Running Down

An Uninformed Look At Running Shirts

2017-10-31T11:57:00.001-04:00

Three tech shirts: one black, one white, and one white soaked with hot water.

When running on a hot, sunny day, is a black shirt really hotter than a white shirt? By how much? Is a technical fabric better than cotton? Can a tech shirt really keep you both “warm and dry” and “cool and dry”?

In this month's column, I will attempt to answer these questions, even though you are reading this in November and it’s probably dark and cold out. But I started this in July, and you know, science takes time.

It's a friggin' LASER GUN!

Now, I could provide you with some actual, useful information by reviewing existing credible research on this topic. But that seems like a lot of dull work. Honestly, I am just looking for a way to rationalize my purchase of the “Etekcity Lasergrip 774 Non-contact Digital Laser Infrared Thermometer Temperature Gun” (only $18 on Amazon!). And whenever there is a choice between “boring research” and a “laser gun," "laser gun" is going to win every time.

So the first thing a scientist does is calibrate the instruments. So let's see if this “laser gun” is accurate. I tested it on some ice water, which should be about 0 °C, and boiling water, which should be about 100 °C .

Ice water is 0 °C, just like they said in 7th grade.

The laser gun told me that boiling water is 101 °C, and that the stove really needed to be cleaned.

Success! To be honest, I had to try several times to get the expected readings, because I think the laser has trouble with a clear liquid like water. But hey, if you are looking for rigorous scientific methodology in this column, you have come to the wrong place.

So let’s take a look at the temperature difference between white and black shirts. While we are at it, let’s see what happens with evaporative cooling as well. I laid out three technical fabric shirts in my driveway on a hot July day: a white shirt, a black shirt, and another white shirt that was soaked with hot water. I then let the shirts sit out in the hot sun for about a half an hour.

For reference, the driveway was 113 °F. Nice and warm on the feet.

The dry white shirt was a relatively cool 100 °F.

The wet shirt was even cooler at 96°F, showing the effects of evaporative cooling.

The black shirt was a whopping 122°F! So what does that tell us? That the surface of black shirts are hotter than white shirts. But does that mean wearing a black shirt will make you hotter? Can't really say that for sure.

We need to see how much of that heat is transferred underneath the shirt. So on another day, I laid out three identical thermal packs. One was wrapped in a white shirt, another in a black shirt, and another went shirtless. I let them sit out there in the sun for an hour or so.

The thermal pack with no shirt ended up at 105 °F.

The thermal pack in the white shirt was a cool 90°F. So if you are an ice pack, you should wear a shirt to keep cool on a sunny day.

However, if you are an ice pack, don't wear a black shirt. The thermal pack with the black shirt ended up with a reading of 110°F, a full 20°F more than the white shirt.

So what does this mean to a human, who is 100 times the size of a thermal pack, generating heat, and sweating? I have no idea.

I think we can say that wearing a black shirt on a sunny day will make you hotter than a white shirt. Whether it is a significant amount, I cannot say. But you probably already knew that.

So now let’s take a look at evaporative cooling.

We will use gallon jugs of tap water as test subjects. They makes a good simulation of runners, at least in terms of personality.

I filled three one-gallon jugs with hot water. To limit the effects of the sun, I placed them in the shade on a day with a relatively low humidity of 50%. One was wearing a white tech shirt, another a white cotton shirt, and the third had absolutely no shame and went shirtless. A fan was placed a few feet away to simulate a nice breeze. The breeze felt about equal on all three.

I verified that all three jugs started out at the same temperature of 129 °F. To simulate sweating, the jugs were sprayed down with hot water. Every few minutes, I removed the shirts, reapplied the fake sweat, and put the shirts back on. I tried to wrap the shirts fairly snugly, and they each got partially soaked to mimic a sweaty summer day in NC.

After 20 minutes, I took the temperature of the jugs. Surprisingly, the jugs wearing the cotton and tech shirts were both the same temperature of 120 °F, a drop of 9 °F.

I would have thought the tech shirt would have been warmer, since it supposed to “wick” the water away the skin and then evaporate, preventing the evaporative cooling from happening on the skin. The tech shirt did feel drier than the cotton. But since the cotton shirt was more wet, it stuck closer to the jug and possibly provided better “contact” for the cooling.

The shirtless jug was at 114 °F, a drop of 15 °F. We can calculate the heat loss, assuming a gallon of water is 3785 grams. The shirtless jug lost 31.8 kcal, and the jugs wearing cotton and tech shirts lost 18.9 kcal.

That’s pretty significant difference. Wearing the shirts reduced heat dissipation by 40%!

So how will wearing a shirt affect your running performance? Clearly, you will run 40% slower. Just kidding. Again, I have no idea. So really, I have not answered any of the questions I set out to answer in the beginning.

The one thing I can say with scientific certainty is that playing with a "Laser Infrared Thermometer Temperature Gun" is fun.

Never Quit Quitting

2017-08-19T12:26:00.006-04:00

Apparently you have not met me. I have very long list of regretful runs I would love to tell you about.

“DIG DEEP”

This was written on the shoe laces of my favorite running shoes I bought back in 2009. It turned out to be the worst running advice I ever got. The only place digging deep every got me was at the bottom a very deep hole clutching a pair of ill-fitting socks I got for winning my age group.

“Just do it! Never quit! It’s all mental!”. As runners, we are inundated with this kind of overzealous motivational bullcrap. Maybe some people desire some extra motivation, but I am here to tell you that you can do too much, run too far, push too hard. Sometimes quitting is the smartest thing to do.

You might be wrong Nike.
The man pictured quickly passed out due to lack of oxygen.
I guess that comes from the outside.

And the change that happens is called:
TENDONITIS

Everyone has an internal “governor” that limits the amount of effort we can put out before we start doing damage to our bodies. Often this governor is dismissed as a “mental limitation” that need to be conquered, but in reality it is essential to successful running. Sure, maybe some people's governors are set too low, and could use some extra motivation to train or race hard enough to achieve their physical potential.

But the most successful runners have their governors set just right. They get just the right amounts of stress and recovery and their bodies respond by getting stronger and faster. Often this is referred to as “listening to your body”.

Good advice if you are running from a fire.
Really stupid for a marathon.

I guess all those people with multiple sclerosis are just making bad choices

Then there are those who tell their body to “just shut up” and always overdo it (like me). They always end up run down and/or injured. In this context, an “overachiever” is not a good thing. I remember finishing the “Run for the Donuts” and collapsing in a heap. A young girl there pointed at me, “Look Daddy! An overachiever!”. It was not a compliment.

It will be the orthopedic surgeon who will tell you
that you are DONE running... for good.

The quote is attributed to Ray Zahab.

He got an "F" in physics class

I started running races about 14 years ago. I’ve dug deep. I’ve pushed through pain. I ran the extra mile. Now I really wish that I hadn’t. Here is a list of my overachieving souvenirs:

A permanent knot in my left calf from when I “didn’t quit” in the Umstead Marathon
A scarred right hamstring from “just doing it” in the Salem Lake 30K
An achilles tendon that feels like rusty barbed wire from when I “didn’t stop when it hurt”
Swollen arthritic knees from “exceeding my mental limitations”

And for what? I’m only 47, yet every morning I awake limping, and clutch the handrail walking down the stairs. It’s a little late, but I have finally realized that staying healthy and feeling good are WAY more important than setting a PR or finishing a race.

With these aches and pains as constant reminders of the costs of overdoing it, I am finding this running culture of “exceeding limits” to be quite obnoxious.

Yes, your body can stand that stress fracture in your foot just fine.
You just have to convince your mind
that finishing that half marathon was worth 8 weeks in a boot.

So I am starting the “Whimpy Running Club”.

For us, DNF stands for “Directly to Next Fun”
DNS stands for: "Do No Self-harm".

Our motto will be “Never Quit Quitting!”.
Who wants to join?

Don't be stupid. Join the Wimpy Running Club, where:

QUIT AND HAVE BEER > POINTLESS SUFFERING

Top 10 Running Hazards of Summer

2017-08-01T15:35:00.003-04:00

We are the in depths of the North Carolina summer, which is a great time to quit running and stay indoors. But if you are one of those dedicated runners who insist on running year round, here is my Top 10 List of Summer Hazards to watch out for.

1. Dehydration

Running in NC in August means sweating. You will be losing fluids like a fire hydrant that got knocked over by a U-Haul truck. But exactly how much are you sweating and how much do you need to drink to replace it?
Here is a formula that looks very scientific but is completely made up:

Sweat Rate (ml / hour) = 750ml × (dew point- 16°) × (body weight kg) × (distance in km)

Let’s say you are a 150 lb person running 3 miles in a dew point of 74°. By my calculations, you will lose 50% of your body weight! If you are going to shrink to half your normal size, your shorts will probably fall off. So bring along a tiny pair to change into.

You will know you are properly hydrated when no more water fits down your throat

To replace fluid loss, I highly recommend drinking 64oz of water an hour, 24 hours a day, whether you are running or not. You are probably getting severely dehydrated just reading this column, so please, go drink 10 tall glasses of water right now before continuing.

2. Hyponatremia

Woah! You just drank way too much water. Are you experiencing nausea, headache, confusion, and fatigue? Those are common symptoms of reading the Godiva president's column (hey, they force us to write one EVERY month!). But those are also symptoms of hyponatremia, so call an ambulance. Also stop reading this column immediately.

3. Horse-flies

I used to live in Youngsville, where the biting flies were really bad. All day they would knock on the front door, yelling “Come out! We are hungry!”. So I became somewhat of an expert on them. I learned that repellents do not work well on horse-flies, because they hunt by sight rather than smell like mosquitos do (this is actually true). They are attracted to movement which make them a bane to runners.
One thing that does work is “Deerfly Patches”. These are sticky patches that you wear on your hat. The flies get stuck there and die. Running around with dozens of dead flies on top of your head serves as a terrifying warning to the other flies not to mess with you.

Deerfly patch

4. Ticks

I recommended the following things:

Avoid tall grass
Wear long pants
Use an insect repellant with at least 30% DEET.

Of course, none of those things will prevent you from getting ticks. Even if you haven’t left the house in week, you probably have a tick crawling on you right now, most likely in your private areas. Be sure to watch for signs of Lyme disease which include vague symptoms such as headache, joint pain, fatigue, ennui, and Netflix binge watching. I recommend getting a prescription for antibiotics for the rest of your life.

5. Mosquitos

Because of the mild winter months in NC, and plentiful supply of people trying to enjoy the outdoors, mosquitos in NC are old, slow and lazy. They have no reason to expend the effort to try to bite a runner, when there is an outdoor concert somewhere with thousands of stationary targets. So they are not much of a threat to runners here.
Beware if you travel north, however. Mosquitos there only have a week to live, which makes them unbelievably voracious. They would eat our horse-flies for breakfast. When I ran a trail marathon in northern Michigan one summer, I declined when someone offered me bug spray. Boy was that a mistake. Despite going as fast as could, I could not outrun them, and I had so many mosquito bites that I passed out from blood loss at mile 16. True story.

6. Spiders

If you are unlucky enough to be the first person down a trail in the morning, you will realize that spiders are out to get us. Instead of trying to catch flies or other bugs, they stretch their webs deliberately across the trail at head height to catch runners. You will run face first into a web and become blinded, stumbling around trying to clear webs out of your eyes, only to run into more and more webs until you are unable to move. Then the spiders haul you away to be eaten later.
So always run with a friend, and make sure he or she runs in front.

7. Summer Track

It’s a little known fact that Carolina Godiva Track Club was started in 1975 when a drunk english guy dared somebody in bar to go outside and run around in circles as fast as they could on the hottest part of the day. Some other foolish people joined them, and they continued doing it for the last 30 years.
But that still does not make it a good idea. Did you know that from May through August, 30% of all emergency room visits in Durham are middle aged runners who attempted to sprint 100m? It’s true.

8. Shirtless Runners

This needs no explanation.

9. Copperheads

COPPERHEAD!

There are over 37 species of snakes in NC, and most long time residents can quickly and accurately identify all of them… as copperheads. Some “experts” will say there are “good snakes” which are harmless to people, but they are wrong. We know copperheads are masters of disguise and there is only one type of snake in NC, so when we see any snake we shout “COPPERHEAD!”.

COPPERHEAD!

Over 10,000 runners are killed by the deadly copperheads in the state every year. That is pretty much what park rangers do all day, is drive around and collect bodies of dead runners. The nature “experts” will say that if you see a copperhead, just leave it alone and it will not hurt you, but again that is not true. Copperheads are EXTREMELY aggressive. Even if you manage to escape one, they will track you down and find out where you live. They will sneak into your house and hide live ticks in your underwear.

COPPERHEAD!

Deadly Facts About Copperheads

They have tiny vestigial legs that they only use to kick puppies.
In one tenth of a second, they can bite you and/or correct your grammar
They will throw pizza boxes into the recycling bin
They will hack your facebook account and post ads for knockoff Rayban sunglasses.
They will always turn any conversation into politics

COPPERHEAD!

10. Cross Country Teams

These pesky creatures seem to hatch in June and can be found swarming Umstead Park in July and August. These hordes of young runners sometimes travel in large packs, taking up the entire trail and refusing to yield to oncoming runners. Unfortunately, repellents do not work on them.
They do make these sticky patches however…

Cross Country Runner Patch

Godiva President's Column for March

2017-03-01T12:45:00.002-05:00

Good For What Ails You

One thing that makes Godiva special is our celebration and support of runners of all types. A manifestation of this support is our “handicapped” Winter Series races, which aim to get everyone involved regardless of running speed. A handicapped race is one where a head start is given to runners who are born with a physical defect, such as being female or old. Here are the current Winter Series races which provide a handicap:

The Geezer Pleezer gives head starts based on age and gender.
The Eno Equalizer has time handicaps based on a very complex statistical formula developed by Dr. Richard Smith which takes into account ALL of your past races, your BMI, your genetic code, and your Google search history.
The Run For Donuts levels the playing field with the “Donut Index”, which I think is based on how many donuts you ate that morning.
The Misery Run gives an advantage to those who are ignorant of what they are running through.

I often hear members say that these races are their favorite Godiva events. So why not have more of them?

And why stop at just age and gender? Why not give head starts to runners who suffer from other limitations?

I propose adding eight more handicapped races to the Winter Series! Here are the new proposed races:

Wheezer Sneezer

The Race: A ten mile run through Umstead sometime in May, at the peak of pollen season.

The Handicap: Runners with tree allergies get a 5 minute hard start. Those with asthma get 10.

Hard Climb Ladder

The Race: Runners race to the roof of a three story building up shaky 30 foot ladders.

The Handicap: Runners with acrophobia (like myself) get a 12 hour head start.

New Year's Day Hangover Helper

Happy New Year!

The Race: An 8K in Duke Forest just like our other New Year’s day run, but this one is held at 6 am.

Handicap: Runners are given head starts and doses of aspirin that are proportional to their BAC (Blood Alcohol Content).

The Eno Calculator

The Race: Runners sit in the picnic shelter at Eno River State Park and take an exam on “Time Series and Multivariate Analysis” given by statistics professor Richard Smith, Phd.

The Handicap: Runners are given handicapped head starts based on their SAT math scores.

The Run For Bagels

The Race: Inspired by the Donut Run and the Krispy Kreme challenge, teams of 3 runners do 5 loops around Durham Academy XC course. At the start of each loop they must choke down a bagel covered in peanut butter.

The Handicap: Teams comprised of gluten intolerant runners get a 5 minute head start. Teams with peanut allergies get 10 minutes.

Myopia March

The Race: A 20 mile point to point run on the Uwharrie trail, held in late fall when the trail is covered in leaves.

The Handicap: Runners leave their glasses and contacts at home, but receive generous head starts based on their corrective vision prescription. We will have a lot of fun squinting for distant fuzzy white blazes and buried rocks. This may require volunteer search parties the next day or two to look for runners who have wandered off the trail.

Milk Mile

The Race: 4 loops around a 400m track, you must down a pint of milk after each loop

The Handicap: Lactose intolerant folks do not get a head start, but they do get their own porta-potty.

Feeble Pleezer

The Race: A full marathon held in Umstead Park

The Handicap: Runners are given a 1 minute head start for every $1000 in medical bills spent on running injuries the previous year.

Make Godiva Great Again

2017-01-04T09:34:00.000-05:00

I have huge news. Tremendous. I have been elected president of my running club, Carolina Godiva Track Club. Below is my acceptance speech.

Thank you for making me your President.

Godiva is an amazing club. Very, very terrific. Filled with so many incredible people.

But our club is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, Bull City Running in a race? They kill us. I beat Bull City Running all the time. All the time.

When did we beat Raleigh Runners at anything? They send their runners over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Godiva singlet in Raleigh? It doesn’t exist, folks. They beat us all the time. They’re laughing at us, at our speed. And now they are beating us for faster members. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us in membership. Godiva has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problem runners. It’s a disaster.

When Raleigh sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending runners that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing tendonitis. They’re bringing chafing. They’re bringing course cutters. Their shirtless guys… And some, I assume, are good people.

I will have a great marathon– and nobody has marathons better than me, believe me, I have the best marathons – and I’ll have them very inexpensively.

I will have a great, great marathon on the Durham border, it’s going to be huge, and I will make Raleigh volunteer for that marathon. Mark my words.

I will be the greatest Godiva president God ever created. For all members, even the haters and losers.

Like past president Douglass Hensel. Major loser. He’s a very, very, low energy person.

I heard he made fun of my running shoes. Nobody has ever hit my running shoes. I’ve never heard of this one. And he referred to my shoes if they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee you. Really some kind of a clown. Sad.

And I’ve heard some people say nasty comments about how I get injured a lot. Not true.

Believe me, I have tremendous stamina. I am proud to share this report, written by the highly respected Dr. Harold Bornstein, stating that I am the fittest runner he has ever seen:

“If elected, Mr. Corriveau, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest and the fastest individual ever elected to the Godiva presidency. “

- Dr. Harold Bornstein, DDS

And people love my blog. I have the most loyal blog readers. Did you ever see that? Where I could run in the middle of Umstead and shoot a snot rocket at somebody and I wouldn’t lose any readers, okay? It’s like incredible. Runners love me. When you’re as popular as I am, you can do anything. I walk up and grab them by the… fuel belt. You can do anything. I can’t help myself. I grab their water bottle and just start drinking. I don’t even wait.

But the Godiva board, it’s a disaster, it’s a disaster. We have losers. We have people that don’t have it. We have people that are morally corrupt. Like the treasurer, I call him “Corrupt Kevin”, he should be in jail folks. I’m going to drain the swamp.

I’m going to have the best people. The smartest people. For treasurer I will have my good friend Bernie handling the club’s money. Bernie lives in Butner, he’s a genius with money. Bernie Madoff, very, very smart.

We’re going to get to work immediately for the Godiva Track Club. And we’re going to start winning again. You’ll be so proud. Again, it’s my honor. And I love this club. We’re going to make Godiva Great Again.

Thank you.

2016 Medoc Spring Races Video

2016-05-11T12:04:00.002-04:00

In the off chance someone still reads this blog, and is not on Facebook (seems unlikely) I created a video for the 2016 Medoc Spring Races trail race. I stupidly had the the camera set to "Standard" instead of "High Quality" so the video isn't as great as it could be. Anyway, this is a fantastic race, and it should be on every trail runners calendar.

Medoc Spring Races Has Possum

2016-03-10T07:14:00.000-05:00

Well, we have heard back from the Umstead Conclave regarding our demands.
We had offered to return their Mile 8 in exchange for a 2017 possum mascot.

This was their response:

"We refuse to negotiate with marsupials."

So be it. They will regret this blatant possum aggression!

This is because yesterday the revolution scored a huge victory:

The rebellion has spread to the Medoc Spring Races!

This is a call to all possum revolutionaries to immediately sign up for this handicapped head start, 7.4 mile, single track trail race.

On May 7th, the legions of fighters will take to the trails flying the possum flag on our shirts!

We will never return the Umstead Marathon Mile 8. Instead we will deploy it to the battlefield at the Medoc Spring Races!

The 7.4 Mile Medoc Spring Races will now have a mile 8!

Missing Mile 8?

2016-03-08T17:12:00.000-05:00

Attention Umstead Marathon Conclave:

We are the the Revolutionary Umstead Mascot Possum Society.
Mile 8 of the Umstead Marathon is in our possession.
It sure would be a shame if something happened to it...
because you really can't have a marathon without Mile 8.

If you finally do the right thing and make a possum the mascot for 2017, then we will see to it that Mile 8 is returned to you unharmed.

Otherwise, start planning The Umstead 25.2 Miler.

- RUMPS
¡Viva la revolución zarigüeya!

2016 Umstead Marathon

2016-03-07T14:49:00.002-05:00

I told someone recently that I wasn’t doing any races in March.

“You’re not doing Umstead Marathon?” They asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course I’m doing Umstead. That’s doesn’t count as a race.”

For Shannon and I, Umstead isn’t simply a race, it’s our favorite event of the year. The first Saturday in March is permanently blocked off on our calendar, and there is no need for discussion. We will be there one way or another, running it if we can.

Umstead is a family reunion.
Photo by Dennis Geiser

We simply cannot thank the organizers and volunteers enough for putting it on every year. It’s like Christmas, New Year's day and our birthdays combined. It’s a party, a family reunion, a celebration of friends and running and the overlap between the two. We use it to mark the passing of years. “What year did we get married? Let’s see The Rabbit was the mascot, so it must have been 2010.”

Unfortunately, for us, there was no excitement for it this year..

Four weeks ago our dog and my running partner, Dudley Dooright, was diagnosed with an aggressive, inoperable cancer (see previous post). Helpless, we had to watch him slowly decline, being robbed of life and everything he loved to do. Every day we had to ask him, “Is today the day?”

So it was really hard to care about anything else.

Running especially was no longer enjoyable. If I left the house to go run, he still came to the door, ready to come with me, in denial of his ravaged body. So I would try to sneak out. I would run off alone down the greenway, a knife plunged deep into in the middle of my chest.

Still he had good moments. He could still play ball, or walk, or swim for a few minutes at a time. So we had hoped to bring him to the Umstead Marathon to spend the day. He would have loved meeting new people and hanging out in the park (as long as he didn’t see everyone run off).

But Friday before the race he wouldn’t eat his breakfast. Not even the steak we had bought him. He was struggling. We had to admit we were keeping him around for us. We called a vet who made a home visit that morning (Lap of Love)

The last ball.

I threw him one last ball, and he ran after it and caught it. Depleted, he laid in the yard and cradled it in his mouth. When the vet came over, he came up to her and wagged his tail. We put him to sleep on the back deck. I sobbed so hard my stomach cramped up and the muscles at my temples ached. After he was gone I wrote his eulogy, which helped some.

“I don’t know if I can run”, I told Shannon that evening.

“Yeah, me neither.”

As much as we love Umstead, it was hard to muster any energy or enthusiasm. Running a trail race the day after losing my 11 year running partner seemed hollow.

But then I got the idea to dedicate the run to Dudley. As hokey as that sounds, it motivated me. “I’ll run it the way Dooright would!”, I declared. And the way he would run it would be to go out as hard and fast as he could, staying near the front until he finished or until he collapsed.

The 13th annual Umstead Marathon was “The Year of The Fox”. Just before the race, Dennis, a senior member of the conclave (race committee), showed me the beautiful fox shaped plaques to be awarded to the top 15 or each gender. When I saw them, instead of a fox, I saw a dog.

Now I had a mission. Getting in the top 15 was seemed beyond my current abilities. And I was supposed to be saving myself for the Umstead 100 coming up in four weeks. But dammit all. I would get a Dooright plaque, or more likely, I would collapse trying.

Pack is off.
Photo by Dennis Geiser

Before the race I pinned Dudley’s tags with my bib on my shorts. At 9:00 am the pack was off.

Dooright would have taken the lead, but he also would have collapsed at mile 5. So I had to be realistic and not run it exactly like he would have. Instead I settled into the 15th place, counting the men ahead of me several times during the first mile to be sure (not to counting the amazing Lorraine Young, of course). Despite the perfect day, the pace was surprisingly slower than usual, and I felt good and relaxed. Suddenly it seemed plausible I could take home a Dudley memorial.

Around mile 6 on the Sycamore single track I was running alone and I could hear the jingling of the tags on my leg. I imagined Dooright just behind me, or just around the next turn. We were flying on the trail together again.

The day before, the race seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. But quite the opposite, it was the most cathartic thing I could have done, and best way to honor my running partner.

Sycamore
photo by Cathy Stokes

Staying true to the spirit of my running soul-mate, I collapsed at mile 16. Specifically my calves started cramping up. I stopped to stretch them but it didn’t help. The guy who had been on my heels the whole day passed me, dropping me to 16th place. I tried chasing, but couldn’t. After a few steps the muscles started to spasm and threatened to seize up completely. Another guy passed me… and another. I was now in 18th place with 10 miles to go, and I could barely move. I accepted my failure, but had hoped to collapse from exhaustion instead of simply being immobilized.

Then a miracle happened. As I stood against a tree stretching a women came by, “Do you need salt?” she asked.

“Yes! I think I do!”

“Hold out your hand”, she filled my palm with it.

“Thank you!”, I called as she disappeared over the hills of Turkey Creek. After the race I tried to find her, but never saw her again. Some suggested it was an angel in human form sent from a canine after life.

I licked the teaspoon of salt from my hand, and it was just what I needed. It allowed the 60oz of water sloshing in my stomach to diffuse down into my calves, and I started to jog tentatively. By mile 19, I was running full speed, faster than I ran the first half. I blew by the aid station at South Turkey Creek, and could see three other men in the distance straight down Reedy Creek.

With my tongue hanging out, a bit of drool flying, and tags rattling, I channeled Dooright. Down to the lake and up corkscrew. With my heart pounding at it’s maximum, and my tender quads screaming with every step, it felt so good. Not even the depths of Cedar Ridge slowed me. I passed seven guys, and was passed by one. Dudley would have been proud.

Crossing the finish, Dennis handed me my wooden fox, which will always be a dog to me.

Thank you Umstead Marathon, thank you Conclave, and thank you volunteers, for holding this annual family reunion of friends. Thanks for giving Shannon and I a way to sooth our grief through a day of running in the park. And many thanks to all of those friends who comforted us on what would have otherwise been a rough day.

Goodbye Dooright. We had 11 great years together on the trails. Your pure and unabashed love of running will always be a part of me.

Death of a Trail Runner

2016-03-04T15:40:00.002-05:00

We had to put down our dog Dudley Dooright today. He was 11 years old. Dudley was my running partner.

You may have assumed that my running partner was my wife Shannon, the exceptional runner that she is. But Shannon and I are never in sync. I love mornings but she hates them. She has her best runs at night around the time I cannot keep my eyes open, let alone run. She might lag behind on a technical trail, but when she does 20 mile runs in Umstead I’m struggling to finish two miles on aching knees.

In fact, I have never been a social runner. The reason I started running originally was to get away from people. I discovered that running on trails alone was my happy place, the only thing that helped with frequent bouts of depression. But it wasn’t simply the endorphins produced from running.

Running on roads is just rote exercise. A procedure defined by simple equations of stride length and cadence, of VO2 Max and glycogen consumption. But running a single track trail as fast as you can is something else entirely: Intense focus on every root and rock, trying to maintain momentum around the next switchback, through the stretch of ankle deep mud, down and up a gully and then lifting your shoulder just in time to barely miss that tree. There are no thoughts of mortgages or dentist appointments or what the hell you are going to do with your life. Only thoughts of how many steps to take before you jump that log.

I got Dudley as a puppy in 2005. He was obviously a Golden Retriever, though I often refused to acknowledge this. This is because he was a reject from a breeder who dumped him in a parking lot, leaving him to die with a congenital defect. Dog breeders and the demand for “purebred” dogs is one of the main reasons the shelters are overflowing with animals who will never find a home. But I digress.

Shannon and I eventually had a pack of 4 dogs, and we would often take three of them running on the single track trail around the lake near our house (The 4th dog Lula was more into sunbathing than running). We are those obnoxious people who let their dogs run off leash, but we almost never ran into anyone else out there, and the unlikely event someone might be bothered seemed a small price to pay for the sheer happiness of three dogs.

Jorge and Jefferey seemed to mostly enjoy finding disgusting things out in the woods to eat, or roll in, or both. We would often have to call those two away from whatever distraction they found to keep them moving. But Dudley was different. He loved the trail like I did, and just wanted to run. It was a roller coaster ride that he didn’t want to stop. He would run up and down hills or around in circles through the trees while the rest of the pack dilly-dallied. He didn’t really care where we were going, as long is he was moving.

Around 2008, I started to invest more of my time and attention to running. When I figured out how to run more than 15 miles a week without hurting my knees, I ran as much as I could, with my favorite route an 8 miler around the lake. Since the other dogs lacked the stamina and interest, I would only take Dooright with me.

[Dudley participated in an experiment where he was presented with treats behind a long series of strange and complicated apparatus, while being given confusing instructions. The researchers were questioning his intelligence. But seeing his exasperation, he might have been questioning theirs.]

Running with Dudley took no training or instruction because Dudley and I shared the same loves; of trees whizzing by; Of dancing over roots and rocks; Of breathing so hard you’re on the edge of collapsing. We would pour everything we had to getting to the end of trail, only to turn around and head back gasping for breath.

We had a special connection that I cannot explain. Almost always he was there ten feet in front of me, setting the pace. When I couldn’t keep up, sometimes he would stop and look back at me, “What are you waiting for? Come on!”. Or he would run a wide arc through the trees to allow me to catch up.

Dudley knew the trails better than I did, and had a perfect map in his head. Often he would jump off the trail into a swamp or make a hard left and disappear over a hill. Stupidly, I would stop and call for him. But it never failed that he would reappear on the trail in front of me and give the that look, “What? Let’s go!”. On hot days, he would get tired on the way back, and struggle to keep up. So he would cheat and take short cuts to stay in front of me.

His desire to always be in front made him great at racing 5Ks. His laser like focus gave him an edge over other dogs. Of the 12 dog friendly races we entered, Dooright came out top dog in 9 of them.

Around 2012 both Dudley and I slowed down. My knees started to bother me again, and his hips got weak. When we woke in the morning, we would both hesitate before going down the stairs, knowing it was going to hurt. We still tried to hit the trail together, but he couldn’t go as far, and would be stiff and sore afterward. But it was always worth it.

Dooright was great at 5Ks. But his inability to pace himself resulted in him being defeated by the Dirty Dog 15K. Twice.

A few weeks ago, Dudley momentarily collapsed while chasing a ball. After many trips to the vet, he was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. The tumors in his organs would grow and burst, causing him to bleed internally. They robbed him of all his energy and he could no longer run. Even walking was a struggle.

There was no treatment available that provided any hope. So we just tried to give him as many good days as we could. On Thursday we drove Dudley and the other 2 dogs out to a local trail for a walk. Dudley jumped out of the van and trotted to the trailhead, as fast as we had seen him move in several days.

It was mid-afternoon and we had the woods to ourselves. He managed to walk a half mile, trudging slowly forward with all of his effort. But that was all he had in him, and he just stopped on the trail. We let him rest a while, and then leisurely headed back. He would walk for a hundred feet and then stop and rest. The cancer was tearing his insides up. His stomach was bloated, and is spine and hips protruded from withering muscle.

Seeing him struggle like this was terrible, and Shannon and I decided that it was finally time to let him go. As we neared the car, Dudley stopped and dug a shallow hole and laid down in the middle of the trail, in the shade of large tree.

His nose twitched left and right, detecting distant scents in the breeze blowing in his face. Occasionally his ears perked up when he saw a bird or squirrel or runner going by in the distance.

“Come on Dudley, let's go home.” I tried encouraging him to follow us to the car. But maybe for the first time ever, he didn’t seem inclined to follow me. He just looked back peacefully. I imagined him saying “I think I’ll stay here on the trail. This time, go on without me.”

I sat on a log next to him. A barrier broke inside me and the sadness of losing him poured into and mixed with the happiness of all those long afternoons of running the trails with him. I started crying, deeply. Haven’t really stopped yet as of this writing. It took us a couple days to summon the courage, but we let him go this morning.

I suppose a eulogy for a dog could be considered banal, or you might call this one maudlin. I would accept that.

After all, it’s just a dog. It’s just trails in the woods. It’s just a guy and his dog running as fast as they can to nowhere in particular. It’s just exactly that and nothing else. Pure joy.

2015 Dirty Dog 15K Trail Race Video

2015-05-18T12:46:00.003-04:00

Shannon and I took our pack back to the The Dirty Dog 15K Trail Run in Kanawha State Forest, Charleston, West Virginia.

We ran this back in 2013 [report here], and it was immediately our favorite race.

This year I wore my visor-cam to capture the joy of dogs racing off leash through the forest.
[Note: Video may show advertisement you have click off. Sorry, but this is the cost of using the wonderful song "Furr" by Blitzen Trapper]

2015 Dirty Dog Video

This year, all five of us managed to stick to together and run as pack. We were not used to the very rough gravel roads, so we had to walk those sections. Also, it was hot and humid, so we took frequent water breaks.

But we had an absolute blast running the single track with other humans and canines, and this remains our favorite race.

Big thanks to the Todd family and the West Virginia Mountain Trail Runners for putting on this uniquely fantastic event.

Here is a link to Shannon's photos.

Dirty Tired Dog

2015 Medoc Spring Races

2015-05-09T12:06:00.000-04:00

My video race report from the 2015 Medoc Spring Races:

Link to the video

http://www.medocspringraces.com/

¡Viva la Revolución!

2015-03-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

Although the 2015 Umstead Marathon has been canceled, the mascot speculation continues, as we still do not know what the critter is for this year's defunct race.

It is tradition among Umstead runners to try to guess what the mascot will be. But on this blog we also argue for what the mascot should be.

Unfortunately the Umstead Conclave is a very secretive group and actively avoids choosing mascots that are obvious, or ones the public is clamoring for. While this does provide surprise mascots such as the "horned devil caterpillar" of 2014, it also discriminates against such worthy candidates such as the common black rat snake or the coyote.

Last year, this horrible mascot injustice sparked the great Possum Revolution.
Our short-lived, but successful coup managed to install the Possum as a co-mascot for 2014 race.

Our small band of rebels then formed our own secret society, the:

Revolutionary Umstead Mascot Possum Society (R.U.M.P.S.)

— Leading the Crusade to end Umstead Mascot Injustice

With RUMPS, the revolution lives on, and we will continue our struggle to bring the people their mascots. So let us consider just some of the worthwhile candidates, considering both questions: Will it be? Should it be?.

There were many suggestions such as: javelina, mountain beaver, whales, Bigfoot, etc. But we will just stick with things that are in Umstead. Everybody knows that bigfoot is in Uwharrie.

Candidate:	Beaver
Suggested By:	Shannon
Chance it will be:	5%
Why it should be:	Every time you were out running, and saw someone wearing the shirt, you could call out: "NICE BEAVER"
RUMPS score:	55

Candidate:	Running Cedar
Suggested By:	Jeff Wald, Steph Jefferies
Chance it will be:	1%
Why it should be:	Has "Running" right in the name, it is everywhere in the park. A plant is due!
RUMPS score:	65

Candidate:	Crayfish
Suggested By:	Bill Harris
Chance it will be:	1%
Why it should be:	Crustacean long overdue. Unique, and damn scary looking.
RUMPS score:	70

Candidate:	Black Snake
Suggested By:	Jay Spadie
Chance it will be:	2%
Why it should be:	Most common snake in the park. IT IS NOT A COPPERHEAD. Would look awesome on a shirt and pint glass.
RUMPS score:	45

While these are all worthy candidates, there is one that is long overdue, and yet perfect for this year's dead race... to be revealed Saturday...

Candidate:	2015 RUMPS Mascot
Suggested By:	The Revolution
Chance it will be:	100%
Why it will be:	We already have the shirts printed...
RUMPS score:	100

Umstead Marathon- THANK YOU!

2015-03-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

Photo by Harold Hill

Broken
As you have all heard by now the Umstead Marathon has been canceled for 2015.
At first we were heartbroken. For Shannon and I, it's more than a race. It is THE event of the year.

But it's like when you break a finishers pint. It's sad at first, but then you realize you haven't lost the experience or the friends behind it.

Thank You Volunteers!
Photo by Dennis Geiser

THANKS!
The cancellation just makes us realize how much we appreciate this race and all the people behind it that make it happen. Thank you for twelve great years, and looking forward to many more.

Thank You Conclave!
Photo by Dennis Geiser

Thank You Godiva!
Photo by Dennis Geiser

Hard Climb Hill
And really the Umstead Marathon is just an excuse to run and hang out friends. And that will continue on Sunday at Hard Climb Hill.

Mascot?
While the race has been canceled, the mascot speculation has not.
So look for a Mascotology post tomorrow!

2015 Umstead Mascotolgy Part 2 - Mascot Race

2015-03-01T15:42:00.000-05:00

Mascots from the first eleven Umstead Marathons line up to race

(Note: not an actual photo)

Damn Damp Damper
As I write this, freezing rain is coming down on top of the 6 inches of snow left over from last week, which covered the 3 inches of ice we got days before that. The forecast is for more rain all week.

By Saturday, Umstead will be a giant mud pit, and there is talk of canceling the race. That puts a huge damper on things. Umstead Marathon is our favorite race, anytime, anywhere. I would rather have all the other races this year canceled than miss Umstead. And this year, we have celebrity runners traveling 2620 miles just to run these 26.2.

Let's cross our fingers and hope things work out.

The Great Mascot Race
The critters in Umstead don't mind a little snow, ice, rain, and mud. Well, maybe they do, but they don't require dry parking lots. So their race will go ahead as planned.

In past years, our Mascotology analysis focussed on scientific taxonomy, Park Presence, Running Relevance, Silhouettability, Logotimidation, Inevitability, etc. This year we will look at the mascots ability to run a marathon.

So we are lining up all eleven mascots from the previous years and seeing who comes out on top.
Because of the weather, we will not have aid stations at this race. To compensate, we have extended the cutoff time to 48 hours.

The fish decided not to run. His Achilles Tendonitis has been acting up lately,
and he hasn't been able to get in any decent training.

START!
As expected the rabbit, who always has trouble pacing himself, takes off like... a rabbit.
The fly and the turkey vulture follow close behind. The possum, the horned devil, and the turtle lumber after them.

The bat and the squirrel, who have been up partying all night, fall asleep in the lodge.

Duck and Frog
The duck, who was too nervous to eat breakfast and spent the whole morning in the porto-potty, is really hungry. Before they can even make it out of Camp Lapihio he tries to eat the frog.

An artists rendition of the struggle.
Imagine that's a duck.
Hey! This could be a good motivational poster for a marathon.

The frog had trained really hard for this, and is not about to give up. So he starts choking the duck.
He ends up stuck in the ducks throat, and they are both carted off by the EMTs to be separated.
DNF for both frog and duck.

Shannon was upset that the frog and the duck were fighting.
So I have to add here that the frog and duck end up as best friends and have a book written about them.

Front of the Pack

Disqualified for leaving the course...
and also for murder.

On Reedy Creek around mile 10, the fly is feeling a little hungry. Some poor human just jogging in the park passes in the opposite direction, and she cannot resist making a meal out of him. So she turns around and follows him, joined by hundreds more flies who swarm around him. The poor jogger, screaming and swatting himself in the face and neck, gets halfway to Cary before he drops dead from blood loss. The fly is disqualified.

Jogger in Umstead Park Eaten Alive by Flies

The Turkey Vulture smells the dying runner from miles away. There is the odor of weakness and death, but also just a hint of Fruity Pebbles. The vulture cannot resist and circles back to for a taste .

The turkey vulture drops out to spend the day feasting on a rotting engineer

Back at the first aid station the Horned Devil is pulled from the course and disqualified.
Turns out he was a not an official mascot, and was running with a fake copy of the possum's bib.

Meanwhile back at the cabin, the flying squirrel the wakes up, drinks some coffee and heads out. Leaping from tree to tree, he quickly catches up and passes the turtle, the possum, and Heiko.

Wait! What is Heiko doing here? Well it's not surprising, he's at at every race.
He could have won this thing, but unfortunately he gets distracted by an old hashing trail
and gets lost looking for a beer break.

Poor rabbit has to drop

Rabbit Fever
The rabbit, who is in the lead, starts to feel really ill and drops out at mile 20. He is taken to the hospital where is given a battery of tests.

"Turns out you have tularemia," says the doctor.
"Tularemia? What the hell is that?", asks the rabbit.
"Rabbit Fever.", replies the doctor, "you haven't been bitten by any ticks lately have you?"
"No, I don't think... OH NO"

The tick latches onto the rabbit at the start of the race hoping to ride him to the finish,
but ends up putting them both in the hospital.

Slow and steady wins the race?
Nope. This is no fable, buddy.
The turtle does set a PR though, with 34:12:39

Wheels fall off at the bottom of Cedar Ridge.

The flying squirrel is doing really well until he hits Cedar Ridge, where he bonks really bad. He shouldn't feel bad, though, this happens to almost everyone.

Around mile 22, the possum waddles past the squirrel, "Good job!", she says, feeling a little bad for him, and then powers up the hill.

Her secret?

She had her pouch filled with 8 packs of Espresso Love Gu!

The possum passes the Squirrel on Cedar Ridge

Around 7 pm the bat wakes up, and flies the course in 1:49.
But Umstead is old school, there is no chip timing.
So she comes in 3rd place.

Possum Wins in 11:05:29!
(But are you really surprised?)

2015 Umstead Mascot Race Results*

Place	Year	Name	Gender	Clock Time
1	2014	Possum	F	11:05:29
2	2005	Flying squirrel	M	11:34:55
3	2012	Bat	F	11:49:02
4	2006	Turtle	F	34:12:39
DNF- Mile 20	2010	Hare	M
DNF- Mile 20	2011	Tick	F
DNF- Mile 15	2008	Turkey vulture	M
DNF- Mile 1	2012	Duck	M
DNF- Mile 1	2009	Frog	M
DNS	2007	Fish	M
DQ - Murder	2004	Horse Fly	F
DQ - Bandit	2014	Horned Devil	F

*All participants were awarded plaques. Except the possum, who got a stuffed animal.

NEXT- Evaluating the picks for the 2015 Mascot

(... and hoping there is a race in 2015)

2015 Umstead Mascotology Part 1

2015-02-27T21:38:00.000-05:00

Volunteers like Susie make the Umstead Marathon the best party of the year

The 12th Umstead Marathon is only a week away!

Which means it is time for our annual Mascotology post.

Since Mascotology is the only reason anyone ever reads this blog, I plan to milk it for all it's worth.

I am stretching it out into an epic five-part series:

1. Today - Intro
2. Sunday - Past mascot analysis
3. Tuesday - Handicapping the peoples' picks
4. Wednesday- R.U.M.P.S.
5. Thursday- The 2015 mascot revealed! (That's right, a day early!)

Beginners Guide
For those unfamiliar with the race, every year there is a different animal "mascot".
The mascot adorns the website, the shirts, and the finishers pint glasses for that year's race.
Also, the top 15 male and female finishers receive a handmade wooden plaque in the shape of that animal. The mascot is chosen by a bizarre and shadowy ritual known as the Umstead Conclave. (See here for details).
The choice is kept in absolute secrecy until Friday, the day before race. But we here at Running-Down are Umstead Mascotology experts and read the tell-tale signs to accurately predict what the mascot will be.

From the Umstead Website
Pint glasses displaying the mascot for each year

Review
If you have not been following along (where have you been?) here is brief synopsis of past Mascotology:

Year	Mascot Should have been	Prediction	Actual	Prognosticator
2010	Deer	Opossum (see post)	Hare	?
2011	Possum	Deer (see post)	Tick	Josh
2012	Possum	Bat (see post)	Bat	Running-Down!
2013	Possum	Possum (see post)	Duck	?
2014	Possum	Possum (see post)	~~Horned Devil~~ Possum	The Possum Revolution!

To submit your own picks for this years' mascot, please visit the Running Down Facebook Page or for you non-facebookers, leave a comment below.

NEXT: The Great Mascot Race

Running Song of the Week

2015-02-14T16:57:00.001-05:00

This song was stuck in my head as I attempted run over the rocks of Uwharrie, stumbling, trying to lift my feet, jump left, jump right, jump up, jump down, left, right, stumble, trip...

How'd I arrive in a place like this?
Red right hand as the alligator kiss
My head turns white but my face is green
But my feet are still goin' if you know what I mean
...
Satan....said dance!
...
He says to me to shake around
And don't stop till you hit the ground...

And I know that it's not
How you thought it would be
No trail, no running,
just dancing dancing dancing...

Uwharrie 2015 - suffering IS optional

2015-02-08T12:39:00.000-05:00

Beat Some Sense Into Me
In 2013 we volunteered at the Uwharrie 40 finish line. I was incredibly jealous and impressed by all the people actually running through the finish line with smiles on their faces.
I had never been able to do this. I am always reduced to a grumpy limp by the end after stupidly trying to run it fast. Last year I dropped out half way.

So this year I was determined to run through that finish line. And I had an arsenal of secret weapons to help me achieve this goal.

Mark Manz manages to avoid Shannon sitting in the middle of the trail
taking pictures, and cruises to a second place finish in something like 6:24.
His first time running in Uwharrie, and first trail run in months.

#1 - Heart Rate Monitor

This gadget would give a completely objective measurement of my effort, keeping me from running too fast and blowing up as usual. The plan was to average 125 BPM for the first 38 miles and then kick it in. It was fool proof!

This plan failed in the first mile. The strap slowly slipped off my scrawny chest. I gave up struggling with it, and decided to let it slip to my waist.

Unfortunately, on the way down it got stuck on my belly. Which I guess was a completely objective measurement of my chest-to-belly ratio, and letting me know I needed to cut back on the beer.

It seemed like it was still reading my heart rate through my stomach, until I belched up my Ensure and it shot up to 300 BPM.

#2 - Balanced Shoes

I was desperately worried about my hip bursitis that I had been suffering from in January. It had failed me on all three long training runs after just 10 miles. So I sought professional expert medical attention, and had a diagnosis:

He said my left side had been doing too much work trying to compensate for a bad right knee.

The chiropractor/spiritual healer/dentist I had gone to said the root of the problem as a "chakra color imbalance".

The cure was to rebalance my Chakra. I needed a calming blue shoe on the left side to relax it.
On the right side, I needed flashy yellow/orange shoe to pick up the slack.

This worked wonderfully. Both hips were equally sore.

Pain Is Inevitable; Suffering Is Optional.
Advil® is $3.99 a bottle; but generic is $2.39

#3 - Medication

Before the race Shannon had packed four Advil. I thought, "Wow, that's a lot, but OK".
So I pocketed four Advil too and gulped them down around mile 19.
I didn't realize that four was to have extra.

All soreness in my hips, hamstrings, and knees disappeared and after the turn around I felt great!

Trailheads manning the mile 8/32 aid station

#4 - Haroldism

Coming back I was fading fast, and my calves on the verge of cramping. I needed something more than the 100 oz of HEED I had been drinking (by the way what is up with HEED? I admit it is easier on the stomach than Gatorade, by why does it have to taste like Cleveland tap water?)

At the mile 32 aid station, I asked the wise Harold "Galoot" Hill what the Haroldism of the Day was.
He paused, reflecting only for a second, then gave me this:

One who travels farthest in their mind travels lightest by foot.

And then Jenny "Lawst" gave me some electrolytes, and directed me to the trail.
And light on my feet I went, relaxed, as I journeyed deep into my mind trying to understand what he meant.

"This is where you cross! Come on through!", called Shannon,
before he could realize he could cross 5 feet to the right without getting his feet wet.
Never trust a photographer.

#5 - Capitulation

It only took 5 attempts, but I understand how to run the Uwharrie 40 now.
Don't fight it. There are more runnable miles on the trail than I am capable of running anyway, so there is no sense trying to run the hard parts.
Slight incline? Walking that.
Pile of rocks? Walking that.
Steep decent? Walking that.

I waited until the last hill that comes around mile 38, the one that I always hobble up.
This time I was able to run up it, tiptoe down the rock pile on the other side, and for the first time, run through the finish line smiling with my arms raised.

Co-race director Kim was taking finish line photos, "I missed you coming in. Can go back up the hill come through again?"

The rest of Shannon's photos in public facebook album here.

Uwharrie: Suffering is Inevitable

2015-02-06T13:16:00.000-05:00

Fun?
My boss asked me if I was doing anything "fun" this weekend.
After I described the Uwharrie 40 mile Mountain run, he said, "well, that doesn't sound like much fun". I had to agree, which made me question why I have signed up for this 5 times.

Sure, maybe the first 10 or 15 miles are fun. And if I can finish, then sitting down at the end, eating soup and comparing bloody knees with friends is fun. But at mile 30, I cannot say it is fun.

At that point my body has been pulverized by 6 hours of constant jarring as I drag it over jagged rocks. Extreme fatigue makes just following the trail a struggle in itself. I stand motionless for minutes, surveying the uniform blanket of leaf covered rocks and barren grey trees that stretch out endlessly in every direction, searching for some trace of a trail. Is that a white blaze? Or just a blotch of lichen?

Then comes the next steps of my cold, wet feet. My calves cramping, knees and hips aching. My quads tenderized. Only 10 miles to go, but it will be hours, and feel like an eternity.

It's like the old saying:

Pain Is Inevitable; Suffering Is... well, suffering is inevitable too.
But Signing Up Is Optional.

Uwharrie 40 miler vs. Iron Mountain 50 miler.
Guess which one is harder?

Well, I Think It's Hard
I remember reading an internet comment by some ultra runner on the other side of the country, scoffing at the elevation profile of Uwharrie. But the heights of the Uwharrie "Mountains" are not relevant to the difficulty of the trail. I have done the Iron Mountain 50 miler in VA, which dwarfs the Uwharrie 40 in elevation, but I can attest that the Uwharrie 40 is much, much harder.

It's like comparing "jumping on a trampoline" to "being beat with a baseball bat". One activity has more elevation gain, but the other is much more painful.

Obviously there are more difficult races out there. I am sure there is a 5000 mile foot race that starts in Antarctica, goes under the ocean and ends in an active volcano... and there is a lottery to get in.
But Uwharrie is more than enough for testing and exceeding my modest limits.

Not even Josh could find fun in Uwharrie

Wrong Side of The Curve
Over the past 5 years, my experience at Uwharrie have been a perfect representative sample of the state of my running ability and well being. (The word "microcosm" seems appropriate, but I think the word has been ruined by TV pundits).

2010 - 6:33 - finished running fast and feeling good. (flood shortened course)
2011 - 7:05 - crashed at mile 38. Took weeks to recover.
2012 - 7:33 - destroyed at mile 35. Took months to recover.
2013 - DNS - volunteered. Too wrecked to even sign up.
2014 - DNF - vanquished by mile 20.
2015 - Really? Again?

The first time I ran it, I wondered: "Will I finish?"
Then I became overconfident, and the question was: "Can I run it under 7 hours?"
Now, with some lingering hip problems, I am back to wondering "Will I finish?"

It seems Uwharrie is a barometer for my physical fitness, tracking my slow decline into decrepitude.
OR maybe instead of reflecting my decline, it is causing my decline.
Our wise friend Jim has run Uwharrie something like 87 times, and is still fast as ever. But he ONLY runs the 20 miler. At us 40 milers, he just shakes his head with pity.He has seen us come and go.

So?
So every year I suffer more, and still come back. Why?
The rest of the year, my struggle to survive consists of challenges such as:

How will I stream The Daily Show from my computer to the TV?
How am I going to sleep after eating 4 bowls of Raisin Bran Crunch at 11pm?
Is that 96 roll pack of toilet paper at Costco really a good deal?

So maybe I go back to Uwharrie because of the suffering. That moment at mile 30, when I am wrecked and defeated, standing alone in the vast desolate forest, only wanting a hot meal and to lay down: it is a rare, brief escape from my modern American existence, with different challenges:

If I bend down to find out what is in my shoe, can I get back up?
That is really swelling up. Should I seek medical attention?
Was I supposed to cross that stream?
Can I make it up this hill without bending my knee?

This is a Test...
Bull City Running does an amazing job putting on this race and taking care of the runners. Well stocked aid stations are never more than a couple miles away.

But in the dead of winter, the Uwharrie trail has a raw, unforgiving feel to it. For me, setting out to run 40 miles on it is a cold, hard appraisal of my physical and mental strength.
Will 2015 continue my descent into infirmity?

I have resolved to finally, really, try to run the Umstead 100 this year; a mere 7 weeks away.

In preparation, I slogged hundreds of slow miles in November and December. I guess I will find out if it did me any good, or if it just gave me a chronic case of hip bursitis. I rested most of the past two weeks and took lots of ibuprofen. Fingers crossed.

I'll see some of you out there tomorrow.
Here's to suffering!

Medoc Marathon

2014-10-20T21:18:00.001-04:00

Carol Rigsbee and Sherri Lynch enjoy a smooth section of trail in Medoc
[photo by Scott Lynch]

Another Trail Marathon?
I have always believed that the best trail marathon in NC is the Umstead Marathon. By any objective measurement, Umstead is clearly the best marathon in NC, if not the entire world. The course, the tradition, the mascots, the shirts, the finishers pints, the volunteers, etc. It really is the perfect race.

However, for the past few years I have had people tell me there is another race that rivals Umstead in it's awesomeness: Medoc.

How could you possibly have a bad race
when you are "Skippy the Trail Turtle"?

I was highly skeptical. Another trail marathon in NC? One as great as Umstead? Doubtful.
October is prime racing season, so there was always other things we were signed up for.
But finally this year, Shannon and I decided to finally take the hour drive out to Medoc State park and see for ourselves.

To call this "swag" would be an insult. This is premium merchandise.
That's a nice fitting hoody sweatshirt, a high quality "finisher's surprise" hat,
and medals that you could kill someone with.

Happy Hoody
Initial impressions of the race were good.
The drive was quicker than Google Maps had predicted and we got to Medoc Mountain State Park from Raleigh in about an hour.

It was a cool morning, and I was shivering a bit waiting at packet pickup. So it was a happy surprise to receive a warm, nicely fitting hoody instead of the usual running shirt. I immediately put it to good use.

Next, Shannon, Brandy and I debated the placement of the "Medoc Man" trail tattoos, used the genuine bathroom facilities several times, and then hobnobbed among the many familiar faces waiting for the race to start.

"Medoc is a really great race!"
Brandy Burns, current president of the Godiva Track Club, which puts on the Umstead Marathon.
[photo by Scott Lynch]

Race Strategy

My racing strategy has always been to run like it is my last day on earth, and to get to the finish as fast as possible regardless of bodily harm. But at the ripe old age of 44, my days of setting PRs are behind me, so trying to run fast has lost its appeal.

So my goal for this race to was to finish it actually running, instead of miserably limping across the line as I have in 3 of my past 4 marathons.

The plan was to run/walk the first 2 loops at a 10 min pace, and hopefully I would have enough left to run the last loop strong.

Before the start, everyone seemed afraid to stand at the start line next to Brandon Carter, who we all knew would be running a sub-3. But I have no shame, so I lined up right in front even though I did not belong there. Off we went with a short out-n-back on the road and within a mile we hit the trails.

"Sasquatch" is excited to hit the the trails.
[photo by M.S.J]

Single Track!
I absolutely love running on single track trails. However, I am not some hardcore trail runner who seeks out a challenge, like running 100 miles in Uwharrie (that's just fricking nuts). I prefer easy, runnable single track, and Medoc has plenty.

The Umstead Marathon regrettably features a meager 6 miles of single track. Medoc, in contrast, is mostly beautiful runnable single track. There is enough roots and rocks and twists and turns to keep it interesting, but not so much to make it miserable.

So with the awesomeness of the trails, I was having a little too much fun to stick to my 10 min/mile plan. "Well, maybe I can get away with a 9...".
Another thing prodding me along was the sound of my ultra-running-superstar wife Shannon chatting comfortably directly behind me. I am, of course, insanely jealous of her running exploits, and I just couldn't let her eclipse me yet again. Especially at the one and only modicum of skill I have, which is trail running.

So I risked yet another marathon bonk and pushed ahead.

The incredible Lorraine Young led the 10 miler most of the way at an incredible 6:46/mi pace.
But being the nice person that she is, she let the youngster (42% her age) behind her win.
[photo by Scott Lynch]

ME-DOC!
While the trails were mostly pretty runnable, I was getting inexplicably beat up.
Something reached out from the bushes took a swipe at me, leaving a big scratch on my thigh. Going through a rocky section, something grabbed my ankle and twisted it. Then at a muddy part along the creek I got pushed in the back and almost slid into the water. I never saw him, but it may have been the legendary "Medoc" man that lives in these woods.

Bob Sites, another victim of the legendary "Medoc Man"

Kicking it in
The course consists of three ~8.5 mile loops. At first, I thought a looped course was a fault, but I found it to be very helpful. Each time around became a little easier knowing what was coming up, and which way to turn, etc.

I had managed to maintain an "easy" 9 min/mile average through the first 2 loops (according to my GPS watch). At the start of the third, I ditched my fuel belt and really put the hammer down!
This incredible burst of speed ended about 3 minutes later when I hit the "Medoc Mountain". It is really just a short hill, but it was enough to reduce me to a brisk walk.

The stairs... how they will haunt my dreams.

Old Friends
The accelerator was pushed to floor, but the wheels were not turning any faster. Instead the legs were creaking and groaning. Just about every injury in the last 4 years came back to visit me.
"Hey! I'm your calf you lost in Umstead, remember?"
"I'm back too!" shouted my left achilles strain from 2013"
"Don't forget about us old knees, buddy!"
"Hi, plantar fasciitis from this summer, letting you know I'm still here"
Then suddenly a knife was repeatedly jabbed into my hip
"DOES! THIS! FEEL! FAMILIAR!?". Oh, Uwharrie 2012, you'll be with me forever.

Around mile 24, I was about to give in to the pain and walk it in, when I saw 2 runners ahead of me.
One was Dave, who had beat me in the last two Umstead Marathons, and had passed me earlier in the race. A little competition is like a handful of ibuprofen.
I managed to inch closer and closer to them until I passed them around the campground, a half mile from the finish. I could hear them just behind me, so I ran like it was my last day on earth, flailing my way to the finish.

Brandy Burns scores a coveted age group award pint glass.

Verdict
OK, so maybe Medoc is as great as the Umstead Marathon.
Like Umstead, Medoc is more than just a race. It is like a family reunion (assuming you like your family). It is major event that you mark on your calendar a year in advance, and you plan on being there regardless of what shape you are in. It is put on by a community of runners who just want to see other runners be happy, and succeed greatly.

If you missed Medoc Trail Races this year, you can a get a taste of it at the Medoc Spring Races next year.

Shannon
I don't recall how Shannon did. Didn't hear about it. Nope. All I know is that she didn't pass me.

10 Steps to being an Ultra Runner

2014-08-28T20:36:00.001-04:00

About a year ago, I declared "I want to be an Ultra Runner"

This was after witnessing my lovely wife and friends tackle the Iron Mountain 50 mile trail run.

I had only done the 16 miler. Two and half hours of trying (and failing) to run fast, tripping, falling, beating up my legs, and puking my guts out.

Meanwhile they had gone on an all-day adventure, with stories of drop bags, thunderstorms, hardships, triumphs and exotic places high on the mountain with names like "Skulls Gap".

I wanted that. So I made a goal to run it this year.

Transformation

But 50 miles is a long, long way. Even when I was in great shape, that was a high mileage week. So I had to learn to run far.

This past year I tried to craft, mold, chisel... hack myself into an ultra runner. Here is my 10-step plan to becoming a successful ultra runner.

1. Start with a solid marathon

So last October I ran the Detroit marathon. I had trained all summer and had high expectations.

By mile 16 my legs completely fell apart. Overtrained? Undertrained? Freight-trained? I don't know. I walked/hobbled my way the last 10 miles. I did stop for beer.

Check!

2. Learn the "Ultra Shuffle"

I decided to start my ultra training with the Croatan 24 Hour race.
I obviously had to slow way down to run for 24 hours, so tried a very slow shuffle/power walk.
My legs were really not used to this at all, and I got a horrible pain in my hip flexors by mile 8.
Check!

3. Never give up

Less than 3 hours into Croatan, I gave up.
Check!

4. If you can't run, support your fellow ultra runners.

After quitting at Croatan, I was bored and wanted to go home. So I told Shannon that her knee pain was very concerning and that she really needed some Korean soup. And wouldn't a nice warm bed be better than running around a swamp all night?
It took a lot of persuading, but I got her to quit too. Crewing ain't easy.
Check!

5. Push through the pain!

My next big race was the Uwharrie 40.
I thought I paced myself pretty well, doing the first half about 20 minutes slower than my previous attempt in 2012. Still my legs were wrecked by mile 21, and I was in a lot of pain. I could have sucked it up and tried to finish, but I am a huge wuss. I dropped out and got on the bus of shame.

Check!

6. Drink a lot of beer

All Day IPA now comes in 15 packs!

Check!

7. It can't hurt to try! DNF is better DNS

Next I was signed up for the Umstead 100 for the 5th time.
That is not a joke. I have signed up 5 times for the Umstead 100. I have only started it once, and that time I dropped out after 50 miles. The other times I was too afraid to even try.

It is practically right in my backyard, and I have dreamed of doing the 100 since I first witnessed it many years ago. But once again I was having trouble running 100 miles in month, so 100 in a day just seemed too ridiculous. I took another Umstead 100 DNS, and ran the Medoc Spring Races instead.
DNF may be better than DNS, but 7 miles is way better than 100.

Check!

8. Get some ridiculously cushy shoes

Check!

9. Run long

I managed to get in some 20 mile training runs in Umstead and one 50k to durham.
As a tune up for Iron Mountain, I ran the Grand Island Marathon in Michigan.
My legs fell apart at mile 16 again and I had to walk it in. Gigantic mosquitoes came swarming to devour my weak and sickly body and I almost died from blood loss. Luckily I was saved by a torrential thunderstorm.
Check!

10. Learn from your mistakes

So it has been a successful year of training and racing.
I am now ready to be a true ultra runner and tackle the Iron Mountain 50 miler this Saturday.
Check!

Dream Big - South Carolina 24 Hour

2014-03-22T12:18:00.002-04:00

Start of the South Carolina 24 Ultra

The Spouse

This is probably your first visit to this blog, so let me introduce myself as Shannon Johnstone's husband. That is how I'll be known from now on.

It wasn't always that way. Years ago I was the popular one, with a blog that had literally dozens of followers. Shannon and I ran a crazy amount of races together, from 5ks to Marathons, sometimes two a weekend. Neither of us were exceptional runners. We would often win our age group, but were pretty average even within our local running club Carolina Godiva, and never posted a performance worth noting.

I was always a little faster than Shannon, and finished ahead of her in our first 92 races together.

But it was our first ultra-marathon, the Frosty 50k, where we discovered she had a hidden talent. The further she went, the stronger she got. It took every fiber of my being to keep up with her at the end of that race.

This led us to try more ultras, but I was not cut out for them. The Uwharrie 40 miler left me in ruins. Shannon, on the other hand, ended up winning it in 2011. She went on to run the Umstead 100 in 21:48, becoming a true ultrarunner.

Our friend Dennis put crazy ideas in Shannon's head.

Big Dreams
While running a 100 miles in a day is beyond the comprehension of your average runner, in elite ultra circles it is merely a good training run. On a national scale, Shannon's 100 mile time of 21:48 is fairly pedestrian.

Still, she had big ambitions which she mostly kept to herself because they seemed so outrageous. Her heroes were Annette Bednosky, Jill Perry and Connie Gardner. She dreamed of being a part of Ultra Team USA.
A friend of ours had just gone to the World Triathlon Championships as part of the national tri team, and he talked about the little USA shorts with his name on them. Shannon was starry-eyed.

Living legend Ray Krolewicz (Coach Ray K.) gives last minute instructions

Ridiculous

So she scrutinized the current qualifiers for the Women's National 24 Hour Team.

When she saw that the two open spots were currently held by relatively low performances (122.5 and 124 miles), she started scheming and looking for 24 hour races. If she could run 100 miles, what's another 22.5? It was early February when she heard of Ray Krolewicz's last chance South Carolina 24 hour qualifier. She jumped at.

I thought she was crazy. The race was 5 only weeks away. She hadn't been putting in any kind of training for a 24 hour race, let alone one on a track, and she thought she was going to qualify for a national team? She had only run 127 miles in the entire month of January, and she was going to run 123 in a day? It seemed ridiculous to me.

A ton of experience and talent
Photo: Ray Krolewicz

A Plan

But I should have known not to doubt her yet again.

Immediately after hearing about the race she jumped on the treadmill and ran a 50k on it. Seriously, five hours on a treadmill. A good test in tedium.

Then she wanted to talk strategy. I am a big believer in even pacing (only theoretically, I am not smart enough to put it in practice). Running 122.5 miles in 24 hours requires an 11:45 pace, but she felt more comfortable running an 8:00 to 9:00 min mile. So I suggested running 4 loops and then walking 1, to average the 5.1 miles an hour.

The next week she went to the track and ran another 50k there, practicing the "run 4/walk 1" ratio. It was an abnormally warm 75 degree day, and she learned how important the walk breaks could be.

After this, she came up with her plan:

Run the first 50 miles in 10 hours, with her 4/1 ratio.
When the sun sets (when she feels her best) start skipping walk breaks and run the next 50 faster.
Have plenty of time left for the last 22.5

Ray-K does things old school, like this race program.
The women's competition was impressive
Photo: -Harvey Lewis

Competition

When race day came, Shannon had lost her hopes of making the team. There were nine other women there vying for a spot, almost all of them with far more impressive resumes. Eight of them had gone over 100 miles before, and one had just placed 2nd in the national 50k championship.

So instead Shannon was just hoping to run the entire 24 hours. If she made the 120 mile qualifying mark, that would be "icing on the cake".

Start

Of everything Shannon did that day, it was the way she started that I was most proud of her for.

Of the 9 men and 10 women, she was the only one who took walk breaks right from the start.

Despite being lapped over and over, she stuck to her 4/1 plan.

Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Lapped

At the 3 hour mark, Shannon was DFL (dead fucking last).
She had been lapped by the lead women 18 times, and was almost 5 miles behind them. But she was happy and feeling good.

I sat at the card table I had set up, surrounded by 300 pounds of stuff we had carted from home. Most of it assorted types of candy. Occasionally I would refill her bottles with gatorade or water.

I talked with Tim who was set up next to us. He was crewing for his wife, Carilyn Johnson, a four time member of the 24 hour team, hoping to make her 5th. We commiserated with each other, being the slouch husbands to ultra runner wives. Shannon didn't need much help, so I went out a 3 mile run, which was enough to exhaust me.

The GPS track. Round and round they go

All smiles the first few hours
Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Getting Hot
By 3pm it was getting hot. It was about 73 degrees, very low humidity, and a nice breeze.
This sounds pleasant, but the sun was scorching. I kept slathering on sunscreen but still it felt like my skin was being microwaved.

Adding to the temperature was the black track absorbing and radiating heat.
The runners could not tell how much they were sweating, because the dry wind evaporated it instantly. But the heat started to take it's toll. Joe Fejes set up a bucket of ice water for people to dunk their shirts in.

A few runners started getting sick, possibly from being dehydrated. But the leaders kept their pace up through the afternoon.

Elites Carilyn Johnson and Katalin Nagy lead the way
Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Baked
Even though she was pacing herself and taking walk breaks, the sun almost defeated Shannon.
"I can't do this"
She plopped down in the chair.
"I'm not cut out for this. I feel awful, I just want to go home. I don't want to do this anymore. This isn't for me."
Being a huge wimp myself, I am not good helping others through adversity. In fact, in the Croatan 24 hour race I talked her into dropping out. But I had promised to be more positive this time.

"I am sure you feel awful. It is really hot out and you don't handle heat well. But if you want to drop out, you can... but first just walk 8 laps. If you walk 8 laps and still feel bad, then we can go home."

I gave her a big cotton shirt and doused it with water, and had her wear her big floppy sun hat. She looked kind of silly, but it was what she needed.

Shannon in her "Badwater gear"
Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Fallout

Shannon managed to recover from the hot afternoon, but others were not as lucky. Six of the other women fell off their pace due to illness or cramps.

Shannon hit her 50 miles in 9:37.

By hour 12, she had 62 miles and had moved up into 4th place. She had paced herself well and stuck to her plan.

The 3 lead women were running very strong and Shannon was far behind.

Halfway point
Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Sleep

Shannon had booked me a hotel room for the night. I think she worried I would get tired and try to talk her into dropping out. So around 10pm, I left and had a guilty nights sleep.

She had planned on picking up the pace at night, but it didn't work out that way.

Around 1 am (15 hours in) she hit another low point, and sat down for 15 minutes, feeling defeated.

Ray K came by and asked if she wanted to nap in his car.

The timers were kids from Wilson High school and their parents.
The stayed awake all night manually recording every lap of each run.
Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Luckily Mark Mantz was there to make coffee and do the math for her. She had 9 hours left and 45 miles to reach her 120 mile goal. "That's only 12 min miles. You can do that!".

Shannon hit 100 miles in 19:46. But she was slowing down, having run the second 50 in 10:05.

Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Carnage

After my good nights sleep, I awoke feeling a little sore from my 3 miles the day before. I got back to the track by 6am and caught a glimpse of Shannon still running as I pulled up. I couldn't believe it.

The track looked much different than when I left. A few of the runners were gone. Many were sitting or walking very slowly. A few that had struggled during the day had recovered and were back running strong in the morning.

Photo: Ray Krolewicz

A Chance

After 21 hours, Shannon was now in second place.

In first was Katalin Nagy, who had just broke the 200k American record in 20:01. With that performance, Katalin secured her #5 spot on the team.

Still up for grabs was the last spot, and Shannon now had a chance at it. If she could make it past 122.5 miles, she could possibly make her dream of Team USA come true.

But... she had run 106 miles in 21 hours, which is a 11:54 pace.

Another 17 miles in the last 3 hours would be a 10:49 pace.

So she would have to pick up the pace and run the last 17 miles faster than the previous 106. It seemed implausible to say the least.

Honor Bonds (left) counted all of Shannon's 495 laps for the entire 24 hours.
Photo: Ray Krolewicz

Pain
And she was struggling. Her face was scrunched up in a scowl. Her running stride was now very short and stiff. She could only take sips of ginger ale, and could not eat anything.

"I need to sit down for a second", she said as she came by. I knew this would be a mistake.
"NO! Do not sit down. Do not stop. Do not walk."
She was running about a 10:30 pace, so she had absolutely no time to spare. She had to run continuously the entire last 3 hours in order to make it.

She would run by and shake her head and whisper "I can't do this".
"This is what you were dreaming of. This moment. You can do it."

I counted down the laps. 67...30...10...6...4...3..2...
"Just two more laps, than you can stop!," I shouted, "hold on! Just two more!"
But then Ray shook his head, "Two more to what? That only gets her 122.5, but she has to keep going. There are 3 other 24 hour races going on. She has to go as far as she can."

Somehow she managed to run past 122.5 for another 2 laps for 123.1 miles. When the 24 hours were up she just laid down in the grass.

Megan Stegemiller ran with Shannon the last few hours and got her through

Step It Up

We won't know if she actually made the team until next week when they announce it. Maybe they will chose someone else.

And even if she does make the team there may not even be a World Championship to go to because the one scheduled for Pilzen, Czech Republic has been cancelled.

But she dreamed big and actually achieved it. Witnessing it has made me a little less cynical.

However, amazing as her run was, she now has new standards to live up to. She got this Facebook message from Joe Fejes:

Congratulations Mary Shannon Johnstone for the effort you put out this weekend in nailing down the last spot on the USA team. It was a thrill to watch you accomplish an opportunity of a lifetime.
Words of wisdom--be prepared to step up and contribute as a scorer at the World Championship...

Yeah, Shannon. Only 123 miles? Time to step up!

2014 Umstead Marathon

2014-03-04T20:15:00.000-05:00

Viva La Revolucion Opossum!
Photo by Harold "Galoot" Hill

'Possum For The People
And thus began the Opossum Revolution.
With Umstead Conclave's endless regime of opossum oppression, we took matters into our own hands and set out to put the critter in it's rightful place. We had our own shirts made for the race.

The revolution was carefully orchestrated, with cells simultaneously rising up on Saturday morning
from the east coast all the way to the west coast in Port Angeles WA. With Barefoot Josh and Iris Sutcliffe.

Friday afternoon at packet pickup we learned what we were up against.
This leaked document here details the inner working of The Conclave's process for selecting the Hickory Horned Devil for the this years "official" mascot. It is no coincidence that the gigantic and disgusting beast is the complete opposite of a cuddly opossum.

A photo of the gigantic "hickory horned devil" about to consume
another victim in Umstead Park.
Photo by Chas Willmon.

Fly Trap
But we were ready, because we had been planning for weeks in advance.
Since our numbers were few, we had to resort to guerilla tactics (wait... what about a gorilla for a mascot?).

Sabotage! We stole the fly from the official 2014 shirt

We infiltrated the company that prints the Umstead Marathon shirts with a mole (wait... maybe a mole for a mascot?) . This conspirator secretly sabotaged the official shirts by leaving the iconic symbol of the Umstead Marathon, the horse fly, off the shoulder. Instead he put it on our rebellious opossum shirts. We had captured the Umstead flag!

To make ours the legitimate Umstead Marathon shirts of 2014,
we liberated the official fly from the Conclave shirts.

The only thing left to do was to actually run the marathon, which suddenly shook my resolve in the revolution.

Despite trying many times, I had not run continuously farther than 18 miles in the last 3 years (since the Umstead marathon 2011 coincidently). My last 4 marathon and 3 ultra attempts have ended with suffering. Either DNF or painfully walking and shuffling the last miles. There was no reason to think this time would be any different.

"No, don't think of it as pain," the very wise running guru Harold "Gallot" Hill said to me before the race, "it is just different levels of love and enjoyment. Embrace it!"

Photos by Conclave member and plaque carver Dennis Geiser

Running With The Devil (Hickory)
He was so right! Even though I expected to be reduced to a painful walk at mile 18, I would still be in my favorite place and time: The Umstead Marathon. It only comes once a year, enjoy it!

Common sense suggested that if I wanted this marathon to be different than my last four, then I should start very slow and easy. Shannon didn't agree with common sense and told me to just "go for it".

So I left the heart rate monitor at home and just went out fast with the pack, planning to enjoy it while it lasted.

I saw Lorraine coming back at mile 17, leading the race with three guys struggling behind her.

Lorraine Young led the way, blasting out of the start at an insane pace. Only 3 very fast guys could keep up with her, and that small lead pack was out of sight quickly.

I found myself in the second pack with a guys like Ronnie Weed, David Nash, and Mark Manz. These guys ALWAYS finish way in front of me in races, so clearly I was going too fast. But I was following Harold's advice to enjoy the race, and for me that meant to run the single track recklessly.

The Conclave was on the lookout for conspirators,
trying to pull them from the course. In a moment of cowardice, I tried to hide my uniform.

( Dennis Geiser)

One of my favorite things to do is to come out and try to run Company Mill and Sycamore as fast as I can (which isn't that fast). But I have probably run the "Figure8" route maybe 50 times, and I know every rock, every root and every turn. So I just let out a "whoop" and plunged down Company Mill and had fun.

The switchbacks on "power-line" hill on Sycamore.

Swearing Spouse
Behind me, Shannon and Monique were trying to "take it easy" on single track. Despite this, Shannon tripped on a root and fell while walking up Sycamore around mile 5.

She earned a bit of trail love and bruise on her shin. First she screamed every single obscenity in her vocabulary as loud as she could. Then she proceeded to apologize to the long stream of runners behind her.

Don't feel bad for her though. After she limped along for a while, she picked up the pace and ran the second half faster, getting wood for the 8th time.

Scott represents the revolution among the volunteers.

Running With The Devil (Hickory)
When I came out of the single track around mile 8, I felt surprisingly OK. But by mile 10 my legs were getting sore and assumed they wouldn't last past 16 as usual. I walked up the "Big Mother F'er" hills on North Turkey creek, and then got "lei'd" at the tropical themed aid station. This gave me a huge boost.

I had been counting the men coming back, and when I got to the turn-around at 15, I realized that I was was in 10th place! I couldn't believe it. If I could just stay in the top-15, I would get "Devil Wood"! However there were many guys not far behind me, and my legs could blow up at any moment.

The finish line welcoming committee awaits the first place finisher with "Devil Wood"
( Dennis Geiser)

Mile after mile ticked by, and amazingly my legs were still working. What was different this time? Was it the 600 calories of gu? Was it that I didn't try to "train" for this? Because I was better rested? Or maybe I was being driven by the spirit of revolution!

Umstead Marathon is a party in the park

Seize The Day
As everyone who runs this race knows, the real test of Umstead awaits at the bottom of Cedar Ridge around mile 23. And just like the sign says, my wheels almost came off. I had turned to walk back up the hill when my hip, hamstring, and calf all simultaneously began to seize up.

ARRGGHH! I had to immediately switched back to running with tiny little steps to hold off the cramps. I had to tiptoe the last 3 miles like I was balancing a huge stack of dishes. If I stopped running or made any sudden movements it will all come crashing down.

Photo by Dennis Geiser
Hearts by Google.

Co-opting The Revolution
I crossed the finish line so completely exhausted, it took me a moment to grasp what was happening.

Someone was handing me a Hickory Horned Devil plaque. After three down years, I didn't think I would be "Getting Wood" ever again, and I was deliriously happy. The day had gone perfectly, it simply could not get any better.

And then it got better.

Conclave member Denise then handed me a stuffed opossum.

It was the Carolina Godiva President and all around wonderful person Brandy Burns who had the idea many months ago. Instead of trying to oppress the opossum, the Conclave had been secretly planning to give me exactly what I wanted. I was stunned.

The dream realized.
2014, The Year of The Opossum!

If you think there is a better race somewhere else, then you are wrong.

It Just Keeps Getting Better
The lesson here is that you cannot fight The Conclave. They will kill you with kindness.

There are many posts on Facebook and marathon.com reviews saying that "Umstead Marathon is THE best race anywhere, period"
And this is not an exaggeration. The organizers and volunteers owe no allegiance to an outside cause or shoe store. They are motivated by one simple thing: they genuinely enjoy seeing runners happy, and at this they succeed prodigiously.

Behind the scenes, the Conclave makes it happen
( Dennis Geiser)

The Umstead Marathon is absolutely perfect in every way, and I would not change a thing.

Well, except that one thing...

Long live the Opossum Revolution!

NOOOO! DUDLEY! THAT'S NOT A TOY!

Umstead Marathon Mascotolgy Boycott

2014-02-23T11:56:00.001-05:00

The Peoples 'Possum will not be denied!

Boycott!
Fans of the Umstead Marathon may be familiar with this blog due to the expert Mascotology analysis we provide every year.

I regret to inform you that there will be NO mascotology this year. We are boycotting.

The wife greedily hoards Umstead plaques

Background

For the uninitiated: the Umstead Marathon has a different mascot each year which adorns the assorted race paraphernalia: t-shirts, finisher's pint glasses, etc. The top 15 finishers of each gender receive the coveted wooden plaques in the shape of the mascot. See here for more info about the shadowy group known as the "Conclave" that chooses the mascot. Previous posts: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2103.

We will not be discussing how cool a snake would be, or how long overdue it is.

Malevolent Overlords
Why are we boycotting?
Because the insular little cult of the "Conclave" has become a ruthless and bitter dictatorship.
Yes, they continue to give us the wonderful gift that is the Umstead Marathon year after year.

However, they have become mad with jealousy when it comes to the mascot selection.
Every year we accurately identify the best candidates for mascot, and The Conclave deliberately chooses something else! Just out of spite!

Despite the awesomeness of it,
we were denied a 10-point buck for the 10th anniversary.

Deerly Disappointed

2013 was the last straw.
Even though a 10-point buck was the clear choice for the 10th anniversary, The Conclave chose a duck.

Why a duck? Because back in 2012, I had mentioned that a duck would be "a disappointment".
They specifically chose a duck to disappoint us! Can you believe that?

I saw this opossum in a tree just outside Umstead in 2012.
A sign of the coming Opossumlypse

Obvious Opossum

The problems began in 2010, when I identified the Opossum as being THE CORRECT CHOICE for the next mascot.

They had picked a rabbit instead, but they knew I was right, and hated me for it. So instead of owning up to their mistake and giving the people their opossum, they vowed that it would never be an opossum! Ever!

You may think I am just being paranoid. But have been told directly by several members of The Conclave that this is the case. I even have it in writing! Look at this chilling threat I recently received on Facebook:

"I’m fairly certain that as long as you keep lobbying for [the possum], [The Conclave] will resist--just on general principles."

¡Viva la Revolución Zarigüeya!

Revolution in the Air
The last 20 years have been filled with people rising up to confront oppression to make things right:
The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia.

Well the time has come to end Opossum oppression. The Peoples 'Possum will not be denied!
It is time for the Opossum Revolution!

This year there will be an Opossum mascot... one way... or another...

2014 Uwharrie 40 miler

2014-02-06T19:33:00.002-05:00

Trailheads

Deja Vu
I'll skip right to end.
I got to the 20 mile mile turn around in 3:40, which was too fast, and just plain dumb.
The volunteers were amazingly speedy and helpful. They got my drop bag, filled up my bottle and took my nasty used gel packs.

I slammed an Ensure, reloaded on gels and started back towards the finish. My legs were stiff and dead. Everything hurt, right hamstring, left achilles, hips and knees, but that was expected. Unexpected was a pain in my back and chest. I was breathing really hard just walking, and my heart was racing.
I still had 20 miles and about 4 hours to go.

In anticipation, I had brought pills. I popped some ibuprofen and caffeine, and started running.
I knew exactly what was ahead, because I was in the exact same place and condition 2 years ago when I destroyed myself completely.

Women's first place finisher tackles "the log"

DNF
About a half mile out, I came to a stop, stepped off the trail, and just stood there. Did I really want to hurt myself again? For what? A steady stream of runners passed by. As a testament to trail runners, every single one was sincerely concerned, and asked if I was OK.

"Yes! I'm fine... actually, I am great!". I was so happy to quit. I turned around again and walked back to the 20 mile station to drop out and catch the bus. Even walking slowly was difficult, and a laughed at myself for even considering going another 20 miles.

Shannon
My lovely Ultra runner wife Shannon ran by, surprised to see me walking. "Oh, no no no!!"
She looked great and was running strong, yet she offered to drop out with me. "No don't be silly." I declined.
We both had the same goal of 8 hours, but she had paced herself much better for the first half.

At mile 22 however, the battery in her Garmin died.
The constant feedback of the GPS is what drives her. For her, if the GPS does record it, a run never happened.

For example, we have a route that we take our dogs that is exactly 1.1 miles long. We know this because we have run it hundreds of times. Yet, we still have to stand in the driveway holding 3 dogs until she gets a satellite signal.

Without the Garmin, she lost all motivation and finished in 8:27. It still was good enough for 2nd place female and 26th overall.

Discovery
The experience was not a complete loss for me.
I discovered the the e-Gel that I was using worked GREAT... in more ways than one:

As a fuel source. I had 5 of them, 750 calories worth, without stomach issues.
As a glue. I had put the used packets in the front pocket of my shorts, and the residual gu had leak out. When it dried, it glued my shorts to my thigh with an incredibly strong bond.
As a hair remover. When attempting to remove my shorts, I ripped out a large chunk of hair from my thigh. I need to keep this in mind when bikini season rolls around.