“You just gotta go.”

Running a marathon that’s really an ultra trail race

Ultra trail races are an entirely different beast from other types of foot races. They are long enough to require strategy beyond just running all out till the end, and can be gnarly enough to hinder those who don’t primarily run trails in their training. I was reminded of this on Saturday when I ran the Bear Brook Trail Marathon in Allentown, New Hampshire, for the second year in a row.

Bear Brook featured both of these properties: I saw a lot of road runners blow up, and I found I had to incorporate some strategy to do as well as I did—although my strategy would be considered foolish by most.

Roadies on the Trail

For a long stretch mid-race, I ran with a pack of what I suspect were mostly road runners. Their clean running garb and racing accouterments were in stark contrast to my lone hand-held bottle, lack of shirt, and wool socks. For a long time I thought that these guys would pull away and leave me alone—they just looked so professional! What really gave them away as roadies was how they faltered with mud, technical single-track, and the downhills. For many miles it was a game of back-and-forth with these fellows: they would blow past me on the flats, only to have me blow past them on the technical descents and through the mud pits on the fire roads.

During the four mile loop around the pond at mile 12 of the race, I realized that my hours of running the Appalachian Trail, The Boston Lot, and STAB trails in the Upper Valley gave me an advantage: I knew technical running like nobody’s business. These guys were moving at a good pace, but I felt I could push it a bit harder. I pulled off to the side of the single track, gunned it, and took over the lead. “BAM—I just gained four places!” I though to myself. Three miles into the loop, I looked back expecting to see the roadies chasing me, but instead I saw Lars, my trail running buddy from home, coming up to join me. The trail runners had bested this bunch of roadies.

Lars and I stopped at the aid station at mile 16 together. Lars is a beast and has been training for the Vermont 50. He’s modest about his ability, but I know what he can do. Running with him would push me to keep going hard, and he proved it as he took off out of the aid station, pressed in his ear buds, and utterly left me in the dust. I wondered how the hell he was negotiating the technical downhills so quickly. Did his legs feel like mine? We’d been running at a sub-9 minute pace overall for the last 16 miles. I tried to catch up with him, but realized pretty quickly that it was pointless—I was snatching fewer and fewer glimpses of him as I rounded the switchbacks, and then, he was gone. I did not have any drive to go harder left within me. Now was probably a good time to come up with a strategy.

Strategy? What Strategy?

Every time I go out and run for 4-plus hours—be it a race or training run—it’s always an entirely different experience. This makes it hard to come up with any strategy other than, just see how it goes. That’s what I’d been doing for the last 18 miles of the race. I was running hard and I felt good, but trying to catch Lars over this 5.5 mile stretch to the next aid station, I entered into the things-no-longer-feel-good zone. I talked myself into graciously accepting that I would not see Lars again, and that this part of the race would be about tolerating the pain— trying to keep a decent pace to the finish. It was nice to not be conspiring against myself, as I did at my last ultra, but I knew this would be my down period and I would need to just get through it.

Strategy time.

The all-encompassing feeling of my legs being completely wrecked was in full effect now. I knew from my last ultra that this would be a tough period to work through, but that it would pass, and I could eventually dig deeper and find more. That became my strategy: keep the current level of effort, as best I could, and know that at some point, I’d be able to find more. The key was that when that opportunity came, I had to seize it—and blast! I also accepted that this may not happen at all. I was okay with it.

I saw Lars again at the next aid station. “There’s my tall Danish friend—you fucker!” I yelled, to the laughter of the volunteers. My spirits were really lifted seeing him there, and being told it was only six more miles to the finish. Lars said he pushed too hard on the last section, and that he’d hang at the aid station a bit, so I took off. But, a mile later, he came up behind me and we ran in formation.

Both students of yoga, our breathing was deliberate—and all I could hear for a long time. After a while, I mentioned that it was taking an extreme amount of focus to keep going, and Lars replied that this was going to be his pace. I agreed. It was all either of us could do. I figured this was going to be the way of it, until the end. So much for my strategy.

And then I remembered the mountain.

Climbing the Catamount

Race Director and course designer Ryan Welts stuck to his mantra of suffering this year by adding a climb up and over the Catamount trail at the end of the race. “You studs ready for a double Catamount?”—I could see this Facebook comment of his clearly in my mind. I told Lars that I thought we should just get up and over as quickly as we could to get this thing done with. “Yeah, we can power hike it.” he replied—but that was not what I meant. I really, really wanted this to end. I wanted to give it everything I had.

“You just gotta go.”

That is what I said—aloud—to myself. It made sense and it was simple.

Go.

So I did. I took off at a faster pace and kept saying it aloud, over and over, louder and louder. “You just gotta go!” This was my strategy, amazingly manifesting itself before me. I knew that when there was nothing left, I could still find more—because I had done it before. The shouting of my new mantra triggered an intense runner’s high and I ran up Catamount until I could not run anymore. Then I power hiked. Then I walked. I got to the top and I ran down recklessly fast. I did these things because I knew I could.

I was bummed that I left Lars behind, because he had really made the race for me. But, I also knew that this was my moment to experience, and it was about me. As I climbed the Catamount, the shouting at myself developed into a conversation about how far I had come in the last few years and how I couldn’t stop moving forward. It was about how this race would end, but in my life there would never be a point that I would stop moving forward. Like this race, the journey would not always be fun—I would constantly be faced with having to dig deeper and try to find more. But, I could do it.

At the bottom of the Catamount, I hit the last quarter mile of flat road before the finish line. My legs were so completely destroyed that once I began running normally, my calves seized up in cramps. Desperate to finish, I popped two s-caps into my mouth and began to chew. The salty assault on my mouth was made even worse because I was out of water to wash it down. I hobbled for a bit, tried to relax my calves, and blasted up the final hill to the finish.

Notes:
- My GPS lost satellite lock 16.8 miles into the race. Partial GPS w/splits can be found here.
- The new course was ~29 miles with 3,900 feet of elevation gain.
- The course was two miles longer than last year, with an extra mountain thrown in at the end, and I finished almost 20 minutes faster than last year.
- I finished 5th place overall, Lars came in 6th, not far behind me.
- My friends are THE BEST and I was so glad to have so many special people at this race!