I imagine most people will remember 2020 for what they didn’t get to do. In an odd twist, this year’s pandemic provided me an opportunity to try something new. Not entirely new – I’ve run plenty of hundreds before – but specifically, the Ozark Trail 100. The previous eleven runnings have conflicted with a non-profit gala that Kate and I are always invited to. With big, indoor gatherings off the table, I was released from my obligation of eating and drinking at a 5-star hotel and freed to run 100 miles over fist-sized rocks buried in leaves.
This is not something I’m particularly good at. My years of heavy orienteering training made me pretty adept at moving quickly over bad footing. However, turn the pace down to 100-mile speed and I’m stumbling all over the place. I spent a few years trying to fix that with very limited success. I finally decided to just stop trying and instead resolved to not run slowly when the footing is bad. If I can’t run at least as fast as my normal training pace, I walk.
The OT provides plenty of excuses to take a walk break. The hills are incessant. They aren’t particularly large (the tallest is 400 feet of local relief; most are around half that), but you rarely go much more than a mile without encountering one. So, my strategy is fairly simple: walk this hills, run everything else at easy/long training pace, which is 11-12 minutes/mile on this terrain. Factoring in the walks and time lost at aid stations and it looks like a sub-24 is doable, but far from certain.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention The Abyss. We’ll get to that. But, since I’ve already tipped my hand, I’ll note that I go into this one not only expecting it, but expecting it to be so bad that I don’t just lose an hour or two, I drop out entirely. Therefore, I recruit a crew to keep me from doing just that. Matt Coriell, Emily Korsch, and Scott “Erl” Erlandson step up. Erl breaks his ankle a few weeks prior to the event, so he won’t be able to pace, but insists he still wants to be part of the effort. I invite them over for dinner a few weeks in advance and we lay out the plan. Matt will crew the first half of the race, starting to pace at 40 miles. Emily and Erl will come down Saturday afternoon with Emily taking over pacing from 65-94. I’ll run the last seven in on my own. Arithmetically-inclined readers will deduce that the course is actually a mile long.
Matt and I drive down to Bass River Resort on Friday afternoon. This pleasant campground (which is actually on the Courtois River; there is no Bass River in Missouri as far as I know) serves as race HQ and finish line. Check in takes only a few minutes, even with the COVID precautions in place. Everyone does a fine job of respecting the social distance guidelines, which is a pleasant relief given how badly much of Missouri is handling this. I place my drop bags and we go for a short run to loosen up. We spend the evening around a campfire with a few other crews. The Abyss comes up and I end up talking about it more than I’d like.
The alarm goes off at 2:50AM, but I’m already awake. I rarely sleep well the night before a race. Fortunately, I haven’t found it matters as long as I’ve had good rest in the preceding week. We pass the busses on the way to the start and I’m actually the first competitor to check in. It also means I have first dibs on the porta-john. The busses arrive a few minutes later and as I exit, I find there is now a waiting line. That’s one race I’ve won today!
Race Director Paul Schoenlaub gives us a brief sendoff and fires the horn at 6AM. The sky is starting to lighten, but we all have lamps for the opening out and back on the narrow forest road which spreads the field. Passing back through the start at 3 miles, I shed my top layer and give it to Matt. This race is notorious for being cold but, if we’re in shorts and shirts at dawn, this is just going to be one more thing that’s different in 2020.
Shortly after the out and back, we turn onto the OT. The first few miles are easy running along the ridge, but then we hit what is objectively the toughest part of the course: the five miles of steep, rocky climbs and descents heading into Sutton Bluff (with a calf-deep river crossing thrown in for good measure). This is mitigated by the fact that it’s very early in the race and we’re all feeling up to the task. I run in a group of six and we chat happily as we trudge up and down the steep bluffs between Bee Creek and the Black River.
Sutton Bluff at 14 miles is a crewed station, so Matt is there. I don’t really need much at this point as it’s still cool enough that I haven’t lost much fluid. I grab some sandwiches and refill my bottle and am on my way fairly quickly. It’s 8:40AM, so I’m a little ahead of schedule, but I attribute that to the fact that the running conditions are pretty ideal at this point.
Leaving the station, I’m on my own as all the members of our group take varying time with their crews. I cover the next two sections (classic singletrack made slightly more technical due to the leaves hiding the rocks underneath) easily and get to the Johnson Hollow aid station (24.6 miles) just before 11AM. So far, so good, but I’m beginning to notice the heat. Fellow SLUGs Tommy and Jen Doias are manning the station and give me some encouragement while warning me to keep my fluids and electrolytes topped up.
The next section starts with one of the largest climbs of the course, affording a beautiful view of the Brushy Creek valley. I’m starting to understand why, despite the tough trail, this race has such a devoted following: it’s not the majesty of the western mountains, but it is astoundingly pleasant. I’m also starting to think that my left foot is in trouble. The multiple creek crossings have left enough sand in my shoe that the bottom of the big toe is getting raw. I stop to clean out my sock as best I can. There’s no blister there, but the skin is clearly distressed. I know I have a change of socks at the next aid station, so I try to stay as light on my feet as I can until then.
The sock change at Gunstock Hollow is a game changer. I spend a few extra minutes at the aid station to let my feet dry before putting the new socks on. Everything feels good again. There is the problem of water, however. I had figured it wouldn’t get hot enough to need more than my 16oz waist bottle until mid-afternoon. With almost 9 miles between me and my pack at the next aid station, that assumption is looking a bit suspect. I throw in more walk breaks, but still run dry about 15 minutes before reaching Brooks Creek (40 miles) where Matt is waiting to pace.
It’s only 2:30, so I’m right on the pace I would have set to break 24. But, I know the heat has taken a toll and that I’m going to have some very slow sections ahead. I tell Matt we’re not clock-watching; the goal is just to keep moving best I can. I lead for the next section which, with seven climbs in 7.2 miles, is one of the hilliest of the course. Along with my pack came my poles and I put them to use. At the next aid station, I pick up my waist light from my drop bin. This should be the equipment arrangement for the rest of the night though (fortunately, as it turns out) I have contingencies.
Not long into the next section, the sun sets and the lights come on. Despite the cooler temps brought by night, my pace continues to flag. We are now walking a good bit of the level ground as well as the climbs. We have found the edge of The Abyss. Those wanting a longer treatise on The Abyss, can find it in my earlier race report from Potawatomi. The short version is that, in the third quarter of a 100, I come face to face with true despair. Part of it is physical, but it is the depth of emotion that is really staggering. Its occurance is a near certainty (I’ve had 2 hundreds where it was mild, in the other 11 it was full force) and, despite the trauma, it is much of the appeal of running 100's for me. It's a dark place that makes the light that much brighter. But, right now, it is very dark. Matt does a fine job of keeping us moving, albeit slowly, while I deal with my inner demons.
At the next aid station, Matt brings me some soup, which helps quite a bit. I stay long enough to eat that and get some other fluids down. We head out shortly before 7PM. In 16 miles, I’ve slipped from being right on expected pace to my most pessimistic projection. I tell Matt that any chance of a sub-24 is gone and we just need to be focused on forward progress. We trudge back into the woods. Then my light dies.
It’s been a bit finicky lately. I bought it used last fall and it served me well at Rocky Raccoon 100 and a few other shorter runs. At the faux Leadville this summer (about 20 of us lined up to run some or all of the course even though the race was cancelled) the switch started giving me fits. I took it apart and re-soldered some of the connections but, apparently that wasn’t enough. Now it is dead. Changing batteries makes no difference. It gives off a brief flicker and then nothing. This, of course, is why I ALWAYS have my headlamp with me in a 100. I don’t like running by headlamp, but it’s very easy to carry a 1oz headlamp on your head and they tend to be simpler by design so less likely to fail. At this speed, it really doesn’t matter. We push on.
While I’m physically a wreck, my emotions are holding up better than usual. No doubt a result of having Matt on hand. He remains upbeat, talks a bit, but not too much, and doesn’t forget to point out that this course is perhaps even more beautiful under a cloudless night sky lit by a half moon. Our progress is so slow that I worry we’ll miss my most pessimistic projection at Hazel Creek and cause some worry. We arrive at 9:50, ten minutes ahead of that. Nobody was worried; I’m only the 15th runner to arrive as just about everybody else has been slowed by the conditions as well. Emily (who has read the aforementioned Potawatomi report) asks if I’m in The Abyss. “Very much so.”
The stop at Hazel Creek is uplifting. Many of the local trail running community are there, waiting to crew or pace. They come by to offer encouragement. Meanwhile Erl springs into action (as much as one can with a cast on one’s leg) and takes care of my every need. I switch to my handheld light, which a really great light, but means I won’t be able to use poles. I change shoes and socks as the Hazel crossing was over a foot deep. I’d love to stay, but this is the time of the race when stopping is very dangerous. Emily leads back onto the trail before inertia set in.
The conversation with Emily is quite different, but no less helpful. We have a longer relationship to draw on, though it’s still not much of a dialogue as I’m not up to full sentences at this point. I do find, however, that I can run. I feel like I am coming out the other side of The Abyss. Until I’m not. Halfway through the 8-mile leg, I’m back to only being able to run for short sections. By the aid station, all the walking has left me with blisters on my right foot. Emily does a quick field dressing on them, noting that we’ll have better first aid available at crewed Berryman station in five miles.
Those five miles take quite a while and include a very frosty stream crossing followed by the big hike up the ridge to Berryman Campground. Erl is there and, as at Hazel, is quick to tend to my nourishment while Emily properly tapes up the blister.
We again set out at a decent pace only to have me go in the tank again after about 2 miles. This is by far the oddest version of The Abyss that I’ve had to deal with. It’s not as deep as it usually gets. But, it’s not going away, either. I attempt to articulate it to Emily, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She responds with some alarm, “You don’t know where you are or what race you’re in?” As a veteran of several multi-day events, she’s familiar with the hallucinations that come with extreme distance. I calm her with the reassurance that I haven’t lost my mind, I just don’t have a good read on what’s going on in there.
At Beecher Spring, the artesian well just off the trail, we stop to refill water. Whether it’s the stop, the wonderful spring water, or just the time for it to pass, I can’t say but, as we head up the hill, I realize that this time I really am ascending the far side of The Abyss and there won’t be a subsequent relapse. We jog into the festive aid station run by Daily Run Club and the familiar faces further buoy my mood. We leave knowing we will run the bulk of the remaining 14 miles.
The sun rises during the next leg to the last aid station at 94.4 miles. For the first time in the second half of the race, we are passing people rather than being passed. At the aid station, Emily’s duties are complete other than bringing me some tater tots from the table. Erl takes my pack as my waist bottle will be plenty for the final six and a half miles.
The last leg is pretty much how anybody would want to finish a race. I’m running well, the morning weather is again perfect, and I pick off one more position for good measure. Despite the presence of three significant climbs, it’s my fastest leg of the entire race (roughly 10-minute miles) except for the opening miles on the road. I finish in 17th place at 9:23AM (27 hours, 23 minutes). I would have liked to have done a bit better but I can’t say that I’m disappointed. It was a tough day and nearly half the field dropped. While my ride through The Abyss was a bit wilder than usual, I think that was largely because Matt and Emily kept doing such a good job of arresting my fall. I’m pretty sure I would have quit if I had been on my own.
The OT 100 is a great race. I’m glad I did it. I’m also about as beat up as I’ve ever been after a race right now. So, if I have to wait for the next 100-year pandemic to run it again, I think I’m OK with that.
Oh, you wanted pictures? Well, then, you have to listen to the song.
