Sleepy & Sicky run the Black Mountain Marathon

Mical's Pix

Joe & I took the Prius on its maiden roadtrip and averaged around 48 mpg - awesome! We met up with Mical & Paul at his sister's house where she very generously served us some pasta, salad, and beef. We barely made it to the race briefing, and couldn't hear well, but we did get lots of swag - T-shirt, smartwool socks, and a camelbak water bottle. Then to my mom's - she was out of town this weekend, but the kitties Annie and Zeke kept us company. But - I could not sleep. Something made a loud rattle every time the heat would come on, and it would wake me up ... so I moved into a couch in the living room, were I was instead kept up by the icemaker in the fridge which would make ice at regular intervals, also waking me up. Finally 5:00 rolled around and I was glad to not have to try to sleep anymore, but I was worried about a reprise of my Greensboro marathon. Curse of the NC trail marathons? So that's why I am "Sleepy". Mical is "Sicky" because she was recovering from a cold - her main race fuel would be cough-drops.

Weather this time of year can be unpredictable, so the weekend before we were glad to test the yaks trax on some very solid iced-over snow along the Greenway trail. The weather in Black Mountain was perfect, however, starting out in the 30s and moving into the 50s by the afternoon. I started out in my fleece but it quickly went into the pack on the first climb.

Bill Potts apparently called this a 'mostly runnable' marathon. But you can't believe a West Virginian when it comes to 'easy terrain.' Race propaganda calls it "one of the toughest races in the East" -- or maybe they are referring to the challenge? The first 3-4 miles are on the road and wind up through Montreat past really cute wooden cottages scenically next to bubbling streams through rhododendron. Then you take a right and are on some singletrack for a couple miles. Really pretty with rhododendron all around interspersed with some big rocks and wooden bridges. Once you come out of this, you hike up a road a little bit to the first aid station.

Here they had water, gatorade, pieces of powerbar, trail mix (peanuts & mms), bananas, ruffles chips, and this chex mix looking stuff that I was initially suspicious of but Mical said it was good - and it was awesome. Sweet, with like Reeses pieces and boston baked beans (I think this is the name of the candy). After this aid station, you are now on a forest road of varying degrees of width, rockiness, and awesome views. This road slopes ever so slightly that you can't justify walking, but you get tired of running after about 20 min. So we would run and alternate walking/picture breaks. You go past an ATV campsite, and a lot of "bear camps." This section seemed to go on for a long time, pretty much up up up. Then you enter an area with many bear camps and go up a bunch of switchbacks & get to aid station 2. Same food, friendly people. Again, up up up, and maybe 40 min out of the aid station we started to see people coming back down. So we'd cheer them on and keep chugging ahead. Sometimes it would get pretty rocky here, almost WV rocky, but not quite Catoctin rocky.

A lot of people would tell us "almost there" as they rocketed down, but they were lying. We approached what looked like an aid station, but it was just a guy there trying to fake people out/ I mean, encourage them. He told us we were "almost there" we just had to go to the parkway and turn around. Also a lie. We finally got to the parkway, but that still wasn't even the turnaround. You could see Mount Mitchell off in the distance and little runners going up the parkway road, so I didn't mind that we actually had to run about a half mile up the road to an aid station to get our numbers checked off. Because that meant we could start going down!


The day is warming up - I was glad I wore short sleeves under the fleece, but I wish I'd had my HAT hat rather than the headband. We turned around and this guy (originally from Annapolis) came up and passed us, remarking that we "looked very healthy, as if we go to the gym every day" -- weirdo.

So down we go, past all the same terrain, all the same aid stations, down down down. At some point, Challenge men are starting to blow past us like we are standing still. We start to do calculations if the turnaround is actually 15 miles, then how do they shorten the course? We'd also gotten info from a runner that there was a "steep" section where they like to photograph people walking backward -- and that this was an icy spot. So down we go, down, down and hit the first aid station. Here we finally caught up to another lady who was doing her first marathon - she was an adventure racer from Atlanta. From this first/5th aid station we changed route, and instead went down a STEEP dirt road. Ow! The Knees were screaming -- but then they screamed more when we hit a paved road that was actually STEEPER. How they got paving equipment up that kind of steepness, I don't know. Tried walking backward, but I was afraid I'd fall, it was so steep. Not quite buttslide steep, but there were no trees to grab and you felt like you should run, but you just couldn't.

After the steepness/pain, which seemed to last forever, there was another aid station - we were told we only had 3ish miles to go to the finish, so we were going to blow through, but the aid station volunteers said they felt lonely and un-needed so we stopped briefly to make them feel better. Then along a really cute woodchip streamside trail for maybe a mile, again pretty with the ripples/white water rushing over rocks, wooden bridges, rhododendron. We came out of that onto the road again and really tried to keep a consistent pace, even passing one guy (but being blown past by another challenge runner). The finish is at a lake, and here there is another cruel trick because you want to turn right and go to the finish line with the food and fans but instead, you have to run alllll the waaaay aroooooound the lake, which luckily wasn't as far as it appeared. Finished at 5:47, barely avoiding being lapped by first Challenge woman Anne Lunblad who set a course record with 5:51:44. It was cool to see her come in - I doubt I run that fast even doing speedwork on the track, let alone after 40 miles.


There was a decent spread at the finish, some pintos and soup, hot dogs and leftover aid station food. Picked up my finisher's fleece, and went home to shower/try to nap until the real post-race dinner at 6:00. We debated if we would actually go or if we wanted to go somewhere downtown Asheville, which has such great restaurants but ended up going afterall. You have to wait in line for the buffet, so in the future I would go early! Tables fill up fast, so we had to walk around looking for a place for all of us, including my family and Joe & Paul. But what a spread - the food was awesome and I finished it off with a big slice of cake. Yum!

So in the end, it was a stellar, beautiful race and the sleeplessness/sickness didn't bother us as much as we feared. And we didn't need the Yaks Trax we carried for 26.5 miles -- but I should have used sunscreen as I got a slight sunburn. Of course, it was "just a training run" as we kept telling ourselves, reminding us we have Seneca Greenway next!

Results on the Black Mountain Marathon site
More Pix (one with me & mical getting the race #s taken off at the finish)