Ah, Hellgate…. I’ve only run it twice now, but it has become as dear to me as Uhwarrie 40 and Barkley Fall Classic. Such a hard course — starts a at midnight and then 66.6 miles and ~13,000′ of elevation change over single track and forrest road (grass, gravel, rock), finishing at Camp Bethel. 

2021 report

I missed it last year — my application didn’t make it past the “race committee” (e.g. Dr. David Horton himself). Either my credentials weren’t up to snuff, or what I’m guessing (hoping!) – my attempt to send an electronic copy in from Greece via email didn’t meet the race’s old school method of snail mailing in an application once it’s posted to the Internet in early to mid October. I was in Greece celebrating my Dad’s 80th when the application was posted, so couldn’t print it and mail it. I tried to edit the RTF file (!!) on my phone, and formatting looked terrible. But I didn’t have much choice.

Anyway, I was able to get in this year and was excited to give it another shot. In 2021, I kind of fell apart after mile 45 or so with a tweaked knee and incredibly sore feet, so much so that I had to limp in much of the last 12-15 miles.

Kelly and I drove up in the van, scouted Aid Station (AS 5) in the daylight so she would know where to go (to sleep after the race start), grabbed some food at a little mountain cafe, and went to registration check-in and the pre race meeting at Camp Bethel. Horton is a hoot and the meetings are a ton of fun with a lot of laughs, yet the important messages are not lost in that fun atmosphere. After the briefing wrapped up around 8:30 or 8:45 pm, we opted to head right to the start rather than wait for the caravan to leave at 10:50. We arrived and a I spent a little time packing my gear, and then tried to rest. Rest never came so around 10:50 I got up, made coffee, and started getting dressed. Checked in with Horton at 11:40 or so, then waited for the 12:01 start.

The race went better this year than 2 years ago. I felt so much stronger and would have expected my times to be even better than they were, but I’m not complaining. The only real issue I had this time is temperature regulation. Starting at midnight, and running in the mountains up and down from elevations of 1500-2000′ difference means you will get some temperature swings, but it felt like it could have been a little more than that. There were points where I felt clammy running downhill if I ran moderate for more than 8-10 minutes. Daylight came, I met Kelly at AS 5 (mile 31 or so), changed clothes, and the clamminess never really came back.

While there are 9 AS’s I only have times for when Kelly met me and wrote them down, but it’s a good comparison of 2021. vs 2022. Note these are the “official” mile markers but everyone knows they are off and the total distance is much closer to 66 than 62… My times are in:out.

AS	Milage	Horton Time	My 2021 time	2022 time
1 – FSR35	3.5	12:45 am
2 – Petities Gap	7.5	1:37 am
3 – Camping Gap	13.1	3:13 am
4 – Floyd’s Field	22.4	5:38 am
5 – Jennings Creek	27.6	7:00 am	7:06 – 7:20	6:59 – 7:09
6 – Little Cove Mountain	34.5	8:33 am
7 – Bearwallow Gap	42.5	10:30 am	x – 11:16	11:04 – 11:05
8 – Bobblets Gap	49.5	12:00	1:00 – 1:04	12:48 – 12:51
9 – Day Creek	56.1	13:36	x – 14:32	14:51 – 14:54
10 – Finish	62.4	14:45	16:49	16:15

While the times improved steadily, the biggest difference here is the time from AS 9 to the finish. This year I was actually able to run down the last 3.5 miles, whereas in 2021 I had to shuffle as any uneven ground really hurt the knee.

That was good for 80th out of 120 finishers (145 starters) and 8th out of 15 (16 starters) in the grandmasters. I certainly don’t stack up in the results like I did 6+ years ago, but I’m going to blame that on running 20 miles per week (instead of 40-50), and carrying more muscle around. I probably train the same, if not more, in total hours, but I bike and lift a lot more than I did back then. Age is of course a factor too, I just don’t think it’s as big a factor as training changes. But maybe I’m kidding myself. :-)

Photos all from Kelly as I never got my phone out… In fact I didn’t even listen to the playlist I made until the last big climb!

A few screen shots from Strava data. For the HR, that was my Whoop (on my wrist) broadcasting to my Coros, not a chest strap. But looking at it, I would think fairly accurate. (In reality I felt like I was red lining a lot, but know that wouldn’t have been possible…)

That last one shows I definitely slowed in the last quarter of the race I little more than I would have liked — about 30 minutes slower than the 1st quarter. I do feel like my 1st mile or two was probably a little fast, but it felt pretty good so I went with it.