Last week, one of the runners in the group did an ultra run, the Cheat Mountain Moonshine Madness 50 Mile Trail Run. He sent me an email afterwards describing the event and I thought it was so good that I'm sharing it here. For those who read that I ran 19 this morning and think that's crazy, wait until you read this (thanks Bob, for sharing):
quick recap from Fri night - Sat a.m. adventure.
tough event. rugged, beautiful location in WV. 13 miles of fire road (mostly uphill)) to start followed by 20 miles of mostly single track, technical trail (which was surprisingly wet - the kind of environment the Cheat Mountain Salamander (featured in today's F-burg paper) likes) and 17 miles of fire road to the end, which was mostly downhill. the nighttime start was cool. clear night, nearly full moon. I felt like I handled the fire road portion in the beginning just about right -- left the road at 2hr50min, so met my on the trail by Saturday plan...first segment of trail was surreal - I did not see another runner the whole time - 4 miles and change - felt fine, through an aid station and then onto second trail segment when the wheels started to fall off -- must have been about 4 hrs and change into the run -- off the trail and to the 23m aid station at just under 6hrs -- cutoff was 6:30, so I was closer than expected. left there at 6hr1min (3:00 a.m.) the next segment ate my lunch -- 1hr20min to go 4.5 miles...I then had 1hr40 minutes to go 5.5 miles to make the 33m cutoff of 9hrs -- a scooby doo 'ruh roh' moment. I consciously worked harder to move at a quicker tempo with some success, but really struggled with doubt and hoped at several points to miss the cutoff and just go to sleep - honestly, a real struggle. I prayed, but selfishly and did not feel any real peace. hit the aid station at 8hr45min, so able to continue but feeling pretty low. changed socks and stepped off at 8hr50min feeling poorly physically and mentally. the next segment was 3.8 miles up and down, but all fire road. I felt like I was moving backward. had to pit stop and wanted to sleep pretty strongly, but also dialed into the thought of Christ allowing us to overcome. put ipod on for the first time and made the aid station at 9hr50min, which was quicker than expected. 7 a.m. came and I started to feel stronger -- I honestly thought it must be prayers being spoken in the Horizons Church parking lot -- the next aid station was 7.2 miles and I covered it much quicker 1hr13min than I had on the way up. the last leg was 5.7 miles and I covered it almost exactly the same as the first time to finish in 12hr24min. . .13 hrs was the official finisher cutoff.
tired but not too beat up today. I am thankful for the chance to stretch myself in these runs. . .some confidence that you don't have to log as many miles as it might seem to be prepared b/c I have not run more than 4 days in any week since February.
Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did (from the comfort of my chair). We have some amazing runners in our group, and if you are interested in finding out about long distance running, ultra runs, etc., please don't hesitate to ask. We all love helping new runners catch the bug that we have.
Stay tuned for upcoming runs - we're off our usual every other weeks schedule to do training schedules, but we'll still be getting some runs in over the next couple months.
Blessings,
Karen
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