I first noticed this race while looking for a 3rd marathon for Kelly.  She ran Tobacco Road on March 18th, her 40th birthday, and just over four weeks later ran Boston (in the heat — 88F!).   I jokingly told her that she only needed one more to run in the next 60 days to be a Marathon Maniac, but she took it seriously!  So while I was looking around for runs she could do, I found the Black Mountain Monster, with both 12 hour and 24 hour solo versions, as well as relay categories.  For the 12 hour to count for her, she would have to run 50k, but alas, the format of running around a 3.1 mile loop 10 times was not enticing to her, and she choose to run the New River Marathon instead.

But I started thinking that the format would really suit me well…  I’ve not run past 50 miles in a race (the North Face 50 last year) before, nor past 13.5 hours (unsupported SCAR run)…  This was a chance for me to explore going beyond those distances and times in a “safe” (low pressure) way.  I.e. I’d never be more than 1.5 miles from my tent if I wanted to call it a day, whereas if you sign up for a 100k or 100 miler, you might just get a DNF and have to get a ride in from the course!  I also know from my Adventure Racing days that I do really well over night, and could just keep on moving…

I was able to convince David H to run with me.  Originally he was going to run the 12 hour night version to keep me company, but then decided he didn’t want to be too restricted and opted for the 24 hour run.  Heather didn’t take any convincing — I think she felt the same way as I did that this would be a good low-pressure way for her to test the ultra waters, as she had not run more than a marathon in the past.

I look the entire day off Friday and went to HRCA for the last day of school — field day!  I volunteered to help out, and tried to keep it easy, but when Zack introduced a “capture the straw” game, I went all out.  🙂   After that I went home and got all my gear ready to go… Here’s what it looked like in the driveway:

 
All that for one night of camping and 24 hours of running!!

We drove the 3+ hours to Black Mountain, and eventually found the right location on Montreat’s Black Mountain Campus to set up tents and gear…  We were one of the 1st groups there, so we got to pick our spot.   We weren’t exactly sure how the run would flow around the course in this “tent city,” but we chose a spot right on the edge of the course and set up.  Here’s my car camping tent — pops up like an umbrella!

Still pretty quiet, but that “V” would really fill up…

Later on the next morning, I’d be surrounded by many many tents!

After we got everything set up I wanted to get a few more things from the grocery store, so we went into town, got the necessary food items, and then we headed to one of my favorite pizza place, My Father’s Pizza.  When we got back to the race site, it was much busier…

We hung out chatting with a few of the other racers until about 10 p.m. when I decided to call it a night.  Overall, I slept ok, other than the VERY LOAD TRAINS!!!  Just beyond the yellow truck in the photo above is a small stream, then a grassy path (that was part of the course) and then a train track.  VERY LARGE AND LOUD trains went through several times.  The one at 3 a.m. must have  hit 120 dB.    Other than that, this is a great spot to camp for a race.

In the morning the camp area really started to fill up with canopies and tables and gear…  Several people we spoke to said they learned their lesson from the trains last year and decided to stay at a local hotel Friday night and set up camp for Saturday night, and there are a lot of locals that live close enough to make it in time for the 10 a.m. start.

Here’s the start:

At the last minute I decided to wear my bright red BACON socks… I’ve been holding off on wearing these until the right time, and felt like this was it…  As always, I had my Florida Coast to Coast buff on at the start, which I’ve had on in just about every big race I’ve done in the past several years….

My plan was to take it easy the 1st few loops.  I’d not seen the course and didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I was figuring something like 10:00 pace would be just about right assuming there weren’t any really big climbs.  And that is what I held for 1st two loops, or so.  I ran some of this with Bruce, who most of us thought would win, and some with David H, though eventually they both got some distance me.

The tutu girls, a 4 person female team, took this shot of me coming in to my tent and gear around mile 9:

It was right after this that I stopped and changed into regular socks and also from my Peregrine’s to my Kinvara 2’s.  I’d swap back to the Peregrine’s once, but they felt way to tight and short.  I had put on a pair of injinj toe socks over a pair of teko’s, so that was part of it.  But I discovered Sunday after the race that both feet had had an allergic reaction to something and were quite swollen….

There’s not much to report in a race like this — running the same 3.1 mile loop over and over…   I followed my strategy of taking it pretty easy, not staying long in the tent area, and just kept moving.  My fuel was a lot of things:  hammer perpetuem, coconut water, nuun, gatorade, hard boiled eggs, sweet potato, jerky, coconut flakes, gels, apples, peanut butter, bananas…   The fuel worked really well for most of the race, though sometime around 5 or 6 a.m., I had my 2nd gel and it did not sit well at all.  Here is the “dry bin” of food, while I also had a cooler.  I found the hard boiled eggs worked really well for me…

David H. had taken off and was actually leading the race when I came in to the tent area at about mile 40…   He said he was done, but then hoped right back up and knocked out 10 more, when he really was done.  50 was his goal coming in, as he has an Ironman he is training for, and he didn’t want to affect that training plan too much by hurting himself in an ultra….

I think it was about 6:30 p.m. or loop 15 when I grabbed my phone so I could take pictures…  Here are a bunch of them, in no particular order:

This section ran along the train tracks and had quite a nice little climb right at the end.  That climb got tougher and tougher as the race went on.

Aid station in the middle of nowhere…

Tunnel — really a bridge for the train, near the end of the course.

Port-a-pot on the far side of the course…

This is looking up to the turn around point which we had to pass each time…

The race collected canned food for pets (or humans if you didn’t get the pet memo!) and this is the booth that counted each and every lap…

Looking down from the turnaround…

The softest part of the run:

The hardest part of the run…. I did NOT like the asphalt at all by the end.  Towards the end of the pavement was a really steep downhill that did not feel good at all after many miles.

A video from this area:

One of the GUTS guys took a bunch of pictures, and got this nice one of me carrying my coconut water:

And a bit later Heather got these two of me:

Results

The week before the race,  I took a little pool to let people guess at my total mileage.  I took the numbers from Facebook, DailyMile, and the blog post.  At the end there were about 20 guesses ranging from 53 miles all the way up to 93.  I was surprised no one had thrown out 100, though that was not really a goal going in to the run.

I did post a couple of intermediate times so I do know that I ran 28 miles in the 1st 5 hours and 52 miles in about about 10 hours…

Sometime around 12 hours into the race, I knew I was in the top few competitors…  I didn’t think I had any chance of keeping up with Bruce, but he was only a lap and a half ahead of me.  Eventually I found I had a couple laps on the next closest person.  Also around this time I did start to think about hitting 100… But at the same time, I knew there was a long ways to go and I was just happy to keep moving for now.

Somewhere around mile 85 or so, Bruce came flying by and I called out to him, telling him I was surprised it had taken him so long to lap me again to go up a full two.  He surprised me by saying he had been sleeping for 90 minutes and that I was actually leading him at that point!  We ran together for about as long as I could hang, which was maybe just one mile, before he took off…   At the turnaround, before he left me, we did run into Margaret who was really suffering, but amazingly only one loop down on us.  We helped her get some coffee and got her to the bonfire, and then Bruce and I ran off again.  At which point he left me on the 1st climb.

At that point I thought that if I could hold on to second overall I’d be pretty happy, and I was not as worried at hitting 100.  I ran a couple more loops and then got really tired.  The sunrise did not give me the second wind that I had hoped for.  😦   I ran into camp and said I was done, sat down in my chair, kicked my feet up, wrapped up  in a blanket, and sat there.  I had struggled the last loop with stomach issues after eating a honey gel, but once that settled, I got in some warm oatmeal and started to feel better.  Then Margaret ran by, looking fresh — what a recovery!  And Bruce ran by, going up one loop on me…  At this point he decided to go back out to get 100+ (while I was at 96).  After a minute or two, I decided I had one more in me…

I got up, and walked one more loop, to finish with 32 loops for 99.2 miles and second place.   Far far beyond what I thought I would do!  Bruce actually hit 34 loops for 105.4!

Now a few days later, I’ve been pretty tired, but my body feels pretty good.  Nothing major lingering other than a very slight tension in my left foot, on the outside near the back.  I had a chiro adjustment today and it feels better already.   I have been more tired than I recall after any of my other ultra’s, or the MR 340 when I stayed up for 38 hours paddling, or any of the adventure races I used to race when I was up for 2 or more days.  Maybe my age is starting to catch up with me!

BMM was a great race — very laid back and fun, and I certainly would like to do it again someday.

On Saturday I’ll be running a 3.1 mile loop over and over and over again — for 24 hours.   Unless I get tired and decide to take a long nap in my tent.  🙂

I am taking predictions on blog.2sparrows.org, on Facebook, and on DailyMile.  The person closest to the total miles I run will win something — probably a book in the $15-20 range… I’ll chat to the winner and decide which book I think most appropriate for them.  I’m thinking something along the lines of Tread Lightly, The Art of Slowing Down, Barefoot Running Step by Step, The Perfect Health Diet, or The Primal Blueprint.  But I’m flexible.  🙂

For some background, I’ve not run much the past 3 months…  After Uhwarrie 40, I’ve really taken it easy, as you can see here:

The chart above only shows running, not anything else I might have done such as biking (zero!), paddling (zero!), hiking (very little), lifting (some), crosffit/movnat (not much).   My only long runs since February are about a 20 mile run in April on the Boston Marathon course with Kelly (in 88F!), and I think I’ve had two 10 mile runs sprinkled in here and there.   I ran a 50 miler back in October.  I normally try to run 25 miles every two months, but I’ve not done that this time around.  All in all it’s been a pretty quiet spring for me!

I don’t know much about the course other than it is a 3.1 mile loop.  The race director says it is relatively flat — but he is from the mountains.  Anytime someone from the mountains says a course is not hilly — DO NOT believe them!  I’ve been burnt by that before.

My normal goals in any race are to #1 have fun, #2 finish, and typically there is some kind of time goal.   There is no #2, “finish,” in this race — your total mileage is your finish whether you run one mile or 100.  My thought in running a 24 hour race is that it is a chance to run farther than I’ve ever run, without actually entering a 100k or 100 mile race where I might not finish at all.  🙂  So if I had a distance goal, it would be to go more than 50.  At the same time, I’m willing to not do that if I’m not feeling it or anything starts to bug me.  In that case I’ll sit back and enjoy the bands and/or sleep in my tent.

On the injury front, in order to provide full disclosure, yesterday my left ball of foot had a bit of a shooting pain unexpectedly.  😦  This is the BOF I have felt something in ever since the Half Scar Plus back in June of 2010.  It has never been more than a 2 or 3 on a the scale of pain, where 10 is excruciating.   In other words, it has never been more than a little discomforting, and has often not been noticeable at all.   Yesterday there was a very sharp 7 very unexpectedly, though it did seem to dissipate and is now running about a 3 or 4.  I may break out the metatarsal t-form pads I used successfully last fall to get me through Uhwarrie and Boston.

Here are the rules for the contest:

Enter the total mileage you think I will run during the 24 hour run on blog.2sparrows.org, my FaceBook post, or on DailyMile by 9:59:59 a.m. Saturday June 2nd (just before the race starts).  One entry per person!  (And not one entry per person per service!)

I’ll take the closest post across all three services and get in touch with the winner.

A compendium:

40 milers:

2sparrows

EnduroGirl

Running Down

I’d Rather Be Outside Now

20 milers:

Der Scott

Running Diatribe

Beauty and Change

Vado Porro – Go Further

fat silly yak

I’ll keep updating this as they come out, so send any I’m missing my way…

And some quotes:

Running Down:  “Uwharrie is not just a race. It is our local epic adventure.”

Charles West:  “The Uwharrie National Forest on a cloudy, foggy, rainy, overcast day is a magical place that’ll remind you of why it’s so awesome to be alive and do something epic with incredible people who do things that amaze and inspire you.”

Der Scott:  “Uwharrie is different. He is like the older, harder, gristly uncle who thinks your father has been too soft on you. Uncle Uwharrie loves you, but thinks that pushing you to the limit will make you a stronger person. As you struggle through his challenges, even at your lowest points, he tells you in no uncertain terms to “Grow up!”. And then when you’ve made it through, he slaps your back and gives you your first beer. He’s the uncle you love and respect. And also fear.”

“The Journey is the Reward…”

It’s a little hard to write a race report about a 40 mile ultra that you’ve run the past few years, but of course I’ll try.

First, here are links to the last two years reports:

https://blog.2sparrows.org/2011/02/08/uhwarrie-40-mile-mountain-run/

https://blog.2sparrows.org/2010/02/08/uhwarrie-mountain-run/

Next, a photo of me… I thought this was around mile 32, but I don’t know why I’d be smiling so much that late in the game!

Next up is the obligatory elevation profile.  After running the race the past few years and hitting it in training a couple times in the past six or seven months, I’m pretty familiar with it.  I can tell you that on the way back in, the hills at 6 and 3 are terribly painful.  And I knew it and was not looking forward to it.     On the way out, Dennis Mountain at 16-17 seems like it is straight up.  Maybe because it is!  And while that little section from mile 18-19 looks pretty tame, it is nearly impossible to run — the trail is so narrow, tight, and twisty, you just can’t get any rhythm or speed going.

Second up, I’m stealing what my running friend Der Scott wrote about the trail — he has a way with words:

Uwharrie is different. He is like the older, harder, gristly uncle who thinks your father has been too soft on you. Uncle Uwharrie loves you, but thinks that pushing you to the limit will make you a stronger person. As you struggle through his challenges, even at your lowest points, he tells you in no uncertain terms to “Grow up!”. And then when you’ve made it through, he slaps your back and gives you your first beer. He’s the uncle you love and respect. And also fear.

Now, just some random thoughts:

• This year I talked my friend David H into running it, his 1st ultra.  I took him to Uhwarrie in September, long before registration opened, for a 25 mile run, so he knew what he was getting into.  We also went back in late December, hitting the other end of the course.   David did great, finishing in 8:23, while struggling with cramps and nutrition issues.  I told him ultra runs are eating contests with a little running thrown in, because if you can’t get your nutrition down, you can’t run well.
• I slept really well the night before, turning the lights off at 9:00 p.m. and only waking up around 12:30 and then about 5 minutes before my alarm was set to go off at 3:45 a.m..  I got up, got dressed, made coffee, etc. and was out the door to David’s house getting there about 4:30, where we took off for the church parking lot where the shuttle would take us to the start.  We arrived a few minutes before 6:00 a.m. and I was struck by how many cars there were already.  The past couple years I had arrived at about the same time, and was the 4th or 5th person there.  Turns out several 20 milers came to the wrong church, and they eventually had to turn the 40 milers away to the other shuttle area, which meant we had about a 20 minute delay.  Also, there were more runners allowed to run this year.
• At the start we quickly made our way through the registration line, and then went to hang out in front of the roaring fire.  I waited as long as possible to take off my warm outer layers, hang my backpack in a tree, and head to the start.  Where we had to wait about 20 minutes due to the parking snafu described above.    But I got to meet a few new people and chat with others, like Alan B who was running his 1st ultra.  He is a fast road runner coming in at low 19:xx in 5k’s and a 3:00:xx marathon, but the trail and the distance would be a new experience for him
• Shannon was there and as always taking pictures…

• Things seemed much busier and more crowded this year.  Now that the results have been posted, I see that the registration was capped near 150 runners instead of the normal 70-80 finishers that I recall in the past.
• The race starts with a bit of a road run and then a long double track climb, before it turns into a single track climb.  I went out in the top 30 or so, just to avoid any bottle necks.  The 1st hill felt so much better than last year!  Hopefully that was a sign of things to come.  I  didn’t see David and Earnest once “go” was yelled… I knew I was going faster than I probably should have been.
• About 4 or 5 miles in, Shannon and I ran together and talked.  We were talking about how we were going too fast, but I started rationalizing with myself that why should I bank effort/energy when I am banking time, and that this strategy paid off for me at Boston.  So I just decided to run with it… I wasn’t red lining and I felt good.  Yeah I was a good 30-60s faster per mile than I should be, at 10:30, but this was the easier part of the course and I knew I would slow from miles 15-25 where it gets hard, and slow due to fatigue on the way back in general.
• From mile 10-15 I ran with Jamaar, and we talked a lot, which was great.  It kept my mind off the running for a while.
• My pace slowed from 10:35 just before Dennis Mountain to 11:05 at the turn around.  I’m not sure exactly when I got to the 20 mile mark, but David said it was about 3:42.  Earnest had passed me around mile 19, and David came right in behind me.  I went into a bit of a rough patch around mile 17 or 18 that would last all the way until mile 26.  I quickly grabbed a couple of gels, my 2nd bottle of perpetuem, and took a couple ibuprofens, and was out, but David and Earnest had already gone.  I thought that would be the last time I would see either as they seemed to be pulling a way and I was struggling a bit, thinking about a long 20 miles back in.
• Just before the turn around, I saw Anthony, and he said hello, and the did a double take because I was probably a lot closer to the turn than he expected me.  🙂  On the way back out, I saw Charlie, Ernie, the Sock Dock, and many others…
• I pretty much struggled all the way to the aid station at 26.   At one point I tripped and felt my R calf start to lock as I caught myself.  This was the 2nd race where I had not carried endurolytes.  At the NF 50 in GA I just forgot.  For this race I had mixed 5 capsules into my perpetuem bottle, but that apparently was not enough.  At the aid station I asked if they had anything stronger than Heed, and they had Endurolyte capsules!  Woohoo!  I quickly took 3 and pocketed 3 for later.  As soon as I left that station, I felt like a new runner.  There’s no way the Endurolytes worked that fast, but now I finally felt good.
• I stubbed my toes a bunch again, but I can’t tell yet if I’m going to have any blue toenails like I did after the NF 50 in October.  I had never lost a toenail due to running until that race, but now I’ve lost three!  I tripped at least a good 4 or 5 times, but never went all the way down.  I was able to recover without a face plant on all of them!  On one, a slight downhill, the only reason I didn’t face plant was because I was able to catch a tree in my right hand.  Of course, then my shoulder felt like it had been ripped out of socket for a while.  
• Sometime in the next few miles I came up on David and Earnest, and David was hurting with both cramps and nutrition issues.  I ran with them for a bit, and then Earnest and I ran on, and after a few minutes I went on solo.  I still had thoughts of breaking 8:00, but it was going to be tight.   I was only a couple minutes ahead of that pace, but there was a long ways to go with 10 more miles of tough trail.
• I again ran with someone, though I never got his name, for quite a while.  We chatted a bit but on the 2nd to last big hill at mile 34 I told him to go on and I never saw him again.  The last mile or two is always so tough.   There is a lot of downhill, but it is very rocky — loose rocks — and steep.  You have to balance out your time goal with the value of your life.  Or at least not breaking anything.  I was careful on the worst sections but ran as much as I could, and the last half or so is a decent trail so I was going hard.  I ended up hitting the finish in 7:57 — 53 minutes faster than last year and I made my “super stretch” goal!  Woohoo!
• Shoes:  I saw a couple of people in 5 fingers, a couple of NB minmal shoes, and one pair of Hokas.  The guy in Hoka’s literally looked like he couldn’t keep his balance.  I know some people love them, but I’m afraid to even try them on.  I wore the Peregrine, pictured below, and while running warehouse lists the forefoot at 19mm, my forefeet were really beat up by mile 30 or so.  So much so, in fact, that I had to heel strike quite often to try to take advantage of the heel build up.    I guess I’m going to need a shoe with a rock plate or something at some point!

• Here’s a cool shot of David that Shannon took:

• This was actually the 1st year where the water was not so high that you couldn’t avoid crossing like David is above.  Just to the side of any crossing like this were always a couple of rock steps that you could attempt to use to cross without getting wet.  I was pretty successful at staying dry until mile 35 or so, when I slipped on the rocks and got both feet wet!  Granted, finding the bridges takes longer than running right through, but having dry feet for so long was nice compared to last year when my feet were frozen numb!
• As I said earlier I finished in 7:57… I had thought a sub 8:00 would be possible for me on a perfect day, and even with that rough patch of nearly 7 miles, I still made it!  That just shows how fast I ran the 1st 15 and how I was able to not degrade too much on the last 15.  🙂  Results are posted and I was 27 out of 148 finishers, which is much better than I ever expected.  All in all I had a pretty solid run.
• Now it’s time to take a week or two off, and then I’m going to focus on breaking 20:00 in a 5k.  I plan on doing a 12 week program built around that.
• Garmin data:  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/147283684
• I saw Sasquatch once.  But it was not a good view and when I turned back to get a better angle, he was gone.
• Here is a graph of my training miles — I know, not much!  But more than last year.