North Face 50k Recon, Part 3

With the North Face Endurance Challenge 50k Trail Race coming up on May 9, I have been making time to get to Bear Mountain/Harriman State Park to traverse the entire route as preparation. In previous postings, I described some of the challenges of the first 7 miles and last 9 miles of the course. That left the middle 14 miles as unexplored (at least for me). My chance to cover those miles came last Sunday afternoon, following the short trail race I ran that morning.

It’s somewhat hard to decide how objective I can be about this latest recon mission. First of all, I was a bit tired from running all-out in mud that morning. Second of all, it was a cool, breezy, misty day, which left the course a bit sloppy and the rocks quite slick; I didn’t fall, but I came close a couple of times, very close. Still, even taking all of that into account, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the middle 14 miles of this race course include the most technical and difficult (and in two cases actually a bit dangerous) portions of the course.

I actually ran 17 miles of the course, from the 3.9 mile mark to the 20.9 mile mark, according to the race booklet. Having run a race earlier in the day, I think I took on a little too much in the afternoon, because I ended up running out of fuel and bonking at about 14 miles. That made for some slow slogging and uphill walking during the last 3 miles, but I suppose I should be glad that it was my energy level and not my legs that gave out on me. Even my sore right hamstring, which had really bothered me in the race, seemed to hang in there just fine at the slower pace of this trail run.

As far as the course, it’s pretty easy from the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area for about 3 miles until you pick up the Ramapo-Dunderberg/AT trail. This is technical singletrack folks, with typical east coast rocks and roots and the need for you to choose carefully your every foot fall. You ascend, then descend, and the last hundred meters down to the shelter at the next trail intersection is very treacherous: on this wet day, it was downright dangerous. You basically hop down some boulders, but they are scattered at odd angles and there are no good hand holds anywhere … be very careful here, a fall is possible and injury likely if that happens!

The next couple of miles, ending up at Silvermine Lake, are nice, and especially a short section just after the lake along soft pine needles. After you cross Seven Lakes Drive, it’s a long slow climb on a fire road to hook up with the Long Path, which puts you back into technical singletrack and several significant climbs and descents for a few miles. The danger zone comes right after passing the Stockbridge Shelter (on your left at the top of a large rock outcropping), where you once again have to hop down and around a few boulders … on this day those rocks were wet and slippery, and the hikers who were holed up in the shelter shook their heads at me as I slipped and skidded down. Eventually, you hook up with the AT again via a short unmarked trail, and emerge on Arden Valley Road. You plunge downhill on the road (ugh!) to Tiorati Circle, then head right back uphill on the road straight across. Navigation got weird at that point, as a completely unmarked and unmapped trail is supposed to take you into the woods to hook up with Ramapo-Dunderberg again … I don’t know if I took the right trail, but I managed to get there. You aren’t long on the RD before you turn off on another unmarked trail, and this one is a bit of an adventure. It’s completely overgrown with underbrush (looks like blueberry bushes and other low bushes), and there must be at least 20 trees that have fallen down across the trail that you have to jump over (update: ran that section of trail again on 4/5/09, and simply counted the downed trees that I had to step over ... 74. No kidding). Luckily, it trends almost entirely downhill. Lucky also that the race will be taking place in the spring, because by summer that trail is going to be so overgrown you won’t be able to see it (although snacking on the blueberries would be nice).

The remainder of this part of the course is actually quite nice and very runnable … of course, as I mentioned earlier I simply hadn’t eaten enough pre-run so I ended up speed-hiking parts. What I’ll need to remember is to stay relaxed and on pace through this area during the race. As I’ve written before, my common mistake in longer trail races is that I tend to pick up the pace mid-race, not because I’m trying to do so, but because I’m just enjoying myself so much and I get into a sort of rhythm that is just a little too fast. Because this section of the course, which will be from about 17 to about 21 miles on race day, is fairly easy I will have to be careful to hold back.

So, at this point I’ve seen the entire 50k course, and I am both impressed and a little nervous about the race. There are a few really difficult spots, and certainly a half-dozen places where a navigational error would be very easy. Hopefully, the course will be marked well enough for that not to be a real problem, but only race day experience will answer that. If you are running one of the races on May 9, best of luck to you. I hope we all have decent weather and great races.

Race Report: Mudders and Grunters, March 29, 2009

March 29, 2009: Mudders and Grunters 5 mile trail race

Following some late-week rain, there was the promise of mud (glorious, stinky, swamp mud!) on race day for this year’s Mudders and Grunters race in Westchester County. The organizing Taconic Road Runners Club does a great job maximizing the use of the relatively small footprint of Franklin Roosevelt State Park, snaking runners through fire roads, single-track, swampy back lots, and even a couple sections of bush-whacking. The popularity of this race seems to grow every year, and runners come from farther and farther away to be a part of the fun.
I decided to run the race this year as ‘part one’ of an epic day of trail running, which would include an additional 17 miles of tough trails in Bear Mountain/Harriman State Park post-race … but that story is for another blog entry (coming soon).

Because Mudders and Grunters gives out not just the usual overall and age-group awards, but also recognizes top teams, most-muddy, bloodiest, etc. the race gets it share of nutty costumes and fringe lunatics. I love it. While warming up, I saw three women in bunny costumes replete with puffy tails and floppy ears, as well as a young couple dressed as French maids (yes, one woman and one man). There was a smattering of chattering high schoolers, nervous but keen on grabbing attention, along with the more-typical: the gazelles, the grizzly vets, the happy mid-packers, the hungover … you get the picture. And there was a large contingent of my friends running from the Reservoir Dogs, another NYC-based running team with a great subset of enthusiastic and adventurous trail runners. From my team, the New York Harriers, only myself and the ageless Bobby Hutton showed up. Too bad, the rest of you just don’t know what fun you are missing. According to the race results, there were over 400 finishers this year, which must be a record.

At the starting line, I bumped into old friends and rivals, including George “Cannonball” Buchanan (one of the toughest guys to race because he never holds back), Steve “Stats” Marsalese (who knows my running history, well everyone’s running history, better than we do), and Kevin Shelton-Smith (who is capable of flying across the Atlantic, missing the start of an ultra by 4 hours due to airport delays, and still placing in the race). Because this race is so short, I knew I’d have to run hard and fast to finish ahead of any of these familiar faces (some of whom I’ve been racing for over 20 years), much less to keep up with the dozen or so very-fit young guys limbering up nearby.

The start seemed to come suddenly, and we were off. The young lions loped to the front, the rest of us battled for early position in anticipation of the single-track and mud to come. I felt a slight twinge in my right hamstring from the beginning, not a good sign for an old fogey like me and something I’ll have to keep an eye on over the next few days. Back to the race: The first section of wading through deep, odiferous muck begins less than a mile in, and starts with a sharp left turn downhill after crossing a park road. I could see arms flailing in front of me, a sure sign of poor footing. I made it through the turn unscathed, but immediately ran into (literally) some young dude in front of me who was clearly in over his head. He actually apologized to me (well, we apologized to each other simultaneously, funny). Slurping through the slimy shin-deep black bog, I could see Cannonball already at least 30 seconds up on me. This is the way we race each other time and again: he gets out fast; I try to reel him in.

Over hill and dale we rambled, criss-crossing the park in search of mud wallows and thorns. With each technical section, I’d pull some time back, but with each fire road those ahead would pull away again … we were yo-yoing around the course. We came to another nasty swampy section, and I heard someone splashing through behind me, a quick glance confirmed that it was Stats and he was gaining on me. Luckily for me, there was a large tree that had fallen right in front of us. Me being the sneaky rabbit, I ducked under it and continued my assault. Behind me, I heard Stats groan a large "OOF!" at the tree (later I learned that he tried to go over it, but had thumped his belly on the trunk; and in fact the same technique had resulted in a moment of feeling stuck for Cannonball).

With half a mile to go, there is a stream crossing that never looks so bad … until you jump in and it’s twice as deep as you expected, muddy, weedy, and cold. I managed to struggle out of the water as quickly as I could, still chasing Cannonball who was now within range. But he still has such quick feet for a recently-turned-50 year old, and he just kept dancing along there in front of me, tantalizingly close. I gave it all I had, but just could not catch him. I would wager that he ran the first half of the race about 45 seconds faster than I did, and then I ran the second half of the race about 35 seconds faster than he did … so do the math (more-or-less) and he got me by 7 seconds at the uphill finish, with Stats just behind me by 8 seconds. We’d finished in 13th-14th-15th places overall, not bad for a threesome of old dudes. Oh, and Kevin was right there too, finishing in 17th. Of course, some barely 40 year old speedster from the Albany area had traveled down to the race and smacked us all convincingly by finishing over 2 minutes faster. Ah, well, that’s running: the strongest runner wins, period. I love that. No whining, no bad calls by the ref, no coach playing favorites. Just you and the course.

My prize for finishing second in my age group was one of the coveted, pink-frosted piggy cookies, which I consumed gleefully on my way back to the car before heading off on my second trail adventure of the day.

I’ve run this race a number of times, once even finishing 2nd overall. I often find myself a bit ambivalent in telling others about it. On the one hand, it is so much fun and challenging and hilarious, I feel like every runner should get a chance to experience it. On the other hand, part of what makes these cold, wet, sloppy trail races so much fun is that they are the polar opposite of mainstream: with small fields, crazy characters, joking race directors, familiar faces, and the camaraderie that comes from sharing something relatively obscure and zany and hard. I don’t want races like this to get too popular or crowded, but I clearly understand why more and more runners seek them out. May we always find the happy medium!

Great job, Taconic Road Runners Club, keep up the good work. And congrats to all of my fellow competitors, you earned it on that course. By "it", of course, I mean a long hot shower. With lots of soap. Please.

Humble Pie

In my last post, I wrote about how running is a kind of adventure, if you open your mind to it. The OED defines adventure as "an unusual and exciting experience". Perhaps it takes some effort to make your everyday run into something unusual and exciting, but there are times when the adventure is just handed to you. Of course, not all adventures turn out to have a truly happy ending like in the movies. Below, I'm going to run an article I wrote last summer, about just such an adventure. At the time, I had no platform from which to 'publish' these thoughts. Well, now I do ...

A Big Slice of Humble Pie
The Escarpment Trail Run, July 27, 2008

Success as a runner will resonate with your core sense of self-esteem, confirming your commitment, rewarding your hard work, and justifying the two dozen pairs of smelly running shoes in your closet. By contrast, failures cut deep … after all, when it comes to running, you can’t blame anyone but yourself. At the 2008 edition of the Escarpment Trail Run, I was handed a very big slice of humble pie. I deserved it, I ate it (with only a bit of complaining), and frankly I continue to digest it. These are the kind of lessons that make of us more than what we would be otherwise. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

The Escarpment Trail Run has been on my radar for years. I love running trails, and usually the harder the trail the more I love it. Escarpment has the reputation of being one of the toughest trail races around, and even though it’s only 30k in distance, runners find that it takes longer to complete than a marathon simply because it’s so damned difficult. In years past, I have had one reason after another that caused me to miss this race: injuries, other conflicting races, vacation travel, insufficient training, etc. This year I made sure to run a tough trail marathon in March so that I could qualify (Escarpment is not for everyone, runners must provide evidence of their ability to deal with the trails and/or the distance by submitting race results along with their entries). Finally, 2008 would be my year to run Escarpment. My training went well through the spring and summer. I ran several long trail races, finishing each feeling strong and near the front of the pack. I was thinking that all signs pointed to my being well-primed and ready for Escarpment. Ah, yes, but pride cometh before the fall.

Race morning dawned humid, overnight thunderstorms having left behind several inches of rain, promising to make the course wet and slick. Still, things went well for the first hour. The course was very difficult, with many hand-over-hand climbs, eye-wateringly steep downhills, and much of the trail overgrown with sharp-thorned raspberry bushes, hanging low due to being wet and heavy. By the two hour mark, I was well-scratched but still feeling great, and had started reeling in the fast-starting runners ahead. This all felt familiar, as I had planned to go out conservatively then finish strong , maybe even crack the top 20 by the end. Yeah, right.

In retrospect, it was the downhills that got me. So steep, so slick, with countless ledges that required severe downhill leaps and bounds. At first I felt like I was handling these just fine, but then came more … and more and more and MORE. Finally, like an old jalopy driven a bit too hard, my brakes just gave out. My quads started to cramp, and I knew I was done. When the mind says “Go!”, and the body says “No!”, there isn’t much you can do. Sure, I tried denial at first, but that wasn’t very effective. Then anger, frustration, willing myself forward. My legs responded with full vengeance, by seizing up completely on a set of downhill ledges, causing me to stop halfway down, yelping in pain, frantically massaging and stretching them, hoping not to be crushed by the next runner leaping from above. A glance at my watch showed that I’d been out for just under 3 hours, and I was clearly in trouble. I knew there were only about 4 miles to go, but it might as well as have been 20. I went from” race” mode to “just-get-there-eventually” mode. And with the risk of cramping up and falling off the side of some cliff, I had to think about life safety. Yeesh.

Humbled and hobbling, I finally crossed the finish line in 4 hours and 11 minutes, more than an hour behind the winner. Frankly, given how horrible I felt, I’m surprised it didn’t take even longer. As I limped back to the car through a cold afternoon thundershower, with my wonderfully supportive wife offering words of encouragement, I was already attempting to be philosophical about the whole experience. I had finished a very tough trail race, definitely the hardest trail I have ever run in competition. I was sore and knew I would be for several days, but I was uninjured. I had seen the beast, and I had survived. I had been humbled, brought to my proverbial knees by a monster of a course that I’m sure has had it’s share of my fellow runners locked in it’s sharp teeth.

Prior to the race, I’d overheard one runner say to another, “Will you beat the mountains, or will the mountains beat you?” I certainly had my answer. I was soundly beaten, thrashed in fact, chewed up and spat out. I can only feel awe and envy for the men and women who ran far faster than I did, and achieved their respective victories: you are all truly incredible, keep up the good work. Frankly, the same goes for anyone who survived that course still on their feet. As for me, I’m going to need to do a lot of quad-specific, ledge-jumping training before my next attempt. Let’s see, if I dump a pail of wet, muddy gravel on my kitchen counter, then leap up and down from it repeatedly while my wife whacks me with a bundle of thorny branches …