North Face Endurance Challenge Series - New YorkBear Mountain 50 Miler (7,054' elevation gain)
May 3, 2014
7 hours 53 minutes; 9th place overall
Overview
Bear Mountain was truly an early season test of endurance, leg strength, agility and ones ability to concentrate while maneuvering through knee deep stream crossings, mud holes, and what seemed like endless sections of foot-sized loose rocks that were unavoidable. Overall, it was a great day of technical trail running with my high points being very high and my low points not too deep in the gutter. My goal was to finish around 8 hours if I was having a good day and hopefully that would place me in the top 10 overall. I was able to finish in 7 hours 53 mins and place 9th overall not too far behind some incredible ultra athletes from across the country and Canada. Thanks for the great on-site nutritional and motivational support from Hillary and my mom, and virtual support from all of my friends and family. I could feel you all cheering for me as I was slogging through the mud with no one around me in the middle of the woods, so thanks!
Technical Running?
I love trail running for a lot of different reasons. The scenery, the type of person these events attract, going for long miles in the woods, up and down mountains. But probably my most favorite part is that trails like these demand strength, endurance, agility and focus on your footing way beyond many other types of endurance run events (road marathons or even 'groomed cross country running trails found in many parks and universities). I would describe this course as RAW trail running! The course was so well marked that you could almost always see two course markings ahead of you. This was a necessity since very rarely could I pick my head up for more than a split second to look too far in the distance. I often found that my pace was not dictated by the steepness of the trail or so much how my body was feeling, but more so by the trail surface (rocks and wallows). When nice trail conditions existed (i.e. for the Camp Lenowa loop or the last 2.5 miles) your body needed to be ready to pick up the pace and make up some time. There were a couple short road sections too. Since I had never ran these trails before I didn't know what to expect by 'technical', but in the first couple miles it was apparent what that meant as we ran up a 'trail' full of loose rocks and ankle deep water flowing down the whole width. So this is not a speedy course, you cannot determine 'fast' sections by looking at an elevation profile, but it is a great endurance test.
Race Recap
2:15am the alarm went off in the hotel room. I put down two wheat english muffin sandwiches with peanut butter and raw honey while starting to sip some orange Nuun. A banana, a Cliff Bar, we are out the door around 3am to make the short drive to the Anthony Wayne Aid Station to catch the shuttle over to the start area. We are on the first bus just after 3:30am. It is dark, still, and mild in the low 40s. I see Florent whom I met at the Snowshoe Marathon a couple months earlier in Vermont and a large group of folks from Quebec that I know are strong Ultra racers, many of them sponsored. I keep on my down pants and hoodie to stay warm before the start. Before I knew it we were approaching 5am, so I stripped down to my shorts and t-shirt, we walked towards the start line, heard a few words from Dean Karnazes, and were off! Keep your cool, watch your heart rate, don't look at the front of the pack, run your race, don't go out too fast. Either way it will be a long day, but you pay the price if you try to do too much the first 20 miles. 
I spent the 3.9 miles to the first aid station concentrating
on my footing in the dark and trying not to run my heart rate up too high since
much of the elevation gain is early on.
I started off around 40 back at the start line and caught a couple
people over this distance. The lead pack
was out pretty fast at the start and had about 1.5 minutes on me at 3.9 miles. I gave Hillary my headlamp and didn’t take
any additional nutrition.
At about 5.5 miles I was probably about 15 people back from
the start and ran with Eric from Quebec for awhile. We chatted about running our own race at the
start and reeling in folks as they fell off the lead pace. We were fortunate enough to run by one of the
many lakes on the course just as the sun was peeping over the mountain and
reflected on the mirror lake. We passed
a few then popped out of the woods for a short section of uphill pavement. To our amazement we saw the neon glow of the
North Face shirts in the lead pack just 30 seconds ahead of us. We were at an 8:15 pace and I knew it was a
bit fast for this race. I had noticed my
heart rate was still a bit higher than it should be, but this was affirmation
that if I wanted to be able to run another 40+ miles I needed to calm down the
pace a bit. This is really hard to do
when you feel great at that moment, but I knew I could not sustain a heart rate
of 165bpm for 7-8 hours. As an aside my
average heart rate for the whole race was 157.
I took a single GU during this section to start my calorie intake and
finished my first 20 oz of Nuun. Eric
and I came in to Silvermine at 8.6 miles averaging 8:40 pace. There I met up with Hillary reloaded with 20
oz of Nuun and 2 GU’s.
The next section of course climbed up to a long, beautiful
ridge with tall mature deciduous trees above and grass, bedrock and some of the
driest part of trail under foot. There
was a bit of climbing here and even a small boulder scramble. I continued to catch a few more people
through this section while I concentrated on taking down my GU’s every 20
minutes and finishing my liquid before the next aid. At 13.6 miles I hit Arden Valley Aid and my pace
overall pace had slowed to 9:13 due to the climbs and some mud sections
at lower elevation. There was no crew access
here, so I was left with only the Cliff electrolyte mix to refill my
bottle. It is sweet and has much less
salt than Nuun. I can deal with some
extra calories, but I know I am a salty sweater, so I need all the salt I can
get along the way.
At 18.7 miles I hit the Skannatati Aid at around 3 hours
(9:35 overall pace). This was the point
where I hit my slowest overall pace for the entire race. I was extremely pleased that I could bring
down my average pace from mile 20 to 50.
I figured that my pace would just slowly get slower over time, but my
training miles certainly paid off and allowed me to maintain through the second half of the race. I
wanted to try to eat as much solid food here as I could without cramping
up. Hillary was prepared! I shoved three peanut butter crackers in my
mouth, crunched, then shoved the water bottle in my mouth to turn it in to mush
and swallowed … yum! Refilled Nuun and
GU, and took a Blueberry Cliff Bar for the ride to nibble on for awhile. My team had seamless transfer of nutrition
through the aid stations thanks to Hillary.
I have two Amphipod 20 oz water bottles that can also carry 2 GU gels in
a small pocket. I was always running
with one and Hillary always had the other stocked and ready to go for me upon
arrival to the aid stations. After a
swift hand off I was gone and on the trail again! I could finish about half the cliff bar over
the next mile before tossing the remainder.
These extra calories help me immensely in the later parts of the race.
The next section actually had some road sections so I averaged
8:25 pace for this section to the Camp Lenowa Aid at mile 22.1 (9:25 pace
overall). This was a quick stop and I
felt like I could start sprinting! … but I didn’t. I had eaten, was picking up my pace on the
road and feeling great. This section was
a 5.5 mile loop on a gradual up then gradual down old atv trail with pretty
good footing. My positive outlook
continued for the entire loop as I averaged 8:47 pace for the section and
caught two more racers before jumping in to 9th place back at Camp
Lenowa at mile 27.9. I was restocked by
Hillary, humbly told my mom that I was actually feeling really good (not
knowing how long it would last) and continued onward. Less than a half mile from the aid station,
BAM, crazy leg cramp, pop salt pill, try to keep running, doesn’t go away,
damn. I use this as an excuse to stop
and pee, while I down liquid and take another salt pill. Suddenly I feel great again, start moving.
The last 15 miles my attention was exclusively paid to
footing and my nutrition needs. I
started taking salt pills about every 20 mins along with GU’s, and refilled
liquids every time I could. My legs were
starting to feel pretty beat on the down hills (quads mostly), especially on
the steeper rock laden sections. The deepest
stream crossings were towards the end too.
I was really picked up when we entered on the trails where the 50km
runners were racing and I started to pick them off one by one and create small
goals along the way. This was gratifying
and became a bit of a game for me.
Miles 40-47 were some of the slowest miles of the race for
me due to the short, yet steep, power hike climbs and rocky descents that made
my quads ache (along with my feet and ankles) even though I could not stride
and ‘run’ down some of these sections.
At this point I knew I was in 9th place, but I had no idea if
someone was close behind me or how far ahead the next person was. I just kept thinking damn this is slow, but I
can’t go any faster! Is someone going to
catch me here?
Mile 47.1, the final aid station. I downed water, salt and calories looked at
my watch, made some calculations and said to myself well this is it, lets see if
I can finish strong. I’m not going to
let anyone catch me and maybe I am close to someone ahead of me(?) Really I was well ahead of the 10th
place person and 7 mins back from 8th place at the 45 mile
mark. I finished just 2 minutes behind
Alister in 8th, so I did make up 5 minutes in 5 miles. The last 2.9
miles was beautiful trail and slightly downhill. I averaged 8:29 pace to finish strong at the
finish. I still have a lot of room for
improvement in these race, but I could not have been happier with this finish. My quads were not quite strong enough and I
am not yet in ‘technical trail form’ after running on dirt roads all winter,
but this was certainly my best effort to date.
Nutrition
The sun was out for much of the race and high temperatures hit close to 70. I was able to stick to my nutritional plan throughout the race with no major mishaps along the way. Much of this thanks to Hillary! I started taking in calories (GU) at about an hour along with Nuun for electrolytes. I did not supplement beyond that until about 3 hours in I pushed down some peanut butter crackers and half a Cliff Bar. This was part of my plan to try to take down some amount of solid food around 3 hours to prevent my 'marathon distance lull'. It took about a mile to get down half the Cliff Bar before I called it good enough. I spent the day with my stomach as full as I could take it (water and food). On the verge of feeling like my stomach would cramp and then feeding when it didn't feel that way. In the upper 20's mileage I could start to feel some slight potential leg cramping so that is when I started to supplement with salt pills (Salt Stick). I was feeling the effects of not really trail running yet this year with my groin and other muscles cramping due to the agility running strides (felt like dancing at times) rather than the typical easy going dirt road running stride. At mile 31 I hit my first big leg cramp and popped a salt pill. It didn't go away in 15 seconds as I tried to continue to run. I stopped, peed, took another pill, drank, and within 40 seconds I was back in stride feeling like nothing happened. I continued a regular regime of salt pills for the duration of the race along with GU and a few nibbles of food.
For the ~8 hours I in took on average per hour:
2.4 GU Gels
28 ounces of water
290 calories
650 mg sodium
For elevation profile, map, heart rate, and detailed pace data see below.
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