Of Trails and Roads

By John Carlin
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: January 18, 2008

Well I’ve done it.  I plunked down my $85.00 on line and signed up.  That wasn’t nearly as painful as what happens between now and March 22.

The last time I wrote of running in any detail was in 2006 as the Boston Marathon loomed.  I shared with you my training logs, goals, successes and failures, and a recount of the run itself.  If you’ll remember I finished in 3:30:08 and qualified to run it again – if I wanted—in 2007.  I didn’t want to.

I ran so many miles over three years, first to qualify for Boston, then to run it twice – that my legs were burned out.  I was tired of getting up at the crack of dawn on weekends; tired of running in snowstorms because there was no way to skip an important run; tired of my legs hurting.  In that last Boston Marathon I tore a muscle in my leg with 20 miles to go.  You can bet I was tired of that.

So in 2007 there were more recreational runs.  I rode my bike a lot.  I went fishing.  I did a 24 hour adventure race. 
A 24 hour adventure race?  Yes. The Odyssey One Day Adventure Race.  Rules are simple.  You and your teammates do the whole race together.  You can’t be more than 100 feet apart at any time.  You must wear a backpack everywhere you go that weighs about 12-15 pounds.  And you must go.

Starting at Explore Park, we ran 3 miles on a trail, then mountain biked 10 miles on trails, rode the same bikes to the base of Mill Mountain, where we ran another 6 miles, then trekked up the mountain for several miles, then down—back on the bikes which we rode all night on a 45 mile odyssey that took us over Cahas Mountain in Boones Mill, to the Explore Park, where we jumped in a canoe at daylight and paddled 12 miles in the Roanoke river.  Finishing time was about 21-hours.  We ranked about 30th out of 40 teams.  I swore I would never do another one.

So this is what I’m doing instead—The Bel Monte 50k trail run.  50k is 31 miles.  (For comparison a marathon is 26.2)

Someone I don’t even know told me in a parking lot once, that a 50k is way easier than a marathon.  So of course, being a journalist who researches everything, I believed it without so much as talking to anyone else who has ever done one.

Now it’s mid-January and the run is a month and a half away.  That’s like a week in running years.  There is a distinct concern that my body will not be ready by March 22nd.

Here’s why.  Training partner Troy Lenderking and I have been out trail-running until we can’t run anymore.  Last weekend we started at route 311 at the Appalachian Trail parking lot.  We ran to McAfee’s Knob in an hour.  Then we kept going for another hour – about to the bottom of a place known as Tinker Cliffs.  Then we turned around and “ran” back.  In quotes because it was so steep that “hiking” might be overstating our speed.

We got back to the car in 4:01:12. My legs were toast. We had traveled exactly 15 miles.  That’s halfway.

Troy wears a GPS device to track our distance, pace and elevation.  He downloads it and sends it to me to show me exactly how tired I was.  I’m so deeply appreciative. The chart below shows our height above sea level over the course of the run.
If you compare it to the course profile for Bel Monte, our run was much steeper, but the elevation gains were similar – if not a bit shorter.

I suggested the Bel Monte run was more akin to running up Bent Mountain on the Blue Ridge Parkway – twice.  Troy allowed as to how that was pretty close.

Despite all this, I must tell you that we are having the time of our lives.  Parts of the trail beyond McAfee’s were windswept to expose rock faces.  But others had accumulated fallen leaves that actually reached up to our knees.  Have you ever run in leaves that deep for a quarter of a mile?  It’s a hoot.

When you get your second wind and you trot along the ridge top eating roasted potatoes for energy food while turkey buzzards circle on thermals not too far above your head – you know there won’t be many at the office on Monday who can say the same thing.
(Ok – or who would WANT to…)

It is a much different experience than running on the roads… On the trail we average twelve to fifteen minutes a mile… My better road times have been between seven and eight minutes over similar distances.  The trails are softer and easier on your joints – so you can recover more quickly and don’t feel as sore the next morning.  And I would submit the woods are just prettier than the highway.

So, I plan to check in with you as Troy and I plod along the trails leading up to the race/run in March.

Until we meet again, er, um… Happy Trails.