I drove down race morning with Bill S. and Dave G. and we ended up getting to the starting line just in time (6:58!) for the 7 am start. I could tell the morning was off to a bad start when I realized I had left behind my bag with all of the most important non-shoe items (body glide, hat, gloves, turn sheet, etc.). So off I ran to the start being very underprepared (in more ways than one) for a possible rainy day in the mountains.
I grabbed a turn sheet at the start, (fortunately they had extras) and set off. The first climb up to Signal Knob was a long one and being mostly towards the back of the group I resigned to hiking the entire thing despite some runnable grades. Looking at it positively, I made sure to not go out too quickly! At the top of the climb we followed some generic single track and I started to move a little more comfortably. I had not been on the Masanutten trails in a number of years and I underestimated their degree of technicality. Initially going in I figured 6 hours would be a good time to shoot for since I couldn't imagine a course harder than Catoctin, but boy was I wrong.
After this first stretch of singletrack we moved onto the Sidewinder trail as I think it was called. This was a great stretch on an old railroad bed and it felt nice to be able to open up a little bit and move my legs more quickly. Unfortunately, almost as soon as it started the Sidewinder trail ended and I arrived at the first aid station. I topped off my water bottles with Gatorade and grabbed a nice mix of Pringles/Nutter Butters for the road. I was in good spirits at this point and my legs were in good shape despite the relatively hard effort the previous day with Sage N.
I was rewarded over the next ten miles before the second aid station with a reminder of how little trail running I have done in the past few months. I could probably count on two hands the number of times since my IT band injury that I have ran on the AT or blue trail and it showed on the "uglier" Massanutten trails. While on the AT and blue trail you can usually pick you way through the rocks with careful precision, the Masanutten trail offered a new challenge often times of having only one possible path through the rocks. The reuired motions often would be best characterized as “rock hopping” for miles on end. Even then the AT and catoctin trail rocks tend to be flatter and slightly easier to navigate. The Masanutten rocks seemed like they were sticking up just looking to impale an innocent victim.
Despite this I did my best to stay focused and charged onward to the second aid station at Elizabeth's furnace. I was rewarded with a nice smooth downhill section coming off the mountain where I could again open up a little bit and stretch my legs which felt nice. At Elizabeth's Furnace I was feeling quite hungry so I made sure to eat up. I had a few handfuls of Fig Netwons and Pringles and then set out to conquer the last 10 miles of the course. Little did I know the awaited me.
The turn sheet describes the next climb of this so called "Sherman Gap" trail as "very steep" in the last 0.5 miles of the 2.5 mile climb. I would describe the climb as "very steep" starting 1.5 mile out, so I suppose it is all in perspective. Fortunately at the top of the climb I knew I was almost done so I soldiered on. After some more fun rock hopping across the ridge I was rewarded with another nice smooth downhill back into Elizabeth's furnace. One short climb later and I was able to roll into the finish line, relieved that I wouldn't have to do any more pseudo-rock climbing for the rest of the day. My final time was somewhere over 7 hours (update on 3/31/13, 7:01 officially), much slower than I expected, but I was happy to be done.
In the end I was reminded of how under-prepared I was for severe technical running like this. Because of that I never got into any sort of rhythm all day long and had to constantly cherry pick my way across the rocks due to lack of preparation. This will be good motivation to make a better effort to run on the AT/Catoctin trails, and the relative freshness of my legs after finishing (due to not being able to run "hard" all day long) helped to show me that my legs should be able to be ready to tackle the Bull Run 50 on April 15th. In the end I am happy I got out and put time on my feet in the Masanutten Mountains. Once you get over all the rocks it's a great time!
