More Black Mountain

Totally agree, beautiful race. I really liked the whole thing, even the downhill. Downhills are really the only time I ever feel the slightest bit fast! And it was an awesome race day. The weather was excellent, aid stations well stocked and well placed, volunteers were cheerful and helpful, and the post-race food was great. Two items get special mention from me, the course had some of the best views I've seen and the swag was over the top. We got the really nice finisher jackets plus a pint glass from Black Dome outdoor store, nice t-shirt, camelbak bottle and a shot glass. Oh, and another awesome aspect of the trip was our discovery of the Thirsty Monk, a real cool Belgian beer bar in downtown Ashville. My only complaint is that it's quite a long drive, but with such great company, even that can be overcome! Here are a few more pictures from me. And no, I will NOT be running Greenway. You'll see me out there volunteering but I'm not running it.

Fun in Black Mountain

We made the drive down to western NC for the Black Mountain Marathon, which is a fantastic race in the cute town of Black Mountain, NC. Lorrin wrote a report on the Marathon last year, which is held concurrently with the Mount Mitchell Challenge (a 40-miler). The short story is that we all finished (5:46 for Paul and me, and 6:00 for Michelle- just a week after she did Holiday Lake!) and enjoyed a beautiful day and perfect course conditions (well, Paul did not enjoy the steep downhill but liked the rest...). And just as impressive, we were energetic enough to bar hop in Asheville on Saturday night. We will try to write a longer report at some point, but for now, here are some pictures!

Future Adventure Base Camp?

The accommodations are suspect, and it appears to already be inhabited. Hmm...

Holiday Lake 50k++

Well it was another gorgeous running day for Holiday Lake on Saturday. I headed down on Friday with Amanda, Bill and Sharlene for a stay in the luxurious Super 8 in Appomattox (NOT!). But hey, how much do you really sleep the night before anyway!

Our day started early, the race starts at 6:30 am. We all nervously hung out at the 4-H Center, chatted with various friends, rethought clothing, etc. Finally the race started. For me this was a pretty exciting day, my first ultra since July after finally recovering from a stress fracture in my foot. I was really happy to be back out there again!

I started off running with Amanda and we had a really nice time running together for about the first 14 miles. You start off on single track along Holiday Lake but pretty quickly get to the rest of the course which is mostly really runnable fire roads. Amanda and I discussed that this is a really good example for a fast, non-technical 50k. I don't think there is a single rock on this course. Only a few stumps, roots, and briars around the lake but mostly just fast, flat running.

I had my splits from last year and figured I wasn't doing too badly but was definitely pushing the cut-offs. The turnaround is at about 17 miles. A couple miles before that I realized I'd be close and Amanda and I agreed to part ways. She took off like a shot! I slogged on and made the cutoff by about 10 minutes, no problem! I can only imagine how fast Amanda would do this one if she were racing it...maybe next year!

It's almost 10 am at this point and it's bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and it had to be in about the mid-50s. I was wishing I had a short sleeve shirt but I didn't so I just sucked it up and started running the second half of the race. Pretty quickly I hooked up with Frank Villa who I would end up running most of the second half of the race. He is one of the sponsors of the Horton races and has run all of them. We talked a lot and kept each other going. We both wanted to finish under the 7.5 hour cut off for official finishers so we could get our finisher shirts. After all, that's why we do these things, right??! Frank told me about the time he finished one minute over the official finisher cut off for MMTR and Horton did not give him a shirt. We knew there would be no mercy here either!

I was pretty psyched when we hit the last aid station. I knew we had about 3.5 to go, I thought we could make it. The lakeside trail was beautiful, I really just wanted to walk and enjoy the day, but no, we had to run! We finally hit the pavement and made that right turn down the hill toward the finish line. Quickly I spotted Amanda, Bill, Sharlene and Mark along the side of the road cheering us in. Frank and I crossed the line together triumphantly! He had done it on 10-15k per week of training and I had made it with way less training than appropriate for a 50k. But hey, we were done, finally! Results can be found on Horton's site. Here are a few more pictures.

I'm glad to be back. I think it took me so long to get this race report up because it was really hard for me to sum up. I think I'll take a page from Anita Finkle's book and do a top five list. Here are the top five things I missed most about running ultras.
1) the comradery and friendship
2) the beautiful scenery along the way
3) aid station food, especially potatoes
4) crazy long drives for a run
5) the satisfaction and joy of crossing the finish line

Now it's off to Black Mountain.

Big Schloss Camping Trip

We decided we wanted to get out in the woods this weekend and the weather seemed favorable, if a bit cold. We decided to head out to Big Schloss and to try to do this hike, a 12 mile loop. We left Saturday morning and after a stop at REI to -what else- buy more gear, and numerous other stops for food and drink, we arrived at Wolf Gap campground. We saw a sign pointing toward Big Schloss so we put on our packs and started heading up. After about a half hour, something didn't seem right. We look at our printed-off-the-internet map and realized we weren't where we thought we were. (The important lesson to "always bring a good map" or at least "know what trail you are on" is one we should have learned by now- see Dolly Sods backpacking trip for another example of this...). Anyway, we figured out we were on the Mill Mountain trail and were indeed heading to Big Schloss, and just had to make a quick change of plans to do an out and back instead of the loop. Hopefully some of you still want to go hiking with us after reading about our mishaps....

The hiking was great and the scenery spectacular. It was a blue-sky sunny day around 50 degrees- perfect. We hiked for a few hours, stopping often for pictures. We got to Sandstone Spring around 4:30 PM, and there was a very loud group camped there. We filtered some water and continued on for another mile to a great, quiet, secluded camping spot. There is alot of great camping up on this trail but much of it doesn't have water nearby, so some planning ahead is necessary.

We set up camp as the sun started to set and made some dinner. It was a perfectly clear, calm night (that would change). With the right warm clothing, we could sit outside without getting too cold and enjoy our apres dinner drinks (we may have missed the lesson on maps, but we did learn the lesson of "bring peppermint schnapps for your hot chocolate"). We knew the Space Station was due to fly over around 6:30 so we were on "Space Station watch" after dinner. After getting excited everytime I saw a plane, we finally saw the Space Station zoom across the sky. Very cool.

It was finally too cold to stay out any longer so we turned in and watched some podcasts of "The Rest of Everest" (yes, we brought the iPod into the wilderness). Paul was toasty warm and I was only a little cold (big improvement for me over past trips where I've froze- I have a great new sleeping bag). The wind kicked up overnight and it was really gusting hard and very overcast by morning.

After coffee and oatmeal and packing up camp, we headed down to the car. The predicted rain/sleet held off so we dropped our packs at the car, made some soup for the thermos, and headed up Tibbet's Knob trail. It was about 1.5 miles up, including 2 scrambles near the top, to get to some incredible views. Then, back to the car and we headed out!

Many more pictures here....