Official finish places and times: Joan 149th in 9:00:31; Erin 245th in 9:39:00, John 269th in 9:45:12, Margie 324th in 10:00:03, Stewart 375th in 10:17:34; Carl 431st in 10:35:24; Tom 456th in 10:42:46 and Hunt 575th in 11:21:09, oh yeah, and Vicki Kendall 296th in 9:51:59, Billy Lese 91st in 8:36:11, Harry Smith 169th in 9:13:42, Quattro Hubbard 205th in 9:26:29.... (862 finishers and a lot of DNF's.)
The JFK 50 Miler was a watershed event of my running career. I began running 5 years ago with no expectations other than convincing my son to try out for cross country, and progressed slowly, increasing my distance and meeting other runners. Along the way, I learned. All the things I learned came together at JFK, and formed the basis of yet another learning experience.
So what have I learned in the past 5 years, and how did it all come together at JFK? I have learned technical running skills that include pacing, and handling hills, rocks and mud. I have learned preparation skills that include clothing selection, nutrition, and training. I have learned the difference between pain and injury. I have learned to set small goals so that large goals are met. And finally, I have learned both to accept my limitations as an aging runner and to reject other limitations I had mistakenly accepted as limitations of my age.
My technical running skills were needed the most on the Appalachian Trail section of the race. A small group of us had run this as a training exercise, and I knew that maintaining a conservative pace would be key. Although I was prepared to walk all of the up hills, I was equally prepared to walk a few of those down hill sections littered with “dragon’s teeth” rocks. A previous DNF at Catoctin had taught me that rocky down hills could be just as debilitating to me as long, steep up hills. I have also learned how to maintain a short, quick pace to minimize damage from ankle rolls and trips. Margie can testify to my numerous, graceful stumbles and saves on this section of the course.
Pacing, pain management, and goal setting skills were the keys to success on the 26-mile towpath segment. Despite my best intentions, I descended from the Weverton Cliffs with too much fatigue apparent in my quadriceps, but I continued to stick with Margie, who graciously accommodated my slower pace. However, somewhere around 21 miles, as Margie began to pull slightly ahead, we caught up to our friend, Hunt, who was maintaining a much more sustainable rate. Margie forged ahead while I ran with Hunt for a while, and then eventually, I too pulled ahead with a slightly quicker pace. As the miles fell behind me, I quickly adjusted my race goal from finishing 50 miles to just reaching the next aid station. By mile 25, my quadriceps were in distress and pain was becoming a major issue. As I felt my energy slide toward a total bonk, I remembered the advice of Carl Camp, “Everyone goes through a low period. Anticipate it. Run through it. You will recover. You must believe.” Carl was right. By mile 35 I felt much better, even though I was still revising my near term goals from, “Just run to the next rest stop,” to, “Just run 20 minutes and walk 5,” then to, “Just run 15 and walk five.” I think that I may have even completed one cycle of run 10, walk 5 before reaching mile 42 and the end of the towpath. Nevertheless, I knew when I reached mile 35 that I had beaten the JFK 50 Miler. Now it was a question of when, not if I would finish. Despite all of the discomfort, I mean pain, I was very aware that I was running injury free. After every walk break, I was back up on my toes with a decent running form. My new Gel Kayanos were doing their job and justifying their expense. I began to take 200 mg of ibuprofen periodically to take the edge off of the pain, but was careful to spread it out every other aid station, and resisted the temptation to up the dosage. It helped. Based on my experience at Catoctin, I resisted the urge to eat and drink too much, settling instead for very dilute sports drink in my water bottle, a handful of pretzels for salt or perhaps an orange slice for potassium, and a power gel at each aid station. Nausea never became a problem, even when watching another runner fill his shoes at mile 31. Finally, at mile 42 I became acutely aware of what I had begun to suspect for several miles: I had been catching up to Margie and Carl. I slipped on my reflective vest for the final 8 miles to the accompaniment of Margie yelling encouragement from across the canal. She and Carl were less than 2 minutes ahead!
Although the first road mile was a steep, grueling, “mandatory walk” hill, I found myself surprisingly refreshed as it began to level for a quarter mile gentler climb. So I began to run. I caught Phil Holt, a new friend with whom I had been trading places for several miles and we formed an instant, unspoken pact to finish together and finish strong. We caught Carl before the “7 miles to go” mark and received a gracious and most appreciated boost of encouragement. As the hill petered out into rolling hills, we increased our pace from 13 to 12 to 10 to 8 minute miles. While we couldn’t sustain this extremely fast pace, we were able to run the last 6 miles under 10 minutes a mile. We selected walk breaks from afar, mutually agreeing, “Let’s walk at yon big tree, start running again at the road sign.” We must have passed 50 runners in this section and received incredible encouragement from every one of them. However, none of this bonhomie was as effective as Phil, who cajoled, flattered, drove, and dragged me to finish this race 30 minutes ahead of the schedule we had predicted at mile 43 and 1 hour 43 minutes ahead of my JFK goal. Oh, and despite this blistering pace at the finish, Margie GAINED 15 minutes on us. Wow!!!
So what did I learn? I learned that I was tough. After my DNF at Catoctin, I had serious doubts about my ability to complete in ultra-races. Although I knew that I had sufficient training, knowledge, stamina, and strength, I was beginning to suspect that I lacked the inner drive and mental toughness necessary for these events. Although disappointing, I was not particularly upset by this revelation. After all, virtually every other human being in the known universe is unable to complete an ultra. As an evolutionary survival characteristic, this trait is highly over-rated. But, still…. While I have never considered myself in the Arnold Schwartzeneger / Running Man group of elite (and fictional) heroes, my self-image does feature an elevated testosterone level, true grit and stoicism, gently cuddling a sensitive side that women find highly attractive. Hey, it is called a SELF-image!
I learned that I can enter the “zone” where pain, suffering, fatigue, and depression just disappear. I last entered this zone in high school at particularly grueling wrestling practices. While in this zone, all other distractions are filtered out, and my sole focus is on the job at hand. Life consists only of the physical present, with no end. At JFK, there came a point where there was no end to the race, but only this moment in time and only the act of running at this pace. Disruptions like aid stations and finish lines almost come as a surprise. The woman who said, “Lift your arms while I put this vest on you,” had to restrain me from moving on to the aid station and passing on to the next leg. It is a really cool feeling.
So I competed JFK, image intact. I am tough enough to do it and do it reasonably well. Only I know how close to quitting and/or crying like a baby with a dirty diaper I really came. Arnold’s movie career is safe from me as are your wives and daughters.
--Stewart (10:17:34)
It was only a year ago that Carl and Tom G. raised the bar for the rest of us TrailDawgs by finishing the JFK 50, and saying it was funner than a marathon. So out of the noble ranks of the TrailDawgs there emerged an elite pack eager to go the extra miles and brave enough to run... r-r-e-e-e-e-a-a-l-l-y slow: the UltraDawgs. We put on the first-ever TrailDawgs Fat-Ass 50K, and then Stumpy's Marathon in full frontal Fat-Ass format. After Carl and Margie completed the Vermont 100-miler, the ultra distances didn't look quite so impossible.
I built up to JFK with a series of progressively slower races in the latter part of the summer: 6:46 at Catoctin 50K, 4:27 at Stumpy's Marathon, 2:12 at Conestoga 10-miler, and 3:57 at Ocean State Marathon. I didn't intend to get slower, but after Catoctin, I had progressively worse bonks in the next three races. I still have to get my 2002 Ocean State run written up for the "Races That Sucked" portion of the Dawgs website. At about 16 miles into OSM I knew I wasn't going to get close to my 3:20 target time, so I did the last 10 miles as a slow training run for JFK, doing the last 6 miles with regular walking breaks accompanied by my sister. My son Sam's XC season at Cornell was coming unraveled too, and it turned out he was anemic. I didn't have any such excuse. So after Ocean State, I did a couple more long runs, up to 25 miles, keeping the pace really slow. Erin and Joan put in the most disciplined training, while the rest of us pretty much did whatever training we felt like doing.
Friday evening the 22nd, Hunt and his son Ollie picked up Stewart and me, and we drove out to the Hagerstown Clarion Hotel/Conference Center. They gave me the same cheap room rate as the Reston Road Runners (ok, I'd said I was with the Reston Road Runners, but I never claimed I was a Reston Road Runner), and we all piled into one room, with Stewart taking a wretched cot wedged between the two double beds. Tom G. and his daughter Katie were in another room nearby. After getting Hunt's craving for carrot cake satisfied in the near-empty disco/pool lounge in the basement, we phoned in a wake-up request for 4:30 and knocked off. Nobody slept well. Stewart and I headed out for oatmeal at Bob Evans, changed back at the hotel, picked up Tom and Katie, checked out and headed for the start at Boonsboro High School. A cold front had moved in after a day and a half of rain, with a bitter cold wind out of the north. We opted for long-sleeve CoolMax shirts under our ultra-swank Dawgs windshirts. Hunt opted for shorts, Stewart and I wore tights. We got to the high school around 6 and found Carl, Erin and Margie in the gym, along with Vicki Kendall and some other familiar faces from the ultra circuit.
The start was in downtown Boonsboro, about a half-mile walk from the gym. We saw some idiots in nothing but shorts and singlets or t-shirts. You could maybe do a marathon in these conditions dressed like that, but they were certain to DNF this race with hypothermia. The start went off exactly two hours after the 5AM start (a new option to accommodate people who might not make the regular 12-hour cut-off). We headed south and uphill on the 3-mile paved road past the Inn and into South Mountain State Park, with Carl, Stewart, Hunt, Margie, Erin, Tom and I staying together into the 13-mile AT section. The trail was covered in dry leaves and sometimes rocky, which would have been tricky running in the dark. Most of the climb was on pavement to the antenna tower; from there the trail was up and down until the steeply-descending switchbacks at Weverton Cliffs. Runners tended to bunch behind people with no trail experience, and passing was sometimes difficult. Carl and Hunt got ahead of me on the trail. I came off the AT section and made the railroad tracks in 3:10, turned north onto the C&O towpath, caught up to Carl shortly after the Mile 58 post along (about 16 miles into the race), then caught up to Hunt a few miles further on. The towpath section of the race is 26.2 miles, to about the Mile 84 post.
The towpath runs between the Potomac on the left (west) and the defunct C&O canal on the right. The river was in flood stage from the recent rain. The trees provided better protection from the wind than I had expected. I ran with Hunt for a while, we had a long porta-potty break at one of the aid stations while Carl, Erin and Vicki went through. Eventually I left Hunt behind and leapfrogged with the others a few times. Somewhere around 30 miles I started taking one-minute walking breaks at each mile post, and I took a long walking break at 36 miles where Erin and Vicki caught up to me again. The race got really boring at this point--just an endless cinder/gravel trail through trees, going on and on.
I hung with Vicki while Erin went ahead, taking short walk breaks at each mile mark until we finally turned off the towpath, got our reflective vests and "Hubba Hubba" stickers, and headed uphill on pavement. I was actually looking forward to some up and down after 26 miles of dead-level towpath. My right heel was hurting a little, but otherwise I was in good shape. I'd mooched a couple of salt capsules from Vicki, had eaten enough, drank enough Coke and water, and had no significant cramps. The pavement actually felt pretty good to run on. We walked the first hill, then ran to each mile mark again. The road wound through about seven miles of farmland toward Williamsport, a couple of miles southeast of the center of Hagerstown. I figured I wouldn't break 9:30, but I was really anxious to break 10 hours, so with about four miles to go I picked up the pace and pushed it in to the Williamsport Middle School, finishing in 9:45:12. The official time was about 10 seconds more than my watch time.
Erin had finished about 7 minutes earlier and saw me come in. It was nice to finish in daylight, but I was soaked and chilly inside the windshirt, so we went into the Middle School gym and looked for Ollie, but couldn't find him. I lay on the floor and put my legs up against the wall for a while, then had some fried chicken and water. Ollie arrived and brought in our bags from the van. Margie and Stewart arrived. I went looking for the showers, but by the time Stewart and I got into the locker room all the hot water was gone. I was too chilled to stand a cold shower, so I had a minor rinse and put on street clothes. Carl and then Tom came in, and then Ellen and Ryan Dotts arrived to drive us home. We saw Hunt finish and got him inside for a group photo, then I took off with the Dotts gang, stopping for dinner at a pancake house west of Baltimore.
--John
My second JFK was very tough. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have lots of excuses. I paid to run the thing, so here goes a big whine:
It was cold and windy and I had memories of freezing at Umstead and bonking real bad, so I wore my fleece pants, a long sleeve base layer, a double thick upper layer, a fleece vest, gloves, and a stocking cap. Two miles from the start, I had already sweat-off a few pounds, so I took off the upper layer and tied it around my waist and never used it again all day. During the day, I must have drunk 10 to 12 liters of fluids, and never had to urinate, so I probably was sweating under my fleece pants, and should have taken them off at some point, but I wore them all day long. The convective heat and mass transfer due to the 25 mph gust and temperatures in the upper 30s to lower 40s was keeping me dry, even though I was probably losing massive amounts of fluids all day long due to the evaporative Newtonian cooling effect.(technical jargon to sound like I went to MIT, but I still won't get a pay raise). In other words, I had hot legs that felt cold.
I got to the trail and decided that real trail runners like Hunt don't wimp around on rocks, so I attacked the trail and came off Weaverton Cliffs in around 3:10 which was 20 minutes faster than last year. At one point, I did a big "on your right" and passed a runner out in the leaves and then stepped in a hole. My left knee hyper-extended and really hurt. I almost crashed but managed to trudge along until the pain wasn't so sharp. My legs hurt, and an 800 mg dose of ibuprofen didn't help. This was a classic sophomore mistake - run the trail too hard, and have nothing left for the tow path. Hunt wound up beating me down Weaverton cliffs bya few seconds anyway.
I trudged along the tow path getting passed by runners on the left and right (everyone I passed on the trail), so this didn't help my morale. I passed some of the walkers that got a two hour head start - "hey, I blewby that guy like he was walking!"
Took a pit stop since I felt like I was going to explode, but wound up being able to pass only a little gas. My baby Jillian would have put me to shame with the amount of gas that she can pass after having a good drink. The plumbing was stopped up, and I was heading for a massive bonk.
The massive bonk started to happen at around mile 37. I was in the "I don't feel like even trudging along anymore" mode. I ate two Cliff shots, and a Clif bar and, and drank a half-liter of Gatorade, not to mention a handful of M&M's, and a Jolly Rancher (what a name for a piece of candy). I thought "if this doesn't kick in and help, then I'm in trouble". I never recovered from the bonk until about two miles from the finish line (must have been all in my head).
I walked the road section with a "pump the arms and try to look good" powerwalk. I got lots of funny grins. One guy in a car just let out a big laugh. I managed to move forward for three to four hours even though I felt horrible, and thought, "this will probably happen when I attempt Rocky Racoon", so I gave myself a "high five" for not pulling over to the side of the road and taking a nap. It was nice to finish in the dark - makes it harder for people around the finish line to see how bad I looked.
It was great to see all the Trail Dawgs inside the gym with their finisher's medals on. I plan to run JFK again next year. Something about the JFK 50 makes me want to do it again and again. I think it is the variety of surfaces, the great aid stations, and its great history and tradition.
--Carl
Bottom line: my "watch" time - 8:59:58, clock time: 9:00:13
Except for mile 48-49 where I totally got in a funk and did too much
walking (and let 2 or 3 women pass) I was happy w/ the race. The
AT portion went even slower than I had imagined. I reached Weaverton
in
3:00, much slower than I anticipated, yet it was hard to pass people,
or even run at times, on the trail. I never hit the 26.2-38 mile
blues...that part went pretty easy for me. I passed a ton of people
on the C&O canal. The last 8 miles were tough. The roads
weren't all that hard (except for the first road hill), but the wind was
blowing in my face the whole way.
I saw Erin after it was all over in the gym - she looked pretty good!
--Joan
I reached Weaverton Cliffs point where the course goes flat in somewhere
under 3:00, which apparently was not the smartest thing to do for maintaining
the rest of it from both endurance and physical punishment on my
feet, which didnt actually realize until going home...but i did have
fun on those downhills and meandering on the rocky terrain.
Was at half way mark at about 4:30, but already slowing down a whole bunch
and then REEELLY started to slow down to walk/run at about mile 40 and
spent more time walking, talking and snacking at the couple of remaining
stops than running, until last 2 miles, with some support from son Ollie
nearby and finished at 11:20. All in all felt pretty good,better
than some Marathons and might even do it again.
--Hunt
My 1st JFK 50 miler and probably not my last. Erin and I were fortunate to get a parking spot near the entrance to the gym. It was cold and windy but no rain so I'm not complaining. Hunt's son Ollie was kind enough to transport our drop bags to the finish line. We could have tossed them into the back of a pick-up truck but it looked like if the truck hit a pothole a couple of bags would pop out. I didn't want my bag to be one of them.
We easily found our fellow Traildawgs inside the crowded gym. I saw lots of speedy Buzzards and speedy VHTRC folks. Some of my friends were smart to take the 5:00am option, they didn't have to worry so much about making the cut-off times and run their 50 miles at their own comfortable pace. By doing so, we all finished about the same time. It is a good idea to have a 2-hour head start on the rest of pack. They also are the ones that get first-hand to see the leaders come flying up the trail behind them.
Yes, finally the start and uphill to the AT. We stuck together for this section which was nice and made me happy to be a part of this Traildawg club. Stewart was taking pictures of the stream of runners climbing up the hill, which was quite a sight. We wound up behind some speedy Buzzards and I though to myself this might be my one and only chance to get in front of Harry Smith. But those Buzzards are just too darn fast.
Stewart and I started catching up on what each other has been doing over the past couple of months. I haven't been on any traildawg's training runs for a while and wanted to know how things are. It certainly made the time go by a lot faster. We met Dan. Dan had on a pair of green floral tights that looked like he washed them in Miracle Grow. Dan's a CPA and a sheep farmer from Pennsylvania. Each of us took turns setting the pace. Then we met Dennis from Ohio. Dennis was our line leader through the single-track section of the AT. I loved this part of the course but was kinda glad to be off of it. My water bottle was empty and it sure was windy up on the hill with not much protection.
We were reunited with Erin at the bottom of Weverton Cliffs' aid station. We were able to cross the train tracks and didn't have to wait for the train. So a minor celebration was in order. Erin looked great and encouraged her not to wait for me any longer. She was wearing shorts and looked quite comfortable but to slow down and run with me would be a mistake. So Stewart and I continued our long conversation and gabbed with other runners along the $%#* towpath. The towpath? I've been on a "dreadmill" once in my life and disliked it. Thank you to Stewart for taking my mind off of what I was doing out there on a windy, cold day. I saw a couple of bikers with a radio strapped to the back of their bikes and thought to myself. That's what I should be doing rather that running on this flat boring towpath. I'm still a rookie running ultras so for JKF next year, I know I'll have to run with someone like Stewart to make the time seem like it's well spent.
The deluxe aid stations were 3 to 4 miles apart stocked with hot soup, hot chocolate, hot dogs, Clif bars, Clif shots, and everything else. Gee whiz?. It's a fifty? not a hundred. The volunteers were organized and seemed to be very happy to be out there. And I was sure glad to see them. Thank You!
Ahh the final road section, yes, I could "smell the barn". I told Stewart I was running 8's for the last section of road. He smiled at me and kindly said "humm?maybe 9's or 10's Margie". He is right of course. But when the splits come out I'll have to check for myself. I was never very good about using my watch and haven't been to the track for speedwork. I'm too afraid I would hurt myself if I did.
Ollie brought in our bags and I took a room temperature shower. I might have to run the 5:00am start to get a hot shower for next year. That sounds like a good idea. Yes, I finished with 862 crazy ultrarunners. It doesn't seem crazy to me anymore. Oh and another thank you to my husband John, you see, he packed a cooler of Corona for Erin and me to celebrate her first 50miler and my first JFK.
--Margie