Running with Sissors, Paper, and Stone. (Read 635 times)

Running with Sissors, Paper, and Stone. March 29 & 30, 2008 The Terrapin Mt Half Marathon, Sedalia, Virginia The Master Dinner Party, Knoxville, Tennessee VA Creeper Trail Marathon, Abingdon, Virginia Soon after the date for the VA Creeper Trail Marathon was announced last fall, I mailed in my 10 bucks. I could have waited since a fair number of alumni are allowed to register in addition to 100 new runners every year. This is the race’s 10th anniversary, and year after year, the 100 new slots fill more quickly. It was my first ever marathon last year. The course runs within a half mile of my house, it’s a low- key event, but it draws entrants from a surprisingly large geographical area and spectrum of individual mastery. Since I train on the course, 3-5 days per week, it’s somewhat like someone said, "having 100 of your best friends over for a catered group run with someone else attending to all the details." And, la pièce de résistance -the homemade cookies the volunteers bring are superb. I’m so spoiled. But this year it’s not my goal race. The Creeper Trail is a rail-trail, unpaved but very well groomed for, biking, hiking, and horse travel. I’ve ran for a couple of years now and naturally tend to gravitate to trail running. It’s challenges, beauty and simplicity converge in me somewhere below and above the levels of thought and reason. In nature’s temple, the body becomes a censer swinging along mountainsides, across hollows and streams by the priest in the sky wearing a backpack. In a primal sense, sanctity moves from the higher echelons of conjecture and the unfathomable to the incarnate and ubiquitous. Anywhere along the 34 miles of Creeper Trail, or the Appalachian Trail and Iron Mt. Trail that bisect it in nearby Damascus, VA is fine with me. Unfortunately, with all the trails, running and racing on them is only slowly gaining ground. Given this and my spot on the map its seems obvious that I would eventually be drawn toward the races of Dr. David Horton, only 160 miles northeast of home. So last fall, I set a goal to run the three races in his Lynchburg Ultra Series (L.U.S.) -hopefully, all this year. They werere not within my ability, but training has and hopefully will change that. I understand lots of checks on reality can keep even a seasoned runner off the starting line or from crossing the finish. But in the end, I’m more afraid of not trying, than failing. In preparation for race number two, Promise Land 50K, I was given the advantage of experiencing some of that terroir through the newly resurrected Terrapin Mt ½ Marathon, directed by Dr. Clark Zealand. The route of the Terrapin full marathon, run concurrently, crosses into the Promise Land course, I believe. By most accounts the Promise Land is a rugged beauty. So in preparation, the Terrapin Half and the Va Creeper Marathon seemed like a logical combo about four weekends earlier. My goal was to run the half with some intensity and make the marathon more of a fun run and not push the pace. I traveled up to Sedalia a day early and took advantage of camping on the community center property for convenience sake. I arrived earlier than most by late afternoon to find Clark and David hanging banner’s on the pylons for the Start/Finish line in a brisk, sunny, breeze. We had a nice chat and as others start to arrive I got to help with setting up the pavilion for the event. I was also blessed to meet and talk with Rebekah Trittipoe on a few finer points of hammock camping. She had used the Hennessey Hammock, my favorite wilderness shelter, in a 7 day stage race through Brazilian jungle a few years ago, recounted in her book "Under an Equatorial Sky" . I’ll hazard a guess that she is Promise Land incarnate, a rugged beauty of the first order. I defer to her wisdom in all matters running, camping, and other important matters if there be any. It wasn’t a large crowd that gathered for the evening package pick-up. Many of the 140 or so runners live relatively close and thunderstorms had been in the forecast all week. The storms never materialized and I spent one of my more memorably pleasant nights suspended between two trees. In fact, I hadn’t been awake too long before the 5 am wakeup call was broadcast on the PA system about 2OO meters from my cocoon. Yesterday’s breeze was still with us, but the balmy 65* that had lasted to well past dark had dropped to something more 40ish and stayed there throughout the race. Essentially, this is the HM course. 7:00am is light enough not to require a headlamp. And here occurs one of the best touches I’ve ever experienced at a race. To start the race Clark struck a large gong suspended buy two youths. We are not out to make an assault on or to conquer Terrapin Mountain, we are if anything on individual pilgrimages to conquer our old self, to make way for the new and hopefully stronger and wiser one. We have a mile or so of pavement to warm up on before being greeted by a freshly graveled road. By a mile and a half, the gravel ends and we have risen 400’ – now let the climbing and humility begin proper. Not knowing the course and still in my first semester of Humility 101, my overall plan had been to climb at 14min pace, downhill at 10 or better, and do the easy parts at a leisurely 12. On paper this would appear to be roughly equal thirds. But there is very little paper on this mountain, and any pair of scissors would have been ground to filings eons ago. Scissors, Paper,..….Stones make the rules here and win every time. The topos indicate our climb to Camping Gap, the first aid station and split for the full marathon at about 4 miles, to be on a Jeep Trail. Jeep Trail? I’ve heard of Jeep Roads, but Jeep Trail? I’m sure there are some map makers snickering over that one. My mountain trails back home are beginning to seem more like walkways through a Disney theme park by comparison. But still, the strong, svelte, 30-somethings around me seem to be nimbly hopping to and fro, on and across the loose rock and modest boulders as if on a Sunday morning stroll to church. Umm, why can’t I do that? (Oh, yeah I forgot. I am not now, nor have I ever have been a member of the Strong, Svelte, 30-Something Party.) I make it to the aid station, a little winded, but not bleeding. I hang around just long enough for the prompt and efficient volunteers to top off my handheld with Clif Drink and grab two banana chunks for later. It’s only one mile to the course apex. Soon after the aid station the course abruptly dives to the left onto tight, steep, rocky, laurel, single track. Several people stray onto the broad trail and miss this turn and are crawling up to the trail through the undergrowth muttering words not generally heard in Sunday School (oh yeah, I forgot it’s Saturday). If the trail seems very easy, you’re probably off course. Another interesting divertimento for the race is the requirement to pull a page from a bad novel stashed in a bucket on the summit. This is the only place that paper might have had a chance. You can see everything that sight allows from this point. It’s a beautiful experience presuming you don’t suffer from acrophobia. In life so far, I been fortunate to learn how not to suffer from most things, except of course, trail running. One note of encouragement from my GPS is that I’m only a minute off pace, though that included the easy 1.5 at the start. So maybe I should be disappointed, or better still, maybe I should button down my chronic, emotional judgments and get on with the task at hand. The next section is as I had overheard Clark describe, "Wonderful downhill running". I had kind of hoped he was referring to the remaining 8 miles of the course, but obviously he meant only the next 600 meters. But it was a wonderful 600 meters; lots of peaty, soft ground, grand views though the spartan, mountain crest, vegetation. The whole 13 miles probably was worth this short section. Part of our pre-race instruction indicated the need for a left-hand glove. It was cold. I needed both gloves, so thought nothing of it. I thought about it when it came my turn to pass through Fat Man’s Misery -two overgrown slabs of coarse, sharp granite leaning on a 135 degree (left-hand) angle with a 24" corridor between them. The passage was a good 30’ length, light on each end but shadowy in the middle. A spelunker would have felt at home –a claustrophobic, not so much. I use to enjoy, in the thinness of youth, crawling through caves, but my butt barely squeezed through this crevice. And a pair of Brooks shorts didn’t prevent a raspberry to the left cheek. We were also instructed to mutilate another bad novel here. The 2000’ gain we made in 3.5 of the first 5 miles is about to be lost in even less of a run on single-track, twisting through laurel, steep and tight. The 30-somethings ran off and left me here, several more passed, one of them occasionally singing as she floated down the mountain and disappeared ahead into the underbrush. Only 40 or so are running the half, and I was alone. I would have felt dead glorious last, if the technical nature of the trail weren’t consuming all available thought processes. My GSP genie, is apparently claustrophobic and fled the scene at the Misery. I only have time now, and mile markers don’t grow on trees. I do have a compelling and unfortunately accurate sense that I’m not descending as fast as I was climbing. It seems I hit summit in about 1:16 the next 2.5 or so miles to the bottom corner of the loop at about 2:00. It would have been a respectable 2 hour half marathon, the only problem being, I was still 5.5 mile out in the woods. Actually, 2:00:59 won the HM by a strong, svelte, 30-something Jeff Radgowski. Clark himself holds the course record from the first incarnation of the race at 1:39. The last 4 miles of woodlands rolled up and down, in and out of rocky hollows, over still fairly technical terrain. Through calf deep oak leaves in spots, often hiding the loose granite chunks everywhere. Just before completing the loop there is a necessity to wade a knee-deep stream. Back on the gravel road, my quads are too fried to make as much use of the smooth down hill as I’d hoped. I made it back in 3:05. Dr. Horton, commanded the microphone at the finish line announcing each incoming runner, including a brief synopsis of their running history, interesting antonyms of there surnames, or what brand of trail shoe they might be tying next. Entrants, received a very nice ,short sleeve, Pantagonia tech shirt and finishers got a medal. To finish today’s lesson in trail humility, I waited for the finish of the marathon front runners. Drew Ponder won with 4:06:17 and followed closely with our local Iron Mt favorite, Eric Grossman, 4:06:32. Congratulations to the both of them. *** **** ***** ****** ******* ******* ****** ***** **** *** Interlude A shower, road food, and 280 miles later. Knoxville, TN The master’s forum racers periodically stage a meal ahead of some bigger city, asphalt marathon, event race at more popular venue than I have yet to run. So while I’m not the type that would likely drive 50 miles to road race by myself, I would gladly drive a few hundred to just party with some of my best running friends and co-conspirators in on-line frivolity. There were some heavy hitters there from the old Cool Boomer community. And I will direct you to the thread begun by the master and author of http://www.kickrunners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25267 The Unabridged Encyclopedia of Concise Wittery and Sundry Comic Tales , TomWhite. P.S. I confess, to eating too much, but deny the allegations that I had to be restrained while two waiters pried the fork from my hand. *** **** ***** ****** ******* ******* ****** ***** **** *** There was only one waiter. My darling wife, claims that I have begun to act more like a 19 year old than a 50 something since I started running. Even though I haven't bought a motorcycle, she’s not totally inaccurate. But I can assure you I can never remember making it home by midnight when I was 19 as I did last Saturday. Or running a marathon, for that matter. By 12:20 I was asleep. The alarm was set -only to fail miserably at going off at 6:00 am as instructed. It is true, I feel much better, when I happen not to be wounded, strained, sprained, or in pain. Unfortunately I haven’t felt 19ish since before my last race in mid February. Before I recovered from that race, I came down with the crud in my lungs and it was 3 weeks before the coughing was gone. By that time, I’d almost had time to get out on the trail and do some real damage. I rarely fall, but sometimes overuse injuries just get so boring and so open-ended. So against my better judgement or its lack, I fell out on the trail one Saturday in early March and brusied some ribs. It was a few day before I could run, and weeks before I could breath deeply without a stitch of pain. And while it did cut back on the mileage, the upside is, my feet haven’t felt this good in well over a year. It was midnight before I felt the first effects Saturday’s run –fried quads, or at least lightly sautéed, but my energy level was good. So I repacked my running kit and drove a few miles to park at the packet pick-up, then to be ferry over to Start/Finish on the rail trail two miles down the road. Paul, Annette, and Nick (no number) Kevin (orange jacket) and his DW Nick Whited, our fearless leader of the Iron Mt gang was already there. He was standing with Annette, who was there to defend her crown. Nick was not running the marathon. He needed a 2:20 run per coaches instruction in preparation for the Bull Run Run 50M in a few weeks. The weather could not have been worse. I take that back, there was 3" of snow on the ground one year at the start of this race. Today, it is 40 degrees and a stout breeze. As many people as were standing around in raincoats, you would have though we were in a storm, but it was just a drizzle really. If you were running, you barely noticed. My goal today is far less ambitious than yesterday. I just want to do no more the 6 hours of walk/run and finish. If I could manage 5 hours or better, that would be a plum to me. Luckily, I bumped in to Amanda. She, her husband, and some friends have come from over in NC for some running fun. She’s hoping to better her first marathon time of about 5:15 into the low 5:00s at least. Amanda is in charge of her race. Me, I am rarely in charge of my races. So I just stuck with Amanda. She called the walk breaks and said when to run. Running is the easy part, knowing your limits and staying balanced there is the hard part. The course is a quaduple out and back, on three sections, which sounds kind of complicated and boring, but the scenery is impeccable, and it so flat you can barely tell you’re on a hill most of the time. There’s only one mile of pavement out and back at the beginning to loosen the cluster. What I like is you can participate and observe the race at hand. And it great for spectators if the weather is fair, since you cross the start/finish 4 times. My friend and neighbor Beth was feeling better and braved the weather to work the half way point aid station. She was sick and missed the Sedalia trip. I had a lot of fun on this outing, I chatted with anyone who would listen. I ran in my new Salomon trail shoes and had no foot pain, or blisters. I’ve been wearing them all week but I had only ran 8 miles in them. I had spares in my drop bag had a problem developed. The crowd of spectators wasn’t as large this year, but I saluted them for there fortitude. In the end, Amanda ran a PR and her husband as well, though he finished 40 minutes sooner. And she did a great job of just making sure I stuck with it, I would have walked more I’m sure. Annette defended her crown, and met her goal of bettering her last year’s time. She ran 3:24. Paul, who won last year, came in 2nd behind the course record holder, who ran a 2:49 this year. Kevin finished 5th, though he ran a similar pace to last year, his placement was much improved given that he didn’t start about 40 minutes late. Kevin’s wife finished after Amanda and me. I ran 5:09, 21 minutes slower than last year, but I had a lot more fun. My quads feel deep-fried today. JJJ

Excellent report on a weekend that would certainly maim us mere mortals! Was a pleasure to meet you in Knoxville.

Dude. Cool report and stuff.