2012 Cheat Mountain Moonshine Madness 50 mile race report
About a year ago we decided to cash in our
Avios/Airmiles (accrued after years of consumer slavery to Tesco, and
converted from Clubcard points) on a trip to New York. The rough plan
was to spend a few days in NYC at each end of a 2 week holiday and do
"something else" in the middle period. That someothing else formed into a
plan for Mrs.Repo and I to each do a race somewhere within reasonable
driving distance of NY.
With a pretty free itinerary and a minimal understanding of the geography of the US I spent a few hours intensively Googling US running sites and came up with the On The Rocks 30k trail run in York, Pennsylvania for Mrs.R and the Cheat Mountain Moonshine Madness in West Virginia for me the following weekend. CMMR is a 50 mile overnight trail race and it started on August 24th, my 50th birthday, so it seemed like a neat coincidence.
Our eldest kids are both at uni and consequently disbarred from family holidays on the be grounds that they are already causing more financial distress than the Greek economy. This meant that we were travelling relatively light with just 8 year old Daniel for company.
A well as doing a couple of races a second sub narrative for the trip was to eat as much bad food as possible, taking in places featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives as well as whatever random Deli sandwiches, foot long hot dogs and fried food covered in syrup, pancakes and chocolate chips that we could fit in. Which turned out to be quite a lot. It was the Michael Phelps diet without the swimming, and anything without swimming is always good.
After a few days intensive sightseeing in New York we picked up the sensible family hatchback and set off towards Pennsylvania:
Arriving in York it looked highly unlikely that a trail race would be happening anywhere nearby as the town seemed to consist of nothing but sprawling retail parks, motels and one of the Harley Davidson plants. However the night before the race we went for,a recce to find to find the race HQ nad just a few miles out of town we drove up into a gorgeous wooded area with marked running trails radiating from a central visitor centre / picnic area. I ran 2 or 3 miles round one of the trails to confirm that my new bitch tits probably could do with more support, and that running 2 or 3 miles was quite a challenge. It was hilly too.
Registration the next morning confirmed that folks involved in trail running in the US are extremely nice people and after signing on Carole lined up to start at 07.30. Alongside the 30k (2 laps) there was a 15k (1 lap) a 10k and a 5k walk which Daniel and I decided to enter on the line. All miles in the bank.
To cut a long story short it was a great (albeit low key) race although Carole managed to get chronically lost on the first lap meaning that she ended up running at least 35k overall. Daniel and I did get quite worried when she still hadn't come through lap 1 after 2 hrs + but obviously not worried enough to get up off the grassy bank that we were sunbathing on and go and look for her. When we did see her an hour or so later I mistakenly thought she was still on the first lap and encouraged her to retire. This didn't go down well as she was hot knackered, bruised from a bad fall and actually on lap 2 within 2 or 3 miles of the finish. She ended up first in her age group though. OK, also the only one in her age group but a wins a win.
We spent the next few days in Washington area sightseeing (fantastic city: Smithsonian museums are all amazing and free). Food highlights were the Tune Inn in Washington (fried roast beef sandwich) and Brick Oven Pizza in Baltimore. As fans of The Wire we were disappointed not to see McNulty shagging a drunken bar fly on the bonnet of his car under a flyover but he may have been working days that week.
Washington's Finest:
After Washington we headed South West via Virginia and through the Blue Ridge Mountains towards West Virginia. Food highlight was the overnight stop in Harissonburg: dinner in The Little Grill, a small workers co-op restaurant complete with 4 piece folk band playing mountain music. Fantastic burrito, although disappointingly healthy and organic.
The night before my race day we stayed at a log cabin motel in Seneca Rocks, one of the main climbing spots in the area and about 40 miles from Beverly, where the race would be starting. Pre-race dinner was in a sports bar: Philly cheese steak, 20 chicken wings, fries and beer.
I woke up on my 50th birthday one bra size bigger and with the prospect of a 50 mile race starting at 21.00 that night. Mrs. R really came up trumps with a trip to Milan and the Lambretta museum for my birthday which was an extremely cool present and a welcome distraction. The idea of it that is, we didn't actually do the trip that day. We had most of the day to kill before registration opened at 17.00 so we had a quick look around Elkins and Beverly and managed to fit in a light brunch of steak, 3 eggs, pancakes, syrup, and hash browns with chesse and jalapeños. Mindful of the race later, I sensibly opened for a smoothie to drink, but only because beer didn’t seem to be available.
Race HQ was at the 4H camp which looked to be the sort of place where West Virginian kids go to summer camp. And probably get murdered in lakes. Our growing sense of the hill-billiness of the area was compounded when we met the wife of the camp caretaker who kept making us to talk to hear our accents. I should add that she was bare foot, wearing a smock dress, had her hair in bunches and was completely toothless. She also had a bloodhound, a bearded husband and I think even his guns were carrying guns.
I registered and met the Race Director Adam who had been very helpful with kit advice before the race and was a really nice fella. Loads of very lean and tanned people were starting to arrive so I fitted right in. I spent an hour or so before the race talking to Bill who had done each of the 4 earlier CMMM races and whose 200ft long truck was parked by us. He told us that the bear hunting season had just started and that we may well hear hunting dogs on the trail. He also casually pulled some shotgun shells out of his pocket saying that he had been killing groundhogs in his yard earlier that day.
The temperature was now cooling into the 70s and it was clear that shorts and a short sleeve top would be fine for the race so I got changed, ditching taping my feet in favour of my new Drymax socks which have an excellent reputation in US ultra circles. Despite the promise of well stocked feed stations I still took a Salomon pack, 1.5 litres of Nuun and plenty of food, gels and drugs. And a waterproof, just in case.
At 20.00 Adam gave the race briefing in the camp canteen and after a bit more light faffing it was time to assemble on the start line. The Star Spangled Banner was sung at 20.55, and with night setting in and head torches on I edged towards the back of the pack of 100 or so runners and the gun sounded at 21.00.
With crew:
The start:
The general overview of the course was 6,000 ft or so of climbing (although my Garmin recorded 8,000) run over a mixture of about 30 miles of forest fire roads and 20 miles of densely wooded single track. Race HQ was at about 2,000ft and the course rose to 4,000ft+. It was kinda 15 miles up, 20 miles of up and down in the trees and 15 miles down again or to put it pictorially –
As usual my race preparation was, ahem, economical, meaning that I hadn’t done much since a frankly pathetic hobble around the Outlaw in July. I had however done a 15 mile / 3,000ft run in Glossop a couple of weeks before comfortable inside my target pace and a fair amount of run mileage leading up to my failed Enduroman 100 attempt in June. I wasn’t too phased by the distance and climb, but the dark and micro-terrain were unknowns. (Well, I know what the dark is, but you know what I mean)
I knew the first 15 miles were going to be a long slog and I was pleased to find that most people in the back half of the field where I had seeded myself were taking it quite easy in the first mile or two and as the gradients steepened over the rolling ascent most people were walking to conserve energy for the long night ahead. I did too, but made a conscious effort to power walk at a brisk pace and let gravity do its thing on the flip side descents. The light from the half moon was almost adequate to illuminate the fire roads but I kept my Fenix head torch on a low setting and hand torch er…handy…just to peer into the woods either side when I heard dogs barking which I did within a few miles.
The temperature was very comfortable and running in shorts at night was great. The easy pace meant that I was able to chat to a few folks around me and had brief conversations with a mining engineer, a pastor and a postman. They seemed to range from people stepping up from the marathon to pretty seasoned ultra runners with multiple 100 mile races to their credit. As ever a bit of chat and banter distracted me from the relentless climb and pretty soon I was at Aid Station 1/8 after 5.7 miles. Despite lots of goodies on offer I just had a quick drink and headed straight off as everything – including my feet –felt OK.
The next leg was the longest between aid stations at 7.2 miles but still passed fairly comfortably with plenty of headlights still visible up and down the trail. I had been worried about navigation but the course was well marked with reflective tapes hanging from the trees every so often and double tapes at any turns. Adam had explained at the briefing that these work much better than glow sticks and he was dead right. My power walking up the steeper parts was still working well and I was surprisingly keen to get back to running when I could. Notwithstanding this it was a relentless climb but one that would become my best friend on the way back.
All the aid stations were fantastic, manned by cheerful and helpful volunteers and very well stocked with water, coke, Succeed energy drink and whatever goodies the aid station captain had provided. Typically the aid station would be announced by a succession of lanterns or glow sticks for a few hundred meters along the trail beforehand, creating a welcome sense of anticipation. The peanut butter and jam sandwiches looked particularly good so I had a few of those (sadly they didn’t offer to fry them for me), a handful of jellies a cookie and a precautionary salt tablet and ibuprofen from my pack. I was still carrying plenty of fluid so cracked on again with something like 2hrs 45 or so on the clock, comfortably within the cut off schedule of 13 hours, and my vague target of 12 hours. Despite a welcome looking camp fire I didn’t hang around and plunged left into the woods for the first of the single track sections.
The woods changed the dynamic of the race completely. Immediately we were into almost complete tree cover and consequently almost complete darkness. Thankfully my head torch was (at this point) up to the job but my (Fenix again) hand torch was a welcome insurance enabling me to scope the route effectively. The going underfoot became exponentially harder in hand with the darkness comprising a narrow trail occasionally overhung by ferns and other vegetation and with virtually continuous moss covered roots and rocks. It was fun but required a lot of concentration.
I left some of my erstwhile companions at the aid station and cracked on for a mile or so on my own. As I became accustomed to the new environment I quickly realised that my average pace would be going down not up on these sections: although nominally the flat/rolling bit of the course, the climbs were steep and technical and the corresponding downs only allowed a cautious tip toe not a brakes-off luge. With no wider orientation the occasional reflective tag was a welcome reminder that I was still on track. A quick body check confirmed that everything was still in order, with just a light tingle on my big toe suggesting a blister was in the post, but thankfully nothing on the soles of my feet where I have suffered badly in the past. Thumbs up for Drymax socks.
After a while I became aware of a couple of lights up ahead and one or two behind as everyone settled into a similar pace. A mile or so later a train of about 7 or 8 runners had formed and I happily fell into this, leaving the pace management to someone else. It was occasionally a bit strong on some of the steeper climbs but on balance simply turning the brain off and following a pair of heels in front was welcome. The Salomon Speedcross were definitely the right choice for the train and prompted a conversation with a runner behind with whom I chatted about motorcycles for half an hour without ever seeing his face. When he stopped for a pee and someone else took his place I think they were a bit surprised to fall in behind an Englishman apparently performing a monologue about Lambretta cylinder conversions.
It was somewhere along this section that my diligent attention to keeping a careful eye on the micro terrain below me was rewarded with the cruel but and poetic irony of running into a branch in front of me. Not a bendy-back-tickly-face kind of branch but a from-this-mighty-branch-was-the-shield-of-elvindor-hewn type of branch. This produced a trifecta of effects featuring a bloody nose, blood in the eyes and reducing my headtorch to it’s lowest setting. On the positive side I was seeing stars, whereas previously they had been obscured by the trees. Thankfully it was only a passing flesh wound and I pressed on to checkpoint 4 at mile 23.5 where hopefully, Mrs. Repo, Daniel and my drop bag would be waiting.
Sure enough, they were all there, albeit Daniel covered in blankets and asleep in a chair by the campfire. As I stopped to feed and faff I noticed that it was now quite cool when stopped (it was getting on for 3 in the morning) and my cooling sweaty kit meant that I didn’t want to hang around long. I delved into my drop bag and swapped batteries in both torches but my headtorch remained a bit dim and disappointingly it was a bit too dark for Mrs. R to notice my bloody face and give me sympathy. I topped off my hydration pack and had a good feed, the highlight of which was – get this – hot, fresh, quesadilas washed down with ramen noodles. I Loaded up my pack pockets with cookies, scarfed down some crisps and coke, had another precautionary salt tablet and headed up the road.
The next mile or so was back on fire road and quite a vicious climb where again I found myself on my own. Despite a brisk power walk this seemed to go on for ever and the reflective danglers were less frequent prompting frequent “I’m lost” anxiety eventually I found the turn back into the woods and the rocky, rooty, mossy and increasingly damp rollercoaster continued. Somewhere along here I fell in with Max, a Geordie now living in the US and I fell in with him for what was to be a 10 mile or so loop including AS5 which came after about 29 miles and was manned by volunteers in santa hats, was festooned with fairy lights and had Wham’s Last Christmas playing over a ghetto blaster. Quality.
Max was coming up on some kind of rush from chia seeds which he’d had at the last aid station but I think both of us found this section hard going and it was the one part of the race where I think I could have tried a bit harder. Certainly the runnable sections felt a bit more of a trial and even the odd fire road break from the single track didn’t help. My motivator was getting back to AS 4 (now 6) again as I knew that it was then 2-3 miles of rolling stuff and then a 2000ft descent over a half marathon.
Max was deteriorating fast with knee problems (he subsequently bailed at about 37 miles) but we pretty much stuck together to AS6 where I deployed my secret weapon in the shape of a pair of box fresh Air Pegasus which I had bought a couple of days before and stashed in my drop bag in readiness. I did a quick body check and found that the niggling toe blister on my right foot was now quite beefy and half filled with blood. Although I had tape and stuff I really couldn’t be arsed to deal with it as it was more of an irritation than an impediment. I did however take the opportunity to change into a new pair of Drymax more for morale than anything, and off I went to tackle the downhill.
Which actually started with a steep half mile climb which I had completely forgotten about. The new trainers felt good and although I was now pretty jaded I felt in good spirits and knew that barring a disaster the 13 hour cutoff wasn’t a threat: indeed I felt good for a comfortable 12.30.
The final 12 miles were one of the most enjoyable race experiences I have had. I had deliberately saved my ipod as a treat and as I settled into my rhythm in what now seemed to be thinly populated tracks I was lifted by some great music and happy with my own company. I continued to aggressively power walk the (occasional climbs), shuffle the flats and run the downs.
I now had the added distraction of converting the current pace shown on my Garmin into projected finish times, something I enjoy as the maths keeps me occupied. I also had the added incentive of seeing if/how many scalps I could take before the finish. Gauging this was difficult as I had no idea who was ahead or how fast they were moving so I arbitrarily set this at 5.
Eventually a head torch appeared in the distance and over the next 10 minutes I reeled him in and swapped pleasantries. Almost in a snap dawn broke and a dim and hazy sun illuminated my next target a half mile or so down a long rolling straight. Over the next hour or so I reached my target of 5 and I breezed through the final AS wih 5.7 miles to go. I was buzzing at this point and thought that a low 12 hr finish was possible. I then reached the steeper downhill sections and knew it was - I simply took the brakes off and flew, flowing down the hills and loving the buzz as my garmin piped encouragement with 8 and 9 minute miles and even a 7.55 popping up on the screen. Yes my legs were burning, a felt my blister pop open inside my sock but I was on fire, knackered but elated. I passed another 5 runners over the closing stages to take my total to ten and finally reached the finish through a developing mist in 11.47 to claim my rather %$£% Patagonia finishers shorts.
I was resolutely in the bottom half of the field but I felt I had a good race, starting well, a wobbly bit in the middle and a strong finish. And I wasn’t eaten by a bear or encouraged into manlove by a hillbilly with a shotgun. I’ll chalk that up as a success.
A highly recommended race if you fancy nipping over for it next year
With a pretty free itinerary and a minimal understanding of the geography of the US I spent a few hours intensively Googling US running sites and came up with the On The Rocks 30k trail run in York, Pennsylvania for Mrs.R and the Cheat Mountain Moonshine Madness in West Virginia for me the following weekend. CMMR is a 50 mile overnight trail race and it started on August 24th, my 50th birthday, so it seemed like a neat coincidence.
Our eldest kids are both at uni and consequently disbarred from family holidays on the be grounds that they are already causing more financial distress than the Greek economy. This meant that we were travelling relatively light with just 8 year old Daniel for company.
A well as doing a couple of races a second sub narrative for the trip was to eat as much bad food as possible, taking in places featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives as well as whatever random Deli sandwiches, foot long hot dogs and fried food covered in syrup, pancakes and chocolate chips that we could fit in. Which turned out to be quite a lot. It was the Michael Phelps diet without the swimming, and anything without swimming is always good.
After a few days intensive sightseeing in New York we picked up the sensible family hatchback and set off towards Pennsylvania:
Arriving in York it looked highly unlikely that a trail race would be happening anywhere nearby as the town seemed to consist of nothing but sprawling retail parks, motels and one of the Harley Davidson plants. However the night before the race we went for,a recce to find to find the race HQ nad just a few miles out of town we drove up into a gorgeous wooded area with marked running trails radiating from a central visitor centre / picnic area. I ran 2 or 3 miles round one of the trails to confirm that my new bitch tits probably could do with more support, and that running 2 or 3 miles was quite a challenge. It was hilly too.
Registration the next morning confirmed that folks involved in trail running in the US are extremely nice people and after signing on Carole lined up to start at 07.30. Alongside the 30k (2 laps) there was a 15k (1 lap) a 10k and a 5k walk which Daniel and I decided to enter on the line. All miles in the bank.
To cut a long story short it was a great (albeit low key) race although Carole managed to get chronically lost on the first lap meaning that she ended up running at least 35k overall. Daniel and I did get quite worried when she still hadn't come through lap 1 after 2 hrs + but obviously not worried enough to get up off the grassy bank that we were sunbathing on and go and look for her. When we did see her an hour or so later I mistakenly thought she was still on the first lap and encouraged her to retire. This didn't go down well as she was hot knackered, bruised from a bad fall and actually on lap 2 within 2 or 3 miles of the finish. She ended up first in her age group though. OK, also the only one in her age group but a wins a win.
We spent the next few days in Washington area sightseeing (fantastic city: Smithsonian museums are all amazing and free). Food highlights were the Tune Inn in Washington (fried roast beef sandwich) and Brick Oven Pizza in Baltimore. As fans of The Wire we were disappointed not to see McNulty shagging a drunken bar fly on the bonnet of his car under a flyover but he may have been working days that week.
Washington's Finest:
After Washington we headed South West via Virginia and through the Blue Ridge Mountains towards West Virginia. Food highlight was the overnight stop in Harissonburg: dinner in The Little Grill, a small workers co-op restaurant complete with 4 piece folk band playing mountain music. Fantastic burrito, although disappointingly healthy and organic.
The night before my race day we stayed at a log cabin motel in Seneca Rocks, one of the main climbing spots in the area and about 40 miles from Beverly, where the race would be starting. Pre-race dinner was in a sports bar: Philly cheese steak, 20 chicken wings, fries and beer.
I woke up on my 50th birthday one bra size bigger and with the prospect of a 50 mile race starting at 21.00 that night. Mrs. R really came up trumps with a trip to Milan and the Lambretta museum for my birthday which was an extremely cool present and a welcome distraction. The idea of it that is, we didn't actually do the trip that day. We had most of the day to kill before registration opened at 17.00 so we had a quick look around Elkins and Beverly and managed to fit in a light brunch of steak, 3 eggs, pancakes, syrup, and hash browns with chesse and jalapeños. Mindful of the race later, I sensibly opened for a smoothie to drink, but only because beer didn’t seem to be available.
Race HQ was at the 4H camp which looked to be the sort of place where West Virginian kids go to summer camp. And probably get murdered in lakes. Our growing sense of the hill-billiness of the area was compounded when we met the wife of the camp caretaker who kept making us to talk to hear our accents. I should add that she was bare foot, wearing a smock dress, had her hair in bunches and was completely toothless. She also had a bloodhound, a bearded husband and I think even his guns were carrying guns.
I registered and met the Race Director Adam who had been very helpful with kit advice before the race and was a really nice fella. Loads of very lean and tanned people were starting to arrive so I fitted right in. I spent an hour or so before the race talking to Bill who had done each of the 4 earlier CMMM races and whose 200ft long truck was parked by us. He told us that the bear hunting season had just started and that we may well hear hunting dogs on the trail. He also casually pulled some shotgun shells out of his pocket saying that he had been killing groundhogs in his yard earlier that day.
The temperature was now cooling into the 70s and it was clear that shorts and a short sleeve top would be fine for the race so I got changed, ditching taping my feet in favour of my new Drymax socks which have an excellent reputation in US ultra circles. Despite the promise of well stocked feed stations I still took a Salomon pack, 1.5 litres of Nuun and plenty of food, gels and drugs. And a waterproof, just in case.
At 20.00 Adam gave the race briefing in the camp canteen and after a bit more light faffing it was time to assemble on the start line. The Star Spangled Banner was sung at 20.55, and with night setting in and head torches on I edged towards the back of the pack of 100 or so runners and the gun sounded at 21.00.
With crew:
The start:
The general overview of the course was 6,000 ft or so of climbing (although my Garmin recorded 8,000) run over a mixture of about 30 miles of forest fire roads and 20 miles of densely wooded single track. Race HQ was at about 2,000ft and the course rose to 4,000ft+. It was kinda 15 miles up, 20 miles of up and down in the trees and 15 miles down again or to put it pictorially –
As usual my race preparation was, ahem, economical, meaning that I hadn’t done much since a frankly pathetic hobble around the Outlaw in July. I had however done a 15 mile / 3,000ft run in Glossop a couple of weeks before comfortable inside my target pace and a fair amount of run mileage leading up to my failed Enduroman 100 attempt in June. I wasn’t too phased by the distance and climb, but the dark and micro-terrain were unknowns. (Well, I know what the dark is, but you know what I mean)
I knew the first 15 miles were going to be a long slog and I was pleased to find that most people in the back half of the field where I had seeded myself were taking it quite easy in the first mile or two and as the gradients steepened over the rolling ascent most people were walking to conserve energy for the long night ahead. I did too, but made a conscious effort to power walk at a brisk pace and let gravity do its thing on the flip side descents. The light from the half moon was almost adequate to illuminate the fire roads but I kept my Fenix head torch on a low setting and hand torch er…handy…just to peer into the woods either side when I heard dogs barking which I did within a few miles.
The temperature was very comfortable and running in shorts at night was great. The easy pace meant that I was able to chat to a few folks around me and had brief conversations with a mining engineer, a pastor and a postman. They seemed to range from people stepping up from the marathon to pretty seasoned ultra runners with multiple 100 mile races to their credit. As ever a bit of chat and banter distracted me from the relentless climb and pretty soon I was at Aid Station 1/8 after 5.7 miles. Despite lots of goodies on offer I just had a quick drink and headed straight off as everything – including my feet –felt OK.
The next leg was the longest between aid stations at 7.2 miles but still passed fairly comfortably with plenty of headlights still visible up and down the trail. I had been worried about navigation but the course was well marked with reflective tapes hanging from the trees every so often and double tapes at any turns. Adam had explained at the briefing that these work much better than glow sticks and he was dead right. My power walking up the steeper parts was still working well and I was surprisingly keen to get back to running when I could. Notwithstanding this it was a relentless climb but one that would become my best friend on the way back.
All the aid stations were fantastic, manned by cheerful and helpful volunteers and very well stocked with water, coke, Succeed energy drink and whatever goodies the aid station captain had provided. Typically the aid station would be announced by a succession of lanterns or glow sticks for a few hundred meters along the trail beforehand, creating a welcome sense of anticipation. The peanut butter and jam sandwiches looked particularly good so I had a few of those (sadly they didn’t offer to fry them for me), a handful of jellies a cookie and a precautionary salt tablet and ibuprofen from my pack. I was still carrying plenty of fluid so cracked on again with something like 2hrs 45 or so on the clock, comfortably within the cut off schedule of 13 hours, and my vague target of 12 hours. Despite a welcome looking camp fire I didn’t hang around and plunged left into the woods for the first of the single track sections.
The woods changed the dynamic of the race completely. Immediately we were into almost complete tree cover and consequently almost complete darkness. Thankfully my head torch was (at this point) up to the job but my (Fenix again) hand torch was a welcome insurance enabling me to scope the route effectively. The going underfoot became exponentially harder in hand with the darkness comprising a narrow trail occasionally overhung by ferns and other vegetation and with virtually continuous moss covered roots and rocks. It was fun but required a lot of concentration.
I left some of my erstwhile companions at the aid station and cracked on for a mile or so on my own. As I became accustomed to the new environment I quickly realised that my average pace would be going down not up on these sections: although nominally the flat/rolling bit of the course, the climbs were steep and technical and the corresponding downs only allowed a cautious tip toe not a brakes-off luge. With no wider orientation the occasional reflective tag was a welcome reminder that I was still on track. A quick body check confirmed that everything was still in order, with just a light tingle on my big toe suggesting a blister was in the post, but thankfully nothing on the soles of my feet where I have suffered badly in the past. Thumbs up for Drymax socks.
After a while I became aware of a couple of lights up ahead and one or two behind as everyone settled into a similar pace. A mile or so later a train of about 7 or 8 runners had formed and I happily fell into this, leaving the pace management to someone else. It was occasionally a bit strong on some of the steeper climbs but on balance simply turning the brain off and following a pair of heels in front was welcome. The Salomon Speedcross were definitely the right choice for the train and prompted a conversation with a runner behind with whom I chatted about motorcycles for half an hour without ever seeing his face. When he stopped for a pee and someone else took his place I think they were a bit surprised to fall in behind an Englishman apparently performing a monologue about Lambretta cylinder conversions.
It was somewhere along this section that my diligent attention to keeping a careful eye on the micro terrain below me was rewarded with the cruel but and poetic irony of running into a branch in front of me. Not a bendy-back-tickly-face kind of branch but a from-this-mighty-branch-was-the-shield-of-elvindor-hewn type of branch. This produced a trifecta of effects featuring a bloody nose, blood in the eyes and reducing my headtorch to it’s lowest setting. On the positive side I was seeing stars, whereas previously they had been obscured by the trees. Thankfully it was only a passing flesh wound and I pressed on to checkpoint 4 at mile 23.5 where hopefully, Mrs. Repo, Daniel and my drop bag would be waiting.
Sure enough, they were all there, albeit Daniel covered in blankets and asleep in a chair by the campfire. As I stopped to feed and faff I noticed that it was now quite cool when stopped (it was getting on for 3 in the morning) and my cooling sweaty kit meant that I didn’t want to hang around long. I delved into my drop bag and swapped batteries in both torches but my headtorch remained a bit dim and disappointingly it was a bit too dark for Mrs. R to notice my bloody face and give me sympathy. I topped off my hydration pack and had a good feed, the highlight of which was – get this – hot, fresh, quesadilas washed down with ramen noodles. I Loaded up my pack pockets with cookies, scarfed down some crisps and coke, had another precautionary salt tablet and headed up the road.
The next mile or so was back on fire road and quite a vicious climb where again I found myself on my own. Despite a brisk power walk this seemed to go on for ever and the reflective danglers were less frequent prompting frequent “I’m lost” anxiety eventually I found the turn back into the woods and the rocky, rooty, mossy and increasingly damp rollercoaster continued. Somewhere along here I fell in with Max, a Geordie now living in the US and I fell in with him for what was to be a 10 mile or so loop including AS5 which came after about 29 miles and was manned by volunteers in santa hats, was festooned with fairy lights and had Wham’s Last Christmas playing over a ghetto blaster. Quality.
Max was coming up on some kind of rush from chia seeds which he’d had at the last aid station but I think both of us found this section hard going and it was the one part of the race where I think I could have tried a bit harder. Certainly the runnable sections felt a bit more of a trial and even the odd fire road break from the single track didn’t help. My motivator was getting back to AS 4 (now 6) again as I knew that it was then 2-3 miles of rolling stuff and then a 2000ft descent over a half marathon.
Max was deteriorating fast with knee problems (he subsequently bailed at about 37 miles) but we pretty much stuck together to AS6 where I deployed my secret weapon in the shape of a pair of box fresh Air Pegasus which I had bought a couple of days before and stashed in my drop bag in readiness. I did a quick body check and found that the niggling toe blister on my right foot was now quite beefy and half filled with blood. Although I had tape and stuff I really couldn’t be arsed to deal with it as it was more of an irritation than an impediment. I did however take the opportunity to change into a new pair of Drymax more for morale than anything, and off I went to tackle the downhill.
Which actually started with a steep half mile climb which I had completely forgotten about. The new trainers felt good and although I was now pretty jaded I felt in good spirits and knew that barring a disaster the 13 hour cutoff wasn’t a threat: indeed I felt good for a comfortable 12.30.
The final 12 miles were one of the most enjoyable race experiences I have had. I had deliberately saved my ipod as a treat and as I settled into my rhythm in what now seemed to be thinly populated tracks I was lifted by some great music and happy with my own company. I continued to aggressively power walk the (occasional climbs), shuffle the flats and run the downs.
I now had the added distraction of converting the current pace shown on my Garmin into projected finish times, something I enjoy as the maths keeps me occupied. I also had the added incentive of seeing if/how many scalps I could take before the finish. Gauging this was difficult as I had no idea who was ahead or how fast they were moving so I arbitrarily set this at 5.
Eventually a head torch appeared in the distance and over the next 10 minutes I reeled him in and swapped pleasantries. Almost in a snap dawn broke and a dim and hazy sun illuminated my next target a half mile or so down a long rolling straight. Over the next hour or so I reached my target of 5 and I breezed through the final AS wih 5.7 miles to go. I was buzzing at this point and thought that a low 12 hr finish was possible. I then reached the steeper downhill sections and knew it was - I simply took the brakes off and flew, flowing down the hills and loving the buzz as my garmin piped encouragement with 8 and 9 minute miles and even a 7.55 popping up on the screen. Yes my legs were burning, a felt my blister pop open inside my sock but I was on fire, knackered but elated. I passed another 5 runners over the closing stages to take my total to ten and finally reached the finish through a developing mist in 11.47 to claim my rather %$£% Patagonia finishers shorts.
I was resolutely in the bottom half of the field but I felt I had a good race, starting well, a wobbly bit in the middle and a strong finish. And I wasn’t eaten by a bear or encouraged into manlove by a hillbilly with a shotgun. I’ll chalk that up as a success.
A highly recommended race if you fancy nipping over for it next year
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