Lumber Jack is known for it's muddy
course and the inherent challenge due to the roots and winding terrain.
Being eternally optimistic, I looked at it as an opportunity to set a PR, as
the elevation is not as severe as most of the 100 milers I choose to run and
it's my first 100 of the year, so I'm fully rested. I organized my vehicle to enable an
easy transition; I planned to run without a pacer and wanted Stacey to
be able to find items I may ask for, if she was able to help crew.
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| The look of apprehension on my face should have been a clue of what was up. |
The race started under blue skies with
a few scattered clouds and a wonderful running temperature of around 45F.
The weather was predicted to be thunderstorms, rain and wind, but so far, so
good. I run in the rain all the time, so no big deal, right?????
There were a lot of familiar faces at the start line: George Orozoco, Van
Phan, Vivian Doorn, Ultra Ras Pedestrian and his wife/crew/pacer extraordinaire
Kathy Vaughn and Kyndra Moeller taking on this 100 as her first. Also at
the start line was Carsten Buus, we planned to run the course together unless
one of us needed to slow down and would jeopardize the others ability to
succeed.
The run started perfect, my legs felt
great, the course wasn't very challenging to negotiate and the puddles could be
skirted around to avoid getting my feet wet. There were some areas in the
first 4 miles where 3 miles per hour was a "good pace" but all in all
I was stoked, this was going to be a great run, sub 24????? Each loop was
12.5 miles and our pace for the first loop was 12:08 per mile, it looked like
we would have a great finish time.
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| We were covering some ground and having a great time. |
By the 50-mile mark we were still sub
24 and felt pretty good. We ran our 4th loop hard to get in as many miles
in daylight as possible; I knew the course would be much harder to negotiate
with headlamps and the course deteriorated quickly with all the foot traffic of
the participants. There were times when we were the only people visible
until we were at an AS, or occasionally we saw Ras taking it easy at base
camp, followed by him eloquently striding past us down a hill.
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| I was wet but still felt great and was enjoying my day out. |
Toward the end of the fourth loop we
got hit with some heavy rain, we came in soaked and I put on dry clothes for
the next loop. The fourth lap was an 18-minute pace but still okay considering
the conditions, nightfall and clothes change. We knew the pace would be slower due to the
weather, mud puddles and nightfall. We set out in good spirits, with some
warm soup, warm clothes and headlamps. Maneuvering the logs, swamps and
mud became more challenging and our pace slowed substantially, the condition of
the trail had deteriorated due to all the feet that came before us.
As we approached the eight-mile AS the
hail came down hard leaving the ground covered. With the pace slowing it began to get quite cold.
Carsten was very cold and needed to be sure he could find enough gear in his
truck to endure the cold conditions for the remaining loops. As we
approached the start/finish we heard the first person, Tim Stroh whom had
passed us recently, completing his run, that sounded like a great idea but we'd
have to wait 25 more miles. We finished this loop with a 21:36 pace,
which admittedly disheartened us a bit but we put on all new warm, dry clothes
(I put on some Icebreaker gear which warms me to the core) got some soup and
took off after about a 30 minute delay.
Tough to get going on this lap but we
were out for number seven and that meant only 2 more. There seemed to be
some folks that were struggling in the Aid Stations but I have a tenancy to
focus on the positive in the race and was thinking; I only have to
circumnavigate the "mud bogs" two more times. As we approached
the start/finish we could hear cheering and knew it must be Van (1st
female) finishing her race. Again, sounded like a great idea but we would
need to complete one more loop before we finished. We finished this loop
with about a 20:30 pace, quickly resupplied and headed out for our last
loop. The sun was beginning to come out and it looked like this would at
last, be the end of the rain, a welcomed thought that added some skip to our
step.
The last loop was a struggle for me,
energy level low, pain in my ankles and some GI distress. None of that
was important at this point; all that was on my mind was the buckle. The
thought never occurred to me to quit, I was only bothered by the fact that out goal
of 27 hours was out the window and I was concerned that I was slowing Carsten
down. I let him lead and tried to answer all of his "pushes,"
our conversation was pretty minimal, but when we came upon a tough spot Carsten
pointed out that was the last time we would ever have to "see that section
of mud." It turned out to be a beautiful day with blue skies and a
perfect running temperature. At last we reached the last section of
single track I got my energy back, I skirted ahead of Carsten and ran toward the
finish. Our pace for this loop was
19:45 so we had taken advantage of the daylight to pick up our speed.
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| Carsten and I running in from our last loop. |
We finished the run in 28:10 so we
missed our goal but I was thrilled to get the buckle and be finished! I
was very surprised to learn that I was the 2nd place female and 9th person
overall to finish. The run had a finishers rate of about 50% so a lot of
people had struggled and took a a lower finishing distance. It was great seeing
George at the finishers line where he snapped a photo and congratulated us on
our finish. We saw Stacey helping out a runner that was having medical issues, Ras and Kathy were there breaking down camp and soon thereafter Vivian came in. George had a great 26 hour finish, Ras came in at 26:44, Vivian
came in at 28:43 for third place woman and Kyndra completed her first 100
miler on a tough course in 34:21. I'm glad I ran IMTUF last year because I had to remind myself of that while out in the mud bog. Will I do it again??? Maybe if Van does......... HA-HA
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| Carsten and I proudly displaying our buckles. |
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| My 2nd place Female award. |
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| https://guenergy.com/ |
