Susan Donnelly

March 20, 2010.  Birmingham, Alabama…

What Is It About This Race???

Okay.

Last year, two hours into a four and a half hour drive, my trusty Subaru blew a hose in Chattanooga and I waited hours to get it towed back home (thank goodness for AAA!).  En route, the tow truck driver dropped me off at the Chattanooga airport where I rented a car and drove the remaining 2 and a half hours, arriving at midnight for the 6:00 a.m. race.  Ridiculous.

This year, after a hectic week of working late and cramming other tasks into every free minute, I found myself with a spare hour before I needed to start towards Birmingham so I dropped by the Verizon store to get some annoying software errors fixed.  After three complete hours of “15 more minutes,” I got my phone back with more problems than before (they said they’d mail me a new one) and bolted from the store.  Rob and I cancelled our dinner plans and I got there around 10:30 p.m. frazzled from the rushed drive and unable to sleep.

At Least We’re Here

No surprise then that I woke tired, grouchy, and still overly stressed from the effort it took to get there that I simply didn’t feel like running.  Wasn’t interested.  Wasn’t interested in becoming interested.  Didn’t want to.  Couldn’t pretend.  But since there were few options, all less appealing than running the race (Drive straight home?  Watch the race?) I dressed to run and drove the short distance to the race, figuring I might as well go through one motion at a time until a better option presented itself.

Once there, I immediately saw friend and training partner Shane Hege with newcomer Kathy Smith and crewed by wife Leslie.  I also ran into Jo Lena Pace, then Bruce Tanksley and Diane Taylor with newcomer Naresh Kumar.  Also, Orlando Baez, Henry Blackford, friend and training partner Leonard Martin, and Caroline Williams.  Everyone was so ready to go…maybe it would rub off on me.

Might as well putt through the course to at least get in the workout miles.  That would be much easier than trying to log the miles tomorrow at home.  So when RD Scott Parker gave the start, I trotted up the road with Shane, Rob, Orlando and Leonard.

They chivalrously let me go ahead at the trailhead but the first mile or two were a chaotic mish-mash of runners chattering, runners slowing down on trail, runners passing without warning, runners walking downhill, and runners walking uphill.  No big deal, the first part is like a rollercoaster where people exhaust themselves anyway.  Let them do it.

I tried to stay out of the way and pass only those I was sure to stay ahead of, and soon free trail was mine.  It wasn’t exactly enthusiasm but I could roll through something like this for another several hours.  It was do-able.  We reached an unmanned aid station and I stopped to top off my bottle.

Then a wonderful thing happened.  I was leading a loose line of six or so runners up a small ridge-let when I heard a noise downhill to our left.  It persisted longer than a squirrel and was coming closer.  Looking down from the ridge, I saw a deer.  Make that two.  And they were bucks.  I stopped and so did everyone else behind me.  Entranced, we watched the bucks fly at full speed down the draw to our left and, amazingly, in between two runners behind me.  We all “wowed” for a moment, laughing at our good fortune, before resuming the race.  It might just be a good day!

The Lake

Not long after, we reached the point where the trail climbs up next to a spillway.  At the top, the trail snakes around the edge of the small lake created by the spillway.  As you run in and out of the mini coves, you can see the runners ahead and behind you.  Two runners were within sight ahead and a line was not far behind me.

A cove or two later, two voices emerged behind me.  They had to pass soon, right?  I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  The voices got closer…closer…closer.  My thoughts kept getting hijacked by their conversation.  I was tempted to stop and let them by but I was running so comfortably I resisted.  Finally, the man and woman passed me at a creek crossing and I got my own space and thoughts back.

They pulled ahead and I placed my attention back on the course markings and making my left leg work right.  I was not going to get lost and my left knee was going to have a good race.

The three of us eventually came to a familiar section of course – a wide, rocky dirt road up a long hill.  Something seemed off.  I looked for a course marker and soon enough, one appeared, a red one, the same color we’d been on.  I thought.  Still, my intuition said something was amiss, that we weren’t supposed to be here yet.  Time in ultras disappears quickly but this seemed a little off.  Still, the other two runners were ahead and there were footprints at the creek crossings (though maybe not enough?).  I continued on uneasily.

An hour earlier, you couldn’t have convinced me it could happen but I was starting to feel strong.  I topped the hill, rounded the corner and picked up the pace to the aid station I knew lay ahead.  I’d finished my bottle a ways back and was dry.

Sure enough, the junction marking was there and so was the woman runner who’d passed me.

But the coolers weren’t.

We Can’t Be Lost!

This was bad, very bad.  We were here too early.  The coolers must not have been set out yet and there was no one else around.  In fact, I hadn’t seen anyone but the three of us for a suspiciously long time.  Think, think, think!

The woman, who introduced herself as Sonia, said she’d taken a break and hadn’t seen where her companion had gone.  She said she lived here but this was the first time at the race.

“Which way?” she asked.

Great.  The junction was a four-way, flagged white to the left, white to the right, red where we’d come from, and red straight ahead (see photo at top of post).  The course is marked with different colors for different segments and of course I couldn’t remember the order.  I was pretty sure we didn’t go left.  I was not sure but I couldn’t remember going on the section to the right twice and we ran it later for sure, so that was probably out.  I thought I remembered running the road straight ahead at some point and of the four options, that made the best sense.

“I think we go straight.  I think.  Which way is Peavine Falls?  Is it this way?”

“Yes,” she said.  We started off straight ahead.  “At least I think so.”

Argh.

So we went straight.  Sonia was good company and carried the conversation while I kept on hyper-alert for the left-hand turn I was counting on.  It was one thing to mess up my own race but I didn’t want to be responsible for leading her astray too.

After a while, we spotted Sonia’s companion ahead but the road turned downhill.  It looked alarmingly like stuff we do after Peavine Falls and I was just about to stop and turn around when a white truck labored toward us on the rocky road.  I knew who it was.

Sure enough, it was Scott coming to set out the coolers at the aid station we’d passed.

“You’re going the wrong way!”

Yes, We’re Lost

Well, that settled that.  Now what?  Scott thought hard and finally figured out where we’d probably gone wrong (following that tiny yellow/red blazing instead of the yellow flagging) and where we needed to go to hook up with the course again.  He gave us directions to get back on course but said it would probably be short.  I hated to complicate Scott’s day but also hated to DNF, so I offered to go back to where we went wrong but Scott said this would be close.

Okay.  I ran all the way back up the hill, partly to blow off frustration.  Come all this way, get here late, don’t feel like running, do it anyway only to DNF.  And even the weekend after the runner got lost at Three Days of Syllamo.  Grrr.  Well, it’s my own faulty navigation.  No one else but us had gone wrong.

I got back to the unmanned aid station and went backwards on the white trail (startling the front runners who were already coming through the correct and opposite direction) to the head of the Blue-White Connector at a stream where the bridge had washed out.  A small, brown water snake plopped into the creek while I figured out a way across.  I climbed the few yards up the hill and reconnected with the course on the blue trail, exactly as Scott had directed.  Some runners were coming from behind – bet they’d wonder where I came from!

I was back on course but going to DNF.  I was still kicking myself for the wrong turn, and ran past Peavine Falls without paying much attention.  I was working hard to let go of my expectations and reframe the day in a positive way, reminding myself of the impermanence of things, when a young girl came from behind, working hard to pass me on the road into the Peavine aid station.  It was funny – she didn’t know I wasn’t really in the race any more and I didn’t feel like saying anything to remove that illusion.

Peavine, Finally

Since I’d missed earlier stations and only had a bottle and a half thus far, I tanked up here.  It was a warm day and would be easy to get dehydrated even if I’d made all the aid stations.

Scott was there and I offered to run some extra mileage at the end to make up for the missed mileage and Scott said he’d thought about it some more and the distance was probably about the same.  The words had no sooner left his lips than two runners I’d been near on the lakeshore arrived at the aid station.  I was like a time warp, like the past hour had never happened.

I jogged out of the aid station.  This was my favorite part of the course along a beautiful ridge line with plenty of fun running.  The sun was out and a breeze was blowing.  Renewed and back in the race, I felt (dare I think it?) perky.  I swooped around the curves and played down the rocky descents.

The next thing I knew, I was at another aid station and feeling good.  Natalie Sims was there and I caught up to her heading back up the same gravel road I’d been lost on earlier, only this time I was supposed to be here.

Natalie wasn’t feeling good so I left her in peace.  And voila, at the same unmanned aid station as before, the coolers were there.

This time, going straight was correct.  Back on hyper-alert for the left turn off the road, I found it and followed it back to the Peavine aid station.  I was feeling stronger than before and knew where this went to the finish.  Even if I’d DNFed the running was turning out great and it would have been a good day.

Speeding Up

I left the aid station running down the road to the trail.  The warmth of the day felt great after such a long, hard winter.  This felt like the first real chance to thaw.  I hit the trailhead and started passing runners.  I could picture the course from here to the finish and knew I couldn’t go wrong.  All I had to do was make the best of the running and enjoy it.

I actually felt like speeding up.  There was plenty of Go left in the tank and I kept passing runners.  Even the section with the interminable switchbacking was fun.  I didn’t want to leave feeling like I’d half-run so I upped the speed.

I’d just passed another woman, probably within a mile of the finish, and was opening up the throttle even more when there was the sound of tires on the trail behind me.  Running strong and breathing hard, I waited for the rider to ask for a side.

“Bike!”

Um, okay, I knew that.  “Which side?” I yelled and edged over a bit to the right.

Silence.

“Bike!!!”

That was it.  “What the &^#% do you want me to do?!?”

“I was just asking you to let me by!”

“And I asked you which side!!!”  I yelled as I stepped off trail.  Better to stop and get rid of him than mess around with him any longer.  I took a deep breath, re-grounded myself and took got back to running.

Diving For the Plate

A few switchbacks later, there was a really choice, straight, smooth section cushioned by pine needles.  The kind runners dream about.  Throttle wide-open, rpms inching toward redline, I flew along with the most graceful stride I’d managed in months until – oomph – I found myself flying through the air, superman-style.

Wham!  I skidded along the trail like a baseball player diving for home and felt the whiplash hit my neck.

Slowly, I gathered my breath and stood up.  Pine needles and dirt covered my entire front and my elbow and a knee were scraped.  My ribs took most of the impact and would be sore tomorrow.  Otherwise, ok.  I trotted a few steps to get my bearing and gradually upped the pace again.  After everything else, this race was going to end on a good note.

And it did.  I felt 10 times stronger in the last mile than when I’d started and could have gone another 50k.  Friends finished one after another and we all had fun picnicking in the warm, sunny afternoon at the shelter.  This cookout is one of the best post-race gatherings and a fun party.

And yes.  It was a good day after all.

Posted: Thursday, April 8, 2010, 9:58 pm | Tags: Blog | Respond | Trackback