Ken's Report on Capon Valley 50k

Pre-Race
I realize as I prepare for my first trail ultra (after DNF’ing at JFK in 2006), that these runners are qualitative different than others. I’m staying at High View House near Yellow Spring and Marianna, who is also staying there on Friday night, is telling me that she ran the Frederick Marathon the week before, and then ticks off her other runs this year, including the Boston Marathon and various ultra trail races. I don’t tell her that my longest run of the year is only 15 miles.

The next morning at the Ruritan Club for the start, I see plenty of hats and shorts commemorating various ultra runs, including 100 milers. I feel a bit like the pig invited to the barbeque, but then Michelle and Amanda appear along with Bill, and my nerves settle down a bit. Former race director, course designer (for horseback riding) and owner/operator of aid station #1 and #6 (it’s her horse barn) Lynn Golemon briefs us. We start exactly at 8:00.

Start to aid #1, Goleman Barn (0 to 3.4)I start off with Michelle and Amanda, and am surprised that I’m they are not long gone after the first mile. We are going down a gravel road and three deer streak across the road about 25 yards in front of us, and one passes behind, reminding Michelle and I of the deer who ran down a runner at last year’s Riley’s Rumble half marathon. At one point, there is a pro photographer kneeling in the middle of the road directly in front of me, and rather than veer around him, I jump over him as he ducks down. I’m still with M&A as we leave the aid station.

Aid #1 to the water only stop at the river (3.4 to 6.8)
I continue to keep pace with M&A, and at one point recognize that the runners in front of us have left the course and we are about to follow. We yell to them and they correct course. We fall in with Monica, or perhaps she with us. Besides her bright pink top, shorts and pink scrunchie with pink flower, she is unmistakable, as being an Asian American, she is one of the few, maybe the only minority, in the 150 runner field. The week before she ran the Frederick Marathon, her fifth marathon of the year, not counting Seneca Greenway and who remembers what else.

Water only stop to aid#2, Capon Springs Road (6.8 to 10.5)
Once again, I manage to stay with M&A, and we arrive at the water stop together. As we leave the water stop, Amanda keeps us from getting off course, and we head directly uphill. I hear a thumping sound and wonder what it is, until I realize that I’m hearing my pulse pounding in my ears. I get a little ahead of them, but they catch me near the stretch of the course that runs under the power lines. Great views here, but the course heads what appears directly downhill on a rutted path with loose stone on either side. I entirely lose confidence in my ability to get down the slope, and am barely able to take tiny steps to the bottom, terrified that I will slip and fall at each step. M&A have bounded ahead, but on the upside on the other side, I catch them at the crest of the next hill, probably because being taller I can take longer steps uphill. As I approach aid #2 I try to ford the stream without getting my feet wet, but one foot slips off a stone and my foot plunges into the water. At the aid station I pick up my drop bag, change sox and my shirt, and get something to eat and drink. By then M&A have arrived, and they are more efficient than I at the aid station and we leave together.

Aid#2 to aid#3, Milk/Back Creek (10.5 to 14.4)Once again, we head uphill and I soon leave M&A behind. Monica and I are moving mostly at the same rate, and we cross and recross the stream we are following uphill. I am trying desperately to keep my feet dry, but finally a foot slips and gets soaked. That’s not as bad as one runner, who tries to follow my footsteps on a series of rocks, slips and falls into the creek, not getting hurt, but getting soaked. The course passes thru some peaceful fields, then along some shooting fields of the local gun club, and along a road fronting what I think is just a grassy field, but turns out to be the Capon ‘airport’. The course turns steeply down a gravel road which I mostly walk, heeding Michelle’s warning about how downhills can take a toll on the quads. I’m in and out of the aid station quickly and once again headed uphill.

Aid#3 to aid#4, Capon Springs Grade (14.4 to 18.7)
Past the rubble of the burnt house that Michelle mentioned, I follow the pink ribbons past the ‘no trespassing’ ‘keep out’ ‘private property’ ‘security camera’ signs and broken down cars that suggest a less than warm welcome, but at the house at the end of the road is a man with water barrels on the end of his pickup truck, and he offers some. I decline and keep going, and soon am headed uphill once again, this time on a seemingly endless climb up a sing car width dirt and grass road. I catch up with Wayne LaFollette, who is from the Capon area. He tells me what to expect ahead and tells me that Aid #4 is near the high point of the course. This cheers me as I figure if I make it there, I’ll be able to finish barring any fall or other catastrophe. After we reach the top of the mountain the road levels out and I run on from Wayne. At the aid station, I sit down, put some Vaseline on a small blister on the side of my foot, eat and drink a bit, refill my bottle with poweraid and get going again.

Aid#4 to aid#5, Capon Springs Road (again) (18.7 to 24.4)
Traveling downhill from #4, and just before crossing a gravel road, the most primitive portion of my brain reacts to a buzzing, rattling noise on my right. A glance suggests that it may actually be a cloud of flies by a heap of dung, but I don’t wait around to find out. Further along I stop, sit on a rock and remove a shoe to dislodge a small stone. The woods are remarkably peaceful - quiet except for the sound of birds. I ponder why we 150 are running thru all this rather than enjoying nature’s beauty - are we so revved up by modern life, so driven, that we must confront nature in a frantic dash thru it, rather than become part of it. I pocket the thought, get up and begin running again. Soon I overtake Wayne again, who didn’t take so long at Aid #4. Once again, we are crisscrossing a stream again and this time both my feet slip in. I tell Wayne to go ahead, and I sit down, take off my shoes and wring out my socks. Fifty yards further along, I recross the stream, get a foot in the water and give in to the inevitably of wet feet. Once again I catch up to and pass Wayne. I fall in with Mary and Kelly. Mary is from Boonsboro, the start of the JFK50, which she ran in just over 10 hours last year. She is a veteran of Capon Valley, but this is Kelly’s first.

We reach the road crossing, and just like everyone, are misinformed that the aid station is only 100 yards on the other side of the road. I joke that what they meant is that it is just 100 yards to the road TO the aid station. But the aid station finally comes into view and get my drop bag, change back to my first pair of socks, put some Vaseline on the left foot, eat and drink. Wayne arrives, and we both use wet paper towels to wipe the dried sweat off our faces.

Aid#5 to aid#6, Goleman Barn (24.4 to 27.6)We leave Aid #5 together, but it isn’t long before I walk away from him on the inevitable uphill climb. Uphill, then downhill, cross another stream. A foot gets wet but I have gotten over my cares about that. Immediately head uphill on the other side of the stream. The top of the ridge is reasonably level, and I resume running, maybe gently rolling. I’m alone and I obsess about spotting each piece of pink tape that marks the trail. If I don’t spot one every 15 to 30 seconds I start to worry. But the trail is very well marked, and I never get off course. The course follows what I take to be another single lane wagon or old logging trail. And there, seeming in the middle of the trees is a headstone leaning up against a tree. The base of the grave stone is also there, leaning away from the tree. I stop and read “Jemima, wife of” a name that I can’t read, along with Jemima’s dates of birth (in 1824) and death (in the 1870s’ or 1880’s I think). I don’t see other grave stones, or the foundation of a dwelling or anything else that indicates why Jemima is there, and since I have a race to run, rather than mortality to contemplate, I resume running. The barn comes into view and soon I’m drinking Coke, grazing on M&Ms and Pringles, talking with the volunteers and acting more like I’m at a reception than at an aid station in an ultra marathon. I tell the volunteers that “local guy Wayne” is behind me, but before Wayne appears, here come Michelle and Amanda ahead of him. I glance at my watch and see I’ve been there for over five minutes. I greet M&A and head out.

Aid#6 to the Ruritan and the FINISH (27.6 to 31)
I’m running fine along the gravel road, the field and the woods, at least where it is level or gently downhill, but then there is a long gravel road downhill and I have to walk. M&A blast past me, and as I near the bottom of the hill I try to run, albeit slowly. I catch them, all of us walking, on the inevitable uphill, and we resume running on the gentle downhill grade of Milk Road, then onto Route 259 and thru the field to River Road. Bill spots us and dashes across the field in front of the Ruritan Club to intercept us and take photos. As soon as we pass him, I start walking and Michelle and Amanda run on to finish 60 yards ahead of me. I’m done officially in 7:10:46, far better than I had any reason to believe I could do in my first finish in an ultra.

At the Ruritan (and beyond)
I, too, fill my plate with the bounty of the Ruritan’s dinner offering.
Then I return to High View House, shower, proudly put on my yellow “Capon Valley 50K” tee shirt and drive home. I’m now an ultra runner. But I’m different than the others who ran today. No, I’m not consumed with this ultra running stuff. Why, just because I’m thinking about the Finger Lakes 50s on June 30 and will run the JFK50 in November doesn’t make me like those folks. Nope. Not me. Umm, anybody up for a trail run next weekend?