Apr-B-7
The
11th Annual Running of the Bull Run Run Fifty Miler Ultra
April
12, 2003
It
is as good as it could get!
Given the fact that one must run through
over-the-ankles mud, and repeatedly cross flood-swollen creeks and a river
through an over-the-knees fording, trip over roots and roller-bearing rocks on
the riverine hills of the up-and-down steep banks of the Occoquon Reservoir on
a windy day following a week of cold rain, it was superb!
Right
now, I am moving about the way I would imagine that a ninety-year-old me would
look like from a distance, and I am thinking "This is how many people feel
like all the time!"
But,
it is worth it: I have done what I had set out to do and performed as well as i
could expect, even thought every piece of my technology failed around me. It was a hard, honest and very messy Fifty
Plus Miler--an Ultra that was run on Wilderness Trails all within the close-in
range of Derwood. One would never
believe that, as we run through deserted wilderness, often out of sight of each
other, and surely out of view of any houses or other buildings, that we are
actually in a very populous county of northern Virginia. And the rocks are as hard as they are i the
mountain runs I have done for my prior Ultras, and the roots are as persistent
in snagging feet. But the streams are
deeper at the fordings and the mud is stickier and sucks the feet--especially
those shod with shiny new white Reebok Premiers--right out of sight. The single set of socks I wore throughout
the run, despite two extra sets stored in the drop bag at the Hemlock Overlook
aid station and the one set in my hydration backpack, were abandoned at the
race's end, as I walked into the showers at the Campground to wash me and the
running shoes, abandoning the muddy socks and the mudcaked gear. I did not think it worthwhile to change
socks or shoes after running through mud and rivers when fifty yards ahead, I
would hit the same terrain. So, this
might be considered the morning after, with the "Thrill of Victory and the
Agony of De Feet."
I
can still experience these adventure events, but there are gremlins on the
loose that are determined that I should not be able to record any of them in
Audio, Photo, or Narrative text---every piece of such equipment is crashed and
burned--several beyond any rescue or repair.
I hope that is not true of the biologic functions, which are very creaky, and have to get back to
high-performance quickly, since these are the only consistent features that
will be going on with me to take on the next challenge---which is a trip today,
as seems often to occur, crawling onto an aircraft after a long and stiffening
endurance run---as I move on through four venues and events to end in the
Boston Marathon's 107th Running---quite an encore to an Ultra Run!
Daily
cold rain whipped through every day this week, and I had a "productive
cough"--the only productive thing about me was the cold that I picked up
at the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler in the pre-dawn as I was a traffic marshall on
the Spring Forward Day before Joe and I took off on our good rapid run in which
we "negative split" each consecutive mile of the Ten Miler. I was going to try to do a few recovery runs
after this event, but the weather and my cold kept me mainly staring off into
space when minimally awake. Meanwhile,
the rain kept falling and another danger was added to the hypothermia---a flood
watch throughout the area of Virginia where we would be running. To expect it to be a bit muddy was a good
guess--but there were some streams we would have to cross that would not be
"over the shoes" only---but over the waist, more likely, making being
"swept away" a real possibility.
Scott Mills, the Race Director, shortened the northern Loop to
accommodate this risk, and added the three miles taken off the top of the long
"Figure Eight" to the Bottom Loop by having us "re-do" and
extended "Do Loop"--overcompensating, so that we made more mileage in
this run than the advertised Fifty---just like the Big Horn Ultra--which is
52.3 miles.
I
got up on Friday morning and dressed in the warm-up duds with the Bronco packed
for a lot of options on what I might think I might need for the runs. It was not that I had nothing else to think
about, since the first thing on Friday morning's schedule was a visit by Dale
Kramer, who brought me the revised house renovation plans, and the four part
extensions of the earlier already extensive and expensive architectural
plans. It is now the case that the
house is now undergoing and "addition" and revision; now, in the
remodeling trade, it is called a "GUT." That is, now the whole house is being redone, with walls moved
and all doors and windows and casements being replaced and on all three
floors--finishing the basement, overhauling the whole first floor, and totally
re-doing the upstairs. The first and immediate implication of this is that
"Everything Must Go." Chief
among those "every things" is I.
So, I must move out, and everything there must be sorted, packed and
locked away in storage---probably a full-size container. I had been trying to envision a site for a
pad for such a container, that later would be useful as a site for a trailer or
truck, and accessible enough, not only to load it, but also to get the
container out of there after all the additions and remodeling is complete. I can almost see the dust and walls come
atumblin' down, which will be the status for the next year, making it look a
lot like the remodeling project that has gone on in Downtown Baghdad in the
presidential palaces. So, I had been
trying to call "Re-location" services, container companies, and had
suspended my search for the big truck that is awaiting inspection on the
Eastern Shore.
A couple of other nettlesome items were also bugging
me, one being my expungemnt and replacement as the MCRRC running team
representative on the Ultra Run, which is how I got signed in to this event in
the first place. But, I will look into
that later when there will be other issues resolved. So, with the Bronco packed for a long run, I drove out I-66 to
Clifton Virginia and a quaint old Civil War era town, with the houses labeled
as to the historic events that had transpired in or around them.
George Mason University has an "Outdoor
Education Center" here called "Hemlock Overlook" which has
accommodations for overnighting--bunks and showers and plumbing, where the
"VHTRC" was hosting this "Eleventh Battle of the North vs the
South." I am a registered
Northerner, and had also paid for the pasta dinner and the overnight
accommodation at the bunks. I picked up
my packet and also met with a couple of friends who had run the Antarctic
marathon as well as one of the Big Horn Ultras with me. There was a book on Ultra Running on sale,
which advertised quotes form Ian Torrence.
Our "Pasta dinner" was long on protein (mainly fish and
cheese) and low on pasta, but we chowed down and drank a lot of fluid--which we
would remember during the course of the very short night. Scott Mills, the race director and a very
accomplished "Western States 100" Ultra Runner is the race director
and gave the briefing. The
"Virginia Happy Trails Running Club" was founded principally to
support this fifty miler race along the civil war earthworks along the battle
fields of the first and second battles of Bull Run--the name of the stream
along which we would be running.
After dinner, I spread out the new NFS sleeping
bag and pad on the bunk and turned in , as did almost everyone else, incuding
three young Air Force Cadets from the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy. We were mostly quiet but not very sleepy n
the sleeping bags through the short night with a good deal of getting up to pee
out the hydrations fluids an some restless tossing, as well as one fellow who
was talking in his sleep, presumably about impending doom.
I
did manage to carry the sleeping bag back to the Bronco at the pre-dawn hour
and sneak an energy bar and a short drink of Gatorade. I stripped of the warm-up pants and down to
tee shirt with long sleeves, and struggled to put on the new hydration
backpack, but did not have time to instill any fluid in it---this was the start
of a long day two quarts down. I had
the first of the major equipment failures---the audiotape failed, after I had
selected out eight hours of taped books to listen to---I need that MP-3 badly
now, that I had just ordered a 128Meg memory Smart media Card for it on
Friday. So, I jettisoned the tapes and
player, and had just the disposable camera in hand with half the pictures
already taken of the Cherry Blossoms.
At 6:15 AM 140 endurance ultra-Runners toed the line, and off we went.
Almost immediately, I found what it would be
like---over the shoes splashing in runoff water toward Bull Run. And, worse, when we came down to the
slippery stream bank, it was over the ankles mud. I hopped over rocks and roots, and tried to thread my way around
obstacles in a crowd of single file runners.
Then came the first shock. We came to a slippery mud bank heading down
toward a major stream, where two "lifeguards" were directing
us--"Stay left upstream!" It
took me a while to realize what they were saying: plunge in at the deepest
point where there is a gravel bottom, and not where there is a pool with a muddy
bottom lower down. I hesitated,
then--new Reebok Supreme and white socks and I--off the high dive and into the
stream. There was a shout behind me as
one of the runners went down in the stream. I was just over my knees, but
obviously, someone had taken the full plunge, and was being cheered on the
breaststroke across. I scrambled up the
far side into what looked like a plowed filed for rice planting in a
paddy. I slipped and slopped, and
skidded around until I started climbing again.
About six miles in, I started seeing the front-runners turn back toward
us, and I spotted several of my MCRRC friends and gave them cheers. Among them was Vasilli Triantos, a fixture o
the Ultra Circuit, and Michelle Burr, a superb long distance woman athlete, who
was hospitalized in coma with hyponatremia at the Vermont 100 last year after
being on course to win. She and I had
posed at the morning "Moment of Silence" for our deployed troops, and
I said, I was standing between the winners.
She responded, "Now that's pressure!" But, win she did!
At the first Aid Station, I asked to have my
backpack bladder filled with Gatorade, and they took it out and filled it, then
being unable to get the full bag back into the backpack, so they took stuff out
like my extra socks and rearranged the detachable fanny pack, and event that
would cause trouble later. So,
equipment failure number two: I sucked hard on the siphon and could not get any
fluid back as hard as I worked on it.
Now, I was annoyed to be carrying extra fluid weight that was not
accessible to me. Bummer Number
Two---and not still as bad as the Number Three failure coming up at Mile 17.
I ran back along the muddy course and came to the
plunge into the deep stream, which was noticeably less deep than before, coming
down quickly from the night's flood watch.
I kept an eye on my heart rate monitor--a piece of equipment that DID
work well through out the race. I kept
it at 140 for hours---and hours and hours.
At the return to the Hemlock Overlook Station
where we had started on completion of the Northern Loop, I got there in time to
drop off my now completed disposable camera, with the last photo taken of me
splashing across the stream. I pulled
out my sunglasses, glad to have dressed down to the point of "shivering at
the start of any endurance event"-my usual good rule of thumb.
There was a cold breeze, but the sun was up, and
it would be getting warmer during the later day--and we would be grateful for
the cool breeze in later afternoon---come along and make a day of it!
I took out of the backpack the plugged hydration
setup, and only got the siphon working three aid station later--and they were
spread out at six-mile intervals. But,
now the critical part---I took out my Nikon TeleTouch camera---the LAST of the
several I had bought, all of which had been stolen, borrowed or broken, so that
this was the functioning repaired one of the eight I had originally
bought. I had a new battery in it, and
a new roll of 36 exposures in film. I
looped the cord around my wrist, and zipped up the fanny pack, noting the extra
rolls of film, batteries and Petzel headlamp in side the pack, and tried again
to readjust the siphon.
And off I went--it now being almost 11:00 when I
pulled along the lower downstream Bull Run as it went to become the Occoquan
Reservoir--toward disastrous Mile 17. I
looked ahead and saw a very picturesque springtime steep hillside and the
Occoquan ahead of me and held up the camera to shoot a picture. It was at that point that the root caught my
right toe and I tripped forward in a splayed out crash on my outstretched right
hand--the one carrying the Nikon.
It smashed into pieces on a rock. I got up and checked to see I was still
intact, but my single most useful and reliable camera was now history and they
do not make this model anymore--the one I would be relying on to use in much of
Malawi and all of India coming up in the next months. Make that total meltdown of equipment failure number three.
I could not get the backpack off so I tried to reach
around and unzip the fanny pack compartment and stuff the pieces of the Nikon
in it just to avoid littering. At that
point everything in the fanny pack spilled out. I saw film, batteries and other things go out rolling. I tried to pick them up while runners were
running past me, and I scooped and zipped, and headed off toward the next aid
station at mile 18.
A woman named Cindy, form Solomon's Island at St
Mary's was just coming into the Aid Station and talking to the
volunteer--"Look here at this cute little light--what do you think it is
and how does it work?" I said
helpfully---"Oh, that is a Petzel, and it has this head band and uses
triple AAA batteries that I have in my pack.
I have got one just like it.
No, that was it!
She found my Petzel, with all the events it had helped me through in
operating in Malawi or climbing in the Himalayas and the sentiment behind
it--and had picked it up on the trail and was going to turn it in! This would have been the fourth disaster to
hit and the finishing touch at Mile 17!
AND, NOW IT IS TIME TO
RUN ON GUTS ALONE THROUGH A HIGH NOON
"MIDRACE AT THE
OASIS"
I began to run with no thoughts about the things
I had lost in technologic support on the race, but grateful that none of my
moving parts had yet failed me. There
were a few grinding noises in my left knee, but theses were treated by the fine
technique of ignoring them. With no objects in my hands--neither cameras (all
gone) nor audiobooks on tape players with spare cassettes (all gone) and the
backpack hydration bladder barely functional (occasionally)----well, it was
better to have some of the plumbing and technology smashed and all of the
biology still in working order, so that I could still experience, even if not
record, these events! I kept plugging
along, surprising myself that I had still never quit running.
There was an Aid Station ahead with pink
flamingos stuck out along the trail advertising itself as "Mid-Race in the
oasis"--and complete with grass skirts and luau costumes, the volunteers
gave us fluid and salt-dipped boiled potatoes.
I realized that it was a bit short of the marathon distance of 26.2
miles, which I ought to be able to do on a flat road rate of four hours, and it
was over six hours---with several further aid stations with cutoff times
closing in for a shut down of the race at 13 hours overall. This meant that I had to run the second
marathon on top of the first in a time faster than the first---that is, a
negative split. The southern loop was
not as wet as the northern loop, but it was much longer and hillier.
At some point I realized that I was now over half
way, but there was no end in sight except perhaps for the end of the day. I passed a couple of people who were limping
badly, having turned an ankle earlier.
I had doe that too--as had each runner in the race--but had not found an
injury secondary to it. I had now
started seeing a couple of runners running AT me, having completed the southern
loop, and on the return. They would be
back at the start line, which was the Finish Line, probably within eight hours
or more from their start, and would be showered up and changed in time for the
award ceremonies, which would begin around 6:00 PM, 12 hours after the race had
started, as I would be hoping to come in around that time. There would be a finish line ceremony as the
back of the pack came in, and each would get a standing ovation from the
celebrants. In the Big Horn Ultra I had
come in near last, since I always walked the gravel road at the end in order to
avoid the tightening up of the post-run rigor, but I thought I had better keep
on running to get myself out of the woods on this finish. I met a couple of pairs of people including
a couple of young women from Pennsylvania, and they were encouraged by the fact
that I was ahead of them, though twice their age, and a lot of cute commentary
about following my butt for inspiration went on in the banter until they fell
behind and out of sight. I met a fellow
walking, who had sprained his ankle early in the race, and went from cold
stream to the next soaking it and eating Motrin.
We got to an aid station at a point where there
was a nexus of the coming and the going of the group doing the "Do
Loop". Here I met a few of the
MCRRC Team that were almost seven miles ahead of me, but wearing down. As I saw each successive runner coming at
me, I would count down the number of the order in which they returned, and also
give their rank order for the women. I
saw a fast woman coming in the eleventh overall position as the first woman
runner. I then saw Michelle Burr and sang out that she was number seventeenth
overall and the second woman. She
thanked me for that (as nearly all did whom I gave their rank order in the
field that was passing me of the front runners) and saw Vasilli who was also up
there in the top teens. By the time I
got to the 150 range, I knew that even the half of the pack was coming back at
me and I stopped counting out the rank order of each passer and started
concentrating on just running steadily at the ideal range of my heart rate
--probably about 60% of maximum effort around 140---for
hours on end. I saw one more aid
station out on the do loop, and beyond that, a Ford Fairlane and the famous
Nash Rambler along the last loop near the Occoquan Reservoir--some of the only
evidence of "trash" in this wilderness woods that has not been picked
up and cleaned out, a lot of it by the REI wilderness maintenance teams in
which Mark nelson has been so instrumental in trail building and keeping. I saw Ed Schultze, who has been leading the
construction of the Greenway Trail along with Mark in the Montgomery County
area. He pointed out that I would be
passing a few deer along the do loop.
It got hot and hard. It was a long, long lonely way and a lot of up and down
hill. I would run as best I could up
hill, consciously stretching the contracting muscles of the legs on the
inclined slopes, and then walking down the far side to avoid hammering the
quads. I kept on plugging until I
returned to two of the aid stations I had passed earlier. I went into the "automaton mode"
and just reeled in mile after mile.
I came upon a fallen runner with his buddy
standing over him at about 43 miles. He
was lying down holding his gut, since he was having retching and dry
heaves. His race was over, but probably
so also was his buddy's who just stood there, to be with him while I ran on for
help to send back water and helpers from the next aid station about two miles
further. I ran on as the messenger.
There was a dark haired woman ahead of me, who
had obsessed over the fact that she was going to be disqualified on the basis
of time if she did not keep hammering "I have GOT to have that
"finisher's fleece" she had said.
I pointed out to her that she could walk, or even crawl from this point,
and she would be in by 13 hours. Far
from getting her to relax, this caused her to push forward on a faster
run. I started reeling in a few
runners, and passed several, each of whom were limping or had some kind of
trouble--another one complaining of dry heaves, who had only Gatorade with him
and no water, saying just unscrewing the lid from the Gatorade bottle he was
carrying would induce a series of the retchings.
I went through the last aid station and heard
that there were about twenty seven runners behind me. I kept on running steadily, now knowing that I was going to
finish well within the cutoff time, but also that if I kept on running without
ever walking, I would pass a number still out in front of me. The young pair of women came up on me, still
making small talk about my cute little ass, and they passed, but I lapped them
on the next hill, which did not seem to encourage them as much as had their
running behind me. Nonetheless, at the
end we were the closest finishers "Girl Friends!"
At long last, with the sun hitting the tops of
the ridges over Bull Run, I took off my sunglasses, put them in the "GU
Pocket" on the back of my long-distance Endurance Runner's shorts, taking
out the last of the energy gels I would use, and pulling long on the Gatorade
in the backpack--probably more to lighten my load on my back than to hydrate--I
started my final approach to the trail's end.
I realized I had not peed much or often, and that I had drunk about eight
liters. I realized also that I was
about five pounds down, and also knew that if I stopped and stiffened up, I
would not even be able to walk, let alone run.
I heard a PA system, and heard a roaring cheering
crowd, about five hundred meters ahead and around a left run into the
Finish. I decided to kick it. I hit the turn at full speed and with about
three hundred yards to go---just like the last 356 yards of the marathon after
the 26 mile point, I sprinted in with the "V-sign" on both hands held
high, and corresponding cheers from the bleachers of a lot of seated folk
wearing a gray fleece with the Bull Run Run finisher’s logo. As I approached it, the big time clock just
turned over to 12---30--00. I was ahead
of about thirty finishers within the final half hour, and however many
disqualified finishers there would be following them.
I shook hands with race director Scott Mills, and
went up the hill to collect my finisher's fleece. Behind me came one of the Air Force Cadets--a bunk mate of mine--one-third
my age and five places back.
TO
THE SHOWERS, AND A STIFF RIDE HOME, FOR A FINAL PACKING UP FOR THE TRIP OUT
TOMORROW
I returned to the bunks, got out a towel and
walked into the showers with the muddy Reeboks. I washed them out, but left the new white anklet socks still
caked with mud--a disposable one-trip accessory. There was lighthearted banter of the guys still in the showers,
and a lot of blisters. A number of them
were checking for ticks, with a half dozen reported. I did not look that carefully, but I also did not spend any time
lying around in the grass.
Only after I had cleaned up did I slip into the
comfortable fleece--to be worn proudly--as I posed with my air force cadet
companions and the race director, as volunteers were packing up the finish line
stuff and finishing off the final pizzas of the 100 finish line pizzas that had
been ordered. I slowly walked as
deliberately as I could to the Bronco and took out the two liter Gatorade bottle
I had put in it, and chugged it all. It
would be another 18 hours before I would pee, and that was another three liters
later. I was a bit drowsy, but still
could navigate the I-66 and beltway up to Derwood. But getting out of the Bronco and making three trips out to
unpack the Bronco was less easy, and less easier still was the fact that I kept
dropping things. Getting down to pick
them up was not an easily engineered task, and some I left for the morning when
I was not sure it would be any easier.
Right now I just wanted to go to bed, and climbed the stairs slowly
after one last Gatorade hit, saying out loud:
"Who am I to complain? Some folk feel like this almost all the time!"