Black Mountain Marathon 2010

We had a great weekend in Black Mountain, NC at the Black Mountain Marathon/Mt. Mitchell Challenge. Steve Smith, Mical, Paul and I all ran the marathon. The weather cooperated and the RD got the course in great shape somehow despite lots of snow and downed trees, etc. He had to change the course for the marathoners to cut out some single track that was in bad shape, as a result, we ran about 23 miles instead of 26. The Mt. Mitchell Challenge folks also had their 40 miler shortened to about a 37 miler. I've only run this race once, in 2008, and I remember that at the end of the race there are a really challenging couple of extreme downhills on fire roads and then through a neighborhood. It was probably about 2 miles or so of quad crushing, knee busting, crazy downhill stuff. Now cut to 2010. The big change the RD had to make to the course this year was to cut out about 3 miles of gradual, climbing single track early in the race and instead take us up the mountain the exact way we came down in 2008. So this year we first we had to climb that steep stuff and then we still had to come down it later. Definitely a sure way to get your heart rate up early in a race.

But after that heart pumping first 4 or so miles, we hit the "Toll Road" (I have no idea why they call it that) and started a much more gradual climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We encountered some ice early on and stopped to put on the yak trax. They really made it easy to traverse icy and snowy section. I was glad I had them. Mical, Paul and I had all started out together. Paul was feeling good and started moving ahead when we got to the easier climbing. Mical and I were content to keep up our own pace and enjoy the day. We knew we'd see Paul and Steve when they were on there way back down toward us. We made it to the turnaround at the Parkway at about 3:04 and turned around to head back down. I have no idea what time it was, but we had folks that were doing the Challenge coming back down toward us before we even got to the turnaround. Those folks are really fast!

The way down was totally uneventful. It was a beautiful sunny day and kept getting warmer as we descended. Pretty soon we were shedding layers and taking off the yak trax. We hit the last aid station on trail(which is also the first aid station) and started on the scary downhill section. I know we were both ready to be done. At the bottom we went through Montreat and blew past the last aid station to hit a short piece of single track along a stream. This was blissfully shady and soft after pounding down that pavement. Then we hit the last bit of road, maybe it's about 1-1.5 miles, I don't know, we just tried to keep moving. Finally reached the turn into the neighborhood heading to Tomahawk Park and the finish line. Then we had to run around the lake to the finish line, Mical had to listen to me whine about dying on this last part. But I didn't die and we crossed the line in 5:49. Yeah!!

We each happily collected our finisher's fleece, exchanged race stories with Steve and Paul, and caught up with Megan. Steve was 20th and finished around 4 hours. Paul was 80th and finished around 5:23. Then we all moved on to the even more fun part of the day!! Visiting with Paul's sister Nancy and family, enjoying the hot tub, drinking beer in Asheville, etc. And you wonder why we run this race???!!! Now you know.


Here are the rest of the pictures from the weekend.