Along the Trail of GUs – Bear Mountain 50 Mile

5:00 AM Start.  Last shuttle to the Start from parking area is 4:15 AM.  Okay, that means I need to leave my house by 2:00 AM.  Get everything ready the night before and a 1:30 wake up it is.  I awoke when I heard my teenage son go to bed at 1:15.  Ironic, as youth goes to bed, maturity awakes to take on a 50 mile race in the mountains.  Well I said mature not smart.

A quick check of the weather radar showed yellows and reds heading toward Bear Mountain, and the threatened rain looked like it would be there for the start.

So with 3 ½ hours of sleep, I hit the road to Bear Mountain.  I am thinking to myself, who will be on the highway at this time of the morning.  Boy was I wrong. As I met the lane closures in West Haven for construction, three New Haven police cars screamed by on their way into the city to some unseen problem.  More lane reductions due to construction, no less than three motor vehicle accidents, one looked pretty serious and was on the other side of the highway and had closed all of the lanes, and numerous cars pulled over for the police made the trip more eventful than I wanted.  Pulling into the Anthony Wayne Parking Lot, the parking lot where the shuttle would take us to the Start/Finish line at the main entrance to Bear Mountain State Park, at about 3:45, I had made good time despite the eventful trip there.  I have to admit, I did press a little heavier on the gas pedal than I wanted at certain times, but I didn’t want to be late for the shuttle. Pulling off the exit I noticed it had been lit, along with the parking lot, with portable light trailers.  Wow, maybe details had been thought out and expense was put behind safety.  Not knowing what to expect from a big name running a trail event, we were off to a good start.  As we got off the exit directly into this large parking area, we were ushered to the far end of the parking area, I am sure on the premise to allow more cars to come in for the later races, which had more runners in them. The cars were parked about 300 yards from where the shuttle bus was.  In the predawn darkness, I thought, wow, this is going to suck when I come back.  A few people bucked the direction of the volunteers and parked right next to the shuttle bus station.  Wimps, we were supposed to be tough 50 milers.  Walking to the shuttle just confirmed the distance was quite far and would be on my mind on the return shuttle trip.  Well, I’ll give kudos to North Face for the lights but they should park the runners with the longest distance to run a little closer to the shuttle stop. At least the expected rain hadn’t started yet.

I knew that the North Face Bear Mountain 50 miler was a big name race and was close to NYC, so I figured it was going to attract people who are not your regular “trail/ultra” runners.  On the shuttle ride to the start, I overheard a conversation behind me, and one older gentleman was telling another man how he was from NYC and had trained for this 50 miler on a 6 mile loop in Central Park.  I don’t know if he finished, but I am sure it was a long day for him.  Arriving at the main entrance to Bear Mountain State Park we walked across an open field to a well lit tent city for registration.  The tents were set up in a rectangle with the Start/Finish Line on one end, Expo tents on each side and the food and registration tents at the other end of the rectangle. All the expo tents were deserted at this time of the morning, but looked to be promising for a little browsing and free stuff upon my return.  In the center of the tent city were three blazing fire pits and enough picnic tables for all to use.  Registration went painless with plenty of volunteers to help.  The race bib was unique.  It was a multifunction paperwork tool.  In addition to the bib with your race number were three other tabs on the bottom.  One was your meal ticket, one was an entry to a drawing, and the last was your emergency information.  You could feel that the perforations were not too strong, so I took the meal ticket and stuck that in my bag.  Didn’t want to miss out on a meal after the race due to a technicality.  I guess the race bib, sweat and dirt was not enough to show you had paid your entry fee.  I didn’t know what to expect, so that went into a safe pocket.  I inquired about the drawing and was told that would be held after the race.  I don’t know how smart that was because people would be finishing over a 6-7 hour period.  I can’t see the elites waiting around for a drawing.  Hell, they probably get a lot of stuff for free anyway.  Well I guess finishing near the end of the time limit means I won’t have to wait long for the drawing.  I guess that’s an advantage.  So I tucked that little ticket into bag with my meal ticket.  I left the last tag on my bib, not knowing if they were expecting to rip it off at the finish.  I was hoping not to need the information on it.  We’ll see how long it stays on.

About 10 minutes before the start, I finalized my clothing and equipment and checked my bag at the secure bag check.  Another nice feature of the race.  Waiting in the rectangle’s courtyard ready for the start, I noticed many of our sports elite.  Geoff Roes, Ultrarunning Magazine’s Ultrarunner of the year was here.  He had traveled all the way from Juneau, Alaska.  Did you know that Juneau is the only state capitol that can’t be reached by road?  Just some useless knowledge I thought was interesting.  Nikki Kimball from Bozeman, Montana was also in attendance.  Local elites included Glen Redpath, Jack Pilla, Ben Nephew, Leigh Schmidt, and the winner of last year’s Bimbler’s Bluff Brian Rusiecki.

At 4:55 an announcement was made that the start would be delayed until 5:15 due to late arrivals.  This didn’t sit well with many and the warm space around the fire became a premium.  I claimed my spot quickly due to having my race attire of a short sleeve shirt and shorts on in the 40ish temperature in expectation of the start.  Others chose comfort before the race with coats on, winter beanies and pants. One guy had made a sleeveless vest out of a garbage bag which was not going to breathe well, keep him dry in the rain, or be disposed of easily because it was on under his hydration pack.  The scary thing was that these people were intending on running in these clothes.  I was getting hot just looking at them.  As the start approached, so did the sunrise and with the ever increasing light you could see the hills surrounding the start and the ominous black clouds, which, luckily had not opened up yet.

Just before the start we received a pep talk from Dean Karnazes and one of the things he asked was for a show of hands for people who were doing their first 50 miler.  Only a few hands went up.  The clues showed me differently, but I believe the bravado kept people from admitting this was their first time at a 50 miler.  Evidence would be all too plentiful in the next 50 miles.  So at 5:15 we were off.  By this time it was almost light enough to see without headlamps.  We headed off down a sidewalk past playing fields and playgrounds and entered the woods on double track that soon turned to fire roads.  Since there were going to be numerous races run across a  lot of the same trails, each race had its own race ribbon color to follow. The 50 milers were to follow Orange.  There were four races on Saturday and then three more on Sunday.  So their solution was to put “bouquets” of ribbons up to mark the trail.  All seven different colors were on the same branch.  It made it difficult to see your color sometimes, but since I was in the lead for only a short time, I just mostly followed the pack.  The ribbons thinned out as the distances lengthened.  After the first mile or so I turned off my headlamp and packed it away.  We were supposed to have it on until 6:15, but by 5:30 it was plenty light to see.  On this section were signs that showed where certain homesteads once stood.  The signs reminding us that people once lived, farmed and hunted in the areas we now use for trail running.  Places we might classify now as wild, but were once somebody’s backyard.  The terrain was very similar to the terrain that we normally run on, such as in the Supply Pond or Westwoods.  Feeling good from my taper and being comfortable with the terrain, I was moving at a good pace and had to keep reminding myself to keep in control.  During this section to the first aid station, which was generally constantly trending uphill, the clothes started coming off.  People were obviously overheated and were removing , and sometimes discarding items of clothing.  With the price of running clothes, especially jackets, this could be an expensive lesson.  It would also be a long way to carry anything extra since the first drop bag Aid Station was at Mile 20.7.  Along this section, I also started to see the Meal tickets and Drawing tickets from the bib on the ground.  Every step I took my odds at winning something at the drawing were increasing. Yeah!!  I also figured with the Meal tickets lost, there would be plenty of food at the end when I got there.  Nah, they couldn’t be that much of hard asses not to let people eat.  Could they?  Well I know my ticket was safe and dry at the Finish.

Passing through the first two aid station, I adhered to the ultra principles, Eat Early, Eat Often and Drink Early, Drink Often.  I had actually set my watch to remind me every 20 minutes to drink.  It has a Hydration Alarm and it goes off at the time you set and automatically starts over again.  It actually worked great since I had my hydration pack on and I usually don’t drink enough when I use that.  The aid stations had the normal array of goodies, but I basically stayed with potatoes and pretzels because most everything else had sugars in them and I didn’t want to bonk from eating them.  I would save my sugars for the last 10 miles.  This way I also had something to look forward to. They did have free GUs and I took advantage of that.

After the 2^nd Aid Station at Mile 8.6, I realize I have been maintaining about 12 minute miles.  So I am about to break one of the cardinals rules of ultrarunning.  Getting ahead of yourself.  I’m feeling good at this pace, the course, while not easy, is stuff we run on all the time.  I start thinking about the finish.  Well at this pace I can maybe go a sub12 hour, or even match my time at Stone Cat of 11:35.  Hell that was even with a sprained ankle.  Remind you this is about 10 miles into a 50 mile race. As the daydreams of crossing the finish line earlier than expected and getting home before dark were still dancing around in my head, the trail turned much more technical and the climbs got bigger and longer.  My pace slowed a “little”. Reality check. Mental slip.  Lesson learned.

One thing that I started noticing after the first aid station was that I was seeing a lot of GU packets on the trail along with the bib tags.  Actually the bib tags starting getting scarcer and most often wouldn’t stay on until the second aid station.  The GU packets were so numerous that I don’t believe I went more than 100 yards without seeing one, and most of the time they were more numerous.  This was my biggest realization that these were not your typical trail runners where during races you may see a stray GU tab or packet that inadvertently slipped out of a pocket.  These runners were purposely throwing this garbage on the trails and sullying this pristine place.  These runners were used to throwing garbage on the streets of New York without conscience.  These people didn’t live by the tenet of leaving the trail a little better than you found.  They were leaving it a lot worse. It showed me what I had suspected about some of the people who were running this race.  They didn’t get the whole trail running thing and probably never would. I was getting angry and needed to put that out of head.  I never witnessed anybody actually discarding a packet, or they might still be looking for that person at Bear Mountain, but I just followed the second set of course markers along the Trail of GU.

After about 4 tough miles I came in to Aid Station #3.  This was the separation point for the 50 mile and 50K races.  At this station was a timing mat and after the confirming beep I went on in the comfort that all who were watching would know where I was and that I was safe.  Walking away from this aid station with my bag of potatoes, I was approached by a guy in his 30’s who asked me what time I was planning on finishing.  I told him my recently “readjusted” time of about 12-13 hours.  He said he was planning on doing it in 9 ½ -10 hours because he had done a 50k in 4 hours and 30 minutes.  I just looked at him and said “Well you’re a little behind for that time if you are back here with me and you better get going”  With that he was off and I had that knowing smile on my face. I ended up going back and forth with him throughout the race and ended up finishing 12 seconds in front of him.  He had been optimistic of his finishing time, but I had also made that mistake earlier in the race.

I don’t know why but, I seem to always have a low time between 13 -16 miles into a race.  I thought I had it beat this time, but a couple miles out of the aid station while keeping pace with three young guys, I started hating the world.  I started my inner dialogue,  “Why do I put myself through this discomfort?”  “I am never doing a 50 miler again, maybe I’ll still do 50Ks, but that’s long also. Forget about a 100 miler. That’s just crazy.  I can’t believe Brian convinced me to sign up for one.”  With that settled in my mind, I needed to get off that and just concentrate on getting to the next aid station.  This section was a scenic section.  Up until now, it was a nice run through forest, but there were no wide open vistas.  After a long climb I found myself at the Bald Rocks section.  This is a large wide open section that was pretty much empty of vegetation.  The views were beautiful, and I stopped for a second to take them in and to lift my spirits.  This is what I love about trail running.  Bringing yourself to such beautiful places you wouldn’t otherwise go to.  I was shocked, almost literally, out of my happy place by the crack of lightning and the rumble of thunder.  In this wide open, unprotected space, the sky had finally decided to open up.  The rain came pouring down and lightning was all around me as I ran to get myself out of the open.  The few minutes to get off the mountain seemed like forever, but it also gave me a feeling of being alive.  Living on the edge with danger all around.  On my way off the mountain, I had a surreal moment.  In the middle of all this rock and barrenness was a flowering tree.  It had these beautiful purplish flowers and was standing alone, seemingly growing right from the rock, and seemed to glow in the gloomy, pouring rain.  I couldn’t help to think that it looked like something from a fantasy movie.  The Tree of Enlightenment or something like that.  Okay, give me a break.  Your mind needs some kind of stimuli after so many hours on the trail.  It gave me a chuckle and my mood was lightened.  The rain continued until I reached the next aid station.

Aid Station 4 would be the first hard cutoff for the race and I was going to beat it, but by less than I wanted to.  Reaching Aid Station 4, I beat the cut off by about 45 -50 minutes.  I was at mile 20.7 and knew that I was cutting it close, but it was actually where I had predicted myself to be at this time.  One hurdle passed. Next cut off was at 34.2 miles.

Nothing raises your spirits like an aid station.  With the rain still pouring down and a chill in the air, this aid station actually had soup on.  As I ducked under the aid station’s canopy a man about my age was having a cup of soup.  I was tempted, but I filled my pack with water, gathered my pretzels and potatoes and opted out of soup this time.  As I was resupplying, a runner was being attended to by medical staff.  He had his shoe off and he was wincing in pain.  He had broken his third toe.  In my head I thought “His race is over.” Exiting the aid station buoyed by the confidence of making the cut off I took off with renewed vigor up the trail.  For the first time in 21 miles I was finally running like I like to run in races.  Alone.  I enjoy the solitude, and there is no pressure to keep up or be pushed from the back.  Its me, the course and the clock.  I figure I would be alone for the next 7 miles to the aid station.  Of course, that was stupid thinking.  After about a mile, Soup Man comes up on me quickly and passes me.  I foolishly try to keep pace with him and cannot.  Discipline. Discipline. I need to run my own pace and not get caught up in others are doing, or get upset people are passing me.  Again, I was channeling Sybil and feeling low.  About halfway to the next aid station I see a runner heading “toward” me.  As he gets closer to me I see that he has the 50 mile bib on.  Okay, I am pretty sure I am going the right way.  We meet and he asks me in a heavy, I believe Eastern European, accent which way is the 27.7 mile aid station.  I told him it was in the direction I was heading and he was actually going backwards on the course.  He just looked both ways, gave me a weird look and proceeded to head in the wrong direction.  I know that it is completely wrong to take happiness in others misfortune, but hell, it was only a race and he was heading in the wrong direction.  I said to myself.  No matter how I am feeling I am better off than that guy.  So I continued in the “correct” direction with a smile on my face.  Approaching Aid Station 5, I was headed downhill through a grove of Mountain Laurel bushes. It made me flash back to the last few miles of the Promise Land where a similar trail heads down to the last aid station before the finish.  It was one of many comparisons I was making while running to keep my mind occupied.  There were a lot of sections like the Mohawk Loop, more than I liked, like Escarpment, Nipmuck, Cockaponsett, Westwoods, etc.  As I descended to the aid station, I came upon Soup Man in obvious discomfort, looking like his quads were hurting.  It was a small personal victory, and reaffirmed staying in your game plan.  Soup man was left behind at Aid Station 5 never to be seen again.

I was now on my way to the second hard cut off at Aid Station #6.  The weather had cleared and now the sun was beating down and it was getting warm. The wind had also started to pick up and I knew by the time I finished it would be gusting at about 45 MPH.  I was feeling good.  Actually the best I ever felt in an ultra.  I had confidence in my physical condition and training.  I just kept going forward.  There was lot of back and forth with people in this section. Some I hadn’t seen before, some I hadn’t seen in miles.  I came into Aid Station #6 at 34.2 miles to go with a 45 minute buffer.  I had made the cut offs and now I knew I would at least finish the 50 miles.  But, would I finish it within the time limit?  There was still over 15 miles of unknown terrain to go and not a real big time buffer.  So I headed out of the aid station confident I would have another 50 miler under my belt.  Confidence equals good mood.

Again I found myself running amongst people and jockeying back and forth.  I kept getting passed on each section after an aid station by this young guy in his twenties with an Ironman Triathlon tattoo on his calf.  I never passed him on the course, but he must have lingered at the aid stations and I went by him there.  As I progressed on this section, the wind kept building.  The 50K course now joined in and some of the other courses also, because the bouquets of ribbons were back.  I heard a runner approaching me and I stepped aside to let him pass, and do you know who it was?  Broken Toe.  Yes, he had actually continued the race and passed me.  That was one tough son of a bitch and I told him so.  I actually felt good when he passed me.  Man, what big co hones.

The wind continued to build and now there were branches and such coming down.  I heard lots of stuff to either side of me, and there were numerous blow downs across the trail.  I could tell they were fresh, like just minutes ago.  I was really getting nervous that I might get hit by something falling.  Finally a good size branch did fall about 8 feet to my right.  I was happy when the wind slowed where I was.  I think I had gone around a mountain or something that was cutting the wind.  It never came into play again, but I never was so nervous about getting hit by a piece of tree before.

The next aid station was at the Anthony Wayne Parking Area where we had left our cars to catch the shuttle bus all those hours ago.  It was mile 40.3.  Less than 10 to go.  Making good time.  Keep moving.  Up until now, the aid stations were stocked well.  This was not true for the last three.  They had been ravaged by three other races and half of the 50 mile racers.  Just when you needed to have a variety for food and drink, the pickings were slim. The people who had run the longest were getting the least attention. There is no excuse for that.  As a race director, you should overbuy so that each runner doesn’t get shortchanged.  Most smaller, lower budget races do much better in that respect.  They at least had some Coke which is my personal reward for the last few aid stations and I stayed with the pretzels which had worked well so far.

Leaving Anthony Wayne, there were three more sections and two aid stations to go. There was some good running out of the Anthony Wayne Aid Station for a couple of miles until you reached Pines Mountain which was a long technical ascent and then technical descent.  I felt this was eating my time up and I was getting nervous again.  Here is where you started seeing people who pushed too hard early falling apart.  I met IronMan on the way down Pines Mountain.  He had just gone down the long descent on his butt.  His quads were fried.  He was really down and worried about finishing.  There were about 7-8 miles to go and he thought he could only walk and not finish.  I told him if he did 20 minute miles he would still finish in the time limit and tried to encourage him that he could do that.  I left him in the hope that he would finish.  I don’t know if he did, but I hope he did.  He seemed like a nice kid.

Coming into Aid Station #8 at 44.7 miles, there was another timing mat.  I was kind of ticked they didn’t have one more in the middle of the race.  I was totally unaware that they didn’t work and was happy again to let people know where I was and was safe.  Checking over the leftovers, I saw nothing appealing, and asked for a Coke.  Of course they were out of it.  Figures.  The only thing I really want.  Good thing I had hoarded GUs from the previous aid stations. They were getting kind of nonappealing also. I forced one down and put the wrapper in a zipped pocket for later disposal. Well, only 2.5 miles to the next aid station. But Timp Pass was in the way and I needed the energy.

This section proved difficult, especially at this point in the race, with several hard, technical climbs and then the final long hard climb over Timp Pass.  After the climb, was a very rocky, very technical descent to aid station #9 at 47.2 miles.  I was alone reaching this aid station after passing many people suffering up and over Timp Pass.  I quickly downed two cups of Coke and headed in the last 2.8 miles.  At this point, I knew I would make it within the time limit, now I wanted to preserve my spot and finish strong.  Its amazing the energy you have when you know the end is near.  I was running hard and checking back periodically. I was trying to stay to the sides and get around corner so as not to give somebody behind me the extra energy of seeing me ahead of them.  I reached the out and back section of the course that lead to the finish and knew nobody was going to catch me now.  I finished at a good run in 13:22:06.  My buffer had shrunk to 38 minutes, but it was fairly consistent over the 50 miles and I was happy with my overall pace.

Happy to finish I was ready to eat.  On my way over to the bag pickup I noticed most of the vendors were already packing up and getting ready for the next day of races.  The whole place had an air of wanting to go home and go to bed after a long day.  I grabbed my bag and went over to the food tent where I was greeted by empty trays or trays with obviously old remnants of food in them.  I felt short changed.  I know it was a long day for these people too, but you made a commitment to have this 50 mile race and now you just want to get them out of here and go home. I am sure the finish festival was fun with the other races going on, but now it was a ghost town.  I decided to not wait for the drawing and head back to my car where I had stashed some food.  I would stop for something on the ride home.  Getting off the shuttle at the now nearly empty parking lot I began the long walk across the parking lot in the cold wind, shivering like I was having an epileptic seizure.  I have trouble regulating my body temperature after a long run or race and my body shivers to make heat.  I drove home into a darkening sky feeling good about my accomplishment.

I felt the North Face Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain was a mixed bag, at least, for the 50 Mile race.  The course markings were good.  The volunteers were great.  The course itself was good, but not as scenic as I thought it would be.  The proximity to home was great.  On the negative side, the 50 miler seemed like the bastard child of the whole event when it was portrayed to be the headliner.  Later aid stations and finish food were terrible.  Website splits didn’t work. Amount of garbage left on the trails was disturbing, while back at the festival they were promoting recycling.  Not your usual trail running crowd.  You know there are always a few at the races, but this one had a lot.

As in childbirth, the pain of the process of running an ultra fogs in your memory over time and you long to do another.  The commitment of doing another 50 came back the next day.  I could grasp that.  Once the pain and the fatigue subside, you relish in your accomplishment and want more.  I was still having trouble in my mind with doubling the distance to 100 miles.  Brian was worried that this tough race might knock me the other way and make me not want to do the Vermont 100.  He was right for a few days.  Then the realization of me being in the best condition in my life so far, made me realize that I could attempt 100 miles.  Next stop, the Vermont 100 miler.