Note:  Over the next few days, I’m going to post the updates Kelly sent to family and friends during Leadville.  I’m sure I’ll get to my own race thoughts at some point, but for now I think she covered everything really well.  This first post is a bit of a prologue, as on Thursday Kelly climbed Hope Pass solo so she could get a preview of the perhaps the most challenging part of the course…

Good evening everyone!

We have had a couple full days since I last wrote from Twin Lakes, CO.  Sean got his race packet yesterday and had his medical check in downtown Leadville.  (He will be weighed and checked at certain checkpoints during the race, too.)

Overview of the race:

The race goes 50 miles from Leadville to Winfield (passing through Twin Lakes), then directly retraces the course back to Leadville for a total of 100 miles.  The total elevation gain is approximately 18,000′.  Sean can have a pacer (runner/encourager) from Winfield to Leadville, i.e. after the first 50.  Race start = 4:00 AM Saturday, Race cut-off = 10:00 AM Sunday.  (30 hour cut-off!)  There are approximately 1,000 competitors from 40+ states and several countries around the world.  I’m not sure how many have officially checked in.  The average finishing rate is in the 50% range – so this is indeed a character building event!  Being that this is a former mining town, the motto around here for this race is “dig deep – don’t quit!”  We are hoping that Sean finishes, stays healthy, and enjoys it the whole way!

Sean’s crew members (and pacers) consist of Gordon (“Gordo” – who Sean met online via ultra-runners), Paul (Sean’s Dad), and myself.  He also has a coach, Tim (“Lucho”) who has a total of 7 runners trained for this event.  And then he has the additional team cheerleaders of Riley and Reece.  🙂

A few updates:

Today (Friday), we attended a pre-race meeting in the morning.  It was rather unique and even emotional – quite a special tradition going on each year in Leadville.  We saw the array of highly coveted finisher belt buckles of various sizes for the <30 hour finishers, <25 hours, and then for multiple Leadville finishers who have completed X number of Leadville 100s for 1,000 miles, 2,000 miles, etc.  This year, the race founder handed the leadership baton over to his son.  It was also very informative with a doctor speaking (with a touch of humor) about important health considerations for an event like this.  I learned a few things!

After this meeting, Gordo and I attended the crew info session to get the latest updates on checkpoints and parking rules.  Then after lunch in the mining town, with the help of our good friend Ben (who has paced for 5 years and is racing the full 100 this year), we all drove out to a few of the checkpoints so we were acquainted with the exact location of some of these places.

Our plan, thus far:

We will get Sean to the race start around 3:30 AM.  We will then have crew members at each checkpoint ahead of Sean’s arrival – ready and waiting with food, hydration, sunscreen, etc. from start to finish.  This will require some juggling of 3 cars, going back and forth from our house with and without the kids (so they rest, eat, etc.), and lots of estimating, waiting, and probably some worrying too!  At Winfield, estimating 3:00 PM Saturday, Gordon will begin pacing the hardest section of the “inbound” with Sean (for approx. 11 miles) and then he’ll cover another stretch in the 10 mile range sometime early Sunday morning.  Paul, Sean’s Dad, is aiming to take a 6-7 mile road stretch in the wee hours of Sunday morning.  And I’m scheduled to take 7 miles with him to the finish from Turquoise Lake up to the start/finish in downtown Leadville.  Riley and Reece will hopefully get to jump in the last mile to help with a strong finish!

And just for fun:

As I bring this to a close, I wanted to share a few sneak peak photos of the course that Sean will cover.  Yesterday (Thursday), I got the nerve to do my first solo hike and into high altitude – to the top of Hope Pass.  Hope Pass is the highest peak that Sean will cross twice – once outbound and then again inbound.  It is the last hurrah before he’ll hit the 50-mile turnaround in Winfield (about 5 miles down from Hope Pass) and the big a-ha as he crosses back up and over to see this inspirational view as he heads back toward Leadville.

This was a 10-mile hike for me, round trip with 3,300′ elevation gain.  The photos of me were done with a self-timer!  The standing shot is along the trail, a few hundred feet below Hope Pass.  And then the crouched shot is at the top.  Between the significant climb and the altitude (above treeline), this peak earns some respect!  I have a couple shots of the rugged trail so you can see how steep it gets!  I averaged 2 miles per hour going up (granted, some photos and a few breathers were taken along the way) and then 3+ miles on the way down (I ran what I could).  It is a lovely hike – Aspen, meadows with wildflowers, a stream with waterfalls, fragrant evergreens, and cool, but thin mountain air (it’s actually very chilly at the top – my hands were very cold!).

The trail (a “pass” between 2 mountains, both Hope and Quail are in the 13,000′ peak range) sits at 12,600′ above sea level with a view of the 3 lakes (our rental house is near the Twin Lakes).  The lake/pond that is in closest view behind me is where they will have a race aid station (crew members not permitted).  Sean will pass by the trail marker and ribbons at the top of Hope Pass (pictured, too – facing toward Winfield).  Also pictured, I had the pleasure of bumping into 3 of the llama teams coming up the trail yesterday.  They were hauling supplies, including 700 gallons of water for the racers.  The herd of 34 llamas will stay there for a couple of days, eating off the land and drinking from the pond.  Then they’ll haul everything back down the mountain after the race!

I’ll be in touch more soon… on race day!

This post is a couple weeks old, but better late than never!

As my last long training run, I wanted to tackle this run I found on the WNC wiki page:

http://wnctrailrunner.wikispaces.com/Tanawha+Marathon,+Half+Marathon,+50K

A 31 mile run with 7000′ of elevation gain — what better last run for Leadville could I find in North Carolina?

I had Kelly drop me off on top of Holloway Mtn Road at the intersection of the Tanawha trail, rather than the trail head start at Julian Price Lake.  It saved her a few minutes of driving, so I just ran to the Lake and turned around, so I could get the whole run in.

Strava data here… The GPS died around mile 24 though per the trail mile markers, this would have been closer to mile 28.  And then I ran another 7-8 miles after it died for a total of 35 miles.

http://www.strava.com/activities/70059595

I did modify the run as follows:

1) From Linville Cove I jumped off the trail and ran on the road to Beacon Heights.  I thought I might be late for meeting Kelly with a water and food re-supply.  Turns out I’d actually meet her back at the Linville viaduct visitor center where I got an apple, some chips, water, and water/grape juice mix.  I did run the trail back from Beacon Heights to Linville and discovered some really cool rock formation at Stack Rock.

2)  After the return up and over Rough Ridge, I decided to jump on the Blue Ridge and head back to Holloway Mtn Road for a couple of reasons.  First, I had already done this section of trail and it was *extremely* overgrown in some places.  Second, I had been power hiking an awful lot due to the technicality of the trail plus the steepness up and down Calloway.  So I wanted to get in a solid chunk of real running.   Turns out based on timing that I actually ran all the way down Holloway Mtn Road, around Church St. a bit, and to the Citgo at 105.

Screen shots from Strava:

Now, on to some photos:

This would be the trail blaze I’d be following for the most part, other than the climb up Calloway which leaves the Tanawha (feather) and the Mountains to the See trail (white circle):

The trail was very overgrown in some places — a bit of a bushwhack here and there.

Here are a few photos in and around the lake when I reached it early in the morning:

Heading towards Calloway from Holloway Mtn Road, you pass right through the middle of cattle fields!

Here are just some random shots along the course…

I only drank from one stream — I didn’t really mean to, but I had stopped to put cold water on my head and face, and found myself gulping down some water!  🙂

These ladders always tend to slow you down a bit.  🙂

The next two show you a bit of how overgrown it was:

Overall a pretty solid run of about 35 miles and maybe 6000′ of climbing…  Felt pretty good throughout, nutrition was good, and almost no DOMS afterwards.  I think Leadville will come down to how my body handles the altitude!

While I’ve of  course been training, it’s only in the past few days that I’ve started to get a bit more serious about “researching” the Leadville course.  At a high level I know the course is ~100 miles at an elevation  of about 9500′ – 13,500′ feet, with a killer climb in the middle of about 3500′ in 5 or 6 miles.  That after you finish the climb you have to turn around and do it again.  

But I need to figure out gear choices, crew information, and (potentially) pacer information, as well as try to get some kind of idea of timing.  (I’ve pretty much put all thoughts of a goal finish time out of my head — right my goals are to #1 have fun and #2 finish.  )

This post will serve as a repository of links that I will add to over the coming days…

Course Descriptions / “how to’s”

http://nolimitsever.blogspot.com/2012/02/your-guide-to-finishing-leadville-trail.html

http://nolimitsever.blogspot.com/2012/02/your-guide-to-finishing-leadville-trail_04.html

http://www.coachweber.com/leadvilletrail100pacingchart.htm

http://www.dclundell.net/running/info/train100.html

Pacer Info

http://www.runuphillracing.com/write/LeadvillePacerGuide.html

Race Reports

http://leadfeet.com/leadville-100-a-cathedral-of-aspens/

Humorous

http://footfeathers.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-run-leadville-100.html

http://footfeathers.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-run-leadville-100-part-2-pray-to.html

http://footfeathers.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-run-leadville-100-part-3-choice.html

I loved this race last year, and was really looking forward to running it again this year.  It has such a great atmosphere, and I’ve found the 24 hour format, where you run the same loop over and over, really seems to suite me.  Well, I’d only done it once, but I just knew from the 1st time I thought about it, it would suit me.  🙂

Here’s a link to my preview post.  The most relevant part of that post:

My goal is get stronger for Leadville in August, which means I don’t want to kill my training the few weeks following BMM24.  My guess is that means I’ll run something north of 75 miles, but I won’t hesitate to back off or pull out if anything comes up that might jeopardize Pb.  But if I’m feeling great I’ll just run with it…

So, would I be able to “hold back” in a race?  Read on to see.

Heather and I drove up right after Haw River’s field day ended.  We had learned from last year about a few gear items that would be nice to have, including a table and canopy, so the car was a bit more full.

Typical race understatement.  In reality it should read “RACE OF AWESOME!!!”

We were one of the 1st four or five groups to arrive, so we quickly set up camp in about the same spot as last year.

We ran out to My Father’s pizza — they now have  gluten free crust (though it’s not quite as good as their normal crust), as well as cider!   A quick run to the grocery store for a few last minute items and we headed back to camp to hang out with other runners.  At one point I was surprised to hear one of my favorite songs playing a few camp sites down — The Avett Brothers’ “Gift for Melody Ann” — so I walked down and talked to them.  This song has the line “I want to keep running all day and all night even when my mind tells my body that’s enough,” and if I ever meet Scott or Seth, I’m going to tell them they have it backwards.  It’s the body that is screaming “Stop!” but the mind is what keeps you going…  🙂

The one thing about last year’s camping that surprised us is how loud the trains were.  This year I grabbed a video of one of the trains, though it doesn’t quite catch the volume:

So this year we all brought ear plugs.  I went to bed around 10:00 p.m. and slept pretty well.  I only heard one train come through, though everyone tells me there were 3 or 4.  Guess the ear plugs worked!

I love the 10:00 a.m. start.  It allows for a nice leisurely morning with coffee and time to go through gear one more time, get everything set up just right, etc.  I was surprised that a few people came in the last 30 minutes or so!  But most of them had a “crew” to finish set up after the race started.  Sho Gray came in just a few minutes before and was kind enough to bring me a half a bag of ice to top off my cooler!

There’s not much to report in a 24 hour run that is just a 5k loop over and over and over and over and over and over and…. You get the point.  So I’ll just quickly go through a few things.

I made a few facebook posts from the course so I know:

50k in 5:45

50 miles in 9:45

Beyond that, I took my phone out on loop 16, which when complete would be 49.6.  As I was coming in to the check point I heard one of the most amazing renditions of “Hallelujah” I have ever heard… Sorry for the bounciness of the camera:

I’ve since checked with the RD and this is Rota Williams.  She does not yet have a web page or a demo CD but is working on it.  I will be first in line to buy it!  I took a bunch of pictures on this loop as well as the video below:

50 mile update

Here are a couple of pictures people took of me… This one was from mile 45 or so, I think, as I still had my hat on:

I think this is one loop later (I think), with the hat off.  Still smiling at nearly 50 miles!

And then here are some photos I took on that loop:

The very beginning of the loop:

My favorite section to run — nice soft pine:

The one “aid station” half way out on the course — always stocked with cold water, a bit of fruit, gatorade.  And Vaseline, which would come in handy later.  (I’m still not sure how I feel about community Vaseline, but it was an emergency!!)

At one point I came up on Heather, and less than 5 minutes later passed her again!  She had cut the course unintentionally.  (And later ran this section twice to make up for it.)   I figured out on the next loop it was here, as I almost made the same mistake, where there was no orange tape at the time and the cones were a bit off, making it quite confusing.  I mentioned it to the cross country coach when I saw him and he fixed it immediately.

Results:

So, how did I do?  I tried really hard to not know how the other runners were doing, as I just wanted to run my own race.  However, sometime around 30 or 40 miles in, the lap counters started updating me each loop.  And they confirmed what I thought — that only Sho Gray was in front of me.  On a few loops, the cross country coach even used his stop watch to keep track of how far in front of me Sho was — and it was pretty steady at about 20 minutes for a while.

Sometime around 2 or 3 a.m., I was checking in and about to head out — when I saw Sho sitting right there!  He had just come in so had finally gained a full lap on me.  He was going to walk a loop with his friends, so I did gain back the loop as I headed out.  But on the next lap he went flying by me like I was sitting still.  I eeked out a couple more loops, but when my lap times degraded enough, and I had walked 95% of the my last loop,  I decided to call it at about 5:20 a.m., leaving four hours 40 minutes on the table.  I had run 86.8 miles in 19 hours and 40 minutes.  That would be good enough for 2nd place…

I had felt quite good through mile 65 or so, but slowed when it got dark.  And now that I was mostly walking I figured I was no longer helping my Leadville cause.  Here it is a few days later and I am sure I made the right call to stop when I did.  While I’m certainly not 100% recovered, I feel pretty good.  I’m 99% sure I could have walked in 5 more laps to get to 102.3 (Sho’s eventual winning total), but it would have been tight, and it would have hurt!  And Sho would have had time to get one more lap in anyway.  My goal was always to use this a build for Leadville — a “B” race but with a solid effort.  And in that, I succeeded.

Here’s a pace chart:

After running this, I really do want to go all out in a 24 hour race at some point…  Last year I hit 99.2 miles in this race, but I was under-trained and really over raced.  I was shot for several weeks — perhaps even on the point of adrenal fatigue.   So I want to do a 24 when properl y prepared… Maybe this one next year.  Sho and Bruce, last year’s winner, are already talking about a show down next year.  So maybe the 2nd place runner the past two years (me) will join them for a nice little run in the mountains.  🙂

I’m really looking forward to running the BMM 24 in just 4 days!   I had a great time last year at this little race just outside of Asheville, NC, in the great town of Black Mountain.  It’s a great atmosphere and the format — running 5k loops over and over all day and all night – really suits me well.

Here’s the GPS data from last year, exported into Google Earth.  The GPS died about 60 miles in.

I had a “predictions post” last year, but I really want to avoid going into the race this year with expectations.  My goal is get stronger for Leadville in August, which means I don’t want to kill my training the few weeks following BMM24.  My guess is that means I’ll run something north of 75 miles, but I won’t hesitate to back off or pull out if anything comes up that might jeopardize Pb.  But if I’m feeling great I’ll just run with it…

That said, I do want to show this year’s weekly mileage compared to last years.  This year:

Last year:

What should jump out is that my volume is much higher this year… Last year I jumped into the 24 hour run with very little training, sort of at the last minute.  But this year I have been focusing on building for Leadville, starting with Uhwarrie 40 in February,  Umstead Marathon in March, and the NF 50 NY in May.  Plus lots of training in between…

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..