Disce hinc, quid possit fortuna; immota labascunt,
   Et quae perpetuo sunt agitata manent.

Friday morning, September 17

As the plane descends through the Knoxville overcast, I see the rolling hills of Tennessee, part of the ancient Appalachians, once as mighty as the Alps or Rockies, worn down over the ages by ceaseless mountain streams.

It is my fifth time visiting Tennessee. In 2015, I achieved my first did-not-finish result at the Barkley Fall Classic, the lite (50K) version of the Barkley Marathons, the infamous 100-mile race that often has no finishers. In 2016 I returned for another DNF, slowed by yellow jacket stings and hot weather, I missed the time cutoff by a few minutes. In August 2017, I drove to Oak Ridge to see the Great American Eclipse, then in September I went back for a charmed third attempt in Frozen Head State Park. Five hours in, I made a wrong turn at an unmarked fork on the trail and lost hours wandering in the wilderness, spoiling my chances of a 50K finish.

After each failure, I got a flimsy dog tag in recognition of completing the marathon portion of the race, swore I would never return to Tennessee, and went home to lick my wounds. A few months would pass, and I would put my name on the waitlist for the next BFC just in case, and then a midsummer invitation would arrive and I would heed the call of unfinished business. But three strikes were conclusive. I changed my focus to beating the Oprah Line and enjoying trail events close to home that are too long to worry about speed. 

One day I noticed that the 2021 BFC would fall on my birthday, and I made a reminder on my calendar, years in advance, noting that it would be a good chance to check that to-do list item off after setting a respectable personal best at the marathon. I signed up for the Richmond Marathon in November 2019, but logistics fell apart and I bailed out. 2020 came and went with most events cancelled and nothing to train for. A friendly instigator suggested the Baltimore Marathon in October 2021, providing a training spreadsheet. I had never been organized about training, just doing some long runs on the weekend and at occasional events. What might happen if I actually prepared?

April 29: 3 miles in 29:28

I started training for Baltimore with a short run along the Washington and Old Dominion rails-to-trails bike path. I would get to know this path well, running it more than 70 times through the summer.

Friday afternoon, September 17

On the way to packet pickup at Frozen Head, I visit the K-25 History Center recently opened near the site where I watched the 2017 total solar eclipse as part of an American Museum of Science and Energy tour. Oak Ridge was a key site for the massive World War 2 effort to enrich uranium for the bomb, and K-25 was once the world’s largest building. 

I am charmed by a gallery of photographs of Tennessee mud, a recurring theme in the oral histories of the site. I anticipate seeing more mud before the weekend is over.

June 5: 12.4 miles in 3:21:46

I joined a running group for a training trail run near Browntown. We kept the pace casual as Caroline added a 24-hour 100K to her impressive resume a week before. I asked for training advice and they said “If you want to run faster, you have to run faster,” the apparent tautology referring to advanced techniques of intervals and ladders, mixing intensity.

• 

• 

Friday evening, September 17

I arrive at the park to pick up my race packet and, most important, the course map, a closely-guarded secret that varies each year. I am shocked: the course is very different from the three similar routes I ran and have studied exhaustively. There is a new loop I have never seen, designated as the “50K Only” section. To qualify for this loop one must reach the decision point within 11½ hours. The three times I entered, this decision point came after 9½ hours, leaving almost four hours to hike in the final loop. If I just make the cutoff and go for the 50K, I’ll have less than two hours to complete this loop, which begins with a steep climb up the switchbacks of Bird Mountain. 

Rat Jaw, the most famous and challenging climb, straight up a mountain overgrown with thorny briers, features twice. We will have to climb the upper half and then, after completing some other obstacles, come back and climb the whole thing.

As I worry over the route, I hear people talking about a mistake on the map. Apparently it is misprinted, and we will have to do the new loop twice, once at the start and again if we can beat the cutoff at the end. My optimism has dissolved, but I try to hide my dread. Jenny Thorsen, another three-time starter, is taking photos this year and will provide the cover image and photos for a race report in the November issue of Ultrarunning magazine; I smile for the camera.

As my race seems more and more hopeless, I try to relax by chatting with other entrants over the chili dinner. Many are new, and I don’t refrain from offering advice. The early cutoffs are very generous, as race director Laz doesn’t want people to be sent home before they have had a chance to suffer many of the main attractions, so you can’t rely on beating cutoffs for pace. Course marking is minimal, as demonstrated by my 2017 race ruined by going off course. I describe some of the tough challenges and the spartan nutrition provided at aid stations. Someone asks if he should bring his head lamp. I tell him I have never needed one, neglecting to add that I have never actually finished. The cutoff for completing the 50K will be at 8:20 p.m.

I return to the motel and have a traditional pre-race meal at Los Primos across the street. I draw a simplified map of the course on paper, knowing that I won’t be inclined to spend time pulling the big cloth map out of my pack during the race. Over the past weeks I have been learning to draw the park map from memory, with trail names and blaze colors and intersections, hoping to avoid surprises, but none of this helps me know what to expect. At least I know the course now, and we received assurances that race officials would direct traffic at the important waypoints. 

June 13: 13.5 miles in 2:33:57

Brood X cicadas were everywhere. Baltimore training run #32 called for 8 miles on the schedule, but I felt good and went for a half marathon. I also ran on the previously scheduled rest day, an exuberance I would eliminate as training distances increased.

Saturday morning, September 18

Friday night I can’t sleep. I take a hot shower to try and relax. Back in bed the A/C cycling on is too loud, so I put in earplugs. Then I can hear a high-pitched whine coming from the fridge, so I unplug it. I read a few pages of something unrelated to running. I take a Benadryl pill. I was going to buy sleeping pills for just this scenario, but learned that they have the same ingredient as the antihistamine I brought for bee stings. The diphenhydramine makes me feel fuzzy and awake. The earplugs become uncomfortable, so I remove them, and turn up the A/C so it won’t cycle on and off. Then it gets too cold. I turn it off. It gets muggy. It’s 4:30 a.m. and I get up. I try to poop and nothing happens. I am feeling despondent, dreading a day of misery ending in failure.

June 20: 9 miles in 1:42:13 

It was very warm and humid, but I managed to finish the scheduled distance in time to attend Father’s Day brunch. After 38 successful training runs I was feeling good and looking forward to Baltimore.

Race Start to AS1: 3.5 miles

Cutoff 8:45 a.m.
Target 8:00 a.m.

Lingering in the motel room, I fill my water pack and eat a banana with some coffee. My gear is ready so I sit down and look at the map again. At the restaurant I had started writing out a race card but couldn’t come up with goal times for the waypoints. I write a new card and just wildly guess how long it might take me to finish each leg of the course, smoothing out the hours so I would get to Laz at the decision point cutoff just in time at 6:30 p.m. 

Somehow this written plan, however unfounded, makes success seem possible. I don’t know if I can hit these target times, but I don’t know that I can’t. I try again on the toilet and succeed at the mundane but essential task. The despond clears and I put on my shoes and head out.

I follow an ambulance all the way on the half-hour drive from the motel to the park. I am directed to a parking space far from the start, where I take my time with a breakfast pastry and some orange juice. When I hear the announcements start, I join the crowd and try to squeeze my way a little closer to the front, but at 7 a.m. I’m still in the back half as we set out.

We follow an “unimproved” jeep road that goes slightly uphill. The footing is tolerable and I am able to run at a comfortable pace, not overtaking many people but not being overtaken. As 8 a.m. approaches I start to worry I’ll get behind on my guesswork plan right away. My watch hits 7:59 and I am confused to see runners going the other way higher up on the mountain, but there wasn’t any switchback on this leg until … sure enough, the aid station appears just ahead and I arrive within 30 seconds of my target.

July 11: 13.1 miles in 2:30:23

The schedule called for 12 miles, but when I reached six I was getting close to the trailhead and couldn’t resist continuing so I could see all the mile markers on the way back. It was quite hot and I didn’t bring any food, just water and S-Cap salt/electrolyte tablets. Had to walk the last half mile home and it felt great to finish.

AS1 to AS2: 4.1 miles

Cutoff 10:45 a.m.
Target 9:30 a.m.

I can’t tell if the distance accounts for the mistake on the map; including the extra loop seems to make it longer than 4.1 miles but it’s mostly downhill so I budget 90 minutes. The first part is great single-track dirt running, except for the part where I step off the trail to pass someone, almost sink my foot in a yellow jacket nest and get a sting on the shin. One sting isn’t worth worrying about, and I continue on to the loop we will repeat in the evening if we get to Laz by 6:30 p.m. and choose to go for 50K. The last part of this loop is a rough downhill jeep road. I am very slow on the technical descent, nervous about falling or turning an ankle, and many people pass me. Just as I start to worry about my time, I see activity ahead, and I am in the bib punch line within a minute of my goal.

I note that it took me about 30 minutes to come down that jeep road to what will be the 50K finish.

July 24: 15.0 miles in 2:29:59

Baltimore training run #59 called for 14 miles, the longest day yet. I reached mile 7 and went an extra half-mile to reach the Difficult Run crossing.

AS2 to AS3: 6.5 miles

Cutoff 1:55 p.m.
Target 12 noon

It’s time for Chimney Top. On my previous visits, this grueling switchback climb followed by a few miles along the ridge was the 50K extra distance, so I have never seen it, but I have heard reverential stories about the ascent, nicknamed Big Hell. People suggest planning on two hours to reach the summit, but I can’t find that much time in my budget so I hope to crest in 90 minutes, then take another hour to reach AS3. I see roughly 20 switchbacks on the map, and count them as we go up. Ismail Tekin comes up from behind; I tell him I saw him on the entrants list when I was looking for people in the D.C. area to carpool with, and congratulate him on finishing the C&O Canal 100 Miler in April. He is probably creeped out by all this personal information, but his distinctive name made it easy to find out that he is a well-known hairdresser at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. 

When he advances ahead, I notice that I can hear my heart throbbing in my ears. I use the digital Casio watch I bought for an earlier BFC (where GPS is prohibited) to count the beats and find my heart rate is 160, a bit high. I pause to lean against a tree now and then to manage my cardio. As 11:00 approaches, I have counted 14 switchbacks, and think I’ll probably need two hours to reach the top after all. But after a few more switches I see the massive boulders that line the ridge and it seems I am on schedule. I hike a bit longer on the ridge trail, then start trotting again. I can visualize where I am on the park map and recognize the hairpin turn and anticipate the junction to Spicewood Branch trail which is close to AS3. I end up reaching the aid station at 11:50 a.m., now ten minutes ahead of schedule.

July 26

An invitation to join the BFC arrived in my e-mail, with a prominent “Decline Offer” button hinting at the wise course of action.

July 28: 8.1 miles in 1:22:52

I was very preoccupied pondering the invitation. The years-long tug of unfinished business was compelling in the abstract. But compared to having a nice normal birthday observation at home with family, devoting three days to hunting my white whale seemed self-indulgent and eccentric. Nor did my 0-for-3 record bode well for success at capturing the illustrious Croix de Barque medal awarded to 50K finishers, without which I would return home utterly defeated.

But sometime after 7 a.m. on a warm summer Wednesday, while distractedly running along the bike path and reflecting that I might not ever have a better chance, I saw some deer and decided that paying for a race spot, arranging time away from work and family, two seven hour drives and two hotel nights: all that would be the easy stuff. So I did the easy thing and signed up.

AS3 to AS4: 2.5 miles

Cutoff 3:10 p.m.
Target 1:15 p.m.

I am delighted to be ahead of schedule, five hours in. I take on some water and grab an apple pie pastry, coated with sugar glaze and filled with sickeningly-sweet filling, just the empty carbs I crave. I’ve already taken one salt tablet, and I am drinking water regularly, but the overcast sky seems like ideal weather, until the first thunderclap warns of rain on the way. I use some of my ten-minute cushion to walk out, enjoying dessert. Then we jog down another rugged jeep road to get to the midpoint of Rat Jaw. I continue to find the descents tough on joints and feet, and I feel slow and unsteady as it starts raining. But I try to make the most of the moment, remembering the horrors that loom just ahead.

Soon we turn onto the mining trail on which I made a wrong turn in 2015, and then Rat Jaw is revealed: a treeless power line cut that goes straight up the mountain. In 2016 the saw briers had been cut down, but this year they are thick on both sides of the narrow dirt path. The leaders have forced a way through (photos online would show the dermatological consequences of trailblazing) and we start marching up as the rain begins pouring harder.

It is like climbing unstable dirt stairs, and I am content to pause and breathe at the many bottlenecks that form below particularly tough spots. But footing in the damp soil is still pretty good and the rain is amazingly refreshing. I make good progress and don’t have to constantly drink water. I notice that people keep talking about rattlesnakes, making rattlesnake jokes, singing rattlesnake songs. It’s a crazy camaraderie and I can hardly believe that going up Rat Jaw is not completely miserable. Everyone around has a positive attitude, joking about the wisdom of grabbing the fallen cable while lightning flashes all around.

I’ve given myself an hour and fifteen minutes for this climb, but get back to the aid station in an hour (assisted by getting a bib punch at the bottom of the steel lookout tower rather than climbing to the top in the electrical storm).

August 8: 13.2 miles in 2:29:01

Planning for a family vacation, I joked that August would be a rest month, but I knew I had to get some miles in as the marathon was two months away, and BFC was becoming more than a fantasy.

We were visiting Athens, staying in Edem Beach about 8 kilometers from the Acropolis. As we toured around, I watched for good places to run and noticed Panathenaic Stadium, the world’s only all-marble stadium and finishing point for the Athens Classic Marathon honoring the legend of Pheidippides.

Running log notes:

Early entry to Panathenaic Stadium for joggers is a myth, opening was at 8 a.m., so I took a peripatetic detour around the serene Lyceum of Aristotle. Bought a second half-liter of water from the kiosk (the vendor had heard of Kipchoge but no Olympics news) outside the stadium then did a few laps to get my miles. The view is inspiring but I looked more and more like Zatopek as the sun rose. The way back was harder, following GPS breadcrumbs with no excuse to stop for map checks. At last, saw the sea in the distance. Θάλαττα! θάλαττα!

• 

• 

AS4 to AS5: 3.0 miles

Cutoff 4:40 p.m.
Target 2:15 p.m.

At 12:50 I am back at the aid station, now 25 minutes ahead of schedule. I am soaked and, amazingly, chilled after climbing Rat Jaw and jogging back from the tower. The snacks are now floating in trays of rainwater, so I grab a tangerine and use some cushion minutes to stroll out. I pull two Band-Aids from a pocket and apply them to my front, having learned how quickly discomfort sets in when running in a rain-soaked shirt.

Our next challenge is a steep descent down another power line cut. I’ve always enjoyed this part; it’s too steep to run and many places offer no alternative to buttsliding. This year the dirt slides are slick with mud as the rain continues. I find a stout, two-foot stick and use it as a primitive brake to at least avoid crashing into people. Soon I am so muddy there’s nowhere left to wipe my hands before wiping a clod of mud from my face.

Ismail is climbing out and I tell him he is looking strong. Other people returning give updates on the conditions below and distance to the aid.

My watch is too muddy to read when I reach the aid station sometime around 2 p.m. I drop my stick to get my hands rinsed and ask a volunteer for tips on getting over a muddy ditch on the way back. We watch a guy run a few steps, leap across, splat into the mud and slide back down like a cartoon character. The volunteer says that people have more success bushwhacking through the weeds alongside the ditch. This way turns out to be filled with thorns; mud and thorns are the two options on the day’s menu.

August 15: 18.3 miles in 3:22:08

While on vacation I skipped short training days, and we were in Izmir on the next long day, a 17-mile Sunday. Using Strava’s heat map I was able to plot a route all the way around the harbor, from one ferryboat station to another, including a visit to the 1850m track around Kültürpark, frequented by street cats and dogs.

Running log notes:

“Kolay gelsen!” [may your work be easy] calls a passing cyclist at mile 5; “Sağ ol!” [Thanks / health to you] I answer. By mile 9 I need a pit stop and ask security at Alsancak station. She directs me to a cami. I’m not dressed for a mosque, and outside the station I see the same cyclist. He also tells me to look for the cami. I never see it but find a public toilet, the door still open as someone is just leaving so I pretend not to see the coin slot (I have only a 10 and 100 in paper money). There is 2-3 cm of water on the floor, but I don’t hesitate as the clock is still running. Suddenly water starts spraying from the walls, fortunately below knee level. “This is fine” I tell myself, trying to finish up. Then the toilet folds into the wall with a mechanical noise. I finish peeing onto the floor, avoiding a turd that is immobile in the ongoing spray. No photo of the moment as I hustle out of there.

It is delightful to see the destination throughout the run, but the last kilometers are slow, sustained by some sugar cubes and another half liter of water bought with unusual difficulty as shops are still opening. I see the 9:00 and 9:15 ferries depart on time and wonder if I can make the 9:30. I just miss the 9:45. On board the 10, I buy a mask indulgence in the form of coffee & simit, take a seat on the outside deck and enjoy reviewing my route as we steam toward home.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

AS5 to AS6: 2.0 miles

Cutoff 5:40 p.m.
Target 3:30 p.m.

Laz miles are known for understatement; perhaps he measures the map with a straight ruler. Some entrants would later plot the route using online tools and suggest that 38 miles was closer to reality for the allegedly 50K course, with some 12,000 feet of accumulated elevation gain. For this leg the climb back up the mountain and down “Meth Lab Hill” on the other side is about two miles as the crow flies, but we are crying murder as we struggle through one foot at a time. The mud slides are impassable upward, so we tramp through thorny brush on the edges. Focusing on short-term goals has been working so far, so I aim to reach the top by 3 p.m. That works out, and I immediately plunge down the other side.

Meth Lab is a joke. I am incredulous. Normally, it’s a very tedious and demanding downhill through a rocky ravine. It’s a place that brings the two meanings of talus into focus at once: the unstable piles of broken rock you have to navigate over, and the bone in the ankle that promises to snap at any misstep. Today, everything is wet, attractive stepping stones are painted with mud from previous runners, and the path traces the edge of a steep gully sometimes six feet deep with a roaring muddy stream at the bottom. Running seems impossible, but I sort of hop and shuffle my way down. There are some unavoidable butt slides as well, but now the mud is spiked with sharp rocks. I miss my stick, trying to go down at a controlled rate.

We emerge in the little town of Petros, and I jog up to the aid station outside the prison. It’s 3:30, but I know the cutoff point is actually Keith Dunn’s bib check behind the wall, so I feel behind schedule for the first time. I fill up my water pack, get another apple pie treat (“The whole thing?” the volunteer asks) and walk up toward BMSP.

As I walk along, a volunteer or someone’s crew chases me down and starts firing friendly, helpful questions. How am I feeling? Am I getting enough water? How’s my nutrition? Do I need any salt? Salt! I’ve only taken two tablets since the morning. I’m not sweating as much as I would on a sunny day, but I’m sure I’m sweating. I thank her for the reminder and wash another electrolyte tablet down with the pie.

Another runner and I get mixed up with tourists visiting the prison, trying to find our way along the course. I see runners coming out the tunnel on the right and head for the front door we used in previous years. Someone shouts at us and waves from the left yard, while a tourist shouts and points us toward the other runners he sees on the right. We go left, and a volunteer sends us through a side door to the back yard. As we hike toward the ladder set up to scale the wall, she is talking in defeated tones about how Rat Jaw was too much the first time around. I feel like I’m still in it, but can’t get myself to hustle and end up holding the ladder as she climbs over.

I follow and say hi to Keith as he gives my bib another punch. 

August 21: 8.0 miles in 1:18:25

My flight out of Athens was delayed and the gate agent wouldn’t send me through as I would miss the connection in Toronto, so I ended up with an unplanned layover and a free room at the airport Sofitel. I was hoping to be home Sunday for an 18-mile training day and had to make the best of the situation.

Over dinner I plotted running paths to Marathon (27 km away) and the nearest Attica wildfire (14) to kill time after a flight delay scored me my first ever free hotel night. A 500 cc dose of Φιξ (Fix) beer dulled these ambitions, and I scaled back to the scheduled 8-mile day. A dog guarded the long term parking lot, but she was too skittish to photograph. An army of taxi drivers idled around the perimeter, some eyeing me with curiosity, one offering a ride. Orange helicopters ferried water south as the moon rose over the airport.

• 

• 

• 

• 

AS6 to AS7: 2.0 miles

Cutoff 6:35 p.m.
Target 5:30 p.m.

It’s 3:40 p.m. and I am ten minutes behind my guesswork schedule as I press Keith for an honest assessment of my position. Laz has allotted 55 minutes between cutoffs to get from here to the top of Rat Jaw, an absurdity resulting from having to align the easy early cutoffs with the finish line reality. By now the “virgins” will have seen the major sights so it’s time for them to go home and try another year.

Keith is the chronicler of the Barkley Marathons and the BFC, his Twitter feed the main source of live updates to outsiders. He assures me that two hours is enough for Rat Jaw, and I have almost that much time in my budget. I walk through the dark tunnel and jog over to the base of Big Rat where half a dozen runners are struggling. It’s a sheer dirt face 10-12 feet high with almost no vegetation or firm footing. A runner at the top is kind enough to pull people up from halfway, but there is a queue for this service. I start up a bit to the left and when I am as high as I can climb, my reach is several inches short of the base of a woody stem that looks like a good handhold. 

I jump up and grab the stem, slamming uncomfortably into the wall. Pulling my knees up, I am poised like a spider but with nowhere to go. Looking up I see only weeds and weak roots to grab at. Above and to the right there’s another jug just out of reach. I think of Tommy Caldwell trying again and again to complete a “kinetic” maneuver in “The Dawn Wall” but don’t want to risk dropping back down this face, despite its ridiculously miniscule scale in comparison to El Capitan.

Giving up on strategy, I get up over the edge with brute stubbornness, clawing at whatever I can. I have a pair of gardening gloves in my pack, but the fact that my hands are already torn up and my reluctance to stop and take off the pack convince me to go on without them.

The lower half of Rat Jaw is sloppy after the rain but doable. I am behind a runner who is incredibly poised; she takes short regular steps, never wavering or flailing around, making slow but smooth progress. I focus on her shoes and imitate her foot placement.

Eventually we reach the midpoint where we joined Rat Jaw in the morning. A park truck is nearby and a ranger watches us climb up. He says “I’m gonna give you the spiel. There’s a thunderstorm 25 minutes out and you’re going to be on Rat when it hits. I suggest you take the road up to the aid station and a DNF, but the decision is up to you.”

“Okaythanks” I reply without breaking stride. Later a runner would express profound regret at following the ranger’s suggestion to bail out. Another runner would express regret for not taking the advice.

John Fegyveresi is one of 15 people who have ever completed the real Barkley Marathons since the first race in 1986. He completed the five loops around the park in 59:41:21, just ahead of the 60-hour limit. BFC is one loop which keeps more to established trails. Feeling that “a loop around the park on trails would be a nice change of pace and a great way to spend a day at Frozen Head,” Fegyveresi entered the Barkley Fall Classic in 2019.

After dropping down from the wall, we walked through the tunnel (which is always fun), and then began the long, brutal climb up the Big Rat….during the absolute hottest part of the day. There’s no simple way to say this. It was pure misery. The briers were over 6 feet tall, and in many parts I had to crawl on all fours to avoid a complete butchering. I had forgotten just how long the combined lower Rat and upper Rat climb was (over 2000 feet of gain). Just making the mid-point of Rat Jaw (the part where the famous powerline section starts) seemed to take forever. When I did make it there, nearly out of water, I found over two dozen runners simply laying down…totally exhausted. It was like a war zone. I fought off the enormous temptation to join them, and simply trudged onward. I knew that the upper part of Rat Jaw can be broken into three manageable sections. As long as I was moving, no matter how slowly, I’d be making progress. 

La Gira de Lázarus (BFC 50K)

As before, I am greatly aided by the overcast skies and tolerable temperature in the 70s. But the refreshing rain has converted Rat Jaw to mud. The middle of the channel is almost hopeless, full of long parallel streaks carved by shoe lugs sliding down. I can find some purchase along the edges, on top of the trampled down saw briers, but get more entangled in the standing plants. There’s nothing to do but plod on. I see the previously poised runner again, now she is crawling on elbows and knees, groaning with every advance.

Some videos posted after the race give an idea of the conditions on the ground. But nothing conveys the scale of the climb like David Martin’s drone video over the 2019 race. In full screen with high resolution, you can pick out the entrants making their way up like a line of ants. 

Despite the difficulty, the atmosphere is often close to jovial. We are certainly getting what we came for. I am followed by a runner from Colorado who is full of the can-do positive energy of military experience. He is constantly chatting with people ahead and behind, providing a welcome distraction from the slog. At one point both my feet lose their grip and he arrests my slide with a firm shove on the backside. I thank him for the support and he suggests I think of a way to explain the muddy handprints to my wife. We keep ascending, making what use we can of the cable that is now coated in mud. When someone loses control they swing wildly into the brambles on the side, sending people above and below off balance. I focus on goals within goals; the aid station is far in the future, but the next power line pole is in view, my next step in reach.

It seems to take forever, but time creeps when you’re having this kind of fun, and I eventually top out, get another punch at the base of the tower, and re-tie my shoes alongside two other guys who found their laces pulled loose. I arrive at the aid station at 5:20 p.m. and call out to no one in particular “Which way to Laz?” I have seventy minutes to reach the decision point where I can choose to drop down to a marathon finish or go for the 50K.

August 23: 18.1 miles in 2:58:50

After returning home from vacation, I went to bed at 6 p.m., hoping to preserve the jet lag that makes early rising easy. Not sure what kind of run I was up for after a transatlantic flight, I left the house at 4 a.m. with nothing but a water bottle. A runner immediately glided by on the sidewalk, shoes blinking in the dark. I headed west on the now-very-familiar bike trail, figuring I could turn around any time I started feeling tired. At five miles I felt great and kept going. I reached Difficult Run, eight miles out, and continued to the next road crossing to set a distance record before turning. I was out of water by the time I got home, but added two more miles to reach the 18 on the schedule for my travel day. My pace was 9:52 per mile, faster than I normally do shorter distances. I noted the benefit of a long break in regular training.

I started lurking in online channels for BFC intel, mostly finding sarcasm and crazy horror stories.

AS7 to Laz: 2.6 miles

Cutoff 6:30 p.m.
Target 6:30 p.m.

All I have to do is get to Laz. If I can reach him in an hour, I’ll be eligible to do the final loop and complete the 50K. If I am late, I’ll get the consolation prize, my fourth dippy dog tag with an image of Laz’s face. My mind returns to 2016, when I left the same aid station with a deadline to meet Laz at the trailhead to try and continue. I think I had about 50 minutes that year, but the trail was tough on weary legs and I arrived three and a half minutes too late. This year I have 20 minutes more time, and, though I don’t realize it until after returning home, we are on South Old Mac Trail, not North Old Mac Trail, and it’s considerably shorter. So I am delighted when I see a sign for Judge Branch, recalling that it is more than halfway on the park map. 

I arrive at 6 p.m., half an hour ahead of my goal. I am perfectly elated, and walk right past the aid station up to where Laz is sitting in a camp chair with his bib punch. “You can take the marathon and be second overall” he says, a canned lie he tells everyone. “I didn’t come here for another dog tag” I answer as he gives me the punch, spelling I NAILED BFC on the bib (some get an F in place of the N). I start to go back to the aid station for a last refill but Laz stops me, pointing out that I’ve already crossed the timing mat and have to continue. No problem, I have at least a liter of water, a package of peanut M&Ms I’ve been saving all day, and a bag of sugar cubes. I ask for directions, confident that navigation is the only thing that can make me fail now. I’ll continue on the park road we started on eleven hours ago, pass the famous yellow gate, then left up Bird Mountain. I walk up the road, rewarding myself by burning a few minutes of my cushion. 

August 24: 5.0 miles in 43:38
September 4: 5.0 miles in 39:53

As September 18 approached, I scaled back my training, hoping a long taper would give me as much strength as possible. Skipping longer runs made me want to perform more on shorter distances, and I beat my 40:09 race PR for the five mile distance.

I had never trained like this before, multiple times per week through the hot, muggy summer. I could see my numbers improving, and with them, my confidence. Maybe I could beat Oprah at last. But I had one more task before Baltimore in October.

Laz to 50K Finish: 5.0 miles

Cutoff 8:20 p.m.
Target 8:15 p.m.

I feel like my chance of victory has risen from minimal at the start, to maybe 40% at the prison, to maybe 90% now. In the past the 50K bonus mileage has been difficult, but with a generous time allotment that allows time for hiking after a long day. We have two hours and twenty minutes, normally plenty for five miles, even five Laz miles, but we will start by climbing the long, endless switchbacks of Bird Mountain.

As I walk up the road, another runner jogs past me, not showing much interest in my cheerful chatter. I pause at the yellow gate to get a quick photo before heading up into the woods.

The Bird ascent was my first exposure to Frozen Head, and I have no misgivings about hiking. I am slow on descents, but make good time climbing, passing two or three people on the way up. The switchbacks go on forever, but finally we reach the intersection with the turn for the last loop. There are no course markers, but the park signs clearly indicate the trail we followed when we came through in the morning.

The path is flatter now, but I am still hiking. I recall in the morning it took me half an hour to get to the bottom once I reached the jeep road. Maybe it will take me 45 minutes in my current condition, so I should get to the jeep road by 7:30. It’s already 7, so I switch to a shuffling run, not much faster than my walking pace. After a while I hear voices behind, a group of five or six guys sounding strong, running together and supporting each other. That’s what finishers sound like, I tell myself. I step to the side of the trail to let them pass, then join them from behind. It is hard to keep up, but I recognize the feeling of strain from my training runs; it’s not supposed to be easy. We go on a while, then the caboose falls off. Not me, but the runner in front of me lets the train move on ahead. We are still keeping a good pace, so I stick with him.

We take a walk break on a short climb and talk a bit. Neither of us have finished before, and we are not sure where we stand. I dig out my peanut M&Ms and offer to share, but they have gotten wet and look nasty with most of the candy dye washed off. I eat a few and throw the rest into the woods, tucking the wrapper into my trash pocket. We continue running where we can and walk the rises. He mentions the “wildlife” we faced earlier, and I ask if he got stung by the yellow jackets. No, he’s talking about the rattlesnake on Rat Jaw. What? I thought that was a lot of joking around. Later I’ll find discussion of a six foot snake coiled two feet off the path, rattling at everyone going by. Someone recorded video that doesn’t show the snake clearly but depicts a runner going out of his way to stay right.

I am glad I didn’t see it, the second pass through Rat Jaw was intimidating enough.

Where is that jeep road? It is starting to get dark and someone occasionally passes us with a head lamp. I brought a head lamp but left it in the car; I never needed one before…

Finally I see a light ahead going downhill to the left. Soon we reach the turn and emerge onto the rugged road where at least there is more light. Everyone is concerned about time and I lose my running mate as I focus on my footing. More people pass me as I continue pounding my knees and toes. I’ll have to pay a two-toenail tax for all this banging down Meth Lab Hill and Ross Gap. 

A guy comes from behind with a brilliant lantern that turns dusk into day. He is flying, and I can’t imagine how we ended up at the same point in the race if he is so strong. “We got this in the bag!” he calls out as he bounds downhill. Maybe your bag, I mutter miserably. I watch his light fade into the distance ahead as I pick my way along in the gloom. It’s getting closer to 8 p.m. and I am desperately trying to remember what we saw on the morning pass. The jeep road went on a while, then there was an intersection where a woman stood with a dog sending everyone left. Then it was a half mile or so through the woods before we emerged at the start/finish area.

Headlights ahead, coming up. I stop and stand on the side to let the vehicle pass, but the driver shuts off the engine and shouts that he will wait for me. I scramble down and he says there’s “a little more than a mile” left to my great relief. I ignore the quiet voice reminding me that “just another mile” is the joke message that is scribbled on course signs over the last half of the course. I confirm that there is just the one left turn ahead and continue on.

Before long I come up behind a runner with a light. She checks to make sure I am not a wild animal and then offers to let me pass, but I am only too content to follow behind. She is nervous about the cutoff, but doesn’t want me to tell her how much time we have left when I check my watch at 8:02 p.m. We hit the left turn and are now in the woods, where it is very dark. I pull out my phone and struggle to get it unlocked and turn on the back light with my grimy hands. I feel ridiculous putting my fate in the hands of a little LED and know I have to stick to my guide whatever comes. She is keeping a strong pace under the deadline pressure. Her light illuminates several feet ahead of her, and I have to plan where I’ll put my feet two or three steps ahead of time, my phone light almost useless. Fortunately the trail is pretty smooth with only occasional rocky patches.

We hear voices ahead, but agree that it’s hard to distinguish between a finish crowd and rowdy runners thinking they can smell the finish. There are no cowbells or music or loud cheers, just some yelling. I can’t decide if I am more incredulous that I’m going to succeed or that I’m going to fail. 

The minutes tick away and at last we see a clearing ahead. As if in slow motion we enter the chute and my reflex is to give a kick and advance one place in the standings. But my light provider has absolutely saved my race and I let her go ahead. I am forever grateful to Amie #252 of Coxs Creek, Kentucky for lighting my way as I cross the line in 13:12:46.

The 2021 Barkley Fall Classic has ended. There are 179 finishers, a 43.3% finish rate. #BFC50k

— Keith (@keithdunn) September 19, 2021

At the finish I am in a daze. Ed hands me a Rat Jaw bumper sticker and the finisher’s medal I have been seeking for six years. SURVIE D’ABORD is engraved under Laz’s grimacing portrait, the same face that adorns all my race maps, right over the words “Better be off the Trail Before Dark.” I met Ed at the chili dinner last night but don’t recognize him. I walk in circles, then wander over to the meal tent for a veggie burger and diet Mountain Dew. Once I sit down I sip at the soda but it’s a while before I feel good enough to keep the burger down. My body seems to sense that the job is done and it’s time to start complaining, the beginning of a recovery that will take most of a week.

Many times during the day I recalled my wife predicting that I would finish this year. I always nodded and grinned hopefully, if uncertainly. I’ll be able to go home without shame, my usual determination to avoid Tennessee for the rest of my life a bit more credible.

I thought I would be dreading my early morning return flight, but I wake up before the alarm and am happy to pack my bags and clear out of town. At the departure gate I am zonked out in a chair when someone says “Those are the legs of a Barkley man.” I am wearing the race t-shirt of course, but my legs are lined with evidence of a Rat Jaw passage. The speaker sits down with her crewing friend, waiting for their flight to Philadelphia. She got a DNF this year and I commiserate. She is already talking about coming back to complete her unfinished business with Laz.

At the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, a Frenchman was able to read a poem on the ruins of Rome signed by Joachim du Bellay; a Pole knew the same poem as the work of Mikołaj Sęp-Szarzyński; a Spaniard, as the work of Francisco Quevedo; while the true author, whom the others adapted without scruple, was a little-known Latin humanist, Ianus [Janus] Vitalis of Palermo.

Czeslaw Milosz, The Witness of Poetry

De Roma

Qui Romam in media quaeris novus advena Roma,
  Et Romae in Roma nil reperis media,
Aspice murorum moles, praeruptaque saxa,
   Obrutaque horrenti vasta theatra situ:
Haec sunt Roma.  Viden velut ipsa cadavera, tantae
   Urbis adhuc spirent imperiosa minas.
Vicit ut haec mundum, nixa est se vincere; vicit,
   A se non victum ne quid in orbe foret.
Nunc victa in Roma Roma illa invicta sepulta est,
   Atque eadem victrix victaque Roma fuit.
Albula Romani restat nunc nominis index,
   Quinetiam rapidis fertur in aequor aquis.
Disce hinc, quid possit fortuna; immota labascunt,
   Et quae perpetuo sunt agitata manent.

Translated into French by Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560):

Nouveau venu, qui cherches Rome en Rome
Et rien de Rome en Rome n’aperçois,
Ces vieux palais, ces vieux arcs que tu vois,
Et ces vieux murs, c’est ce que Rome on nomme.
Vois quel orgueil, quelle ruine : et comme
Celle qui mit le monde sous ses lois,
Pour dompter tout, se dompta quelquefois,
Et devint proie au temps, qui tout consomme.
Rome de Rome est le seul monument,
Et Rome Rome a vaincu seulement.
Le Tibre seul, qui vers la mer s’enfuit,
Reste de Rome. ô mondaine inconstance !
Ce qui est ferme, est par le temps détruit,
Et ce qui fuit, au temps fait résistance.

Bellay was translated into English by Edmund Spenser (1552/1553–1599):

Thou stranger, which for Rome in Rome here seekest,
And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv’st at all,
These same old walls, old arches, which thou seest,
Old Palaces, is that which Rome men call.
Behold what wreak, what ruin, and what waste,
And how that she, which with her mighty power
Tam’d all the world, hath tam’d herself at last,
The prey of time, which all things doth devour.
Rome now of Rome is th’ only funeral,
And only Rome of Rome hath victory;
Ne ought save Tyber hastening to his fall
Remains of all: O world’s inconstancy.
That which is firm doth flit and fall away,
And that is flitting, doth abide and stay.

The immobile perish, and those that are ever on the move endure.

Eating is a nuisance.

Sure, like certain other behaviors necessary to propagate the species, ingestion can be a pleasure, perhaps even elevated into an art form. But many of my meals are refueling stops, and even when the eating is fun, the prep work and cleanup is a drag.

All the more while running. Anyone preparing for a marathon learns that nutrition during the event is as important as pacing to make it to the finish. Runners experiment with fortified sports drinks, gels, candy and other high-calorie energy inputs. But carrying more stuff, fussing with opening packages and disposing of wrappers can be unexpectedly trying after twenty miles.

Race foods typically contain a lot of sugar. But if you research running and sugar, you mostly find the fashionable demonizing of “added” sugars responsible for so many ills, with advice that runners try a nice avocado instead.

If our bodies break down foods, especially carbohydrates, into simple sugars which provide energy to the muscles, why not run with the tank filled up with pure fuel? I decided to experiment with table sugar as food while running.

Before breaking a sweat, I hunted for a scientific-looking article.

Sucrose and glucose are both simple sugars; however, sucrose (also known as table sugar) is made up of one glucose and one fructose molecule linked together. Glucose is the body’s preferred energy source because it circulates throughout the blood and provides energy, while fructose is the type of sugar found naturally in fruit. Researchers found when the two different sugar sources were combined, it increased how quickly the gut was able to absorb and process the sugar. This means table sugar mixed in water is a prime candidate for fulfilling the fast-energy needs of endurance athletes.

Jackpot! A source with genuine footnotes gave my idea plausibility. I just had to figure out a dose and delivery system.

The idea was to take in just as much energy as I needed to offset the extra energy used by running, so my body would have to find some other excuse to slow down.

An online calculator estimated my basal metabolic rate at 1823 calories per day, just to stay alive and walk around. Since I would still have regular meals on a race day, I figured I could ignore this.

Estimates for energy used while running vary, around 100 calories per mile, depending on body weight.

There are 49 calories in one tablespoon of sugar, suggesting about two tablespoons of sugar intake per mile. I did a trial run to work and back, four miles each way, carrying sugar packets. These were messy and troublesome, but I managed to get my sugar in without any digestive difficulties.

I then tried to cook up some measured lumps in 1 tbsp doses.

A bit of maple sugar provided some flavor and helped the lumps keep their shape, but a few hours running around in Great Falls Park left me with a Ziplock bag full of crumbly mess.

Finally I thought of ready-made sugar cubes as the best solution. A one-pound box of 198 cubes contains 453 grams; one tablespoon of sugar is 12.5 grams; the free energy released in oxidizing glucose by oxygen is ≈ -3000 kJ/mol … after spending too much time playing with numbers, I decided to eat six cubes every ten minutes and see what happens.

Test #1: Rosaryville 50K

This July event was ideal for my purposes: three trail loops without much elevation change, offering two chances to resupply at a drop bag, and enough distance to flirt with the wall.

Things went well on the first loop, as I enjoyed zipping past the aid stations without stopping and getting to know the course. I kept an eye on my watch, and the ten minute cycle seemed to be a good balance between having to pull out my sugar bag too often and having to eat too many cubes at once. The dry cubes did not create much mess, and my hydration pack helped wash them down.

I felt good at eleven miles, reaching my drop bag. Somehow while swapping my empty fuel bag for a fresh supply I also abandoned my medical bag, with electrolyte tablets and Advil and Band-Aids. But I managed another loop, only getting somewhat tired of my tedious regimen.

At the second drop bag stop, I took out the frozen washcloth I had left there in the morning. This pick-me-up is a wonderful refreshment, and I also grabbed my medkit and Bag 3 of the increasingly unappetizing glucose cubes.

During Loop 3 I postponed or skipped some doses, feeling I had enough to get to the finish. A few miles before the end, a heavy downpour began, turning the trail into a rapid stream. This was an exhilarating way to wrap up a race, and I arrived at the end feeling clean and alert. I hung around to watch a few more finishers come in before heading home.

The biggest difference I noticed under the sugar program was missing the insatiable appetite that usually follows a long event for a few days. Rather than getting hungry again an hour after each meal, I was satisfied with a normal meal schedule. Apparently I had defeated one of the great charms of distance running: the license to gorge.

Test #2: Boulder Beast

This marathon-distance course promised some energy burn with a vertical mile of elevation gain and a monstrous boulder field. I had admired this majestic challenge in satellite photos, and it was awe-inspiring in person. As we approached the base, the forest opened up to reveal a vast rockscape, dotted with brightly-clothed people creeping up to a distant ridge (which spectators were kind enough to inform us was halfway up). Most of the stones were well-anchored, but it still took both hands and both feet to maintain balance while scrambling along. I took a break from the sugar supplementation to focus on my footing, collecting a mountain-shaped, pocket-sized chunk of Tuscarora sandstone as a souvenir.

After enjoying the view from the top, the rest of the course seemed comparatively manageable. Whenever there was an especially silly pitch, and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, I left a sugar cube near the top to encourage those following. I was pleased to finish in seven and a half hours, leaving time to enjoy the Pennsylvania scenery on the drive home.

My third attempt to finish the Barkley Fall Classic 50K appeared charmed following packet pickup Friday night. The course route was front-loaded, opening with a beeline run to the two major challenges, T.S. and Rat Jaw, getting them out of the way before the temperatures reached an expected high in the low 80s. The rest of the course is largely under forest cover, so I would be in shade most of the day.

Determined to make this trip to Tennessee count, I had actually performed some modest training. Most fitting was a June morning of “monster hill repeats” in Shenandoah River State Park arranged by Ray.

These diagonal drills were good practice for the terrain in Frozen Head State Park. To build some mental muscle, in July and August I did two long, boring runs on the mostly-flat bike trail near home, covering 21.5 and 23 miles. The second outing became a long walk in the second half, as I forgot to bring S-Cap electrolyte tablets and wilted under the sun. Biking to work and regular walks completed my defensive measures against that great enemy, the couch.

August also provided the inspiring vision of the total solar eclipse, which I viewed just 14 miles from Frozen Head, suggesting that 2017 might be the year in which I could check off two big goals.

We lined up in the Saturday morning gloom under a waning crescent moon, the end of the synodic month that had begun with the eclipse. Race Director Laz lit the starting cigarette at 7 a.m. sharp and we were off.

Leonard, the Barkley veteran and reliable finisher, was already hiking and expressed some optimism about the day’s course, saying that we needed to get to the lookout tower by noon to “have a fighting chance” at a finish.

Old Mac Mountain was a gentle giant, offering a pleasant warmup as the sun broke through the trees.

photo: ‎Nick Yeates

Nick Yeates

Recent rains made the near-vertical buttslides smooth and slick, and I recall hearing the sound of laughter as we descended the steep incline. On two occasions I had to shout an embarrassing “No brakes! Sorry!” as I rear-ended another entrant, unable to resist gravity. Farther down into the fog the going got muddier, and it was soon clear that this would not be a dry feet day.

The Appalachians are home to a number of “Mystery Spots“— tourist traps where magnetism has no effect or water runs uphill. I discovered that Frozen Head has its own mysteries. As we descended toward the Salvation Road bib punch, we found ourselves mucking through a diagonal bog, where the water refused to seek its own level. Standing pools of runny mud sucked at shoes all the way to the bottom, where a stream crossing completed the formula for blisters.

The shade and mist also seemed to reduce the power of gravity over us. What I remembered in previous years as an ordeal, under the hot afternoon sun, wasn’t so bad in the morning. Climbing back out, we also enjoyed an unexpected treat: a therapy dog. The hound, wearing a hunting collar, easily kept pace with us quadruped humans as we grabbed at weeds and roots to clamber back out of the valley. I wanted to share my water with him, but he seemed fine, so I just gave him some ear scratches.

I was also motivated to get some ice at the aid station outside the prison, and was soon pleased to see the crenelated fortress of Brushy Mountain. The magical cooler of restoration was visible behind the AS table, so I requested a scoop in my water bag. I gathered up a few precious cubes that spilled on the table with my dirty fingers, eating one and putting the rest in the paper hotel cup I carried, then added half a can of Coca-Cola Red, a sugary indulgence that delivered as much pleasure as anyone ever got from the Marlboro Man.

Leonard had said he wanted to be at the prison by 10:45. Recalling how he passed me on Rat Jaw last year, I hoped to arrive sooner, but did not enter the front door until 10:47. I wasted no time getting through the dark corridors, then out the back, through the yard, and over the wall for another bib punch, then through the tunnel to get to the bottom of Big Rat.

I had gloves ready, but every time I faced an obstacle I thought I would give it a try barehanded first and put the gloves on if needed. I never did put them on, and my hands ended up in better shape than my forearms, which were far better off than my legs.

Rat Jaw also turned out to be unexpectedly non-lethal. The saw briars were grown up, but there was a clear path through them. The only difficulty was the slope, and the regular sight of yellow jackets flying around, reminding me of the stings that ruined my day last year.

I made it halfway up before one gave me a kiss on the cheek as I crawled along. I blurted out the first word that came to mind, and the person just ahead called back “You all right?” “Just got hit by a yellow jacket,” I answered. With nothing else to do, we kept climbing until I found a little clearing and sat down for the first time. It was 11:30 and I had taken an S-Cap at 9:30 and 10:30, so I washed another one down along with two of the Benadryl tablets I brought. I would look like a chipmunk carrying a walnut the next day, but otherwise the bees did not affect me.

But the tower seemed out of reach. I felt sure I would need two hours to climb up from the prison. I picked out a telephone pole a little ahead as a goal and optimistically decided to see if I could reach it in five minutes. My progress seemed too slow to have hope, but I forgot how much time dilates when you feel every second, and I made the target in four minutes. I continued one telephone pole at a time and made good progress, still in the shade.

The tower first came into view at 11:56, and I reached it just past noon. No guarantee of success, just Leonard’s “fighting chance” of a finish, but I had completed the two big obstacles already and just had to make similar time to previous years to get past Laz at the marathon cutoff (9.5 hours) and go for the 50K finish (with a comfortable 13 hour 20 minute limit).

I opened a bag of peanut M&Ms to celebrate and jogged along the jeep road toward the Garden Spot checkpoint. Things were looking great as I munched candy and passed a course marker, the last one I would see for several hours…

The first sign of trouble was a clot of runners stopped at a fork in the road, staring at their maps. The road continued straight ahead, and the left turn went up a rise to the left. There was a branch on the ground that seemed to be blocking off this turn. I had not noticed the park trails on the left side that were marked on the map but not part of the course, nor did I know if the course should go up, down, or stay level when we reached the correct left turn. I did not even have a good idea of how far along to expect the turn. Some of this intel might have convinced me to make the turn, despite the absence of any course marker and the suggestive branch.

The group continued straight, and soon hit more intersections without markers requiring more map checks, compass reads, and, well, guesswork. As Laz would put it later,  “We want to correct our error going forward.” There was indeed an aversion to backtracking, but mainly we didn’t know if we were off course yet. Until we met a runner coming back toward us, saying the trail ahead ended at a lake. There were no lakes visible anywhere on the course map.

We turned around, then made a different choice at one of the Choose Your Own Misadventure points. We were encouraged to see footprints of at least half a dozen runners in the muddy bogs we splashed through or tiptoed around. Eventually we encountered at least half a dozen runners stopped on the trail ahead, despondently looking at their maps.

It was over. I didn’t make a note of the time that we left the last known correct position, but it took 45 minutes to get back to it and take the correct turn. “These things happen,” a philosophical runner said, and I thought there was another word for these things.

By the time we got to the Garden Spot checkpoint, the bib puncher made a show of looking at his watch and asking where we had been. With no motivation to run, it was a long hike to the Bald Knob aid station.

The philosopher and I discussed taking a jeep road back to the finish, a quitter’s road that would save time but result in a DQ/DNF. Following the course back would add several miles and (I realized later) a lot of elevation change, but it seemed that we would have plenty of time for a drop-down marathon finish. I thought I would probably get lost on the jeep road anyway, so we got back on the course. He ran on; I ran for half a minute but couldn’t motivate myself to keep it up. It would be a long hike out, my fear of being on the trail after dark the main motivation to keep going.

At the last checkpoint, I was more than four hours late to try for the 50K. Laz grinned and asked “Looking for this?” holding up a hole punch. I delivered my prepared line about getting a punch in the face. I related my tale of bad nav and wandering in the wilderness, having heard that as many as 60 runners went off course.

“It was subtraction by addition,” he said, more to the few spectators still sitting around than to me. Individuals mostly made the turn, he said, but groupthink steered people wrong. I didn’t mention my doubts that a group would have outthunk a sign, figuring this was all part of the Barkley mystique. I took an awkward leave, thinking I would never see Laz again, just like I did last year, and walked off to the finish to get dog tag #3 after something under 13 hours. It wasn’t until I got back home that I noticed how Laz had mispunched my bib to pervert the “Can you beat the rat?” theme.

120 50K finishers
178 drop-down marathon finishers
63 DNF

As I prepared this report, the e-mail arrived with a link to registration for the 2018 Barkley Fall Classic. As I did last year at this time, I intend to disregard this announcement. It took until February until I put my name on the waiting list. Then one day in March, while I was on hold with tech support to reset a password so I could do some work I didn’t care about and don’t remember, I got the message saying that a position had opened and I had the opportunity to pay a lot of money to drive a lot of miles to get a T-shirt and maybe another dog tag. I jumped on it.

Maybe this year I’ll be stronger.

The forecast was fine for the 25th running of the Bull Run Run 50 miler. 

A bit cool at the start, and a bit warm by afternoon, but sunny and dry throughout. Earlier rainstorms had already left their mark on the course. 

My training was typically inadequate, a few 5-10K runs around town, and nothing serious since the Barkley Fall Classic in September. I also got my heart rate elevated watching results trickle in from the real Barkley the previous weekend. 

Inspired by seeing what serious training can accomplish, I set out to optimize my intentions, preparing a race card that would guide me to a glorious finish in 11 hours. Rather than shooting for steady 15-minute miles over a course that is anything but consistent, I set goals for each leg of the course based on my fastest completion of that leg in my three previous finishes. 

These plans would be dashed at the start, when it was announced that we would be running the “high water” course to avoid the muddiest bogs at the northern end, with an additional passage through the White Loop added near the end to maintain distance. 

Our team, Complex Roots of Unity, stood for a portrait and then we were off. I carried only a bottle on the way north and almost didn’t need it in the cool morning air. I planned to save time by buzzing through aid stations, and was pleased to see that I spent only 44 seconds at the Centreville Road stop. I Kobayashi’d a banana half and carried a cup of sports drink out. On the return visit I limited my stop to half a minute. 

The first thought of quitting came at 12 miles. Not quite a desire to quit, but a strong urge to start walking despite the flat, comfortable terrain. Beautiful, even. The sun was peeking through the trees in the east, highlighting the exhalations of the runners ahead and illuminating the blooming bluebells, of which there was a rich crop this year. 

The earlier rains left some of the crossings tricky, and I struggled to keep my feet mostly dry with careful stepping, but my shoes were pretty muddy and soggy by the time I got to my drop bag at the start/finish area at Hemlock. I was very happy to change into dry socks and clean shoes, and strapped on my belt. Sunblock and some snacking made this my longest stop, six minutes in total. I would spend under 15 minutes stopped all day, including one half-minute pee.

At the southern extreme, the Do Loop no longer seems as grueling as it did the first time. I heard a familiar voice and looked back to see Ray just behind, with two other runners. This put the pressure on to secure another pipe. 

At 3:00 pm I saw the “10.0 miles to Hemlock” sign. If accurate, it would mean I could hit my aggressive goal of 11 hours by keeping a 15-minute mile pace. But was it ten miles, or did the high water course add more? I could only manage a pace of 16 or 17 minutes now anyway. The descents were very hard on the knees, and I actually appreciated the climbs as a legitimate reason to slow down. 

I continued to express through the aid stations, sometimes basically walking through, though I did pause to let Alex P. dump ice water down the back of my shirt. It was as invigorating as an electrical socket, and he was pleased at my promise to give five stars to the Wolf Run Shoals aid station on Yelp. 

I wondered if not resting might be slowing me down. One group passed me four times, always after a stop. But it seemed incorrect in principle to be at rest before the job was done. 

Nearing the finish, I was mostly alone, plodding and plotting. Hitting 11 hours was out of reach, but 11.5 might be possible, a slight gain over my personal record, which I remembered as 11:34. But I couldn’t make the math work for a PR without knowing the course length; some people said it was longer than before, some shorter. I was at sea, just like the first time, simply shooting for 4mph. On average, I hit that target.

I slowed through an expanse of bluebells. With fatigue-heightened senses, the rolling green carpets dotted with blue-violet were entrancing. A gorgeous yet flimsy-looking butterfly fluttered past like a leaf in the wind. Such creatures cross continents? Some bees buzzed around as well, and the thought of their stingers prodded me back into a shambling run. 

I thought of the many champions I had seen earlier, super humans with low bib numbers. Knowledge of the off-course hardships some of them had overcome left me staggered, stricken by their gutsy determination. 

Finally came through at 11:36:24, which turned out to be less than thirty seconds slower than my previous best. Oh well! I stood by the finish line to cheer in a few more back-of-pack runners. 

Last and greatest of all was Frank, bib #1, who finished the 25th Bull Run Run with under two minutes to spare before the 13-hour cutoff. He has finished all 25 races starting in 1993, completing the first one at age 50.

Our team would win the category of slowest finish!

Technical notes / TMI

I ingested only one gel all day. I carried three, and thought about taking another with caffeine, but took a 200 mg tablet instead. I popped one electrolyte S-Cap at the beginning of each hour from 10 to 4 and had no issues with cramps. Took about three Advil. It was very pleasant to get by on normal food and Gatorade, though I did not indulge much in the 5-star BRR buffets (saw stuffed grape leaves again).

Compression shorts under bathing suit worked fine, with iPhone in one pocket and a supply of oft-used tissues in the other (though I was chastened by another runner for my dainty and dignified “snot rags”). Vaseline in the unmentionable zone was beneficial but should have been more broadly applied. Body glide around waist and sunblock perhaps mostly psychologically useful. Nathan Triangle belt for bottle and meds and gels. Carried a phone charger but thanks to Low Power Mode and limited use (Runkeeper counting off miles in background and a few photos) arrived at the finish with 30% charge. 
BRR 2013
BRR 2014
BRR 2015

Q: What’s harder than failing to complete the Barkley Fall Classic?

A: Failing to complete the Barkley Fall Classic again.

Things looked promising at the start of the 2016 Barkley Fall Classic, the event at which I found my limit last year, when I did not finish the full distance and had to claim the “drop-down” option of a “marathon” finish.

Working against me was a slightly warm forecast, in the 80’s, and negligible training, just some cycling and 5K runs. But I was familiar with the course, feeling strong, and highly motivated to collect a Croix de Barque, the finisher’s medal which appeared quite glamorous compared to the dog tag memento I received last year. I knew what to carry: water, performance-enhancing tablets, and some solid nutrition, as gels are banned, and the provided aid was described as fairly spartan “light snacks.” Even cups were deemed too luxurious for this event, so I clipped a paper hotel cup to my pack, and got a mineral dose each time I stopped to pour sports drink into the dirt that accumulated at the bottom.

I had a sound plan: to at least pace Ray through the major climbs and never ever get behind Leonard, the Timex-like power hiker who knows every step of the course, always skirts the cutoffs, and always finishes just in time.

Everybody has a plan until they have to run through a swarm of bees.

The eternal switchbacks at the start were just like last year. We passed the Grim Sweeper at the top, a race official who would follow the last runners and make sure those who did not make a cutoff time were sent packing. He wore black and carried a large scythe for effect. I thought to snap a quick photo but decided against it; every minute would count today and there was no time for goofing around.

Conga lines formed where the trail was too narrow to pass comfortably, and these restricted my speed but helped me keep a conservative pace. I saved energy by walking at the same rate that people ahead and behind were running.

A few miles along, I heard screams and shouts ahead. Someone nearby wondered if a runner had taken a fall and gotten hurt. We approached a line of stopped runners, five or six, and I slowed as I passed by them on one side. I heard someone say “bees” and saw more people far ahead on the trail, beyond an empty, straight and slightly downhill section. Without stopping, I decided that there was only one thing to do, and sped up to a full sprint down the trail. I never saw anything, but suddenly felt like I had run through a swarm of bees, with a multitude of little bounces on the front of my body.

A few more strides at top speed and the stinging started on my lower legs. I began shouting, both to warn others that the danger was real and because it was fun to yell. Then I continued shouting because it hurt. I went on until I thought I must be clear of the swarm and stopped to swat away the yellow jackets I found on my calves and ankles. One had gotten down into my shoe and I had to fish it out with a finger, cursing all the while.

“Welcome to Barkley,” someone joked, and we continued along on the trail. I heard some terrible cries of pain from behind, reminding me of “the screaming bedlam of women” in the shipwreck scene of The Sea Wolf, the book I packed for the trip. I thought I should go back to try and help, but all I had was Band-Aids and Advil. I would later hear reports of people stung 40 times, and people with bees in their ears, so I felt lucky to get away with three or four stings around my ankles.

By the time I arrived at an aid station, two and a half hours in, I felt unwell. My heart rate was more elevated than it should have been and I felt a bit of nausea. I took on some fluids and walked out, making a note of the location in case I had to turn around and come back.

I walked slowly, and climbed very slowly, for about 45 minutes, and many people passed me. My ears were hot and itchy, my fingers were puffy and my palms tingled. Sometimes my ears would ring, but my vision was clear and I passed a self-administered MSE (though I had to think about my age because my birthday was the same weekend). I thought about the queries I would put into a search engine if I had a data connection: “bee sting symptoms,” or “antifrenetic” or “epipenetic” or “intergalactic” shock, whatever that’s called. I took an S-Cap electrolyte pill, which seemed the most useful item in the limited inventory of my Ziplock pharmacy.

An hour after the bees, I started feeling better. Anxious to get back into the race, I swallowed a drug cocktail, one dose of each remedy in my medicine chest.

• Vitamin I (200 mg ibuprofen)
• Go Go Juice (200 mg caffeine)
• Salt (S-Cap)

These did the trick, and my mojo was back about four hours after the start. I reached the first checkpoint and asked the bib puncher about my status.

“How we doing on time?”

“I dunno. You seen any sweepers?”

“No. Haven’t seen Leonard either.”

“Oh, Leonard’s up ahead. He passed a minute or two ago.”

“Okay then.”

I had seen Leonard at the start but didn’t notice him pass. If I let him get far ahead I knew I would fail. I started running at a sustainable trail pace, determined that I would not stop running until I either saw Leonard or else dropped out. I managed to go on a while until I saw one of those defeating upward-pointing trail markers and had to start walking the climb. I asked a runner nearby if he had seen Leonard. “Yeah, that’s him” he said, pointing just ahead. Relieved, I caught up, observing that Leonard is not a monotonous power hiker after all — he was running wherever possible like everyone else. While passing Leonard I said hello and asked about his feelings about our position. He courteously pretended to have forgotten my name, expressed concern about the hot weather, and mentioned some target times for waypoints to come. I jogged on, extremely relieved to be able to keep a reliable finisher in view behind me and feeling strong again.

I arrived at Testicle Spectacle and saw the newbies stop to gawk and snap photos just like I did my first year. I didn’t pause for a moment and plunged directly into the steep initial descent. With my gloves on I was able to do a lot of controlled falling, usually on hands and feet, sometimes in full butt-slide mode. The entrants coming back out were spread thin but there seemed to be a lot of them and I knew I was near the back of the pack. It was a long and hard descent and there was an extra leg with a loop added to the end, with a checkpoint bib punch outside a church.

Leonard was never far behind. He said he wanted to be back at the top by 1 p.m., six hours after the start. At 1 p.m. I was most of the way up, but still a good snowball’s throw from the crest. It took me twenty minutes to haul myself up that last section.

Then down the other side, dubbed Meth Lab Hill, toward the prison. I didn’t feel like eating, but forced myself to start on the bag of peanut M&Ms I carried, unable to contemplate my two Clif Bars. Washing down the candy caused me to finish the water in my hydration pack, but I remembered an aid station at the prison entrance last year. It was there as expected, and they had ice.

I will always remember that distant afternoon when, facing an imminent mortal threat, I discovered that cooler full of ice. A volunteer shoveled scoops into my empty bag while I watched with immense satisfaction. As another volunteer poured lukewarm water over the ice, I knew it wouldn’t stay cold long, but I would enjoy the refreshment while it lasted. We jogged across the prison entrance drive, then through the prison and around to the back, where this year’s theme came into play: “Over the Wall.” Extension ladders were placed to enable an escape over the high prison wall, then we walked through a long and dark tunnel to get to the base of the long, long climb up Rat Jaw to the fire tower.

At the base, the steel cable was gone or cut from the short, nearly vertical face, and people were scrambling up by grabbing roots and weeds. I went up just left of the conga line, where it was a little steeper but less crowded. Then the fun began.

It was really just steep. The saw briers had been cut down, an immeasurable advantage, though it meant no shade and no restful time spent hunting for a path. There was nothing to do but climb. Climb until the heart is about to burst, stop and rest a minute, then climb some more.

My climbing cycles became shorter and shorter. I used the proven motivational technique of choosing some point ahead and determining to march on to that point, forgetting everything else, then I would rest. Usually I could plant my feet and stand still and blow to recover, but sometimes I flopped over and sat for a minute or two. If someone was behind me, I thought I would have to let them pass, but they often stopped as well rather than overtake me. There’s a lot of camaraderie among the people foolish enough to sign up for an event like this, and the encouragement and “good job” salutes can start to feel a bit automatic and tedious after a few hundred times. On Rat Jaw the focus was on survival and relentless ascent and no calories were spared for salutations. I remember having a long sit, washing down another S-Cap and staring vacantly as some climbers crept past me. I spotted Leonard coming up and realized that sitting was the way to fail.

I continued setting small goals, advancing on them, and rewarding myself with a half-minute bake under the sun. Sometimes my objective was to get my feet on a root or lump of earth that I could have reached out and touched with my hands. My steps were short and monotonous, lifting the advance foot, putting it down twelve or eighteen inches ahead, then pulling the rear foot up behind. Step, step. Mortar. Block. Mortar. Block. Inexorable, slow progress toward a goal Ivan Denisovich would surely find quixotic.

It always seemed the top was just ahead. Then we would reach it and there would be a new top just ahead. Leonard caught up and I asked him what to expect. He said we were almost done with the hardest pitches, then the course would bend left and the climb would be less severe. He went on above me but I kept him in sight. When he passed a power line pole about 50 feet ahead I checked my watch. It took me seven minutes to reach the pole, seven minutes that felt like a week.

My sweating was profuse, which I took as a good sign. I popped another S-Cap every 45 minutes. The ground was so dry and crumbly, it was like climbing a sand dune. I tried not to look up often, and when I did it was always the same line of sitters and climbers up to the next crest.

Somehow I got out of it. The comparatively gentle climb under forest cover was a relief and I made the best time I could. When I sighted the fire tower between the trees I hooted with joy and scanned it for a sign of Leonard’s red hat. He was out of sight before I got there, using my arms to pull myself up the three flights of stairs. The bib puncher at the top said I had about an hour until the cutoff, and “four or five” miles to go, as if an extra mile were not worth measuring. My watch showed 8 hours 40 minutes, and I knew ten-minute miles even on level trail would be extremely optimistic. I swung myself down the stairs on the handrails and headed toward the next aid station, overhearing someone say “If they’re not charging down the mountain now, they’re gonna get cut.”

I spent half a minute at the AS, half-filling the two-liter bag in my pack which I had emptied since the prison. I was unfit to run, yet I ran. I slowed when my legs felt rubbery or the terrain was difficult.

I wasn’t sure if I could make it to Laz by 9.5 hours. He would be on gun time, synchronized with the start, but I started my watch a little later, when I crossed the starting line. Mainly I didn’t know how far I had to go. But it was slightly downhill, and the pain would be over sooner if I covered ground faster. I ran on. I imagined the pleading and justifications I might make if I were just a little late, hoping to get waved through, contrary to Laz’s reputation. Then I told myself I should focus on running instead of thinking of excuses for being late. Then I told myself to shut up, I was running, and needed something to take my mind off of that.

I passed some entrants walking; they courteously stepped to the side of the trail to let me by. I checked my watch at about 9 hours 20 minutes. I passed a guy lying flat on the side of the trail. “I’m okay” he groaned, not very convincingly. I ran on.

I heard voices up ahead. My watch showed 9:27. I ran on. The voices continued, but I didn’t see anything. I glanced at my watch again and saw 9:29:57. I ran on.

When I turned the last corner and saw the small crowd, I knew I was late, but pretended not to. I let out a whoop and bounded straight up to the RD and said “Great to see you Laz! Where do I get my bib punched?”

Laz replied calmly: “It’s marathon time.”

“Laz, I ran all the way down from the tower. I’m feeling great, you gotta let me go on.” He said I was three and a half minutes past the cutoff. I told him I could make that up in the next mile. I began remonstrating with propaganda prepared on the way. “Laz, I ran when I wanted to walk.” Some people around chuckled, recognizing the language Laz used in e-mail messages sent ahead of the event, vaguely threatening, but not really, but yes kind of. “I gave up a chunk of my soul on Rat Jaw.”

Laz wasn’t budging. Someone told me he had already cut off five other runners, dashing any hopes I had of an exemption. This was a lie, only one runner missed the deadline ahead of me, but he missed it by 9.8 seconds and was still cut off.

I stood rooted for a few minutes, staring up at the treetops to keep my nasolacrimal ducts clear, though I was too dried up to need to bother. I hunted down my drop bag, picked it up and started hiking to the finish, giving Laz an awkward fist-bump/high-five hybrid as I passed.

Later it would occur to me that I ought to have asked Laz if I was required to proceed directly to the finish, or if I could perhaps dawdle around a bit and maybe take a detour past Chimney Top on my way to the finish, staying on the marked course. He might not have DQ’d me, but I wasn’t going to get the Croix and have doubts as to whether I could have completed the full course, even with the additional 3 hours 50 minutes allotted for the last leg. I was spent.

Eighteen runners were awarded the drop-down marathon finish ahead of me; all but one were qualified to continue for the 50K but declined. Of 324 starters, 73 suffered DNF, 132 finished the drop-down, and 119 completed the full distance, including Leonard, who finished with eight minutes to spare.

I got another dog tag, which I’ll keep at the very bottom of my sack of race trinkets so I don’t have to see it often. But I don’t mind looking at the record of progress recorded on my bib. Each checkpoint had a punch in the shape of a different letter, to spell out a message compatible with the year’s theme of scaling the prison wall. I didn’t complete the event, but my bib spells out the theme and symbol of my day in the Tennessee mountains, i.e., S-Cap.

2015 BFC – 2016 BFC – 2017 BFC

It was 6:59 a.m. on a warm September Saturday in Frozen Head State Park when I began the Barkley Fall Classic, the first running event I ever started that I did not finish. The letters DNF are often considered a badge of shame among runners, but I’ve come to believe that if you never fail, you’ll never find your limits.

We set off at the ceremonial lighting of a cigarette by Lazarus Lake, the race director notorious for devious and cruel events designed to break the will of the most hardened runners.

Laz is the man behind the infamous Barkley Marathons, held in the same mountains near Wartburg, Tennessee. According to race lore, he was unimpressed by the eight miles covered in 55 hours by escaped prisoner James Earl Ray. He mapped a course in the mountains around Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary and challenged entrants to complete the circuit five times, for a total of about a hundred miles, with a twelve hour limit for each loop. Many years no one finishes. Recognition is offered for a lite version, the “fun run,” which consists of three loops.

“The Race That Eats Its Young” is therefore an unrealistic prospect for rational creatures, even those foolish enough to think that the word “marathon” is improved by the prefix “ultra.”

So Laz launched a baby version of the Barkley, the 50K Fall Classic. This requires a single transit of a Barkley-like course, with a seemingly generous time limit of 13 hours 20 minutes. (I am a dedicated back-of-the-pack trail runner, and needed 6½ hours to finish a Virginia 50K on a hot summer day.) As an added sop, a “drop-down” option of a “marathon finish” is available to those who complete the first 22 miles within 9.5 hours. Shortcuts back to the finish, termed “Quitter’s Roads,” are conveniently indicated along the way for those who decide to bail out early. (The 2015 results would show 101 finishers of the 50K, 69 who took the the drop-down option, and 44 DNFs.)

My strategy was to stick close to the heels of Ray, who had completed the inaugural BFC the year before. He treasured his medal from that event, and was determined to pick up the rare and illustrious Croix de Barque offered for the first time to finishers of the 2015 Fall Classic. Ray would be familiar with several signature features of the course, which changes every year, and his report from 2014 included intel he gathered from Leonard, a power-hiking veteran of the real Barkley.

The sun rose as we began our climb from the start/finish area into the mountains. Ray told me to expect a lot of switchbacks, and the trail delivered them. There might have been some people running near the front, but everyone I could see was content to march up the zigzag trail at a steady pace. I got a stinging welcome from a yellow jacket along the way. As a kid I was terrified of bees and would get an allergic reaction to stings requiring Benadryl and hours of cartoons. Now I laughed the annoyance off, certain that a bee sting would soon be the least of my discomforts. The switchbacks were tiresome, but eventually we reached a crest and started jogging along. “That wasn’t so bad,” I thought, the first of many positive thoughts to be dashed that day. The climbing soon resumed, and it was an hour before I reached the real peak, after a climb of about 1600 feet. I calculate that it would take a typical escalator half an hour to gain that much elevation.

Down the other side we went and then some more ups and downs until I reached the first aid station about eight miles in, more than an hour ahead of the 4-hour cutoff. Laz is an old-school cross country runner and doesn’t go in for fancy signs and flag-waving volunteers directing traffic at every corner. GPS is prohibited, and runners are required to carry a compass and whistle along with a cloth topo map of the current year’s course, a closely-guarded secret until packets are distributed the night before. Nevertheless, I spotted several course markers along the way, though I suspect that some of them were meant to dishearten as much as assist.

A few more hours of running and hiking and we arrived at the first real horror, a feature the map described as a “scenic side trip” dubbed “Testicle Spectacle,” allegedly named by a Barkley victim who made the sign of the cross upon first witnessing what lay ahead. We were at the top of a power line right-of-way clearing that stretched steeply down into the valley. Wasted-looking humans wearing colorful synthetic fabrics, slick with sweat, were clambering out of the void. Going down was quite challenging, with a few short nearly vertical drops and longer dirt sections that could only be navigated by butt-sliding. We struggled to the bottom, got our bibs punched at the checkpoint, and turned around to march out, crawling on hands and knees where necessary.

At some point my mind fused the identities of Lazarus Lake and Leonard Smalls, the Harley-riding villain of “Raising Arizona” played by Randall “Tex” Cobb. Ray would provide a reinterpreted description from the movie:

He was horrible. The lone race director of the apocalypse. A man with all the powers of Hell at his command. He could turn turn the day into night and lay to waste everything in his path. He was especially hard on the dilettantes – the untrained and the gentle runners. He left a scorched earth in his wake befouling even the sweet mountain breeze that whipped across his brow. I didn’t know where he came from or why. I didn’t know if he was dream or vision.

I dutifully crossed myself as I clambered up out of the valley and took a few minutes to regroup. There was a runner prone and getting some attention, probably in the early stages of heat exhaustion. Ray pointed out Leonard, the experienced power hiker, and I made a mental note of his appearance with his walking stick.

An entrant with a British accent asked me if I had any water to spare. I didn’t have a sanitary way to share water from my hydration pack so I declined, but kept an eye on him until we made the next aid station. It was at the bottom of the other side of the mountain, near the entrance to Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.

The prison was closed in 2009, and Laz had arranged for the course to go through it, passing the cell that once held James Earl Ray. There was a checkpoint in “The Hole,” a tiny cell in a pitch-black corridor. Runners clumped around anyone with a light and lined up to get their bibs punched.

The relative cool and shade was a relief, but the comforts of prison life did not last long. We were at a low point topographically, and would soon be at a low point spiritually. Big Rat was just ahead, to be followed by the infamous Rat Jaw ascent.

Rat Jaw is the stuff of legends. It’s a steep climb, of course, but overgrown with saw briars. These are too tall to see over and do to exposed flesh what their name implies. There is no trail, and the way is vaguely indicated by a fallen power line and an unrelenting ascent to a fire tower at the top of the mountain.

To get to this attraction, we had to scale Big Rat, a short but very steep exposed rocky outcropping. I put on my Harbor Freight oil change gloves to get a better grip on a steel cable that once supported a utility pole and hauled myself up. Under the sun it was very slow going.

I rejoined Ray at the base of Rat Jaw. I had some idea of what to expect based on his report. We plunged in, trying to pick out a path between the thorny bushes. The scratching was annoying, but the real irritation was the constant snagging on clothes and gear. My hat got snatched repeatedly and soon looked like it had been in a blender. We were making slow progress and at one point Ray stepped to one side and offered to let me break trail. Against my best judgment, I forged ahead, eager to take on the challenge.

Within 20 minutes I was up ahead but firmly stuck. In a half crouch I crept left and right but couldn’t find a way up. I couldn’t stand to get a look around and couldn’t sit to rest. Eventually I found something sort of flat to park my butt on and sat to drink some water and breathe. Between the tops of the briers I had a gorgeous view, all green hills. I shouted at Ray and added some oaths for good measure but didn’t hear anything back. For the first time, I was alone.

Really alone. Deep down I knew that by nightfall I would be resting in a clean bed, but for now I was exhausted, miserably hot, sucking tepid water from a rubber bag, scratched up and itchy, with no prospect of relief or forward progress. I passed a long dark half-hour of the soul, wondering how this was supposed to be fun and what I was doing in such a place. I didn’t care about finishing anything any more, I just wanted to be done with it.

There was only one thing to do: move on. After a while I found some beat-down paths and dragged myself along them, eventually finding my way to more of a cleared area that was still steep but showed signs of human passage. I kept climbing and finally found a proper trail. There were reassuring footprints so I hiked along a while until I walked through a spider web. That couldn’t be right, so I turned back the way I came, noticing that the prints were left by hiking boots, not running shoes. I thought about blowing my whistle, but wasn’t in danger and didn’t want to raise alarm. Continuing roughly upward, I encountered a wayward band of entrants and joined them.

It was a long hike up. I think Leonard must have passed ahead by this time. The last bit was another short vertical climb to a gravel road by the fire tower. I was spent and sat down to watch other people haul themselves up out of the forest.

Some volunteers were hanging around cheering people on and calling out directions to climbers below. I saw the power line and realized that it was the top of the right-of-way clearing that was choked with saw briars. I asked a volunteer if any runners came all the way up through the thorny bushes. “Yeah, the bloody ones,” he said. He told me he saw one guy slip and do a faceplant into the thorn bushes, letting out a daisy-cutter F-bomb.

Ray appeared and suggested that his race was probably over, it would be tough to make the time cutoff to qualify for the last section needed to get the full 50K distance. Some people were still running on, though. I felt numb and didn’t care one way or the other. I climbed the fire tower to the checkpoint at the top and took another breather. There was a body and a nice breeze. I enjoyed the view then climbed down and began the long slow hike toward the cutoff point.

Laz was there, making wisecracks about all the abandoned drop bags scattered around, wondering what they might fetch on eBay. There were lots of trekking poles. I was glad to know my ordeal was over, silently swearing I would never set foot in Tennessee again.

I asked Laz for a photo and he agreed to pose for my souvenir selfie. “This is for my lawyer,” I quipped, getting a chuckle out of the R.D. from Hell. I hung around a while longer, enjoying the banter between Laz and some volunteers and worn out runners, until I realized that I wasn’t done. It was another mile or two back to the start/finish before I could leave this place.

I walked along, now on a paved park road, dejected. I spotted the famous yellow gate that marks the start and finish of the real Barkley and stopped to take a photo, but I couldn’t find an angle that looked right. Eventually I realized it wasn’t the same gate. I walked on.

Sometimes runners would pass me, shuffling along like war wounded fleeing some atrocity. What’s the point of rushing, I thought. Then it occurred to me, they were still in the race, they had long since beat the cutoff and survived whatever trial by ordeal was on the last leg and were heading to a glorious finish. I goaded myself into a pained jog to maintain appearances.

At the finish, they didn’t check my bib for the missing punch but simply asked me how far I went. I got a dippy dog tag consolation prize for completing the “marathon” version. Failure is failure, but it was nice to get some recognition, and the official results included me as a finisher for the shorter distance.

I renewed my firm vow to never again make the mistake of taking part in such a foolish enterprise. I think I decided I was done with running altogether. It’s all kind of fuzzy now, as it’s been a year since the Barkley Fall Classic. Probably it will come back to me when I try my luck again in Tennessee this weekend.

2015 BFC – 2016 BFC – 2017 BFC

The New River, along with two other Appalachian rivers, is among the oldest in the world. It is also the site of one of my oldest memories. My grandparents lived in South Charleston, West Virginia, and I remember long drives along highways and hilly byways for Christmas and Easter visits. One year we visited the New River Gorge Bridge, perhaps around the time construction was completed in 1977. My father took a slide photo which ended up in my collection.

So when Ray suggested the Canary in the Cave “25K+” trail run, and I saw that the course would finish with a long riverside approach to the bridge, I had to jump in. Ray reserved space at the Morris Harvey House, the top floor of which we would share with Peter, the speediest of the colleagues Ray cajoled into coming.

The forecast was for a sunny and cold day, and we woke to 23°F and a dusting of snow on the ground. After chilling in the starting area, I got off to a fast start to warm up, finishing the first mile in 9:19, but soon found myself walking in a single-file conga line. But as the field spread out, I fell into a rhythm of consistent ten- and eleven-minute miles.

Going in to the race, the scorecard showed a lopsided 4-8 record against Ray, and that was counting a half-second photo finish victory at an earlier 5K. I had yet to win at a distance greater than ten miles. Ray was making the usual noises about injuries and lack of training, and I saw this as a desperate chance to begin to correct the 2-to-1 ratio on the scoreboard.

Despite my speedy start, I knew Ray would not be far behind, and I may have spotted him over my shoulder. As a PSYOPS tactic, I sped through the first aid station, hoping to appear stronger than I felt, grabbing only a paper cup of water. There were (false) rumors of inadequacy at the aid stations, including a shortage of cups, and I held on to that paper cup for the whole race, just in case. I was running alpine style, carrying only my phone and layered clothes, with hat and gloves. The outer layer came off early, and the event photographer captured my black with green accent ensemble, a photonegative of a Pamplona bull runner.

We continued along the ridge trails, struggling to pick steps through a layer of leaf debris and the snow. I kept to the middle of the path, trampled down by earlier runners, hoping to avoid invisible obstacles. Then, I fell.

Falling down must have been something my forebears got a lot of practice at, and the judges of fitness took notice. I don’t do it often, but I seem to be good at it. I don’t know how it started, but before I knew what was happening I had folded my knees to one side, rolled through on a thigh and hip, and splayed my arms ahead to sacrifice the more expendable joints on impact. I also heard myself emit a loud “puta madre” before landing, though I doubt it enhanced my survival chances. With an irrational concern for decorum, I bounced up right away, checking for witnesses while shaking the snow and leaf litter off, then continued on unharmed.

Ray appeared and said he had taken a tumble as well. He thought he was bruised, but the photographer captured evidence of a long thigh-scrape, a souvenir from the trail.

I got a compliment for bringing my own cup to Aid Station 2, but was too dull to come up with a better response than “Uh, it’s not heavy.” I took on some fluids, but it was still too cold to remove my hat so I wasn’t sweating much. I continued on, keeping up a fairly steady pace around 10-11 minutes. Then we started down the Craig Branch Trail, a gradual descent from the crest of the mountain. I had gotten ahead of Ray and was mostly unaccompanied through this section. It was a wide and flat road, stubbornly cut into the steep mountainside.

Trail runners speak of “runnable” terrain as wine drinkers use the term “drinkable” — something you might think goes without saying. This smooth road, padded with a layer of leaves, was like going down a slide. I knew Ray would be locomoting like a mofo through this section, so I pushed the pace, posting my fastest mile of 9:03 as I descended into the valley. Then there was a hairpin turn and we were finally heading back toward the finish, the New River to the right and the bridge a few miles ahead.

I was in a good zone and feeling strong, confident that I could make good time until the last two miles, where an arduous climb out of the valley was promised before the finish. I even paused to take a snapshot of an old mine entrance along the way.

I hit another aid station, presented my paper cup, and made a prepared quip about my “official Dixie Cup of the Canary in the Cave.” It was warming up a bit and I took off my hat. As I approached the climb out of the valley, a race official told me there was ice up ahead, and I said “Awesome, thanks!” imagining filling my cup with ice cubes. I’m not sure why that sounded appealing, since I wasn’t planning to improvise an ice pack for one achey joint or another. But ice cubes would have been preferable to the stream crossing ahead, slick with ice-covered jagged rocks.

The last climb begain at mile 15.5, with 25 kilometers done this would be the “plus” in the 25K+ event name. I started hiking up, pausing again for a self-portrait with bridge.

Before long I could hear my heart beating in my ears, and counted a 160 pulse, a tolerable level within my discomfort zone. It was about a mile and a half to gain 600 feet of elevation, costing me 17 minutes for my slowest mile. Coming out on top, I ran in a 3:22 finish and grabbed a quick shot with the RD wearing the gimme hat race premium, then jogged off to the parking lot.

I found Peter sitting at a picnic table, looking pretty ragged — understandably so, after his finish in just over three hours. He gave me the car keys and I retrieved my jacket, then jogged back to the finish line to see Ray and the others come in. I had just enough time to pose with my prop, a briar pipe, when he came over the line. It took a while for anyone to get the joke, that the leaderboard uses an ASCII pipe symbol for each win. I recorded this score with a more suggestive mark.

My first official events were a 5K in 2010 and the Marine Corps Marathon in 2011. Gradually I filled in most of the intermediate metric and statute distances and then added a 50-mile trail event after noticing that, in contrast to pounding pavement, trail running is actually fun, so it makes sense to get more for your registration money.

I was missing a 50K. In addition to doing this “marathon plus 5K and change” distance for the first time, I would be doing my first event during the warmer months, making the heat an intimidating factor. The June 7 forecast called for a high of 84 degrees (29°C). These uncertainties led me to predict a pretty wide spread in my probable outcomes:

5%: DNS
10%: < 7 hours
30%: 7-8 hours
30%: 8-9 hours
10%: > 9 hours
15%: DNF

I thought it wise to carry a water pack, but wasn’t patient enough to wait for an online order. I ended up grabbing a CamelBak Sabre with a two-liter bladder at a military supply shop. I gave it a test drive on a run home from work, about nine miles, feeling a little silly since it was cool and raining. (To complete the image, I was carrying my umbrella, which I thought I might need in the morning.) Two liters did not seem too inconvenient at first, but after going up a long rise I started to notice the weight. I decided to start the 50K with the bag about half full and refill it as necessary.

The weather was great Saturday morning, and I actually felt cold on the drive out to Sterling, making a mental note of the sensation. I was at the parking area early and got some intel from veterans on the shuttle bus. The couple in front of me had done this course and Bull Run Run before and were fans of both. The guy next to me was doing his first 50K and seemed hungry for advice as his experienced running buddy had bailed out.

At the start/finish, I had 45 minutes before the 7 a.m. start to apply sunblock, adjust gear, and drop my bag. I decided to go without bug spray, figuring I should be outrunning them. I carried two caffeinated gels, three or four each of salt capsules and Advil, and a little medkit with Band-Aids and tissues. I was looking forward to a long run with empty hands and no belt.

I saw Robin and her crew; she invited me to their post-finish picnic. I told her of my eight-hour target time and said she didn’t have to wait around, but they were planning to stay and watch people come in from the 50-mile event that had started at 5 a.m.

With my gear sorted, the only remaining duty was Job Number Two: elimination. This is often a challenge so early in the morning, even with a salutary coffee. Focus, determination, and a positive attitude produced the desired output in the end.

And then we were off! I started in Wave 3 at about 7:05, my wave no doubt determined by the back-of-the-pack 8-hour finish estimate I provided during registration. Even eight hours seemed a bit optimistic; I had finished the Bull Run Run behind 77% of other finishers, while at last year’s North Face 50K 72% of finishers took less than eight hours.

I was near the front of my group and soon ran into the rear of Wave 2. The early miles were on a very narrow trail with few opportunities to pass. And because of crowding at obstacles the pace was frequently slow. Thinking I would race smarter, not harder, I found I could walk several paces at a time without losing ground to the runner in front of me. More than once I walked quickly for at least half a minute while everyone around me was running at the same speed.

I found myself behind a guy wearing a shirt with a NPS logo with some Latin on it that I couldn’t make out. He executed some daring passes, bounding through underbrush on the sides of the path, and I kept up with him. We made some small talk about his school and running on the west coast, then he made some more passes and faded ahead.

Somewhere near two miles out, we approached what looked like an old stone house. But as we passed, I saw it was a cinderblock structure under construction with stone walls that had been half completed. I decided that would be a good reminder to kick for the home stretch.

Before long we were running alongside the Potomac. This was the part of the river I had played and paddled in as a kid, though I doubt I ever saw more than a mile of the shoreline in a day. It was sometimes muddy but fairly flat as we approached Riverbend Park. The trail opened up and I made good time, trying to cover some miles in the cool morning and make up for the early walking.

Crude plank bridges spanned most of the streams that were still swollen from recent rains, but one crossing was a major obstacle. I noticed a backup while approaching and surveyed the scene while walking up. People were clambering across a thin fallen tree, getting little support from a climbing rope that had been strung parallel to the makeshift bridge. The stream was too wide to jump over and too deep to cross without getting at least one foot soaked, an invitation for blisters later.

I took my spot in line behind a young guy who was making what seemed rather delicate, whining noises about his shoes. He managed to get across without spoiling his footwear, then within ten steps slipped in the mud and executed a full-body splat into the soft brown earth. The sound was exactly the same as that of a body impacting terrain on Saturday morning cartoons. It was all I could do to postpone my grin until I had made sure that he was okay and passed ahead.

mile / minutes
1 / 13:02
2 / 9:33
3 / 10:45
4 / 11:34
5 / 13:05
6 / 12:25
7 / 11:02
8 / 10:18
9 / 13:55
10 / 10:11

I passed a group of four young guys who had stopped to roll around in the mud and apply it to their faces. I tried to think of a “Predator” reference but came up blank.

A bit farther along I was chugging along a gravel road and some runners in the woods to my right caught my eye. I spotted one of the day’s innumerable arrow signs pointing out a hard right onto the trail and made the turn and heard someone say “oops” behind me. The runner thanked me for saving him from missing the turn and we chatted a while, mostly about nutrition on long runs. He was experienced at long distances but was doing this event for the first time. I mentioned that I usually pop an Advil or two in the second half. I don’t notice that they make me feel any different, but still seem to get a performance boost. “Placebo ergo volvo” came to mind, but I didn’t say it because the tenses were all wrong. Alan told me he was shooting for six hours, and shortly after I told him my target was eight hours, he bade a kind farewell and advanced ahead. We crossed paths once or twice more with a wave and a smile. I think it was Alan Kusakabe; if so he met his goal with a finish in 5:40:56.

The hills began in Great Falls. I was expecting three good climbs, twice each, on the out and back course, but only remember two significant efforts, and only one of them as heartbreaking as the rises that come regularly at Bull Run. The aid stations were welcome breaks, though I had been told to expect rather less than the five-star buffets I had been spoiled by on the BRR 50. Sometimes I found my staple, PB&J sandwich quarters, sometimes I found a jar of peanut butter and some bread scraps. I was conserving my last remaining salt capsules, and took advantage of the “french unfries” I found at most stops. These were chunks of cold, boiled potato served in plastic baggies. Grab a few and drag them through the plate of salt and wash it down with whatever brightly-colored fluid is on offer. Sometimes it was just a can of Morton’s Iodized to dump into your hand with the potato, but the main thing was to get salt in.

At an early aid station I heard a familiar voice calling out bib numbers and recognized my neighbor G. I stopped for an extra minute to chat, while stuffing nutrients and minerals in, and asked if his wife Blair was running. He reminded me that she was five months pregnant and suggested that she is “retired,” but I don’t believe that simply having a kid is an effective cure for this hobby.

Before I knew it I was cruising through the scenic paths in Great Falls Park. I refilled my water pack and wondered how well the runners were faring that were carrying only a handheld bottle. It was warm out but the trail was almost completely shaded and largely level. I came up to a stop where a race official inscribed another checkpoint glyph on my bib. Beyond them was a nearly vertical rocky climb. “Now we go up?” I asked, pointing. No, it was the turnaround point, I was already halfway done and it was just past 10 a.m.

Confident of a finish and a PR, I hadn’t been calculating a finish time, but now realized that the first half had taken me just over three hours. I was feeling good and wondered if six hours was a remote possibility. But I also knew I had started out too fast and would undoubtably slow down in the second half. I saw the Predator guys less than a mile from the turnaround and decided that my only absolute goal was to finish before them.

I overheard a couple chatting behind me, the older guy advising the young lady on what to expect. He said there was some technical rock-hopping ahead, but it was beautiful and his favorite part of the course. I thought I wouldn’t mind an excuse to slow down a bit. We climbed some and came out on a ridge and enjoyed beautiful vistas into the gorge and islands and the water below. I walked and gawked a bit and made a mental note to come again sometime when the clock wasn’t ticking.

mile / minutes
11 / 11:17
12 / 11:04
13 / 11:34
14 / 12:26
15 / 11:26
16 / 12:58
17 / 13:16
18 / 13:04
19 / 14:58
20 / 14:02

We were on the home stretch, and I heard more than one person remark on the psychological benefit of taking steps toward the finish rather than away. I saved a second runner who cruised past a turn, shouting to her to be heard over headphones. I had started into my salt capsule supply and taken my second gel with caffeine. I picked up two more from an aid station, each loaded with 50mg of the wonder drug. All together it was the equivalent of a large coffee and gave a welcome boost. It was time to get to work and grind out the long flat miles, no excuses, knowing that Team Predator was on my heels. I leapfrogged with a very disciplined black jersey with a big white H on the back. I passed him on a pee stop and he passed me again. I passed him at an AS and he passed me again. I kept him in sight for a long time but eventually lost him ahead, and didn’t get to thank him for pulling me along.

My water pack was definitely an asset, but when full it tended to ride up on my left side and rub into my neck. It would have ground down to the collarbone if I didn’t keep adjusting the strap and pulling my shirt up. Serves me right for getting the rugged military version instead of day-glo running kit. I took my last electrolyte capsule and sucked at the tube to wash it down; they always seem to go down sideways. I heard the disheartening sound of a straw at the bottom of an empty milkshake and barely managed to get enough fluid out of the pack to get the pill down. It was nearly a worst-case-scenario — hot and sweating and running, adding salt, and out of liquid — but I hit another aid station soon and had one last fillup and one last pee stop before the final stretch.

Six hours was unrealistic, but I was making good time and felt confident of making seven, well ahead of my target. I remembered 50K was about 32 miles but didn’t know if this course might measure long or short. Around the time my phone announced 26 miles, someone said we had four and a half to go. That would be a nice discount and was easy to believe but would prove a lie. We did the big climb again, me leaning over with my hands below my knees, or else levering each step with both hands on my thighs. This time I had to walk down the other side too. But as we got closer I thought I might make 6:30. The Predator guys were nowhere in sight.

I kept pushing, trying to run a little faster in the sunny stretches to get them done sooner. I started looking for the stone house after six hours, sure it was just ahead. Miles passed, a quarter-hour at a time. Finally we came up on an aid station and someone told us it was 1.6 miles to the finish. This was exceedingly welcome news. I blasted through the station without a pause and began bounding with long strides, no longer avoiding puddles. I kept this up for what felt like a mile. Where was that stone house?! Was the route different on the way back? Everyone in this section was pushing hard, but it wasn’t easy to tell who was who because of the simultaneous events. Bib color indicated who was in the 50-mile event, the 50K, the marathon, and the marathon relay. Some of the relay runners were just starting and ran like 5K sprinters. I obligingly moved to the side when runners came up from behind, and ran through nettles on the left while overtaking.

Finally, the stone house. I was gassed, but kept the steam on. Then the course turned onto exposed blacktop. The last mile was like running through a pizza oven. I saw many runners forced to walk at this point. I caught up to the NPS shirt and very gradually overtook him without a comment. For the next few minutes every spectator seemed to say “good job guys” and I knew NPS was about to pass me back, but it would be someone else. I did not look back for fear of seeing Predator. Someone said “almost there,” gallingly vague. Then someone said “300 meters.” I started counting my strides but lost count. Finally we came to the green lawn and the finish chute and I opened all the valves, sprinting on my toes for a proper showoff finish. I heard the announcer say my name but was cognizant of little else as inertia carried me over the line and toward the nearest source of shade. I stood puffing for a while until I felt confident that my stomach and legs would not betray me, then walked back to the finish line to collect a medal and my prize of a water bottle. It was hot and empty.

mile / minutes
21 / 12:25
22 / 13:22
23 / 14:13
24 / 17:14
25 / 11:30
26 / 12:11
27 / 18:04
28 / 16:00
29 / 14:35
30 / 15:20

It took another twenty minutes or so to stop sweating, while I sat on the ground and recharged my phone and sucked the last water from my pack. I found the picnic and watched other finishers come in. The joke of the day was that we 50K runners were distractions from the main event. At aid stations and the finish it would be a perfunctory “good job good job” to us blue bibs and then “here comes a 50-miler what do you need water here gatorade there!” when an orange bib showed up. I met G again and he bought me a second beer after my free one, which was plenty since it was going in almost like an IV.

I heard a lot of finishers complain of cramping. I saw the guy from the bus, he was stretched out flat and said cramps had really slowed him down. I remarked on his cold hand after a congratulatory shake and he said he was back from the ice bath. Salt intake not to be neglected.

Final time 6:34:06. Runkeeper captured 29 miles before the battery died.

Preparation

Last year’s Bull Run Run 50 Miler was my first, so I was careful not to make the rookie mistake of starting out too fast. Nor did I finish too fast. In 2013 I just beat the twelve-hour mark on my first ultra, and given the weather and my utter lack of training in 2014 (one impromptu 18-mile jog in February snow), my realistic goal this year was to do no worse. My hopeful goal was to attend the 6 p.m. award ceremony, and my conservative goal was again to avoid a DNF. This despite the wisdom I had since encountered on the value of “achieving” a DNF in order to explore one’s limits.

This wisdom, and much more, appears on the ^zhurnaly, the online repository of ^z = Mark Zimmermann, an indefatigable polymath who has enlightened me on such subjects as Bayesian probability, Frog and Toad, and quantum mechanics, and also inspired me with his reflections on far more diverse subjects in the deep Zhurnaly.

I again enjoyed the gracious hospitality of dear friends, staying at Chez Ray Friday night before the event. Last year Ray calmed my nerves with a showing of “The King of Masks” which features no long-distance running. This year we started with a friendly go match in which he spotted me a handicap of at least 13 stones; the board looked something like this:

Despite what I thought the proper strategy of ceding much of the board in order to reinforce and secure a couple of corners, I failed somehow to make life and eventually offered a courtesy resignation before all my stones overflowed Ray’s bowl lid.

After the teaching game we watched a documentary on the Massanutten Mountain Trail 100, for which Ray qualified and has entered this year. The MMT is for those who find a mere double-marathon in the hills inadequate to achieve a DNF. The DVD depicted the 2006 event, in which Sim Jae Duk was the unexpected winner, setting a course record by finishing the race in less time than it took him to fly to the event (from South Korea, two days before the race, according to a New York Times profile).

Ray had invited me to join him at the MMT, but in the same spirit of generosity he showed at the go board, he would give me a 63.5-mile head start. I would meet him as a pacer for the back third of the course, an intimidating and challenging idea as much of this would be done after nightfall.

Overnight I sorted my supplies, collected using my inventory list from the year before.

 

I brought:

• a paperback
• chia seeds
• Starbucks poop inducer (ineffective)
• gels
• Clif Bars
• wet wipes
• medkit with athletic wrap, Body Glide, Vaseline, Chap Stick, and sunblock
• towel
• bandana (not used)
• smartphone armband
• my uniform: hat, tech shirt, swimming trunks, compression shorts, DryMax socks
• (not shown) my cleaner pair of sneakers

My belt was loaded with one 22-ounce bottle and sundries like S-Caps, Advil, Band-Aids and a sleeping pill. This last item was not like the others, and I ended up using it late Friday night. I couldn’t sleep for what felt like an hour or two, though I didn’t dare look at my watch for fear of adding deadline pressure to my restless mind. I would have plenty more opportunity to struggle against the clock.

Outbound

My accommodations included a drop-off at the start (thanks, coach!) and we made our way through the dim early light to set out our drop bags and perform final preparations. Ray spotted ^z and we exchanged greetings and good wishes. Ray then went up to the starting area for some breakfast, while I hung back to bug Mark for a celebrity photo.

Before the start, I got one more photo but didn’t see any familiar faces among the 321 starters.

The first mile is a casual loop through the parking area, spreading out the field, with most people adopting a comfortable warmup pace. I joined in somewhere in the middle of the pack. It felt good to be moving, to get into the physical rhythm that the body understands. I was already thinking about pushing just a little harder than my leisurely start last year. It seemed a good idea, as the forecast called for temperatures as high as 70 (21°C), and the weather was perfect and cool at 6:30 a.m.

My biggest mistake in 2013 was lolling about far too long in aid stations, spending perhaps as much as an hour over the day idly stuffing my face with peanut butter and jelly sandwich quarters and chasing them down with Gatorade. This year I again used my watch to time the minutes I spent stopped, with an eye to improving my finish time without spending much extra effort. Runkeeper on my phone recorded my progress, with audible announcements of my time and distance every mile.

Somewhere along the first few miles, I heard a familiar voice behind me. I turned and saw the face of Gary Knipling, who seemed omnipresent at the 2006 MMT. “I saw you on TV last night!” I called back. “You wasted twenty bucks on that thing?” he replied. I introduced myself and we chatted a bit. The dialog was frequently interrupted by greetings from seemingly every other runner, who greeted Gary by name, and he responded in kind.

I made good on my hopes of an express pit stop at the first aid station near Mile 7, pausing for just one minute and 15 seconds to load in some food before moving on. I was concerned about pushing too hard so early, so I planned to determine my position in the crowd. Before long I saw the leaders coming back from the turnaround at Mile 9 and I began counting the runners ahead of me. I also watched out for the few entrants I knew, and managed to recognize and greet Bernard and Robin as they passed going the other direction.

I was quite surprised and confused on arriving at the turn to have counted about 135 people ahead of me. I clearly remembered that my position at this point the previous year was 92. I guessed that I wasn’t going as fast as I thought, but at least I was ahead of Ray, whom I had not seen yet. We crossed ways a little bit after the turn, and his exclamatory “Dude!” with elongated vowel and falling intonation (PDF) indicated that he also thought I was setting an aggressive pace. Eventually it occurred to me that I was 92 positions from the back last year.

mile / pace / elevation (ft)
1 / 10:38 / -42
2 / 10:55 / -101
3 / 10:23 / -17
4 / 11:09 / 59
5 / 12:27 / 46
6 / 11:58 / -51
7 / 12:12 / -62
8 / 12:54 / -9
9 / 10:41 / 29
10 / 10:36 / -2

This first section seemed casual and fun, like before. I noticed that I managed ten miles without serious thoughts of quitting, which seemed an accomplishment. Not being a first-timer made a considerable difference in my confidence. I made another short stop at the Centreville Road aid station heading back, and saw Ray enter as I was leaving. I was following the protocol I established last year of walking out with my hands full, and this time paused by a trash bag to down the last of a sandwich quarter and some liquid so I wouldn’t have to carry the cup. Ray had wasted no time snacking and joined me there.

We proceeded together a while, both revealing the intel that a more insistent pit stop would probably be required before the day was done. He gave an enthusiastic recommendation of the loo we would pass after Mile 16, at the start/finish where our drop bags were waiting, but I was wary of even going a little off course only to have to wait in line. When Ray suddenly fell silent and disappeared, I concluded that it was this duty and not a root that had awarded me the lead again.

He didn’t linger long, though, and pulled on ahead before we got to the drop bag stop. I then saw him there briefly as he slipped on fresh shoes and set out, looking strong. I tried to chug a lot of the water with chia seeds I had prepared in the morning and grabbed some more gels and two Clif Bars. I decided to leave my spare battery pack behind, making it a race between me and my phone to see which had more juice.

By now the warmth was beginning to tell, and I was finding it hard not to think about the magnitude of the physical task ahead. Another two or three hours would make it a marathon, yet it was still far too soon to start counting down miles to the finish. I alternated greeting other runners with a cheery “Good morning” and the hopeful witticism “Got it in the bag.” At some point I asked someone if it was still morning and was assured that it was. I did the math and concluded that it was not yet 10 a.m. We reached the soccer fields and I spotted a proper Porta Potty. Another 90 seconds on the stoppage clock and I was on my way again, lighter and more comfortable.

mile / pace / elevation (ft)
11 / 10:30 / -15
12 / 15:11 / 34
13 / 12:46 / -9
14 / 14:25 / 107
15 / 13:44 / -128
16 / 15:50 / 140
17 / 17:46 / -38
18 / 15:30 / -36
19 / 16:20 / -88
20 / 16:01 / 32

The middle fifth was the one I’d just as soon forget, and mostly did. I was still keeping to my promise of maintaining some kind of running gait over level ground most of the time, but with some cheating now and then. Somehow I managed not to worry about my speed very much, often not even paying attention to my phone’s time and distance announcements. I was usually low on fluid entering aid stations but never felt overheated or sick. I was confident of a finish, and the only motivational struggle was over the goal of beating my previous time.

I remembered the White Loop as a ruinous walk of 20-minute miles, and determined to do better this year. What I didn’t remember was that it is actually pretty hilly. But a chance encounter led to some conversation that helped the miles pass. I caught up to someone with a T-shirt from Le Marathon du Médoc: “le Marathon le plus long du monde.”

“So how long is the Médoc marathon?”

“Oh, it’s a regular marathon, it just seems long.”

“Is it because of the metric system?”

“No, it’s a standard 42 kilometers, but it’s like a big party. Every year there is a theme, and everyone dresses up in costume. When I was there, the theme was space. My buddy and I got some shirts with a steampunk motif, but a lot of people took it farther. There were robots, aliens, stormtroopers. A Chewbacca. I got a photo of a line of ten supermen before the start, all peeing. The aid stations are châteaux and they serve wine and cheese, everything. And I don’t mean a little sip of wine, you can get a whole glass if you want. People who usually finish in three or four hours take six or seven there. It’s great. Toward the end one of the châteaux was serving raw oysters. It was actually really good race food. Feel free to go on ahead if you want. Some of the costumes we couldn’t figure out what they were. We saw these guys running and pushing a giant bowl. They were all dressed up in yellow with red on their heads. We asked them if they were chickens. “Non, non, super shoe!” They didn’t speak any English, and we couldn’t figure it out, they kept saying “Super shoe!” After the race we asked our hosts if they knew what the Super Shoe was about, they didn’t know either. We came back home and tried to look it up. Asked friends and relatives. Nobody had any idea. Finally we found someone who recognized it. Soupe aux choux, it means cabbage soup, it was the name of a movie. It’s about these two old men who spend all day sitting on their porch getting drunk and farting. One day an alien comes and visits them and offers to take them back to his planet in exchange for their cabbage soup. But the men don’t want to go. The alien makes promises and gives them gold and says they can have whatever they want. One of them men asks for his wife back; she died long ago. So the alien brings the wife back to life, but she is still 20 years old and she immediately runs off with a young man to Paris. So the men continue drinking and farting on their porch. But eventually the town changes and becomes more developed and they don’t like it anymore. So they decide to go with the alien to his planet. It’s a well-known movie.”

Then he said something about having to “plant a seed” or “water a tree” and stopped, then later passed me and I lost sight of him ahead.

[Update: Ken Swab’s report from Médoc, including Supermen photo.]

mile / pace / elevation (ft)
21 / 20:14 / 17
22 / 18:05 / 41
23 / 17:32 / 81
24 / 17:21 / -104
25 / 20:57 / -21
26 / 17:04 / 81
27 / 19:04 / -17
28 / 17:28 / 25
29 / 15:31 / 7
30 / 17:48 / -71

How to carry two Clif Bars for 30 miles and despise them the whole time

It was a little farther on to the Do Loop, where I anticipated a popsicle at the aid station that greets runners before and after that circuit of grueling elevation change. Ray was on his way out as I arrived, some three miles behind him. The spark of competition had faded, but I was motivated by the approaching point at which the shortest way to get to the finish would be to go directly to the finish. There was a small line for a frozen treat but I didn’t mind waiting, using the time to drain some of my freshly-filled bottle to make space for more. They also had stacks of pizza boxes, but a hot greasy mess was the last thing I wanted to take with me. I strolled out with my popsicle and took the loop at its word; it was neither less nor more than anticipated.

On the way out I thought I should appreciate the pizza; it is really an amazing job that the volunteers do all day. I had run out of Gatorade by the time I came back so that was a priority, but I grabbed a couple of thin slices of pizza to go and worked on them as I walked out. I had been taking S-Caps every couple of hours but wondered if they would make me drink more. I had also taken an Advil by now and a caffeinated gel, hoping to spark another kick like the one that carried me in in 2013.

The kick was not as dramatic, but it came at a good time. The miles after the Do Loop are long, dull, and fairly flat. Since my fast start, I had been getting passed pretty regularly all day, but now I started pulling people in. Many of them were still running, but I managed to keep up a pace just fast enough to overtake, and each time I passed one there would be another runner in sight ahead to keep me going. I leapfrogged with a lady in an “Alaska” shirt several times, mainly thanks to her longer stays in the aid stations.

I ran low on fluid again, and applied the motorist’s ill logic of going even faster to the next station to get there before running dry. Seeing the “10 Miles to Hemlock” sign gave me almost as much of a boost as it did last year, when it seemed an impossible lifesaver.

By now walking was very little less unpleasant than running, so I continued to try and make time. I had started the race with a thin pair of Injinji toe socks under my trusty Drymax trail socks, but the toes of my right foot seemed cramped and I had removed the Injinji sock on that side. A root caught that foot pretty good, and I cut the corner off a turn demonstrating that most ungainly of human gaits, the pre-faceplant: hunched over, stomping and windmilling, but somehow managed not to fall down.

mile / pace / elevation (ft)
31 / 18:59 / 47
32 / 16:44 / -39
33 / 20:27 / 56
34 / 19:45 / 27
35 / 17:00 / -7
36 / 16:44 / -21
37 / 12:46 / -94
38 / 20:24 / 45
39 / 16:11 / 74
40 / 17:04 / -95

At some point my phone emitted a plaintive buzz and then ceased announcing my mile times. I was likewise pretty well used up but sensed that the job was going to get done. The aid stations were frequent and refreshing, with iced Gatorade tasting as good as something can taste. There were cold wet washcloths, also uncommonly pleasant. I would drape one over my head during the whole of my brief respites from forward progress, trying not to drip onto the doughnuts, chips and cookies spread out.

PBJ and Gatorade was not the only awkward combination made palatable by exertion. Pizza and popsicle went together surprisingly well. At a station toward the end I heard someone say there was coffee, and while waiting for a cup I spotted a tray of stuffed grape leaves, delicious-looking dolma. A volunteer said they were popular and I grabbed a serving, but it didn’t quite hit the spot. Washing it down with tepid black coffee didn’t help. I finished it off, though, and managed to get through the day with no tummy trouble. I hated the thought of those Clif Bars in my pocket though. I was afraid to throw them away for fear of regret, but they are hard enough to get down with a drink and I never had any desire to open them.

mile / pace / elevation (ft)
41 / 18:33 / -28
42 / 21:36 / -3
43 / 13:41 / 7
44 / 22:18 / 3

With no smartphone updates, I thought I might still be able to beat my previous time, but didn’t feel much urgency about it. Then I remembered that my stopwatch was also a watch. I switched it to clock mode, having timed just under 30 minutes spent not in motion since the start. I wasn’t sure how far I had to go, but it looked like I would finish well past 12 hours. I gave it a good push though, and only walked the incontrovertibly upward-sloping hills during the last miles.

The finish was no less sweet for having seen a “12” on the clock. I sprinted in the last stone’s throw for show, then gathered my loot and plugged my phone in to stop the recording and get a shot of ^z coming in. Among those who finished in both 2013 and 2014, he was one of the few who managed to improve his time this year. I was happy to see that I was only about 1% slower, a little better than the average change, and my overall average time was still just under half a day.

Coda

Probably I am not the only person who finds it difficult to give satisfying answers to the questions posed after an event like this. How could anything be worth that much effort and discomfort? After it’s done, it doesn’t seem like any effort at all. It is really just a matter of not doing one very specific thing from the time you start until the time you finish. After last year’s unlikely success, this time I never had serious thoughts of quitting. And another answer: were the things I did on the previous and following Saturdays worth the effort I put into them, now that I have forgotten what they were?

Maybe it is simplest to focus on the little pleasures. It’s one thing to extol the charms of a rag soaked in ice water. How much more appealing is the idea of spending hours in the woods, hardly ever hearing an engine or seeing a house. Being among people who are all in an improbably good mood. Absolutely no distraction from any thoughts of the outside world, just one single task upon which all attention is focused. And now and then you look up and see a stretch of gorgeous single-track smooth dirt path surrounded by wooded scenery.

I was immersed in this effortful reverie about 15 miles in, trying to experience the moments and not dwell on the challenges ahead. I happened to be on my own, just running through the forest. Suddenly there was a grand mechanical roar and an Amtrak train appeared, racing by on unseen tracks atop an embankment. Like something from a film, resplendent with power and momentum. Nothing more natural for that body than to keep moving. The image carried me through the day.

After the final chow of burgers and soda, the beginning of a couple of days in which food and liquid would disappear into some internal void, it was time to go home. I looked up directions on my phone, to avoid getting turned around in the dark, and headed out on the country roads. It was strangely exhilarating to travel with such speed and so little effort. To move while seated, a little miracle.

At a red light, I pulled up beside a car with IRUN100 vanity plates and bumper stickers to confirm that we were both coming from the same place. I tooted the horn.

She didn’t put her window down and gave me but a brief glance. “How was your race?” I said aloud, but mostly to myself as the driver stared straight ahead. This wouldn’t do, but I would have to double down before it got any better. I pulled out my finisher’s premium, a large beach towel, and honked again. She looked over, and I held the navy blue towel up, the full moon doing little to illuminate the dark lettering, and gestured at it. Hey, I’m the jerk in the car again, and I have a towel! Fortunately the message was received, she held her own towel up, we exchanged thumbs-up, and then I stared straight ahead until the light changed.

The drive home was 24.7 miles. I am no Sim Jae Duk; the race took me a good deal longer than the commute.

BRR 50 Report from 2015

BRR 50 Report from 2013

La Soupe aux choux