Bull Run Run 50 miler - 2016
It's been a while since I've written up a race report but Bull Run Run
is definitely a race worthy of reflection and sharing - It's Monday
night and I'm sitting here sipping on a Bowman's Single Barrel - it's
nice. So, BRR - sigh. So, bear w/ me while I bring us all up to speed -
Back in September I reached out to Mike & Mel and asked if they
wouldn't mind celebrating my birthday w/ me. They readily obliged and I
think it was somewhere between dinner and dessert, after a couple
bottles of wine and moving on to the cheesecake and whiskey, that Mike
threw down the idea of running the LUS series this year. For the most
part he'd taken the year off from running after having run the BEAST the
year before, and well, I'd been feeling really apathetic about my
running and figured it would be a good way to get me to focus - and
well, I needed to test my limits - if not now, then when (?)
October, November, December rolled around - I put in the mileage but then I ate way too many Christmas cookies and drank too much beer (yeah, my 20 oz mug at Spencer Devon is really 30 oz) and ended up putting on about 10lbs. January I built my fly rod and in February the ultra season began w/ the ICY 8 - I ran well but knew I was far from where I needed to be. The next weekend was Holiday Lake 50k++ - Mike got sick, missing the first race of the LUS series, which meant that I was up at 2 am - drove down, ran the race in sub-20 degree temps in 6.5 hours and then drove home. . up to that point it was one of the hardest things I'd done in a very long time and it was empowering. Three weeks ago we had Terrapin Mtn 50k. This was my first experience w/ running the mountains and it was awful - by awful, I mean that it was awesome and we managed to run that one in 7.5 hours, despite the rain, snow and almost developing hypothermia at the top of Terrapin Mountain. I started running again the next Wednesday but then the following Tuesday I messed up my left calf in a half-brained attempt to build my hips, glutes, etc. for Promise Land coming up on 30 April. I didn't run for much of last week - searing pain in my calf with BRR coming up was enough to scare me into submission. (all joking aside, you know I'm serious when I don't run, eh?) I spent much of the week rolling and walking- a lot. So, the reason for this race report. . .Bull Run Run [insert pause for dramatic effect] I've been aspiring to run BRR since the first year Alex asked me to volunteer and I spent the day dressed as a sexy pirate working the Wolf Run Shoals aid station. In my mind BRR was an iconic ultra and the people who ran it were bad ass. So what else do you do when you're already training for an ultra each month? If you're me, you sign up to run BRR and hope that you get in through the lottery and then.... I did.
So, last week I was seriously considering what I'd do if my calf wasn't ready - my end goal is the LUS series and if I wasn't ready for BRR there would always be another year, right? ha. Fate smiled on me and by Thursday my calf was run worthy- Friday I did my normal routine; ran in the morning, worked half-day, took Ori to daycare, grabbed groceries, cleaned the house and tried to get to bed at a decent time. Oh, I forget to mention that the weather forecast for Saturday was a real, bona fide freak of nature for April in Virginia - Snow, Hail, freezing temps - gah! Could I catch a break already? I set my alarm for 3:45 and was out the door, driving up 95 by 4:30 - For a moment I thought that the weatherman got the forecast wrong- it was about 45 degrees and you could see stars in the sky - rain, pffft(!) not so. . not so. .. So the thing about BRR is that parking is a bear - if you carpool, or spend the night in a bunkhouse, you get to park right there at the start/finish. If you drive up the morning of the run you park in a field about a 1/2 mile away - I had to park in a field a 1/2 mile away and somewhere between the car and checking in at registration I lost one of my gloves. Me, being me, decided that I would trek back to the car and, fingers crossed, I would find it. Not so - it's a good thing the trunk of my car is, as Bill calls it, another wardrobe. . fortunately I had another pair, or three, in the trunk of my car. . but damn those were my favorite pair of gloves. After all of this I trudged back to the start/finish with my drop bag and that's when it started raining - cold rain. Everyone under the pavilion was frantically readjusting their choice of clothing.. myself included. I'd learned my lesson at Terrapin and I refused to be the schmuck who had to drop because she was too cold to continue on. Ha. So, by now you're probably asking yourself when is she going to get to the point (right?). Well, all of this is to put into perspective that a large percentage of any race is not about the running. . the running is the easy part. . it's the logistics and other stuff that you have to navigate that can make or break you. ..
Right about the time that the race started - 0630, the skies opened up and it started pouring. . shit. If you're a trail runner you know what that means. . muddy trails. For BRR, the first mile is a huge loop through the parking area (yep, you go out and make a big loop, passing your car) to space everyone out - then you come back through the start/finish area before hitting the single track. One of the things that BRR is noted for is the running through the blue bells - this year was no exception but it was hard to appreciate their beauty when you were slipping and sliding in the clay mud - which I did a lot. The first aid station is supposed to be about 7 miles out - those first few miles took forever - I was miserable and somewhere between the turnaround and returning to the aid station I made a decision. I popped some ibuprofen, some Tums and pulled myself together. During the process of stopping to pull all of that out of my pack I let about 20 people pass me but in the end I knew that I'd made the right decision. On my way back to the aid station I slipped in the mud - yes, the mud just sucked for those first 16.6 miles and then you reach a point where you put your head down and it's a forced march through the muck and all you can focus on is getting through - Coming into the Hemlock aid station (also the start/finish & third aid station) was interesting - everyone was changing into dry things, rummaging around in their drop bags. My only thought was to get in and out of the aid station - it was still raining/snowing so there was no point in changing into something dry - I'm pretty sure I gained ground on those 20 or so people who passed me earlier. From Hemlock to the Marina and then on to Wolf Run Shoals I kept my focus on getting from point A to point B -It was all single track - up, down, up down .. . just keep swimming. I've developed this uncanny ability to just go numb once everything starts to hurt - I'm constantly amazed by the body's ability to function under extreme circumstances. Once we started climbing, and got away from Bull Run itself, the trail was less muddy so footing was much better - I started running 12 min miles again and was able to pick up lost time. My focus at each aid station was to get in, eat as many peanut butter and jelly 1/4 sandwiches as I could, drink Gatorade and get out - I like to think that I did well with that plan - that is until my fingers began to look like little sausages and my hands were so swollen that they were unrecognizable. Normally you can see my veins, tendons, etc. . at about mile 26 my hands looked like balloons - I wasn't taking in enough salt/electrolytes and from a previous experience I was reluctant to take S-caps. . . at about mile 36 I started taking S-caps. . if my GI was unhappy at least I was in the woods. Coming out of the Marina aid station (about 5.5 miles until the finish) my right knee started giving out - [I'm thinking now that it's an IT band issue -] It became very (tearing up and whimpering - very) painful to run down hills. ..when you're an ultra runner, down hills are where you make up time. . and damn, I have Promise Land in 3 weeks. I also think that right about this time my mind started playing tricks on me. My goal was to try to finish in about 11.5 hours. When you're on your feet for that long you do all kinds of things to make the time go by - I'm fond of calculating my pace and calculating, and recalculating, my anticipated finish time. For whatever reason I miscalculated and convinced myself that I wasn't going to make it in under 12 hours. [ It wasn't until I was finished and posting to Facebook that I realized my mistake] - those last few miles were demoralizing. After passing the trail where we came down from Hemlock we continued along Bull Run - up and over rocks and through the blue bells - and then. . and then up a huge ass hill. I'd seriously miscalculated the distance and kept checking my watch - willing the mileage away. . that didn't happen. Just before taking on the hill I was passed by a really friendly female runner - after she passed me I caught up to another runner - not usually the competitive type I surprised myself by powering up the hill just to get ahead of her since Grace had passed me. Talk about sheer force of will to power through pain - snort! she ended up passing me 50 yards from the finish - So, what this race report lacks in details about the running I hope that it gives a sense of everything else that goes on during an ultra (and I didn't even go into the hot shower, learning to wear fleece pants and slippers afterward or forcing myself to eat half of a sweet potato w/ kale before driving home. .. ) . My official finish time was 11:23:15. I finished 157 out of 265 finishers. . 27 out of 67 women.
Surprisingly enough I'm feeling really great today - I attribute that to the training, the ice bath Saturday night (yeah, that was awful), rolling (lots of rolling) and well, luck. I'm not going to run for the rest of the week and then start back up on Saturday - Looking forward to running BRR next year but many miles to go before then - AND Promise Land in ~3 weeks.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the support these last few months. . and years. . :)
October, November, December rolled around - I put in the mileage but then I ate way too many Christmas cookies and drank too much beer (yeah, my 20 oz mug at Spencer Devon is really 30 oz) and ended up putting on about 10lbs. January I built my fly rod and in February the ultra season began w/ the ICY 8 - I ran well but knew I was far from where I needed to be. The next weekend was Holiday Lake 50k++ - Mike got sick, missing the first race of the LUS series, which meant that I was up at 2 am - drove down, ran the race in sub-20 degree temps in 6.5 hours and then drove home. . up to that point it was one of the hardest things I'd done in a very long time and it was empowering. Three weeks ago we had Terrapin Mtn 50k. This was my first experience w/ running the mountains and it was awful - by awful, I mean that it was awesome and we managed to run that one in 7.5 hours, despite the rain, snow and almost developing hypothermia at the top of Terrapin Mountain. I started running again the next Wednesday but then the following Tuesday I messed up my left calf in a half-brained attempt to build my hips, glutes, etc. for Promise Land coming up on 30 April. I didn't run for much of last week - searing pain in my calf with BRR coming up was enough to scare me into submission. (all joking aside, you know I'm serious when I don't run, eh?) I spent much of the week rolling and walking- a lot. So, the reason for this race report. . .Bull Run Run [insert pause for dramatic effect] I've been aspiring to run BRR since the first year Alex asked me to volunteer and I spent the day dressed as a sexy pirate working the Wolf Run Shoals aid station. In my mind BRR was an iconic ultra and the people who ran it were bad ass. So what else do you do when you're already training for an ultra each month? If you're me, you sign up to run BRR and hope that you get in through the lottery and then.... I did.
So, last week I was seriously considering what I'd do if my calf wasn't ready - my end goal is the LUS series and if I wasn't ready for BRR there would always be another year, right? ha. Fate smiled on me and by Thursday my calf was run worthy- Friday I did my normal routine; ran in the morning, worked half-day, took Ori to daycare, grabbed groceries, cleaned the house and tried to get to bed at a decent time. Oh, I forget to mention that the weather forecast for Saturday was a real, bona fide freak of nature for April in Virginia - Snow, Hail, freezing temps - gah! Could I catch a break already? I set my alarm for 3:45 and was out the door, driving up 95 by 4:30 - For a moment I thought that the weatherman got the forecast wrong- it was about 45 degrees and you could see stars in the sky - rain, pffft(!) not so. . not so. .. So the thing about BRR is that parking is a bear - if you carpool, or spend the night in a bunkhouse, you get to park right there at the start/finish. If you drive up the morning of the run you park in a field about a 1/2 mile away - I had to park in a field a 1/2 mile away and somewhere between the car and checking in at registration I lost one of my gloves. Me, being me, decided that I would trek back to the car and, fingers crossed, I would find it. Not so - it's a good thing the trunk of my car is, as Bill calls it, another wardrobe. . fortunately I had another pair, or three, in the trunk of my car. . but damn those were my favorite pair of gloves. After all of this I trudged back to the start/finish with my drop bag and that's when it started raining - cold rain. Everyone under the pavilion was frantically readjusting their choice of clothing.. myself included. I'd learned my lesson at Terrapin and I refused to be the schmuck who had to drop because she was too cold to continue on. Ha. So, by now you're probably asking yourself when is she going to get to the point (right?). Well, all of this is to put into perspective that a large percentage of any race is not about the running. . the running is the easy part. . it's the logistics and other stuff that you have to navigate that can make or break you. ..
Right about the time that the race started - 0630, the skies opened up and it started pouring. . shit. If you're a trail runner you know what that means. . muddy trails. For BRR, the first mile is a huge loop through the parking area (yep, you go out and make a big loop, passing your car) to space everyone out - then you come back through the start/finish area before hitting the single track. One of the things that BRR is noted for is the running through the blue bells - this year was no exception but it was hard to appreciate their beauty when you were slipping and sliding in the clay mud - which I did a lot. The first aid station is supposed to be about 7 miles out - those first few miles took forever - I was miserable and somewhere between the turnaround and returning to the aid station I made a decision. I popped some ibuprofen, some Tums and pulled myself together. During the process of stopping to pull all of that out of my pack I let about 20 people pass me but in the end I knew that I'd made the right decision. On my way back to the aid station I slipped in the mud - yes, the mud just sucked for those first 16.6 miles and then you reach a point where you put your head down and it's a forced march through the muck and all you can focus on is getting through - Coming into the Hemlock aid station (also the start/finish & third aid station) was interesting - everyone was changing into dry things, rummaging around in their drop bags. My only thought was to get in and out of the aid station - it was still raining/snowing so there was no point in changing into something dry - I'm pretty sure I gained ground on those 20 or so people who passed me earlier. From Hemlock to the Marina and then on to Wolf Run Shoals I kept my focus on getting from point A to point B -It was all single track - up, down, up down .. . just keep swimming. I've developed this uncanny ability to just go numb once everything starts to hurt - I'm constantly amazed by the body's ability to function under extreme circumstances. Once we started climbing, and got away from Bull Run itself, the trail was less muddy so footing was much better - I started running 12 min miles again and was able to pick up lost time. My focus at each aid station was to get in, eat as many peanut butter and jelly 1/4 sandwiches as I could, drink Gatorade and get out - I like to think that I did well with that plan - that is until my fingers began to look like little sausages and my hands were so swollen that they were unrecognizable. Normally you can see my veins, tendons, etc. . at about mile 26 my hands looked like balloons - I wasn't taking in enough salt/electrolytes and from a previous experience I was reluctant to take S-caps. . . at about mile 36 I started taking S-caps. . if my GI was unhappy at least I was in the woods. Coming out of the Marina aid station (about 5.5 miles until the finish) my right knee started giving out - [I'm thinking now that it's an IT band issue -] It became very (tearing up and whimpering - very) painful to run down hills. ..when you're an ultra runner, down hills are where you make up time. . and damn, I have Promise Land in 3 weeks. I also think that right about this time my mind started playing tricks on me. My goal was to try to finish in about 11.5 hours. When you're on your feet for that long you do all kinds of things to make the time go by - I'm fond of calculating my pace and calculating, and recalculating, my anticipated finish time. For whatever reason I miscalculated and convinced myself that I wasn't going to make it in under 12 hours. [ It wasn't until I was finished and posting to Facebook that I realized my mistake] - those last few miles were demoralizing. After passing the trail where we came down from Hemlock we continued along Bull Run - up and over rocks and through the blue bells - and then. . and then up a huge ass hill. I'd seriously miscalculated the distance and kept checking my watch - willing the mileage away. . that didn't happen. Just before taking on the hill I was passed by a really friendly female runner - after she passed me I caught up to another runner - not usually the competitive type I surprised myself by powering up the hill just to get ahead of her since Grace had passed me. Talk about sheer force of will to power through pain - snort! she ended up passing me 50 yards from the finish - So, what this race report lacks in details about the running I hope that it gives a sense of everything else that goes on during an ultra (and I didn't even go into the hot shower, learning to wear fleece pants and slippers afterward or forcing myself to eat half of a sweet potato w/ kale before driving home. .. ) . My official finish time was 11:23:15. I finished 157 out of 265 finishers. . 27 out of 67 women.
Surprisingly enough I'm feeling really great today - I attribute that to the training, the ice bath Saturday night (yeah, that was awful), rolling (lots of rolling) and well, luck. I'm not going to run for the rest of the week and then start back up on Saturday - Looking forward to running BRR next year but many miles to go before then - AND Promise Land in ~3 weeks.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the support these last few months. . and years. . :)
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