Training Log Archive: Bash

Leatherwood Ultra 50 miler

I wanted to do a hilly 50 mile or 100 km trail run about two months before running the 119 km Lavaredo Ultra Trail in the Italian Dolomites. The Leatherwood Ultras near Ferguson, North Carolina sounded like a perfect fit. Three distances were offered; the longest was advertised as 52 miles with 13,000-14,000' in elevation gain. Browner bravely decided to take on this challenging course for her first 50K.

Leatherwood is a mountain resort community with beautiful vacation homes that many owners rent out part-time. The resort owns or has access to 4500 acres of private land with 130 km of trails. I can't remember visiting any place quite like it. It can feel wild like a state park but there are a few paved roads with gorgeous homes on lots up to 25 acres and a central area with restaurant, stables and tennis courts. At this time of year, the trails are quiet and in good condition; it would be a perfect place to go for some early season hill training.



Here's the view from our cabin deck, looking over some of the terrain we raced through.



Here's the course map. (Scroll to page 2.) The 50K race consisted of the orange loop followed by the pink loop with a stop at HQ to refuel around the 26K mark. The 50 mile racers continued on to do the green loop twice.

Browner and I didn't plan to race together officially but we've been training together enough that we expected to go a similar pace, which is how it turned out and it was fun to have company! She can dust me on the flats while I have an advantage on downhills - at least until her knee gets better. We were usually within sight of one another and often within conversation distance, and we finished the 50K within a minute of each other.



After a short paved road run, we started climbing hills - and climbing and climbing! The first 25K had the biggest, steepest climbs and there were lots of rocks, roots and ruts, sometimes obscured by dry leaves. It was like the Hockley Valley with bigger hills so we felt comfortable in the terrain. (Can you see Browner in this photo?)





Trekking poles were a huge help so it was very bad news when one of Browner's poles broke after 10K. We puzzled over the pieces and decided it couldn't be repaired on the trail. If 'Bent had been there, I'm sure he would have come up with a brilliant, fiddly solution but I could only suggest grabbing a stick from the forest. She powered along with one pole for awhile until she found the perfect stick that accompanied her to the finish line. (Another reason her next 50K will be easier!)



We chatted and laughed with other racers along the trail; ultrarunners are always a friendly bunch. The forest was gorgeous - leaves lush and green, flowering trees, steep slopes, rushing creeks and a feeling of early summer that was exotic for people from Ontario.











I had a slow transition at HQ at the 26K mark - 13 minutes. I had a list of things to do before heading out for the next hot, sunny 25K and I was thinking ahead to how I might feel at 70K if I didn't take care of myself on this lap. Still, that's too long. The only big mistake was not opening my three eLoad packets before the race. For some reason, they all seemed to be made of Kevlar and I even had trouble ripping them open with my teeth. I spent 3 minutes filling my bladder, making eLoad and putting ice in it. On the bright side, I was able to put away an incredible amount of food during this stop that sustained me for much of the race - about 800 calories including a high-calorie Boost, PB&J sandwich, potatoes, chips and cookies. It has been said that long ultras are eating contests as much as foot races, and eating is my strong suit. So maybe the extra transition time paid off.

Browner left when she was ready and it took me about 5 km to catch her. One of the highlights of the afternoon was crossing chilly Elk Creek. It felt so GOOD.




We were so concerned about the heat (about 24C) that we were sticking ice from aid stations in our hats, clothing and water bottles. It worked brilliantly! I wilt in heat, especially in early spring, but I barely noticed it. The humidity was a little lower than Ontario, which probably helped too.

Oh, and the beer Browner had at Echo aid station didn't hurt either. It was her final aid station but I stuck with water since I had a few more to go.



Browner finished her first 50K with energy and a smile! She broke 8 hours on a tough course where a 7 hour time would have earned her a place among the top 10 all-time female performances in this race. Great job!





She immediately switched to support crew mode and helped me turn around for my next loop.



I still had to be careful of the heat, putting ice in my water and hat. More than half of this loop was in an adjacent tract of private land where the trails are mostly hard packed double track - still hilly but easier to run on. I was mostly alone although I had a nice chat with the 6th place runner on a long uphill that we were both hiking. (He had lapped me.) The 4th loop was a repeat of the 3rd loop so he told me what to expect. There was an out-and-back lollipop portion where I saw a few runners coming toward me but mostly it felt like semi-wilderness. I banged my poles around a little more loudly to keep the bears at bay (and it worked!)

Browner met me at HQ and helped with my final transition. It was going to get dark while I was out there but not for too long, and at least I knew this loop now. I felt surprisingly good heading out for my final 17 km. In fact, I'd felt surprisingly good all day and I hope I can figure out why so I can repeat it. My quads eventually got a bit sore from all the downhill pounding but that took quite awhile. I think the strength training, yoga and running drills have really helped. The heat wasn't an issue. I ate and drank a lot. The hills felt manageable.

And then, around the 70 km mark, I got some of that wobbly feeling I had at UTMB when I was hit by sleepmonsters. I wasn't sleepy this time - it's hard to describe but I've felt it before. My brain felt a bit detached from my body. I staggered a little if I tried to stand still. But mostly I just kept going and when it got dark, that feeling went away and I felt alert. I wonder if it's a daytime circadian rhythm thing...? I worried that it might be fatigue happening a lot earlier than it used to, so I was relieved when it stopped.

I was passed twice by a polite child driving an ATV with a rifle on a rack pointed sideways toward me as he went by. He was peering into the woods carefully. I'll never get used to that!

The last two aid station breaks - same place at the start/finish of the lollipop section - were fun. I sat in a camp chair and hoovered down a hot cheese quesadilla on my first visit. I was tempted to ask if there were any runners left behind me but I noticed they were still making quesadillas, which gave me hope. On my return trip, I sat down again and enjoyed a margarita with ice while chatting with the RD and some locals.

For the last half hour, I used my cool new Gloworm headlamp - not as bright as my Bentblaster but a bit smaller and lighter. Luckily, I still felt like running most of the time on flats and downhills; the cooler air really helped.

The finish line was right beside the restaurant porch and there were still people cheering and a photographer taking photos. The volunteer handed me my finisher's pint glass and a plaque that said "3rd Female". It was a total shock. My initial super-confident thought was that maybe only three women finished the race but I was 3rd of 11 women who started the 50 miler, three of whom dropped out after 50K and accepted an official finish at that distance instead. The female winner was less than an hour ahead. So it was a good day. Now I need to get out of jury duty so I can go try my luck at Lavaredo Ultra Trail!



Official finish time was 13:54:54. (2 mins shorter on my watch)
My 50 mile PB is 10:40 but this is a sloooow course. A 12.5 hr finish would be a top 10 all-time female performance in this race.

I think the distances were as advertised. The first 50K was steep and twisty so the GPS under-measured it.

Brain wouldn't sleep before 5:20 alarm. Ran into Bob at the airport while I was half awake!

Browner and I made it safely to our gorgeous cabin in Ferguson, NC where the Leatherwood Ultra is happening tomorrow. Browner will officially become an ultrarunner!

A few pics from the day:

Fish tacos enroute to Ferguson, NC



Our cabin, "Owl's Echo", at Leatherwood Mountain Resort, a gated equestrian community with a rural feel. The 50K race took place entirely on Leatherwood's property and involved very little repetition. There are a LOT of trails. The 50 miler extended into an adjacent 1500-acre parcel of land that is also privately owned.





This hot tub saw a lot of use! It was best paired with red wine.





It was raining when we arrived so this was the view from the cabin.



Pre-race briefing and dinner with a country flair

It's been a long time since I've used the "Ultrarunning" setting on my Ambit so I wanted to test it with a short run around the 'hood. Good thing I did because I could see it was really inaccurate - and then I remembered that I'd created a different setting for Ultras under 20 hours that uses a 5-second recording interval. This run used a 60-second interval so it missed some of the distance.

So of course I had to change settings and try again. I'm a faster runner with a 5-second recording interval. Too bad that isn't real!

Watching the Boston Marathon! Friends in the race include Jean-Paul Bedard, Olga Huber, Cait Foisy and Deanne McDoom and they're all doing well. Anyone else watching anyone I might know? Also watching Kristen Tamburrino, whom I raced against in Logs Rocks & Steel six years ago. She is crushing it, having completed 38K in 2:38:43.
http://www.baa.org/individual.html

Forgot John McAlister! He finished in 3:05:51.
Kristen was 3:12:43.
Jean-Paul Bedard 03:17:23
Olga Huber 03:28:08
Deanne McDoom 03:32:47
Cait Foisy 03:58:30

Event: TOC Mob Match
 

Toronto Mob Match
Sunnybrook Park

Another spectacular spring day! Jan Havlas designed a devious 90-minute Score-O with a twist. Eight medium-high value controls would only be in place for 10 minutes each, e.g. control M30 was put out by a volunteer exactly 30 minutes after the start and removed 10 minutes later. It was designed so that even the best runner couldn't get to all the migrating controls - and it would be crazy to try anyway.



Because Sunnybrook is such a fun, risk-free place to try navigating for the first time, I'd posted the event info on my Facebook and in the Run Trails Ontario group. The speedy ultrarunner Boultbee twins, Melanie and April, took up the challenge and ran the course with WandAR as their guide. Sounds like they enjoyed it enough that they're now interested in Toronto's Wednesday Park Series!



I got held up and arrived late so I didn't spend much time making a plan. Early on, I made a long, futile run from M05 to M10, as if it could ever have been possible for me. After that failure, I stopped getting distracted by shiny things and focused on higher value controls while planning around the right time periods to visit M30 and M50, which were close together. It was a fantastic day to run - warm but not as overwhelmingly hot as yesterday seemed. Maybe I'm heat acclimated now - NOT. There were lots of the short, steep hills that Sunnybrook is known for, and I had to make a big dash to the finish. I was a minute late but it looks like the timing system gave us all an extra minute so I didn't get penalized.

Chuffed to tie with Yoko Bamba (former top orienteer in Japan) on points for 1st woman but she finished a minute faster. This crazy kind of race is much more in my wheelhouse than hers. She can totally kick my butt in a regular orienteering race.

Huge congrats to the overall winner, Double_Downon11! Big thank you to Jan and Amber for hosting the event.

Afterward, Wilberto and Eva generously hosted the Orienteering Ontario AGM. Great lunch and a nice opportunity to chat with people in person instead of on a conference call. I'm now the Past President but I'm back on the board for another year.