I’m really not sure what to write as far as a race report — not to give too much away, but there were a lot of rocks and a few hills, and I ran a long long time.  But saying that doesn’t make for a good report.   Yet it’s been a long time since I’ve not written a report for a big run, so here goes.

I originally signed up for this race thinking my sister was going to come for the 50k, but she ended up with a stress fracture in her foot just after winning the master’s women Army 10 miler in NY with a smoking time of 70 minutes.  (She’s well on her way to recovery though!)

However, Ben, who is also running Leadville, and I, had signed up the day or two prior to hearing that news, and had already purchased flights, so there was no turning back.  Ben’s friend Rob offered to play host for the weekend, so it all worked out.  (Thanks Rob!)

I flew up from NC and Ben flew in from CO.  We met at JFK, took a cab into the city, picked up our race numbers, etc..  Apparently they assign numbers as you pick them up, so Ben was #2 and I was #3:

After that Rob picked us up in the city, we got some lunch, etc.  We hung out Thursday and Friday before getting up at the somewhat insane hour of 2:45 to leave the house by 3 and drive the hour over to the park.  (The coffee was an auto, so what else is there to do except get up and go?)   I fell asleep just after 8:00 p.m. without much trouble, but did wake a couple times — once about midnight and next around 1:30, at which point it was difficult to go back down for another hour.  But all in all not bad.

North Face puts on a really good event — it was not much different from the GA 50 I ran in 2011.  So everything went smoothly and we waited for the race to start.  Ben had put a predicted time of 10:00 down while I had put down 11:00, so we were in different waves.  We had planned to start together none-the-less, but then the announcer was giving all these dire warnings about your chip time being tied to your wave, yadda-yadda-yadda.  I decided to start behind Ben mostly because if I had started with him, I’d probably have gone out way too hard.

My goal in this race was to train for Leadville, and not push too hard.  I really didn’t want to kill my training in the following weeks, but at the same time, I wanted to gain strength for Pb.

As far as a course description, there’s not much to say.  There were hills — ups and downs — see the course profile below.  There were rocks.  There were woods.   There were rocks.  There were a few paved sections — less than 3 or 4 miles total I would guess.  Did I say there were rocks?  Here’s one example of the rocks:

Though that’s just one example.  Besides little sharp rocks, there were little round rocks, and big sharp rocks, and boulders, and a huge ridge that was all just one or two giant granite faces.

Here’s the profile:

I’m sure some of you want me to compare Bear Mountain to Uhwarrie.  So here it is.  The hills in Bear Mountain were about the same.  See this post.  If anything Bear Mountain hills were longer in terms of miles, but overall the steepest hills in NY were about the same steepness as those in Uhwarrie.   And Uhwarrie has some very rocky sections — just as technical as the rocks in Bear Mountain.  But Bear Mountain is a bit more relentless than Uhwarrie in terms of the rocks — both rock fields with no discernable “path” for the trail, and boulder fields, etc.   Bear Mountain had longer “runnable” sections than Uhwarrie.  The last 3-4 miles of NY is quite a bit of down, but I was able to run it all because I had not run large sections earlier — due to the rocks.

If I had to pick the harder course I would say NY — it’s 10 miles longer for one!  But the rocks do get to you if you are not used to them.  And Ben from CO said it’s the most technical trail he’s run for 50k’s and 50 milers.  So there.

I had a pretty good fall about 90 minutes in…  Went down hard on both my right palm, my right knee, and somehow that I still haven’t figured out, my left ring finger.  I mostly noticed the big scrape on the right palm at 1st, and a bit of numbness in the finger which I thought might be due to the cold, but it turned out to be more than that.  I didn’t notice the R knee until the guy I was passing during the fall commented on it.  :-/  Said “that’s gonna hurt later.”   Thanks!  It stiffened a bit during the run but never really slowed me down.  I was definitely more timid for a while and took far fewer risks on the rocks after that.  :-/

This one is a bit embellished with an Instagram filter — but it was blue!

Ben’s ITB started bothering him and I caught up to him at the 27 mile aid station.  We ran together for a bit but then I pulled away as he was mostly walking.  However, around mile 44 he came flying by — he had received some Vitamin I which masked the pain, and he was in a hurry to finish before it wore off!  He came in at just under 11:43.

When I hit the last Aid Station at mile 47 I had something like 32 minutes to break 12 hours — a far cry from the 11:00 I thought I’d run.  Since I’d been averaging 13-14 minute miles, it was going to be tough.  But the rocks finally subsided (mostly!) and I could run, and I did the last 3 in about 28 minutes.  My guess of an 11:00 hour finish was before I had seen the course, and to be honest, I’m actually quite happy with the 11:58.  I feel like I had a good run,  I didn’t give it  100% (it wasn’t an A race), and 3 days later I feel pretty good.

I *am* surprised that I was 121st out of 275 finishers.  I’m normally a bit further up — towards the front 1/3 of the pack.  But I really think the runners in NY were a strong bunch and it’s not about me not running well, but it being a strong field.  Again, I feel like I had a great race.

We had to get a picture with Dean, wearing his #1, Ben in #2, and me in #3, even if you can’t see my number.  :-/

After finishing we grabbed our gear bags, a bit of food, and I went to the medical tent so they could clean up my knee.  The medic suggested I get the ring off the finger in case it continued to swell, and I’m glad I took his advice!  It hurt even with Vaseline but it probably would have been stuck the next day as the finger continued to swell.  We headed over to Peaskill for a nice celebration dinner.

The next day we met Tuck over in Pound Ridge and drove out to Bear Mountain again, as a few folks from the minimalist list were running the half.  We met up with Rich and ate dinner at the hotel/lodge right at the finish.  While the buffet is expensive, I think I got my money’s worth with three full plates plus dessert.  :-)

On the way out we drove to the top of Bear Mountain and saw the tower.  The run does *not* go up here.

Would I run this course again?  Certainly!  NF puts on great events, and while this was a *tough* course, it was still fun.   It would all depend on who else was running, if I had a need to be in NY or a need to get in a 50 for training or qualification purposes, etc.  I.e. I may not go out of my way to run it again, but if there’s a reason to, I wouldn’t hesitate.

Other Notes:

Shoes:  Altra Superior.  Only my 3rd for 4th run in them though I had done a 15-er so I was comfortable going in.  I had the Mix Master 2′s in the drop bag  at 27, only to use if I had a serious blister or some such.  I.e. I would not have “downgraded” protection from the Superior to the MM2 without some kind of a problem.  The shoe did fine but around miles 35-40 to the end I was about ready to mug anyone with Hoka’s.  Just kidding.  Kind of.  I’m still seriously thinking about a pair of Hoka’s for the latter stages of Leadville.

Nutrition:  I used ViFuel as my base.  It was a real pain squeezing the individual gel packs into my 8 oz amphipod canisters the day before — ViFuel you’ve got to start selling in bulk containers!!  I also used BCAA’s (MAP) and Endurolytes that I carried in a plastic baggie, 2-3 each about every hour.  Probably need more like 5 MAPs to do any good, but it’s all I had.  In addition to the ViFuel as my base I ate from the aid stations — 3 or 4 banana quarters, 1 orange quarter, and several boiled potatoes sometimes with salt, sometimes without.  I had a few potato chips and a couple of swallows of soda (pepsi/coke and mtn dew).  And that was it.  I’d guesstimate < 2000 calories total.  I’ll have more real food in the upcoming 24 hour run (Black Mountain Monster) and in Leadville, I’m sure.  But this worked out well — never felt hungry nor nauseous.

I’m about 3 pounds heavier than when I flew up to NY — I had a lot of great food over the weekend!  :-)

Uhwarrie is an out and back, so double this:

vs. NY:

Actually looks somewhat similar….  Though based on the scale, NY climbs appear to be more gradual…

To blog or not to blog, that is the question…

I really had not planned to blog this marathon — I mean, I went into it as a “training run,” and how often do we really blog about training runs.  (Ok, only if they are “Epic!”) Daily Mile, where I track everything religiously, is one thing, but on my blog?   However, after reading so many reports the last few days, I’ve decided to go for it, but I think I’ll copy the best things from the a few other blogs instead of writing too much of my own.

I will outline the plan of “training run.”  First, I missed the original sign up date.  Totally forgot about it.  I saw all my running friends giving each congratulations and words of encouragement on making it in several hours after registration had closed.  It must be a great thing for so many virtual high-fives, right?, but I had missed out.  However, I heard about a 2nd chance registration, so I put that on my calendar with multiple alerts and alarms, so I wouldn’t forget again.

Why did I want to run Umstead?  Everyone seems to love it and have a blast.  And I am trying to build some big base miles going into some big summer races, namely the Black Mountain Monster 24 hour run, which I ran last year, and Leadville, which still scares the heck out of me.

I’d also like to say that Umstead is the first time I’ve ever used the words “It’s just a marathon” when talking about signing up for it.  I got quite the look from my wife with those words coming out of my mouth.  ;-)

My plan was simple.  Take it easy.  I debated on whether to wear an HRM or even a watch, but in the end decided to go with the HRM.  I changed all the settings on my GPS to just show HRM and nothing else.  I’d run the 1st hour (or two or three!) at sub 160, and then decide after that if I wanted to ease up or go a little harder. Little did I know….

So, keeping my HR < 160 on the hilly single track in the 1st 7 or 8 miles of the race proved difficult.  Every hill, it would creep up and above, and my alert would go off.  I walked a few to keep it down, but it was often still too high.  Never above 165, but often in that 160-165 range on the steeps.  But once we reached the bridle trails it was not too hard to keep under 160, though over time, it got hard to keep it over 150, and even 140 towards the end.  :-/  I was literally falling apart!

Here’s the HR data.. Ignore the 1st 10 minutes — it was way off…

On Friday, I had started feeling pretty bad — very tired, a bit achy, etc.  But on Saturday I woke up feeling just south of ok.  Sometime around mile 18-20, my GI went south, and it was not pleasant the rest of the way in.   I just had a total lack of energy, so not not nearly as bad as Scott had it…  The sight of him sprinting through the finish line — and straight to the port-o-pot — will always be with me.  As will the photo of him coming out afterwards:

(Jay, Scott, hope it’s ok that I stole this…)

So anyway, back to my race.  I struggled in the last 6 miles.  And though this was supposed to be a training run, I found out just how hard Umstead really is.  I do think I could run sub 4:00 here if I treated it like a big race, but it would hurt.   A few days later though and my legs are fine — other than the right knee I tweaked the night of the race.  I’m getting too old to jump around the living room screaming “We beat the Russians” at the end of Miracle on Ice, but it brings back fond memories of when I was 10 and was really into ice hockey.  Especially 5 or 6 hours after running a marathon.

So, how hard is Umstead?  Let me copy from others…

First, Barefoot Josh, who was going for a fast time:

Everything was perfect for a perfect race. The weather was beautiful, just on the tolerable side of cold. I was well rested, well trained, well fed, and well dressed. I carried two handheld squeezable flasks filled with Hammer Gel, providing easy access to fuel whenever I needed. If every there was a day to swing for the fences, this was it. Umstead, however, is like a well-trained boxer. It throws perfectly timed jabs and counters, hooks and straights. It sees your punches before you even think to throw them. Umstead might let you win a round or two, only because it’s easier to beat up someone who isn’t running away. You can either try to outsmart the course, or outfight the course. I chose fight, and started a-swingin before the bell stopped a-ringin.

From Iris:

“If you’re gonna be stupid, you better be tough.” The now-immortal words of Ryan’s uncle pretty well sum up the whole Umstead Trail Marathon experience. Granted, he was emerging from surgery and anesthesia when he said it, but that’s fitting. A runner would have to be blazingly high on insurance-subsidized pharmaceuticals to fight the Internet just to get into Umstead and then pay money for it and then actually run the thing. It’s that hard, I swear to you.

From Scott:

More importantly, even through all the physical suffering of the race, I come away loving Umstead Marathon more than ever. For me, it’s not about the finish time, or the incredibly difficult course, or even overcoming the inevitable challenges of the race. It’s about the experience as a whole. The joy on the faces of the first timers crossing the finish line. The smiles of the volunteers. The high fives with old friends. There’s a beautiful, natural fellowship that seems to spring from the stony ground of Umstead. A gift I hope to enjoy for many more years.

And from Anthony, I have to steal this finish-line photo with Jason just sprinting by Anthony’s outstretched — outstretched with thoughts of victory, only to get passed in the last 2 feet.  Jason and I rode to the race together, and this was something like his 9th Umstead:

Oh, and an elevation profile… This might not seem hilly to someone who lives in CO (Ben, Tim), but let’s just say there are no real flat parts on this race.  This one is from a couple years ago, and while the course may have changed slightly, this is pretty close.  Thanks to Anthony for the image:

As for me, I finished in 4:18.  I had gone in thinking 4:30 for a training marathon would probably be about right, but allowing the HR to go to 160 vs. 150 or 155, I thought something near 4:00 might happen.  Barring the drastic slow down in the last 6 miles, I probably would have been close to that.

Oh, and I was 1st place kilt, so there’s that:

I’m pretty sure I’ll be back..

Make sure you read the lead-in 1st.

None of the information in the lead-in was meant to be an excuse.  Yeah the final 13 days before the race didn’t go quite as expected, and 10 days off from running was not ideal, but I don’t think any of that really played into my race day blues.  I had a great first 22 miles.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I think I’ll just do a quick re-cap and then list out some thoughts.  Writing a race report for the same race four years in a row gets a little old.  You can see the elevation profile and some shots of the trail in past years’ reports (2010, 2011, 2012).

Race-recap:  The last shuttle was leaving but there were no more seats!  Turns out there were about 20 of us in that situation, so we got on the real last shuttle.  I got to sit next to Scott, who I could tell was a bit nervous as he was about to run his 1st ultra!  The driver seemed to take his time deciding to leave until I gently prompted him that we should check with the folks in charge if we should get going…

After the 10 minute ride to the start, as we were getting off the bus, the race director was yelled “5 minutes to go! Hurry Hurry!”  I still had a lot of extra clothes on (it was 19F!) and I thought I’d hit the port-a-pot one last time, and I had just enough time to get all my gear right and drop my drop-bag in the big pile of bags and run to the start.  Just in time to hear the 2 minute pre-race briefing and we were off.

Right out of the gate and up the 1st big hill, I was in the top 10 runners, which was not wise.  In fact, I was just behind Brandon, who I knew was going for a sub 7:00, so it was a little silly for me to be up there.  The lead 5 or 6 went off the wrong way, and before I could say anything Brandon was yelling and corralling them back in.  I’d like to note that this is the same “split” that I missed in my training run three weeks ago — when it was dark and foggy.  But really, if you’ve never run this race, it would not be obvious at all to turn.  I thought in past years there was a rope, but maybe not.  Turns out the 20 milers an hour later and 8 milers two hours later all did the same thing.

Well, it took a couple miles for me to back off, but I finally did, and felt pretty good.  I walked all the really steep hills and ran everything else.  I never felt like I was pushing too hard, though in hindsight I probably was.  I was looking at my pacing and comparing it to last year, when I broke 8:00 hours, which to me was always only possible on a near perfect day.  Could I possibly replicate that again?

To cut a long story short, I ran the first 22 miles pretty well, often trading places with Ernest whom I had met and run with last year.  I hit the turn at 20 miles in 3:45, pretty much the exact same time as last year.  I was in and out in 1-2 minutes, and I felt even better coming out of the turn than going in.  For about two miles.  It was then that I felt like I was fading, and fading fast.  I let Ernest pass and said “have a great race!” because I knew then I was going to suffer.

There’s not much to say about the last 18 miles…  It was a struggle.  I walked just as much as I ran.  Nothing major was wrong, just lots of little things.  Left knee was bugging me, breathing was not great, nutrition was not bad but nothing really hit the spot and gave me the big burst of energy that I so needed.

One thing that did help is that when I reached mile 32, I saw Jason there.  He had taken kid duty of his own two and our two while Kelly and Lauren ran the 8, but had opted to hang out there and run in with me.  I felt terrible as I was more than an hour behind when I would have been had I been able to duplicate the sub 8:00.  But it was nice to have someone with me, and now I know what it would feel like to have a pacer, if I ever have one.  Anyone reading this that wants to pace me at Leadville this year, please let me know.  :-)   I did tell Jason to run off a few times — he was fresh and itching to get in a work out, and I didn’t want him to get too cold “running” at my pace.

I finished in 8:49, 52 minutes slower than last year, but only a minute or two faster than two years ago.  I had actually gone into this year thinking anything under 8:30 would be pretty decent, though of course I secretly hoped I could better last year’s 7:57.  All that to say I’m not really super disappointed.  I know the 7:57 might just be one of my best runs ever and I shouldn’t expect to run like that every time I head out the door…

Thanks to Shannon who caught this photo at the finish:

That’s Jay behind me, who drafted off me for, oh, 8 or 10 miles last year, before I finally pushed him on with 5 miles to go.  :-)  This year we struggled in together from about 35 on…

Ok, here are my thoughts on specific items:

• Shoes:  I went with the Merrell Mix Master 2, and this is the 2nd time I’ve gotten lateral knee pain in my left knee on a long run in them.  The 1st time was the Art Loeb – Run Gone Bad training run, in which we sort-a kind-a lost the trail and had to head back  to the start, 10 miles downhill on pavement.  I had put off the MM2 issues to the downhill pavement section, but maybe not.  Overall I like the shoe a lot, at least in shorter runs, but it might be time to look for an ultra-distance shoe that doesn’t cause any issues.  I’m thinking about the Altra Superior.
• Breathing:  After the debacle that was Ridge 2 Bridge this year, in which my breathing fell apart in mile 1 and only got worse, I have taken to albuterol again a few times.   Prior to that run it had been 4+ years since I’ve needed anything, but since then, I’ve gone into wheezing shallow breathing mode a couple of times.  So I tried albuterol and it does seem to help.  For Uhwarrie I took the prescribed two puffs about 6:15 a.m. and threw the puffer in my drop-bag.  I am still regretting that I opted not to take another puff there!  I saw the inhaler and briefly thought about it, but my breathing had been fine on the 1st 20 and I thought I’d be ok.  But around mile 22+ when I started to fade, I had trouble breathing deeply.  No wheezing or tight constriction like R2B, but I was not able to get the amount of air I wanted.
• Nutrition:  I had experimented with plain Ucan super starch flavored with Nuun on a 5 hour training run in Uhwarrie a few weeks prior to the race, and stuck with that.   I had used less than 500 calories on that run with no problems.  For the race, my 1st bottle was flavored with Heed, and my turnaround bottle had Nuun it.  To that I added some BCAA’s (MAP) in pill form, but I don’t really know if they made a difference or not.   I think I took one gel around 2 hours in and another maybe 5 hours in, as I felt like I needed a bit more.   I ate a few of the peeled boiled potatoes and a few potato chips.  And a few nibbles of cookie.  But nothing felt great, and nothing gave me the spark I was looking for.  I never had Gi distress, I just didn’t feel super energized.   Oh, and I had my 1st sips of soda in maybe 5 years…  At mile 26 I had 3 sips of coke, but it was not flat, and that was all I could handle.  Then I had one or two more sips of coke and a few  sips of mountain dew at the subsequent aid stations.  Again, I was just looking for something, anything, that would give me a spark, but nothing did.  I’d guess I was in the sub 1000 calorie range for nearly 9 hours, but I don’t think the low calories was the heart of the issue.  I might need more experimentation with ucan to figure out how to use it to its fullest.
• Recovery:  A few days later and the muscle soreness is all gone, the L knee feels good…  I’ve walked one mile and run one mile, so not a lot, but I don’t think there will be any lasting damage.  :-)
• Rest of the year Race Schedule:  From mile 30-40 I was considering canceling the rest of my races that I had been planning this year.   It was that much of a struggle!  Of course, I know better than to make race plans while racing, so I told myself to just get through it.  The definite’s are Umstead Marathon in March, Black Mountain Monster 24 hour run  in June, and Leadville in August.  I’m leaning towards the NF50 in NY in May…  Within 15 minutes of finishing Uhwarrie, I was back on track and have not cancelled anything.  :-)

A lead in to the Uhwarrie 40 miler in bullet form…

• I love this race and this was the 4th year I’ve been lucky enough to get registered!  It typically sells out in < 20 minutes…
• Past reports:
  • 2012
  • 2011
  • 2010

• January 19 Little River 10 miler - In the past this race has been 3 to 4 weeks out from Uhwarrie, so I’ve run it hard.   But this year it was only two weeks out, so the plan was to run it “easy,” but that did not work out so well for me.  I got caught up in the race atmosphere and still ran at a fairly hard effort!
• January 20th – tweaked my right knee at the playground.  Doing a 25-28″ box jump with no warm up the day after a hard 10 miler is not a good idea!
• January 21st – ran 12.5 miles out at New Hope with David H. for my last long run.  Barely felt the knee, so I thought that was a good sign.
• January 22nd was feeling the knee pretty good and it was not a good feeling.  :-(
• January 23rd – easy 4 miler
• The next few days the knee discomfort would come and go — one day being very significant and one day being 100% absent.  Very odd.
• Long weekend in the mountains with snow and ice so I opted not to run at all.
• And then a somewhat unexpected trip to Europe came up…
• Monday January 28th:  red-eye to London
• Tuesday January 29th:  meetings in London, train to Paris
• Wednesday January 30th:  All day meeting in Paris with literally no time to do anything other than the meeting and dinner
• Thursday January 31st:  Morning meeting then head to the airport to fly home.  First flight out to London was delayed, meaning I would miss my connection from there back to the US.  Was told I was rebooked on Air France but I had to *run* to the other terminal, so back out security and passport control, run over, back through security and passport control, etc.  Made the flight but was *stuck* in a middle seat in the back for 9+ hours!  This flight was delayed so I missed my connections state side.  Was put up in a hotel by Air France and given meal vouchers.  I was booked on a 5:45 a.m. flight for IAD but there was no connection to RDU.  So after going all the way back to the AF desk in the terminal, got them to put me on to a 9:45 a.m. direct flight to RDU.
• Friday February 1st:  Arrived home around 3 p.m. after running a couple of errands on the way home from RDU.
• Saturday February 2nd:  Race day:  up at 2:30 as I couldn’t sleep. (Alarm had been set for 3:45).  Went to Heather’s at 4:15 to head over to the race by 4:30…
• Quite a two week lead-in, but my training had been pretty good — other than the unexpected “taper” and the R knee tweak.

However, I had bumped my mileage up from last year’s training and thought that might help…

2011-12 training:

2012-13 training:

And note that 0 on week 48 was 18 miles of hiking…

So, how would I do?  Stay tuned….

Ok, so I can’t follow a plan… I was supposed to break this race up into thirds, and run easy/medium, medium, and then medium/hard, and I was going to use my HRM to stick to that plan.  I’ve got Uhwarrie 40 in two weeks so I figured it was a good idea to go “easy,” but I guess it’s not in my blood to not run hard when I’m in a race. However, I’d probably say this was an 8 out of 10 effort wise, so I wasn’t killing myself out there.

Here’s a photo from mile 4 and this makes it look like 8+ effort-wise… But this bridge was icy so maybe it was that…

I’ve not worn an HRM in a race in 4 years! It was way off the 1st mile or so, and when it finally came in accurately, I decided not to worry about it. I was feeling pretty good even though it was reading right around LT level…

I did accidentally grab a pair of road shoes — my Kinvara’s — instead of my trail shoes. My Mix Master 2′s are the exact same grey and red! So all the rain and snow and snow melt, which created a lot of mud, made for quite an adventure in the Kinvara’s, but I never went down, though I came close.

I ended up finishing in 1:25:07, according to my Garmin.   Here are the splits… Lots of down hill the 1st two miles, and then miles 5-10 are tough as it is on the mountain bike trail — lots of tight twisty turns and ups and downs.

Official race times:

2013 39 Sean Butler Pittsboro NC 42 16/82 M 40-49 1:25:08.8 8:31/M
2012 59 Sean Butler Pittsboro NC 41 22/83 M 40-49 1:25:09.7 8:31/M

Looking at other times from 2013 vs. 2012, seems like many runners were 1-2 minutes slower in 2013. So that plus the shoes I wore and I think I had a pretty solid run!