What a crazy start to the race and what a day. Expect the unexpected or the miss calculations.
So Norton, VA is in southwestern Virginia near the toe, a small town nestled in the heart of Appalachia. Only a couple of ways in or out of town and only one phone service, Verizon, which if you didn’t have you had to purchase phone service through a third party. I’m guessing the third party was somehow connected to Verizon. A beautiful location for a long day in the mountains. It was the first time this race was in this town all the past events had been a little farther north and on the state line between Virginia and Kentucky, that was my first experience with a CloudSplitter race and it was my first 50k, it was hard. So I expected it to be more of the same and I wasn’t wrong.
While the pre-race meeting wasn’t anything special it was interesting to hear some of the different questions that came up. One about bears and the other about bibs. Someone was concerned about what to do if they ran across a bear. The response was to stop, back up slowly and not to turn your back on the bear, then wait to see if they move off the trail. If they didn’t then figure a way to get around them without them following you. I never saw any evidence of bears on anywhere on the course. The only time I’ve ever run into a bear was out in the Smokies. The bib question while a bit weird, the person asking the question wanted to know if they had to wear the bib since the chips for the timers where separate from the bib. After eating about ½ a pizza at the meeting I headed out to figure how I was get a hold of my wife, this entailed stopping at the local Dairy Queen to see if I could use their Wi-Fi, that didn’t work and I had forgotten how bad fast food can taste. After this I headed up one of the mountains that had camping about 10 minutes from the start and slept in the bed of my truck.
I had planned on getting up and making myself eggs and sausages for breakfast since that is what I normally eat before a long run these days. Up until I had gone to sleep I had done a good job of reminding myself that my watch, which I was going to use to keep my eating on schedule, was on central time thus an hour behind. By morning that had been forgotten. I get up with what I think is enough time to make breakfast, clean up and get down the mountain. Then it dawned on me I was an hour off! I race to pack everything up, throw it in the cab and get down the mountain. No breakfast, no coffee not a great start to what would be a very long day. Thankfully I had a backup plan. I had brought a box of cereal and two small cartons of milk. When I got to the start I grabbed those and headed down to check in. After checking in I started eating and realized that I didn’t have my head lamp with me so I race back to my truck grab my light and get back. Still time to eat before we go. I’m eating away, we pray then we sing the national anthem and I’m about to take a bit and drink when this black powder rifle goes off and everyone starts running. Time to go. So I stuff one carton of milk in one pocket of my cargo shorts and throw away the box the cereal came in, carrying the bag and eating while trying to run. I’m sure it was quite comical to watch; here is this guy in cargo shorts running/walking pouring cereal into his hand or directly into his mouth chewing then taking a milk carton and drinking from it. The first mile was on road and a fairly easy grade going up, when we hit the single track I had finished most of the cereal and all of the first carton of milk. The carton makes it into the trash can as I go by. Then the climbing begins, we start out around 1,200 feet I think and we are now heading up to 4,000 feet, it was going to be a long climb. I wasn’t sure I had gotten enough to eat but I need my poles more, so the cereal goes into my other cargo pocket; had to keep things balanced.
It was nice that this climb was at the beginning of the race, what I hadn’t thought about was having to come back down this climb as I was finishing. I seemed to make good time as I fell in behind some folks who had a good pace going. My poles and I are a good team and I can move fairly quickly with them. Parts of this climb where flat enough to be runnable and some sections seemed to be a grassy fire road all though it was difficult to make out the two tracks that would be for vehicles. On the way up I hit three aid stations, crossed over one earthen dam and had some great views as the valley below began to shrink the higher I went. The second aid station was near the top and was the 25k turn around, I made it here in great time with some of the leaders of that distance. The first three aid stations where very basic in nature having water, peanut butter sandwiches, bananas and some sort of electrolyte drink. I check out these aid stations, but passed them by having my own food with me that I liked much better. Outside of my cereal, which I was still munching on, I had my Spring Energy, Tanaka Buffalo Jerky, Bullet Burritos and oatmeal cookies from Great Harvest Bakery. I was eating on a schedule of every 30 minutes after the first hour. Aid station 4 was where my drop bag was and since I was hitting this place twice I debated on grabbing anything from it now or waiting. I waited until I came back. The aid station its’ self was great! Potatoes, pickles, bananas, chips, candy, cookies almost anything you might want to eat. So I ate a little bit then shoved off, the next aid station was my turn around point.
From the third aid station until my turn around I fell in step with a group of 100 milers. As I listened to them talk about how they planned to run the race and the races they had done I did my best to learn and keep up. We ended up separating and it was during this separation that I got lost. The course at this point was on a very grassy fire road when I came to an intersection, which in my opinion wasn’t very well marked. The road went straight with another road coming in from the right, which had some sort of natural gas well head. Well my eye was naturally drawn to it and there was a flag at it, so I headed in that direction. Well, about 2 miles down the this track I encounter two runner going the other way and they tell me to turn around as we are going the wrong way. As I was very confused I slowly turned around to follow them. When we get back to the intersection I see other runners moving off on the single track that I had missed. So I had added an extra maybe 4 miles to my race. I caught up to another group of 100 milers. We all, there was about 5 100 milers in the group, arrived at aid station 4 within a minute of each other and left within that same time frame about a total of 5 minutes at this stop. Between aid stations 3 and 5, my turn around, the trail was a bit more level and a whole lot more technical with lots of rocks the size of basketballs and footballs for the trail. It was in one of these sections in which I hopped over a log and while in the air noticed a swarm at my feet. Not being able to make any adjustments in air when I landed yellow jackets angered by earlier runners decided to take it out on me. I’m not sure how many times I was stung, but it was more than a few, one even tried to ride with me for a while; when I found him I killed him. Going back I made sure to go off trail to avoid being stung again. When I hit my turn around I wished the group I was with safe journey on their race. One of the guys I had been running with was in his 4th 100 miler and had been bitten by a copperhead about 4 years prior and just then being able to get back into running. I couldn’t imagine having to go through that. As I turned around another 100k’er showed up and turned with me, so we ran for a bit together. He was from Ohio, which seemed to have a lot of runners at this race, about the surgery he was going to undergo about a week after this race. He had a compressed disk somewhere in his neck area that if it was fixed would allow him to run with better and with less pain. When we made it back to aid station 4 where my drop bag was he picked up his pacer and was off as his crew had him ready to go.
I’ve never really had a crew before and haven’t been sure of the need for one. I got into my drop bag restocked my vest, ate a lot, then tried to figure out how to re-grease my heal. At that point some folks waiting on other runners asked me if I needed help, apparently I had a look on my face like I needed help. So I told them what I was attempting to do and they came up with a solution for me. After that and a change of socks I was back on the trail. For the next four hours or so I would be mainly running by myself, I would occasionally pass someone or a couple of runners, whom I’m guessing was a runner with their pacer. In this out and back section I came across Rob Apple who is a big time ultra runner, so I stopped and chatted with him for a minute or two, that made my race, supper nice guy. He was so kind to take a few minutes with some unknown guy in cargo shorts and talk that made my race! As I went along I kept seeing the guy that I had turned around with, but I just couldn’t catch back up. Every time I was about to step into an aid station he and his pacer took off, is was a bit discouraging.
Just around sunset I passed the highest point in the race for the second time, I had one more time to go, and was blessed to see some beautiful views of the valley below as they transitioned to night time with street lights coming on and the red orange glow over the mountains behind the town. The section of the race I was now on was black top turning to gravel before I was able to hit single track again, this part I didn’t do too well on as I end up walking more on the road even though I tried to run it. The nice part about this section was that it was mainly downhill, yea I hadn’t thought about the fact that it was an out and back in which coming back was going to be up hill. When I finally hit single track again it was dark and I started a very technical 4 or 5 mile loop. I told the guys at the aid station that started and ended the loop that I planned to be back in about an hour and a half, I ended up getting real close to that missing by maybe 10 minutes. It was in this loop where my second drop back was, so I ate big time and restocked my bag and changed my socks again, not worrying about re-greasing my heal. Up ‘til this point I had been doing great with my eating, which had always been an issue in prior races, never eating enough and never eating consistently enough. When I decided to switch it up a bit. I had remembered that a friend had told me that 100 mile races are basically an eating competition, so I started eating smaller portions more often. It ended up being a smart move on my part. After leaving this aid station I was almost immediately greeted with an uphill that was insane to me especially this late in my race. So this hill, remember it’s full on dark and outside of what my head light was hitting I couldn’t see anything. I lift my head up to look up and I’m only looking straight ahead into the hill I was climbing up. The track it’s self was a fire road of sorts, I seriously doubted if my F350 in low 4x4 could have made it up this grade. I made it up to be greeted with the aid station that started this loop. From here it was a gradual uphill back to the top of the mountain for the last time.
Back at the top was an aid station where again the guy I had been chasing had just left. So I quickly ate, drank, ate some more and had one of the volunteers text my wife to let her know I was not only almost done, less than 10 miles to go, but that I was in good spirits and still moving well. At this point I was determined to catch this guy, this part of the course was about a ½ mile of road, so I ran and walked as best as I could. I hit single track not but a couple of minutes after they did. Within the next 10 minutes I caught up to them. They told me to pass them any time just let them know I was going and I’m like no way you’re the first folks I’ve gotten to chat with in over 3 or 4 hours. So for the next 3 miles we hang out together learning about each other’s favorite songs, singing some and just moving forward. It was during this time that I learned his compressed disk thing was giving him some serious trouble so he was having to take it slow. As we left the finial aid station I began to pull away from them as we were now on a serious downhill now, it was the section I had started the race going up on. I could have sat down and slid down if I wasn’t worried about hitting a rock or root it was that steep, it didn’t seem that steep going up. At one point I holler back that I’ve lost the course, only the second time that day but not by much. They tell me to head back as they had found the right way to go. About 10 minutes later I hit the road that meant I was a mile or two from the finish! I crossed the finish line 19:16 after I had started and just before the rain started to come down. 68 miles and 16,000 + feet in vertical.
Yea, this one gets done again or maybe the 100 mile distance.
Sorry no pictures on this post. I was a bit focused and didn't even think about taking any pictures. Lots of great views to take pictures of, I was just otherwise occupied.
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