The Race Course Revealed

By John Carlin
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: January 29, 2008

Dateline: Augusta County. Elevation: 1600 feet.  Temperature: 27 degrees.  Skies: Cloudy.  Outlook: Bleak.

It’s two months until the Bel Monte 50K endurance run or “”ultra marathon.” If you’ve been reading along, you know that training partner Troy Lenderking and I have been spending progressively longer weekend days preparing for a 31 mile race/run that will start at Sherando Lake on March 22.  To date we have worked up to a 4 hour event that covered about 15 miles, over what we thought was much tougher terrain than the course itself would be.

On this day we are meeting a group doing a 25K training run on the course.  It will be an opportunity to see what this monster looks like.  It looked bad enough on paper.  Now I can tell you, for sure—it’s worse in person.

Our group was 17 people, led by ultra-marathon machine Dave Snipes, who goes by “Sniper” He completed 34 of these events last year.  Sniper laughs at small events like 50K runs.  He does them as a weekend hobby, making sure to save energy, he tells us, “for socializing afterward.”

Because of ice, the upper parking lot at the lake is closed.  Sniper tells us, we will have to run an additional two miles to get to what will be the starting line on race day.  Our 15 mile day just went to “Oh, 16 or 17.” Whatever.

Troy and I are taking measure of the rest of the group.  Our bravado after our 4 hour trek fading, as WSLS-10 Sports Director John Appicello recently put it, “like a plastic dashboard decoration in the Florida sun.”

It occurs to me that people who drive a couple hours before sunrise on an icy, snowy Saturday morning, to run for hours in the mountains are not casual runners.  Whether real, or imagined, these people possess a certain hard-core something that in this moment, I’m not sure I do.

Then I tell myself, “John – come on, you’ve qualified for two Boston Marathons, and gutted out hundreds of miles.” “How many of these people,” I ask myself, “can say that?”

Sure enough, the first guy who gets out of his car is wearing a bright orange 2007 Boston Marathon Jacket.  I over hear him talking to another runner.  Both are going back in April.  They are both in “Boston” shape.  I haven’t been that fit since 2006.

The run starts and we all shuffle along at an easy pace.  As the trail starts to tilt up, gravity sorts us out.  Troy and I and two others are off the back.  Sniper as the run organizer stays with us.  The other two are doing a shorter distance and veer off after a few miles leaving Troy, me and Sniper.  Did I mention Sniper can talk?

He talks about everything from people he’s met on the trial to some of his random thoughts .  He tells us about 100 mile events.  He tells us the origin of the term “open sesame.” He gives us advice on how to run on Torrey Ridge—so rocky the surface reminds me of rip rap.

As Sniper talks, and the trail goes up and up we run into snow—in the air and on the ground.  It’s about 3 inches deep.  We think it might be easier on race day when there is none.  Sniper says no – the snow is a dream compared to the rocks underneath.  Great.

We reach a turnaround point and begin to descend.  Sniper says, “Look, this is my thing, I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Don’t try to stay with me, we’ll re-group down the trail.” With that he is gone.  I try to stay with him for a while as downhill is my thing too.  I’m struggling, but still in contact. Then he starts skipping and drops me.  Skipping!

It’s a technique he’s developed over thousands of miles.  Sniper zeroes in on landing spots up the trail.  While the rest of us pick our way down searching for footholds, he is bopping along like he’s on the track behind the high school.  Later when the trail turned straight down, I was holding on to trees to steady myself.  He was out of view in less than 30 seconds.  It was like magic.

When we got back to the car it had been 4:48:32 since we left.  We were tired, smarter - thanks to Sniper’s dissertation, and a little less rattled than we had been that morning.  Yes, we were at the back of the pack, but we faced the climbs, the snow and the rocks and we were still standing.

Now we have seven weeks to double it.