Early this year my good friend and race director Michael Owen talked me into signing up for Athens, Ohio first ever 50K ultra race held at Strouds Run State Park, and named after one of his favorite the trails at Strouds, Thunderbunny Trail. I haven't had the best year of training so far in 2016. Dealing with two major injuries, as well as being sick a lot, left me with only a couple weeks to try and build some volume up in preparation for not only my longest run every, but longest race in my life.
One of my collegiate teammates Joe Stewart decided to jump on the oppertunity to race his first ultra as well and came to Athens for the weekend to experiance what it was like running 31 miles on trails. We both toed the line this past Saturday morning and were welcomed with low 50°and heavy rains. That didn't stop my eagerness to get out into the trails and see how I held up to the long foot race ahead. After the start I found myself in a pack of four runners, running in second place carefully watching my footing and convincing myself this was simply going to be a enjoyable easy experience. As we carefully avoided low limbs and turtles on the trail I found myself in a nice groove and easily clipping of low 8 minute miles on the sloppy wet trails. I was not able to get anything from the first aid-station at mile 7.5, so was forced to hold off until around mile 13 where I quickly grabbed a couple gu's and a water bottle at the next station, and made sure not to loose contact from the leader, Nathan Yanko, even though he was only running the 25K race.
As Nathan and I left the aid-station only after about 20 seconds, David Riddle quickly surged to get back with us as we made our way through miles 13-15 together. David made a quick pass around us at mile 14.5 as I was content of continue my enjoyable jog, Nathan went with him, as I thought those two were finishing up their 25K portion of their race. I lost sight of them as I continued on by myself after the split thinking I had a good size lead on second, and hoped this easy jogging feeling would stick around for a while. It wasn't until I headed down the hill around mile 19 that I saw David making his was up the hill looking strong. My ambition quickly diminished as I knew there would be no way I could run with him. Just around then I began hitting that foreseeable wall. I quickly crammed as much peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, peanut M&M's, licorice, and nuun water as I could at the aid-station. As I left and headed back out I knew I was in trouble. I had a 400ft. climb ahead, winning the race was out of my hands, and now I couldn't even run straight. I stopped for about two minutes at the bottom of the climb contemplating everything ahead. I knew it would be easy to walk away, jump in a car and get a ride to the finish, which I juggled around for a good bit, but I knew how upset I would be after. So I very slowly started walking to the top and tried shaking off this feeling of death.
After about 4-5 minutes I started lightly jogging back onto the trail heading into Sells Park and pushed forward. Around mile 21 Joe Stewart and another runner had caught up to me. I told Joe what was going on and he was quick to hand me as many gu's as he could and told me to start taking them and push through it, which I did. I tried hanging onto them, but still was struggling to hold 9 minute pace. I wished them luck and and let them pass, as I was left to fight my own battle.
It took a while to snap out of it, but I slowly started to come out of the hump and actually had times where I felt really good and tried picking it up to catch up with Joe, but they were long gone. At the next aid-station around mile 25 I again ate as much as I could, and took a bit longer making sure that I was feeling up to par and able to finish the next 6 miles alright. I also had my ipod shuffle with me so listening to some music really helped get back into the groove of things. I made sure to keep on taking gu's and drinking as much as I could and tried enjoying the last section of trail heading back into Strouds before making my way to the finish. The last mile was on the road and my stride felt great! My legs still having a good pop to them and a sense of great accomplishment came over me as I crossed the line in 4 hours, 23 minutes and 9 seconds.
This race was a very humbling experience, as I now have a great appreciation for people who are able to run such long distances and push past the point of complete depletion. I'm happy with the outcome, even though I really wanted the win, I learned a lot and I am eager to get back on the trails again soon to test my limits.
- BJW
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