Haw River West “Scramble”

Posted on March 14, 2010 by seanb724

I’ve wanted to attempt this run for a while… Turns out it is much more of a scramble than a run, as there is not a whole lot of trail. Lots of bushwhacking, bouldering, and even a couple cliff climbs.

Here is what I wrote on Daily Mile:

Ouch! Brutal! Loved it! 🙂

That was much harder than I thought, even though I have done much of the southern sections of this route before, though not all at once. I had not been on the last 2.5 miles or so of the north part before the turn around at Bynum…

Lots of bushwhacking, a few cliff climbs, bouldering. In fact I’d guess that less than 35% of this is on a real trail. And once you pass the power line north of 64, there is NO trail.

I made it to about a quarter mile south of the old Bynum bridge, and I could see the dam at 15/501. But I turned there because I reached someone’s personal property. There were yellow signs showing the “state park” land but with the water as high as it was, I didn’t feel like trespassing. Never know who might pull a shot gun on you! (Next time I’ll just jump on Bynum Beech Road, which I ran next to for a bit.)

I experimented with Chia “fresca” as my only fuel. Two 20 oz bottles of 3-4 TB of chia seeds, a little lime juice, and a little honey, and the rest water.. I will need to try this again. I felt pretty dead by the end, but I can’t tell if that was the course beating it out of me or if it was Chia not fueling me as much as my normal fuel, pPerpetuem.

About 9 minutes slower on the way back, but some of that was route selection. Instead of going “up and over” I went down by the water and with the water level it more bouldering and climbing than I expected!

Looking forward to trying this on the “east” side soon!

50/50: Secrets I learned running 50 marathons in 50 days…. Dean Karnazes.

Posted on February 26, 2010 by seanb724

After reading Ultramarathon Man, I thought I would read Dean’s second book, which details his journey of running 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. I have to admit, this one did not grab my attention like the other. I think it is due to the nature of most of the marathon’s — road runs which just don’t excite me. And the few trail marathons that were thrown in were not of the same level of adventure as the runs in his other book which are more like the long adventure races I prefer. Still, there were good moments and lots of good quotes, of which I’ll of course include a few.

On “The Awakening” statue: Most statues, you look at. The Awakening forces you to look in.

(Pretty cool!)

“Most people run a race to see who’s the fastest,” he said. “I run a race to see who has the most guts.” — Prefontaine
Treat yourself as an experiment of one. Don’t blindly copy the way others train. Try new workouts and methods often; keep those that work for you and discard the rest.
I love the motto: “No Child Left Inside!”
Every runner is familiar with the sin of knowing better—of stubbornly pushing ahead despite warnings from the more sensible parts of our minds. The desire to keep running until the task is completed or the goal achieved is so great that it overrides our better knowledge and our self-protective faculties.
If everything you knew about life came from TV, your goal would be to live the easiest, most comfortable and unchallenging life you possibly could. You would believe that the only good feelings are sensual pleasures such as the taste of a good soft drink and the fun of driving an expensive car and lying on the beach.
… I found myself wondering why so many people like Kris are drawn to marathons and other such challenges these days. I can’t help thinking that the phenomenon is in part a largely unconscious backlash against comfort culture and the easy life. Heated seats and online shopping and robot vacuum cleaners have created a void that we’re all sensing. Our modern comforts and conveniences have accumulated to the point that they have stopped making us feel better and started making us feel worse. Some primal instinct lurking deep inside is trying to tell us that what is needed is a good, hard sweat—some struggle in our lives; some physical challenge.
The best way I know to overcome low motivation for running is to get back in touch with the source of my passion to run. Motivation and passion are somewhat different. Passion is an overwhelming love for the experience of a favorite activity. Motivation is a drive to engage in an activity based on some reward the activity offers beyond the simple enjoyment of the experience itself. When you have great passion for running, or anything else, you don’t need any extra motivation. But motivation without passion can only take you so far.
As Plato said, “Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.”
Rest was not an option. Endurance never sleeps.
He who suffers remembers.

Uhwarrie Mountain Run.

Posted on February 8, 2010 by seanb724

I had tried to get into this race the past few years — the 8 miler or the 20, but never registered in time. The race typically fills up in 20- 30 minutes. Due to a registration snafu, I got into the 20 miler twice this year. I wasn’t sure I’d be ready to run 40, and thought 20 would be plenty. For a while I thought I might give one of the entries to my sister. But I also was looking for a reason to run the 40, and when she had plans come up, things fell into place. All of the old Triangle AR guys were in the 40, and I’ve been running pretty well, so I thought why not go for it. I could just use the ultra-shuffle to go that distance, right?

The trail and race is notoriously rugged. Here is an elevation profile:

I’ve run some on the northern section (mile 0-5 or so), though not a whole lot on the trail as we were practicing for a Rogaine, and I had backpacked from the southern end solo last year (miles 20 to 5 or so), so I knew what I was getting into. Lots of steep climbs, stream crossings (many with no bridges), some without stepping stones, etc.

The week prior Kelly and Reece had not been feeling well. I used Airbornne all week to try and stay healthy, but the night before the race I got a tickle in my throat, my nose started running, and I just didn’t have much energy. I went to bed at 8:30 but couldn’t really fall asleep until closer to 10:00. Luckily on race day I awoke not feeling very sick after all.

I woke up at 3:52 a.m., 3 minutes before my alarm was due to go off. I got up, made coffee, got dressed, forced down some oatmeal (I hate to eat that soon after waking), and I was out the door by 4:20 or so.

The 90 minute drive to Uhwarrie went by quickly as I jammed to some genius play-list, though I can’t for the life of me recall what song I seeded it with. None-the-less it was good music and kept me awake.

I arrived at the Church shuttle parking lot a few minutes after 6 a.m. This year, with the amount of rain there has been, the forrest service did not want racers parking at the start, which is really a trail head with very minimal parking anyway. I went in to the church to use the facilities, gathered up the gear I wanted, threw on some body glide in the appropriate placeds, got in the shuttle bus, and was at the start by 6:30.

After I quick check-in, I attached my race number to my shorts, made some final gear selections, and hung out. I ran into Charlie and met Sultan, whose blog I have followed for a while… Here is a link to his race report.

A couple minutes after 7:00 we headed to the road to listen to last minute instructions. Due to the amount of rain and high streams, some of the crossings on the southern section were deemed too dangerous and we were told that at mile 14 we would have to leave the trail and run a gravel road to the turn-around. This cut 6 miles of difficult trail out and put in 5 miles of relatively easy) road running in, thus shortening the 40 mile run to 38 and making it a bit easier. We were also told that depending on conditions they may elect to call the run at 20, which would have been a major disappointment!

Just before the start I decided I should ditch my top layer, a mid weight wool shirt, and just keep my even lighter weight wool base shirt on. As I ran the 30 meters back to my bag I heard “Get Set! Go!” Uh-oh, here I am starting the race in last place! No worries though in a 40 miler, in which my goal is to 1st finish, and then finish in under 10 hours. (The 10 hour goal was before the course modifications had been put in place.)

The first 50 meters or so is on the paved road up to a short double track trail that then climbs a few hundred feet, before you hit the single track. I passed some folks on the climb up before we hit the single track, and then settled into an easy pace, passing a few people here and there as the trail permitted. About 3 miles in I dashed past a pack of 6 or so to get some separation so I could do my own thing.

From mile 4 – 9 or so, I ran with Shannon and we talked about a bunch of things, which passed the time. She had a camera and took a few photos of me, which I’ve included in this post.

Crossing a stream.

Between 4 and 6 miles, snow started to fall and I began to worry about my choice of not wearing any kind of rain/snow shell. At the last minute I had stuffed it in my turn-around bag, so I had 15 miles or so to go until I could get it, and if the snow turned to rain, I probably would have chilled pretty quickly. But luckily, the snow stopped and it never rained. It was beautiful running in the woods with big flakes of snow falling all around.

Shannon had a pretty good fall right after the stream crossing shown here, at about mile 9, and told me to go on.

Just before the aid station at mile 14, the two leaders of the 20 mile run came flyng up behind me – they had started an hour later. I watched them run off and subsequently tripped and fell pretty hard on my right knee. Now two days later I don’t know if it is my old patella-femoral syndrome that I feel or the fall! I lean towards the fall since most of the pain is on the outside of the patella, not underneath, though the PFS is probably contributing a little.

Mile 14 is where we turned on to the 5 mile gravel road instead of continuing on the 6 miles of trail. Who knows how bad the trail was, but at the end of the day I trust the RD’s. They put on a great race in not so great conditions, had 8 aid stations well stocked with supplies and volunteers, etc. And while I would have loved to do the full trail, I still had a great time on the modified course. Here is the elevation data from the Garmin, which you can compare to the normal course elevation shown above. Miles 14 – 23 or so are the gravel road… As you can see pretty level compared to the rest of the course!

The thing with the road, for me, at least, was that I had planned on walking all the steep hills on the trail. The road, however, only had gradual inclines and declines. So I ran just about the whole 10 miles, which again, was not really in my race plan and not how I trained. Watching my average pace on the Garmin showed me go from about a 12:30 minute per mile average down to 11:40 by the turn around, so it was clearly a lot faster.

Only 2 or 3 more twenty milers passed me on the road up to their finish and my turn around. I was starting to get concerned that maybe the 40 milers were being pulled from the course at the turn, but finally I saw another 40 miler coming back. And then another, and another, and another… Good, the full race was on!

At the turn around I just put on new socks and grabbed my two extra fuel bottles. My fueling strategy for this run was to use two 20 oz bottles filled with perpetuem mixed very thickly with water for each half … One in my hand with water, the other in the pack with just powder, and then drink water at each aid station to dilute it. I ended up diluting the mix in the bottles by filling them with water at each station. This strategy worked well and I only had a tiny bit of solid food… About 3/4’s of a bananna at the turn-around; less than one pack of cliff shots, and one hammer gel single serving. The rest of the run was fueld by my liquid diet of Perpetuem and two or three swallows of Heed the aid stations had. (About 600 calories per bottle, 4 bottles total, and I never even drank from the 4th bottle!)

Shannon came in to the turn-around and said her leg was fine, and was back out on the road pretty quickly. After the turn, it was 5 miles back on the gravel road. I saw many more 20 and 40 milers heading towards the finish/turn, but I could not wait to be back on the trail. I was really getting sick of the roads!

Sometime around mile 25 or so, a lady in purple came up behind me and we ran together for a while. She said “that was impressive” when I crossed a stream on high, slipperly log. I looked back to see her in water up to her thighs, and thought my way was the better choice. 🙂 After the stream I told her to pass me and she was gone. She was running some really technical trail like she was a mountain goat — she made it look so easy! I on the other hand had to walk through some of this section.

From that point on there’s not much to report. I passed a couple runners, and at least one passed me. I was just marking time to the aid stations and the finish.

Coming down to the finish is a really rocky section… I was trying to push it to finish in under 8 hours, but it was tough to run here! I finally came down the last steep descent to finish in something like 7:58. Here I am coming to the line. I was trying to make sure my race number was showing so I could find the photo later!

My goal for the original course was to #1 — finish, and if I finished, to break 10 hours. I think a 9 hour finish on the original course might have been possible, but pretty tight. We did a little under 38 miles, and about 9 – 10 of that was on roads. The roads were definitely easier and faster, though by how much is hard to say. So add 25-30 minutes for the extra distance, and another 25-30 minutes for the added difficulty, and 9 may have been in reach.

There’s always next year to see! However, I would really like to do the Mt Mitchell challenge which is another 40 mile run from the town of Black Mountain to the top of Mt. Mitchell and back. But it is a couple of weeks after Uhwarrie, and I can only handle one of these that close together!

Click here to see the Garmin GPS data…

Little River 10 mile trail run…

Posted on January 9, 2010 by seanb724

Posted this on Dailymile and FB, but thought I’d put it up here too…

16F at the start, but my gear selection was pretty good and I wasn’t too cold and quickly warmed up to a nice temp. I love my buff! Used it as balaclava to start and then just covered the ears after the 1st couple miles.

I had hoped to break 9:00 pace but this is a very technical course. About 5 miles is on a tight mountain bike single track, and it’s really hard to get any speed there. (See the Garmin link below to see what I mean about the 2nd half of the course!)

Considering this was my 1st running race over 7 miles in several years, I am pleased as I was strong throughout even though I was pushing hard. (I have done adventure races that have had longer foot sections, and orienteering courses where I have been “running” longer times, but this was my 1st running race this long…)

The garmin data is here.

Here is a screen shot from the google earth import:

And here is my heart rate… This shows I really could not have gone a whole lot faster. I was in the 165-175 range and that 175 is definitely pushing anaerobic. I have not done a max heart rate test in a while, but I would think it is only 178 or so. So the fact that I was above 165 for so long is a sign my vo2 max is doing pretty good.

Pose Method of Running

Posted on December 31, 2009 by seanb724

Pictured are both the book and the DVD… Both are somewhat expensive relative to most books and DVDs, so I would recommend spending a fair amount of time on the web site before purchasing, to make sure they are for you.

The Pose method is similar to Chi Running, which I read and reviewed here, though Pose is much more “scientific.” Chi is kind of go with the flow, and use nature (gravity) and your body as you feel, while Pose feels and sounds more scientifically grounded. At the end of the day, both forms are quite similar. Both utilize a very slight forward lean so that you are working with gravity, not against it. Both teach you to run without braking, by modifying your form. (Forward lean is really not the best word or image for what is going on, but it is all we have…)

I’m working on many of the drills in the book and in the video. I would definitely say the video is a must on some of the drills, as seeing them in action by a real person vs. just reading about them makes a huge difference in understanding exactly what must be done.

One cool thing is about 1/2 way through the book, when you still have not done any running or any drills, he tells you to go to a local race to watch. Watch the differences between the elite runners and the back of the pack. How quiet and efficient the fast runners are vs. how loud and clumsy the slow runners are. Watch the heel strike of the slow runners vs. the ball of foot/mid foot strike of the fast runners. Watch the amount of time the fast runners foot stays on the ground, which is tremendously minimal vs. the slow runners, which can seem like an eternity. I happened to go to a race to watch my wife run, and it was amazing to see how accurate all of this was.

Quote: When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. Shunyro Suzuki

(Thus the need for doing the drills over and over…)

I’m still working on the drills, but I would say the form as outlined is sound, and the drills should help you get there. I especially like his stance on barefoot training (he is fore it)… And I love jumping rope barefoot.

Run at the Rock…

Posted on December 6, 2009 by seanb724

I posted this to daily mile, but thought I’d cut and paste it here.

Extremely sloppy and muddy, cold and wet, but great fun! 🙂 It felt really good to push myself hard in a race as it has been a while.

I wish I had know the course a little better… I went out pretty hard the 1st 1/2 mile as it was on the road, and with a mass start with both the 7 and 14 miler racers all starting, it was crowded. I wanted to hit the single track without too many slower runners in front. While there was some single track early on, there was also a lot of horse trails that were wide enough to easily pass (or get passed!), so I could have gone a little slower to start.

The fast start meant I did have to slow in the middle, but I picked it up around mile 5. The mile markers were a little off, as they kept showing me just under 10 minute pace, and I knew I was running faster. And the last mile I ran in < 5 minutes. 🙂 So they made up for it.

The GoLite trail shoes were awesome in the mud, as I knew they would be. While some runners looked like they were on ice in the slick clay mud, I never slipped at all. These shoes have huge knobs on them — almost like cleats. Should do well in the snow and ice too!

All in all I am happy with a 9 minute pace on these trails in these conditions. The single track mountain bike trails were very tight and technical, so tough to run fast on, while the horse trails did allow me to open it up a bit. I could not open it up on the downhills like I would normally do, due to the slickness of the mud.

The results were posted quickly, and I was 6th out of 28 in the Mens 35-39 and 61 out of 360 over all. I’m surprised I did that well but I’ll of course take it! 🙂

Backwoods Orienteering Blue 10/18

Posted on October 19, 2009 by seanb724

It was a blustery day, but never managed to rain. Joseph and Ruth set some very difficult courses including an 8.9K Blue course. We had a couple of injuries, Pat Downey got a severe cut on his leg requiring medical attention by stepping into a stump hole where someone discarded some broken glass, and Patrik Heuman tripped over some barbed wire and got a bloody nose when he fell. Pat, Jeff Eichman, and Don Childrey helped Patrik and then Jeff and Don helped Pat. For your sacrifice helping an injured comrade instead of being disqualified for not finishing (DNF) you get a “Sporting Withdrawal” (SPW) for being a good sport. Also thanks to Josef for setting out 24 controls early in the morning and helped with starts and finishes, to Joseph for teaching the class, and to Holly, Bill, Mihai, Vladimir, Artem, Bill, and Paul for retrieving controls after the event. (Please let me know if I forgot you).

Link to the official page…

Results show:

Blue Course: 21 KP 8.9 km 

  1 Brian Thompson               1:40:45
  2 Sean M Butler                1:40:55
  3 Artem Kazantsev              2:08:39
  4 Mihai Ibanescu               2:10:29
  5 Patrik Heuman                2:18:11
    Jeffrey Eichman                  SPW
    Donald Childrey                  SPW     
    Patrick Downie                   SPW
    Pierre Nyquist                   DNF
    Miriam Noren                     DNF
    Stanley Matsson                  DNF
    Daniel Varner & Daniel Byars     DNF

Ernie, Brian, and I ran the course together (so it is odd there is a 10s discrepancy!), and I have to say it would have been VERY tough solo. I likely would have been a DNF, there were so many tough controls! But with 3 of us, we were able to find almost all of them pretty quickly — only off on a couple which you can see in the split.

Brian pretty much dragged us through the course. 🙂

Bushwhack Adventure Race.

Posted on September 30, 2009 by seanb724

Team: Triangle Adventure Racing

Sean Butler, Brian Thompson

Pre-race

Check-in was set for 2:30 p.m. at Harris Lake, which was the remote start, so I met Brian there and we got our maps. They had actually published the UTM’s of the start, finish, and transition areas earlier in the day, so I had made a google map, which I will embed here. (Not sure how well it will work, but you should be able to click on each blue marker to see what the TA is…)

After we checked in and got the big map and UTMs, we drove a little away so we could plot the UTMs on a picnic table. We were given all of the TA UTM’s and a the 1st large section of CP UTM’s… After we plotted them we drove back to the start and put our gear together. We were using Frog Hollow’s paid support to move our bikes and boat around, and found that they would allow us one small bin of gear. We used that mostly for food.

My fuel strategy was to mainly use 4 20 oz. water bottles filled with a mixture of Hammer Nutrition products: sustained energy, perpetuem, and heed. I had mixed about 450 calories worth of those products in each bottle, and that was my main fuel that I supplemented with the following: peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and honey, combos, pringles, gels, cliff shots, bite sized candy bars etc. I had a lot more food than I needed as the Hammer Mix really kept me fueled well, but with the gear bin being carried by Frog Hollow, I never had too much food.

There was a pre-race meeting at 6 p.m., and we had to get our cars to the finish line from the remote start, about an hour round trip drive. So we drove to Camp Agape and got a ride back from Jeff who was racing the 8 hour race the next day. The RD’s went over the rules and answered questions at the meeting, and told us to be back at 6:45 p.m. for final instructions.

Bushwhack adventures tend to do rogaine style races, where there are many controls in each section, each worth varying points. This allows both fast teams and slow teams to be on the course for nearly the same amount of time, as you can decide to not go after some controls if you start to run short on time…. This means that it does not matter who reaches the finish 1st — it matters who has the most points. Finish time only comes into play if there is a tie in pioints.

Prologue

At the final instructions, they told us we would have a prologue, which turned out to be a short orienteering course of 3 check points on either an A or B course, where each control was located at a small pond in the park. I had to run get our running shoes since we had been prepared to bike first. We got the maps at 18:59, had to hold them down until the RD yelled “go” at 19:00.

We looked at the map, chose to go with course A, and took off running. We arrived at the 1st control just behind team Checkpoint Zero (CP0), the current leader in the national points standings for the Innov8 race series. Brian graciously walked out into the pond, which was really more a swamp. As he came out he said “I just took one for the team!” It was pretty mucky and it did stink!

We raced on to CP2 which was relatively easy, and the on to CP3. We found the pond and circled it, but there was no control. We saw team CP0 again, and they said they could not find it. We circled the pond several times but had no luck, and a couple other teams came up as well. Eventually we all decided to bail and tell the RD’s they were off, but on the way back we all decided to circle another pond we had to pass, and there it was. We still think the control was misplaced.

We raced back to the start and were 1st back, only a couple of seconds ahead of CP0. There are no splits for the prologue, but we were the 1st team back.

I think the prologue was a good idea, as otherwise there would have been a ton of congestion on the early parts of the 1st bike leg…

Section 1: Bike

We jumped on our bikes and head out on the single track. I immediately knew I was going to be in trouble. The lights I had for my helmet and handle bars were nowhere near good enough for this kind of single track riding. They were fine on paved roads, gravel roads, and jeep trails, but not here. I was terribly slow on all single track and I bet we lost at least 30 minutes throughout the race because of that. I need to get back to riding more single track, and I need better lights!CP0 passed us just before we got our 1st control…. Our strategy was to go across the main road outside of the park and pick up all the jeep trail controls, while CP 0 apparently decided to get all the single track inside the park 1st, as they took off in a different direction from us.

Across the road on the jeep trails, our navigation was not quite as crisp and we did overshoot a couple, but we eventually got them all and headed back to the rest of the single track. Once we cleared those, we headed back to the TA and jumped in the boats to head out on the water.

The splits show this section took us 4 hours and 30 minutes, though that includes the prologue time. That was about 4th place but there were about 4 or 5 other teams that all came in right after us. CP0 had checked in well over an hour before. It was now 23:30.

Section 2: Paddle Harris Lake

Night navigation on water can be pretty tough, and we had a pretty long kayak section. All controls were somewhere on the shore, except one which was mysteriously in the middle of the water according to the map. Our plan was to paddle to the 1st control, then back track a little to a boat ramp, and portage across the peninsula to save some time. We did that, and while the portage was slow as we had some issues with the wheels we had borrowed, it still saved a lot of time.

We found the control in the “middle of the water” easily — turns out there was a small island there. We continued to knock out all the controls here pretty easily. It was amusing to see lights in the woods on the shore looking for controls, when Brian would say they were off by several hundred meters.

After the last control we paddled to the next TA. I ran around trying to find the folks manning the CP, and finally did. We were surprised to discover we were in 1st place! But CP0 came out just a few seconds later. Our time on this section was 3 hours 13 minutes, 27 minutes faster than any other team and well over an hour faster than CP0 (who had cleared the bike course way ahead of us!)

We quickly transitioned from boat to bikes, but CP0 was a few seconds faster. They had a real support crew, which certainly helped. While we had to re-fuel and refill water, they did not.

Section 3: Bike San Lee

We had about an hour road bike to the bike trails at San Lee Park, with just a couple turns and one CP to find on the way. We arrived at SanLee five minutes behind CP0 in 2nd place, and quickly headed onto the trails where the passport said we would find 4 CP’s “somewhere on the two loops.” We found the 1st one within 100 yards of the start of the trail, which seemed too easy. We found this trail pretty hard to ride at night, without good lights. Brian’s good handle bar light was not working now, and the trail was fairly technical. We rode when we could, and pushed bikes the rest of the time. After a while we started thinking we must have gotten off a bike trail and on to a hiking tail, as it seemed unridable! Then we stumbled across another CP, so I guess it was a bike trail after all.

From here we made our 1st major mistake, which would come back to haunt us. We crossed a foot bridge to find the start of the other loop, and eventually did. It turns out if we had not crossed the bridge, the other loop actually was right there! Where we did start, we found the 3rd CP pretty quickly. But this trail seemed to go on and on, and there were a few double black diamonds and bypasses… At one point we made the decision to take a bypass to get out, but when we did reach the end — at the foot bridge — we had not found a control. We searched around for more trail, and never found the CP. Eventually we went back to the foot bridge, rode up the bypass, and walked our bikes through the double black diamond. Still not control. I searched up and down the few trails at this junction a couple times with no luck.

We eventually decided to bail we had spent way too much time here. I thought when we checked out of this section, we probably would have lost significant time and places. It turns out we did lose a lot of time to CP0 who had done this section in about 45 minutes while we had been out for over two hours, but we were still in 2nd place. Now, though, we had missed a control, and as this was a rogaine style race, points come before time. The person at the CP and set the control, and he showed us on the map where it was, and it was right there near the footbridge. Somehow we had missed it even though we checked a few times. 😦

We took the roads back to the Cape Fear River at highway 42, where arrived at 6:55 a.m. and received a couple more UTMs to plot. CP0 had arrived well at 5:09 so we had lost a lot of time, but we were still in 2nd time-wise.

Section 4: Paddle the Cape Fear River

This began as fairly easy paddling to the dam, about a 2 miles. We had to portage up and over the dam, which was quite steep on each side. From there it became a “hike a kayak/river walk” as the water was quite low and there were many rocks. In a kevlar boat that is not good!

After about 3 miles of this, we came to the “ropes section” which was a simple trylean traverse across a side-let of the river, maybe 20 yards…

As we were leaving the ropes, we saw a boat behind us for the 1st time (the 3rd place team, Eastern Mountain Sports). They had just missed the ropes and had to turn back, so we figured we were still up on them 15 minutes or so.

Then it was on to more hike a kayak until we reached a bit of rapids and the pull out for the orienteering section. The splits show we had made up about 20-30 minutes on CP0 as they had headed out on the O-course one hour and 20 minutes before us.

Section 5: Orienteering

Raven Rock is a great place for orienteering, and Brian again showed his excellent navigation skills. While we were just a little off on the 1st control, and felt the next two were slightly misplaced though we found them pretty quickly, we went through this section in what we thought was a good time, clearing the course in 3 hours and 50 minutes. Here it is hard to look at the time splits as many teams were starting to skip controls due to the time, but we can see we gained just under 30 minutes on CP0. However, EMS had made up 40 minutes on us!

We were still in 2nd place leaving this section (We had seen EMS a few minutes earlier, and they came up as we were getting ready to pull out, and we got on the water about the same time.

Section 6: Paddle

We had about an hour paddle to the last boat take out, still on the Cape Fear River. Along this section we nearly had a disaster… The boat hit a rock hard, with enough momentum to get the middle of the boat on the rock, with me in the front and Brian in the back putting a lot of stress on the kevlar. We heard what I thought was the boat cracking, but it turned out to be the sealant cracking, and the boat did not take on any water, so we were ok. We reached the pull-out at the same time as EMS.

Section 7: Bike

We biked up a long gravel road to some paved roads, and then on to the north side of Raven Rock State park. This took about 30 minutes. Splits show we got to the check in before the trek 10 minutes before EMS and 70 minutes after CP0.

Section 8: Trek

The trek section was along two horse trail loops, with just 4 controls to get. We got the 1st two easily, and then bushwhacked through the woods to pick up the other loop. This bushwhack saved a lot time vs. taking the trail all the way around to the other loop! But the 3rd control proved difficult. We went up and down the spur where it was supposed to be, much higher than it was marked, and couldn’t find it. Another team came and we felt certain we were in the right spot. Eventually Brian tried to call the RD, but we couldn’t get signal. We had decided to abandon this CP has time was starting to get short for getting to the finish before the cut-off at 7 p.m. and we still had one more CP to get.As we were going down the back side of the spur, we should have hit a trail, and we never did. So we were not where we thought we were! We headed back to the trail where we had come up the spur, and then started the trail again. We soon hit another spur, checked that out, but no CP. Back to the trail, and a few minutes later, another spur. And there the control was… We had been off — way off. We probably lost a good 20-30 minutes on this CP. Oh well, on to the next.

We had more trekking/running to small waterfall, where I spotted the CP across the stream. After going around to grab it, we headed back to the TA, and then got on the bikes.

Section 9: Bike to finish

The last section was about a 30 minute bike on a gravel road (with a decent climb!) and then on to the finish. We reached the finish at 6:24 p.m, or 23 hours and 24 minutes. I do note based on the splits we had the fastest time on this short section by 5 minutes. I think we were just ready to be done!

We had missed one control on the course, and we did not know if any other teams had cleared the course, though we assumed CP0 and EMS had. Turns out EMS had missed one 50 point control, while we had missed a 60 point control, so they did beat us (barley!)

Here are the final standings:

We finished first place in our open division and third place overall. I am quite happy with how I raced since it was my 1st long race in over 5 years. We were right there with two very good teams for most of the race. Brian’s navigation and me drafting behind him on the road bike allowed me to hang with him without slowing him too much. (Other than the night single track, where I was terrible! We probably lost 30 minutes or more on those 2 sections!)

I loaded up all my gear, ate a little at the post race cook out, but did not stick around for the awards. I just wanted to go home, get a shower, and get some sleep!

I had terrible chaffing and a rash from being in the same wet bike shorts for nearly 24 hours. And the next day I was tired and sore, but that is expected. I had pushed pretty hard to keep up with Brian’s pace, but overall I am recovering nicely and look forward to my next adventure! 🙂

Here is a link to the final results.

(I’ll update this with more pictures if/when the volunteers upload them!)

Here is what my leg looked like after the race. This is due to way too much bushwhacking! 🙂

Born to Run. Christopher McDougall.

Posted on September 25, 2009 by seanb724

I’d love to write more about this book, but I am about to head out on my 1st 24 hour adventure race in several years. I am glad I finished it before race! There are many things I could write about, but not right now. Instead I will say that if you are an endurance athlete of any kind, love the great outdoors, then read this book. McDougall did an excellent job in telling this story.

And I’ll leave you with my notes from the book, mostly just a bunch of quotes:

“Tarahumara virtues: strength, patience, cooperation, dedication, persistence”
on a 95 year old Raramuri hiking 25 miles over a mountain: “Know why he could do it? Because no one ever told him he couldn’t. No one ever told him he oughta be off dying somewhere in an old age home.”
“you are tougher than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can.”
on women ultra runners: “how come nearly all the woman finish Leadville and fewer than half the men do.”
“No wonder so many people hated running; if you thought it was only a means to an end — an investment in becoming faster, skinnier, richer — then why stick with it if you weren’t getting enough quo for your quid?
on Leaville: “pacing is so grueling and thankless, usually only family, fools, and damn good friends let themselves get talked into it.”
- ( Hi Ben and Shane! 🙂 )
“Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.” — Mark Twain
“I always start these events with very lofty goals, like I’m going to do something special. And after a point of body deterioration, the goals get evaluated down to basically where I am now — where the best I can hope for is to avoid throwing up on my shoes.”
“You can’t hate the Beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.”
- (The Beast is the “monster” that attacks every endurance athlete when they hit their lowest, and think they can’t go on. It tries to convince them to stop. I’ve been there, and I have survived. 🙂 )
On feet: “They’re self correcting devices. Covering your feet with cushioned shoes is like turning off your smoke alarms.”
- Why I love my VFF’s!
“Your body needs to be shocked to become resilient..”
- Why something like adding plyometrics to your work out is so good.
“You don’t stop running because you get old. You get old because you stop running.”
“The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other, but to be with each other.”
When Jenn Shelton fell and at first thought blood was pouring from her hand, and then realized it was chocolate goo, made me laugh out loud. I was racing in FL with Ben once, and crashed over a gate that I had not seen in the dark. When I got up I thought I had severed an artery in my leg, there was so much “blood” coming down. Took me a minute (while trying to figure out why I didn’t feel excruciating pain) to realized the goo I had in my shorts and exploded down my leg. Shew, I wasn’t going to die out there in the wilderness!

There are two goddesses in your heart… The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Riches. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You give your heart to the Goddess of Wisom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous and follow you.” (Ask for nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined.”

The oath:
- “If I get hurt, lost or die, it’s my own damn fault!”

Books to read:

Dharma Bums — Kerouac

“The Quad”

Posted on August 25, 2009 by seanb724

With a week long vacation to Colorado, I was excited to get another 14er or two under my belt. Not like I’ve done many — just the two last year — but they are a lot of fun and quite a challenge. My friend Ben had to be in Leadville later in the day (to pace someone in the Leadville 100, but he still wanted to hike with us!), so we looked for a peak in that area. It also turned out that my other friends Mike and Ethan, with whom I often hike the AT, were in the area as well– Mike has moved out there for a year to teach and Ethan was there for work. Together we decided to hike “The Quad,” a series of four 14ers you can hit in one go — Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross.

As always, 14ers.com has the definitive guide with photos, routes, maps, and all kinds of other useful info here.

Ethan and I stayed at Mike’s house the night before. We awoke around 3:45 a.m. and hit the road so we could meet two guys guys in Colorado Springs, and head out to Kite Lake. Ben and Nicholas had left Highlands Ranch around 1:30 a.m. to go to the Leadville 100 race start at 4:00 a.m. He was to meet us at Kite Lake around 6:30, though he ended up not getting there until closer to 7. I had sent the other guys on as I figured we might catch them, since Ben would have to go fast to get back to the race.

There was quite a crowd at the Lake, and the route would be fairly crowded all day. I guess with the beautiful weather and the day being Saturday, lots of people were out.

I used the nifty RunKeeper app for the iPhone to track the route via GPS. I was out about 5 hours and this pretty much drained the battery, but it’s great to see the exact route taken and the profile/speed info.

And the profile:/speed info… That blip in speed around mile 5 is probably a mistake — RunKeeper has a GPS filter but sometimes things slip through. Either that or I decided to run a quater mile for fun. 🙂

From Kite Lake, Democrat doesn’t look too intimidating, but it was going to be quite a climb — 2000 feet in 2 miles:

Here is a view looking back towards the lake, after maybe the 1st 700-800 feet of elevation gain. If you look closely you can see a lot of cars in the parking area, but the road up to the lake was really full too. And you can see a lot of hikers on the trail below. There were probably twice that many above us already!

As Ben, Nicholas, and I were on the final approach to the summit of Democrat, we passed the other guys on the way down. The first shot shows how rocky the “trail” was, while the second shows the final climb.

The three of us on top:

I normally take a video on the top of each peak, and I did this time as well, but the peaks were all so crowded, with many folks on their cell phones and stuff like that, that it isn’t worth posting them.

After we descended to the saddle between Democrat and Cameron, Ben and Nicholas decided they better not push it and headed back to Leadville. With Ben having to pace someone later in the day, it was probably a wise decision, as the rest of the day was not easy.

This shot shows the long steady climb up Cameron… Towards the top of this, I was definitely feeling it! Though the rest of the day I felt pretty strong. I met the other guys at the top of Cameron.

Me on top of Cameron:

After Cameron it was a short hike down and up to Lincoln… The remaining 5 of us on top of Lincoln:

I was itching to keep moving (didn’t want to get cold) so I hiked up to the top of Bross by myself. It was really flat up there and again there were a lot of people. I started to hike back down as there was a split in the trail I could take to go back to the lake, but I met the other guys before that split, so hiked back up again, and then headed on down. There were sections of the downhill that were a bit hairy — super steep and mostly scree — so I took it pretty slowly in most places. The next few shots show the scree, steepness (though pictures never do justice!), and some old abandoned mines.

From the end of the trail, this is looking back the way we just descended:

RunKeeper shows it took me about 5 hours with an average pace of 1.5 miles per hour. While that seems slow, you have to remember how steep it is both on the way up and the way down, and that most of the hike is above 13,500. And I did take time at each peak to hang out (well, just for a few minutes).

It was a relatively easy way to bag four 14ers in one go, though no 14er is truly easy.

2sparrows

Category Archives: Adventure Racing and Ultra-running