Hellgate 2014: Drive

I decided a year ago, nearly to the day, that regardless of circumstance I would run Hellgate in 2014.  It is a very special race--this gets said quite a bit in the weeks surround the event but that may just be the best way to describe Hellgate simply.  I skipped last year in order to crew Rudy and end my year a little earlier than normal after my focus on the Mountain Masochist 50 Mile in November.  Watching the race unfold that night and day, driving along the parkway with good friends, I decided I would come back this year, and possibly every year from then on. Hellgate simply has some special atmosphere about it that is nothing short of intoxicating.

The course is the brainchild of Dr. David Horton, and in trying to describe it to some friends (of varying levels of attachment to the sport and even just mountains) I came to the following few conclusions:

• Years after he could not create the exact Mountain Masochist course he wished (The gnarly Appalachian Trail section from the James River to the Tye River, he discovered the subtly brutal Glenwood Horse Trail
• The entire event is designed to be as difficult as possible. It starts at midnight. The climbs are road; the descents are tight, rocky trail barely visible through the thick of leaves strewn across it. You hit the highest, coldest, windiest section of the course (Camping Gap through Headforemost Mountain) at 2-5 a.m., the coldest part of the night.
• The course becomes extremely runnable after Bearwallow Gap, but is so mentally jarring (see "Forever Section") that it takes whatever will you can muster after so many hours of forward travel to do so.

That describes the thing pretty thoroughly.

Recap and looking forward.

I wrote what is after the page break a couple weeks ago but didn't want to publish anything until after Hellgate.  I finished my season exactly how I wanted to crewing my ridiculously talented best bud and training partner Rudy to the crazy race at Hellgate I knew he had in him.  I think Rudy and I have shared something like 100 hours or more of trail time together since July.  I was so pumped to see him have the race he deserved.  I've been struggling with motivation to get back into more routing running, but that race gave me enough inspiration for the next six months!

I am also excited to be working with a coach for the first time since high school.  I'll be working with the master Andy Jones-Wilkins to make sure I am ready for the track meet in June.  I raced 10 Ultras in 2013 plus a myriad of fatasses and short races.  Cutting that out for 2014--it's time to get focused.

Oh yeah, I was in a magazine? Jess Daddio is a pretty stellar writer and it's great to see a semi-local magazine doing so well.
---------------

2013 was pretty awesome.  I ran in lots of places and just ran a lot in general.  PRs for every distance from half-marathon to 50 miles and I learned I can move for 40 hours if I need to.  I don't really feel like writing a lot, so here are the dirty details...

The numbers:
500,000 feet of climb reached on November 23th
I'll finish the year just over 3000 miles.


2014 Plans:

February: Holiday Lake 50k
April:  Georgia Loop FKT attempt and/or Promise Land 50k
May: train like a madman
June: WESTERN STATES 100
July/August: Hang out in Colorado, climb a bunch of mountains, drink some bourbon, attempt Nolan's 14 depending on WS100 recovery
December: Hellgate 100k

Sometime: Figure out a damn 2015 Hardrock qualifier

I'm at a crossroads in life in general.  There's a good chance I'll be living in Denver come August, so I can't think about races for the fall until I figure that out.  If I'm on the east coast, you can bet you'll see me at Mountain Masochist and Hellgate.  If not, then who knows what I'll be up to. Edit: Barring exams on Friday or Saturday that weekend, I will do EVERYTHING I can to get to Hellgate 2014... We have to go back

Wyatt Earp turned me back onto this guy over the weekend.  Serious talent.

Georgia Death Race

Where to begin...

I'm not exactly sure why, but this is the hardest race I've finished.  Hardest course? Not really. if it had been 30-out and 30-back, then definitely, but I think the 38ish miles of road balance out how difficult the first marathon is.  Something about the race though...it was tough.  The heat, the exposure, having to stretch out your stride after grunting up and downhill for 7 hours--they all contribute.  Honestly, the difficulty of this race is synergistic, that's all I can come up with.

I got the idea to run the Georgia Death Race in the fall, after Grindstone, while looking for a new challenge away from the Virginia mountains I've already gotten to know very well.  Plus, I planned to throw my name in the hat for Hardrock, and 60 miles with 15,000 feet of climb seemed to be a pretty good tune-up.

Over the past couple months, my goals for this race shifted around quite a bit.  I went from plans to race it hard to do it as a training run to just trying to make it to the finish line in one piece.  Humorously, I think I failed to actually accomplish any of those goals, but I'm still content with the day.  Not thrilled, not frustrated--content.

The Saturday before GDR held a super fun, arduous 35 mile 'event' to which I could not turn down an invitation.  35 miles one week out--great way to force a taper.  I had been dealing with achilles problems off and on since before Holiday Lake, so when I had a week of cooperation, I had to date it and ended up with 74 miles on that week.

Onward,  my good friend Rudy and I headed down to Hilton Head to relax hard before the Georgia Death Race.  We had both done the event the weekend before and knew we needed serious rest--like sleeping 10+ hours every night.  We spent most of the week laying around reading and dealing with allergies, and I ran a total of 4 miles the 5 days prior to the GDR.

Race day:
Everybody woke up at about 2:45 (awesome), had breakfast, and made our way over to Vogel State Park to get settled before the start.  The course climbs 3000 feet in the first 7 miles, so we just settled in and hiked (rather vigorously) up and up to Coosa Bald, the high point of the course.  All downhill from here!  Rudy and I started together and resolved to stick together for most of the day, as we seem to normally do these days.  It is always nice to have company when you are running most of the day.

The first 20 or so miles of the course fall on the Duncan Ridge Trail, which is known for it's last of switchbacks and general painful nature.  We spent the first 26 miles of the day grunting up super steep climbs and trotting down the backsides of each mountain--the descents were too steep to trust with a full stride.  When we hit the mile 25 (that was mile 27) aid station, and our first drop bags.  I felt like I had just put in 50 miles or more, not 27.  My body was already weary; last week was catching up to me I thought. I checked my watch--8700 ft of gain. Yikes.  At least that made me feel a little better about the state of my legs. Two ibuprofen, a bottle of coke, a gel restock, and I'm good to go.  A few miles later I had forgotten about how bad I felt there, enjoying the caffeine and company of Shaun Pope and Rudy (when he felt up to talking--rough days all around).  From here through mile 40 or so, the miles ticked off the way they usually do in an ultra, except no one felt good.  This is the one stretch aside from the first 15 or so miles where I did not feel bad. I did not feel good, but I wasn't miserable for a little while.

Then, after a quick left at an open field and another aid station, we hit some very long, dusty service roads right in the heat of the day.  Living in Blacksburg, I am used to cold, and not much else until summer.  We had 10 days last month with the wind chill below 20 degrees.  Being exposed in 80 degree heat is not much fun. Rudy and I actually sat down in a creek at one point just to cool down.  That rejuvenated us for a little while, and we made decent progress to the next aid station.  I should note that with how bad we felt, no one actually passed us through all of this, and we actually passed a couple people too.  Rough days all around.

Mile 40 (that is actually Mile 44) holds the second drop bags.  More food, more water (lots of water) and I was out of the aid station quickly, leaving Rudy to change his shoes and socks (something I seriously should have planned to do).  Soon after, I realized we were on the 6 mile descent that is distinct on the elevation profile. I leaned forward, stretched out my legs, and hoped that if I forced some more actual running, I would feel better.  Well, that was a bad idea. About two miles down, Rudy came flying by, seeming completely revived.  I tried to match him, and did not hold on for very long.  Then, everything came crumbling down and so began the true grind. For the next 18 miles.  I resolved to jogging downhill, walking (not hiking) the (pretty small) uphills, and forcing as many calories down as I could.

I came into the mile 51 aid station thoroughly worked, and took a little time to stock up on calories before walking out. Back at mile 27, I tried emptying debris from my left shoe to no luck--I thought it must have been in my sock.  Oh well, I never get blisters.  Oh how things change.  My left foot was starting to hurt more now, and I took a couple more ibuprofen that did absolutely nothing--or if they did, I worry about how I would have felt otherwise. Here to the finish line, everything became about grunting forward.  I managed to force a run for the next 3 miles or so, although it probably wasn't much better than walking. Then I hit the final climb.  Thankfully, Jon Barker, a local and former British adventure racer extraordinaire, caught back up to me.  We had spent some early miles together, and were both very glad for the company these last 10 miles.  I'm not sure how much worse my race would have ended without him sticking by me.  We ran for a bit, walked for a bit, and made good progress up the climb.   The mountains in Georgia are distinct enough that we could spot the gap where the aid station was located from several miles away, giving us a landmark to check ourselves with.  He stopped to call his wife at the aid station, and I waited, wanting company more than much anything else. 6 miles (actually 7 miles) to go.  We made reasonable progress the next several miles, and I could actually "run" downhill so long as my left foot never stepped on a rock--which is pretty hard to do on jeep road.  Jon lives near the finish line, and knows the area very well, so we always had a good idea of how close we were from coming into Amicalola Falls, the finish area.  The course was rerouted "due to traffic" the last couple miles, sending use down some gnarly single track as opposed to the paved road. Another nail in the coffin.  I did my best do just maintain a running cadence, and even that was difficult.  When the buildings at the bottom of the falls came into view, I lost it.  I basically hiked the rest of the way down, about a mile, swinging my arms as furiously as I could trying to build some momentum.  I trotted across the finish line and collapsed in a chair, as spent as I've ever been.

No race has ever hurt so much, or felt so rewarding to me.  Grindstone in 2012, maybe, but that was a different kind of reward--one of months of preparation and perfect execution.  March 16 in Georgia, however, I learned how much I can really suffer, and apparently I can suffer quite a bit.  Being able to force 40 miles and grind for 6+ hours is reassuring with more than one 100 miler on the calendar this year.  When I collapsed into that chair at the finish line, I knew I had worked my ass off for the finish.  A few days later, my legs are feeling normal again, the heat rash is gone, trench foot fully dried, blisters treated, and I can walk normally for the first time in days.  You'd think this would have fried me more than it did, but I am actually excited for Terrapin Mountain, now only three days away!

VT Ultra had a perfect finish rate for our 5 entrants, which is awesome.  From everyone I've talked to, people suffered throughout the whole field; it is nice to know I wasn't alone.


The numbers:
65 miles
13,800' gain
14,800' descent
14 hours 37 minutes
9th place!
lots of suffering

Photos:

Post-run Feet--much nicer in the photo

End of the year.

Well, it's all done.  This post is pretty long and probably doesn't make a lot of sense.  You've been warned.

Some numbers for 2012:

8 ultras, 400 miles, 78 hours 30 minutes, and more gain than I feel like adding up.  Basically, a LOT of running.

The BEAST Series is a pretty special series.  Having the "faster" events of Mountain Masochist and Hellgate after the Grindstone 100 makes for some interesting decisions regarding recovery and training between events.  Regardless of what certain people might say, 100 milers put a great deal of deep and lingering fatigue into the legs, enough so for me that aside from the week of MMTR, I never ran a week over 55 miles all fall.  I substituted mileage for quality, doing 1-2 workouts per week which worked out well for MMTR, but by the time Hellgate rolled around, I felt pretty drained and somewhat de-motivated.  When anyone asked me about Hellgate recently, my normal response become "Well, I'm ready to be done."  That said, if I don't get into Hardrock for 2012, there is a very good chance that I repeat the series.  I've learned a lot this year, and I love Grindstone much more than any other event I've done, so I want to be back there every year for a while.

ANYWAY.  Hellgate.  That funny little 100k race in December in the mountains of Virginia. On a lot of horse trail.  There's nothing like it.  This was the snow year of MMTR and the warm year for Hellgate.  If I had been running better toward the end, I would have been extremely comfortable with my shirt off. I believe the high was almost 70.

The race:
Starting off, I took off a little bit, but quickly (within minutes) realized I didn't want to run all night alone so I slowed to run with Rudy and Fletcher, a couple friends and both good runners.  We made good work of the first climb, running most of it but not really working that hard.  Fletcher fell back because his foot went numb (and yet he finished), so Rudy and I proceeded to run together through ~mile 40.  Rudy and I have shared a lot of miles this year, so we work well together and could mover very efficiently over the course. We made good work of the following sections, just ticking off the miles talking about anything and everything.  There are some super fun single track stretches through there.  Somewhere in here, I managed to spotlight a dear with my headlamp.  I think that is a good testament to the Nao.  I started caffeine early (about 3:00 am) because it was all the calories I had left halfway through  the 10+ miles between AS 3 and  AS 4.  At dawn, I stopped to water the trees and could feel my heart beat doing some funny things, mainly being way too fast, so I cut out caffeine for 90 minutes or so to help settle it.  Rudy ran on when I stopped again at mile 40, and then began having peroneal tendon pain (MMTR strikes back)as I got through the rock-garden downhill switchbacks that caused me to have a complete breakdown last year.  Coming into Bearwallow, I took an Ibuprofen and left quickly hoping to pick off some people on the easiest(?) third of the course.

I am very, VERY glad Wyatt, another VT ultrarunner and friend, volunteered to pace.  He kept me moving when I was in a good deal of pain, and without him, there is a good change I would have walked down the entire final 3 mile stretch.  The pain in my peroneal tendon go worse and worse the last marathon until I began wondering if it was a stress fracture.  Leading to Bobblet's gap, I passed 1 guy, then going through the forever section, I passed 2 more and got passed by 3 or 4 and I started slowing.   I had told people prior to this that I didn't care if I had to crawl across the finish line, I would finish Hellgate this year, and the day almost came to that.  This was the most physical pain I've run through, and the hardest I've had to grind in a run or race before.  The next day, my ENTIRE body was sore.  Arms, legs, chest, core, shoulders, neck.  I seriously gave everything I had to Hellgate this year, and even though my time isn't what I wanted it to be, I know I did everything I could and I'm extremely happy with the outcome.  I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say I would have dropped last year.

The only thing I truly wanted out of ultrarunning this year was to get tougher, and I did.

Addendum:

Dr. Horton, our wonderful race director and inspirational ultramarathon guru, underwent a 7-way bypass today and this had me thinking a lot.  I'm not sure if I've seen Dr. Horton even 20 times these past couple years, but he has had a great impact on my life, not only through his races, but due to the spectacular sense of self-appreciation and encouragement.  I was quite honestly scared out of my whits during late summer as Grindstone began to approach and conversations with Dr. Horton had me feeling that I would not only finish, but finish well.  His attitude is contagious and he is one of the best overall people that I have met in my short life.  I heard his surgery went smoothly, and I am very happy for that, for him and his family.

Weekend in Pictures:

The start!

Aid Station 4

Anguish

The nice lump on my foot Sunday afternoon.

Beyond done.  Check out that sweet form, heel strike all the way!

The gang.

5 Down, 1 To Go

Aside from a nagging achilles tendon (fixed with a shoe change), recovery from Grindstone went smoothly.  I took it easy basically the entire race there, which I guess helped a lot.  I did two interval workouts in the two middle weeks between races, and a couple tempo runs as well.  What else can you really do to prepare when you have a race only a month out from a 100 miler?  I topped out at a 48 mile week, which might actually have been more than I should have done, but everything worked out for the best. 

I had a very different thoughts going into Mountain Masochist compared to Grindstone.  Being 50 miles on an easier course,  I knew it would feel short and fast, and I had just spent about 5 months preparing to go slow for a very long time.  I was also excited to go and Hurricane Sandy only exemplified that.  I love bad weather and snow, so I actually thrilled to hear of snow on the second half of the course.  I figured that the snow would slow everything down a little and force some slogging (exactly what I can do right now).  I also figured that I wouldn't suffer as much as a lot of people nearby me, which would be beneficial late in the race.  I can never seem to get the right combination of clothes for 30ish degree weather, and I was warm once the sun was up, ditching my arm warmers at AS #3, and taking my gloves on and off all day.  Nothing really happened in the first half of the race.  I ran from mile 13 to the loop with Rudy, and we just methodically moved up through the places all the way. Relentless Forward Progress.  I stopped to fertilize the trees and he went on to a super great finish in 12th place in his second 50 mile. With the loop came snow, high up my shins in places.   The footsteps of those in front of me hadn't yet flattened out the snow, but just formed footholds awkwardly spaced apart, forcing a lot of awkward running and hiking.  If I had realized how big of a break this ended up being in the middle of the race, I would have probably run most of the climb up to Buck Mountain, but so it goes.  The snow was a blast, and I ran with complete reckless abandon on the downhills--something that I really love to do in the snow when everything is soft and smooth.  Talking to people after the race, I seemed to be the only person who really enjoyed going through all that snow.

 The snow got pretty deep and slog-worthy after leaving the mile 42 AS.  I left just ahead of Gary Robbins who (of course) caught up soon and we shared a couple miles together working through the awkward snow/ice covered trails.  He had actually run an extra 4.5 miles (the only way we were near each other) and was making his way back up, still having a blast.  Since I was wearing Montrail Rogue Flys (great shoe), he asked about them and the conversation turned to races and Grindstone as he was there too.  He told me my Grindstone time was "fucking awesome" which as a pretty great boost trudging up the steepest climb of the race before we go downhill the rest of the way to the finish.  Gary moved on and I stopped one more time before taking off after him.  I hit the last aid station with 4 miles to go at 8:36, determined to make a sub-9 hour finish, so I took a cue from cross country days, and started windmilling my arms to drive up my momentum.  The final mile of downhill ended up being ~5:56, super fast for mile 49 of a 50 mile race.  I took two bottles of my Succeed slurry, several packages of chomps, and two cans worth of mountain dew, plus some food at the aid stations.  The slurries have made racing a lot easier, I have energy throughout, and I think I've gotten pretty good at burning fat for fuel.  Few the few days after races, even after I've made up the calorie deficit, I seem much leaner than I used to.

I squeaked by in 8:58, meeting my original time goal for MMTR--before hearing of the snow conditions.  Plus 20th out of 297 starters is kind of cool, I'm not used to that.  This race actually took more out of me than Grindstone, so I'm taking it easy all week before putting in some focus work for Hellgate next month.  That will be fun.  Hellgate is something special, and so far everything this Fall has gone smoothly.  I won't DNF this time; I'm ready to suffer.  As soon as I crossed the finish line at MMTR, Dr. Horton said to me, "I hope you saved something for Hellgate."  I hope so too, I've got some redemption to take care of there.

Side note/more important:  This is the VT Ultrarunning Club's first true team race, and we had some great placing and 100% finisher's rate! Something that is definitely made even better by the course conditions.  Rachel maintained second in the LUS on her bum ankle, cringing all the way to the finish line.  David persevered through a rough day, Wyatt had fun all day, and I should probably ask Kelly how her run went.  Seeing people finish at and after twelve hours was very inspiring--those guys and gals are MUCH tougher than the rest of us, that's a long time to be out there and it hurts a lot more.  I was finishing back there just last year, I know how that feels.

See you people in 5 weeks.

Beast Series

Two Races left in the next 8 weeks.  I did my second run since Grindstone today, 6.5 miles in 70 minutes on Lookout Mountain--decent pace for that terrain.  Since I'm recovered well from Grindstone I thought I'd finally take a look into all of this race series business.

The top 5 for the Beast Series are below, pulled from Horton's website.

	1	Knipling, Keith	4:36:14	5:12:39	5:24:03	22:34:42			37:47:38
	2	Murase, Yosuke	4:23:22	4:57:53	5:16:50	24:50:06			39:28:11
	3	Myers, Michael	4:33:45	5:32:25	5:57:04	23:46:55			39:50:09
	4	Love, Guy	4:59:59	5:16:57	6:15:07	24:51:12			41:23:15
	5	Jasinski, Bob	4:45:53	5:30:19	6:55:21	26:08:31			43:20:04

Keith is clearly untouchable.  He's a great runner, and it was fluke that I was a few minutes behind him at Terrapin.  I am curious to see if I can make up the 93 minutes on Michael though, and more so the 115 minutes on Yosuke in the next couple races--that one is probably not doable unless he's really hurting and I'm running really well.  I wish Masochist was one week later so I would have a chance to get out on the first half of the course that I've never seen and learn it, but so it goes.  I won't be pushing it until close to "the climb" anyway--I can't move fast on flats, but apparently I've learned to climb up and down mountains with reasonable proficiency.

This is weird for me; when I first started thinking about my goals for 2012, one of them was squeaking into top 5 for the Beast Series.  Now I'm hunting down 3rd.  It's interesting how much you can improve in this sport since mountain racing has so many variables that just don't come into play in shorter (or even just flatter) races.  I suppose Grindstone was what people call a breakthrough race? I didn't run an amazing time by any means, but I ran faster than people expected me to, and I ran that time in a very conservative race.  I think that will definitely help me in the next couple months as I won't have trashed myself before the last 120 or so miles of racing.  The variables of mountain racing are spectacular If one person has a bad day at a race like Masochist, they can very easily fall back 40 minutes to an hour off their normal race time.  Don't get me wrong, I know full well this could easily happen to me.  In a series where the 100 mile kicks off the fall racing, there is bound to be some carnage in the next two races.  I'm really looking forward to suffering at Hellgate.  I hope the weather is horrible.


On the VTUltra front, 6 of us are running MMTR, two people as their first 50 mile.  For the fast people, Rudy is the fastest of us; he doesn't have any time goals, but he's a good racer and he'll deliver on November 3.  Rachel--I'm predicting somewhere under/close to 9 hours and maybe top-3, depending on who shows up.  It's time for her to hammer a race I think.  Myself, I think I'll be somewhere near Rachel, but the faster the better. It's going to feel so short.