“You are in, are you
sure you want to be?” These are the words that Dr. Horton wrote to me in an
email after he received my application in the mail back in October. Knowing at that point I was a week out from
the MMTR and that I had logged a quite a bit of mileage that month, I knew that
I would be physically prepared for Hellgate but kept his words in the back of
my mind. There was always that thought
on if I could do it.
Fast
forward to December 13th at
packet pickup at Camp Bethel. I see DHO
and he welcomes me to the race. As he is
shaking my hand, he tells me “I really want to see you at the finish line but…
(there was a second or two pause after he said the word ‘but’) …. “you really
have your work cut out for you!” Again,
I kept his words in the back of my mind since I’ve never attempted to run a
100k. Again, I thought if I really had
what it took to complete the race in the allotted time.
As
always, the chow and the pre-race briefing were great. I am always impressed
hearing the stories that the seasoned veterans tell, the places they’ve
traveled to, the belt buckles earned and the misery experienced. I am so new to the Ultra community in comparison
and just happy to consider myself average although my wife would clinically
diagnose me with one or two other things besides “normal”. During the course of Friday evening, I am
pretty sure that everyone was concerned about the weather forecast that was
predicted to hit us. The question was
not when but how bad was it going to be.
I was only a few hours into the race when we found out.
 |
| Little Mike D and Big Mike D 2 minutes before the start. |
0001hrs: Ready-Set-Go.
I hitched a ride with Sniper, Darin Dunham, and his crew of one. We got to the parking lot sometime around
10:00 or 10:30 and, despite the adrenaline and anticipation, we all tried to
sleep the best we could until the convoy of runners arrived at approximately
11:15. Charlie parked the 15 passenger
van directly behind Darin’s vehicle and Horton was doing his pre-race check-in
right there so Sniper simply opened the vehicle door, leaned halfway out, and
hollowed out our numbers. We all
basically said that was the easiest check in we’ve ever had at a race. 11:30 came along and we all agreed that it
was too cold outside to go and take a leak in the wood line (10 feet
away). At 11:45, we shoved our drop bags
into Charlie’s van and walked over to the start point. Sniper questioned the size of my bag and I
told him that I had big shoes. I linked
up with “Big Mike” at the trail edge of the running pack, Sarah snapped a quick
pic of the “2 Mikes” and Horton said a prayer.
PS-we all need singing lessons. I
ran drafting Big Mike for the first couple of miles until the creek crossing
which at that point I think Helen said “Hi” to me right before I was knee deep
(ps- I didn’t recognize her without her puffy furry boots on so I may not have
acknowledged). After the creek and the
first few miles of climbing during the snowy hours, I was zoned out in my own
little world listening to my iPod with everything from DMB to Disturbed. Irony by the way, the first lyrics from the
first random song that I heard at oh-dark-thirty in the morning was from Iron
Maiden and it went like this: “Feel the sweat break on my brow, Is it me or is
it the shadows that are dancing on the walls”.
I laughed as I was pushing up the hill thinking ‘how appropriate’ and
wondered at what point of the course would I be hallucinating due to sleep
deprivation. At the beginning of the
race, I had already been up for 19 hours.
When it was all said and done it would be 41-42 hours of being awake.
AS2-AS3
(0133hrs to 0258hrs) - I remember
lot’s o’ climbs but nothing to physically or mentally earth shattering. I felt good and consciously focused on
conserving my energy, shortening my strides, and controlling my breathing. For me, and I am sure the concern for most
other runners, the challenge was to not overheat too quickly which would cause
us to later freeze at the top of the ridgeline.
Around AS2, I think the temps dropped another 10 degrees. In there somewhere is where I started seeing
snowflakes the size of bib numbers. I
swear I choked on a flake or two because I was running with my mouth open. My guess is that we got 3-4 inches in some
parts of the mountain. The ground was
covered, the sky was filled and I was following tracks instead of orange
streamers. I kept thinking to myself of
Thomas Cook’s race report from last years (and the phone call he gave me the
few hours before the race started) where he said that the toughest part of the
Hellgate course was the first 22 miles.
Having that little nugget imbedded, I was breaking down the race in my
mind that I was almost 1/3 of the way done.
Then again, I did the math at AS1 and thought “cool…. I am 1/20 of the
way there”. I am still convinced that
running is 70% mental 50% of the time.
AS4
(0457hrs) - I changed my wet
gloves and one of the workers wiped the rain and sweat off the lenses of my
Oakley's with a dry napkin that he had.
I think he felt sorry for me because I was trying to do it with a wet
jacket and t-shirt. I struggled putting
my wet hands into a dry pair of gloves and complained to myself that I was
burning too much time. That was the
highlight for that AS. I recall thinking
about the happiness I had on numerous occasions at this point when I was
running the Promise Land 50k++.
0549hrs - I was thinking how great I was doing with not
tripping or falling.
0550hrs - I tripped and fell on a downhill section. Before I hit the ground I thought ‘this is
going to hurt”. The snow and mud was a
good combination on impact.. zero rocks!
I thought that I had landed well but it wouldn’t be until later on in
the morning where I found out that Brian Dibeler is an acrobat/contortionist
when he’s not running Ultra’s.
AS5
(0654hrs) - It was just getting
to be daylight when I hit the aid station.
I was looking forward to the drop bag so I could change my sweaty
t-shirt and drink a knock off 5-hour energy drink. I saw Blake Edmonson (who was my Angel in
disguise a few MMTR’s ago). He was
standing there smiling and had asked how I was doing and what I needed. I don’t remembered what I mumbled but I think
I told him that I didn’t know what I needed and I asked how Todd and Alexis
were doing. I recall Blake telling me
that Todd was doing a fun run. This was
almost the 50k point of the race. Again,
I did the math and was a little over 7 hours (not bad for me and almost a 50k
PR)
From
AS5-AS6 - I did not eat too
much prior and was looking forward to the breakfast that I heard would be
there. I remember Rosie asking me if I
was a vegetarian but before I could comprehend the words, he stated that I was
too big to be one. He handed me a cup and shoved bacon, sausages, and some
pizza rolls in there and I went on my merry way up Little Cove Mountain. Despite the climb that was ahead of me, I
actually was looking forward to the walk because that gave me ample amount of
time to eat and somewhat digest the cup o’ food.
Little
Cove Mountain ain’t that little. 3 miles up with a 800 vertical gain according
to my watch data. I found myself
suddenly happy with my cup o’ food as I pressed forward as Blake walked about a
¼ mile with me. I guess weakness from
hunger is the price you pay for not maintaining a steady intake of
calories. I confess that I am not a big
eater and find it difficult many times to force food into my body. Getting that out of the way, I bumped into
Brian Dibeler ½ way up Little Cove Mountain around mile 31 and we snap-linked
into each other to most of the way to AS7.
After about 7 or 8 miles of steady running, I had stopped to take a pebble
out of my sneaker and I never caught back to him. I called him an ‘animal’ and he had told me
later at the next aid station that the Advil had kicked in. This 12-13 mile section was a great run for
me because I had been ALONE for hours and hours and had not spoken a word to
anyone except at the AS’s. His
motivation and great conversation kept me rolling along. I did witness him tripping on a downhill
single track section. I was so impressed
with how he literally had his feet in the air with his head, neck, and beard on
the ground (looking backwards) and them rolling to the point when he was back
on his feet running without missing a beat.
I gave him an “8.2” for style and grace.
Again, truly impressive!
AS7
(1057hrs) - Yet another
knock-off 5 hour energy drink, t-shirt swap, and glove exchange. This time was the real thick pair of skiing
gloves that I pretty much kept on all the way to the finish line. I did more math and came up with 2/3 of the
way completed and just shy of 11 hours into the course. Demoralizing to think that the elite runners
were creeping up to the last aid station and finish line but I am never the one
to care about where I rank in the crowd.
I am content with always finishing and nothing more.
About
halfway through AS7 & AS8 I bumped into Grattan Garbee and Blanks
Blankenship running together. Blanks was
sporting his shiny new Go-Pro camera which was a great idea for such a crappy
weather day. I chit-chatted with Grattan
for a moment and he told me that he’d shoot Sherri a note since she was at home
in NC sick and could not make the trip with me.
I was grateful. More math – at
the 50 mile point, I was right at 12 hours.
It was at this point where I thought that I knew that I was going to
make it considering I only had 16 miles left and 6 hours to do them. Grattan later got to see me at my all time
low point from mile 50-52 when I was puking.
What a great friend he was to ensure that I didn’t quit (which never
crossed my mind) and to ensure that I kept moving forward. I did tell him once
however that I wanted to take a nap in between my vomit sessions (by the way, I
recall seeing part of the hotdog that I ate at AS7). He tolerated my whininess and pathetic
whimpering for about 30 minutes all the way to AS8 where I actually sat down,
relaxed and drank some ramen noodles.
After I quickly regained my strength and composure, Grattan pulled me
out of the comfortable chair and I waved goodbye to him as I left the very cold
and windy AS under the Parkway.
AS8-AS9 - The “Forever Section”. I got off the long and windy gravel decent
and I caught up to Jack Anderson and Justin Peake which I pretty much drafted
the entire 8 mile section. Everyone can
probably agree that the section of the course holds water really, really,
really well. I was back in my groove and
feeling pretty good after the challenges of mile 50-52 (as I call my dark
miles). Grattan snuck up behind me and
commented that I looked a whole lot better.
One of us asked how much further AS9 was and he said about 1.25
miles. The funny thing was that I was
90% of the way done with the “Forever Section” before I realized that it was
dragging on. My Suunto by the way
measured AS8-AS9 as 8.32 miles.
AS9 to Finish - I was right at 15 hours and I did the last
section alone. The next person that I
saw was Grattan in his truck on the Parkway.
He told me to stop so he could take my picture. It felt so great knowing that I was finally
in the home stretch and that it was all downhill from there. The trees at that elevation all had icicles
on them from the freezing rain we had all day.
I was thinking how terrible the roads were going to be and was dreading
the drive back to the Kirkley in Lynchburg that evening. At about 1 mile left, I caught up to and
passed a runner who looked in rough shape and was borderline hypothermic. I stopped and talked to him for a second and
gave him some encouragement and then focused on completing my goal.
It had just gotten dark when I was a coming into Camp Bethel. About 100 feet from the finishers clock, Horton yelled out “what’s your number?”, I said “80!” and then he recognized that it was me. He and Muffy congratulated me as we went inside. DHO asked if I had gotten my sticker. I told him “Not yet”. The
rest is how the conversation ended:
DHO-
Do you deserve one?
Me- You tell me.
DHO- Why yes you do!
Me- You tell me.
DHO- Why yes you do!
Clark
handed me my finisher’s bling and I headed to the shower in order to thaw out.
I looked forward to catching up with all of my friends and hearing about their
experiences from such a special race on such a special day. Congrats to
everyone who started the race! It takes
a special person just to get to the start line.
http://www.extremeultrarunning.com/2013_hellgate/results.html
The last 100 meters of the race is below:
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