North Face Bear Mountain 50

Training for Western States involves, among other things, ferocious acts of faith and self-delusion. My favorite instance of this (other than toeing the line at WS itself) is the notion of the "50 mile race as training run". It makes perfect sense in the abstract that if you want to finish a 100 mile race you should be able to comfortably finish a 50 a few months before without having to taper before and convalesce after... but 50 miles is still a long god-damn distance to travel. Actually, I just drove my parents from out place in New Haven to the Bradley airport in North of Hartford... that it's 50 miles... yikes.

Bear Mountain was to be the long run that capped the second half of a six week training block. The first three weeks had been 75, 80 and 85 miles with the Traprock 50k as the long run in the third week. Week 4 was very easy with only 20-25ish miles. Weeks 5 was 85 and, including Bear Mountain, week 6 was 90 miles. So, needless to say my legs weren't fresh, but they weren't destroyed either. I've had none of the insomnia or pain and strains that I've had in previous years when I've been over-training.

I had no intention of racing or digging terribly deep. Sarah Dasher quoting Steve Itano told me "Don't leave your Western States at Miwok". Well, I'm on the wrong coast now, but the point stands, and, as it turns out, my finish time would be about what I could run at Miwok.

Julio and I drove over from New Haven at Alpine-o'clock and were having breakfast in the parking lot when the 3:30 shuttle showed up to take us to the Start line. We road over with Annette Bednosky who was lovely company. We talked about the awesomeness Costa Rica. As like most ultra-folks, she gave no indication that she was a "special"... well other than with her winning performance in a shocking 9 hours and a few minutes despite a fall damaged her knee and required x-rays later.

Ready, set, go.

We were running into the pre-dawn. The forecast was for rain throughout the day and so I had a rain shell strapped to the back of my hydration pack and two layers... as it turned out it was sunny and topped out in the 70's in the sun which made the layers and jacket hilariously burdensome and unnecessary.  

The up side of doing a full weeks training leading into the race is that it's much easier to control the early race jitters and my penchant for going out too fast. Hey if other people could run up the steep hills at mile 2 then knock yourself out; I ate my 2nd breakfast and got my pack adjusted. The course was already shaping up to be technical. Muddy rocks and roots and difficult descents would be the order of the day. Early on a met some nice folks and we talked about upcoming races and where we were from.

Because this was a NF race there were many first time ultra peeps. Given that this was going to shape up to be a very difficult race, this was somewhat unnerving, especially because a number of people seemed logistically unready to do the race safely. One 20 something guy was running in basketball shorts and a cotton teeshirt and NO GEAR... no water, no food, zip. Several others were running with similar levels of "minimalism" that made them seem like they were running a road half.

We reached the 14 mile aid station in 3 hours flat with much of the technical running to come... it was clear that my 11 hour prediction would be perhaps even optimistic especially if A) it got hot and B) if my legs started to loose their snap. Between 14 and 20 there were several sections that just took your breath away, some due to sheer beauty and some due to sheer disbelief. One quarter mile section was a flooded rocky swamp where you hopped from rock to fallen tree to rock. Another was an all points in contact descent rocky butt slide. A third scrambled up bear rock to a glorious lookout. Needless to say we were not moving fast and with eyes to the ground, a number of people got lost.

We got to the 21 mile aid station in just about 5 hours... And here's where I made my only real mistake of the day; I had been drinking a lot at the aid stations so I was convinced my hydration pack would last till the big AS at mile 28. However, the hotter weather caused me to drain my pack with about an hour to go... this wasn't a disaster but I knew I would take an energy hit a few hours down the road. 21-28 was more run-able and I passed the time with Lisa Thompson of Michigan who was rocking her first ever ultra.

I had a drop bag at the 28 mile (6 hours 20 minutes, 2-4 minute stop) aid station as a way to practice for Robinson Flat. I had a change of shoes (in case my MT101s weren't holding up) socks, and thankfully sunscreen. I stashed my preposterous rain coat, my 2nd shirt, filled my pack and downed about half a dozen dixie cups of whatever I could find. The other down side of this recovery strategy was that I knew I would have to slow down for a while to process all the liquids I'd taken in. So began the first lull in the action and most people were starting to show a distinct lack of pep in their step. For many of the first timers, reality was setting in.

Once the liquid cleared my stomach my fatigue mostly showed itself in trouble descending very technical trail. Between the mind not processing as quickly and the muscles telling me that they were loosing their elasticity the executive decision was made to power walk rather than risk catching a toe and breaking, essentially, everything in a downhill boulder-field face plant.

There were about 5 easy miles in the race and thankfully 2 of them materialized around 50k. A mile of slightly uphill paved road and a mile of slightly downhill fire road (neither of which anyone else seemed to be running) let me engage my rather underutilized running legs. I cruised into my 34 in 8 hours flat bring up the possibility that maybe 11 hours was in play. Mind games were in effect here but for some reason I hung onto the fact that "if I crack 11 I'll have a WS qualifier and I won't have to do another in the Fall". I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but... again, mind games.

About a mile from the 40 mile aid station my quads were getting very tired. I had been pushing a bit the last few miles and I should have taken a caffeinated GU. I jogged into 40 and asked what time it was: 9:20 into the race... 11 hours was NOT going to happen given that the race lit said there were two "substantial" climbs in the last 10 miles. My brain phoned it in for about an hour. I walked the flat road out of the AS for about 10 minutes. I walk-jogged the mostly flat trail for the next mile. When I almost crawled down the gnarly decent of the next pass. I couple passed me and I mustered the testicular fortitude to latch onto them and jog into the 45 mile AS in 10 hours 30 minutes. The guy I was running with, Barry, said that the next 2.5 miles were the most technical of the whole course and that it was going to be rough. I pounded two cokes and power hiked with them out of there.

He wasn't kidding. We hiked up boulder strewn gullies and down bowling-ball paved paths. I took perhaps 10 running steps in 2 miles even though I could smell the barn and thanks to the cokes I was feeling great. We were even passing people. We covered the 2 mile bad patch in 44 minutes.

Then, with 3 miles to go it turned to fire road and ski slope and we mercifully got to run. Barry, his wife/pacer and I bombed 7:30 miles until we hit two final mole-hills that I easily ran and then cruised the final road section. I finished in 11:50. On a good day, with more course knowledge, with fresher legs and with the dial set to 'kill' I think I could break 11 hours. Maybe. But I was very happy with my race. I finished uninjured, doing all 50 in MT101s, cardio did great, execution was 8/10 given the hydration mishap.

Julio killed the race and ran 10:15ish, but was off course for almost 3 miles and likely would have finished around 9:50. We ate, walked around, avoided random guys just puking for no reason and shook hands with people we'd met along the way. The ride home was energized rather than exhausted with a constant stream of "you remember that one part where... [insert ridiculous course feature]" and the occasional "Hey did you notice that a lot of people were littering?!"

Anyways, 7 weeks to Western States... a couple of days off with my parents visiting and then back to the final block of training...

Trap Rock 50k

People look at you funny when you talk about ultrarunning and they look at you double funny when you say you're "training through" a 50k. Truth is though that if you're fit with good base the difference between racing and running a 50k is only 15-30 minutes out of 5-6 hours which is about the difference between smart racing and the wheels coming off. So with that in mind I signed up for the Trap Rock 50k for April 16th with the idea that it would be a good test of mid-Western States-buildup form.

Julio signed up as well and we arranged to ride up together. He had gone to join the Shenipsit Striders for a 20 mile training run on the course and he came back with cautionary tales of how technical the course was. I looked at last years finishing times and figured that I would likely finish in about 6 hours and guessed Julio would finish 30 minutes ahead.

It was 40 degrees as we started milling about Penwood State Park. It was very cold standing around but I could tell it would perfect running weather. I was very curious to see the course which consisted of 3 10.5-11 mile loops. One of the pleasures of coming to Connecticut has been doing races "sight unseen". The Auburn State Recreation Area is my home base and it's trails are dear to my heart, but variety is the spice of life as I like to say (right before my wife hits me and gives me a warning growl).

Trap Rock is the classic small ultra even in it's second year of existence; half the people know each other, the race director starts the action by saying 'Go' and there are no corporate sponsors to thank, just volunteers.


I'm one of two people from CT in this year's WS so with people drifting in from NY, CT, MA, VT and NH I wore my Western States teeshirt in the hopes that other entrants or alums would strike up conversations. Sure enough, several nice people introduced themselves.