Decisions, Decisions, Decisions – Mountain Madness 50K

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Seven miles into the Mountain Madness 50K at the Ringwood State Park in Ringwood, New Jersey, several runners and I came upon an unmarked, unblazed section of the course.  The course description, which I had printed out, placed in a plastic bag, and now referred to, was no help.  It stated to continue on the fire road to the aid station.  As is often the case with course descriptions written by people who are too familiar with a race course, they see it as an obvious decision on which way to go.  In front of me were three roads/trails to choose from.  They forked out in the general direction we were supposed to go.  Which to choose?  Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

[singlepic=6842,280,200,,right]This was the second running of the Mountain Madness 50K.  I had run the inaugural race, but had missed an aid station at an out and back turn off, so it was my first DNF.  The race leader made the same mistake and was DQed.  REALLY sucks to win and then told you were DQed. Not many people knew of this and I didn’t write a report about it for obvious reasons.  So I had a score to settle and also wanted to get back racing after my DNF in Vermont.  I was a little apprehensive about my fitness level coming into this race.  Nursing physical and mental wounds from Vermont, I hadn’t reached race condition yet, trying to build slowly again so as not to aggravate my injury again.  The physical one, not the mental one.  So as not to aggravate my mental issue, I set a goal of just finishing the tough 31 miles in under the 8 hour time limit.

As the name suggest, there is a lot of climbing and downhill running.  The course has about 10,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, pretty evenly split.  The terrain is very technical with very few runnable areas.  You were constantly picking your way through rocks and roots and when there were old roads, they were either unmaintained so they were no better than the trails, or they had large gravel on them that was very unsteady underfoot.  The trails were reminiscent of the Escarpment or the Spring Loop as far as footing.

The race starts at Shepherd Lake in Ringwood State Park.  With many park buildings, such as a snack window, pavilion and boathouse, check-in is inside. There are two large, real bathrooms in the main building, so there are plenty of seats with no waiting.  The course had changed this year for the first seven or so miles.  Along with the 50K, there were other races.  A 25K and a 7.77 miler that started later in the morning.  The beginning of the 50K ran the 7.77 miler course and was what was called the Mountain Bike Loop.  This section of the course was marked with yellow “CAUTION” tape and the rest of the course was marked in orange surveyors tape.  Keep those colors in mind, because they come into play soon.  As we gathered in the field overlooking picturesque Shepherd Lake the RD gave the usual pre-race briefing about course markers, etc, and with a READY, SET, GO, we were off around the main building, past the boathouse and running down a dirt road to the Mountain Bike Loop.  Here is where the confusion starts.  This section is already marked with orange tape and flags because this is the route where the race finishes.  About a half mile up this road the course comes down a hill and hits this road, which you take to the finish.  Having prior knowledge of the old part of the course, which would come in handy numerous times today, I told the people around me that that was the finish and don’t go that way on our return. We reached the beginning of the Mountain Bike Loop and the first yellow tape.  Through about the first half of the loop things were going fine.  Even though the yellow markers were hard to see because of the leaf color in that area, there were plenty to follow.  All of the sudden they stopped.  I saw some on the ground earlier, presumably from the wind, so I thought that maybe they just blew off.  I mean there were people in front of me and behind me.  Somebody asked if we were still on course.  Then the doubts appeared and we all, about ten of us, came together and discussed the situation.  We agreed to keep heading in the direction we were going and see what we find.  We come to an intersection with a little bike blaze and an arrow pointing the way.  There was still discussion about if it was the correct direction, but seeing that it was still on the loop and I hadn’t been on this section of the loop, made me confident I was headed in the right direction.  So we all continued on for a mile or two more, and then the “Oh Shit” moment.  A lone runner had come over the rise toward us.  We stopped him and he stated that he thought he was the lead runner and that he was following the orange tape.  We told him that we thought he was off course, but he just dismissed us and continued on.  At that point, the “one” thing I knew for sure was that there were no orange markers in the direction he was going. Oh well, we tried to warn him.  We eventually ran back into the dirt road completing the Mountain Bike Loop and made our way past the Start/Finish at Shepherd Lake and now headed toward the old section of the course.  To get there we started climbing a paved road that lead to the public Skeet Shooting Range.  This route was clearly marked until we got just past the entrance to the range and the orange tape was gone.  Straight ahead was what had once been the continuation of the road I was currently on, but was now a dirt road/trail.  Forty five degrees to my right was another route, this one more definitely trail than road, and another more promising road forty five degrees to my left.  Three choices. Great. Our group of ten or so started blossoming with confused runners coming back from all three trails.  Our group had grown to about 60 people.   Most were saying that they had gone some distance down a certain choice or even two and had found no blazes.  There were so many people gathered at this point in the race that I may have been leading my age group.  Hell, I might have been in the lead if I walked ten feet down the trail.  Obviously there was not going to be any consensus on what to do, so I asked somebody who had a map if I could see it.  Looking at the map and having a good idea where the first aid station was due to it being in the same spot as last year, I chose the left trail/road.  If I chose right, there should be a sharp right about an eighth of a mile down.  The turn was there and I grew more confident. There was still pandemonium with people continuing with out taking the right.  Continuing on I came to a familiar area from last year and felt my way to the aid station and thankfully it was there, more or less where I remembered it was.  Okay, now it was the same course from last year and it was on all blazed trails.  What can go wrong?

[singlepic=6837,200,280,,left]The next aid station was about six miles distant, and this is where the technical terrain and the climbs started in earnest.  I was starting to feel tired at about 10 -11 miles in.  Not so much muscle tired, but just generally tired.  I had worked five nights in a row at the firehouse and hadn’t slept enough.  I was also sucking wind hard on the climbs.  In my training to get back in shape, I had not been doing any hill work, just using the hills in my long runs to build strength back.  Those long runs weren’t particularly long either, topping out at about 22 miles.  I was going to rely on my level of fitness to get me through this and I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.  I also think that I wasn’t mentally in it at this time.  Usually by now you are in a groove, but the whole ordeal of losing the course and all of the jockeying for position that would normally be done with early hadn’t allowed me to settle into the race yet.  If Stella had got her groove back, damn it, so could I.  Just keep plugging on.

The second aid station was a little less than halfway and leaving that I had my usual race low period.  Hating the world, hating racing etc..  I’ve learned when this happens a GU usual brings me out of it.  Slogging up a hill shortly after the aid station, I opened my Chocolate Outrage GU and forced myself to down it.  I thought it strange that this flavor that I never got sick of in Vermont was really unpalatable today.  It’s odd how things work one day and not another. About a mile or so out of the aid station I heard two men talking a ways off and they were gaining on me.  Eventually they caught me and passed me, but then never got too far ahead. One was a 50ish year old, bandana wearing, gray beard and the other was a younger 30ish year old running with Vibrams.  Merrily talking while racing, they went by the next turn and were off course.  This was my first contact of many with the gray bearded gentleman.  His name was Ron, but I wasn’t aware of that at this time.  I figured it was a fleeting moment and he would soon run ahead, never to be seen again.

My wife might disagree with me, but I believe I am generally a nice guy.  It was a good thing too, because the amount of times that I had to yell to people who went off course was incredible.  Believe me, at some of my lower times I wanted to let them go off to who knows where and in my sadistic mind, wonder where they would end up.  I probably could have moved up at least twenty spots at the finish if I wasn’t such a good guy, but this is all part of the trail running culture.  Helping others.  I really wonder about some of the people getting into these races now a day.  I have noticed in my two races close to NYC, Bear Mountain and this race, that people are not prepared to run these races, and cannot follow a simple trail.  I mean at his part of the race and now all the way to the end, even though it was sparsely tagged, was clearly blazed.  You didn’t even have to have it marked because it was one color blaze to each aid station.

Continuing on to the next aid station, with Ron and Vibrams just ahead of me, we arrived within seconds of each other.  Getting what I needed to get and going, I left the aid station quickly.  Some real technical trail and some steep climbs started this next section.  At the  top of the last climb, I came out onto a bald and was treated to the most beautiful view of the NYC skyline in “relief”.  Cathi, set me straight if I am wrong, but the sun was behind the city and it was just a shadow outline of all of the skyline.  Beautiful.  I had to stop and take in the sight.  After miles of rugged terrain and seemingly in the middle of no where, I come to a vista where I see one of the largest cities in the world.  It is amazing the places that trail running takes you.

Continuing on after a short distance, I start to hear somebody running up behind me.  Yes, it’s Ron.  Not paying attention at the aid station, I had left before him and he had again caught up with me.  He passed me but never got too far ahead that  I couldn’t grasp glimpses of him from time to time.

Now in this section, my feet started to bother me from the constant pounding of the rocks and my legs were getting tired. Leaping over a log, I guess my coordination had also left the building, and I toed the log and went straight to the ground.  Being taken off guard I didn’t have time to put out my hands or even prepare to land.  I landed full force on my right shoulder and upper arm while slamming my head into the ground.  Luckily my head landed in one of the few areas without rocks, but my upper arm wasn’t so lucky landing on a rock.  My momentum carried me onto my back and my legs flew up in the air.  This is when, in my stunned state, I witnessed my calf do its Bill Bixby changing to Lou Ferrigno act.  I saw my calf immediately turn rock solid and clearly define itself.  I thought, “Wow, if my calves always looked like that …..”, then the excruciating pain of leg cramps registered in my shocked head. I was stuck on my back for at least a minute trying to massage out this cramp while writhing in pain on my back.  I certainly hadn’t lived up to my trail name in this instance.  I broke the cramp enough to get up, brush off, and get going with a cramped calf.

I had decided not to take my S-Caps in this race because I wanted to restrict my salt intake.  My blood pressure has been up a little lately and I have figured it wasn’t so hot, so I thought I would get enough salt from foods.  This had happened to me in the HAT Run before I had discovered salt tabs, and again the same results.  The rest of the race my legs were on the verge of cramping solid, and I was afraid to stop.  It got so bad, at the last mile in, my abdominal muscles started to cramp.  Legs and stomach cramping while I was rushing to beat the cut off.  Not good.

Reaching the next aid station, my buddy Ron is there.  Even after that eventful stretch of trail, he had not gotten too far ahead of me. Less than ten miles to go, I am out again and I leave Ron behind.  He again catches up to me in less than a mile.  This time however, he is staying just ahead of me.  He goes off course numerous times and I keep setting him straight.  He admits to me that he has a problem following the trails even though I can tell he is a seasoned trail runner.  In this stretch, I am starting to smell the barn, and even though I am beaten down physically, I am mentally at a high point.  The end is in sight.  Figuratively speaking anyway.  So either Ron is getting tired, or I am feeling stronger, but we stay together to the next aid station.  We stay together in the sense that we are within 100 feet of each other more or less, but not really running together.

I pull into the last manned aid station and there is 6 miles left.  I was happy to see my favorite, late in the race, indulgence still in supply.  Cola.  Pepsi or Coca Cola, I don’t care.  I love the sweetness and the caffeine late in a race.  My treat to myself.  Of course, Ron was there.  Again I was out fast because the finish cut off was looming.  I had an hour and a half to go the six miles.  At today’s pace, it was going to be close.  At this point I didn’t have any attachment to Ron.  I was still running my race, and heck, I didn’t even know his name yet.  If history repeated itself, he would be catching up to me in a little while anyway.

The next aid station was at 3 miles from the last and was unmanned.  Ron had not caught up to me yet and I was actually feeling bad.  I had started to look forward to him catching me, and then me keeping up to him.  Games to occupy the mind.  I was happy to see shortly out of the unmanned station, Ron came up from behind.  We exchanged pleasantries and we took our rightful positions.  Him leading and me trailing.  This section was twisting and turning, and Ron kept going off course, and I kept correcting him.  Finally, I said “I’m getting tired of just yelling at you, what’s your name?”  So, after about 15 miles and hours of time, I finally met Ron.  We had formed a partnership of him setting the pace and me keeping him on course.  A partnership sealed with the exchange of our names.  We were now officially working together. Well, you know what I’m getting at. We were cutting it so close to the cut off time that I knew I had to keep up a faster pace, and he knew he couldn’t afford to go off course.  It was almost laughable how bad his trail following skills were because he had good trail running skills.  It got to the point where he would yell from ahead “Andrew, am I still on course?” and I would usually reply “Yes Ron, you’re good.”.  Maybe a new pair of glasses were all that were needed.

With about 2 miles to go, our new team ran into a young man with a yellow and black shirt.  He was in his late twenties, was walking and was obviously toasted.  He had mentally checked out. I had remembered him from earlier in the race passing me about at mile 10. We slowed to walk with him and make sure he was all right.  Physically he had an IT issue, but nothing otherwise, so we gave him a pep talk about still having plenty of time and we would be happy to have him along if he wanted to.  We trudged on.  Ron setting the pace, me keeping Ron on course, and Yellow Shirt taking up the rear.  He more or less kept up to us, falling back every once and a while.  Even though I couldn’t see him sometimes, but I knew he could hear, I would yell back to him some words of encouragement.  Things such as, “You gonna let two old guys out run you?” and “ Yellow Shirt, its all mental, move your ass.”

We lost Yellow Shirt with about ¾ of a mile to go on the last uphill and a big downhill to the last half mile on the dirt road.  With the trail obvious on the downhill and then hitting the dirt road, Ron’s confidence blossomed and he quickened his pace and took off.  Recognizing the last downhill and glimpsing the lake just before hitting the road I knew I was close to the finish.  I had about ten minutes to go the last half mile.   With every muscle in my legs cramping up and now my abdomen cramping also, I pushed myself to a blazing 9:00 mile pace on my Garmin and knew I would finish under the 8 hour time limit.  I watched Ron finish about 100 yards ahead of me, and then it was my turn to finish.  My finish time was 7:53:42.  Ron had finished 1:14 ahead of me.  Yes, Yellow Shirt did finish within the time limit at 7:55:09.  I congratulated him and he thanked me for my comments that both spurred him on and made him laugh.

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Only two more runners finished within the time limit.  The total number of runners finishing within the time limit was 63 out of 103 for a finishing percentage of 61%.  The RD recorded 83 actual finishes with two DQs for missing that Aid Station #6.

The Mountain Madness is a very challenging, hilly 50K that had over 5000 feet of elevation gain and 5000 feet of elevation loss.  It had some of the worst footing in a race I have yet to see.  However, the race organization was great, the aid station fare and volunteers were great, the course was beautiful, and you can’t beat how close it is to us, with the obvious exception of that other great race, the Bimbler’s Bluff 50K.

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