Despite the name I've given this run, it's not a race. Odd how attaching "50k"—however accurate—automatically makes a 31 mile run sound like a race. For me, I've never run that distance in any other context than racing. That's part of what makes this training block and that run somewhat unique and special: It was a 50km training run. To think that, in January 2018, I wasn't even sure I could run a single 50k race in front of many months of training, and to know now I'm using such a run to train feels miraculous.
In getting into ultras, I've found solace during the pain and ups-and-downs of training in running films. Specifically, watching anything and everything I could about the Barkley Marathons has always made me feel better about whatever I'm trying to work through. Whether it's the now-famous
documentary from 2014 (depicting the 2012 race), or
Ethan Newberry's documentary about my idol, Gary Robbins, I watch these films in order to remind myself that what I'm doing isn't so hard and my pain isn't too great.
With the Barkley happening last weekend, I decided to make my 50k training run into a sort of homage to those Barkers who inspire me. The route was a 15 mile loop through Tiger Mountain, with around 2,600ft of vertical gain. I'd use my car as an aid station between the loops and do a counter-clockwise loop first, followed by a clockwise loop; something I'd not done before. The goal of the run, though, was to take it easy, going far slower than even my slowest ever 50k time. This was not a race; it was a training run. My leg (possibly still recovering from a stress fracture) wasn't feeling 100% going into the run, and I didn't want to set myself back (more on that in a future post).
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| NW Timber Trail |
I'd scouted Tiger the weekend before on a ~24mi training run; it'd been a shitshow, with briars, snow, and downed trees. I adjusted my route this day accordingly, but ran many of the same trails and fire roads. Starting just after 9:30am, I made my way up the NW Timber Trail, this time (unlike last) not accidentally taking the Master Link trail straight up the mountain.
After turning on fire road and cruising along for a while, I hit my first and only real snag: A small connector trail that appears on the map, much like during my adventure the previous week, didn't really appear to exist anymore. Unlike last time, I didn't need my poles to smash briars out of the way, and I came out of it without drawing much, if any, blood; but I did have to crash through undergrowth and downed tree branches
roughly where the trail was supposed to be but was invisible. Regardless, I made it onto the next fire road and continued my journey.
As anticipated, I wore a long sleeve, breathable Salomon shirt that was nice for about five minutes of running, but clearly a bit too much after that. (I had predicted this the night before, which was no solace now.) Pushing up my sleeves, I slogged on up the mountain. As I went, there was far less snow than even the week before, causing me to doubt my decision to take mountain bike trail up to the top of the mountain instead of the previously snowy fire road. It was a gorgeous, warm day, so bikers were out in force; I had to jump off the trail more than once to get out of the way.
Snapping a quick picture and posting it to Instagram so my wife could keep up with my progress, I crested the high point of the loop roughly a quarter of the way through. It was perfectly clear, and the sun was almost blinding off the snow.
This downhill section is entirely fire road for roughly 2.5 miles, and large portions were still snow-covered. Still, the spikes I'd brought in my 5L Salomon vest proved unnecessary, as I had enough tread on my Salomon Ultra Pros to arrest my sliding descent, especially with Black Diamond Distance Carbon Z poles in each hand.
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| 15 Mile RR Grade? Or TMT? |
A short jaunt on the 15 Mile Railroad Grade Trail was straight, mostly flat, and wide for Tiger, allowing me some trail time that felt and looked nice before hitting the much less-used Tiger Mountain Trail (the portion that winds around the southwest side of the Middle Tiger Summit). It was at this point that the loop began to feel long, although I wasn't exactly tired. It just seemed to go on and on, likely because I hadn't run this section of the mountain since last summer.
I passed hiking families more frequently after I turned off one last road section on to the Iverson Railroad Trail, breaking into a full sprint to get to my car. I texted my wife to let her know I'd finished the loop and was allowing myself 10-15 minutes to recuperate and eat. As I munched granola bars and slammed water from a gallon jug (Tailwind is great, but—and I keep saying this—I'll
never again fail to bring plain water with me!), a mountain biker rolled up to me as if he knew me. "Hey. Good run?" I was taken aback. "Yeah, halfway done," I replied. "Great, great. Say, could you spare some water," he asked. "Sure; always share, that's my motto," I said as I filled his out-held bottle. "Well," he said as he turned his bike away and started pedaling, "I just rode Predator for the first time, so I need some new underwear, too." What the hell? I'd only run 15 miles and 2,600 feet, but I'd been out for just over 3 hours, so I had to process this for a bit. "Well, I've only got the one gross pair with 15 miles on 'em, so..." Now from some distance away, the biker replied, "Hey, you're the one who likes to share." Weird.
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| Car aid station! |
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| TMT |
My encounter with the odd but ultimately harmless biker spurred me to change shirts (short-sleeved Salomon XA), dump the dirt and small rocks out of my shoes (not much), and re-don my vest and head out. Replenished with Tailwind, more food than previously, but no plain water, I jogged out of the parking lot and back onto the Iverson Railroad trail.
Much of the TMT on the southwest side of Middle Tiger is on the edge of clearcut or goes through clearcut; as such, it's exposed and hot on sunny days, as it was this day. I'm always cautious of over-drinking because side aches feel debilitating to me and sometimes impossible to cure. Therefore, I don't think I drank quite enough back at the car, and I soon realized that I probably didn't bring enough to drink; I was tearing through Tailwind and had to really tone it down or risk running out early. Adding insult to injury, the first time I stopped to much a snack, I fully realized my mistake: Not bringing plain water made choking down snacks difficult without much liquid, and not enjoyable at all because of the mixed flavor of tailwind and granola bar.
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| Watch-funkified GPS tracking. Note the odd image geotagging! |
Around this time, I also realized my watch screen was frozen on the heartrate readout; no amount of fiddling was changing the screen, and the heartrate it was showing wasn't changing. The watch was clearly frozen. After stopping and fiddling, then jogging on in hopes it'd come to its senses, I stopped, dropped my poles, and really tried to troubleshoot the problem. I knew I'd be annoyed and glancing at my watch too much if it didn't snap out of it, as much as I was embarrassed to be that focused on it. Ultimately, I decided to force the watch off and back on. I seemed to recall this happening once about a year ago, and I thought maybe the watch would pick the activity back up where it had stopped. Sure enough, that was the case, although it was saying I was moving backwards on the course and it had lost the elevation profile of my previous 20-or-so miles. It was at least reading me my pace, so I felt good about continuing and did so.
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| Snowy slog. |
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| Ready to be done. |
Some time later, trudging up a steep fire road in full sun, light reflecting off the snow blasting me in the face, my Garmin FR935 buzzed, saying I was "on course" - it had snapped out of its funk and now was telling me I had a mere 9-or-so miles to go! I reached the top of the fire road climb, which proved much less enjoyable in the snow uphill, snapped another quick picture, and trotted off down steep mountain bike trail I'd previously climbed. I knew it was mostly downhill with some nice, even fire road before a short trail section to get me back to the car. Still, I kept my pace slow, hiking even short climbs, as I knew my Tailwind was running dry. At this point, I dearly regretted not bringing at least 500ml of plain water.
Although the reverse loop had initially felt much quicker to pass than the first loop, the last four miles completely negated that feeling. The sun was getting lower in the sky, making the six hours I'd spent on the mountain feel like much more. I started seeing fewer mountain bikers, as they were probably all heading home. Miles ticked by on my watch—27, 28, 29—and I felt just as tired as I would've felt in a race, but there were no cowbells ringing in the distance, no other runners encouraging me or to be encouraged. All I felt was flagging strength and mounting despair that I'd ever reach my car, despite it being only a couple miles away.
When I finally crossed one last fire road and really recognized I was merely a couple hundred feet from the lot, I lifted my head enough to see sunlight glinting off the metal and glass of the cars and pushed my pace enough to break quickly into the gravel lot, javelining my poles at the ground behind my faithful Subaru, stumbling to a stop. I'd finished a very solitary 6:49 of quiet contemplation and although fairly sore and tired, easily the best I'd felt after running 31 miles. Still, all I wanted was a giant burger, a beer, and rest. I quickly texted my wife to let her know I was done and picking her up to take her to dinner, put on some tunes, and turned tail for home.
