Now that I'm on the road to recovery and no longer angry at myself for giving in to peer pressure, I guess I can give you an account of how it was to run my first (and most likely my last) 50 miler...
The trek starts in a small town in Maryland, Boonsboro (should be in Kentucky). My plan was to run with two very good friends of mine, Michelle and Miguel, since I couldn't see much pleasure in running 50 miles by myself. It was also Michelle's first 50 miler. Michelle's boy friend, Pablo, was going to accompany us for the first 15 miles or so and then take on support crew duties for the remainder of the day.
The first three miles or so are mostly up hill on US Route 40. Our strategy for this portion of the run was to pick a landmark about 100 yards ahead, like a mailbox, and jog to it. We would then pick another target, perhaps a road sign, and walk to it and then repeat this jog - walk routine until we reached the next segment. If the uphill was too steep, we walked.
We finally exited Route 40 and got on the Appalachian Trail. The first few miles of the trail were paved, like a bike path, but were mostly up hill. Again, we walked up the hills and would jog on the flats and down hills. There weren't too may of these.
The fun really began when we entered the real Appalachian Trail, the rouged rocky hilly leaf covered part. Here we tried to do the same - walk the up hill parts and jog or run the down hills and flats. But it was pretty difficult. Partly because the trail was crowded with almost 1,000 runners and you could only pass by taking your life into your hands and running on who knows what might be hidden under the leaves, and partly because the footing was so rugged that every other step was a partially twisted ankle or a near fall from tripping on a tree root. Somewhere along the trail, Miguel, who has more experience at 50 milers, decided that the pace being set by Michelle was unwisely fast and he decided to lag behind. I stuck it out and kept up. I even led at times.
After 10 or so miles of following the mountain top with ups and downs, mostly ups, we finally started a steady and sometimes pretty steep down hill to the valley below. Coming down the hill was really exciting as it seemed that every third or fourth runner was falling down like a carnival game where you shoot moving ducks.
Although we still had plenty of energy at this point (except maybe Miguel), the shoes I chose to wear were too loose for the terrain and I got blisters - and I still had about 35 miles to go. Fortunately, there was an aid station at the bottom of the mountain where our crews were waiting with a change of shoes, food, etc.
I was pretty slow getting my shoes changed and applying a heavy layer of Vaseline over the blisters. A friend of Michelle, Andrea, joined her here and they started off without me. They got quite a few minutes ahead of me, so I started after them at a pretty fast pace and fell head over heals when I tried to pass a slower runner. Luckily, I wasn't hurt. I reached another water stop and discovered Michelle and Andrea were there waiting for a very long train to go by before she could continue. Bad for Michelle because it cost her a lot of time, but good for me since I wouldn't have to run like a maniac to catch her.
The train finally passed and we could continue. Now we were on the C&O Canal tow path - a well maintained, nice wide dirt trail with no hills and no rocks or tree roots to trip you up. In addition to Andrea, our friend Camilo kept us company on his bike for most of this part of the ordeal. There would be about 26 miles of this tow path running to do. We decided that our strategy for this section would be run to each mile post and then walk for 90 seconds. This worked fine, but my blisters were hurting and I kept saying "this is not fun".
At the next aid station, I put more Vaseline on my feet and this gave me some relief. After 8 or 10 miles of this we upped the walking portion to 2 minutes and again a few miles later we upped it to 2 1/2 minutes and finally to 3 minutes. At some point along the C&O, another friend of Michelle, Emily, took Andrea's place. Fatigue didn't seem to be as big an issue as we thought it would be, but pain was. Michelle's knee was hurting and my back was telling me I should have stayed home. Popping a few Advil was a big help, but not for my blisters.
I guess it was around half way when we caught up to and actually passed the infamous Anna Bradford. As we passed by, I said hello and expressed amazement at the thought of actually passing her. She was kind and returned the hello along with some well wishes. When we were a few yards ahead, I heard her say to her running companions "I get him...". And of course she passed us a little while later and we didn't see her again until the finish.
Thoughts of the 1970 Three Dog Night song "Mama Told Me Not Come" kept coming to mind, especially the phrase "that ain't the way to have fun son". My singing of the words out loud didn't ring a bell with Michelle or Emily. They are too young, or perhaps my rendition bore so little resemblance to the song that is was unrecognizable.
We must have been around 38 miles when I commented that I needed a running watch with more memories for this kind of event (my watch has only memory for 30 miles). From Michelle's response, she must have thought I was implying that I would be doing another 50 miler. I quickly realized my error and loudly proclaimed that I did not need a new watch!
It was about this same time that Micelle stated for the record that she wasn't going to run again until next year. I pointed out to her that next year was only 6 or 7 weeks away. She replied "I meant July of next year".
We expected to get cranky as we got tired but to our surprise we found ourselves actually joking about things. Perhaps we were delirious or maybe the sweets we were eating along the way kept us in high spirits. I guess we laughed most when we asked ourselves what the procedure to quit was. It appeared to us that the only way to quit was to keep going or go back. Not very inviting options. We didn't quit.
Emily left a few miles before the C&O canal portion ended but we were joined by John, another friend of Michelle - she had plenty of support as you can see. They were also quite supporting to me as well. Pablo, Andrea, Emily, and Camilo were extremely pleasant running companions. They walked when we wanted to walk, ran or jogged at what ever pace we wanted and generally kept us engaged in pleasant conversation most of the time. John on the other hand was more like a Green Beret drill instructor. He wasn't very keen on walking. He did allow us to walk up the steep hill after we exited the C&O tow path and gave us a few short walking breaks now and then. They were indeed few and far between however. After that, he kept us going at what seemed to be an ever increasing pace.
Our last 7 or 8 miles were without question the fastest miles of the whole run. Some miles were around 9 minutes per mile. Several times, I wondered if I would be able to keep up with Michelle and get a photo of the two of us at the finish (for the "Jim & Michelle" album).
At an aid station a few miles from the finish, I grabbed a large handful of M&M's which gave me just enough energy to keep up with Michelle and John. When we reached the 1 mile to go marker, John got even tougher insisting that we keep running so we wouldn't have to say we walked some of the last mile. This may have been our fastest mile and I did cross the finish line and pass the photographer with Michelle at 10 hrs., 12 mins., and 46 seconds. We placed 330 and 331 of 818 official finishers. Although the sun had set sometime earlier, it was not completely dark (almost, but not quite) which was a goal of mine - to finish before dark. From my point of view, we made it. Thanks John !!!
In addition to help from Michelle's loyal support crew, I was an unofficial member of the Reston Jims team and wore the club's yellow singlet with my name on it. So I got plenty of cheers and support all along the way form the very numerous Reston Runners support crews (and I do mean numerous). Thank you Reston Runners !!!
Pablo and Camilo were waiting at the finish with congratulations and a warm coat for each of us. Pablo had a big hug for Michelle of course. By know it was completely dark as we hobbled into the school gymnasium where warm showers, food (fried chicken & Lipton Cup-o-Noodles), and a massage awaited us.
I hopped into the shower (not literally of course) and stayed there quite awhile to warm my sore muscles thoroughly. As luck (my kind of luck) would have it, someone put my water bottle in my crew bag without emptying it and the top came off and spilled Gatorade all over my change of clothes. So I had to wear wet sticky clothes for the rest of the evening and for the drive home.
We grabbed some chicken, which I found quite satisfying, and sat on the gym bleachers for a while before hobbling to the massage room to wait in line (sitting & lying) for our turn on the table. While waiting, I checked my voice mail messages on my cell phone and found that Jose (one of our more enthusiastic support crew members and photographer) had reported in twice about the whereabouts of Miguel who had, shall we say, more than lagged behind. After our massage, we decided to drive back along the course and check on Miguel. We found him carrying a flashlight as it had been totally dark, not even moonlight, for some time. He was being followed in a car by Jose.
Pablo decided to run the last few miles with him to help beat the official cutoff time. I got in the car with Jose, Michelle dove Pablo's car, and we all tagged along side Miguel to the finish cheering all the way. Miguel proudly ran all of the last several miles, walking only once up a steep hill, and did indeed beat the cutoff time.
After Miguel got into a change of clothes, we celebrated with a cold beer and somehow managed to climb into our cars for the drive home to the comfort of our very own beds... Best regards, Jim Mort