Virginia Happy Trails Running Club Women’s Half Trail Marathon, 9/13/2008

This is Megan's report posted under Michelle's Straggling Irregulars account.

First, the good news:
1) The shirt is pretty nice. It’s a women’s short-sleeve v-neck Race Ready technical shirt in a shade of light greenish-grey. Neither one of us is wearing the shirt in this pre-race photo, but hey, don't we look tough?

2) Despite my best effort to remain unprepared for this race, I somehow finished. You might expect such a dramatic sentence in a race report for a 50-miler or a 100-miler but since I’ve already bronzed my ultra shoes and sworn off the longer distances, I’ve only got the half marathon distance now to show-off my Drama Queen side so get used to it.

3) There was so much ice left over after the Park’s Half race on Sunday, I took some of it home and got a free ice bath out of it.

4) It was great to see so many familiar faces at the race. Among the most notable: Mark McKennett, Volunteer Extraordinaire both Saturday and again on Sunday at the Parks Half. Mark introduced us to his friend Brooke---who must be pumped for more information the next time I see her. Jim Cavanaugh sure knows how to work an aid station. Running the race: Kimberly (2nd in her age group, 14th overall), Susie Kinnecome (1st in her age group, 8th place overall), Michele McLeod, Erica Yuan, Monika Bachmann (2nd in her age group, 9th place overall), Pam Gowen (3rd in her age group).

5) I now know that I can survive a pretty stupid race blunder (or at least I did one time, “past performance is no guarantee of future gains” as they say in the investment world.) Here’s the deal. During the first part of the course, approximately 8 miles including the area called the Do Loop, I convinced myself that I would stop running at the aid station located at the start/finish area. Some people call that quitting. It was really hot and humid, and I wasn’t well trained for even a half marathon. Sure, I kept telling myself “Well at least it’s not as difficult as hiking for 5 and a half hours in Shenandoah with 30 pounds on my back when I was only expecting to hike for about 2 hours max.” You can see I was channeling Mical and Lorrin at that point. So when I got to the aid station, I sat down and was prepared to stop. Again, some people call that quitting. I waited a minute or two for this woman to come in to the aid station. We’d been talking a bit for the last mile or so. She was the mother of a mother-daughter team. She was experiencing some low moments out there, too. Anyway, when she got there, I asked her if she was going to go on and she said yes. So I debated with myself for a few more seconds and agreed to the following: a) If I didn’t finish, I couldn’t wear the shirt. And it is a nice shirt. b) If I did finish, I wouldn’t ever have to run another half for the rest of my life. THAT was a big motivator. And c) I could crawl 5+ miles in 2 hours---the time left before the cut-off.

So, I gathered my wits and took off like a flash. A very slow, sweaty flash. Unfortunately, I failed to refill my water bottle before taking off. I had about 2 inches or so left in the bottle when I left the aid station. Even more unfortunate is the last aid station ran out of water before I got there, so for the last 1 hour 25 minutes, I only had about 4 ounces of water. That was pretty tough, and a good lesson that did not come at too high a price.

Now, the not-so-good news:
Michelle twisted her left ankle (the one that was fractured back in JFK 2 years ago) so she decided to cut her losses after about 8+ miles and start healing in the hope of running at least some part of the Gunpowder Falls 50K on the 20th.

Here's a picture at the finish line. In light of everything, I'm pretty happy simply to have finished.

Shenandoah backpacking trip

I'm sneaking this post in here because I think our 'epic' weekend of hiking with heavy packs needs to be documented, if for no other reason than to keep us from trying this again!

Michelle and Joe had completed 50 miles the previous weekend, I was 28 weeks pregnant, [edit: Lorrin was also pregnant but no one knew it at the time!], and Megan really wanted to make sure she didn't train too much for the Women's Half, so an easy, relaxing backpacking trip was discussed. I found some trails that appeared to lend themselves to a basecamping adventure- that is, hike in a few miles with the heavy packs, set up camp, and go for day hikes for a few days, then hike out.

We started on Thompson Hollow Road and quickly connected to the Overall Run Falls trail. There were a few good camping spots near water within the first hour or so. I believe it was a unanimous decision that it was too early to stop to camp at this point. So we hiked on. And on, and on, and mostly uphill. With the heavy packs (well, not me, Paul was carrying most of my stuff. I was carrying all my weight on the front...). Did I mention it was hot and humid? Anyway, when we all had enough, there wasn't anywhere to camp that was flat enough, didn't have bear poop all over, wasn't bug infested, and had water. So we hiked on some more. Eventually we did find a great spot and set up camp for the night, along Jeremy's Run. There wasn't too much complaining, considering we had hiked 6+ hours, nearly 8 miles, mostly uphill. Dinner tasted great, the guys had some wine and whiskey and we were probably all sleeping by 8pm. No bears visited us. A big one did cross our path about an hour before we had stopped to camp though!

The next morning we considered our options. We were now about 7 miles from the car, via a different route that appeared mostly flat or downhill. We could stay here, do a short day hike, and hike out on Monday, or we could pack up, head towards the car and hope to find a nice spot to camp before we were too tired to go on. We packed up.

So we hiked up to the AT and stopped to stuff our faces at Elkwallow Wayside. That was a nice rest! We continued on toward Overall Run Falls, where we hoped to camp. Of course, there were no good sites to be found. The major-looking stream on the map was bone-dry. We hiked on (sound familiar?). After another 5+ hour day, we found a nice spot by some nice water. It was close quarters for 3 tents but who's complaining at this point? We ate, rested, and finally rolled ourselves into the tents. No bears visited us.

The next morning, we were pretty delighted to find we were only about a mile from the cars! We hiked out, in good spirits because we knew a greasy Apple House breakfast was waiting for us.

Much like ultras, I think it took a few days for everyone to agree that it was a fun (though strenuous) trip. Thanks for coming everyone! Here are my pics and Michelle's pics.