Umstead 2019

So I've been a bit lazy in blogging lately. My good friend Tammy Massie talked me into pacing Umstead 100 again, and I actually did it this year. After only 1 lap, I was in a lot of pain and ready to get home.

Showing up at Umstead is always a good time. I got there about an hour before Tammy finished the lap with our friend Susan. I ran into so many friends, including an old coworker who actually finished the 100 last year! Now Merrit is training for Western States - insane.

Me and Merrit

Me and Tammy before we got out there

Susan also convinced another runner to go out with us, so I got to meet a new friend. Kim turned out to be a blast to run through the woods with. The 3 of us hit the trail about 10:30 pm, and finished the lap around 3 am. I was pretty good for about 10 miles then the arthritis really kicked in and my hands swole up pretty bad. Once again, spending time with friends in the woods is the best part of this race, the running part was pretty unpleasant.

Now here's some other random pics that I've been holding on to

Kelley in the kitchen. Really I was just testing out the camera on a new phone

selfie at work

selfie at home

The kids were surprised that I got a skull phone case. I'm surprised my belly has gotten to this size

selfie in the car. My hair is getting longer!

So yeah, I'm still carrying around this big belly and a lot of pain when I run. Fun times. But I did get into a swim race (next post)

Delaware is Done!

The Trap Pond marathon in Delaware is in the books! Delaware is my 12th state in the quest to run a full marathon in all 50 states, and my 25th marathon overall. It's also my first marathon since October 2016, when I tore up my right foot. I really wasn't sure that I would be able to marathon again, or would have the motivation to marathon again.

Saturday we drove up to Southern Delaware. If I didn't know I was in lower Delaware I would swear it was Eastern NC. We had to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge both ways, and it cost $13 in tolls each time. The bridge is about 8 miles long, but only about 6 miles of that is above the water. The two times that we had to tunnel under the water was really cool - the whole thing is an expensive feat of engineering. Kelley was not a fan. After that we got into Maryland for a bit and then crossed the border to DE.

Packet pickup was at the hotel we were staying at so that was easy. When I travel I like to eat at smaller local restaurants and find local breweries. Funny thing about (what they called) the slower lower - they didn't know they were in Delaware! We ate dinner at a Texas Roadhouse, but I did get a bottle of Dogfishhead 120 minute IPA. A BOTTLE! There are no local restaurants and no local breweries. I'm reserving the right to go back for the Rehoboth Beach marathon just so I can hit the DFH brewerpub for some decent eats and draft local beer.

heading into wal-mart looking for local sweatshirts

Kelley wants me to bring her back a sweatshirt from a college from every state. The University of Delaware Blue Hens should have some pretty cool gear! Nothing. We couldn't find a single thing. There wasn't even a Target unless we went back to Maryland. But it did snow when it was 45* outside, so that's something we'd never seen before!

Marathon morning was uneventful. Got dressed and ate breakfast at the hotel, made it back to the starting line at the Trap Pond State Park on time. Then when we were all at the starting line I noticed the legend himself - Chuck Engle the marathon junkie was running! Which means he's going to win. Sure enough, he only lapped me once and won with a 3:05

Kelley and I before the start

The race was all on the Bob trail around a lake. It started with a 1.75 mile out and back spur, then kept on for 5 loops of the 4.5 mile trail. I carried the phone with me for loop 2

struggling already

Kelley was cold

Got him! There's Chuck passing me

Beautiful day, beautiful lake

This was the trail most of the course. Gravel, wide, flat. Perfect.

There were a couple of cool bridges

and a swamp

This was the only stretch of pavement

Coming in to finish the lap

Each lap took about 50 minutes to complete. After the spur and the first lap, Kelley thought I was almost done - I got a kick out of that. She was really just tired of sitting in the cold waiting on me to finish. 1:23 into a marathon and I'm almost there, yeah.

Everything felt ok until the last lap. That one was mostly walking. And it hurt pretty good. But at the end, I was done.  I had finished my first marathon in a year and a half. Only took 5:01, good enough for 15th place of 25 finishers (small race!) and 5 of 6 men 40-49 and 9 of 15 men overall. It's not the 4 hour marathons I was churning out when I was 40 lbs lighter, but I finished. And that felt great.

Arthritis sucks, my hand swelled up so I had no knuckles left

Got my medal!

Kelley is happy I'm done!

After I finished, I changed clothes in the parking lot and we drove directly the 6 hours back to Raleigh. I still wore the medal the whole time. I am so glad to have Delaware complete, and got to have a fun road trip with my sweetheart.

More Single Track Please

No! I meant No more single track please. This past Saturday was the 2016 Triple Lakes Trail Race, a full marathon (and a half marathon and 40 miler) in Greensboro, NC. I got up at 5:15 am, drove over from Raleigh, race started at 8, finished in 4:57 and drove home in time to take the kids to a Halloween party that night. The best part of the experience was taking a shit in a gas station about 5 minutes before getting to the park. This is a short race report.

That sounds harsh. It was a beautiful day to be running in the woods. The trail was absolutely gorgeous. The race was very well organized, plenty of parking, packet pickup was a breeze, the medal and shirt are incredibly cool, and the post race party was hopping.

Packet pickup, small crowd

Happy trail runner at the start

This is a small race, even by trail standards - only 60 finishers. It was advertised as mostly flat, wide trails, a boston qualifier course on trails. It was actually a series of trails connected by roads so you got some of both, but at least 18 miles of it was my dreaded single track. I didn't expect the trail sections to be so technical. Pretty much all of it was very rooty. I had to pay attention, and that means I didn't get very many pictures.

The half marathoners started first at 8:00, then we took off uphill on a road at 8:05. It was about 55* at the start, so I layered up. By mile 2 I was heating up and it was time to take off that long sleeve shirt. The day ended up getting up to about 81*, which is way to hot for marathoning. I was sweating so hard that by mile 8 the tank top hand turned into sandpaper and filed my nipples away. So I ended up running shirtless for the last 2/3 of the race even though I'm way too fat to get away with it and it's the end of October. smh.

Beautiful trail

half dead trail runner

I took those sometime in the second half of the race when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures on the trail at all.

The problem with heavy roots like that is that it alters my cadence. Well, there are lots of problems. It's easy to twist an ankle, trip and fall down, or tweak out a knee. I managed to avoid falling this time, but my knees don't exactly let me barrel down the steep hills like I could 5 years ago. I was not prepared for the trail to be this technical, and it really slowed me down.

I finished in 4:57:43, good enough for 34/60 overall and 5/9 in the men 40-49 age group. If they would have gone with a 5 year age group, I would have been 3/5 and snagged an award. Eventually if you make the field small enough it looks like I did well. It's also worth noting that the Garmin didn't maintain satellite reception the entire time, I think. When I saw the 24 mile sign the garmin said 23.4 miles. Then we rounded two more corners and saw the finish line so apparently the marathon was only about 24.25 miles long. Or 23.47 miles long, if you believe the Garmin. And that's really the best metaphor I can make about the entire day.

Glad to be done!

The medal has a sparkly pirate face

Overall I'm very glad I did this race, it's #2 in my 12 marathons in 8 months streak this season. My 23rd marathon is in the books. But I don't think I'll go back again. It's just too much single track for me.

Coolest part is that the race photos are all free for download, so I'll wrap up with some official photography from the start & finish.

Middle, yellow long sleeve shirt. I should not have started in the front row.

Did I mention an uphill start?

Out with the leaders

They did get one good shot on the trail - down to the tank top made from sandpaper

fat man finishes happy

Glad to be done

also me

The New New River 50k

My second time running the New River Trail 50k proved to be a fantastic way to kick off my streak of 12 marathons in 8 months. I did this race in 2014 and it was my first 50k then. The worst part was that I didn't appreciate what I was doing when it was happening then. I felt like 5:21 with a 4:26 marathon split was really slow and I should stick to road marathons after that. Well, 2 years later that is still my 50k PR after several other attempts. And full disclosure, my first ultramarathon was the Pine Mountain 40 in 2012 after which I swore off trail running forever.

This time I really tried to get my zen on, and live in the moment for where I was and what I was doing. It was awesome! I finished in 5:36:53 with a 4:39 marathon split. It was cold and foggy at the start, then 72* and perfectly sunny at the finish. Since I never meet a stranger there were tons of cool, friendly people to talk to out there. awesome.

Macado's in Galax! Who knew that was there

Cute farmers market

Friday night I drove up to Galax Va straight after work. Stayed in the Rodeway Inn in Galax for only $52 - cheap enough so Kelley didn't want to come with me for this trip but the room ended up being pretty nice for the money. The town of Galax is SO CUTE. Must go back sometime for a weekend getaway. In 2014 it was raining, but this time I got to walk Main St for a while and found a Macado's - my favorite restaurant from college. I had to stop in for a beer and some late night snacking. AND I GOT CARDED! The bartender gave me the "holy shit you're the same age as my sister but she looks way older than you do' speech so I guess the mountains of Virginia are fraught with low standards of youth. I'll take it.

Saturday morning I ate breakfast in the hotel, running into another NRT runner from Chapel Hill. He didn't want to eat but I tend to throw down on race morning before an ultra. Made the easy drive from Galax up to Fries Va and got ready to rock. The hospitality up there was incredible.

Foggy on the river - that's a picture of a trash can

facing north

The river was angry that morning - like an old man trying to send back soup

Here's the old man

The registration & starting line area is right next to the parking lot

Start/finish line

I'm ready to go!

The start of this race is very deceptive. Anytime you are running next to the river in the direction of the water flow you are going downhill. When the water is running in the opposite direction you are, you are actually going uphill. This is because of the basic principle of civil engineering - water always flows downhill. The course is billed as flat and scenic, but flat is a relative term. For the first several miles you are actually running downhill. Then you hit a turnaround and go uphill back to an aide station, then out a different section of the trail! It's a wide gravel rail-to-trail conversion, so it's the kind of soft and easy trail that I love.

Beautiful waterfall 2:11 into the race. Maybe 14 miles?

That's how I really felt about that waterfall

I didn't have the Garmin for this one. I wanted to run more by feel and perceived effort than just trying to keep a pace. The only downside to that is that I didn't have the current mileage either. We crossed a really cool bridge, ran through a tunnel, there were waterfalls and river sounds all the time. These pictures above were 2:11 into the race (10:11 am) so I'm guessing that was around 14 miles. It was still beautiful.

After the second turnaround it was a straight shot back to the start/finish line. I realized I didn't take many pictures on the way out there, so I tried to snag a couple more on the way back.

11:28 am, it was starting to warm up more by then

and by 12:04 pm I'm 4 hours into the race and totally beat

The race started at 8 am so by the time I crossed the 4 hour mark it was up to 72* and the sun was blazing out there. I certainly didn't overheat, but was very glad I could drain my water bottle between aide stations.

The day and the course lived up to expectations. It was cold, hot, and beautiful for so many different reasons. They didn't have a clock at the marathon point, but there was a girl yelling out your marathon split time as you ran past. Then at 1:36 pm I came back to the finish line, happy to be done and grateful for the day I had. I finished 29th of 63 finishers, square in the middle of the pack. I wanted to get those 5 miles between the marathon split and the finish line done in under an hour, and I made it in 57 minutes. I wanted to have fun, so that I certainly did.

The same river picture from the top of this post, without the fog

Happy happy finisher!

Giving my feet an ice bath in the river. Best part of finishing this race.

Not a cloud in the sky! What happened to that fog and long sleeve shirt?

Beautiful day in the VA mountains.

With my medal at the finish line

Some of the many cool friends I made on the trail. These girls all finished their first ultra.

Really if I could find a way to bottle up the environment, the emotion, the reasons to run trail ultras, this would be it. I even tried to capture that in a video.

This was a great way to kick off my streak. 1 down, 11 more to go. Up next is the Triple Lakes Trail Marathon in Greensboro on Oct 29. Run more trails!