The Road to the VT: Chapter 1 Seneca Creek 50k

For me and Shelly Girl the road to the Vermont 100 began in earnest in Maryland at the Seneca Creek 50k. After five weeks of training, Seneca Creek was to be the first test of our preparation and fitness. The course is known to be fast and this year it was also known to be long, as they added a new section of trail not run in previous years.

Shelly and I headed down to Damascus Maryland the day before the race. Shelly had been away at Bimble South so we were looking forward to the ride down and just hanging out with each other. We had no problems with traffic, got a nice hotel room, had a good dinner and began the tossing and turning night before a race ritual. I actually slept better than usual so 5:00 a.m. rolled around rather quickly. We got ready and made it to the finish in plenty of time for the shuttle bus to the starting line.

All week the weather had been looking pretty bad and the hour wait before the start was damp and cold. The course was going to be wet and muddy and there was not much to be done about it except embrace the added challenge. The big issue was clothes, sitting outside in the cold and damp made us both want to wear layer upon layer to stay warm but we decided, luckily as it turned out, to go with shorts, short sleeve shirt and Mobean sleeves. The race started a few minutes late, due to a late arriving bus but after the bus arrived the race director said go and we were off. It is interesting how you can see the personality of the director in how they run the race. At Seneca the laid back start was foreshadowing for the entire day.

The start at Seneca is about a one mile downhill sprint on paved road before you take a right hand turn onto the blue blazed Greenway Trail which is to be you friend for the rest of the day. I had no idea why we were running so fast but I tried to keep up with Shelly Girl as best as I could. I figured once we got on the single track the pace would relax a bit but even on the first “climb” Shelly was passing people like they were standing still. It was crazy but I just kept up. Part of the tempo was the nature of the Seneca Trails. They are really fast and quite easy compared to what we are all used to in New England. Rolling but no real climbs and not at all technical. We covered the first 7 miles in just over an hour, or less than 9:00 minute a mile pace. This was a good two minutes per mile faster than I wanted to go but it is the pace the trail seemed to dictate so we kept going.

Up to this point I must add that the trails were very nice. Often times running along the Seneca Creek, the course reminded us a lot of the Hat 50k that many Bimblers have done in recent years and the Sweet H2O 50k we ran in Georgia two years ago. The only challenging aspect of the day so far was the constant mud. I don’t mind mud but the extra effort needed to slug through the gook was both a physical and mental challenge that would play a factor as the day wore on.

I don’t have many other memories of the first part of the race except I was enjoying the rolling trails and the friendly competition between Shelly Girl and another over 50 runner, also named Michele. I say friendly because it really was but for about two or three miles Shelly in green and Shelly Girl repeated a pattern of Shelly Girl passing Shelly in green on the ups and Shelly in green passing Shelly Girl on the downs. I honestly don’t think it was anything more than their natural running strengths but it was funny to see this pattern repeat itself at least twenty times. This race within a race continued until we had a small problem getting our water refilled at an aid station. When we left the station Shelly in Green was long gone.

Up to this point in the race we were both having a great day. The mud was a constant issue, causing much extra effort, but the weather was no problem and in fact was beginning to clear. It is amazing that on a day we thought we would get soaked not a drop fell on us the entire run. We arrived at the mile 15 aid station still at about nine minute pace and began the 4 mile loop around the lake that separated the 50k runners from the marathon runners who skip the lake loop. This loop was really nice and I am sure if we lived in this area we would run the loop quite often. We basically circumnavigated the lake, staying pretty close to the water the entire time. Very nice! It was also in this section that we looked up to see Shelly in Green up ahead. We gained on her quickly and both knew, especially this early in the race, that Shelly Girl would be the stronger of the two on this day. This time when Shelly Girl passed Shelly in Green on an uphill, there was no response on the down and that was that. We completed the lake loop, skipped the aid station and were gone.

It was over the next four or five miles where Shelly Girl and I started to go in different directions. We had both slowed down a bit but her pace on the ups was just too strong for me. We kept each other in sight but somewhere along the way she was gone and I settled in for the remaining grind. I was still running all right, and catching many of the marathon folks who were behind us before we ran the lake loop, but my feet and hips were bothering me and I was monitoring my infamous abductors that seem to always be close to cramping. The result was a slower pace and less joy in running the wonderful trails. The sun was now out and these miles should have been wonderful but they were painful. I have said this on many occasions but I am just not sure my body can handle the longer distances and this is an issue I am going to need to solve before July.

Mile 25 to 31 are a bit of a blur. Things I remember are a warm sunny day, mud, passing lots of walkers, mud, being passed by several runners who paced their race better than I did mine, mud, the thought that if the trail was dry this all would be a lot easier, mud and a generally negative frame of mind. Oh yeah and mud.

Finally, I got to mile 31 and reaped the benefit of the I am almost done frame of mind. Isn’t that a great feeling! I also realized I had a small chance of finishing under six hours so I increased my pace and did my best. Since I was over 31 miles in distance and still under 5 hours and 30 minutes in time I felt like I had run a sub six hour 50k but unfortunately Seneca Creek adds another 3 miles so I still had work to do to make it legit. I ran as hard as I could but pulled out of the trail for the remaining mile to go with only about 5 minutes left to stay under six hours. Case closed, no way, so I relaxed and jogged it in finishing about 3 and 1/2 minutes over the elusive 6 hour mark. Shelly was there waiting and, besides the additional mile or so we had to walk to get our stuff and find the post race picnic, that was that. We sat, ate and chatted with some fellow runners and waited for Forest and Fearsome to finish. Forest came in looking super strong for somebody finishing their second 50k in seven days. I later teased him about a comment he recently made to me that he was taking it easy this year and had to laugh at his reply of “I’m not doing anything long”. Fearsome came in a short time after Forest and she looked great chatting away with some other runners.

After finishing Seneca Creek I am not sure what to think about Vermont. Seneca was such a fast, non technical course that I think it probably was good training for Vermont. I just am not sure if my body can take the pounding. The bigger issue is Shelly Girl is just a much stronger runner at the ultra distance than I am and I am not sure how running together is going to work out. So there you have it, our first reference point as we make our way toward July and the Vermont 100. Stay tuned!

See ya on the trail.

Lefty