Highlands Sky 40 miler

Pre-race, before it got hot!

Lorrin reports:
-Phil got taken out early by Bobcat Fever; Joe is beginning to show symptoms
-Joe, Mical, Amanda, Paul, Lorrin, and Michelle finished
-The course is very, very exposed: this bride has a blistering farmer's sunburn
-There are some very, very loose definitions of "trail" in some sections (i.e., bring a rope)
-Future participants should also improve their bouldering skills
-Dirty girl gaiters are awesome, but I am still hallucinating 'Trail Candy'
-Wallace & Grommit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is an awesome recovery movie. bunnies!
-Joe & I are already planning for 'next time' - what is wrong with us?!

Angelo reports:
Phil dropped at Aid 3. Phil is pretty sick, probably from a bug he picked up from Brandon.

Everyone ran a great race. It was very hot. Lots of drops from the front runners. Twin brothers were 2nd and 3rd in Aid 3 and dropped at Aid 7.

I only witnessed part of everyone's race but it appears as if everyone really enjoyed the course and were thrilled at defeating a course on a very tough day. My time from last year pales in comparison to the effort expended by everyone on such a hot day.

Joe reports:
Maybe Angelo is the original carrier [of Bobcat Fever]. Gave it to Brandon, then to the rest of us. I can tell you that the "Bobcat Fever" is no laughing matter.

I'll spare you the most gory details, but mine started about 8am today [Monday] and I have been lying in bed ever since drifting in and out of sleep - sometimes with chills, sometimes with sweats.

This thing hit me like a freight train. I honestly cannot get up. When I move around I quickly feel nauseaus and regret it. I haven't been sick like this since I was a little kid. The good news is that I feel good enough now to type, and I just had a glass of "Emergen-C" vitamin drink which seems to be doing all right.

Angelo will now be dubbed "bobcat-fever-Angelo" and will share a place in history with "Typhoid Mary," "Smallpox Charlie," and "heat-stroke-Dan-Lehmann." (ok, I made up two of those last three).

All said and done, the weekend was great. Keep me updated on others' status, I hate to suffer alone.

Phil reports:
Sorry to hear how you are all also suffering. I'm wondering if it was something we ate and not Brandon (Angelo) afterall. Either way next year will skip the pre race dinner just in case.

Bobcat fever aside I had a great weekend and really impressive race by all in that heat. As Noel Coward said only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun. On this day it was only the Maryland Mad dogs - great job. Not smart mind (smart would be quitting) but great effort none the less :)

I made it this morning [Monday] to my New York road runners duathalon class at 6am in the park. Was expecting some chit chat and maybe an easy ride around the park but turned into a pretty competitive duathalon run bike run “race”. The instructor said that from now on - no more easy workouts. One way to get bobcat fever out of you.

And lastly and only because of Paul 'Tyler' Honigfort I'm sending in my application this morning. The kaiser of Catoctin? We'll know in 6 weeks…

Paul reports:
I think I might indeed have bobcat fever. Everytime I bend over I feel nauseous and there have been a couple times when I have felt a little short of breath. Right now my knee is saying "no one every got hurt by quitting."

Did you see Jan Ulrich win the Tour De Suisse on OLN yesterday? Made up 54 seconds in the time trial plus won by an additional 14. In the rain. Phil Liggett kept saying "the Kaiser is back, the Kaiser is back!" That's what I'm going to say when our own Phil wins Highland Sky next year.

Mical reports:
I would also add that this whole idea of the 2nd half of the course being much easier is quite misleading. The terrain plus the sun exposure we had through that whole section was just tough. AS 6 to 7 is not to be taken lightly. And, the gaiters are awesome!

Race pictures here. And pictures from our May camping trip/training run are here.

Highlands Sky Training Run

pictures from the training run

Capon Valley

Pictures from iPlayOutside

Michelle Price:
Lorrin, Angelo and Michelle ran Capon this year. The weather was perfect, not humid at all (unlike the past two years), it never got too hot, and there was a nice breeze all day. The course was once again a little bit different than the year before so I'm not sure whether or not prior year times are really comparable. However, I'm pretty sure that Angelo's improvement of something like an hour and 40 minutes over his time last year demonstrates real improvement. Official results aren't up yet for this year but I believe his time was about 6:15. My time was about 6:51, nine minutes better than last year. Lorrin was a few minutes behind me with about a 6:54. MCRRC did really well. Rob Magin and Mark Hoon tied for 2nd place with about 4:19 and Monica Bachmann was the first woman at 5:15. The overall winning time was about 4:02, amazing!!

And fyi, for those of you curious about the Inov8 shoes, I ran in the Inov8 Flyrocs the whole way and they felt great. I tested them last weekend in a 15 mile run and the club XC run and they felt fine, so I went with them for Capon. They drained really well on the many stream crossings and felt very comfortable. This is not a rocky course at all. I don't think I'd wear them for something in Dolly Sods (eg Highlands Sky) but I think they are fine for Greenway, HAT, Capon
type terrain.

And from a yahoo groups posting from Jennifer Wickerchic (WV)

What a great run! The weather was great-no rain. :) JL and Bradley placed in the top ten overall! What you tied for 4th place, right? I missed running with Erin but still managed to finish strong at 5th overall for women. It was neat to see Matt Yeager, actually a surprise because we didn't know he was coming. I hadn't seen him in prolly almost a year. Mark Offutt finished his first ultra at 15th or 16th place. Dan from Fairmont (I forget your last name) struggled with knee problems but still finished. Tony Morris did a good job. We actually ran together for a piece. Angelo, Michelle, and Lauren had fun out on the trails too! I had forgotten that Lauren ran North Fork with us last year. They will all have to add in on their experience.

I know they changed the course from last year and I don't think it was the same as 2004 either. I guess it's one of those runs that's never quite the same!

Another good story: From what JL relayed to me while I was still out running was that my tent tried to fly up into the power line and onto a BMW. Yeah for him and some other kind soul who reanchored it. Lesson to be learned 1) Keep lots of junk in the tent in case the wind blows and 2) make sure to take off the fly before you go out to run for hours. JL saved the day too when he came out swinging my car keys that I'd spent a good 15 minutes attempting to find in the grass and tent and car!!! I'm not sure what I learned about the keys. I thought they were safe in the tent.. haha. What a great time!