Susan Donnelly

Mt. Mist is the kick off for the ultra race year in the Southeast and where you see all your friends together at one race.  Everyone is here.  Unfortunately, Rob and I missed the social pre-race dinner the night before so we will just have to see everyone we can during the race.

On the way up to Monte Sano, Rob says “you’re incredibly consistent on this course.  You always finish around 6 hours.”  “Really?”  I hate to have time pressure on me.

We pull in to the full parking lot, driving by runners with grim, intense looks on their faces running back and forth from their cars to the registration table inside the park lodge.  No one is smiling.  We open the cars doors.  It’s 42 degrees, which is warm for January, but the 30 mph wind chill is packing a whallop and the grey skies don’t look promising.

We register, take care of last-minute details and join the crowd amassing at the starting line.  There are so many friends here I want to talk to and the first ones I see are Zane Smith and Leonard Martin.  We’ve just started talking when…

Bang!

The shotgun blast cuts us off mid-sentence and we all turn in unison with the river of 268 brightly-colored runners in full-bore adrenaline rush with one immediate goal – make it to the trailhead first.  We squeeze down into a lumpy dirt road and runners jostle for place like rapids, as if seconds here will make or break their race.  Moments later, the river takes a sharp right, spilling onto the paved road that leads to the trailhead and the runners fan out, the faster ones sprinting ahead.

I’m bobbing along at what feels like a fast stride, trying to lock into a form that won’t bash my problem knee at a pace I can hold for the rest of the race, but despite all the work, Leonard and Zane begin drifting effortlessly ahead.  Leonard’s even talking causally to someone about running with poles.  I’m huffing and puffing along, an ungainly log floating along with lots of buoyant little sticks.  Vague memories of running fast seem to belong to someone else, light years away.  I feel old and decrepit.  Grrr…

And just when this fast road stuff is starting to get truly uncomfortable and the pace is getting truly depressing, the river does exactly what I remember most about this race – it pools into a deep unmoving pond at the trailhead, the place I really do want to run.  Sigh..

First half

Feet on dirt!  Ahhh…they want to dance but I’m stuck behind a interminable line, as usual, that’s picking it’s way (read: walk) down the first easy downhill.  After enduring this little ritual, I arrive at the bottom where the crowd dilutes onto a dual-width dirt road and there’s actually a fair amount of open trail ahead.

It’s reassuring in a way to know this race is working as usual.  People always sprint to the trailhead, I feel as fast as a rock, they slow way down on the trail where I want to go, clogging it up in long lines, so the first half of this race is usually spent passing.

Each pass costs concentration and physical work to safely and politely pass the runner ahead, especially long lines of them.  The passes total up to a sizable withdrawal from the bank account before I can settle into a clear zone and focus on running and the trail.

We reach the long sandy road at the top of the hill that switchbacks on a parallel trail so you can see the other runners.  A runner behind me has been jabbering non-stop to his mute companion for half a mile and once we hit the narrow trail switchback, I can’t tune him out.  Blah, blah, blah…just when I’m about to consider stopping to let them run out of earshot, the mute companion interrupts to say (in a very diplomatic way) he can’t keep up the conversation because talking takes work that needs to be devoted to running at the moment.  Bless him.  We run on in peace.

To my delight, the pack thins out faster than usual and I relax.  My breath sounds in my ears.  I haven’t focused on my approach to the race today.  Causal run?  Race?  The fast early pace was simply an attempt to avoid the usual passing work but it actually doesn’t seem that bad.  The rocks and runnable trail make this a fun course to take fast, so maybe I will….but how fast do I go?  It’s been so long since I’ve raced, I’m not sure what a sustainable race pace feels like.

Hmm.  I’d forgotten to memorize the mileage of the aid stations, so they won’t help me judge level of effort.  I fret about pace and try to guess mileage until I mentally throw up my hands and just decide to make it simple: 3 hours for the first half, 3 hours for the second.  What Rob said.

The first half rolls by.  I see Dreama Campbell, not running due to illness, at an aid station, splash through puddles, and try not to churn through mud that’s too thick to make it worth the effort.  Racing’s fine but I don’t want to get injured.

At a road crossing, I look down at my watch at the exact moment a lone volunteer shouts out “you’re halfway there.”  It reads 3:00.  Even though it costs extra effort I have to laugh.

Second half

The second half is more fun – more rocks.  And it’s also muddier.

I catch up with Zane and we run for a bit, mostly in companionable silence into the Land Trust.  There’s not many people I can do this with.

The person in the Land Trust raccoon suit wasn’t out this year to greet us.  I miss that.  Nothing like seeing a smiling, 6-foot tall raccoon welcoming you in the middle of nowhere to brighten your day.

I lose Zane at an aid station but he’s tough and will certainly catch back up.

My form starts getting a bit rough around the edges as I reach the uber-rocky railroad bed section.  Oh well, it doesn’t last forever.  As I negotiate the rocks, I can’t help but remember encountering a runner I knew here one year, cussing up a loud storm with every step.  The memory’s worth another laugh.

Waterline is coming up soon and I decide to run some of it like I used to.  For ego’s sake.

Sure enough, there’s the turn up Waterline.  I jog enough sections to keep me from feeling too old and decrepit.  When I reach the climb up (and for those who’ve never been here, it’s literally a climb up a cliff), I find myself behind a young kid who says he doesn’t like 50ks and isn’t doing well.  He’s climbing fine but probably doesn’t realize it.  I relate a story that’s been on my mind all day:

A friend of mine at work has pancreatic cancer, an incredibly aggressive cancer.  He’s been through chemo and radiation in the last year and his marker enzyme had reached normal range at 19.  Life has been going well until just before the holidays when the marker jumped to frightening 900.  He was quickly put through more tests but they can’t find it and the marker is staying high.  He’s essentially staring death in the face.  The point?  I’d rather be out here and alive, even on a “bad” day.

The story doesn’t seem to help the kid, but he’ll be ok, so I climb on.  The climb seems easier, or at least less intimidating, than it used to be.

Angela Ivory gives me a huge Angela smile and a big “Susan!” as I run into her aid station just off Monte Sano Boulevard.  I tell her to tell Rob to “hurry up,” and that I’ll come back out to run in with him, then take off.  The wind is cold and I’m ready to be done.  A handful of steps down the trail and I kick myself for committing to run back in with Rob.  It would be so nice to get dry and stop moving.

A tenth of a mile from the aid station, I catch fast runners Jeff Bryan and Gary Griffin.  Neither is having a good day and the mud here is pretty deep, making it slow going.  My friend’s cancer story comes out again on it’s own and Gary agrees it’s good to be alive.  I pull away, intent on getting done, but just before I get out of easy earshot, Gary says “Thanks for telling that story.  We can get pretty sorry for ourselves out here.”  How true.

The remainder goes so fast.  The steep, mucky, eroded, downhill, the last uphill, then the 2 miles on the top of the hill to the finish.  I sit down on the nearby rock wall in time to see Zane finish, sure enough, only two minutes behind me.

Fini

It’s cold with wet clothes on and the wind blowing like crazy but I committed to go back out and run back in with Rob (Note to self: think twice before ever doing that again).  Kathy Youngren kindly agrees to turn in my finisher’s card so I don’t have to take my shoes off to go in the lodge.  I’d never get the mud-caked things back on my feet.  Zane and I talk in the meantime, trying to ignore the incredibly cold wind.

When Kathy returns, Zane and I head our separate ways.  I jog to the car and put on all the dry upper body layers I brought, including a dry running bra, and head out to meet Rob looking like the Michelin Man.  A metatarsal that kicked up a fuss in the last 5 miles is now screaming at me, so I go to a beautiful overlook, check out the view, and decide that’s far enough, I’ll wait there.

It’s fun cheering the other runners on and telling them they’re done but surprising to see how many fast runners are behind me, having a bad day.  It really must happen to everyone now and then.  As I tell Jim Musselman when he runs by (having a bad day), it’s the really good runners that stick it out on tough days.

Rob finally appears with Sue Buckingham, a former ultrarunner from Vermont who has moved down to Alabama and started running ultras again.  She’s fun to run with and I forget the metatarsal and ungrateful knee as I join them.

The running year doesn’t really start until Mist.  It’s good to see everyone later in the lodge.  Rob and I eat with Rick Caffy, Leonard Martin, Sarah Tynes, and Mike Montgomery, then hang out with Rob and Kathy Youngren and Dink and Suzanne Taylor (RD) until it’s time to close the lodge.

What a good day.  According to stat-loving Rob, I passed 80 people (“really?!?”) and finished in the same time range as normal.  Maybe I’m not so old and decrepit.  And even if I am, or when I am, it will still be better to be out here and alive than not.

Posted: Sunday, January 31, 2010, 3:34 pm | Tags: Blog | Respond | Trackback