Busting My Butt On Chuckanut

Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation.  Sometimes you have to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.  This is what happened to me recently.  A couple of buddies and I had decided to run in the Hell's Canyon Adventure Run out in Idaho.  The gist of this fun-run is that a jet boat takes you 31 miles up the Snake River; what with shooting big rapids, half the fun is getting there.  You are then dropped off and have to run downstream to the pickup point.  The run is completely unsupported and reputed not to be for the feint of heart.  Several days prior to my leaving for the run, there was a rock slide in the canyon which closed the trail and the event was cancelled.  Accordingly, I had to scramble quick since all my travel plans were locked in.  After perusing the Internet, I came upon a race called the Chuckanut 50K, held in Bellingham, Washington on the same day I had wanted to run in Idaho.  Briefly, this race is the only 50K offering big prize money and accordingly, per my buddy Gancho, has an "insanely strong field".  This year it sold out in 2 hours.  Nevertheless, I took a flyer and contacted the race director Krissy Moehl and essentially begged her to let me in.  To my surprise, she did!

Last Friday was a long, long travel day.  My friend Sarah dropped me off up in Pittsburgh at the crack of dawn ... then it's a flight to Denver ... then it's a mind-numbing layover people watching and grading stat homework I brought along ... then it's a flight to Spokane .... rent a car ... now drive 6 hours west through pelting Cascades rain ... hunt down a motel and some dinner ... lay out all my racing crap for the next morning ... then hope (and I do mean hope) to get a few hours of sleep.  In other words, my race preparation was exactly the opposite of how like the day before a race to go (sigh).

In any case, I'll cut right to the chase.  The next day, I ran about as beautiful a 50K course as I had ever run.  If any runners out there ever want to treat themselves to a real adventure, then run this race.  You won't regret your decision.  The first 6 miles are gentle crushed gravel that roll along quite nicely.  Then the bomb drops.  You climb up through a quintessential Pacific Northwest forest with huge pine trees so covered with moss and lichens that you can hardly make out the bark.  The forest floor was blanketed by ferns.  Since there had been so much rain the day before, the trail was extremely muddy.  Pour in rocks and tree roots, and you've got yourself one damn fine trail run -YAHOO!  
   

A picture of Bellingham Bay. What a tranquil ocean setting!

After getting to an aid station around mile 11, there was a long climb on a forest service road.  It kept going up, up, up.  A persistent skiff of winter snow remained up top and ocean fog had rolled in from the west and had backed up against the mountains.  Finally, just after 13 miles or so, you began to run on the top of Chuckanut Ridge itself.  This was technical, classic trail running at its finest and went on for many miles.  Boulder, rocks, and roots with lots of up-and-down demanding the utmost concentration.  The trouble for me initially was that the scenery was just flipping breathtaking.  From the ridgeline, one commanded a breathtaking view of the ocean, namely Bellingham Bay.  The water was brilliant blue, sail boats bobbed up and down, and small, rocky islands jutted out of the water with a blanket of conifers on top -- they reminded me of the hairy heads of giants standing underwater.  I'm a passionate fellow so I found this to be a powerful, moving moment.  I was paying more attention to the ocean than the trail, tripped a few times, and decided that I had better bear down and focus on running.

Hurtling down Chuckanut Ridge.

Around mile 20, there was a very steep climb called Chinscraper.  The fact that you were made well aware of the presence of Chinscraper via plentiful and colorful signage miles prior to getting there created an air of playful suspense.  (In every ultra course, it seems there is a test, an obstacle, a "watershed moment", designed to suck out your soul with some mildly cheesy ominous name like The Guillotine, Stairway to Death, Bunny Boiling Scorned Lover, Abandon All Ye Hope, blah, blah, blah, ...)  Once you surmounted this, the course began a long winding descent down a forest road for several miles.  Finally, the last six miles were again on gentle crushed gravel and flat ... much to the consternation of the runners.

Elevation profile of the course; 10,200 elevation differential.

The race was very well organized and the food at the end was organic and tasty!  This was the first time that I ever stayed to watch the awards ceremony to completion at a race and I am glad I did.  I am not at all big into celebrity and name dropping but I will confess it was kinda' cool to finally attach faces to names I have long read about in other blogs and magazines.

Awards ceremony at Chuckanut 50K, Bellingham, WA (03/19/2011). From L to R, Scott Jurek, Jenn Shelton collecting her loot, and RD Krissy Moehl.

This was not an A-list race for me; those are coming up starting next month.  My goals were quite simple.  Given my new ACL and my first ultra venture of 2011, I wanted to run a good, solid race and finish well without having to taper and take lots of recovery days that would impede my training.  I had noticed that I was tentative and awkward on my first several trail runs this year because I was (naturally) scared of re-injuring myself.  But this time, I decided to really load and test the knee with lots of jumping and cutting.  While my knee was angry afterward, I'm happy to report there are no lingering problems!  

One thing that I am constantly having to work on is to be an emotionally mature runner.  This race presented an opportunity for me to work on those sorts of things.  I decided, regardless of how I felt, that I was going to set my watch and eat 100 calories of something every half-hour.  Guess what?  No bonk -- surprise!  I monitored my Garmin 310 and watched my pacing so that I didn't blow my wad and go out too fast.  My aid station passthroughs were limited to 15 second dine-and-dashes.  And rather than chase after all those young bucks who insisted on sprinting up the hills in the early stages of the race, I couldn't help but notice I passed many of them many miles later after patiently running my own race.  

Patience.  What an important quality to have in races ... and in life.  Run your own race, don't worry about what is going on around you, and focus on the moment you have because things can so quickly turn on a dime in an ultra.  Patience.

A big shout out needs to go to Beth Byron, coach and friend.  While I may curse her name from time to time at 6:30 AM a few days of the week, I was gleefully singing her praises for every 1-Leg Bench Squat she has made me do as I marched right up "Chinscraper" with no problems.

After the race, I had the opportunity to visit with some old friends over in eastern Washington for several days.  It was good to "sharpen the saw", as they say, and to see what they've been up to.  My friend Kurt Holland, his wife Ellen, and their three kids live over near Cheney; they have much to be thankful for.  The day following the race, after a breakfast of farm-fresh eggs and a tour of his beautiful property, Kurt and I got to go on a nice run on the Columbia Plateau Trail over near the Turnbull Wildlife Refuge where we had an encounter with a moose.  
  

Kurt and I after a long run on the Columbia Plateau Trail.

Ross and Alicia Bricklemyer, and their son Philip, live in Pullman, Washington.  They too have much to be thankful for.  Over the course of a couple of days, I got a tour of Washington State University and the town.  One morning, I had a great solo run along the Snake River which I'll never forget.  Ross and I even managed to squeeze in a walk up to the top of Kamiak Butte north of town afterward.  From there, one can see the Palouse Hills countryside and back into Idaho.      

Glorious long-run along the Snake River one morning. Got lots of good thinking done. Not a soul in sight.

My future Appalachian Trail hiking partner, Philip Bricklemyer.

I headed straight up to the Cleveland Clinic the morning after touching down in Pittsburgh where Dr. Jack Andrish gave my knee the big thumbs up.

Frankly, while I love to travel, I also love to come back home to my "base camp", renewed and rejuvenated.  As I have grown older and wiser, I really do value my alone time ... a quiet evening with a good book, picking some guitar, or just grabbing a half-hour of Frontline on television.  Balance is just as important as Patience.  I am glad to be back home, getting after some research, and continuing my training for the next adventure :-)

Wild Oak Trail Hoedown

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of meeting The Wild Oak Trail, affectionately known as TWOT to the local runners.  TWOT is a 27.2 mile loop of thundering, whole-grain goodness located in the George Washington National Forest of central Virginia about 20 minutes southwest of Harrisonburg.      

Just when I thought I was all that and a bag of chips for getting a PR at Myrtle Beach Marathon a few weeks ago, I was violently and humbly brought back from orbit.  (I like my crow medium rare, thank you.)  What was the lesson I learned?  For starters, I do quite a bit of running on the rail-trail in Morgantown.  It's easy to delude yourself into thinking that when you trot along the rail-trail for a couple of hours that you are logging "big miles".  However, make no mistake, it wasn't long into Saturday's run before I recognized the distinct character, shall we say, of TWOT.  This might be one of the tougher trails I've run since the Zane Grey 50 and I was definitely caught off guard.   

Allow me to introduce the cast of characters in this blog post.  The host of the parade was one Mike Frazier who just last month had managed to run three loops at an unofficial race called Cold TWOT.  With Leadville as his primary objective, Mike has stepped up his game the past year and accordingly, has blossomed into quite the ultrarunner.  Marc Griffin is another damn fine ultrarunner from the area.  A few months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Marc at a New Year's Day run over in Shenandoah National Park.  He's the first guy I've met who has completed the so-called Beast Series; a series of 6 challenging ultras that have to be completed in a year.  Tom Syre is a bright, aspiring Marine officer who I met at the Mason-Dixon Madness 50K several months ago (he won the men's division for the North).  He's in the Beast Series for this year.  Last, but not least, we have Missy Cummings, Tom's partner in crime.  Missy has her gunsights on a 3 hour marathon in Charlottesville coming up soon and this was her first long distance trail run.  Suffice it to say I was the weak link in the chain on this fine day.  When we convened at a local gas station to convoy over to the trailhead at the butt crack of dawn, the very first line I ever said to Missy was "Today is a good day to die."  This was an attempt at my dry Montana humor since it appeared Missy was a bit nervous about her introduction to trail running, much less her introduction to TWOT.  But I would live to regret having fun at her expense in about 8 hours or so ...  
             

We're smiling at dawn ... but will we be smiling once we do a loop?
(L to R): moi, Marc Griffin, Missy Cummings, and Tom Syre

The weather was a bit deceptive.  Down in the valleys, it was overcast and about 45 degrees or so.  However, once up on the ridges, we got locked into misty clouds with a bit of wind.  Visibility was limited and the temperature felt about 10 degrees cooler.  While I did not get many classic Appalachian views, the few I did get were, of course, pretty.  I could imagine this trail would be gorgeous in the fall.  True to the name of the trail, there lots of red and chestnut oak all over dropping plenty of acorns.  I noticed big decaying stumps of chestnut occasionally and several species of conifers.  We put up a few grouse and also saw a wild turkey.  There was a vibe of remoteness to the area and I got the sense that if a guy wasn't paying attention and incorrectly took one of the several spur trails along the way, then he could get himself turned around quick!  
  

Beautiful Wild Oak Trail view from Little Bald Knob.  Wish I could have seen it!

We ran the loop clockwise and had parked a car at around the 15 mile mark.  All of us were doing well up until that point.  Due to my new and improved ACL, I noticed I was tentative, lacking confidence, on the downhill stuff and the sections of trail that were rocky; this was the toughest run I've done so far since I started running again in earnest several months ago.  Virtually all of my training to date has been speedwork on tracks and roads in preparation for Myrtle Beach.  What is the lesson to be learned here?  This run served as a mild warning to me that I better get back on to the trails quick and stay on them.  Message received, loud and clear!          

Pack string of elk heading up the trail.

The next 12 + miles we did were when things started to go off course for me.  Those "damn kids" started to pull away from me and I drifted further and further back.  At one point, coming up something I believe Marc told me was Lookout Mountain, I had to stop and shoot a gel.  Managing my nutrition in an ultra or a long trail run is a struggle for me that I do not yet have perfected.  For whatever reason, I tell myself that I can get by on a couple of gels and also my stomach gets upset from time to time.  Well, it's finally dawning on me that I can have whatever preconceptions I want but the reality is that I need 150 to 200 calories an hour to do these sorts of runs.  Now I was regretting my decision to forego eating the cookies, bananas, and gorp offered to me back at the car by the others.

Marc doubles as a comedian in his spare evenings.

Finally, we were within a couple of miles of finishing the loop.  Once again, I bonked, but this one was much worse.  My legs were dead, my thinking and judgment clouded, and my heart was fluttering.  Again, I stopped and shot a gel, sipped some water, and waited a few minutes.  All I wanted to do was lay down in the leaf litter and fall to sleep.  Yikes.  I chuckled to myself recalling how the lithe pixie Missy had raced by me many miles ago never to be seen again.  "Who's doing the dying today, Phil?!"

Marc, Missy, and Tom are smiling at the finish.  I'm bonking a mile back in the woods somewhere.

Man, was I glad to see the car.  And if someone had told me that I had to do the loop again, I would have told them to jack a shell in me and don't bother field dressing me.  What is so funny about all this is a few minutes later in Mike's pickup truck, I felt pretty good (at least I was lucid and not drooling on myself).  I WANT A REMATCH, DAMN IT!  I've even been thinking about Cold TWOT 100 circa 2012 ... hmmm ...   

This ain't yo' mamma's rail-trail.  7,500' up, 7,500' down.  Read 'em and weep.

Later that night, I had dinner with a friend in "The Burg" whereupon I ate prodigious amounts of sushi and pad thai.  I'm surprised I didn't lick the plates clean and reach over and eat her napkin.  Throw in a midnight raid of Mike's cereal supply and I was able to get my tank to at least half full.

My appetizer last Saturday night (smile).  I adore the presentation!

Looking for a shakedown run to prep for your big ultra coming up?  Look no further cause once you get on TWOT, you'll be shaken like you were in an earthquake, baby.