well worth the wait.

Posted: Friday, December 11, 2009, 4:52 pm | Tags: Blog | Respond | Trackback