Year of the Beast

The Beast endeavour, like all true adventures began for me as a convergence of occurrences that pulled me in to the six race series of mountain trail ultramarathons.  Initially, there was Hellgate, a 100km race that I had finished 4 times from 2007 to 2010.  Going into 2011, I was therefore vying for the coveted 5 time finisher’s award.  Shortly after finishing Hellgate 2010, occurrence number 2 came in the form of my friend Jay (Forrest) informing me that his goal was to complete the Beast series in 2011.  He was wondering if there would be any other participants of the individual races for company during the 9h-ish drive to all of the races in the Lynchburg region of the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains.  There was talk in the running group that folks would be interested in joining him for Promiseland 50km (race number 3 in April), Mountain Masochist 50 miler (race number 5 in November) and, of course, Hellgate 100km (race number 6 in December).  However, I was sure that Forrest would need company for the drive down to all of the races in the beast series.  As well as the three races mentioned above, there is also Holiday Lake 50km (race number 1 in February), Terrapin Mountain 50km (race number 2 in March) and Grindstone 100 miler (race number 4 in October).  Holiday Lake, Terrapin Mountain, Promiseland and Mountain Masochist also comprise their own four race sub-series, known as the ‘Lynchburg Ultra Series’ which allows runners to run the ‘shorter’ races without having to deal with the ‘toughest hundred miler in the East’ Grindstone and the infamous Hellgate.  In signing up for the Lynchburg Ultra Series (LUS), one is automatically entered into the Beast. 

Thus, I decided that I would sign up for the Lynchburg Ultra Series to accompany Forrest at the shorter races when he may need some driving company.  This would also help me to fulfill my running goals for the year.  With my determination to finish my fifth Hellgate, this meant that I would only sit out of Grindstone as I had previously claimed to be ‘retired’ from 100 milers.  Occurrence number 3 then cropped up as another friend, Jerry (Mr Bimble), a highly experienced ultrarunner and 8 time finisher of Hellgate discussed his running plans for the year on an early January training run.  “I’ll run Grindstone if you do” he said to me.  “OK” I said back.  Thus, I committed myself to the entire Beast series, although I realistically was more focused on ensuring I get through the LUS and finish Hellgate.  Grindstone and the Beast were secondary priorities, at least at that point.

Hence, I dove head-first into training as soon as I had recovered from Hellgate 2010 in preparation for the first race of the 2011 series, Holiday Lake 50km.  My training partners, as well as Mr Bimble and Forrest also included Carrie (Loopy) who, along with myself and trendsetter Forrest had committed to the entire Beast series.  Most of my training, was spent with my wife Jen (Chipper) and our dog Ellie, a German Shepherd mix and a fanatic trail runner.  We had also just adopted a second dog, Skip.  Skip is a border collie mix and although he has plenty of energy he would take some time to get up to speed on trail running.  Of all my training partners, Ellie has to be classified as the greatest motivator for cold, early morning training runs as she carefully noted run mornings and would incessantly harass us out of bed and onto the trail after the alarm rang. 

The training for Holiday Lake proved to be tough.  Connecticut had one of its snowiest winters in recent memory and Chipper, Ellie and I (and occasionally Skip on the shorter runs) were confined to one set of trails that would allow for up to a 3h run.  The heavily snowpacked trails meant wearing yaktraks and sometimes snowshoes.  If Holiday Lake was to be snow-covered as it had been in the past, this training would be perfect.

Forrest, Loopy and I arrived at Holiday Lake to no snow and temperatures of 25^oF (race start) and 50^oF (high for the day).  As the racecourse is mainly double-track trail and is fairly flat (the only one of the Beast races which is not in the mountains), this meant that we were in for a lot of flat-out running.  After the race started, that is precisely what happened.  During the course of the race, my legs progressed to a degree of acute soreness that I only normally experience during road marathons (in trail races, my legs get extremely fatigued and tired, but never usually acutely sore).  Nearing the end of the run, I was absolutely ready to be finished running and was relieved when I crossed the finish line.  The quickness of the course reflected in my time, a PR for me at the 50km distance.  Both Forrest and Loopy also finished strongly and we all headed back in tact ready to continue our adventures the next month at Terrapin Mountain.

The Terrapin Mountain and Promiseland 50Ks were both similar in course style and had their own unique hills and challenges.  I enjoyed both and had very uneventful experiences – with the exception of Loopy giving me a scare at the midpoint of Promiseland when she said that she’d thought she’d broken her leg in a fall.  She muddled through the second half of the race (beating me handily in the process!) and fortunately her leg recovered sufficiently to leave her injury free for the majority of Grindstone training.  At Promiseland, Forrest, Loopy and I also had the exceptional company of a number of other members of our CT running crew, including Chipper and all had very successful outings.

After Promiseland, the training for the longest race, the 100+ mile Grindstone began.  It got off to a stuttering start for me. I had a lot of work-related travel in June and even when I was at home, my core training partners were away – Chipper was also out traveling a lot at this time, so Ellie and Skip went to stay with Chipper’s parents for a couple of weeks.  The end of this travel period was marked by July 4^th and Chipper and I were to head to her parents for the holiday weekend.  The day before we were due to leave, we got the news that Ellie had died very suddenly.  By all accounts it sounded like a heart attack or stroke or something that fortunately caused her very little suffering and was very quick.  It was a very sad day for Chipper and I as Ellie had been a key part of our small family since the beginning. 

Despite these events of life occurring, Grindstone training continued and I felt reasonably well prepared for the race when it arrived although I struggled to remain confident in my ability to finish.  Especially after I got out onto the course and found out how challenging it was!  The race was not without its moments including missing my crew – Chipper and my parents – at one aid station (for a full story and a outside view on ultrarunning, read Dad’s crew report at http://collinda.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/grindstone-2011/) and some second night confusion that led to me wondering if I was actually seeing trail markers or just imagining them and even mistaking a trail marker for Chipper.  I decided I needed to call it quits and told Chipper and my parents as much when I arrived at the next aid station at about mile 78.  Chipper, however was having none of my nonsense and quickly got me out of the aid station and back on the trail before I had time to put up any sort of protest.  She paced me for the remaining few hours with my parents meeting us at the aid stations.  When I finished the race, I felt like I’d accomplished something very special but only with a great deal of help from so many different people and places: Chipper, my parents, other crews – notably Loopy’s crew of Hillary (Soupergirl) and Thomas (El Toro) who were fantastic at supporting not only Loopy, but being a back-up crew for me! – and all of the smiles and concerns of other runners, pacers and crews along the way.  Although I feel that a highly supportive “we’re-all-in-this-together” spirit is commonly found at ultrarunning events in a way not found in road marathoning, for me Grindstone typified this feeling of camaraderie.  At the end of the day, I was very, very happy with my finish and view it as perhaps my greatest running achievement.  This one’s for you, Ellie!

The Masochist provided a completely different challenge for me than Grindstone.  I am a very consistently paced runner (as evidenced by my Hellgate finishing times across the years) and do not like to be hurried into a pace that doesn’t suit me.  At Masochist I was pressed by the cut-off for the entire race.  I don’t think I got more than 20 minutes ahead of cut-off all day.  I found this to be an incredible drain, to the point where I could not think about anything else but the time.  Time to eat?  No, got to run.  Time to take a side trail for relief?  Nope, maybe later when I’ve got my time cushion larger.  Time to drink, chat, laugh, cry?  Only if I’m running at the same time.  Nowhere was this more apparent than the second to last aid station.  I came in with 6 minutes to spare and overheard talk by the station workers of starting to shut up shop and what to do with runners that had to be pulled from the race.  I probably spent all of 15 seconds at the aid station before beating a hasty path onwards for fear that the cut-off Grim Reaper would appear behind me on the trail and deftly rugby-tackle me to the ground and out of the race.  Fortunately this feeling was (relatively) short-lived as I made it to the final aid station with 15 minutes to spare and an almost assured finish.  The finish line was certainly a beautiful site when I finally arrived and waiting for me there were my fellow Connecticut Beast contenders (and now LUS finishers) who had both ended with a little more of a time buffer than me.

So, all now focused on Hellgate.  I did virtually no training between the Masochist and Hellgate for a number of different reasons but given how much I had riding on this one race – the Beast and a 5-time finish – I felt that I could possibly make it through on adrenaline alone.  Loopy and Forrest were also excited for their second and first potential Hellgate finishes respectively and Mr Bimble (where were you at Grindstone, Mr B?!) was also joining us with his aim of making it 9 for 9.  Finally, crewing us all (but primarily me…) were Chipper and another close running friend Suresh (Booman).  From the start, fueled by adrenaline and prerace lasagna I set what was for me a very quick pace.  Although I remember feeling somewhat concerned that I may suffer because of it later in the race, I continued on and found that I was able to keep up a decent clip until the last two sections when I started to slow somewhat.  Throughout the race I managed to keep well fed and hydrated and came into the last aid station craving my eighth cup of chicken soup (thanks aid station workers!!).  I quickly downed this and pushed on up the final hill to the Blue Ridge Parkway before pulling out what I planned to be my last bite to eat of the race – a small corner of a PB&J.  One bite and I ingloriously lost the entire contents of my stomach in front of two or three unfortunate passing runners (my sincerest apologies!).  Fortunately, the finish was about 3 miles away, all downhill and now with an empty and placid stomach I ran down the hill and through Camp Bethel to the finish line.  The beast was done and I could now proudly say I had joined the special group of 5 time Hellgate finishers.

In reflection, the Beast was an awful lot of running, not only during the races, but even moreso in training.  Friends and colleagues who do not run ultras ask me why I do this and I commonly reply with climber George Mallory’s answer to the question of why try to climb Everest – “Because it’s there”.  In the end, the greatest pleasure I get from these races is reminiscing about what happened during them with fellow runners and crew.  The same race can be vastly different for each person and reliving each race and adventure can satisfy hours of conversation.  I look forward to plenty of these conversations with Forrest, Loopy, Chipper, Mr Bimble and all others that made this series successful for all three of us Beast finishers from Connecticut.