2011 Ultra Race Of Champions

Seems about time to throw a true disaster tale into the mix. This week's off day throwback race report is from my ill-fated brush with the best.

Run September 24, 2011

Elite. As with many positive adjectives, overuse has robbed much of its meaning. Even in cases where the standard is objective, the criteria are bewilderingly inconsistent. The Houston Marathon considers you elite if you can cover the distance faster than five minutes per mile. Choice Hotels sets the bar a bit lower; book 10 rooms in a year and you've got it. And, while Houston wants no part of me and Choice Hotels regularly sends me emails noting I'm just short of their threshold, the selection committee at the Ultra Race Of Champions (UROC) seemed to think I was worthy of the designation. So it was that I travelled to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to toe the line with some of the best ultra runners in the world.

My Carol's Team mate (and designer of our jerseys and logo), Kevin Robertson, will be crewing for me. He lives on the east coast and picks me up at the Baltimore airport. From there, heavy rain and heavy traffic slow our progress such that we don't get to Wintergreen Resort until shortly before the "Meet the Elites" panel is to convene at 7PM. With runners like Geoff Roes and Dave Mackey present, I'm certainly not the star attraction, but Race Directors J. Russell Gill and Francesca Conte (who simply go by "Gill and Fran") seem genuinely happy that I've made it. Twenty or so of the elite field are on hand to field questions. The event lasts about an hour, after which I get in a short jog and some dinner before heading to bed.

UROC has negotiated some excellent rates with Wintergreen so we stay at a condo only half a mile from the start/finish. While that obviates the normal race morning rush, I still wake up at 4:30AM so I can get my oatmeal and coffee two hours ahead of the 7AM start. The morning is damp and cool. A few gaps in the mostly cloudy sky to the east reveal a very pleasing sunrise just as the elites are being called to the line.

Gill says we'll be running a "parade lap" around the parking lot and back through the start to string things out a bit before hitting the trail. I don't know if the time counts or not, but the men's field seems to think it does and heads off at something approaching my 10K pace. I settle in with the women's pack which adopts a much more reasonable tempo. While my goal is simply to beat anybody in this field, I'm happy enough to sit at the back for now. After a few miles of singletrack we hit the big climb up to the Wintergreen Summit aid station at the high point of the course. It's a very steep mixture of singletrack and road. Despite mixing walking and running, I pass a couple of the women. By the time I reach the aid station I can't see anyone ahead or behind. The first five miles have certainly spread the field.

In hindsight, the next section of the course is probably the most critical. It starts easily enough, winding its way down the mountain on a mix of grass and dirt singletrack. After a mile or so, the trail hits the steeper portion of the ridge and becomes more technical. The added rocks are a blessing as they force me to slow down a bit. After another mile, however, the course switches to roads for the steepest part of the descent. I try to hold back, but there just doesn't seem to be any stride length that can mitigate the pounding of running down a grade this steep. It's with considerable relief that I reach the gatehouse at the entrance to the resort and start the climb back up to the top of the ridge. I get to the Reed's Gap aid station (9.3 miles) at 8:45, which isn't far off my intended pace (I could tell from the profile the opening would be slow), but I have a terrible feeling that the big descent has done some real damage to my legs. I tell Kevin that he should expect a long day.

The next section is about 5 miles of easy running on the Blue Ridge Parkway to White Rock Gap. Then comes the descent off the ridge to Sherando Lake. It's a fair drop on singletrack, but spread out over three miles so it's also pretty easy running. There's just one problem: neither section feels easy. Not really hard, either, but not easy. And at barely a quarter of the way in, everything should be feeling easy right now. Near the bottom, I pass the leaders who are coming back having done the lap around the lake. The issue is clearly in doubt as the top five are all within a few minutes of each other. At the lake, Kevin is upbeat, but there's concern in his face. If my stride has degraded enough that he's noticing it, I'm in trouble.

The loop around the lake is a gentle and picturesque trail of just over a mile. Back at the aid station, I grab plenty to eat and drink as the next aid station is over seven miles away on top of the ridge. There are no crew accessible stations until Whetstone Ridge at mile 33, so I won't be seeing Kevin for quite some time. "I'll run with you when you get there," he says. I take it as something of a vote of confidence that he thinks I'll still be running at that point.

For the moment, running is still a happening thing. In fact, the uphill muscles are in fine shape and I run the ascent to the ridge feeling pretty good. The bulk of the 100K field is coming down now and they aren't as good at "running skinny" as the leaders were. Fortunately, I'm the one going up, so stepping off the trail a few times to let them by doesn't slow me down much. After the ascent, the trail becomes undulating and quite rocky. My quads begin some serious complaining. Oddly, while the pain is significant, I'm actually covering the ground pretty well and pass a couple runners along the way.

After the Bald Mountain station (25.9 miles) the course returns to pavement for 3.4 miles to the water drop at Spy Run Gap. I cover this in under 34 minutes and just as I'm thinking 10-minute miles aren't that terrible, the road heads downhill.

The searing sensation in my quads is something I normally associate with the day after a race gone bad. I don't ever recall my legs hurting so much during an event. By the bottom of the hill I am cursing out loud with each step. As the road levels off, the pain relents a bit, but there's no getting around the fact that my quads are gone with half the race to go. I stagger on towards Whetstone Ridge trying to remember if I've ever run in such pain. I'm not tired; in fact I feel rather fresh, but every contraction of the quadriceps feels like it might be the last. I start seeing returning runners. Some of them look fine, but some look surprisingly shot. It's obvious I'm not the only one who's been caught out by the opening part of the course. At Whetstone Ridge I'm told several of the elites have already called it a day.

Kevin is ready to run with me and we head out to the turnaround on the Dragon's Back trail. The aid station workers had encouraged us by saying the trail was quite runnable and that turns out to be true. With the exception of one really rocky section, it's a fairly gentle path. Kevin notes that my stride seems to be coming back. Indeed, I am running better, though the pain is still pretty intense. At the turnaround, a password is posted that we have to remember to verify we went all the way out. The word is "quadzilla." We get a laugh out of that; it certainly won't be hard to remember in my current state.

The fields are getting mixed as the non-elites started only 15 minutes behind us. We pass quite a few runners both heading out and coming back. It seems I'm somewhere between 15 and 20 in the elite field and barely in the top 30 overall. Normally, I'd be pretty happy with that as I'm typically a good second half runner. Today, however, I don't kid myself that my final result will be anything like that good. It's just a matter of time before the legs quit altogether and I have to walk it in.

By the time we get back to the Whetstone Ridge station, my brief resurgence has ended. I stumble a few times on the trail, but manage to stay upright. Kevin looks at me seriously and says, "I'm worried about you." "I am, too," I reply. I'm heading back into the section of the course that isn't crew accessible, which means that if I don't pack it in now, I'll pretty much have to get all the way back to White Rock Gap on my own. It's only 12 miles and seven of them are on roads, so it seems a reasonable gamble. As far as I can tell, the pain is merely indicative of some very tight muscles and no long-term damage is being done.

After a short climb up from the aid station, the road is gently downhill for a couple miles. It hurts in ways I don't have words to describe but I'm able to run it. I rejoice as I reach the bottom of the steep climb up to Spy Run Gap (the one that caused the cursing coming down) and settle into a firm walk. At the top of the hill I get back to running and manage to get back to the Bald Mountain station only five minutes slower than the trip out.

It's 5:00PM and I have a half marathon to go. If I had any legs at all, I'd still have an outside shot at finishing by dark. I don't, so my real concern is covering the 5.3 miles to White Rock Gap before the sun goes down at 7. While taking the headlamp at Whetstone Ridge would have been prudent, I'm pretty sure I can make it. My worry is the last 2 miles into the station which takes a different route by way of a trail on the east side of the ridge rather than going back to the lake. I've been warned by local runners that it is exceedingly steep and technical. Also, since it's on the east face, it will get dark sooner. The aid station workers think I'll be fine, but I'm sure they don't realize how much trouble I'll have on the technical descent.

The first mile is jeep track and I run it knowing that this is probably the last bit of the course where both my feet will be off the ground at the same time. Once I get to the rocks, I slow to a walk. As the trail begins to descend off Bald Mountain, the walk literally becomes a crawl. I simply can't step both forward and down anymore, so I have to go down sideways grabbing onto trees and boulders to keep my legs from giving out. I get to the fork onto the new section just before 6PM.

For about half a mile the trail is gentle bringing me to the top of a magnificent cliff. There's a waterfall just to the north and I know we cross that stream somewhere below the base which is a really long way down. The descent is a series of rocky switchbacks. Even sideways isn't working particularly well anymore; I have to turn completely around and crawl backwards on all fours to get down the bigger drops. I'd hate to bail with less than two miles of tough trail remaining, but I'm not going to be stuck in the woods after dark without a light. I set a turnaround time of 6:40. If I don't cross the stream by then, I come back up and walk to White Rock Gap on the road. I get to the base of the cliff at 6:20, but the trail continues to drop. At several points it gets tantalizingly close to the stream, but then the stream drops away some more. Finally, at 6:32, I reach the bridge and get to hustling back up the other side. The trail back up is easier and I breathe a huge sigh of relief as I waddle into to White Rock Gap station at 6:55.

There are nine miles of road remaining and I've got my light. It won't be pretty, but I'll finish. Except, I don't have my light. I look around the parking by the aid station and there's no sign of Kevin or his car. The aid station workers try to call ahead to the next station figuring he's probably there, but the radio operator isn't able to get through. Then comes one of those gestures that ultra runners just take for granted, but my experience in other sports has shown it to be quite exceptional: the crew for another runner digs up a spare light and gives it to me. I'm only on the road for a couple minutes before Kevin comes by. He had missed the note that he was to go to this station amongst the scribbles we had put in the race bible last night and finally decided to come back when it was clear I was getting caught by dark. I take the opportunity to change into a long-sleeved shirt and tell Kevin to return the light and then find a real dinner. Everything will be closed by the time I get done and I don't want him to have to settle for aid station fare after all he's done for me today.

With any hope of a respectable finish gone, I settle into a firm walk for the rest of the way home. No point in making the recovery any longer than it already will be. I'm surprised by how few people pass me. Only six come by on the way to Reeds Gap and nobody passes me after that. The first to pass asks how I'm doing and I reply truthfully that I'm wrecked and a bit disappointed. "You usually go faster than this?" "Yeah, by the time I finish I'm gonna be close to my 100 mile PR." "Wow, this is the farthest I've ever run." And off he goes.

It occurs to me that I may have been a bit of a jackass. Beating one of the elites might just be the proudest moment of this guy's life. At least on this day, he was better than me and I had no business suggesting it was a fluke. When the next guy comes up and asks the same question, I stick to the facts, "This course kicked my ass." "Yeah, well, hang in there." "You, too." And off he goes.

The 1-mile descent down to the gatehouse from Reeds Gap is every bit as unpleasant as I thought it would be. About halfway down, I look up and see an airplane emerging through the clouds with its landing lights on. This seems a bit odd since there is nowhere to land on the ridge and it's going the wrong way to be on approach for the valley. Then, I realize it's not a jet, but the floodlights next to the finish. I've lived in the Midwest long enough that I'm just not used to looking that far up and seeing land.

As much as it is a grunt, the climb to the finish is a welcome change of pace. I cross the line at 9:47PM (14:47 elapsed time). Gil is there and gives me a sincere handshake. Inside, Fran is serving up pasta, capping the excellent support and organization throughout the weekend. I confess to them that I'm a bit ashamed to reward placing me in the elite field with my worst run in recent memory. They take the opposite stance, saying how happy they are to see people hanging in to finish. That's a view echoed by Kevin who notes that there are a lot of less able runners struggling in when some of the biggest names in the sport have given up. I'm not too hard on the top guys for being pragmatic and saving themselves for another race when this one went bad, but the point is well taken: at the end of the day, it's not what you can do but what you actually do that matters.

While I am the last elite to finish, half of them didn't; I'm 12th in the elite men's field so the goal of not being last was met (it's not total bogus, either, as I passed another runner in my field on the trail heading out to Bald Mountain while he was still in the race). Overall, I'm 44th which is pretty dismal. The disappointment for me is not that I finished badly, but that this should have been a very good course for me. The first 9 and last 4 miles were absolutely brutal but, aside from the descent by the waterfall, everything else was relatively fast running on roads and moderately technical trail; just the sort of terrain I typically tear up. Instead, I covered all of that distance hobbled by the fact that I'd destroyed my quads in the first 90 minutes. It's not like I would have won the thing, but a good performance was there for the taking.

At any rate, I'm not one to pine over what might have been. Upon hearing my tale of woe, several folks have offered condolences. I need no pity. First, there's the simple fact that I knew that running four ultras in eight weeks was probably asking a bit much from my body. I wouldn't really want to give back the second place at Howl or the win at Flatlanders. This was the price and I accept that. More importantly, while the performance was a disaster, the experience was quite fine. I have a friend who paid $20,000 to go to a fantasy camp and play baseball with major league players. He says it's the best money he ever spent. I got to play with the same level of athletes and it wasn't fantasy, it was a real game. I'd be just a bit disappointed if they hadn't dished me a thumping. I don't suppose many race directors will be inviting me to join the elite field again anytime soon but, if I really want the status, I could always stay a few more nights at the Comfort Inn.