Fire on the Mountain 50K Race Report

How many times have you driven Interstate 68 through Western Maryland and seen the signs for Green Ridge State Forest in Allegheny County but never actually stopped there? I know I’ve moseyed past a number of times and thought “I should go for a run in there - one of these days.” But I never did. 

It seems like every fall I arrive at the crossroads of having summertime fitness and an indecisiveness for where to use it. I feel a sense of obligation to get in one more race before winter, whether it’s actually a good idea or not. Fire on the Mountain (FOTM) piques my interest every year, partly because it’s a drivable distance from home on the day of the event. Albeit, I had to roll out of bed at 3:45 to make the 7:00 start, but with the time change, that’s really like an 8:00 start, right?

Judging from the results and folks I’ve chatted with, FOTM is usually a low-key affair. A consistent theme in stories about the race is the numerous creek crossings. It is one thing to talk about and imagine beautiful, serene creek crossings as if they are part of a calm, fall scene in a Bob Ross painting come to life before your very eyes. It is another to actually experience these creek crossings when the air temp is in the 20s with 40 degree water, and now suddenly you haven’t been able to feel your feet, hands, or lips for 30 minutes, you are completely hypothermic, wander just 200 yards off the trail in a brain fog and die before you could get a fire lit directing the sun’s rays through the bottom of a found 1982 glass Pepsi bottle. FOTM 50K: the ultimate test of survival. Since I’m a cold weather wimp and a fair-weather racer, I hemmed and hawed for a few days, waiting around for the most accurate forecast. Wouldn’t you know, the temps would be warmish, so there goes that excuse.

For a few minutes before registering, I debated the 25K course because it involves over 9 miles of gravel road running, which certainly sounds like a safer option and I do love dirt road. But it still has technical trail sections to contend with where I’d be running comparatively faster, so I wisely(?) opted for the slower 50K slog. I hadn’t done an ultra all year, so why not... but then again the time to do a 25K is shorter, so statistically that is less exposure risk time, isn’t it? Oh, the indecisiveness. 

The course profile

Despite its original point-to-point design, the 50K course is currently in an out-and-back format, which usually would be less appealing because I like my loops, but when you don’t frequent an area, it all seems new and interesting enough. You’ll just spend it all staring at the ground anyway. The 25K and 50K start together with a roughly 1-mile jaunt on gravel/dirt/paved road, mostly downhill. The 50Kers embark onto the forest’s Red Trail for the next 7.8 miles, then the Green Trail for another 7.4 miles. At that point, you arrive at a beautiful overlook aid station called the Oasis with some lovely fried potatoes, and then reverse course back to almost the same spot where the race started 5 or 10 hours earlier, depending on how good or bad your day is going. For you math wizzes, yes, it ends up longer than the 31 miles of a true 50K, clocking in at 32.5 on my personal GPS device. 

There’s over 4800 feet of vertical gain, with some reports surpassing 5000 feet. Aside from the 1 mile start/finish section on Oldtown Orleans Road, a nearly 1 mile gravel stretch on Dug Hill Road, and a 0.3 mile gravel section on Kirk Road at the turnaround, the course confines you to the woods and on varying types of singletrack. So that’s not much more than 4.5 miles to zone out and just run. Otherwise, you must be vigilant. Being November, there’s no shortage of downed leaves and the associated ever-looming threat of tripping, spraining, falling, hollering, cursing, crying, and regretting your life’s decisions. 

Honestly, I try to avoid trail races in mid-October to November because of that fluffy leaf litter. Really, I avoid most trail running overall in that time and lean toward rail trails and dirt roads. Why? Because I’ve had multiple nasty ankle sprains thanks to the leaves hiding little rock, root, and debris landmines. 

You all think there will be any bears? Photo credit: John Duffy

After milling about at the Point Overlook while listening to race director Adam Lowe’s clear and concise instructions, we were off, accompanied by the unsettling sounds of a seemingly very upset or simply excited dog. By the time we 50Kers entered the woods, road running speedster Jonathan Fogell was already determined to push the pace. I was content to hang back around 4th place for a while because old men require time to warm up their muscles and tendons. At the bottom of the first gnarly descent, roughly mile 4, I got a little excited and drifted up a spot, but three of us remained close together at the first aid station at mile 5.5. 

I did enjoy the next section of quicker gravel road though it didn’t take long to reach the technical goat trails this portion is known for. If you don’t like to use your hands when you “run” up and down things, this might not be the race for you. I love scrambling and used this evergreen-laden, cliffed-out section of course to gap the guys I was running with. 

It wasn’t too long and I spotted the neon yellow jacket of J. Fogell again higher up the climb. This, of course, provided a little motivation and I pushed the intensity more than an intelligent runner would have. It didn’t take too long and I found myself hitting the second aid station at mile 8.8 in unison with Mr. Fogell. 

Alone we are slow. together we can run much faster than we should. PHoto Credit: Mitch HawBAker

At this point we began the Green Trail portion of the course, which I can’t say I like as much because it’s where I eventually became hypothermic and died a mere 200 yards off trail despite the rescuers search attempts spanning four days and five nights. This is where the bajillion stream crossings of Deep Run happen. All 800 of them. Perhaps one day my children can run this event in my honor to see them all.

Anyway, my feet were numb, my hands were no better, and the sun hadn’t come over the ridge into the valley yet. I knew I really needed to get in more calories, but opening packages took a bit of effort from my incisors. There isn’t much terrain fluctuation for well over 4 miles here as the trail trends upward, constantly criss-crossing the same cold-ass creek over and over again. Fogell and I chatted through labored breathing (mostly mine) with both of us tripping and stumbling with unfortunate regularity. 

Eventually, as the terrain steepened, Fogell surged to put a good 30 second gap on me by around mile 14. Then, just as I started drifting back up to him, my right leg stepped into a concealed, two foot wide, leaf-filled hole, which led to my right ankle rolling enough to get my attention but not enough to do any damage. Good thing I can’t feel pain as a dead person. We ended up ascending to the turnaround aid station at mile 16.2 together. I tried to take in the overlook view while shoveling in a handful of potato chips and some tasty fried potatoes. It wasn’t long and another runner came into the aid station, and then another, which I found super surprising considering the speed with which we worked through much of the Green Trail. I also took that as my cue to get the heck out of Dodge as a couple more strolled on up. 

Exiting back down the dirt road, I began running and chatting with the highly experienced ultrarunner Michael Hoffman. But he, too, was running strong, and put a small gap on me within a couple miles as we climbed upward to mile 18. He easily had a 20-30 second gap as we began the gradual descent with the creek back toward the Red Trail.

The nice thing about cooler temps is that my sometimes fragile tummy tends to be more cooperative. Even though my hands are numb and it’s harder to open packages to actually eat anything, once it’s in there, it’s usually better tolerated. But in this case, it felt like all of the food from the prior aid station was just sitting on top of my diaphragm and I struggled with breathing normally. It was definitely a lot of food to begin a longer climb and try to chase. It would have been best to back off the intensity for a couple minutes and get the breathing under control, but I am a wonderful mix of stubborn and stupid. 

As boring as I find this section, it was nice to regularly encounter the cheers of the other 50K runners on their way to the turnaround. I try to muster a thankful grunt or wave, depending on the breathing. The lower half of the Green Trail certainly has more creek crossings, and I was definitely taking them slower now that my reaction time was becoming sluggish along with every other physiologic process. At one point, I stepped on a silt covered rock only to do a full 360 degree pirouette in the middle of the creek before righting myself. And you wonder why the mile split times are so slow? 

One of my favorite mental strategies is to get thrilled about counting down miles once the halfway mark passes. By the time I’d come to the next aid station at mile 23.6, I was glad to be in the home stretch of single digits but knew we had some tough singletrack and really hard climbs lying ahead. Another variant of fried potato was still somehow appealing, though I couldn’t tolerate much volume… of the Dug Hill Road Men’s Choir volunteers serenading me at the aid station with their rendition of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

Now that that damn song is stuck in my head, the goat trails from this point back to Dug Hill Road are a lot of fun, unless of course your calves are cramping, which mine definitely were. I had adopted a new climbing style of full-on Daffy Duck flat footed on the left side and tippy toe forefoot on the right side. Some bad thoughts of being caught crept into my brain, but the key was to always come back to what I could control: myself and my bowel movements. Awesome, my spinal cord was still intact. The reality is that everyone is slowing down at this point, some might be pooping themselves, and everyone is hurting. But only I am floating up this trail at this very moment, waiting on Mother Nature to teach me a valuable life lesson that I could eventually share with three people in a moderately silly blog post. My goal was to always feel like I was averaging a consistent pace as this time ticked away. It helped to appreciate the surroundings as this is the most aesthetically interesting part of the course with more spruce trees and interesting rock formations, though not the goatback ride that I was promised.  

Back up on Dug Hill Road, a random couple cheered as they rolled past on a motorcycle. Striding into the final aid station, the volunteers tell me I’m in first place. It turns out that Michael had taken the Blue Trail just past the last aid station or he had also died of hypothermia. (This race has a remarkably low finisher rate of 12% and those were all rumored to have cut the course to avoid the frigid creek). I methodically plucked a couple gnats out of a cup of pickle juice, drank a little Coke and hoped to hang on to the placing despite the ever-looming threat of calf cramps. The next climb would be formidable on any day, thanks to its rooty scrambling and 400 feet of gain in just 0.4 miles. It was actually the very reasonable descent off the other side of the mountain that needed a few choice words as it cramped my calves enough to force the legs into an awkward speed walk.

Once I regained a semi-normal run stride on the flat, the goal became to move patiently and consistently. Two miles is still a very long way if you lock up into rigor mortis prematurely. It wasn’t bad to be going slightly up again but I was forced to avoid all of my normally explosive Parkour-like flips and basically every acrobatic move I ever used in my brief career as a stunt double on Walker, Texas Ranger. But I sure did power hike the hell out of that final 0.25 miles of Red Trail. Yeah, sure. Strava says a blazing 26:38 minutes per mile, but it’s probably off by two or three seconds. 

Hitting the road, there’s only one option and it’s more uphill gradient, which becomes annoyingly steep for a few hundred yards. The good thing about such climbing is that it would be very difficult for anyone to catch up because running and walking paces just wouldn’t vary that much when you are basically ascending the face of El Capitan. Nevermind the fact that I’d probably hear and smell them coming. 

So far this season, CJ Donaldson has rushed for 755 yards. Photo credit: John Duffy

Approaching the finish line, it probably became evident to onlookers that I was just too good at staring at the ground and zoning out. I almost failed to grab the Official Fire on the Mountain Finisher Log™ and then nearly missed the “finish chute” made of small saplings despite yells of “between the trees you friggin’ idiot!” I briefly debated on how to carry such an unwieldy object and wasn’t sad to still have my gloves on to protect my delicate hands. Should I shove this into the fire with a coyote’s yelp? Maybe lift it overhead and spike it forcefully downward with a core muscle-engaging wood chopper and a hyper-masculine grunt because the log obviously represents all of life’s collected frustrations that you’d love to ignite in a massive blaze? Each racer must make this decision when the time is right for them. Ultimately, I settled for a gentle toss and just fell on top of said fire, making the cremation process super convenient. 

It was an honor to have a sizable group of onlookers toast my finish with shots of Fireball. Certainly the first time I’ve experienced that. Thank you, Adam and Katie Lowe, volunteers, and especially the Dug Hill Road Men’s Choir.

Four spooky facts about skeletal health and bone stress injuries

Bone stress injuries are a terrifying problem. On one hand it’s not the most likely issue to creep up on an athlete, but when it does, you’ll scream in fright as this silent terror unleashes its killing blow onto your training program. 

“What is a bone stress injury?” you ask as you begin to quiver in your seat. Simply put, it’s bone tissue FAILURE due to repetitive mechanical loading. Initially, it could be recognized as swelling in the outer periosteal layer or in the marrow. Eventually, it can progress to a legitimate stress fracture.

Perhaps the scariest part about bone stress injuries isn’t the annoying fitness losses, it’s that bone stress injuries tend to be HIGHLY predictive of future bone stress injuries (600% increased risk in females, 700% in males) that ultimately result in further horrific setbacks. This is particularly the case in the 6-12 months following the first bone stress injury. 

In an ideal world, prevention of bone stress injuries comes through proper dietary intake and appropriate rates of activity increase with intermittent blocks of decreased training. In reality, people tend to under-fuel and ramp their training loads up far too quickly without taking rest days, rest weeks, and rest months, which really means that all bone stress injuries are due to training errors and you’ve brought about your own terrible demise! Bwahahahahaha! Suffer now, you will!

And this, unfortunately, leads me to the first, and most critical, spooky fact:

Distance running does not build the best quality bone structure!

Nooooo! Now that you’re covered in goosebumps and absolutely frozen in fear, let’s talk about the misconception that all the repetition of running must surely lead to strong bones because at least it’s weight bearing and you’re relentlessly smacking your skeleton into the ground a bunch. 

Unfortunately, endurance running is not the best activity to create the stresses that optimize bone metabolism or build the highest bone density. Some really smart researchers have determined that we benefit best from high loads that are moved quickly to create the bending stresses and strains that stimulate bone turnover. While the forces of slow running are fairly large, it doesn’t involve sufficiently rapid or intense enough forces to encourage maximal mechanosensitivity in the bone. More specifically, for the real nerds, bone responds best to greater than a 3.5x bodyweight ground reaction force delivered in under 0.1 second. Slow distance running tends to induce under 3x bodyweight ground reaction force in a more prolonged 0.15 to 0.3 seconds. 

In addition, the bone essentially becomes bored with the highly repetitious, mostly single-plane nature of long distance running after a shockingly short span of time. The best period of mechanosensitivity to get the bone’s attention occurs from 1-20 reps, diminishes between 21-60 reps, and becomes quite poor past this point. Last I checked, 60 steps would be a really short run. Have you considered becoming a 100 meter specialist for the sake of your skeleton? Oh God, anything but that!

Ideally, areas of ongoing bone damage are resolved at the same rate as new bone formation. Distance running creates a conundrum because it demands thousands of mildly stressful repetitions that aren’t necessarily going to create an equal magnitude of response in bone growth, thus there’s a tendency for the tissue to fail faster than it can repair. 

So how do we get around this bony boredom debacle and save your scrawny skeleton? One option is by performing plyometrics and weight training at a separate time of day, preferably 4 to 8 hours ahead of or after a run. But it might be more reasonable to emphasize this plyo and strength work on days when you distance run less or skip running entirely, which would be optimal for muscle strength gains too. It really doesn’t take much of a dose if you encourage heavy lifts. Ideally, the spine, torso, arms, and legs are loaded with exercises like back squats, front squats, and deadlifts, 2-3 times each week for 2-4 sets of a very challenging 3-5 reps. Remember that 1-20 total reps range? 

Another option relates to the fact that athletes with the strongest skeletal structures tend to come from sports that require rapid directional changes, jumping, and sprinting, which all induce more desirable multi-planar bony stresses. Consider entertaining those bored bones with regular soccer, basketball, lacrosse, tennis, aerobics, or volleyball, especially if you have less desire to strength train or simply like to mix up the week’s activities. 

Early sports specialization, especially in endurance sport, is the devil’s work

Wow, that’s the most dramatically terrifying title yet, but for good reason. There’s a limited time frame during puberty to lay down the main structural components of a bone in large quantities. Based on what I just mentioned about endurance activities not doing a great job of stimulating bone production, you should realize that youngster’s skeletons very much benefit from the explosive sprinting, cutting, and jumping that are mainly performed in activities outside of endurance running. With appropriately varied long-term demands, youthful bones can even increase in size, but this is not known to happen in adulthood. 

I’ll use this opportunity to also mention that many of the highest level elite athletes have exposure to other sports through childhood and puberty before they ever specialize. (Tiger Woods specialized early and you can see how unhappy that guy is now). This emphasis on variety is particularly important for movement skill development. These factors are one of many reasons the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends delaying sport specialization until ages 15-16. 

To be clear, you aren’t doing your kid’s performance, skills, bones, muscles, and tendons any favors by trying to specialize them, especially before age 9, or force them into year-round single sport training. They absolutely need variety. They need to play and have fun because that’s when they learn to move their body best. And they need periods of rest every month and every year to let the growth of their body take priority. Professional athletes rely on 2-3 month off-seasons so why wouldn’t an immature human need the same thing, if not even more? 

Location of a bone stress injury may indicate darker truths

Can you feel that deep, searing pain in your spine, almost like you are being stabbed with a dull, rusty butter knife? According to University of Montana PT professor and well-known running injury researcher Rich Willy, bone stress injuries that are closer to or at the body’s core (pelvis, sacrum, spine, upper femur) have a greater tendency to indicate Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), which is essentially the metabolic result of an insufficient intake of calories over a prolonged period of time. 

Even with the world’s worst running form, excessively stressful loads should have had a chance to be filtered out and dampened by the lower leg and thigh muscles before they ever reach areas like the spine and pelvis. These central sites tend to have more metabolically active, vascularized, but less mineralized, trabecular (spongy) bone content, which heals and adapts slower than the hard cortical bone that we think of when somebody says the word “bone.”

To the contrary, the further you move away from the core (eg. tibia, calcaneus, metatarsals), the more likely a person’s biomechanics are to play a role in the onset of a bone stress injury. These folks can respond well to gait retraining, especially one of the more common interventions – a cadence increase. 

This isn’t to say that gait retraining isn’t worth a look for higher fracture sites, but it’s probably not the first hurdle this athlete needs to clear. It also isn’t to say that I’m not going to drill people with questions about nutrition if they have a suspected stress fracture in the lower leg or foot. In the end, your endocrine system needs to stay healthy, which means there’s consistently enough fuel for the body to recover and heal AND perform the sport activity. 

If you think carbohydrates are scary, just wait until that stress fracture shows up 

The trend of “going low carb” has found popularity among some distance runners and functional fitness fanatics. High-protein people love to ramble on about how early human ancestors relied on few carbs and constantly smelled of blood. Perhaps that’s true. But another likely truth is that people didn’t “train” day in and day out because it would be wasteful to burn energy without actually accomplishing something that contributed to survival. WOOOOOO WEEEEEE WOOOOOO WEEEEEE!

Don’t worry, that’s just the sound of my bullshit alarm. Survival through frequent low intensity daily movement to scavenge and hunt food is not the same as modern intentional fitness training. Ancient people didn’t log 40 to 100+ mile running weeks as a hobby, jamming their daily distance into an hour or two of near-constant high intensity zone 3+ heart rates. They weren’t in a never-ending pursuit of 5K PRs or maxing out their back squat. They were just trying to stay alive by eating enough (which interestingly included far more carbohydrate from plant sources than Mr. Keto wants to admit). And they certainly didn’t plunk down in front of a computer to do nothing for another ten hours of the day while nibbling on their kid’s leftover Halloween candy. Comparing your metabolism and lifestyle to that of a caveman as an argument to eat less sugary crap that you shouldn’t eat anyway seems… questionable. 

Much like the brain, bones like carbohydrates. Shifting your dietary habits to avoid carbohydrates before, during, and after prolonged exercise while increasing fat and protein content will alter bone metabolism, most likely in unfavorable ways that haven’t pinged on your radar. 

Another time fasting becomes a factor is in the morning exerciser who skips breakfast. One day, no big deal. But weeks of  running in a fasted state can have consequences for your bone health. This is especially concerning in those folks that tend to have a suppressed appetite after exercise, so even more hours pass before the body has sufficient nutrients to repair itself. 

Interestingly, eating carbohydrates during prolonged running appears to negate some of the acute markers of bony breakdown after exercise. You’ll note I’m not suggesting you eat super sugary junk food all the time as high glycemic carbohydrates may actually be detrimental to bone health. Think whole grains, more fiber and emphasize eating enough calories overall, including fat and protein. 

In the end, any dietary restriction creates a risk factor for energy and micronutrient deficiencies, both of which dictate performance and recovery and can lead back to the RED-S mentioned earlier. When your body needs to recover and heal, it doesn’t matter if your nutrition changes were well-intentioned. Heck, they might even be necessary for your basic health (eg. a food allergy) but you may need professional guidance to maneuver around those issues. What matters is whether your body actually has a consistently sufficient supply of macronutrient and micronutrient building blocks to take care of itself, day after day. Your body’s primary goal is sustaining itself as a living organism, not enhanced performance for leisuretime athletic endeavors. If you don’t get down goal #1, #2 definitely isn’t going to go well. 

Spookiest of Sources: 

Personal notes from University of Virginia Running Medicine Conference 2023

Personal notes from University of Virginia Running Medicine Conference 2020

Biomechanics and Mechanobiology of Trabecular Bone: A Review

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5101038/ 

Preventing bone stress injuries in runners with optimal workload https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8316280/

Rich Willy’s Bone Stress Injury Masterclass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIFh_h7P0c

Doctors of Running Podcast with Rich Willy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQfTkmef_s4&t=16s

Effect of carbohydrate feeding on the bone metabolic response to running

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26251510/ 

National Geographic, Evolution of Diet

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/

Are your calf muscles even fit enough to run?

I’ve come to the conclusion that nearly everybody’s calf muscles stink. It’s partly a problem because runners tend to underestimate structural demand and think of the calf as a minor muscle group that doesn’t do much except push them a bit forward. Surely the big hip and thigh muscles are the real workers, right? Pushing is certainly some of the calf’s role during the later part of the running stride, in that brief moment before your foot leaves the ground. But slightly earlier in the stride, which is called mid-stance, as your body is moving forward over your fixed leg, the calf muscles are in full workhorse mode. 

This mid-stance timing is actually the moment when the soleus, which is the biggest calf muscle, stealthily receives its peak demands. The soleus provides a major stabilizing effect to the ankle and knee, working synergistically with the thigh’s big quadriceps to keep gravity from crushing you down like Wile E. Coyote getting a boulder dropped on his head. The calf does this by resisting the forward momentum of your shin bone, using the foot as a point of fixation to work through. (Which is great if your foot does its job correctly but that’s a story for another day.) 

Stop worrying about the shoe marketing hype around pronation and cushioning and start worrying about getting stronger

In 2012, Dorn et al. calculated that the soleus produced an average peak of 6 times body weight force at a 7:40 min/mile pace (7.8 mph), a pace that’s arguably quicker than many recreational folks run as they trot along. By comparison, the quadriceps were producing a measly 4 times body weight in average peak force at that pace. Doesn’t seem fair that the big thigh muscles produce less force than the smaller calf muscles does it? In that same study, speeding up to 15.7 mph (3:49 min/mile pace), a full blown sprint to most of us, resulted in an average peak of more than 8 times body weight force demands in the soleus. I know what you are thinking. That you never have or never will run that fast. Me either. Because my calf muscles suck, just like yours. (Not true, I will beat you in any calf raise test that you challenge me to as long as it’s on the moon.) The real point is that your calf muscles work ridiculously hard, even at slower paces, and speeding up further elevates their demand. 

The researchers stated, “Across all running speeds, soleus, gastrocnemius and quadriceps provided roughly 75% of the total vertical support impulse needed to accelerate the body upward, with soleus contributing as much as 50%.” Notice the word vertical. The calf just wants to keep your leg tall, where your knee is bent just enough to absorb the blow of landing on the earth but not so bent that your quads work overtime or you linger on the ground too long. That’s why knee pain can relate back to less obvious factors like calf muscle function just as much, if not more so than the thigh muscles that are often blamed. And vice versa, Achilles tendon issues and calf strains can relate to poor thigh muscle function. 

Older runners, especially men over 35 who make up the masters crowd, are particularly impacted by calf and Achilles tendon injuries. One unfortunate issue with age is that the Achilles tendon reduces in stiffness. I know it sounds counterintuitive at first, but research, like that from Willy in 2019, indicates that older tendons tend to have increased compliance (stretchiness) while stiff tendons do a better job at transmitting force and are less likely to be overstretched in a way that mechanically overstrains the tissue. Would you rather drive across a suspension bridge supported by slightly forgiving but very stiff steel cables or very forgiving and less stiff rubber bands? In 2017 Mahieu et al. recognized a similar situation where weaker calf muscles were even associated with Achilles tendon injury in a group of young, male military officer cadets. 

Coupled with weakening calf muscles, an overzealous spring marathon training cycle can quickly turn to a puff of smoke. Once you’ve exceeded the structural capacity of the Achilles tendon and calf muscles, no amount of stretching is going to fix what you broke in that March moment of early season speedwork passion. As a side note, I really wish people would stop trying to stretch out tendon and muscle strain injuries. 

Even if a person hasn’t been injured and just laid low all winter to focus on slurping [insert your beer of choice], initially adding small amounts of medium to high speed strides is the safer option for a few weeks versus going out for 2 or more miles of speedwork. In order to keep the structural and neurological capacity at a level to tolerate the highest forces, I like to have athletes perform strides year round, even if they aren’t specifically doing periodized speedwork for a target event. Strides can be short, 5 to 10 second bouts before, during, or after aerobic runs but eventually can become much longer or performed uphill to encourage even more power production while reminding your tissues that they do have a very high stress job to perform. If an endurance athlete has been hurt for a while, getting consistency and volume back are the first priority with short, slow runs. Then we can start to titrate in a little speed with strides. None of these things are appropriate, though, if the calf muscle and Achilles tendon capacity are garbage after prolonged periods of missed runs. 

As for the nitty gritty of determining just how much your calf muscles stink? In 2017 Herbert-Losier et al. developed age-based normative values for the number of single leg calf raises that a person should be able to perform. These must be high quality (eg. full ankle motion with control) in order to count. You can see in the chart that the numbers are quite high. If I was still a spry young 30 year old, I should be able to complete 32 reps but now that I’m just about to hit that big 6-0 mark, my number is 23, which seems like a pretty high number to everyone whose last name isn’t Herbert-Losier. I’d estimate that fewer than half the people I see in the clinic are able to achieve their appropriate number. What’s your number? 

Data Adapted from Herbert-Losier et al. 2017

If you aren’t making the Herbert-Losier grade but aren’t currently injured, making it a point to isolate the calf for strengthening could pay off for injury prevention. There are no guarantees, because no one is immune to injury, but there is never a penalty for being stronger. For the complete beginner, strengthening doesn’t need to be complicated. A basic double leg calf raise, knees straight, from floor height could suffice for two to three times per week for two to three weeks. The goal is to feel fatigue in the calf muscle, not pain. Once that isn’t challenging, we progress to single leg straight knee calf raises and also start to do bent knee calf raises too. The soleus works hard in both positions so don’t lose any sleep about that. Once your muscles start to come out of their coma, which could still take a few more weeks, we work toward raises on steps and raises with extra weight to further increase the resistive and range of motion demands. 

Just for some perspective on how important calf strength generation is to me personally, I did single leg calf raises in straight and bent positions last week with 95# on my back for 15 repetitions in each position and of course on both legs. Sometimes I’ll do more weight, like 110-140# with reduced reps of 5-10 times. This isn’t where most runners can start and that could easily hurt many people so I’m not telling you to jump to what I do. Sometimes I go to failure, sometimes I don’t, often depending on the time of year and proximity to runs of varying stress. Other days I’ll use 20-45# as more of a light active recovery stress but that’s still too much for many beginners to start. Even still, I’ll mix in some occasional hopping and plyometric things (as long as I didn’t go really heavy) and some weighted overhead or farmer carry tip toe walking. The calf is always a point of emphasis! 

May the force be with your calf muscles. 

All information provided here is intended to be of a general educational nature and may not be specific to you and your needs. Unless you have seen me in the office, I am not your physical therapist. Even for the patients that I have seen, we would need to specifically assess these areas to have a full understanding of your individual capabilities. Always seek the guidance and advice of an appropriately licensed medical professional to address whether it is safe for you to perform any exercise like those mentioned here. 

Resources:

https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/215/11/1944/10883/Muscular-strategy-shift-in-human-running

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1466853X23000020

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330309803_The_Physiology_and_Biomechanics_of_the_Master_Runner

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315515008_Updated_reliability_and_normative_values_for_the_standing_heel-rise_test_in_healthy_adults

https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2015.5885

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0363546505279918?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed

Celebrating the hard work of a few 2022 Mountain Ridge runners

It’s well understood that endurance competitions are difficult. In order to find the most enjoyment on race day, it helps to have patience, a learner’s mindset, and a strong desire to appreciate the process of training. There has to be a sustainable willingness to get the work done, but to not overdo and burnout. These individuals who persevere, not just in a single event but across months and years of time, are the ones that are most often rewarded. I’m fortunate to be able to work with many athletes like this. Sometimes as a PT to help them through their particular injuries and sometimes as a coach. Here are a few of the folks I enjoyed coaching in 2022:

Lindsay Rowand

After having a great run at Highlands Sky 40 miler in June, Lindsay leveled up at her second 100-miler on November 8 at the Rim to River 100 in West Virginia’s New River Gorge National Park. This busy mom and Physical Therapist completed the course in 27:10:30 as the 12th woman and earned a very solid new personal record for that distance – all without taking a nap. 

image courtesy Lindsay Rowand

Natalie Capito

I haven’t yet convinced running newcomer Natalie to do any trail races but she did already manage to PR and take her first event win with a time of 21:26 at the mixed surface Mothman 5K in September. She followed this up with a great half marathon PR at the Morgantown Running Halloween Half of 1:36:44, 8th woman and 16th overall. Next up, she’ll work toward an improved performance at her second Pittsburgh Marathon in May, hoping for drier weather since last year’s edition proved to be quite soggy!

Image courtesy tristateracer.com

Image Courtesy Natalie Capito

Karl Barth

Karl adopted the triathlon lifestyle back in 2016 because he just wasn’t busy enough being an engineering professor, father of two, and husband. He obviously isn’t afraid to challenge himself and I really appreciate the fact that he has the attitude of a lifelong learner. In the time we’ve worked together, he’s taken on multiple technically challenging, climb-heavy events like the 2017 Stonewall Jackson Triathlon and the 2021 Ironman 70.3 Blue Ridge. This year he qualified for and completed the October 2022 Ironman 70.3 World Championships in gorgeous St. George, UT after crushing it at Ironman 70.3 Musselman in Geneva, NY back on July 10. Next up we are working toward the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Happy Valley in July 2023. 

Image courtesy Karl Barth

Image Courtesy Karl Barth

Sara Lunden

Hoping to capitalize on her knowledge from the 2021 Cloudsplitter 50K, Sara completed her first 100K on the same difficult, technical though scenic Cloudsplitter course in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest near Norton, VA. The course includes seven bonus miles (since it’s actually over 69 miles long instead of 62) and boasts over 16,000 feet of gain, that is, of course, not to be outdone by the 16,000 feet of descending. Adding to the challenge is the fact that on October 16th the leaves are freshly fallen and hide many trail surface defects. In preparation for all of that vertical she started racking up miles early in the year for a muddy March Rabid Raccoon 20 mile trail race near Pittsburgh, PA and then the Thelma and Louise Half Marathon in Moab, UT in May. But to really focus on going uphill she tackled the never ending steep climbs of the Laurel Highlands 50K from Ohiopyle, PA back in June. Sara will start 2023 with a bang: Frozen Sasquatch 25K in Charleston, WV and North Park Half Marathon in Pittsburgh, PA.

Image Courtesy Sara Lunden

Image Courtesy Sara Lunden

Lindsay Britton

Carrying her PR fitness from the 2021 Rehoboth Marathon (3:45!) this busy mother of two ran the thunderstorm soaked Pittsburgh Marathon in May and then demonstrated her trail versatility on the spectacle of red rock and sandy trail terrain at the Thelma and Louise Half Marathon in Moab with Sara. She went on to spend time making me jealous while exploring the trails of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. Like so many runners, Lindsay had a new PR goal and lots of fitness for a faster time at her second Greenbrier River Trail Marathon on October 2nd from Cass, WV but Hurricane Ian had other plans. While this flatter course could be considered a faster option in normal cool and dry fall weather, Ian dished out his anger, resulting in a far tougher, rain-soaked, muddy, windy course. Thanks to her trail running skills, Lindsay wasn’t dissuaded, and earned a strong finish as the 6th overall woman in 3:52. Next up she plans to explore the New River Gorge trails and build her winter base at the Cabin Fever 50K in February 2023. 

Image Courtesy Lindsay Britton

Image Courtesy Lindsay britton

Tabitha Coffindaffer

Following her personal best marathon at the 2021 Greenbrier River Trail Marathon, Tabitha has been working hard all of 2022 and completing a big variety of events in the process. She did her first ultra-distance run at the June Midnight Squatchapalooza 12-Hour in Colombus, NJ. In the build up to that, she became more trail comfortable while training for the Meeks Mountain Muddy Mutt 15K down in Hurricane, WV and then worked on speed for the Decker’s Creek Half Marathon right here in Morgantown, WV. Like Lindsay, she also dodged the raindrops, mud, and puddles at her second Greenbrier River Trail Marathon in early October. Not to be outdone by that cruddy weather, she used her hard-earned fitness in late October at the challenging Ohio Chessie Trail 10K and nearly broke her personal best road 10K time!

Frog Pond Reflections: The Boston Marathon Race Report Story

While Boston may not have initially topped my bucket list of endurance events, I have to admit that it was a really fun run. It’s apparent that the city loves the runners, and runners love the event. There’s a lot of hype from the fanboys/fangirls/fandogs/fancats, but it’s mostly well deserved. Even with the tremendous pain in the gigantic butt that is COVID-19, the Boston Athletic Association put on a memorable and safe event.

A challenge for all the city folk

Getting into the city for packet pickup on Saturday was a little on the stressful side because I don’t love city traffic. City slickers are pretty terrible at driving, which is an understatement. I 100% fully stand behind that statement and will challenge 100% of city slickers to any type of driving contest at any time because I am competitive, and you will 100% definitely lose. I see the dents on your cars and your hunched posture over the steering wheel. I have spoken.

Is this an Ironman triathlon?

Wandering around the finish line area before the race reminded me of how people become obsessed with Ironman triathlon events and get Ironman tattoos and can hardly let themselves be seen in public without Ironman apparel and no conversation can pass by without mention of Ironman. (Not saying I haven’t done this, hence the reason I have earned the authority to poke fun.) In this case, there’s a ridiculous number of Boston Marathon jackets EVERYWHERE.

At the time this seems a bit premature, to assume that you will complete the event. Just about anything can happen on race day, and then won’t you feel silly having celebrated a finish that never came? It’s purely a statistical probability that out of my conservative estimate of 8,000 finisher jackets wandering the streets in those 48 hours prior, at least two of those jackets came down with a crippling case of the shits on race morning and didn’t even make it to the start line.

But maybe I misinterpret the purpose of such jackets.

By the numbers

The evening prior to starting, I realized I hadn’t done a true road race since a turkey trot 5K in 2016, so yeah, I don’t make road racing a priority. I had done 36 other events since then, 35 of which were trail races and 17 of those were ultramarathons from 50K to 100 miles. I’m well aware that I’ve given up exactly 23 seconds per mile of marathon speed to run stupidly long distances in the woods and that’s just fine, hater. I own like three or four pairs of road shoes and have over 20 pairs of trail shoes in rotation at any time. The wonderful race I used to qualify for Boston was a largely flat, crushed limestone rail trail at the Greenbrier River Trail Marathon in 2018, so still not a “road race.” And then there was some sort of pandemic recently that kinda killed off road races so an opportunity to include those in the lead up has unfortunately been lacking.

Why?

Plenty of runners do this Boston race as a celebration of their sport without any intention to kill themselves, which I totally understand because it felt like 26.2 miles of partying. Some runners want the bragging rights of a particular time or PRs. I was somewhere in the middle, where running semi-quickly would be a nice bonus, but I wanted to appreciate the day and take in the surroundings because I don’t have much intention to run Boston again in the near future. Besides, the grey hairs signal that maybe it’s time to savor the process.

Some whining and complaining

I hadn’t had a satisfying running performance all year, which left me putting all my eggs into one road marathon basket. Training for Boston was already off to a rough start thanks to a terrible ankle sprain on July 3 during the Finger Lakes 50K. For over a week I couldn’t run, then I couldn’t run very fast for a couple more weeks, and not very far for about a month, and downhills, especially at speed, were a problem for multiple months. Good thing I enjoy riding the mountain bike.

The ankle would ache, swell, and remind me every time I’d finish a run that was pushing the limits of what it could safely tolerate. And I definitely couldn’t safely do any amount of trail running for about a month and a half so I had to frequently remind myself that it was best to put the time into road-style training anyway. It was surprisingly enjoyable to head back to the rail trail and track for speedwork that I hadn’t tried in years and see the specific adaptations that consistent, fast, anaerobic training brings. Even mixing in those less frequented locations was a fun change. But as the event approached and more work was invested, every passing week became a little more stressful with frequent illnesses amongst my children and near misses with the ever-present cloud of COVID-19.

Then suddenly, it’s race day, baby!

Since we stayed outside of Boston and I had no interest in riding a bus with that whole pandemic thing, Anne dropped me off a little more than a mile from the start line and I walked in on a lovely rural road that was closed to traffic. Instead of the mass start that April’s marathon would have, this super delayed, special fall version of the Boston Marathon was altered to have 20+ minute rolling start windows for groups of runners based on their expected finish time. This was a nice, low stress way to begin whenever the courage came about.

Walking to the start in Hopkinton

This Definitely won’t give anyone nightmares tonight

I won’t reveal much about the course that hasn’t already been said by many other participants over the years. While the whole course averages a downhill gradient from Hopkinton to Boston, the earliest miles are definitely the ones that will trick you, even more so than most races, because there’s such an abrupt drop of elevation in the initial five miles. It’s just too easy to go fast with that combination of excitement, crowds, number of runners, terrain, and highly competitive ostriches. I’m not sure why other race reports hadn’t mentioned the ostrich category but maybe that’s new this year? I was perfectly content with letting myself hold back on these miles by 10-20 seconds per mile and drafting those long, sexy legs though I don’t like the feathery exhaust much.

It wasn’t long into the race that a human runner came close, and I noticed her hard footstrikes (because that’s a normal part of my job and brain function). Maybe a half mile or so down the road she began grunting and hitting the ground even harder on a steeper downhill, to which I was thinking, “isn’t it a little early to be suffering that much?” Her nearby friend asked her multiple times if she was okay and finally she said, “my stress fracture...I have to drop out.” I passed and never saw her again. Rough day. Bone stress injuries are not easy to get around, and hard downhill running is a surefire provocator. I did feel bad for her.

It’s not flat

Moments later, I heard my name yelled from the side of the road and looked up to see a fellow Morgantown-area friend spectating, waiting for his wife to come through. That was an awesome surprise to actually recognize someone. Then I saw a runner spit on his hands and wipe them on his shorts. I assume he wanted to get something off of his hands, VERY BADLY. Gross. I personally would have waited until the next aid station and just used water, because they are literally every mile apart.

And then there was the guy that looked like he had been shot in the back because the chafing of his heart rate monitor strap must have really eaten through some skin and left an 8-inch long fresh blood streak down his shirt. I’d like to imagine he also had super bloody nipples like that 5K fun run scene from The Office.

Can you tell I’m just people watching this whole time?

I’m trying to make sure I get at least two cups in at every aid station because it’s plenty humid and warm already, and I constantly want to inadvertently suck water up my nostrils. The other thing I’m absolutely making sure to do is achieve the most awkward facial expressions possible for the professional marathon photographers so my wife won’t be tempted to buy any photos of me looking terrible once this thing is over. It’s also more entertaining for the other runners who might happen to find one of my awkward race photos in the process of looking for theirs. It’s no wonder they take so many photos. Most of them just make you look like a complete buffoon. They are also a Physical Therapist’s paradise: Look! I can tell from the amount of frontal plane collapse of your pelvis and excessive femur adduction that your gluteus medius and gluteus minimus muscle are less functional than those of my 85-year-old grandmother! And she’s even had a hip replacement that nicked her sciatic nerve!

Even though the post-race coverage indicated that the spectator crowds were smaller than typical years, I didn’t notice. As best as I can recollect, the route had cheering faces and smiling babies nearly the entire distance with only a couple short sections lacking a crowd. The run goes through multiple smaller towns where more people gather to cheer, but the connector roadways in the middle were still busy with onlookers. I’m sure many were asking “Is there some kind of race today?” It was still such an enormous number of people compared to any other “normal” race that I would never complain about a lack of spectators.

Down the line I began wishing/hoping for a way to acquire some real food on the course that wouldn’t be the standard palate-offending Gatorade Endurance or the oddly textured Maurten energy gels. Magically, a lady appeared alongside the road with a banana, which I promptly ate because I couldn’t just ignore that kind of holy gift. Since I was obviously vying for the overall win, I hope no one disqualifies me for outside assistance. Rat me out and I will find you on Strava and make your life a living hell. I noticed this crowdsourced support at several points along the route, especially later on. Amateur road racing on this scale is clearly not about self-sufficiency. It’s about wasting $200+ on carbon plate shoes, $90 finisher jackets, $200+ entry fees, chafed nipples, and trying not to crap yourself in public.

A roar in the distance told me I was nearing the halfway point. The loud ladies of Wellesley College are known for giving random kisses to the runners, but all I’m giving them is a photo because, seriously, COVID-19. It was about this time that Danica Patrick, famed professional NASCAR driver and ostrich racing enthusiast pulled up beside me on her smelly, squawking bird, Olivier. I could tell after about three minutes that I could get this foul French-named beast to redline and started to take the corners extra wide, throwing my elbows out (an old XC trick) to drift them up closer and closer to the crowd control barriers. Racin’ is rubbin’, Danica! Besides, ostriches aren’t known for having the highest VO2 max. You could say I ruffled a few feathers.

Why do all of these people want to hurt me? Hey, that guy has the same shoes as me!

The course has small roller climbs of varying sizes the entire route. The section of bigger climbs that runners fret over is from Newton to the top of Heartbreak Hill, which spans about five miles from roughly 16 to 21. I really like prolonged climbing and it felt better on my stiff, old body (and booty, in case you wondered) to take away the near constant fast descending and make the demand more fitness oriented. Doesn’t mean I was flying, but it was a more enjoyable part of the course. I could actually pass several people midway up the climbs without digging deep and I liked having another movement pattern. Why don’t we all run this course in reverse one year, and I bet people will be far less sore afterward?

I think I started to see runners cracking and starting to walk by the 16th mile, but the course continued to take many casualties from this point onward. It seemed like every couple minutes people were quickly pulling to the side of the road to stretch their calf, hamstrings, or quad cramps. More than I would have ever guessed. Though I felt fine, the thought crossed my mind, “will I be one of them?” Only you can decide if this is foreshadowing.

There was something, or should I say someones, to look forward to just prior to Heartbreak Hill because I knew my wife and son were waiting there. One of my biggest goals as a parent is to demonstrate to my kids that it is possible to do seemingly difficult things and to seek out challenges as a way to make the rest of life seem a bit easier. Maybe it won’t work, but I know running and sport has taught me plenty of coping skills. Even if they just learn to get outside and be active to stay healthy, I’d be happy and consider that a success. I was super glad I got to see them for some high fives, which still makes me a little emotional.

Exiting the High 5 Zone, obviously

Topping out on Heartbreak Hill the course begins to trend downward once again, dropping into Brookline where I swear all I could think about was how it reminded me of a real-life Sesame Street. Doesn’t take much because I’m from the country, after all. Plus, I saw Big Bird getting on the T. Or was that a rogue ostrich? I was extremely disappointed to see that I somehow(!) didn’t get the KOM/CR crown on Strava for Heartbreak Hill. The only plausible explanation is that the satellites must have been overwhelmed with all the unique GPS watch signals pinging from such a tiny area.

It seemed like for every runner dropping like a fly there was a runner who somehow paced well and was hauling ass down this final stretch of road. I wish I had those quads after all that prolonged high speed road descending. I also wish I could survey the motivations of each of these people at this point. Question #1: Do you realize that you are an absolute jerk for passing me? Question #2: On a scale of 0 to 10, how much does it hurt when I stomp on your toes?

The pedestrian control for all the city slickers trying to cross the road (to get to the other side) was a thing of wonder and beauty as these amazingly gifted volunteers would somehow siphon the now easily confused runners down to a three foot wide path with mysteriously alternating giant arrow signs. Was it a single arrow they would flip over along an x, y, or z axis? Did the sign have an arrow on each side? I still haven’t figured out that trigonometry. I would have paid more attention but I was too busy playing a revolving game of “I bet that person is a triathlete/trail runner/pure road runner/fitness enthusiast.”

I don’t understand how the word “chiropractic” is supposed to be a motivator

At this point something bites me hard on the left ass cheek as I detect a vague scent of fried chicken. Dammit Team Olivier/Danica! I thought I’d disposed of these two clowns. I’d obviously have to play my best hand. I tolerated their presence until the next aid station when I repeatedly batted the Dixie cups away from Olivier’s ugly beak, as he tried to poke me in the eyes but it ultimately forced him into an even deeper state of dehydration. Birds are particularly sensitive to dehydration. I know, because my chickens told me.

By mile 22 or 23 I had started to tighten up my neck and shoulders as my quads began to deny their role, causing a slight slowing of pace, until a random runner a few yards behind and beside me yelled, “drop those shoulders” and some other piece of possibly encouraging information. This person may not have even been talking to me, but I tripped him anyway and proceeded to relax my shoulders. I did need to be told that very thing in that moment, so it worked out and I got a little faster for a bit plus that guy won’t be running his mouth at people any time again soon.

This giant Citgo sign appears and everybody starts pushing to empty their tanks, making me feel a bit like a slacker. Then I had an “ah ha” moment: there must be a limited supply 50-cent sale on slushies. The psychological threat of missing out on the sale triggered my chimp brain into causing a couple left calf cramp pings, to which I was thinking, “apparently these stupid super shoes don’t actually let the calves rest that much compared to regular shoes.”

As I looked down at said shoe, I realized, all too late, there’s a tiny gauge on the inside of the heel, registering on “E” and you are supposed to fill the shoes up with “high octane 95% minimum fructose only energy gels” at the start line. To make matters worse, one gauge was slightly above “E” and could explain the awkwardly asymmetric run technique I adopted. It’s 2021 and shoes bonk now, are you kidding me? Agggghhh, I should have known there was a way shoe companies could milk more money from the consumer beyond the already ridiculous $230+ price tag and 150-mile durability threshold. Not surprised these things weren’t equally filled when I drove them off the lot two weeks ago. The things you miss when distracted by that new shoe smell.

But it was probably the fact that my quads died a mile back, so I was trying to rely on my calves more to maintain the same speeds. Maybe. Nah, I bet the shoes were bonking. I was torn between picking up the pace to increase the chances of slushie success while risking full calf lock down, or just ride it out because it was already far from a PR day for me after that meaninglessly intense Heartbreak Hill KOM attempt, even though this lackadaisical approach might just cost me a slushie.

That final section down Boylston Street was great. The crowd was wildly flinging discounted slushies at the runners. I am still not sure if they were maybe just trying to hit me? If so, jokes on them. One quick sip of Chuck’s Cherry Charger is all it took to make me want to sprint hard, and I did pick it up a little, just to pass those runners nearby that I had secretly entered into my own personal highly competitive 0.5-mile event because how dare these amateur schmucks try to pass me. WHERE ARE YOU DANICA PATRICK? I’m beating you SO BADLY right now Danica Patrick! There’s nothing like a sip of corn-syrupy ice granules to boost a man’s ego to superhuman levels. But I honestly didn’t see the point of truly hammering and just tried to be appreciative of those final few strides and savor the spectacularly loud crowds that were obviously cheering for only me.

Now give me that medal! The food bag the kind volunteers with melting faces give you past the finish line was marvelous. What an unbelievable apple that was (no joke). Though I actually wanted the Cheetos and not the plain Lays chips. I briefly developed a kinship with and harassed an older man with a West Virginia University sling bag because you’ll say and do lots of odd things in the 15 minutes after a long effort. As I lie soaking my sore quads and chafed nipples in the Boston Common Frog Pond, I was finally able to reflect on the morning’s 28.4 mile journey.

Frustrated, Danica recounts the barrier incident in a post-race interview, image credit CBS Boston

Look at these cool capes

Frog Pond Reflections

While I had a decent sense of the course structure beforehand, to execute this race optimally for speed, it seems like a marathon that you could do once to fully understand the course and then come back to do it again after having tailored your training specifically to the course layout. Fast downhill road running in the carbon plate cheater shoes would have been a lovely training addition in the couple months prior to Boston, but my ankle wasn’t going to allow that in large or even medium doses. Oh, well.

It definitely didn’t feel as much about cardiorespiratory fitness. I say this because I had far more aerobic fitness than I needed for a marathon from all the long ultra efforts, so that part was oddly easy and I actually felt physically good in the hours immediately afterward. I never really felt like I was breathing hard but just cruising along, albeit more and more stiff legged in those last couple miles from the blown quads. It’s a weird course.

Here Froggy Froggy

It’s borderline humorous how I’ve done events in the past 4-5 years with 10,000 to 20,000 feet of ascending and descending that didn’t ruin my quads because I was moving slower overall, deviating between many paces and terrains, and wasn’t wearing evil carbon plate super shoes. The only time I’ve had that much soreness during a race was from incorrectly executing the Laurel Highlands Ultra when my quads had imploded by 40 miles. Usually in ultramarathons they hurt and get heavy but it’s somehow a manageable, less sharp and less abrupt pain until the next day. The multiple days of systemic soreness from an ultra still takes the cake, though. #ultratrailrunsnob

Back to the woods, away from these beardless, short shorts road runners!

Finger Lakes 50K Race Report

In the few days prior to traveling up to New York for the Finger Lake 50s, I had checked the weather a few times and noticed the weekend precipitation predictions steadily increasing to a point where I wondered things like, “Why all the rain and cool temperatures? Is it even summer up there? I wonder what texture of mud they have?” Knowing that we would be truck camping in the Finger Lakes National Forest, I even did some updating on my truck’s camper shell to create as much of a water barrier as possible.

When we arrived in the forest Friday evening, clouds hung in a low, white-gray blanket overhead. The forecasted weather was indeed accurate: the temps were cool and rain fell intermittently. To truck camp we parked along the gravel Potomac Road while tent campers packed their stuff a couple hundred yards to a small campground near the finish line.

The rain continued in spurts all night and was sometimes heavy enough to wake me up as it pounded the shell roof. A couple times I awoke to the sound of rednecks driving their unnecessarily loud trucks and vans, at what I suspect was well over the 35 mph national forest speed limit on Potomac Road. I wish I could be that skilled, having the ability to let so many people know just how awesome I am at 1:00 AM on a Friday night of July 4th weekend. Maybe one day.

It didn’t feel like much later, around 5:00 AM, when the cars of non-camping racers began rolling in. It was obviously futile to continue any further sleeping attempts. At least it wasn’t raining when I emerged from the humid shell, which made the initial gear preparation easier, but it didn’t take long for another moderate shower to begin and complicate the breakfast and coffee prep.

After a bit of deliberation regarding the combination of rain and 50-something degrees, I opted for the long sleeve wool shirt. I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to stop raining anytime soon. By 6:30 AM, the 50 milers and 50Kers were gathered at the start line. The crowd was laid back and the final race director instruction proved entertaining as they knew the conditions were not exactly optimal. Anne and the other 25K runners would have to wait until 8:30 for their start.

Off we went for the first 16.5 mile loop, beginning with a quick 0.5 mile descent down the gravel road. As usual, I wasn’t surprised to see a small group sprinting to the front. Buh bye, suckas. Lots of hours left to play in the mud, why be in such a rush? The initial singletrack was plenty wet with a couple slick wooden bridges, and it began to quickly climb us right back up. The scent of wet pine needles and mud filled the air. Heaven.

It didn’t take long to start seeing and smelling pasture land and the first cattle field with an infamous cattle gate. “Don’t let the cows out” is a bit of an event slogan. This is fun. It reminds me of the cow pastures I ran as a youngster. And the mother cow that head butted me once when my grandad had me chase its calf to tag it. No cows in sight here but I also couldn’t see particularly far through the dense fog. Nor did I want to take the time to gawk around solely for cows.

We popped out onto the gravel Mark Smith Road at 2.5 miles for more fast descending that led to a climb up the Gorge Trail at mile 3.7. This was mostly runnable, gradual grade climbing so I never felt too bogged down, nor was there much power hiking time. My spine muscles were making themselves known by threatening to spasm after the less than stellar night of sleep combined with the faster descending.

The Interloken Trail comes up next along with a visit to The Beach aid station around mile 5. Nothing looked like a beach, but there was a swampy pond nearby covered in a layer of mist. Too bad I didn’t bring a camera. By the way, it was raining and the trail was a muddy mess with lots of standing water and tree roots aplenty through here. I could be wrong, but I think someone was smoking weed in the woods as I puddle hopped on by.

Back to another short gravel road jaunt. I really enjoyed how this was broken up into such a variety of surfaces even though elevation-wise there’s never a ton of variation all at once. It’s like a combination of various races I’ve done in WV, OH, and PA all rolled into one.

Up another portion of the Interloken Trail. My collapsible water bottle flew out of my waist pack, so I picked it up and carried it in my hand for a bit. Not knowing the trails, I didn’t realize a more gnarly downhill was coming. A downhill of many roots and plenty of water. On the descent, I attempted to put the bottle back into the pack with one hand, at which point I missed and it fell to the ground again, right in front of the runner behind me. Try again, but now with two hands behind my back while still running downhill amongst the rocks and roots.

And then it happened. With my hands still behind my back, as my right foot and ankle entered some deeper water surrounded by roots, I felt something I’d only ever experienced one other time. The feeling of my ankle rolling so far that the joint subluxes and there’s an interesting popping/grinding sensation. At first I didn’t even feel much sharper pain, just a dull pressure and ache that was still enough to make me slow up and limp. Another 50-100 yards of trying to bring myself back to normal-ish running, and I’m right back onto non-technical gravel road at The Library aid station just beyond 10 miles in.

That stupid bottle in my left hand gets dropped about one minute after this moment, image from Trails Collective/Ian Golden

A handful of seconds after spraining, lingering at the aid station, hating life while debating how smart it will be to continue, image from Trails Collective/Ian Golden

It didn’t feel terrible, so I kept going onto the next section of trail. I’m also kind of a stubborn, arrogant fool so unless there’s a bone sticking out or the pain is very severe, it’s unlikely I’d stop though I knew the risks. Was this smart? Probably not. It definitely prolongs the recovery afterward and would be particularly risky because the ankle is more likely to sprain again during any continued attempt to keep running on this day, as well as in the weeks ahead. If it had been my left ankle, I think I would have had no choice but to quit because it is far less forgiving from all of its prior battering. By the way, the ankle is known as “the forgiving joint.” Let’s hope this is true.

Limping quickly onward to a short piece of uphill paved road and to the Backbone Horse Camp. The only pavement in the race that I can recall. I didn’t notice any horses, but at least there were a couple of other runners around to provide a little distraction. This next section rolls nicely along the Backbone Trail, which is mostly grassy overgrown gravel road with plenty of squishy and slippery mud sections. The final aid station, The Outback, comes at the edge of the last cattle field, about 13.5 miles into the loop. That field was super mushy so I was not looking forward to revisiting it on a second loop, expecting it would be magnificently churned up at that point. (Should be great to plant seeds right now though.)

swamp

The course turns southward with another section of the Interloken Trail. There’s a ridiculous number of wooden bridges to cross because the area appears to just stay wet. It was a pretty jaunt through the pine forest with thick fog still in accompaniment. If I had known I would be forced to run slower I really would have brought that darn camera. It felt more like September than July.

I was hoping that I could trust my GPS, the watch time, and my location instinct as 16 miles clicked on by. My priority goal of evenly splitting the loops for a roughly 4:30 finish time wasn’t going to happen given the ankle sprain, so I set my sights on simply finishing and just trying to be careful enough to prevent too much worsening. Maybe if I can’t be the fastest overall 50K runner, I can be the fastest old (masters) 50K runner?

I noticed immediately upon starting up the first climb of the second loop that the course conditions had deteriorated further. This encouraged a quicker turnover because any attempts at creating a long, forceful stride on inches thick mud resulted in a power sucking experience and more ankle pain. Thank goodness the packed gravel roads remained in wonderful shape despite the fact that the rain had started to come down even heavier. These road sections provided a brief but welcome respite from the now thicker and deeper mud.

At this point, I was definitely not sad to have worn the long sleeve wool baselayer because I certainly wasn’t overheating in a downpour. I noticed while being so soaked that the repetitive movement had weirdly generated a foamy layer on my shoulders. This must be what they mean about working yourself into a lather? First time for everything.

Didn’t put my fenders on so mud was flinging everywhere

Every section of trail that was a mess before had become either deeper puddles, deeper mud, or were now fully flowing creeks. I became really paranoid about not being able to see what the heck I was stepping on, which is not an ideal thing you can focus on if you want to go fast. It already gets hard enough to control the stability of your legs once fatigue sets in.

Descending back down toward the Library aid station around mile 27, wouldn’t you know that the same section of rooty creek trail caused my ankle to subtly roll again! Come on. The race director was hanging out at the aid station and wanted to know if I had had any difficulty with the course markings. I said no but that I did really hate that last descent at this point. Hopefully he didn’t take it personally.

The rainy frolick continued and I really hoped that the people driving along that paved road would see me through the fog. Back along the Backbone Trail I tried to consume mostly liquid calories to reach that final super mushy cow pasture because eating solid food always starts to feel like an annoying chore. Some Coca-Cola provided a nice lift, but yeah, I was over it. Close enough to stumble in for a finish to avoid my greatest fear (a DNF) but demotivated from the injury-induced lackluster performance. Limp down the final portion of the Interloken Trail again with the ankle becoming increasingly less reliable and swollen. This had really become a technical mud and water nightmare from all of the foot traffic. Like I said, this section clearly doesn’t drain well anyway, so this time around I was tripping all over the place (though I still refused to succumb to gravity and fall!)

a boy and his cow

I somehow held on to be the first masters runner, thus acquiring the first giant wooden cow trophy of my career. It was really a big old pile of manure to not be able to give full effort considering that I had started out feeling generally good, the temperatures were great for pushing the intensity, and the course layout worked well for my style. I really did enjoy moooving through the course design for much of the first loop. Until I rolled my damn ankle and the priorities changed. Have I whined enough yet? Nope.

Few things are as frustrating to me as not being able to push up to the true fitness, psychological, and strategic barriers that should be the limiters on the day. But this is the way of the trail racing world. It is that greater level of unpredictability and challenge that a trail runner is often seeking. There are always factors that cannot be accounted for and circumstances that will create challenges that are not listed on the race entry web page. And I’m okay with that. So I guess I’m done whining now. I don’t wanna have a cow, man.

puffy in all the wrong places

Promise Land 50K++ Race Report

The Promise Land 50K++ is a long-standing, well-respected ultra trail run in the Jefferson National Forest near Lynchburg, Bedford, and Roanoke, Virginia. This 2021 version took place on April 24 with plenty of trail runners champing at the bit to race since the 2020 event was cancelled.

At 5:30 AM we started in darkness at about 1300 feet elevation with a roughly three-mile climb up a gravel road from the Promise Land Youth Camp. It was runnable at the bottom but became too steep for anything but hiking by the time the final half-mile rolled around. I was surprised to see how many people were just blasting this entire section. Being a spring event, that felt like a sure way to guarantee an awful experience for me, so I held back.

Then there’s a short section of slightly technical singletrack alongside Onion Mountain where I finally topped out the first climb around 50 minutes for 4.5 miles at an altitude around 3500 feet. Just a measly 2200 feet of gain in less than an hour. Yeesh. This leads to over three miles of gradual grassy service road descent on the side of Apple Orchard Mountain. Fortunately it drops only to 2600 feet and not back to valley levels. Still, so many people were flying on these open, non-technical sections. It was early, so patience felt like the best course of action as I tried to settle into a sustainable rhythm. The view of the sunrise was fantastic.

Around the 8.5 mile point, the trail starts climbing as everyone must reach the top of Apple Orchard Mountain. Before reaching the top, racers have a midway stop at the Reed Creek aid station at 10 miles where I refilled a bottle, took down a cup of Coca-Cola, and some chips, expecting the next aid station to come quickly. There’s more non-technical - but now steeper - grassy, wide service road to climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I’m getting a feeling that this course is different from the types of trail runs I’m accustomed to.

Crossing the parkway, we reached the high point of the course at nearly 4000 feet and began a long, crushed gravel road (still non-technical) descent toward the Sunset Fields aid station. Some people were really rocking the pace as the runners I followed up the climb were drifting further from my sight. I was trying to hold back a bit to save my quads for later.

totally straight and flat

super flat

Now for the biomechanics lesson you didn’t ask for but need to hear. The destructive muscular impact of terrain elevation fluctuation is one of the hardest things to explain to road runners and non-ultrarunners. In ultras, there’s a significant likelihood that your quads will begin to hurt and/or simply have a hard time holding you up, especially on descents. It commonly forces people into walking because running feels untrustworthy. You can thank something called eccentric demand for that failure. A couple things increase the eccentric demand in the quadriceps muscles: 1) longer strides that make the initial point of foot contact further from the body, 2) downhills, especially steep downhills. Eccentric demand is far less with climbing than descending, but climbing gets all the sexy vertical appeal.

The bigger those eccentric demands as the hours pass, the faster your quads will begin to either hurt or straight up experience a reduction in their force generating capacity. So when you see a course elevation profile or some big elevation gain number, it’s just as important to consider the elevation loss and the grades because those are the most muscularly demanding periods of time, even though they might not require the most cardiorespiratory fitness. It’s definitely not free speed like coasting on a bicycle. Across a several hour mountainous ultra, there’s a good chance that hours of time will be spent descending, slowly working the quads toward failure. Could you run the descents faster? Yes, many times. But it’s not a great idea if you want your quads to do their job well, on all terrains, as long as possible.

Anne greeted me at the aid station, and I proceeded to complain a bunch about not being able to do anything with gloves on and being too cold to get rid of my jacket but I did get to eat some bacon!

Now for the descent off the other side of Apple Orchard Mountain. Finally, after 13 miles of waiting, the kind of running that I am accustomed to and half okay at: technical, rocky, singletrack where you have to constantly think about where to put your feet or you’re gonna fall and break your face. Considering that my GPS watch keeps taunting me, telling me that my “fitness age” is that of a 56 year old, I need all the advantages I can find.

The descent down Cornelius Creek Trail has varying degrees of technicity and steepness but unfortunately couldn’t go on forever. High on the westward ridge above is the famous Appalachian Trail, though we never ran on it. A small group of us arrived at the Cornelius Creek aid station around mile 18. I reluctantly refilled a bottle with Tailwind and proceeded down the gravel road that became a paved road while still impressed with the many people moving quickly.

The downward trend finally stops as we exited from the paved road onto an unmarked and seemingly random trail that leads up to the Colon Hollow aid station around mile 21 (after a bit of climbing on a true singletrack, which I really enjoyed). I grabbed part of PB&J and some Coke, but neither felt very uplifting. The next five-mile section proceeding along the side of Pine Mountain was not my favorite. More non-technical grassy forest service road with a few hundred feet of large roller climbing to make you feel sluggish with a sprinkle of poison ivy for good measure.

My stomach wasn’t fantastic. By the time I jostled my way around to the Cornelius Creek aid station for the second time, at mile 26, it really wasn’t cooperating. I asked the volunteer if they had a Porta-John and he said, “nope, but we have the woods and I have some toilet paper.” So I took those six tiny squares and scampered myself off into the brush for a few minutes of alone time leaning against a tree with a rock as a kickstand for my arm, just in case the tired legs gave way, and then continued on with the adventure, knowing the unforgiving terrain that was about to come.

The Apple Orchard Falls Trail is all up. It starts out runnable and a bit technical but becomes increasingly steep and rocky with several impromptu rock staircases. And you know, there’s over a marathon worth of miles on your legs so they hurt a bit. It becomes nearly all power hiking for the uppermost two miles. For one of those miles, the saving grace is that it is pretty. There’s dark green moss covering the boulders throughout the creek and the falls themselves are impressive.

But once you pass the falls, there’s less foliage and fewer flowers that might otherwise distract you from another mile of hard hands-on-knees climbing. Part of this includes several not-so-lovely wooden block stairs rebarred into the ground but that is probably easier to deal with than eroding soil. Eating real food sounded difficult while panting, so I popped a nasty energy gel, which I could tell prevented a full bonk but made me queasy. I could eventually hear cheers at the next aid station, but there was easily another 15-20 minutes of work to do before getting there. Nearing the top, I attempted to run/shuffle a flatter section and caught my left foot on a rock, which promptly threw me to the ground in a heap. It hurt my elbow a little but falling uphill is generally the preferred option if I get to pick.

Another hundred yards and the Sunset Fields volunteers greeted me for the second time along with Anne, who was not loving the day of cold weather. I grabbed a little more bacon from her, more Coke from the volunteers, and a few chips. Upon leaving the aid station and crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway, there was a feeling of relief to be nearly done, and I tried to shove in the chips. Unfortunately, this prompted another feeling: intense nausea. So I ended up hunching over to hurl. Normally if this was to happen, just a couple heaves and I’m good to go but in this case it was more in the neighborhood of 6-8 heaves and left me questioning when or if it was going to stop. I’m blaming the energy gel combined with the Coke.

One of the runners I’d spent some time with earlier, Ben, came by and happened to meet up with his pacer for the final chunk. I figured I should jump on the train, hoping my stomach would settle now that it was theoretically empty. The singletrack was semi-technical and intersected back to a section we’d already climbed up in the earliest part of the course. I was moving fast with 7 to 8 minute miles and actually felt good enough to pass a couple folks. Too bad I didn’t vomit earlier. Then I caught my left foot again on an embedded rock. Thank goodness I was keeping a quick turnover that kept me from going down, but it sure as heck scared me.

The course finally comes back to the same starting gravel road (Overstreet Creek Road) for a high-speed descent on a broken body. It’s hard to hold back too much knowing that the finish line is now so close and really my quads felt good since the GI system was more of the limiter today. Striding into the finish back down at 1300 feet, I picked up the well-earned finisher’s award of custom Patagonia shorts, taking some pride in beating Anne back to the start on foot thanks to that smoking downhill.

In hindsight, the course was not what I expected. The climbs and descents were long, which I don’t mind, but for the most part, they are too runnable at high speeds for my liking, with the exception of that final climb. The majority of the course felt like a fast grassy forest service road, though there was plenty of gravel road and a little paved road too. It is definitely a real runner’s course and I don’t currently have the turnover for blazing such fast things! That’s ok. It was still challenging and nice to check off a classic event on an early spring day.

You can tell the event has functioned well for a while. It’s a well-oiled machine with great course markings and plenty of volunteers (even a couple at intersections in the woods where people might get confused or attempt to cut the course). Do watch out for ticks. I ended up having one embed itself far into my shin which caused an unfortunate cellulitis in the few days afterward. Would I do it again? Sure. But probably not for a couple years because my mind (and gut) took a beating that might take a little extra time to forget.

Bel Monte 50 Miler Race Report

Springtime kinks

Over the years of endurance racing, I’ve developed an uncanny ability to enter March events that exceed my comfort threshold. It’s easy to get hyped up for an early spring event after avoiding competition all winter, but then when you’re in the event, the excitement wears thin and early season lackluster fitness punches you in the gut. Most people that smash their finger with a hammer would try not to do it again, but I’m a slow learner so I just keep swinging at the nail. With my eyes closed. You should see my DIY home remodeling.

Denied GPS signal for that first mile!!!! Start and finish are at the same spot.

Coming out of winter, it is so hard to be properly trained for an early season race. Until I move to the Rocky Mountains and can cross-country ski all winter, I’ve given up on the idea of optimal fitness in March or April. I’d rather take a true offseason and ease into the better running weather of spring and summer.

With COVID-19, it’s even easier to enter a race with high hopes and good intentions. You feel an attraction to the days of normalcy when racing was a thing that people did without regret or fear of making others ill or spreading a virus that can kill. But now, you could spend months training for something only to have it cancelled at the last minute. I feel less bad about events now that I’m vaccinated, but it still freaks me out. It’s worth realizing that most trail races aren’t exactly mass superspreader sporting events - you spend much of the time alone, outside, with the only time of true group gathering at the start line for less than a couple minutes, while wearing masks.

Nearing sunrise on the beach

Course

The Bel Monte 50 miler is paired with a 50K and 25K on the same day but with seperate start times for each distance, which further prevents large group gatherings. All distances are on out-and-back courses in George Washington National Forest with lots of climbing, technical rocky sections, singletrack, doubletrack, and jeep road. The 50K and 50 miler are subject to the same rounding error as many other ultramarathons. Both courses are intentionally long, not because the race directors want to mess with you, but because the chosen turnaround points are necessary for safety and ease of volunteer accessibility. Who doesn’t love over two bonus miles in the 50 miler and three bonus miles in the 50K? The answer probably depends on the weather and your blood glucose level at the time.

Start

We became slightly discombobulated on the commute from Wintergreen to the starting line, which resulted in me having about 10 minutes to get ready to run. Despite trying to persuade it into updating my general location the night before, my GPS watch didn’t even have a signal when I hit the start button at 5:30 AM. Fortunately, it sorted itself out within the first mile, which was a gradual vertical loss on the pavement of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Near the start of the actual singletrack, about 2 miles in, on White Rock Falls Trail, I decided the trail was appropriately named. Because we were doing this portion in the dark with headlamps, the rocks and roots appeared a shade of grayish white. The surprisingly dry, dusty soil seemed a grayish white. Contrast is really helpful for picking precise foot placement and there was none. I don’t recall having this much trouble seeing surface definition before, but my eyes are getting older. I saw two people roll their ankle so I joined them in that celebration by rolling my left ankle as it seemed like a cool club to belong to. One guy tripped, yelped, and nearly fell. White rocks. Falls. Yep. Perfect. I’ll just be extra slow because I can make it up later. It turns out one of the athletes I coach (whose identity I will protect) did fall hard on this trail in the 25K a couple hours later and conked her head so I don’t think I imagined the lack of visual definition.

Sunrise on the beach

More carnage

One runner blasted past me just beyond the first aid station at mile 5: “Can I get around you, sir?” Sir? Either he’s actually polite, or he’s messing with my mind to make me feel old and slow. Now I’m pretty sure this was the same runner I saw doing a number two in the brush down the trail another three or four miles. Well, sonny boy, I guess shit happens.

This slight descent down Turkey Pen Ridge Trail went quickly, though I was trying not to run too fast, too early. After the next aid station at mile 13.6, I saw one of the runners in front of me on Coal Road walk off and hunch over in the ditch. I was a little too far behind him to hear, but I’m going to guess he vomited or came quite close. This gravel road section was nice as it wasn’t so long that it became a boring mental aptitude test but long enough to provide a respite from constantly picking your line.

It’s nice when the weather cooperates

We did have great weather this year. The temperature at this point, in the early morning, was in the 40s and then 50s midday with no precipitation. It was actually a little too warm at times in the valleys, so I’d look forward to climbing back up to the ridges where it was cooler. Except when climbing was difficult, which was too often.

I’m a Cranky Doodle Dandy

The roughly 4 mile climb from the end of Coal Road up to the highest point of Bald Mountain Jeep Trail was less fun. It hurt and took forever multiplied by three. Even after reaching the top, I couldn’t get into a good rhythm across the ridge. My stomach was bloated, which impacted my ability to get full, cleansing breaths. There may have been a little exercise-induced asthma and hyperventilation limitation. I decided it should have been renamed Bald Mountain Jeep *Parts* Trail because there was vehicular shrapnel all over the place from the good ole’ boys gettin’ tipsy and breaking their 4x4s over the years. Brake lights, glass, mufflers, trim plastic, bumpers. You name it and we can find a broken piece of it.

Not singletrack

Across the ridge, there were multiple large mudholes of unknown depths, though I think I saw one of those submarine periscopes sticking out of one. In the process of trying to skirt the edge of a mudhole and cling to some nearby flimsy sapling branches, my feet slid sideways out from under me on the clay mud film, like I was on ice, so my feet and legs ended up in the water and muck anyway. I can’t recall if I laughed, screamed, cursed, or cried at how dumb that was. It didn’t take long to begin descending down the other side of the mountain to the turnaround point at mile 26.2. I finally took in some Coca-Cola, which helped brighten my declining mood.

obviously from a 1996 Pontiac grand prix

Bacon, jerky, ramen, or really any savory food would have been so delightful but COVID-19 has drastically altered the availability of real food at race aid stations. Now race directors want everything to be packaged at aid stations for grab-and-go effect, but the tables look like a vending machine exploded, which is nothing like the old days of grilled cheese, PB and J, fresh strawberries, grapes, jars of pickles, bowls of trail mix, and so on. It definitely makes things a bit harder and will take an adjustment of carrying specific foods from the start or having a crew, which I did not.

No Jeeps on Jeep road

I finally felt like I could settle into a sustainable but slow rhythm climbing back up the jeep trail, but I still had no ability to fly across the ridgetop or take a consistent, deep breath. I picked it up a little on the descent back down to Coal Road, because it just felt right, and I actually could. Near the bottom pine tree section, a person who I’ll call “swim jammer guy,” came flying by me at what I’d use for a 5K or 10K trail pace, not 50 miler. A few seconds later, I heard him yell and looked up to see him in the middle of the trail sitting on his butt, still shouting. He reported he was fine, when I asked, and got up within a few seconds, only to pass me again. Well, then.

Swim jammer guy left the Kennedy Run Trail aid station at mile 35.3 ahead of me, so I chased him the full length of Coal Road and finally passed him in the mid-portion uphill grind back up Turkey Pen Ridge Trail. It didn’t last long because he and another runner caught and passed me on the steepest lower switchbacks of this final major climb. But he must have been hurting, as in bonking or overheating. Near the top he hunched over and stopped. He stood back up, walked a little more and promptly sat down on the trail side. I asked if he needed anything and if he had food. He confirmed having gels, so I encouraged him to at least take in a little of it, though I know it was probably the last thing he wanted to do. At the time I was thinking the next aid station would be nearby.

No coal on Coal Road

My adventure staggered onward with declining quadriceps function and I gradually realized it was a darn long way from the aid station at mile 39 to the next one at mile 48. It didn’t feel as long on the way out because it was more downhill, I was fresh, and moving faster. But this close to the finish, I’m too motivated to get done despite having a rough day. I hadn’t turned my GPS to timer mode for hours because I knew seeing the time would just be a source of frustration and demotivation. At least I wasn’t the only one hurting out there.

Shake shake shake

There were several 50K and maybe one or two 50-mile runners to pass, including the other guy that had passed me on the last climb, so that was at least a reward for not completely slacking. At the final aid station, I struggled with the fine motor coordination necessary to get my hydration bladder out of my pack. It was an inconvenient time to run out of water, this close to the finish, but I wanted to keep using my lone bottle for Coke as bonk prevention since my desire to chew junk food had gone so long ago.

Back the opposite direction on the White Rock Falls Trail, which was still visually tricky in places. I crossed the 50-mile barrier somewhere in there, and upon popping back out onto the Blue Ridge Parkway I caught my wife and her training partner, who were doing the 50K. I reminded them that they had lost the bet of whether I could catch them so I’d expect my $1000 payout the instant they crossed the finish line. I still haven’t received my money, so I’m making it publicly known that I won that bet and they need to pay up before I involve a lawyer.

Even though there were a couple times in this race that I’d think, “you should have entered the 50K,” which is not generally the most positive self-talk that one could employ, I’m glad I did it for the sake of experiencing new trails and views. And it is just the very early spring. In the dark days of next winter, when you’re looking for a challenge, look this one up. Just bring your own bacon.

Rim to River 100 Mile Race Report

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a reason to write about a running event. I wonder why that would be? I mean, everything in the world is pretty normal right now…

How am I recovering? Three words: maple creme cookies.

Pro tip: It helps to move around often even though the Monday morning stiffness compels you not to do so. At least work on the smelly race laundry, where you might find a collection of many unidentifiable (food?) stains on your clothing.

I enjoy the 50K to 50 mile distances so I don’t usually seek out 100 milers. With the Rim to River 100 being the first race of this length in WV, however, there was enough of a draw for me to buy in. It’s always taking a chance to be a guinea pig in a first-year race of any length, especially at ultra distances. The race director’s leg work had convinced me they could get this done. It was promising to see the registration was on ultrasignup.com. There were UTMB, International Trail Running Association, and American Trail Running Association affiliations. The main website had detailed elevation profiles, lots of maps, and good course descriptions. Many local and some national sponsors were on board. In other words, it looked like an event that had happened before.

About 10,000 feet of Gain but it’s always the descents that get you

I’ve had a contentious relationship with running in the New River Gorge due to the multiple nasty ankle sprains I’ve experienced there. Probably because I keep trying to run there in the fall. The potential for another sprain in the leaves, especially after dark and with heavy fatigue, felt higher than normal. As a result, my anxiety about the situation was higher. The boss, Anne, told me not to be a wimp and sign up anyway.

Race morning kicked off with an immediate slathering of skin lubricant to all of those typical high friction areas, such as the toes, armpits, inner thighs, and low-back waist line. Except I forgot one: the intergluteal cleft, otherwise known to the world as the butt crack. Oops. Deadly levels of chafing ensued by mile 28 when the constant friction heated my skin to 300*F, I collapsed into a screaming heap, went into shock from blood loss, and obviously, DNFd. No mortal can overcome that kind of pain once it has settled in. One emergency helicopter extraction and a $26,000 butt reconstruction later, here I am, face down, writing about the ugly backside of ultrarunning (pun intended).

Alright, you got me. I didn’t need butt reconstruction. Butt, take it from me, lube your intergluteal cleft people. Or you too, will be forced to make critical, life altering decisions at moments that are never convenient to you or your immediate family.

EARLY on in ACE with Bob and JR

Anyway, where was I before that story with about 10% truth in it? Ah, the start. The one and only nice thing about COVID-19 wave starts is the parking situation upon arrival. Despite showing up just 12 minutes before my start time, it was a mere 25 yards from my truck to the starting line. I even walked there twice as a completely and totally necessary warm up.

The bipedal eating contest festivities kicked off at 5:45. It was chilly at the start, but bearable. The weekend forecast seemed unbelievable as the days ticked down prior to the race. Several straight days of sunny, dry weather, and for Race Day, there was a high of 73* and a low near 40*. For weeks, I’d mentally prepared to have lows in the 20s, highs in the 40s or 50s and thick, gray clouds with some rain or snow. But in typical WV fashion, weather is hardly predictable in the fall.

The race begins with various loops around ACE Adventure Resort’s property for roughly 13 “let’s just have a great time frolicking” miles. I went ahead and slightly twisted my right, yet stronger, ankle within the first 5 miles, and then proceeded to roll the weaker left side within the next couple miles. Really off to a good start here. I chatted with Bob Luther about this past summer’s running and the DIY adventure runs that we’ve made up. Matt Baird joined us for the more abrupt descent toward Arbuckle Creek. Matt refused to carry me, or even slightly assist me, across that cold, cold, rapidly flowing creek so he was immediately fired from the job that I had literally just hired him for.

We did a tough little climb up to the Rend Trail and then continued to descend toward the New River on a paved road to Thurmond for the second aid station at mile 17. The elastic cord that holds a chest pocket of my running vest closed would decide that NOW was a good time to break despite a couple years of reliable use. Annoying, but nothing to stress over.

There’s a significant downward elevation trend over the first 25% of the course, which means it’s easy to be deceived by your pace and split times. There’s no better fool’s trap in an ultramarathon than self-talk like “I’m flying, but it feels so easy!” Or even worse, “I’m going to have a great day!” Yeah. No. You won’t. Reality check, my ultrarunning friend. You’ll either roll an ankle because you are running too fast for the conditions, or you’ll just crush yourself so early that a DNF is too tempting or inevitable because your butt skin overheats and kills you anyway. The thing about running any ultramarathon, but especially 100 miles, is that EVERYONE is going to slow down. Whatever time you think you are “banking” early can nearly always be made up in the second half by slowing down less than the suckers who started too hard or died during a semi-tragic friction-induced butt explosion.

Hey Bob!

There’s a bit of road climbing back up to Rend Trail but then we drop down beside the New River again around mile 20 for a 6 mile long stretch of the Southside/Brooklyn Trail. I watched Bob roll his ankle, but fortunately it wasn’t a race ender. The sun was high in the sky now, and made any brief glimpses at the river temporarily blinding. Bob and I continued to chat when we were surprised from behind by a rapidly approaching JR Luyster who had apparently taken a wrong turn.

The trail eventually becomes a gravel road before reaching the Cunard aid station at mile 26. Anne was supposed to be here but I was ahead of my predicted arrival since the trails just weren’t that technical and there’s so much early descending. (Actually, I WAS JUST BANKING TIME!) Always assume your crew won’t show up and you’ll always be absolutely delighted when they actually do! Lie to yourself. Say, “as long as there’s an aid station then the crew just isn’t that critical.” It also pays to carry some extra food if you are afraid of the aid station food.

It got a little too warm as Bob and I climbed up the steep paved road from Cunard. JR had pulled away from us up the climb. Anne finally appears on the horizon, driving like a 90-year-old grandmother down the switchbacks, one of the frontrunners stuck to the grill, while she’s happily warping the brake rotors on my truck and now completely unable to perform any actual crewing efforts, lest we would be breaking the race rules.

Once finally on top, the trail surface returns with a gradual descent toward Kaymoor. Part of this was familiar: I’d seen it a couple times in the Canary in the Cave 25K++. The climb up the Kaymoor Miners Trail is steep and rocky but just not long enough to worry about this early. The Trail Sisters were manning (?) the Arrowhead aid station at mile 35. They were informed that Trail Sister Anne should be immediately exiled from their well-respected group for failure to comply with several of the 49 specific goals clearly outlined in the mission manual, entitled Operation Bear Crawl, which I emailed to Anne just last night at 11:36 p.m. All in favor said “aye.”

Bob, JR, and I stayed close together as we rounded the rolling loop around Arrowhead trails. The leaf coverage seemed plenty thick in places but the trails were quite smooth. Onward to Long Point overlook, which was super busy with day hikers at this time of day, especially with the abnormally warm weather. I just wanted to get away from them. I have no love of crowds, and I was starting to become hypersensitive to smells of deodorant, perfume, and whatever other nasty odors they were expelling.

Out to the Long Point aid station at mile 43 and then an intermittently more technical descent toward Fayette Station. The views of the underside of the New River Gorge Bridge were fantastic midway down. It’s such a huge structure that you can run for minutes and still feel like it’s so close you can touch it. But you can’t. Unless you have one of those sweet Mandalorian jetpacks. I’ve been a good boy this year so Santa should be sending mine in time for Christmas.

The Fayette Station aid volunteers at mile 48 greeted me with cheers and their bacon was not only a welcome sight but a welcome taste. Shortly after leaving there, I crossed the Tunney Hunsaker bridge and had to wait at the railroad tracks on river right for a train to finish its passage. Up another sizable paved climb to a gravel road that becomes a very long gradual descent toward Hawks Nest State Park. Train after train could be heard below, drowning out the river sounds. Hitting the crushed gravel climb up the Hawks Nest Rail Trail to Ansted felt like one of the toughest parts of the entire course. It seemed so consistently steep for an old rail grade. It’s about 300 feet of gain in 2 miles, which I calculate as a 92% grade. (Somebody check my math).

My favorite pic from the whole race

Nearing the top, I think this was one of two places where I heard crazy loud crowd noise and thought, surely that’s not all the people at the aid station. It must have been a local football game. Anne and Aaron Watkins took such good care of me at the turnaround that I didn’t even need the aid station. (They offer crewing services for other events but you can make the check directly out to me for $500 and I’ll see that they get their fair share.) I swapped into a long sleeve baselayer for the cool night ahead, switched out my socks, and emptied my shoes of the last 55 miles worth of accumulated debris. My brain function was clearly starting to deteriorate as I left because a volunteer stopped me from going up some other path or road instead of the place that I had literally just come from. It’s an out and back, you dummy.

Darn tree fell across both sides of the switchback on the Hawks Nest Connector Trail

Small tasks require big concentration

Bob and JR passed me as they headed up about a minute later. Now that awful grade up the rail trail becomes a terrible 2 mile downhill for the quads. The longer I spend not moving at an aid station, the longer it takes to find my legs again. Now a lengthy singletrack ascent up the Hawks Nest Connector Trail. Chris Pabian flew past me as the darkness began to fall, and JR came along shortly after with his pacer. He didn’t have a headlamp so I gave him my backup to get back to Fayette Station. They bombed the paved descent and I tried, unsuccessfully, to stay in contact.

think i forgot to stop running

There was no train to wait on this time, but I experienced a moment of panic when the volunteers at Fayette Station told me to take the road to get to Ansted and they’d see me again in 14 miles. I said I didn’t remember that part of the map, thinking there must be another road section now? Fortunately, I mentioned I’d already been to Ansted where I saw Miss Muffett sitting on a tuffet, at which point they realized I was clearly bonking just like the last idiot and must be making a return trip, now at mile 62. A volunteer here had made sushi rice cakes with egg, which I used to rely on religiously for calories, so I had to engulf one of those like a macrophage alongside even more delicious bacon. A little known rule for success (in life) is that you can never, ever eat enough bacon.

More trotting and shuffling in the dark back on the pavement to the challenging climb up Fayetteville Trail. It was pleasantly distracting to have other runners coming down to encourage when I wasn’t huffing and puffing like a tired, old steam locomotive. Sometimes they would unintentionally blind me as they focused their headlamps in my eyes, since I was now dressed in an ultra fuzzy and convincingly real black bear suit. My ramen noodle intake ramped up 300% when hitting the Long Point aid at mile 67. At this point sweet foods are just not appealing to a bear like me.

I don’t remember much of any excitement before getting back over to the Arrowhead loop and accompanying aid at mile 74. It’s dark. You’re tired. You stare at the ground and try to zone out a lot. I’m supposed to be hibernating, but it was unseasonably warm. It felt long, but at least Anne would be there to give me the full spa retreat session that she had agreed to, in writing as well as verbally, as part of the reconciliation package we negotiated upon her not meeting the terms set forth in Operation Bear Crawl. I did not and have not since received said session and am currently interested in pursuing legal action if anyone can recommend a good lawyer for suing your spouse? I’d like to keep it as cordial as possible so she’s not bitter about it.

Let me say this: the descent back down Kaymoor Miners Trail at mile 74.xx absolutely sucked. Use your hands, get a sherpa, rappel. Just get down. And, oh my god the climbing from the bottom of Kaymoor Miners Trail back up to the top of Cunard. It’s pretty runnable but that’s also a problem. I could settle into a nice rhythm but never imagined it would feel so long in this direction. Continuing our theme from the past 6-8 hours, I passed JR up the climb and he destroyed me descending down the steep pavement into the Cunard aid at mile 82. But then I never saw him again after that. Anne somehow perfectly timed her arrival to this crew point! She brought along a spectacular Sheetz bacon cheeseburger, probably in an attempt to avoid the legal case that was rapidly mounting against her. However, while basking in her self-administered praise, she forgot my other nice headlamp at Arrowhead and tried to use volunteering there as an excuse. Blah blah blah. Funny. I don’t hear any other members of Operation Bear Crawl making excuses. (Full disclosure: there are no other members of Operation Bear Crawl). No biggie as long as the one on my head keeps working for a while.

Trail Sisters Aid station courtesy Sara Lunden

And my headlamp decided to go to crap shortly after leaving the Cunard aid station. It wouldn’t shut off, wouldn’t leave its red light mode but wouldn’t turn on to a normal white light of any intensity. Better than complete failure, I guess? Perfect lighting if I was camping, trying to cook a meal, or in a tent reading the latest issue of Bear Packer magazine. This is another reason why I keep a cheap backup light in my pack, but I had no idea how long it would last and it was still a long, lonely stretch from mile 84 to 100. I had no choice but to use the backup light, though on a dim setting to conserve its battery. “Who’s the dork wearing two headlamps and a bear suit!?” no one shouted. Shuffling my feet through the crunchy leaves felt safer with that limited visibility. I would have struggled to do that if the surface had been more technical. My left big piggie ended up bashed hard against some rocks as it was. An ever-present roar of the impressive New River was my only companion along this stretch of the Southside Trail, though I did catch one racer and his pacer.

Actual footage of Me at a road crossing

I never wanted to obsess over my time too closely because there’s enough to worry about in just finishing 100 miles. I figured it better to shuffle cautiously and come in under 23 hours than to attempt pushing with limited visibility and really bust up my toes, foot, or ankle for a chance at coming in closer or under to 22 hours. Hey, that’s still a PR for me, which hardly matters in the trail running world anyway.

At mile 88.5 the ACE Beach volunteers had so many fires going I thought they were having some sort of satanic ritual, but I think they were just mostly bored young men waiting for runners to come through. They had batteries so I felt better about bringing the backup light up to fuller brightness when I left there to cross that damn freezing Arbuckle Creek. Next time I’m bringing my Gore-Tex bear suit. The climb back up to the ACE Resort trails felt like it took forever. My bear suit was absolutely soaked and full of wet leaves. Pretty sure I saw the race director out there in the middle of nowhere around mile 89-90. I dropped a banana from the last aid station somewhere so I hope a bonking runner found it and was so desperate that they ate it before those ungrateful raccoons I talked to at mile 91.

My brain was frying (as if you can’t tell). Everything felt like a climb but I think that’s because most of it was a climb. Paranoia of missing a turn increased ten-fold. I saw lights approaching from behind and picked it up because there is nothing more demoralizing than being passed by a runner in the final 10 miles of a 100 mile race. Or maybe there were aliens chasing me. Either way, I figured it was keeping me honest a.k.a not slacking. I made it a point not to linger at the 95.5 mile Concho Rim aid where I hear they brought out Nutella pancakes later. Come on! What’s a bear gotta do to get a Nutella pancake around here? Maybe I should have lingered.

In what I’m sure is intentionally tortuous course design, you shuffle right past the start/finish area at mile 96. Stare at the ground. Do not think. Do not look around. Just go out through the woods once more. I managed to make one wrong turn during mile 98 by creating a loop around a little pond, then heading back on the trail I had just taken. The actual trail was hidden behind an uprooted tree - but at least I knew it quickly and got back on within a minute.

The final couple miles took FOREVER. I wanted to run a little quicker but was still just afraid of rolling an ankle for no good reason so I stuck with a comfy shuffle. Even the final paved descent that felt like 2 minutes of uphill at the start of the course seemed to take 10 minutes now. Down, down, down to the finish line and super happy with my finishing time of 22 hours and 26 minutes. Not bad for a guy in a bear suit who had been blinded numerous times, using partially working lights, and denied Nutella pancakes. I crawled into the back of the truck to lie down while Anne drove me back to the cabin. However, mysteriously, she “forgot” how to get to the cabin 2 minutes away for at least 10 minutes as she proceeded to drive around on all of the bumpy ass dirt roads of the resort. Like she was tired or something. Pffft. I’m going to go scream in the shower now once I bear crawl up these steps.

Just as spry and fresh as 23 hours earlier, image courtesy APtiming

In the future, the November timing of this race would be good to finish out a typical competitive season, though this year we take what we can get, when we can get it, and we try not to whine too much, right? The course has a really nice ratio and distribution of dirt road, trail, and paved road. The volunteers were great. The quesadillas were delectable. What more do you need to know? Check it out next year!

https://www.adventureappalachia.org/rim-to-river-endurance-races

https://www.strava.com/activities/4307610305/overview

17 tips for your COVID-19 quarantine from a sports medicine professional

One of my duties as a healthcare professional is to help keep people healthy, but that’s especially important as we enter a period of massive uncertainty. While I might not be able to follow you around and provide hand washing reminders, I can give you some helpful health recommendations. So what are you to do during your COVID-19 lockdown? 

1. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Don’t pick your nose. Don’t put your hand down your pants. Oh wait, those last two were for my 6 year old. 

2. Keep working out. Keep working out. Keep working out. I suspect most people reading this already have the desire to exercise regularly, but there are a few folks that might become a little more flaky now that their routine is disrupted. You can’t let that be an excuse. You can’t let change stop you. Your spouse might have to tolerate watching the kids for an 20 extra minutes. Big deal. We all have excuses. If you need a routine, make a new one. It’s New Year’s resolutions, part two, baby! Be adaptable and resilient. If you can’t obtain the same amount of time to exercise as you previously did, remember a little exercise goes a long way. Break it up through the day if you can’t get a single bout. If it’s less than 4 hours between, it’s similar to one bout as far as your recovery goes anyway. 

3. But don’t do anything silly if you have some extra time! If you’d been exercising 3-4 hours per week, don’t automatically jump to 8-10 hours of the same thing just because you are bored. Otherwise, you’ll set yourself up for injury, and while I’d love to have you in my office, injury prevention is ideal. I get that the exercise provides a psychological security blanket, but it’s not worth going overboard. If you do have extra time because your commute is gone or you locked your kids in the basement, you can ramp your volume up gradually by about 30 minutes each week for things like very easy running or hiking. You can get away with more time each week if it’s naturally less hard on your body, like cycling or elliptical. 

4. Involve your family. Childcare can be hard to come by so let’s get those kiddos moving right along with you. You’ll all sleep better and maybe you’ll be a little less likely to lock them in the basement. Did I just say that again? 

5. Eat well. Comfort foods? Moderation my friends. Whole foods as best as you can obtain. Don’t raid the junk food cabinet in a moment of weakness because then you’ll not only feel bad but then have to go to the store to get more junk food and you’ll be exposed to more virus carrying people. Coronavirus and Snickers or ration the Kit Kats. Your choice. 

6. Don’t go crazy on the alcohol. Moderation my friends. Again. Do you want your kids' memory of this nonsense to be the time mommy got blotto and tried to teach math but then promptly fell down the stairs and broke her wrist? Didn’t think so. Our situation is not going to be improved by poor sleep and feeling gross either. 

7. Practice good sleep hygiene. Try to stick to your normal sleep habits as best as possible. No screens past whatever o’clock works for you. 

8. Go outside! It’s getting warmer and the days are getting longer. Even a warm rain is pretty tolerable if you have the right equipment. Just try to appreciate your surroundings in whatever conditions Mother Nature conjures up. There are so many articles encouraging us to exercise outside because the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission in the outdoors is very low. I can tell there are fewer vehicles on the roads right now, so let’s hope the air is a little cleaner for breathing. Though I heard a really bizarre thing about people trying to blame runners for spreading the virus throughout the public because they are breathing so deeply during a workout. Seriously? 

9. Use your extra fitness from the buildup to an event that’s been cancelled. I’ve had events rescheduled or cancelled in the next couple months. I don’t like it either, but it’s not about me, it’s about the greater good of the public. Many of us like to have an event goal or we mentally wander, we feel less productive, we get hurt from overdoing, or we lose motivation. Run an FKT or make up an adventure run. Being a map nerd, adventure runs are nearly a weekly occurrence for me. Let me know if you need tips. 

10. Do the maintenance and recovery work you keep putting off. Break out the roller, trigger point release all the muscles you neglect, stretch your terrible hip flexors. Try yoga. Try meditation. Oh, and strength train. Even 5-10 minutes of lifting something you would call heavy is worth it. It doesn’t have to be fancy. For resistance bands, old bike tubes actually work really well. Sand bags or sand in a milk jug makes decent DIY hand weights as will a bag or bucket filled with soup cans. Drag an old tire. Body weight exercises are always a possibility and I’ve seen 20 blog posts on that already. I’ve written about strength training a few times on this blog. 

11. Maybe it’s time to build out that home gym or garage gym. Be realistic though. Don’t buy a bunch of unnecessary equipment you won’t use, especially with financial limitations being a possibility in the next few weeks. A medicine ball and a couple weights can accomplish a lot, especially when you work one arm or one leg at a time. My new favorite toy is a MOBO board. Never underestimate the power of learning to move your body better. 

12. Just move and move often. The less you move, the crappier you’ll feel. Especially if you are accustomed to being really active, I guarantee it. We are built to move. It doesn’t even have to be exercise in the sense that you are most familiar. What sounds like fun? Be creative. What would you have done for fun when you were a kid? Kickball? Soccer? Bike ride? Hula hoop? Hop scotch? Just move. This is one of the most powerful things you can do to prevent illness by using your full lung volume, encouraging lymphatic flow, and maintaining/improving your immune system. You’ll be glad you did it. You won’t stay sane by staying so myopic. 

13. Get a friend or coach to hold you accountable to staying active. 

14. Go camping. Consider it apocalypse preparation practice. It’s pretty good at helping you realize what you need instead of what you want. Just don’t go too far from home in case you absolutely need to bail. 

15. Take up trail running. I seriously have no idea why this one entered my mind. *Writer smiles in a smug and annoying way.* 

16. Don’t get too sucked in by the media. It’s good to stay informed, but it’s too easy to drown in the negativity if you keep checking social media and the news every 10 minutes. 

17. Think beyond your typical coping mechanisms now that your stress level is inevitably higher. Meditation. Writing for pleasure. Reading for pleasure. 

Please share this list with those who would benefit from it! AKA everyone. 

Urban Trail Running: Scenic Opportunities Abound in Morgantown (Plus New Bonus Material)

I recently had the opportunity to write an article for Highland Outdoors magazine that covered a few of the best hidden Morgantown trail running gems. Head on over to https://www.highland-outdoors.com/urban-trail-running-morgantown/ to read the original full article. But while you are here, check out a couple parks that weren’t included in the magazine!

Westover City Park

As the newest addition to our local trail system, Westover just recently completed the construction of these heavily planned, machine-cut trails thanks to a large state grant fund. The total length of the main loop is about 1.5 miles. There are a couple shortcut trails bringing the total up, but only slightly. There’s a little climbing and descending throughout the winding loop but nothing sustained in either of those departments. The trails are designed to be beginner mountain biker friendly, which ultimately means they are smooth and flowy.

• Great for: Beginner trail runners or the trail-curious road runner who gets anxious at the sight of a single piece of gravel. This network is small, non-technical, and easy to follow. Parents, bring the kiddos and have them bike ride the loop with you while you run. Done already? Turn around and do it the other direction. Then the kids can play on the playground afterwards.

• Trail difficulty: 1 out of 5

• Driving time from town center: 6 minutes to the Dupont Road parking lot, the main trailhead entrance

Mason-Dixon Historical Park

Like White Park, Mason-Dixon Park is another Monongalia County park undergoing a recreation transformation in the last couple years thanks to the work of the park superintendent and mountain biker, J.R. Petsko. What began as a handful of short, poorly maintained trails has blossomed into a well-maintained, 5-mile trail network. Although the official park is in WV, the trails flip flop back and forth between PA and WV. Most of the surfaces are less technical packed clay, typical of a flood plain, or mown grass, but with enough rocky and rooty singletrack to keep things interesting. Running along Dunkard Creek might just spot you a beaver or a bald eagle. Fairies live in the woods, so keep your eyes open. Take on a solid 0.6 mile climb that will require power hiking from the creek to the summit of Browns Hill where the Mason-Dixon Line ended when it was initially surveyed. From the west edge of the park, add more miles along Henflint Road, which is more of a wide trail than a public road.

• Great for: Beginner to intermediate runners looking for a nearby change of scenery with options to stay flat or take on some sustained climbing if the mood hits. You can stay busy for 60-90 minutes. Like Westover City Park, the Green Trail (in title photo above) is very kid bike friendly and the young ones can stick around to play on one of the many playgrounds before heading home. That is, if you can get them away from the Fairy Doors Trail.

• Trail difficulty: 3 out of 5

• Driving time from town center: 24 minutes

West Virginia Trilogy Race Report and Tips

How do you succinctly summarize three days of beautiful fall trail running in a remote part of West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest? Unforgettable. That probably sums it up.

Cool. Blog post complete. Man, I am good at this. Why am I not getting paid to write this kind of insightful material?

Fine. Ok. Let me try again.

The West Virginia Trilogy is: 1) a stage race, 2) a trail race, 3) an ultramarathon, 4) unforgettable. So that’s kind of a single orange sugar maple leaf on a twig that connects to a bigger bough on the massive tree of running. It’s a niche event, though remarkably well known.

Alright. You get the idea. Really got you with that tree reference, right? Now I can stop writing.

More? Come on people. I’m still tired from running this thing. Just go do it yourself and save me the trouble! At least try one of the days.

What? You only run on roads but love a good, or even mediocre, story?

Awesome! I’m full of mediocre stories. Watch this.

Once upon a time, in a magical Appalachian forest, not that far away, in a tiny village near the great kingdom of Circleville, there were 36 trail runners that embarked on an unforgettable woodland adventure filled with amazing creatures, treacherous terrain, and furious battles with their own minds and bodies.

Boo ya. Done. I’m outta here.

Oh no, now I can’t quit. Thanks a lot. Here’s a pic then.

courtesy anne foreman

Each adventurer had invested roughly 14,000 rubles ($200 American) during the summer’s most oppressive heat and humidity for a chance at traversing 94 challenging miles with 15,000 feet of ascent, a sunrise summit of Spruce Knob, a Patagonia zip-neck pullover, a cool T-shirt, six hearty and warm meals, pleasing beverages, and the ultimate finisher’s mug to support their bragging rights.

Consider these items critical to their success in completion of their self-inflicted mission/journey/challenge/adventure subscribed to in a moment of unclear thinking.

1) The clothing will be used in desperation to keep warm at 2:00 AM when the temperature drops into the low 30s and they don’t realize exactly how cold it is to sleep in a tent at such temperatures.

2) Food provides the nourishment necessary to run three long days in a row. You probably shouldn’t do that without eating, duh.

3) The beer numbs the painful legs and minds of the Trilogy runner and may provide finish line motivation for many. Or perhaps makes you more tolerant of the runner at dinner who refuses to shower between race stages. It may even help the frigid snoozing of those individuals sleeping in the two shirts just mentioned above. The coffee is a motivator that makes people think they can push themselves to phenomenal limits that they probably shouldn’t. Oh wait, that’s beer too.

4) Finisher’s mugs to sip hot cocoa in the coming winter months while reflecting on their adventure should they survive the mission/journey/challenge all while tortuously contemplating “Should I do that again next year?”

Don’t Do this Race if This looks like too much work

I understand some people stay in the yurts that are on site at Experience Learning but I could never do that, only because “yurt” sounds a little too much like a sound that your stomach makes at mile 40 of 50 before you emergently need to find a large tree to hide your bare ass. Not saying I’ve done that but just saying where my mind goes. I personally slept in the back of my truck curled up like a roly poly pill bug.

Runners are welcome to participate on any single day, but don’t be surprised if a competitive three-day Trilogy runner will do their best to run you and your fresh legs into the ground and make you feel bad about your clearly unwise decision to race only a single day. It’s popular for some people to run the 50K on Friday and the half marathon on Sunday, skipping the 50 miler on Saturday to do more important things, like trimming their toenails or maybe volunteering for the 50 miler, in which case THANK YOU! Also thank you for trimming your hideous toenails. By the way, you might want to see a podiatrist about that one little piggie.

The 50K appetizer

We had great weather for the 50K on Friday, though overnight temperatures dropped enough to leave frost in the lowest dips. I was surprised (yet not surprised) to see the number of runners hammering the first 2 miles of the course after the 7:00 AM start. I’m old and don’t like to experience 5K pain anymore, so I fully endorse a nice, gentle start when it’s going to be such a long weekend. No need to hurt my fragile, little quadriceps earlier than necessary. Although, on second thought, if you are racing me, please do go ahead and floor that accelerator as hard as you can for the initial three or four miles since we all know a 50K is really short, your pace never fades, and you’ll have so much trouble passing the slow conga line of people I’ll be leading in that fourth hour on all of the narrow cliff-lined singletrack.

courtesy anne foreman

I caught Trevor Baine just after the first aid station, which are, by the way, really close together for the 50K. Shortly after, as we descended the Elza Trail, I hooked my right shoe solidly on a sharp root and refused to disengage it, just to make sure Trevor was paying attention behind me. I had enough time to think “that was a dumb idea” and somehow saved myself from creating a crater in the earth with my face, sparing my already titanium teeth. The occasion did provide at least five more minutes of amusement for the two of us. We trotted and chatted along together for the next couple hours, occasionally catching a glimpse of a runner in front of us.

Trevor and I eventually came upon Bob Luther just past Judy Gap on Bear Hunter Trail, but then Bob proceeded to educate us on descending skills while coming back down Horton Trail. I became particularly timid while descending when I rolled my left ankle on a narrow, cambered section. We’d chase Bob up Seneca Creek, freezing our legs a more and more with each crossing. Bob rejoined us on the ascent of Judy Springs Trail. Being the phenomenal runner that she is, Judy Gap caught back up to us as well. If only Judy Gap was a real person and not the name of the aid station. Oh, the dad jokes you must endure to finish this unnecessarily long blog post!

For me, the most mentally difficult part came when running the flat but very rocky Lumberjack Trail from mile 24 to mile 27. After a brief gravel road section and a stop at the Seneca aid station, I didn’t run very long until I came into what appeared to be a beaver dam area and promptly fell flat on my face, just as I was recognizing that there were definitely some deep holes to watch out for amongst the water, sticks, and high grass. And that’s where I’m writing this entire thing from while I await rescue. Do you think they’ll be here soon to get me?

A brushy, briary section of old logging road eventually clears out and leads to quicker logging road travel. Pushing the effort up Cardiac Hill to catch Bob, I cramped at my inner right thigh muscles, briefly stopped to stretch, and somehow managed to catch back onto him in the field next to the Experience Learning facilities. I’m not sure either of us wanted to kick to the finish knowing more than 60 miles remained in the coming days but I picked it up to finish in 5:06:54.

The 50 mile main course

The good weather continued for the 50 miler on Saturday. A slight vehicular position adjustment of precisely 25 degrees in the coronal plane and 13 degrees in the transverse plane dramatically improved my sleep quality. I don’t need your Tempur Pedic mattress. It had warmed slightly in the night as cloud cover moved in, maybe to the mid to upper 40s. Enough to have less condensation inside the truck than the night before. Every degree counts when you are sleeping outside.

The start was an hour earlier at 6:00 AM, and perhaps the resulting fatigue led to a less aggressive pace than the day before, thank goodness. There was a brief confusion (loss of consciousness) at mile 2.2 where I followed a few runners onto an incorrect trail but everyone I could see in front of me quickly realized the mistake. This is a much easier mistake to make in the dark because you tend to focus only on what your headlamp lights, like the giant nocturnal woodrats and whistlepigs. This resulted in needing to pass a few extra folks up the climb but really left me wondering what position I was in for a long time.

Strange creatures on the game Camera courtesy Katie Wolpert

Striding along the only pavement in the entire race climbing up to Spruce Knob, I was in a group of fast moving folks. They must have saved that quick start for that stretch instead of the initial mile. It was still dark amongst the trees atop the mountain so I kept the headlamp. “NO WHISTLEPIGS GONNA EAT ME TODAY!, I yelled. I ran alone, surely talking to myself in increasingly greater quantities, for about a mile heading down Huckleberry Trail, then came upon Bob Luther and did my best to pace with him for the majority of the race. Hopefully he wasn’t counting on quality solo running time.

As we headed up the Allegheny Mountain Trail climb from the mile 25 aid station, the fog and drizzle were rolling into the top of the adjacent ridge. Within the hour, it had reached us, chilling me a little in the process. The aid stations were much further apart than yesterday’s race, which is one of the challenges/mind games you must endure. I was pleased to find warm broth to drink at the mile 33 Horton aid station (though I may have been better off to bathe my aching muscles in it). I also didn’t mind the brief chunk of gravel road after the descent had beaten me down.

Seneca Falls courtesy Anne Foreman

Bob encouraged me to use this last major climb up Spring Ridge Trail to push before descending back to Judy Gap at mile 40. So I did. Maybe he was tired of listening to my heavy breathing or hearing about my obsession with megafauna. Despite all the climbing, I was pretty chilled and anxious to get off of the cold ridge. He had described the portion after Judy Gap as being more quickly runnable and, if I had the legs left, to take advantage of the lack of climbing and lack of technicality.

Check Out these Nice Volunteers Dealing with My Problems. What’s in the Thermos?

I pushed the pace well through mile 44 up Seneca Creek Trail but was definitely getting annoyed with the taller grasses on the former timber road of the Allegheny Mountain Trail until the mile 46 aid where I definitely did not feel like eating anything and just wanted to be done. Of course the paparazzi (aka my wife) showed up to harass me, always in search of that ridiculous eyes crossed, mouth open, and drooling camera shot to sell to the National Enquirer. I caught up to Frank Gonzalez here, and we ran the remainder of the course hard (at least for me), hurdling a couple fences and power hiking the heck out of Cardiac Hill in the process. I passed Frank and pushed through the top of the climb and then proceeded to have Frank outkick me so fast in the final 200 yards that he must have a hidden turbo button. I was pretty cold and frazzled so I took a long, warm shower, and went back to sleep with the baby whistlepig in my truck for about 90 minutes. (Special thanks to the nice couple that felt sorry for the barely conscious idiot that I am and drove me to my truck!) Finish time: 9:03:27.

Courtesy Anne Foreman

The half marathon dessert

For the Sunday finale, the race directors brought in more fantastic weather for the half marathon. The sky was clearer and more chilly again overnight but at least this race doesn’t start until 9:00 AM. I wasn’t sure how my legs would fare on this third day, but why not just see what it feels like to go completely anaerobic for well over an hour after all those longer runs? Coffee! More coffee!

YURTZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Power

The start was faster and reminiscent of Friday, especially since there were 95 total half marathoners and 36 5K runners. Who are these people who lack sunken eyes? The legs felt good after the prologue loop and it felt easy to hit the first real trail descent down Cardiac Hill with intensity. The half course was very runnable, probably because of the gravel road sections, but definitely didn’t have a shortage of climbs, yielding 1800 feet of climb on my watch. I didn’t realize what a test I was in for with the gravel climb up to the Gatewood Firetower. That left a scar. At least you get to bomb back down it, though I felt like I was flailing like a used car dealership’s inflatable windsock man. Back along some gravel, drop down the hill, and once more through the bottom of the cow pasture with fence jumps and crawls to return to Cardiac Hill and the 94 miles of racing is, sadly, about to come to an end. Today’s time to completion: 1:39:26

Total Trilogy time: 15:49:47. Meanwhile some dude broke 2 hours in a laboratory experiment marathon and stole all of my thunder.

Courtesy Katie Wolpert

RESULTS Link

Tips for an aspiring Trilogy stage runner:

Do some back-to-back longer running, perhaps with some higher effort on the second day to mimic running on tired legs.

1. Have an understanding of your typical recovery time for a given type of effort. It takes much less time to recover from 20 miles of aerobic running where you were comfortable the whole time, eating well, and drinking plenty than it does to recover from the same distance where you were anaerobic, breathing heavily, and barely eating and drinking. Do not do that in this race!

2. Eat and drink constantly. Sure, in a typical ultramarathon you still have to eat and drink often to even complete the distances but if you get too far behind in your intake one day, the next day or days will suffer. You have to take more of a preventative attitude and remember you aren’t eating for the current situation as much as eating for the next day.

3. Along those same lines, eat and drink as immediately as you can tolerate after finishing each run. According to something known as science, or better yet, physiology, there’s a “glycogen replacement window” that remains most effective at rebuilding your spent muscle glycogen stores in the couple hours following exercise.

4. Hygiene. Shower as soon as you finish each day, otherwise you won’t make friends. But more importantly, there are just way too many bacteria waiting to flourish on your skin and cause jock itch. The warm showers on site made life so much more pleasant.

5. When it comes to gear, bring it, even if you don’t think you’ll need it. I ended up loaning some clothing items because I had extra. Of course I only loan the sweatiest, dirtiest items that I just took off. You are welcome, Anne!

6. And on a related note, bring extra pairs of shoes. Maybe even models designed for different conditions like super muddy or dry. Or in the case you really damage a shoe, you’ll have spares. I ripped a one inch gash through the top of a new pair on the first day when it hooked on a pointy root. You never know what’s lurking out there that might shred your shoes. Whistlepig teeth are also very sharp and are known to penetrate up to two inches of solid metal so your shoes are no match.

7. Run at least an open 50 miler beforehand. Unless you just love the process of suffering and learning the hard way, I would not suggest your first 50 miler to be in the middle of the Trilogy (unless that’s your open event) because your legs and body will feel like it’s 70 miles instead of 50 by the finish.

8. Don’t let your mind wander too much while running. The 50 mile cutoffs are more aggressive, so you have to stay on task. The rocks under the leaves want to hurt you. I fell down twice and rolled my left ankle once the first day, rolled my right ankle once the second day. Too much of an injury and the entire weekend is ruined!

9. Observe and apply the knowledge and methods of a veteran Trilogy runner. It drives me absolutely nuts when people think they know it all and completely resist the advice and help of their more experienced peers. There’s always something useful to be learned from someone else. For me this was Bob Luther, a previous winner of the Trilogy. He knows the courses well and gave me fantastic advice throughout the 50 miler but especially for the closing 10 miles. I was also able to pace with him for the end of the 50K and his input on the half marathon gave me an idea of when to best push my effort. Without his guidance and presence, my performances in all three races would definitely have been slower than if I had gone in blind.

10. Don’t forget about the climbs and power hiking. FYI: the mountains aren’t going anywhere.

11. If you have a bad day, don’t underestimate the power of good nutrition followed by a good night’s rest for improving the next day’s performance. Just get it in ASAP. This does not mean drink a bunch of beer.

12. If you plan on camping each night at the Trilogy, go camping a couple times before the race to work the kinks out of that process so it’s not another stressor on race weekend.

I’m continuing this already lengthy rhetoric to take time for a public service announcement on thanking your friendly, local race directors. Thank you Adam Casseday and Dan Lehman for mobilizing volunteers, marking and trimming a ridiculous amount of trail, finding sponsors, losing sleep, tolerating stupid questions from racers, stressing, and repeating the same things over and over again that you clearly posted on the event website. Thanks to Katie Wolpert of Experience Learning for inviting us all to your great venue. Thank you mom for watching my kids. Thank you Anne for not publishing those couple terrible drooling photos you took of me.

Miner's Lady 8-Hour Endurance Run Race Report

The Miner’s Lady 8-Hour Endurance Run is held in Harpers Ferry, WV. The entirely/100% trail route consists of a 6.2-mile loop that includes a short (but memorable) out-and-back section. You run as many loops as you wish for eight hours. This seemed like the perfect race for me, a full-time working mom with two small children and a husband who likes to go tromping through the woods for hours upon hours on the weekends, because if my training didn’t end up being sufficient for completing a 50k, then no problem, I’ll just do three loops and collect my medal and finisher’s hat.

The day before the race, I drove to Wheeling to drop my darling children off to my very kind mother where I left them screaming at each other over possession of the Kindle Fire. I shot her an apologetic look as I sneaked out the door to haul ass back home, where I picked up Derek so we could make the three-hour drive to Ranson, WV and pick up my packet at Two Rivers Treads. After picking up my packet, we browsed the broad selection of running items available and purchased some new gels to try (not during the race, of course! Although I have about 400 fewer race credits to my name than my husband I am not a TOTAL amateur). I resisted the urge to hop on one of the many True Form treadmills in the front of the store. Although I’d love to give one a try some day (and I keep encouraging Derek to buy one for the clinic), I absolutely would be the person who sustains an embarrassing injury on a running store treadmill the day before a race. We met up with two friends/running buddies, Stephanie and Sara, for a borderline-adequate meal of Italian food and a trip to the grocery store for all of the things we forgot to pack (mostly chocolate). After returning to the hotel and doing typical night-before-the-race prep like agonizing over which clothing items will chafe the least (answer: probably the shorts you chose not to wear), we set the alarms for 4:00 AM.

Everyone’s smiling cuz it’s the first Lap, Photo courtesy Paul Encarnacion

After some typical night-before-the-race restless sleep and some really bad hotel Keurig coffee (I’m edging closer and closer to becoming an Aeropress-toting coffee snob), we hopped in Sara’s car and headed to the race site, which was about a 20-25 minute drive from Ranson. Given the small size of the race location, participants are required to carpool lest they be banished to the “dungeon lot” which requires a one-mile walk to the race start (the race directors do provide a Facebook group to facilitate making carpooling arrangements with other racers). We unloaded our gear and our valiant crew captain, Derek, hauled the 85-pound pink Yeti cooler to the crewing zone. Right before the start, running celebrity Dr. Mark Cuccuzella gave the gathered racers a safety briefing, and the race started a couple minutes after 6:00 AM.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the 6.2-mile loop exceedingly runnable. Here, Derek, can describe the course because he’s better at it than I am. Pacers were NOT allowed, but he was doing a long run on all the local trails and managed to include the loop so here he goes:

“Well, my first impression of this course is that the loop is tailored to beginner trail runners or an advanced runner looking to PR for whatever distance they could achieve in eight hours. Which, I’m guessing, was the director’s intention. Not to say there isn’t any challenge from the elevation fluctuation. The winner set a new course record of 50 miles and it makes sense. But I’d say the event is more about bringing new people into ultrarunning and an active lifestyle than it is about pure competition. Having run the other trails in the immediate area, including the Appalachian Trail and others in the same greenspace, I couldn’t believe how smooth the race course was by comparison. These trails were heavily maintained and as burned-in as you’ll find. Several portions are on old timber road but there’s enough singletrack to be distracting and keep it mildly interesting as your laps would pass. The loop begins and ends with a tendency toward downhill. I can see where the out-and-back to pass over the Virginia border could be mentally challenging if you were several hours deep into a hard effort. The descent down is just steep enough and just rocky enough that you can’t completely relax to pick up speed and upon the return it’s steep enough in sections that most people can’t run it top to bottom, which contrasts the rest of the course. So the out-and-back portion is likely to be the mind crusher/soul destroyer. If I was racing it, I would push the heck out that last mile or so of each lap once you’ve topped out the climb back from VA. My GPS had just over 800 feet of elevation gain for the entire loop. As a spectator for a timed event, it’s certainly more entertaining to see your runner or runners with great frequency, as it prevents complete boredom and one of my greatest fears: public napping.”

Turnaround Waterfall, Photo courtesy Paul Encarnacion

Here are some of my thoughts during each loop:

Loop 1 (miles 0 - 6.2):

• This course is so runnable!

• Hold yourself back! You didn’t train doing 10-minute mile long runs, you dummy.

• Slower!

• Why do people think it’s okay to play music from a speaker in the woods any time, but especially during a race?

• Someone asked Music Man how long his battery lasts.

• Why am I still near Music Man.

• I want to get away from Music Man.

• Eat something.

Loop 2 (miles 6.2 - 12.4):

• Stop thinking about how much time is left.

• I don’t remember most of this.

• Oh, this climb again.

• These last two miles feel like they go on forever.

• Oh hello again, Music Man.

Loop 3 (miles 12.4 - 18.6) :

• I feel amazing! I could do this forever.

• I love trail running.

• Why doesn’t everyone do this?

• I should sign up for another race when I’m done with this one. Maybe on the car ride home.

Loop 4 (miles 18.6 - 24.8)

• Uh oh, quad cramps.

• (While descending and following the advice of my crew/physical therapist/coach/personal trainer/husband) Tiny steps, tiny steps, tiny steps.

• Do a body scan like Derek always says. Unclench your jaw, woman. Relax your shoulders.

• I may have just peed a little.

• Shut up, legs.

Loop 5 (miles 24.8 - 31)

• This ice in my hat and vest feels amazing (a big thank you to the crew!).

• Stop thinking about how many miles are left.

• Uh oh, quad AND calf cramps.

• Why do we pay to do this to ourselves? (Oh yeah, to get the hat and finisher medal)

• That lady is turning around. Smart lady.

• Last time I have to see that rock. Last time I have to see that twig.

• Do I have enough time left? I’m going to text Derek and ask him even though I know the answer is yes.

• Coca-Cola is AMAZING. MANNA FROM HEAVEN. NECTAR OF GODS. (also a suggestion from the crew)

• I’m going to text my friend Emily. She’ll send me encouraging, all-caps messages. I should choose future races based on the location of the nearest cell towers.

• Try to run this part.

• It’s okay to walk this part. You’ll probably fall on your face otherwise.

• Try to run this part.

And then I finished! In like 7:35, so about 25 minutes under the eight-hour time limit! I sat on the Yeti cooler and watched Stephanie finish her 5 laps. Sara was sidelined with significant knee pain after lap 1, but PT extraordinaire and A+ crew member, Derek Clark, was able to fix her up so she could complete three laps.

All in all, I think this race would be excellent for newer trail runners and seasoned runners chasing PRs, as the course is very runnable. The aid station at the beginning of each loop was well stocked with a variety of items as well as a ton of volunteers. Another aid station was located between miles 3 and 4, and offered water, Tailwind, and pop (or soda or Coke, depending on your regionalism of choice). The course was well marked and the volunteers were friendly and plentiful. As someone who usually hates running loops because, in general, I identify as weak-willed and cowardly, I found it to be a good mental challenge, and the loop is long enough that I didn’t find it too aversive. Thank you to the race directors and volunteers for a great race experience!

Highlands Sky 40 Mile Race Report

Is this the best trail running event in West Virginia? A lot of people think so.

There’s a huge list of things that make the Highlands Sky race experience unique, but one that stands out would be the frequency of ecosystem changes from sphagnum bogs, to red spruce forest, to barren ridges of giant boulder fields. The surfaces are constantly changing, except at some of the mentally toughest sections, when you want a change and nothing does. It’s technical and you’ll spend lots of time battling deep water, sticky mud, relentless nettles, never-ending rocks, slick roots, and maybe oh-so-cuddly black bears.

In my fourth attempt, I had a few goals going into the race this year.

1. Personal record for the course of 6:45-6:55.

2. Negative split the second half of the course.

3. Run from aid station #4 to aid station #7 with some actual energy in my stride (and no pity parties).

4. Top five overall (though I know this depends on who shows up, but I’d done it before in 2016 and made sixth in 2018 so how dare you judge me).

5. Slow the heck down through the first section up to aid station #4.

6. Impress and/or confuse my five year old son who would be attending this event for the first time to observe/cheer/harass me or just play on a Nintendo Switch.
   

The race starts at 6:00 AM. Several folks either start hard from excitement or because they are trying to avoid a pile-up conga line as we enter the woods. We begin with a two-mile gradually descending paved segment along Red Creek from Laneville. In an effort to be patient, I opted to ease along and exited the road some 15 or 20 spots back. Just 39 uphill miles to go my friends. Well, maybe not all uphill, but there’s quite a bit.

Gigantic black bear cub, which this area is known for, chasing me off the early pavement. Photo of this rare moment thanks to Mandy Helms Sullivan.

Several Morgantown trail runners signed up for the race this year. I think I’d spent the last week or two telling as many of them as would listen about the brutal first climb that starts as soon as you leave the road. The final mile of it will make you suffer if you start too hard. It’s about seven total miles of uphill grind that becomes distinctively steeper around 5.5 to 6 miles in. I really tried to take my time up the steepest part, which thankfully meant I felt really good at the top. Good enough to run 33 more miles anyway. And despite taking it easier, I passed a few people on the way up.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a great rock wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Yeah, Humpty Dumpty came tumbling down, to the ground, and with a loud shout: “Ow!” Betcha didn’t know I write nursery rhymes about getting hurt. It takes real talent. Just before mile 8, I managed to catch my left foot on one of the many large, white pieces of sandstone that are strewn across the Roaring Plains. My left hand and left forearm were now bloody, and my right knee hit something (most likely a meteorite, you say?) to make it hurt briefly, but it didn’t have a real wound, fortunately.

At some point before aid station #2, I met up with Ryan Ramsby, first time Highlands runner. I tried to relay some of my course knowledge to him as we ran together. As he ran behind me, he said something like “it’s so funny to watch half your body disappear” as I would step into mud and water filled holes that are ever-present in this section of the course. I ended up losing Ryan around aid station #3 but he hung tough to finish 10th on the day.

SO you really want me to believe there is a baby bear chasing you?

I came into aid station #4 just before mile 20 with Daniel Fogg, who was looking strong. You can have crew access here so Anne tells me someone just dropped, but I still didn’t know what place I was in at that point, and I didn’t ask. Now, in the middle, the longest mental test of Forest Service Road 75, otherwise known as “The Road Across the Sky” begins.

Daniel and I exited the aid close together and at about a mile or so onward a photographer pushing a running stroller (containing a real, living, breathing, baby!) told Daniel that Trevor Baine was 15 minutes up on us. That’s a pretty big ol’ gap, fellers. It’s always interesting to see how different people execute on different courses. I figured out running this before that my varicose-vein-filled-old-man legs can’t quite do that early intense running here, but maybe if I do the race like 10 times I’ll figure it out just in time to be in the grand masters category.

I’ve gained some distance on the giant bear cub who appears smaller in the distance but is actually quite gigantic. Photo Credit: Keith Knipling

Aid station #5, at mile 22.7, was a quick stop for some watermelon and banana, but in the process Daniel went on ahead of me. This was mostly helpful because it gave me someone to chase though not without some occasional negative self talk about the gap between us growing in size. My GPS was messing up early on the road segment but eventually corrected to relay the fact that we were running 8:00ish minutes/mile. It made me happy to be able to push this section a little and it went by so much quicker than the prior years. Even though I did mistake the next-to-last climb on the gravel road for the last climb and really had about another mile to go before the turn and aid station.

Photo courtesy Keith Knipling

Though it may not have created many gorgeous blue sky photos, the weather was more cooperative this year than in the other times I’ve raced. I don’t remember the sun starting to bust through until I was at least 30 miles deep. Usually by the time I get midway through the Road Across the Sky, the temperature and humidity start to dish out a beatdown. There was still fog and pleasant temperatures while heading across the service road.

Aid station #6, mile 27, at Bear Rocks was partially staffed by fellow runner and Physical Therapist Robert Gillanders. I do like seeing people I know at the aid stations, partly because they tend to be more encouraging but mostly because they are more willing to give me a quad massage. Fruit seemed like the only appealing menu choice (especially after an aid #4 trail mix debacle I won’t bother describing) I gathered banana, strawberry, potato, and orange pieces. Yes, a potato is fruit. Duh. Get with the times. I caught back up to Daniel here and he mentioned that he wanted to slow down but having just witnessed him crush the Road Across the Sky I wasn’t too hopeful that he actually would. We ran together for a few minutes, but then as we continued, I drifted away in front of him and we lost contact.

Gapped the giant baby bear. Suspect muscle glycogen depletion is at play.

Getting to aid station #7, at mile 32.9, always seems to take FOREVER. The landscape remains barren and exposed much of the time and it is mostly singletrack. I had just caught Zach Beckett coming into the aid station when I noticed they didn’t even bother putting up a pop-up tent since the chilly wind was gusting so hard. The bundled-up volunteers kindly refilled my bottles with Coke and water, I shoved down some watermelon and proceeded to open a baby-sized Baby Ruth, only to have the real force of Mother Nature reveal herself with a wind burst that ripped the caramel, chocolate, and peanut goodness from my Reynaud’s-afflicted baby hands. No matter, two second rule. Thou shall not waste a perfectly good candy bar. In my fumbly drama, I left the aid forgetting to see if Zach was still there or if he had taken off in front of me.

Downward is the trend of the course at this point, thank goodness, but there is more climbing to do. I caught a glimpse of Zach when I reached the base of the Timberline ski slope. I shuffled on up, through the pines and down the infamous Buttslide section, which feels longer every time I run it. Onto the gravel of upper Freeland Road and I can still see Zach a couple hundred yards away but he’s looking awfully strong. Maybe he’ll crack?

Shortly after leaving aid station #8 at mile 36.9, where I must say I always love their encouragement and Coca-Cola, I spy another runner, Trevor, and realize that Zach is chasing him, hence explaining the obvious renewed fire in his pants. The pavement allows for quick running if you’ve got anything left in the tank, have been slacking on the effort, or if you simply need to get to the finish line to pee. Down through the 8 inch tall grass to the Canaan Resort entryway, on to more pavement for the home stretch and I see in the distance the duel for third and fourth about to take place. I could tell I was probably going to PR at that point, so I was content to stride along steadily and consider that success.

This is/was a top 5 podium photo

Moments later, I was pleased with a new PR of 6:51:32. It amazes me that after 41 miles, third through fifth place were only separated by 3.5 minutes. Of course I didn’t realize that critical fact until there were less than two miles to go, but that’s one of the strategies of trail running: out of sight, out of mind. Maybe I could have drawn a little more effort out of myself from Bear Rocks to Timberline, but I don’t think I could have kicked a final mile much harder. I felt like I had a good settle-in-and-grind gear but not much maximum effort. Might have something to do with racing a tough 100K last month.

This race is so good, so tough, so check it out sometime, unless you don’t like running in the woods or cuddling with black bears.

Thanks for the great event and work you do Adam Casseday, Dan Lehman and volunteers!

Ultra Race of Champions 100K Race Report

The day began with fog and a frog. The frog had jumped onto the hood of my truck during the previous night’s drizzle. Perhaps to show off his skills at hopping several feet from the ground and sticking to smooth surfaces. Perhaps to distract and slow my morning progress as he required a gentle eviction from the hood.

Nice amber glow frogface

The Ultra Race of Champions 100K, otherwise known as UROC, has been held for eight years at various locations around the United States. The trend for the last three years has been to keep it in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia’s George Washington National Forest. It has also been in notoriously awesome and historical trail running locations, such as: Auburn, CA, Breckenridge/Vail, CO, and Copper Mountain, CO. The organizers, Bad to the Bone Sports, offer a large, $21,400 prize purse, so it draws many more elite runners than a typical trail running race.

As nice as it would be, I certainly had no illusions of winning a part of that prize purse but wanted to aim for a solid day characterized by consistency in pace throughout the course. Sure, most folks are slowing at the end of an ultramarathon, but the idea is to keep it to a minimum.

Elite Bib Assignment. Courtesy http://www.territoriotrail.es/ultra-race-champions-uroc-gem-east-coast-elite-prize-purse-central-virginia/

Being on the same weekend, I initially debated between the closer Glacier Ridge Trail 50 Miler in PA and the UROC 100K, but I needed to get in a ton of challenging climbing and more distance in preparation for other upcoming events this summer. I prefer the wilderness setting of a national forest and the climbs were longer in VA, so I decided to go with UROC though I knew I’d be lucky to crack the top 10 overall there.

The more information you have going into long events, the fewer surprises and tough spots you’ll get into (so do some internet research). Google revealed only a few race reports to draw from though.

A partial solution to my ignorance was doing a little course recon after going to the University of Virginia Running Medicine conference in March. That was definitely helpful to get an idea of the typical trail surfaces, climb and descent grades, tree cover, road crossings, and general course design. If only I could have run the entire course because I still ended up surprised by the trail in the final hours of UROC. Another good option would have been to run the Bel Monte 50 Miler in March as it traverses some of the same trails.

Let’s just say the UROC course is demanding, which is partly due to the >11,000 feet of climbing, but also because of the similar quantities of descending. It was the descending that would ultimately be my undoing.

Standing at the start line during this damp morning at Skylark Farm, where the races begin and end, I was greeted by fellow Morgantown trail runner Trevor Wolfe. The thing about ultrarunning is nobody needs to do a warmup run so we just stand around and bask in each other’s nervousness.

I was able to run and chat with Weirton friend Travis Simpson through the Blue Ridge Parkway and onto the Whetstone Ridge Trail, where we would gradually descend 1500’ for the next 11 miles. We were eventually joined by Leadville 100 women’s champion Katie Arnold for much of this section. Katie had never raced trails on the East Coast and being from Sante Fe, it was interesting to get her thoughts on the course as we moved along. I couldn’t tell if she was having more or less fun than the rest of us every time we’d get to a gnarly, steep, rocky section and she’d let out a yelp.

I had drifted away from the pack as I approached a slightly confusing intersection in the trail at mile 14. After gathering about eight runners, we decided on the most likely route downward and thankfully, were correct in our choice. I became a little too caught up in the flow of this part of the descent because I was at the front of that pack. It was narrow but non-technical so I’m sure a couple of us were moving at least 7:00/mile, if not quicker. I’ll never know - my GPS data was quite jacked up on this section. Still, we weren’t as fast as the leaders passing us that were returning from the aid station at the bottom of the climb. No one seemed to linger at that 16-mile aid long but I knew it was a lengthy, 11-mile uphill back to the next aid. Sure enough, on the way back up, the sun busted out, the temperature and humidity came up, and I had to give another runner water, so it was worth the 45 seconds to completely refill my hydration pack.

Even though it felt like less than two hours, now five hours deep, at the mile-28 aid station, I’m briefly humored by the fellow telling me that I’m maintaining a good pace and looking good but then asking me what I have wrapped around my ankles (gaiters) and whether I’ll take a 30-minute break to sit down. Apparently the leaders must have been in and out a little too quick for the interview.

I ran solo on a couple more miles of Parkway, plopping potatoes into the gas tank, as tolerated, then the hit the graveled Spy Run Road, then grassy paths back to Skylark where I was actually hot enough to pack ice under my hat. By the time I made it out to the next section of real trails off the Parkway at Bald Mountain, it was starting to rain, the sun was gone, and the temperature had dropped a few degrees again.

Back off road at mile 35 and happy to be running now on some of the trails that I’d previewed in March. The weather was chilly that day, but it was dry and clear with perfect visibility from the overlooks. Today it was strange to look out from the same vantage points to see nothing more than white, thick fog enveloping me and the trees. It almost felt like the edge of the earth was merely a few feet away, or that’s just weird stuff your brain conjures up 6.5 hours into a hard effort.

Before the Rains

The rain became harder and washed all the Nutella away. From my hands. Not from the earth because, oh my God, no one wants a world without Nutella. I bombed the lovely White Rock Falls Trail in the pouring rain, perhaps with a little too much pep in my step. But it was a ton of fun and flowy. Even after climbing some tremendous steepness back out of that ravine I was getting chilled and switched to a wool long sleeve upon returning to the Slacks Overlook aid station around mile 43. And wouldn’t you know the rain promptly stopped, and I began to overheat a bit again by the time I made it a couple miles away.

Onto the final descent on Torry Ridge Trail, the surface and grade were becoming increasingly brutal, resulting in the first real moment when I really felt “over it” and wanted to be done with a particular section. It was increasingly rocky and steep, so much so that my legs just stunk at controlling speed and keeping me in an upright position. I hadn’t been at an aid station for over an hour, so I probably just needed a hug or a teddy bear. Unfortunately, I’d left teddy in the truck to lighten my pack. I was forced to slow to my pace dramatically (which was clearly not part of the plan). It was intermittently raining, though nothing as heavy as the saturating downpours I’d come through on the Slacks Trail and White Rock Falls Trail. And then I almost stepped on this super bright yellow box turtle to shake things up a bit. “Watch where you are going, jerk!” (I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide which one of us said that). Thank goodness it was just a close call because I didn’t have my license, registration, or proof of insurance with me at the time. Turtle shell repair work is just so expensive these days.

FINALLY, the trail swings a hard left and becomes less damn rocky. Back to 9:00-10:00ish per mile pace for a few minutes. I’d wished I could have run that portion of the course beforehand. Had I known of its difficulty, I would have held back more in the White Rock Falls loop. But that’s all part of the adventure and challenge. I could still run the flattish or slightly uphill parts of the course at a good clip, even after mile 50, but any steep descending made my quads scream loudly enough to deem them untrustworthy.

There was a brief but nice ~2.5 mile total out-and-back dirt road section at mile 51 before the gradual ascending to the base of Bald Mountain on Turkey Pen Ridge Trail. The final mile of Turkey Pen was full of switchbacks and typically just steep enough that I couldn’t talk myself into shuffle running. I hiked it all at a consistent effort and was happy to be on it, though I was definitely starting to bonk a bit, which meant a more sideways wobble than forward hustle from time to time. The fog was insanely thick but helped prevent my grunts from echoing into the next county.

Coming into the final aid station at mile 58, I went for my reliable standard baby potatoes, a couple swigs of Coca-Cola, and a handful of chopped bacon. As I reached for my collapsible bottle from my vest to make a mix of watered down Coke, I realized that it was gone. Why me? Why now? Waaaaaahhhhh! No, I wasn’t actually that dramatic but I sure did like that bottle. Breakups are never easy. So, to whomever found the clear Nathan/Hydrapak bottle on Turkey Pen: enjoy the free gift but remember I kissed her first!

Obligatory watch check photo

Zombie transformation complete in less than one second

The volunteers here chatted back and forth about whether I should take a bottle that somebody had forgotten or dropped earlier. The one young woman said “there’s only four miles to go” and completely distracted by the fact that four miles sounded really small at the time, I took off without actually finding a substitute for what I was going to put in the bottle that I no longer possessed. I did not grab a gel as I had planned to do. Oops. Which means I started to really, really bonk as I headed back up the Parkway. It felt easier to run with my eyes closed, so I did. (FYI I don’t recommend running with your eyes closed, especially on the road. In heavy fog. Duh.) I think I could have taken a nap then pretty easily and I felt like I was kinda floating in the fog. Thanks hypoglycemia. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be caught by anyone else and I wasn’t going to do anymore catching, so it was more about finishing at this point. Hypoglycemia also makes you not care about, well, anything.

Generally, I really liked the course design. I would not have wanted to run all of the paved sections at once but having multiple broken sections of paved Blue Ridge Parkway to run was nice for a 15-20 minute mental break and develop another rhythm. Beyond mile 60, the Parkway eventually peaks out and gives way to the grassy and paved descent back toward the race start. As a I ran past the pond just below the peak of Skylark, I could hear just a couple peeps. Looks like the day ends as it began: with fog and a frog.

In the midst and the mist, I’d hoped to be closer to an 11:30 finish time but ended up in 12:03:12 with the 9th male position. There were about 118 people pre-registered but 69 finishers. If the 100K sounds daunting, there are 50K and 25K options to check out that would also make good precursors to the 100K.

Thanks to the volunteers, Bad to the Bone, and Anne (my solo crew member) for a well-supported and challenging day!

4 Lessons learned at the JFK 50 Mile

This past November I made a late season decision to enter the JFK 50 Mile. I was looking forward to it from a new race perspective, but I was also well aware that it was unlikely to become my favorite event ever. It is typically more of a road runner’s ultramarathon and the course doesn’t lend itself to my strengths (i.e. climbing, technical singletrack, power hiking). But I did it anyway, partly because it’s big for an ultra but more because it’s the oldest existing ultramarathon in the US. I’m not a huge history buff, but being close to home I’ll buy into the novelty. However, if not for the section on the Appalachian Trail, I would have gladly searched for something else.

Instead of me describing the course, I’ll just copy from the JFK50mile.org page:

“The first 5.5 miles (starting on road surface and joining the Appalachian Trail at 2.5 miles) gains 1,172 feet in elevation. The course from 2.5 to 15.5 miles is on the Appalachian Trail (except for two miles of paved road between 3.5 and 5.5 miles). This section of the AT is very rocky in sections as it rolls across the mountain ridge. At approximately 14.5 miles the course drops over 1,000 feet in a series of steep “switchbacks” that then crosses under Rt. 340 and connects with the C & O Canal towpath. The “Canal” section of the JFK 50 Mile is 26.3 miles (from 15.5-41.8 miles) of almost totally flat unpaved dirt/gravel surface that is free of all automotive vehicle traffic. The JFK 50 Mile route leaves the C & O Canal towpath at Dam #4 and proceeds to follow gently rolling paved country roads the last 8.4 miles to the finish. The Boonsboro start is at an elevation of 570 feet. The Williamsport finish is at 452 feet above sea level.”

A fall storm had dumped several inches of snow on the area a couple days prior to the race which made for unique conditions. I was initially fearful that the Appalachian Trail section would be an ankle sprain waiting to happen with all of leaves down this time of year but with the snow, water, and mud it mostly just turned out to be messy, cold, and slow. There were plenty of sections of standing, frigid snowmelt midway up my shin.

Here’s what I’ll remember most from this odd race in odd conditions.

1. Getting and staying cold can cause a pretty noticeable decrement in performance, for me at least. I’ve trained plenty and raced several times in colder and even snowy conditions. But the combination of an extra long event paired with deep, cold water chilled me more than I expected it would. My feet were numb as we descended down to the C & O Canal. I figured I would warm up just from getting on the drier towpath and running consistently. And I sorta did. At least my feet weren’t completely numb anymore. The problem was I couldn’t sustain running fast enough to truly become warm enough. The lightbulb moment came when I guzzled a cup of warm chicken broth at an aid station. So that’s what I emphasized at each one. The unfortunate part was I skipped the broth at a couple of aid stations prior because I was initially thinking I’d warm up naturally and just took in cold food instead. Better late than never on figuring it out though.

2. I’ve come to this realization before, but I was reminded that there’s always more effort left to give than you might expect. You really can’t assume that if you have been feeling crappy that it will go on forever. I had garbage legs for 20 miles, which is definitely the longest bad patch I’ve needed to run through, but it eventually came to an end a couple miles before the end of the C & O Canal towpath. I’m certain a huge part of this was psychological - at that point the course only had 10 miles or so to go. It didn’t help that the towpath is just boring and I knew that coming in. I was partly spurred on by another runner that was moving at a pace I could stick to when they caught me. But the point is that my better self was there, waiting. The stars might have to align to draw it out but you can keep trying to find it. It reminds me of when a basketball team is down by double digits and not scoring. The game’s not over and there just has to be a little spark to bring back a big run on points. What can give you momentum?

3. A tough day isn’t really a bad day. Draw from it what you can. I still took away a PR for the 50-mile distance despite feeling rough for a good chunk of the race. That’s largely the nature of the course layout, but if I’d given up more mentally, it would have probably never happened. I know now that I can withstand a 20 mile stretch of suckiness. I didn’t get to do a real taper as if this was my planned “A” race, so my expectations align with the outcome. Bonus race = bonus pain = bonus discoveries.

4. It’s good to try something different purely for the experience. This race is big. Not massive, like a major city marathon, but huge compared to typical trail races where you could end up alone for several minutes or even hours. The size made me curious, but it also wasn’t appealing to me, at least on this day. There wasn’t a time in this entire event that I couldn’t see someone in front of or behind me. If you thrive on pacing off or being social with other racers, this would be a more ideal race. It’s not the most enjoyable if you expect solitude.

Greenbrier River Trail Marathon Race Recap

The Greenbrier River Trail is a rail trail, mostly double track, that extends about 77 miles from Cass, WV to North Caldwell, WV along, you guessed it, the Greenbrier River. Much of its length is contained in the Monongahela National Forest. The Greenbrier River Trail Marathon is a USATF-certified race on the River Trail that starts in Cass, WV. The funds raised by this race benefit the maintenance of this lengthy recreational throughway via the non-profit Greenbrier River Trail Association. West Virginia only has a handful of marathons and this one will certainly put many marathons, even national events, to shame when it comes to beautiful surroundings. The course layout should produce times similar to a road race but those ugly and annoying buildings, cars, and streets are replaced with crushed limestone gravel, trees, fly fisherman, and a meandering river.  

But dang, I’m sore. Quaking quads. Cantankerous calves. Hurtin’ hammies. My severe soreness shall, in no way, bias this race recap. See, flat running is a significant departure from my typical racing and training. I love vertical change. Up, down, up, down, wash, rinse, repeat. This marathon has about as little up and down variation as you will find in this region. It drops approximately 300 feet across its entire length. So yes, it’s averaging a downhill grade but there are definitely short sections where it’s flat or will have just a very slight uptick in grade. But I’m accustomed to climbing and descending 300 foot changes in as little as a half mile!

Years of triathlon training and racing have taught me that you can’t underestimate the toll that flat and downhill courses take on your legs. The movement pattern doesn’t vary much the entire time, making it a unique demand compared to rolling or mountainous courses. Floridians would do well here.

If you have the chance to ride the Cass Scenic Railroad, it’s a great family outing. On the day prior to the race, we rode the train from Cass to Whittaker Station. The leaves weren’t quite at the peak of their color change yet, but it was still very much worth the trip. The lack of running during the taper week made me want to race the train up the mountain as it held a steady distance-run-esque pace.

Bet your marathon doesn’t have a steam locomotive

After the train ride, I was able to get a preview shakeout run on the Greenbrier River Trail, pick up my packet, and enjoy the pre-race pasta dinner. Cass is a small town so everything is within walking distance.

Race morning it’s still nearly dark when we arrive. The fog, forest, and terrain keep this valley darker a few minutes longer than expected. An off-pitch Cass Railroad whistle echoed through the otherwise silent mountains during my warm up as I climbed Back Mountain Road, giving an almost eerie sense to the foggy surroundings. Cue the banjo.

Our weather was almost ideal at the 8:00 AM start. A touch of humidity hung in the air and it would likely have been warmer than the mid-60s already if not for the heavy fog blanketing the hills and hollers. We could tell it would eventually become hotter as the day progressed, much as the day prior had done. And it did.

Though I didn’t warm up as much as I wanted, it wasn’t much of an issue since I like to start easy and build on long races. I don’t need a reminder that a marathon will take hours to complete and I have no issue with delaying the onset of suffering a bit.

At the starting line one of the other racers mentioned going for the 2:40s. I was hoping for 2:50s but all of that prediction stuff is guesswork when no one has raced the course before. We line up at the Cass Community Center,and the train whistle signals the start (a nice touch). We make a quick loop through a gravel street in Cass, and then we are onto the Greenbrier River Trail. I trotted along in 4th place as the first three pulled away. Would be a nice day to get top three though.

I wanted to take in my surroundings but tried not to lose focus. It’s difficult to ride the line of observing nature, working hard, and not falling on your face. The Monongahela National Forest is one of my favorite places, so I hate not to admire the views.

Despite the current beautiful weather, it had unfortunately and abnormally rained much of the prior week. The River Trail generally drains well, but being in a winding, tree covered valley, there were places along the path that were just a smidge wet. There was never any nasty, heavy, sticky, tacky mud but there was definitely squishiness in a few places where the trail becomes more grass and dirt than the primarily crushed limestone surface. A couple of the wooden bridge crossings were slick but not dangerous.

The aid station folks were super supportive. It helps when volunteers give time splits and say things like “you’re looking strong.” I stayed within sight of the second and third runners for several miles but had lost sight of the first runner by mile 5 or 6 because of the curviness of the course. I think it was somewhere around mile 6 when I caught the two guys in front of me in relatively rapid succession. I felt decent and the splits were consistently where I wanted them. The aid station volunteers at mile 10 informed me the time gap to first place was two minutes. Really? After taking off that quickly? That’s not much at that point, depending on how things shake out, but I wondered if that wasn’t a rough estimate and more like four minutes.

At some point, there was a very long straightaway in the trail that allowed me to see the lead cyclist and the first place runner. Perhaps I’ve made up time? Perhaps the gap really is just a couple minutes? Though they were just little specks on the horizon, it was enough information to keep me excited for the possibility of a better finish.

Many of the miles at this point were flying by, which is good for racing but bad for taking in scenery. My legs would actually do what I wanted. Speed up, slow down, square dance, hokey pokey, it didn’t matter. I occasionally had this feeling that my head was just mounted on a set of legs that were not my own. I’M INSIDE A ROBOT!!!! GUYS, I’M INSIDE OF A ROBOT!!!

As I rounded a sharp rightward curve around mile 15 I suspect my blood glucose was dropping and I broke my brain for a second as I glanced upward to the entrance of a giant space portal that was about to transport me into another dimension. Oh crap, that’s Sharp’s Tunnel. Doofus. Entering the portal, I quickly learned the tunnel is curved so you can’t see the other end and it is amazingly dark. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. Don’t trip, space boy. It was actually very smooth soil. Pretty darn cool feature and certainly the first time I’ve raced through such a long tunnel.

An aid station awaits at the end of the tunnel. A volunteer yelled for me to get a banana and told me something like “you’ve got to catch the next guy.” Fantastic idea. I...chomp...will... chomp...win... chomp...this...chomp...eating...chomp...contest!

Falling apart at mile 26.15

More running ensued. (Bet you wouldn’t have guessed that.) By mile 19 I could consistently see first place and could tell I was gaining rapidly. Maybe gradually ease up to him and hit the pace hard? By mile 20 I had drifted up behind Andrew. He knew I was there, probably from my periodic grunting, said he had blown up but was very encouraging to me pushing onward past him. Thank goodness I didn’t have to do a hard surge because those hurt.

Taking the lead becomes a different beast because you are now the chased instead of doing the highly distracting and motivating chasing. I had no idea if there would be someone capable of hitting negative splits in the closing miles. A couple of miles clicked off where I was happy just to see splits under 7:00/mile. I had briefly listened to music for a few miles but now it was just irritating. I gained a new friend in lead cyclist Ray Adams who probably grew tired of my heaving and groaning.

Race director Kellyn Cassell berating me for not running faster

The final couple miles through Marlinton transitioned to pavement. My legs were reminding me with each step that they were indeed my own painful masses of contractile proteins instead of the Terminator’s as they seemed to want to piston more up and down than swinging forward and backward. I couldn’t get up onto my forefoot for any additional robot power because I could sense both calf muscles were one aberrant neuromuscular synapse away from cramping. Going to need an oil change and 15-point inspection after this.

The street crossings in Marlinton were staffed with more great volunteers. They rhythmically chanted “ROBOT SPACE BOY! ROBOT SPACE BOY!” with astonishing volume. (Not true). I spied with my two tired eyes an iron bridge that I recognized from a video of the finishing section. Must...aggggghhh….be...uggggghhhh...close. And then I see my favorite volunteers ever dancing while dressed in neon orange Japanese kimonos (or simply just waving orange flags) indicating a right turn into Stillwell Park. A glance at my watch tells me all I need to know...start kicking. Inflatable finish line arch, I love you. Wow, I’m glad that’s over.

Seltzer, post-race snacks, pizza, sandwiches, finisher medals, pint glass age group awards, and custom pottery overall awards occupy our minds afterward. Great event Kellyn! Now, who wants to run back the other direction?

Results:

https://aptiming.com/race/results/624

The local paper wrote a nice article about the race:

https://pocahontastimes.com/first-ever-grt-marathon-a-big-hit/

Lyme disease: It got me and it's coming for you next!

As of 2017, Lyme disease prevalence is on the rise. And in the summer of 2017, thanks to being bitten by a tick infected with the Lyme bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi), the disease was prevailing in my bloodstream. And organs. And muscles. And a bunch of other places that you don’t want bacteria hanging out. This article reviews the infectious process, diagnosis, and recovery that I experienced just a few short months ago.

First, here’s a couple not-so-fun facts: According to the Centers for Disease Control, Lyme is the most common vectorborne illness in the United States. In 2016, about 300,000 people were diagnosed with Lyme disease in the US and that number is expected to rise.

If you want to be frightened, watch the rapid progression of the reported Lyme cases move westward from the east coast as you click through the annual maps on the CDC website (https://www.cdc.gov/Lyme/stats/). When I wandered the woods for hours as a child, my parents and I didn’t have to worry about Lyme. We rarely even saw ticks. In the early 2000s, there weren’t many reported cases of Lyme disease in this (western PA and northern WV) region. But by 2015, the same region of the map is heavily covered in cases. I always wanted to be a dot on a CDC map!

My clouded confusion begins

I find ticks on myself every year - after mowing, after weed trimming, after running. I’ve always made it a point to pluck them off ASAP. One must have gone under the radar. If my recollection of the earliest symptoms is accurate, there was initially a period of at least 2-3 weeks in late May to early June where my blood pressure wouldn’t regulate very well, especially if I was feeling the least bit stressed. (Perfect timing for having recently started a business!) This was always worse in the morning. Hopefully few of my patients noticed me awkwardly grabbing the furniture and equipment, but I began to feel a need to cling to nearby objects just in case I would start to crash. My blood pressure would fluctuate noticeably even while simply standing still, which means I was becoming lightheaded several times a day (though I never had true syncope (loss of consciousness)). Being a longtime endurance athlete, my heart rate and blood pressure are low anyhow, so I’m accustomed to occasional positional blood pressure fluctuations. But this seemed more annoying because it was multiple times a day and sometimes took longer to return to baseline. This symptom was sometimes intense but sometimes just a hint. It also had less to do with my hydration level like it normally would after a hotter or harder workout. Overall, it was minor compared to the other symptoms that would follow...

So tiny. So evil. 

More infectious

I began to demonstrate significant symptoms of Lyme disease in the middle of June. But, of course, I didn’t know it was Lyme at the time and did not make a connection. That’s because these symptoms, like fatigue, are still not specific to the disease, just consistent with many viral or bacterial infections.

With a new baby around, I was sleeping less. He had a runny nose and recently started daycare so it would be reasonable to expect that I had just picked up an ordinary bug. Plus, I had just come off a harder run training block to prepare for an ultramarathon, so I thought initially that my body was just a tad more susceptible. This is one reason why some athletes will mistake Lyme symptoms for overtraining.

One Sunday evening, I developed a fever. This was accompanied with the worst night sweats I’ve ever experienced. The fever and sweats continued for the next three days, gradually worsening toward evening, which is common to any ongoing infection. The level of fatigue and demotivation was impressive, beyond typical flu levels in intensity and duration. With my 40-mile race looming, my wife gently (forcefully!) nudged me into an ER visit despite gradual daily improvement in the fever because I was also having a new and simultaneous lower abdominal pain (which I eventually realized was a referred pain from my thigh adductor tendons, but that’s another story). No surprise that they told me I had an infection. And elevated creatine kinase levels in my blood tests. Drink lots of water!

I thought I recovered through this initial phase by the following weekend because the fever seemed to have mostly resolved and the night sweats had slacked off. That was the weekend I ran the gorgeous Highlands Sky ultramarathon, albeit at a much slower pace than I would normally because it was obvious I wasn’t at 100% health yet. It seemed strange that I became very sore partway through the run even though I was running easier than I ever normally compete and I had rested much of the week. Then my quadriceps stayed sore at points deeper in the muscles for many more days after running than they typically would. This is unfortunately still very similar to overtraining symptoms.

running slower in the race let me take a couple of nice photos

Recovery?

After resting for a week, as I always do after a long race, I tried to return to my typical training with some easy running. That went well enough and the muscle soreness had resolved. Then I had a bright idea to take back a couple of Strava KOMs/course records on a local trail (because I hadn’t actually raced hard in the ultra) and I expected that it should be safe to push a little effort.

I really was finally feeling good. Good enough to push. I ran the two hill climb intervals very hard that day and took the Strava segment crowns back. Great. Whoopee. No one cares except for the guy who lost the KOM. But it became apparent after that hard effort that my heart rate was not dropping back to typical levels as rapidly as it typically would.

Cardiovascular consequences

As July began, I noticed my heart rate was still not coming back down to my normal resting levels immediately after running or when waking up in the morning. And I would sometimes feel my heart beating with ridiculous force at rest and while exercising. So I made it a point to avoid pushing the effort, thinking I just wasn’t yet recovered from the combined race, baby stress, business stress, and illness. That was partly correct. Again, I had the same fever and night sweats and fatigue. I stopped running and just started slowly hiking every couple days for only brief periods because I would feel my blood pressure swing wildly with effort.

The heart rate issues would appear to resolve with a day of rest, so I was able to resume running slowly again by the end of the week though it was still abnormally tiring. I’m sure a small part of that was related to our high July heat and humidity, but a 12-minute mile had never felt that hard before.

As each run passed, I caught onto the trend that my normal cardiac function was off drastically enough that my Garmin Fenix 3 repeatedly detected that my “performance condition” was constantly in negative figures. It’s crazy that the watch could detect such a difference with great consistency. This might normally happen for a day or two after a hard effort but not for every run over multiple weeks consecutively.

Another not-so-fun fact: there’s a little something called Lyme pericarditis, which is an inflammation of the pericardial sac that surrounds the heart. And the Lyme bacteria can invade the nerves that supply the heart, leading to issues like atrioventricular block. Suffice it to say, the nerves don’t function normally after that and can contribute to those blood pressure swings.

Respiratory weirdness

It was a strange and alarming experience when I realized that I couldn’t quite take a full deep inspiration or achieve full expiration at rest or with exercise. It felt like my stomach was constantly trying to occupy the space where my lungs must normally reside. A “belly breath” wasn’t happening, which stinks because that’s always been a reliable technique to help me relax or to flush out the sensation of going anaerobic while running. I first noticed this inability to breathe into my stomach during the ultramarathon and was glad to be going easier then because I don’t think I could have eaten and absorbed food in a normal manner otherwise.

Neurologic, muscular, and joint happenings

For weeks I had this ongoing sense of muscle tightness along my thoracic spine and it took very little effort to strain my low back one day with yard work. Much like the earlier run soreness, that strain caused a deep, sore muscle pain that lingered for a couple days longer than I would typically experience.

It was also odd that I would feel a little uncoordinated during my runs. Not-so-fun fact #1358: Along with the nerves of the heart, it’s not unusual that the bacteria invade other parts of the peripheral nervous system and can eventually make their way into the central nervous system, neither of which are going to help coordination. You can even lose your vision.

I felt weak. My attempt at returning to basic strength training in mid-July was rewarded with both wrist joints hurting and even more spine region tightness and pain. On other days my ankle joints took turns aching and at another point one of my knees became painful. It was strange that the various joint pains would come only for part of a single day and then quickly decide to move onto some other place to piss off. They were nothing like an acute pain I might traditionally feel for a day or two after overdoing any form of exercise. That makes me wonder if it wasn’t more of an infectious arthritis, which is also common to Lyme disease. Oh cool. What a not-so-fun fact.

By the middle of July sleep was not counteracting the fatigue. I was taking a nap nearly every day and I usually consider naps a giant waste of time. I don’t even nap with the flu.

Okay, I’ll get it checked out

With my wife’s encouragement, I went to an appointment with a general physician who began to do blood work like checking for low testosterone or thyroid dysfunction. Oh yeah, and they thought it would be good to check for a multitude of sexually transmitted diseases though there weren’t any questions asked on that front. Unfortunately, despite asking about the possibility of Lyme disease, no Lyme tests were performed. The physician didn’t feel it necessary because I had no recollection of a tick being attached to me for a lengthy period or having the classic bullseye rash. (So much for making a potential diagnosis based upon the patient’s subjective reports.)

Now that doesn’t mean I didn’t have a tick attach to me at any point recently, because I most certainly do recall having one attached to me at the end of a recent long run. I promptly removed it. I’m a little skeptical of the CDC reported 36-hour time frames necessary to transmit the bacteria from a tick into the host but perhaps I had an immature tick on my scalp and had no idea it was there. Or perhaps the attached tick regurgitated when I went to remove it.

It was around this time that I noticed the back of my head itching and having a rash for over a week, but maybe that was some kind of psychosomatic thing. Who knows. I don’t care because it stopped.

How many ticks can you count in this photo waiting to jump onto the passing warm blooded mammal?

It just keeps getting better

To add to the symptom list, I developed a new problem: anxiety. Like take-your-breath away-because-your-chest-is-being-smashed-and-throat-squished anxiety. This was also worse in the morning. It lasted several days with varying intensities. Super favorite not-so-fun fact: It’s apparently not uncommon for people with Lyme disease to develop anxiety. I resisted the physician’s offer for medication because I’m too much of an arrogant “tough guy” and was hopeful we would be treating the real cause soon.

So while waiting on blood test results I began experimenting with a powerful drug. No, not the illicit kind, nothing prescribed, and not the over the counter kind either. I’m talking about the endogenously manufactured endorphin: adrenaline. You gotta try that stuff. This was really more of an experiment of exercise intensity but what I realized is that running hard into zone 5 could mimic the sensation of chest tightness and labored breathing that I might have in a competition but also what anxiety could produce. So I could actually make a run feel sorta “normal,” even though it clearly wasn’t. And the longer I would sustain a hard interval, the longer I would feel the weird blood pressure swings when the run ended. It did seem to reduce the anxiety intensity afterward though. I’m just smart enough to know I couldn’t and shouldn’t do this to myself during every run but it was an interesting observation. Perhaps one that I wouldn’t recommend if you suspect overtraining or Lyme disease. But it’s science!

My reward for seeking care

The physician calls me to let me know one of the blood tests came back with a positive finding. Apparently they think I have syphilis, because of a positive RPR test. The RPR (rapid plasma reagin) test is a non-specific test that looks for antibodies in the blood. This leads to a cascade of events. First off, now I’m a public health hazard so the medical clinic is required to report me to the Pennsylvania Health Department, without contacting me first, mind you. Kind of annoying. Then a health department nurse calls to counsel me on how avoid transmission of my STD. Fortunately, the nurse had time to chat. She understood, with some encouragement, that there’s a handful of other microscopic creatures, besides syphilis, that cause a positive RPR test, one of which is Lyme bacteria. She contacted the medical clinic and suggested that they test me for Lyme. By the way, I had no other syphilis signs or symptoms and my wife just gave birth to a perfectly healthy child less than three months ago. Congenital syphilis causes a huge number of birth defects and death in newborns. And I guess we’ll ignore our simultaneously healthy four year old because I’ve been playing the field for years now?

Increasingly irritated, I went back to the clinic that day, gave more blood and, wouldn’t you know it, the Lyme tests turned up positive a few days later. The CDC encourages testing for Lyme be done in two tiers. If the first tier tests (EIA or ELISA) are positive then a Western blot test should be confirmatory. The first tier tests could also be positive with syphilis.

Die Borrelia burgdorferi, die!

I spoke with the physician on the phone and (being a smartass) told her I’ve had more ticks on me so far this year than total sexual partners in my lifetime so statistically the Lyme disease wins. She prescribed doxycycline two times per day. As much as I hated to take an antibiotic, within a couple days the chronic fatigue began lifting and I felt noticeably better. Having been ill for so long, it was at this point that I realized how I had really been functioning almost as another person inside the same shell. Weird. Then I grew wings and flew away to Mars.

A few weeks later

I had finished up the antibiotic and fortunately none of the Lyme symptoms returned. For a couple weeks I did still have remnants of burns on my hands and fingers from taking doxycyline. For a person that tries to be outside nearly everyday of their life, increased sensitivity to sun exposure is an unfortunate side effect of this antibiotic. Did you catch that not-so-fun fact? Although, it was usually the sun exposure from mowing my yard during a two to three hour span that would lead to the burns. Is that a good reason to skip mowing? I could go run in the shade of the woods and not have issues.

An additional side effect of the medication was that part of my hands and fingers had a very frequent paresthesia (abnormal sensation). This occurred on both hands at all of the dorsal index and middle finger joints as well as the muscular part between the index finger and thumb. Those areas were extremely sensitive to hot water and were frequently reddened, almost as if I had a chemical burn. All of these side effects appeared around two weeks after starting the antibiotic and gradually worsened.

Noooooooo

Soon after I was feeling normal again, I encountered one of the smallest ticks I’ve ever seen. It had attached to my son’s back and I noticed it within an hour of him simply helping his mother in the garden for a few minutes. Even scarier when you know you have Lyme disease and you see your kid being bitten. It’s during this juvenile or nymph stage when ticks start to carry the Lyme bacteria. At about one-third adult size, they are much harder to spot and therefore more capable of infecting us. It’s amazing how quickly a tick can attach, too. In late summer I went for an hour run and by the time I made it back home there was an adult tick already attached to my lower leg.

Here’s a fun fact: Chickens and possums eat ticks. Now I just need an army of chickens and possums to trail run with me.

There's gotta be a tick in here Somewhere. 

Remember kids

Lyme disease is a major disruptor of athletic performance and healthy living. It can make you quite miserable and can be mistaken for overtraining and other illnesses. You need to be aware of Lyme’s increasing occurrence and recognize that it may manifest in a number of the body’s structures and cause many different symptoms. It took much perseverance on my part to have the problem appropriately addressed medically. I’m sure the diagnostics have improved, and for that I am thankful because I had a relatively quick diagnosis compared to some people who might go for years feeling awful and ultimately have less chance of proper treatment.

Stay safe out there!

Disclaimer: Several ticks have been harmed since the original writing of this article.

Here’s a nice running-related article on protecting yourself from Lyme disease: http://trailrunnermag.com/training/injuries-and-treatment/dont-get-ticked.html

University of Virginia Running Medicine Conference 2018 Takeaways

Despite the best attempts of March’s winter weather to block travel, I made my way to Charlottesville, VA a few days ago for the Running Medicine conference they have every spring. UVA consistently does a great job of recruiting well known, excellent speakers for this event.

Here was this year’s agenda for the Friday lectures:

• Knee Osteoarthritis: A Case Approach - Robert Wilder, MD, FACSM and Eric Magrum, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT

• Clinical Decision Making for Footwear - Jay Dicharry, MPT, SCS

• An Update on Hydration Guidelines - David Hryvniak, MD

• Post-Operative Guidelines: Return to Running after Knee Surgery - Bryan Heiderscheidt, PhD, PT (Keynote)

• Gait Retraining: Finding the Right Balance - Bryan Heiderscheidt, PhD, PT (Keynote)

• Regenerative Therapies for Osteoarthritis of the Knee & Hip - Fran O’Connor MD, MPH, FACSM

• Nutrition: Controversies and Guidelines - Patti Deuster , PhD, MPH, FACSM

And the Saturday labs:

• Systematic Video Gait Analysis - Bryan Heiderscheidt, PhD, PT

• Rebuilding the Foot - Jay Dicharry, MPT, SCS

• Dynamic Pre- and Post-Run Exercise - Anne Dunn, MS, CPT & Jason Dunn, MEd

• Running Shoes 2018: Where are we now? - Mark Lorenzoni

Nobody messes with yoda

CPR for foot muscles with Jay Dicharry

There was so much great information presented, I could write for hours, but let’s just go with a few highlights.

1. Runners with known symptomatic knee osteoarthritis may benefit from a 3-4 month trial of one of the following: glucosamine/chondroitin, omega-3 fatty acids, fish oil, krill oil, or avocado/soybean unsaponifiables (ASU). There is a not an abundance of research to support each of these interventions but they do appear useful in some cases and have a low risk. It is not advised to start taking all of them simultaneously.

2. Once again, running does not cause osteoarthritis when performed at reasonable low to moderate mileage and intensity. There may be a potential relationship of higher mileage (>65 miles/week) and high intensities to developing knee OA. Overall though, runners tend to maintain a higher quality of life for more years without limiting knee pain than their non-running counterparts. That’s why running is actually believed to lead to protective cartilage changes, if anything. Let’s crush this myth.

3. Those darn medially posted motion control and stability running shoes (the ones with the harder inner sole material) can contribute to extra load at the medial (inner) knee joint, which is the side where most people with knee osteoarthritis acquire their degenerative issues. In other words, they probably aren’t going to help existing inner knee pain and may even exacerbate it.

4. Speaking of medially posted shoes, the location of the post continues to make no sense. The midfoot (navicular bone) drops maximally into pronation after the heel has lifted from the ground. How is the harder material that is no longer touching the ground going to stop this movement? It can’t. It won’t. Time to move on from your poor science, shoe industry. Let me take a moment to remind everyone that pronation is not necessarily an evil problem that even needs corrected with a shoe in the first place. But that’s not what sells shoes now is it? And one more thing, just because the inner foot arch appears to collapse while standing doesn’t mean that it does that same thing while running. Nor does it move any significantly extra amount beyond the amount every other foot type moves.

5. There are a couple new things coming along in shoe design. You will see a new trend of placing greater densities of foam across the forefoot region of a running shoe while the heel will have a slightly lower density. We need a stable surface to push off. Also, there are now straight lasted cushioned shoe models. The general shape of the shoe is based on the last and can be curved, semi-curved, or straight. Straight lasts were previously found only in the motion control and stability shoes, which, as I just mentioned, tend to further overload the the medial compartment of the knee. That overload is less likely in a cushioned model that doesn’t have the ridiculously hard inner heel material.

6. Following ACL reconstruction, runners and other athletes are returning to running before they have best function of their quadriceps muscle. These deficits, which are neurological in nature, are lingering for huge amounts of time, easily one year and even two years after surgery. While an athlete may demonstrate full strength of the quadriceps in a muscle test, and even good jumping technique, their ability to rapidly activate the quad muscle remains at a deficit, which leads to running gait changes, abnormal loading of knee joint, and potentially ongoing pain. Typical ACL protocols bring running back at 12 to 16 weeks post-surgery. Is that too early or are we just not appropriately getting the quad back online?

7. Though they are far from perfected and minimally researched, regenerative medicine methods such as platelet rich plasma injections and stem cell therapies are showing promise in helping athletes recover from long-standing tendon and joint injury. They aren’t going to create a brand new tissue for you but are probably a worthy treatment option to try prior to surgeries like joint replacement. Research will tell us more in the next few years.

8. Carbohydrate periodization may be beneficial in some runners to enhance fat oxidation and decrease carbohydrate dependence. With this method, which is actually how I personally train, you perform slower runs without any carbohydrate supplementation and maybe even do some of your shorter easy runs in a fasted state. That works great for early morning runs before breakfast. Your faster or harder runs would still have more carbohydrate intake prior and/or during.

9. There are three running gait factors that consistently show the best relationships to injury in the research: overstriding forward of the body’s center of mass, excessive bounce (vertical oscillation), and excessive compliance (body instability) at mid-stance of the running stride.

10. The gluteus medius muscle actually generates more force to stabilize the pelvis during mid-stance than the gluteus maximus when running on a flat surface at endurance speeds. Which is why it’s so important to get it functioning appropriately in endurance runners. The gluteus medius is notoriously weak and underactive in endurance athletes and that is reinforced by the repetition of moving in a single direction. You need to learn what it feels like to keep the pelvis level and stable while running and if you can’t do that, please come see me. I always prefer to teach people how to use their hip muscles in standing because the Jane Fonda leg raises lying on your side are typically performed incorrectly, and the leg raises don’t transfer into the actual way we use these muscles.

11. Any coach or clinician that thinks they are accurately measuring joint angles on a two dimensional video or image is doing their client or patient a disservice. The angle values they are measuring are likely incorrect, especially if they aren’t using body markers.

group run

16 surefire ways to get and stay injured from running

Nobody wants to be injured. Let’s review a few ways in the coming days that runners typically hurt themselves and maybe you won’t have to join that club.

1. Chasing after specific mileages. Yes, for performance gains, you should have objective and defined goals. Certainly those can be related to mileage. But there’s more to healthy and successful running than miles per week. When a runner focuses too heavily on a certain mileage each week it doesn’t take into account many factors: the intensity of those miles, the terrain, the weather, the lack of sleep because you stayed up later than usual on a couple nights, the extra shift you picked up at work, your nutrition, and so on. You must account for all of the various types of stresses you have in order to stay healthy. Don’t be blinded by the numbers. Don’t get greedy. Improvement is a long and gradual process, and there is no equation or sum total of miles that leads to running nirvana. You can’t level up like it’s a video game after collecting mileage coins.

2. Being unwilling to diverge from your cookie-cutter workout plan. How many times have you heard “listen to your body?” If you are sick or noticing the start of a slight niggle of an injury, don’t try to stubborn your way through while hoping the luck gods take pity on you. Weigh your options. Do you have more to gain or lose by completing three more of the Runner’s World website-prescribed 400 meter repeats on an aching calf? How much fitness would you really gain from that day of junk miles? When you are thrown a curveball it doesn’t mean you can’t get in a workout. It doesn’t mean your race in two weeks is now an impossibility. If you remain willing and ready to modify your plan at any time, it isn’t so traumatic to do so. You can become an exercise ninja, ready and able to adapt at any instant. That might mean cross training. It might mean rescheduling a hard day for a couple days later. It might mean taking a full rest day. It might mean completely ditching the plan you found doing a Google search.

3. Doing the same thing over and over. Doing the same thing over and over. Doing the same thing over and over. Doing the same thing over and over. Isn’t that annoying? Guess what? Your body thinks it’s pretty annoying when you run the same pace and distances all the time on the same roads and same sidewalks. Is it that uncomfortable to do something different? Unlikely. But that protective part of your brain will tell you it is a problem to deviate. I don’t personally understand this - I hate running the exact same routes and intensities all the time - but I’m a weird trail runner and road runners don’t associate with us weirdos. The pavement pounders seem more reluctant to purposely and drastically switch things up. Yes, there is some good that comes from a consistent training stimulus because the frequent loads actually helps prevent injury. But that’s better off being an AEROBIC effort in most amateur runners, which means you have to run slowly. No, slower than that. (Thank you not-so-accurate online pace calculator for messing this up.) EVEN slower. More like trotting at times. Especially since we have these things called hills. What most runners do is train a bit too hard, too often, so it becomes a different stimulus. They sit just on the edge of discomfort, drifting past a high aerobic effort and into tempo pace, which is ANAEROBIC metabolism. That’s not something you should do for several runs in a week. You’ll get faster doing that, for a little while, but it’s not sustainable and eventually leads to every runner’s fear: a performance plateau. I’m giving you permission to not make every run hurt.

4. Ignoring overall athleticism and strengthening. I’m going to keep harping on this one until at least the year 2025. If you have no variability in your movement, you are asking for trouble to occur at some point. If you aren’t strength training and doing something to improve and explore the way your body moves as an overall athlete, running itself will not keep you healthy for very long. It might take a few years, but the problems will come. The muscles and nervous system demand frequent challenge, or they gradually begin to lose optimal function. You won’t detect it at first, but it’s no great mystery of physiology that we start to lose strength beyond the age of 30. Running doesn’t keep anyone strong or powerful. (Though it’s certainly better than doing nothing.) Performing strength work even once per week is a potent stimulus if you work hard.

5. Discounting the role of your routine posture and activities. I bet you thought about sitting up taller when you read the word POSTURE. Our daily lifestyle has more to do with getting injured than most people realize. One of the most common and detrimental issues I see in the clinic is that frequent sitting tightens the hip flexors on the front of the body. This keeps you from using the big gluteus maximus muscles that should produce a ton of force to propel a runner forward. So people begin to use the quads and hip flexors even more, the pendulum of the running stride shifts forward from its ideal location, and the cycle continues. It’s not as simple of a fix as just doing a couple hip strengthening items twice a week. The low back, neck, and thoracic regions are also areas that adapt negatively, thus shifting your body into an overall poor alignment. Mobility is lost. Strength is lost. Overall movement changes and there are eventual consequences.

6. Using the workout plan of a runner who is of a higher ability level. You know, because if they got better with this plan then surely you will get better and run just like them in a couple months. Nevermind that they have different genetics, better running technique, and 13 more years of running experience. Plus, they have full hip and ankle joint movement and muscle control that you lost 8 years ago thanks to your desk job. Yes, clearly all of the details are all the same. I always wonder how many people try to mimic the workouts of elite endurance athletes when they end up on a website somewhere. Just because the pro marathoner does back-to-back long runs doesn’t mean you should for your first marathon.

7. Listening to people who have no actual expertise but are ready to use you as their own personal guinea pig and offer plenty of untested advice for your training or injury recovery. I know this is often done in innocence, but that doesn’t make it any less concerning. Perhaps a more advanced athlete invites you to run with them and you decide to follow their workout or are too embarrassed to put forth any effort less than they are performing. The other athlete can mean no harm but may not really analyze the many possible scenarios that will impact your individual health. Them: “This is what my coach had me do.” You: “Oh my god, you have a coach, you must know what you are talking about.” People often do the same thing when they are injured. Them: “When I had plantar fasciitis the personal trainer told me to just do this stretch to my foot every day and not run and then it seemed like it got better in a couple months.” You: “I guess I should do that stretch everyday and not run.” Wait, you are taking secondhand advice about treating an injury from a personal trainer? I hope they have additional credentials!

8. Not having fun. If it’s not fun, you’ll eventually burn out, which is the ultimate injury. Training variation can keep things fresh and interesting. Strength and plyometric training will help your running, so don’t shy away from it if you enjoy that type of exercise. If you are the competitive road racing type, maybe you need to train for an adventure race, triathlon, mountain bike race, or trail running race. Try Crossfit (but don’t get hurt) or play rec league soccer. Or even leave running altogether for a few months, not that I ever would encourage someone to do such a thing. Sometimes people do appreciate their running more and can actually improve performance and decrease injuries when they have been away from running for awhile. If you aren’t having fun, what is the point? To make yourself routinely miserable? Find something you actually enjoy and keeps you healthy. 

9. Thinking an injury is gone just because an initial pain has subsided. Your nervous system is super smart. It can decrease the amount certain muscles work when moving and use an alternative strategy if doing so leads to less pain. It can shift the demand to other muscles to still get the movement done with the same total force output. Most people won’t have any awareness of this change in muscle activity. The initial area of injury may never flare up again, but many times when another pain arrives, the real problem isn’t where the newest pain is occurring. For example, low back or gluteus maximus pain leading to an Achilles tendon pain months to years later. This inhibition of muscle activity is clearly not ideal if those muscles were working just fine prior to the initial injury. Traditionally people (clinicians included) mistakenly try to rehab the area of current pain when they ought to be emphasizing something else. Prior injury matters.

10. Not taking any easy days. Running is supposed to be hard! Running is supposed to hurt! I’m going to do high intensity intervals every time I run! And that’s four days every week right now but I’m going to work my way up to five days! What...the...heck? Why? Can we talk about how much I’m not impressed by Instagram photos of people “crushing it” multiple times each week? I get that there’s a satisfaction in showing off your hard work. But no one with any real longevity in endurance sport trains this way (because it’s unsustainable). Anaerobic efforts, like intervals and tempo work, are super helpful to improve fitness, technique, and speed - but are not necessary for every workout. Easy, slow distance miles just don’t give the sexy social impression that interval work creates. If you want to run for only five, maybe ten years, then go ahead, do crazy intervals for every run. To summarize a phrase from fellow PT Christopher Johnson: runners run at 80% effort 80% of the time which leads to an injury occurrence of up to 80%. Strive to stay in the 20%! Use a heart rate monitor, power meter, or monitor your breathing to truly keep tabs on your intensity. Pace is a poor measure of intensity for many runners but that’s what people rely on because it’s simple.

11. Not recognizing the importance of recovery time and being proactive in your recovery techniques. Yes, I know you are busy. But do you want to run a handful of years or do you want to run for decades? Each day you should have a goal, and that goal doesn’t always have to be increasing speed, fitness, or strength. Recovery time can be broken into active and passive methods. Easy running days should be active recovery days, meaning they aren’t intended to gain you fitness but they are intended to make you feel loosened up and healthy. It’s still exercise. You should be able to finish an easy aerobic run and say “I could easily do that again.” On the passive side, learn a couple techniques to directly work on your muscle, tendon, and fascial tissues. Get yourself a lacrosse ball and a massage stick and use them at least three times a week on your major leg muscle groups to break up those funky tender and hard spots you have inevitably created in your legs. If you aren’t familiar with any muscle self-treatment techniques, check out “The Roll Model” by Jill Miller or “Becoming a Supple Leopard” by Kelly Starrett for ideas. Recovery time requires planning, just like the workouts. We create the muscle fiber adaptations to training gradually, while you aren’t training, so if you don’t allow enough time for that, when are the adaptations supposed to happen?

12. Not being proactive about your recovery from an injury. Instead of actually completing what’s required to recover from an injury, some athletes prefer to do nothing. It’s the wait-and-see approach. Our bodies want to heal, so rest typically decreases pain in the short-term. But it doesn’t address the root of the problem for recurring and long-lasting overuse injuries. Unfortunately, this is a common practice among injured athletes, who routinely take a couple days of rest before trying to resume their typical training without any modification. If the pain just started a couple days prior and is getting better quickly because you did your due diligence, that’s one thing. But it’s an entirely different scenario when you’ve had persistent pain for a couple weeks, a month, maybe longer. Clearly rest isn’t the solution at that point. Some people avoid proper treatment because they are afraid of getting worse or delaying what little progress they’ve made if they attempt something new (like seeing a PT, massage therapist, or chiro). Or maybe a negative experience treating a prior injury leads to reluctance in discovering the best ways to treat a current injury. Some are fearful that nothing can be done to help their injury and they would be wasting their time to try other tactics. More often than not, doing nothing doesn’t get you very far. While adequate rest is oftentimes an integral part of the recovery process, it should never be considered the sole means to addressing an injury.

13. Relying on medications to control symptoms. Medications, whether it be pills or injections, are not a viable long-term solution to a mechanical overuse injury problem. As athletes, when we get injured, we naturally look for the quickest solution that would allow us to return to training without pain. And because you are working hard in training, there’s little energy or time left to devote to active injury recovery techniques. While NSAIDs and corticosteroid injections have their place in orthopedic medicine, they rarely, if ever, provide a long-term relief of symptoms or resolution of an overuse injury. And let’s not forget the well documented side effects that these medications have when used with frequency.

14. Trying to conform too rigidly to a supposedly ideal running technique. We all move differently. There are certainly some good components to things like Chi Running and the Pose Method but on some level you gotta do you to accomplish the task at hand. We were built for movement variation, so why not take advantage of that? You improve and become efficient at the things you work on most, meaning you will get faster if you work on speed specifically. Or you will gain endurance from emphasizing more long aerobic efforts. But there are also running form changes that come with mixing up your speed. Mindless running at the same pace, in a straight line, and on flat terrain doesn’t exactly encourage you to learn what is efficient for a given demand. Good runners are efficient at a variety of running paces. They know exactly how much effort to put into their movement to achieve a specific result. You don’t want the same muscles producing the same force in the same range of mobility with every practice run. Your nervous system, which is ultimately responsible for how your muscles work, will become efficient at running that one pace only. And if your most efficient form can only be performed at one pace, don’t expect that you will have the movement skills to stay uninjured and efficient if there is as need to run at other speeds (faster or slower). This problem becomes obvious in those who say, “I can run 10:00/mile pace but as soon as I go faster I start having pain at my _________.” Performing 5-10 second long strides/striders during or after a run can be helpful in teaching you how to propel your body forward quickly and efficiently but without the fatigue or technique breakdown that occurs with long intervals. They are especially helpful if you have little to no speedwork experience. And it’s okay to sustain a slower, trotting pace at times too. Also, don’t obsess over how your foot is contacting the ground (heel vs. midfoot vs. forefoot). Current research indicates that the location of where your foot contacts the ground relative to your center of mass matters more. We should be able to use any of those types of foot contacts depending on the situation (uphill, downhill, flat, loose rocks, etc.) The more varied your overall training, the more capable you will be of tolerating technique changes and running with your own best stride.

15. Believing you can rely solely on rest once you have signs of injury. Yes, there are times for rest, but they should be kept brief for tendon and muscle overuse injuries.

Runner: I’ll just rest for a week and that will take care of it.

Me: No, it won’t.

Runner: But rest took care of it when I had this injury a couple years ago.

Me: Did it? Apparently it didn’t or it wouldn’t have happened AGAIN. The real problem was never addressed. This thing has just been biding its time, always remaining a weak link, probably in conjunction with other problems of strength and mobility outside the area where you actually have the pain. The moment you have a training error, like running faster or further, it’s the first thing to break.

Runner: Oh. Well, I’ll just rest until the end of the week and then do my long run on Saturday.

Me: Did you hear anything I just said? *Pounds head on table.*

Our bodies adapt most favorably post-injury with controlled, specific stresses on the injured tissue. The best stress to place on a healing tissue isn’t more running either. If running was the cure then it wouldn’t continue to provoke long-term pain. Running places very high loads, thousands of times on the legs, hips, and torso. This requires a certain amount of muscle strength be in place to perform running safely. Strength that many runners don’t actually have when they start a running program. People too often try to gain fitness running but they don’t have the basic strength-based fitness necessary to run safely in the first place. So while you are resting the pain away, the strength isn’t increasing, is it?

16. Not trusting in the process of proper training by becoming impatient. We want it now, at broadband speeds, not dial up! So many runners do all their runs at a high intensity, assuming that strategy is the fastest way to improve. And many newer runners of all ages do find quick success as they make rapid cardiorespiratory gains. But three years into their careers, they start breaking down because the muscles, tendons, joints, and bones just can’t adapt with the rate of improvement the way cardiorespiratory fitness can. People that are hurt frequently aren’t able to train consistently so they stay injured and don’t reach a very high performance level, at least not for very long.

Instead, you should trust the training process and limit high intensity workouts to once or twice a week. You should work hard enough on the hard days to promote gains and then let recovery do its job. The performance gains you should expect from a single hard workout will be very small, if not imperceptible. In reality, much of succeeding is slowly and methodically putting in your time and simply remaining consistent at lower intensities. You have to think long-term. Like at least six months. There are no shortcuts to success.

If you like to run fast, you can do it frequently if you keep the durations VERY short with striders, which are great to perfect and maintain your form as often as every run. Most amateurs could improve their running technique anyway, so this will be time well spent. Then transition that better technique into your longer but less frequent (1-2x/week) intervals and tempo runs.

Some questions to think about:

• Are your intensities and volumes during hard days and longest runs sustainable across a several month span of time?

• Can you feel just  about fully recovered from any workout in two days or less?

• Can you add an extra easy run or cross training day during the week and not feel destroyed after it?

• Could you have done one more hard interval at that same pace?

• Could you repeat that entire easy run all over again as soon as you completed it and still feel good?

If you are answering no, you might want to back off your need for crushing it a smidge. You can only go to the well so often in a short period of time. If you want to improve while staying uninjured, over the long haul your goals should be consistently good technique, sustainable and repeatable hard efforts, frequent but brief exposure to fast running, and frequently being active at lower aerobic levels.

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