2011 JFK 50 Miler

Back in the early summer there was great interest by many people to go and run the JFK 50 Miler and with the new registration process you had to be sure in July that you wanted to go, otherwise you were not getting in.

My plan was to try and get a male and a female team down to JFK and thought it was going to be hard to get a women's team but I should have more than enough guys to field the three person team.  In the end, I was the lone male and I was able to get a very strong female team signed up.

Fast forward to November.  In one form or another all of the runners that were doing JFK were at my race the RI 6 Hour.  I felt like all I needed to do was get through the 6 hour then I could finally focus on JFK.  Up until then I hadn't given much thought to many of the plans we had to make for JFK because I was pre-occupied with the 6 Hour organization.

Once the 6 Hour was put to rest for another year, we made some travel plans and on Friday morning around 7am the 4 runners plus Karen's husband Kevin and daughter Eva were off to Hagerstown, MD.  Fortunately the ride was uneventful and we arrived around the time we had planned.  We were staying at the host hotel where packet pick-up was, so it made things even simpler the day before the race, we checked-in, brought our stuff to our rooms, grabbed our race numbers and then all went out for a short run to loosen up the legs after being crammed in a car for a good part of the day.

Two friends that Jackie and I know from Canada were going to be at the race and we had hoped to have them join our crew of 6 for dinner and as though all the planets lined up we bumped into them at the packet pick-up and they were staying right accross from an Olive Garden, so they got there a little early put our name in the hat and by the time we arrived we only had about a half an hour wait.  It seemed everything was coming together well for us and we would be able to eat, get back to the hotel room early, get our stuff together and get to bed early so we could be awakened at 4:30 am for the start of our long race day.

Race morning came fast, but everyone seemed to have rested well.   We drove from Hagerstown to Boonsboro in the dark of morning and arrived at the school for the pre-race meeting and/or to stand in a line for the bathroom, depending on who you were.  Once the meeting was over we made our trek to the starting line, which is over a half mile from the school.  As soon as we arrived, we hear "Three minutes until the start"  WHOA!  that came quick.  The four of us quickly stripped down to our race gear and moved a little closer to the front and before we knew it BANG!  the 2011 JFK 50 had started.

The race starts on a main paved road, which you are on for just over 2 miles and in that time you climb around 1000 feet.  I stayed slow and behind many people that I would later pass, but knew there was no need to sprint out in the first miles, because this was going to be a long day.

After those climbing road miles were over you dropped into a short trail section, which was just a short tease of the terrain that would come soon after.  The short trail section lead us to another paved road that would again rise about for over a mile before we finally got onto the AT section that we would stay on until about 15.5 miles.

The AT section is very rocky and is covered in many, many, leaves.  I saw numerous people take tumbles in front of me, just as I had in 2007, but this year I was careful and never even came close to hitting the ground.   For most of the AT I was running with Ian Torrence.  This was his 17th time running this race, so I knew, he knew what he was doing, however earlier in the race he stated that he would not break 7 hours this year, so although it was nice to follow him through the AT, once we hit the canal path at 15.5 I had to get down to buisness because I had some time to make up.

The C&O Canal Path was mostly uneventful.  The path is basically a marathon and has no turns to speak of.  It is flat and made up of hard packed dirt, it was a little forgiving on the legs, but tough to keep the mind in the game when fatigue and boredom sets in.  I thought I handled both well, and when hit with what I thought was going to be a major breakdown I stepped up to the challenge and worked through it and finally made it to the end of the canal path and was about to start the 8+ mile trek on the rolling pavement that would lead me to the finish line.

The last 8 miles had each mile marked in reverse order.  It was a nice little countdown to the end.  At first 8 to go seemed short, but then 4 to go seemed like the longest run I would ever have to conquer.  By the time I got to the 1 mile to go mark I was happy the race was almost over.  Content that I would run under 7 hours and just got it in.  It was a nice way to finish the race.  I wasn't in horrible pain as I have been in at the end of the other two 50s that I had run and I was able to run every step of this race and the last mile would be no different.  I cruised in at 8 min pace, came down the final 600 meter which is a slight uphill and heard my name over the loud speaker.  I had finished in 23rd place in 6:55:08, a time I was happy with, but you always want more.

Now that I had finished, my attention turned to the women.  When would I see them come in, how was their race going?  I had no clue how the last 7 hours had gone for them.  The good thing was I did not have to wait long for the answer.  Karen was seen coming down the long straight away with another woman on her tail.  She was able to hold her off and finished as 4th woman in 7:07:35.  Not too long after we spot Jackie's bright green shirt.  She was going to smash her sub 7:30 goal with a time of 7:19:53 and a 7th place finish in the women's division.

Now we waited for Issy, we knew that with a descent finish from her that the women would not only win the team title, but would beat the women's team record from 2002.  Fortunately for us we did not have to wait in suspense too long, Issy had run faster than she thought she would, running an 8:20:29.  The girls smashed the old team record of 25:11:16 with a 3 person total of 22:47:57! 

2011 Women's Team Champions!

In the end we were all pretty happy with our results.  We went in to the gym to warm up, get some food and wait for the awards.  After that we jumped on a trolley bus type of vehicle which carried us about a half mile to the car and we were off, back to the hotel.  After taking a very refreshing shower we went to a restaurant called Barefoot Bernies to grab some grub and a celebratory beer.  After that the group, minus Jackie and I went to Dairy Queen for some more celebrating!

The night ended in true Turtle fashion with Jackie, Issy and myself pouring some bombers into some pint glasses and falling asleep while still chatting...I would say it was a successful trip.

Jackie, Me, Issy, Karen...the morning after.

Stage 6 - Vail to Beaver Creek

The last day...

Of course with any long journey there are mixed emotions going into the final day.  There is excitement and relief, but also sadness that the event will be over, we will be leaving our new friends and will have to go back to our regular lives and not be just running and eating all day everyday!

Stage 6 would have us leaving Vail Mountain, starting straight uphill for a short bit, then running on roads, yes roads for about 3 miles, crossing over route 70 and switchbacking up some mountain.  Then we would come back down, cross the highway again, and head back up the other side to the top of Beaver Creek before the final descent into the beautiful Beaver Creek Resort and our soft hotel bed that awaited!!

After the uphill start we got into a pretty good groove on the roads.  We didn't go crazy early because this stage had the most elevation gain of all six stage with 5100 ft!

As you can see from the elevation graph, there was a lot of work to be done, so this 3 miles of road didn't have to be rushed.  Going into this stage I don't remember the legs being horribly tired or anything, I think they were past that point and were just running on there own.  I do belive that Jackie and I got stronger as the week went on and stage 6 was no execption as we both felt pretty damn good throughout the stage.  We climbed well on the first climb and the second...the last climb was a bitch and Jackie finally showed that she was human and wasn't pulling me up the hills anymore.  Once we popped out of the trees and onto the access road for that last final descent, it was a great relief that we knew we had accomplished our goal and in the final stage I felt like we were actually racing as we had some back and forth action with a few treams, including two in our division that we were able to beat out and finish in 8th for the day in 4:28:00, finishing one spot behind our good friends Keri and AJ Wheeler.

Once finshed we rounded up our suitcases etc and waited for Thor and Jay to come down the mountain, and we didn't have to wait long as they saved their best day for last and rocked the stage in a solid 5:02:23.  After they celebrated a bit with their wives we headed into the Beaver Creek Chophouse and had a celebratory beer.  Thor wanted a photo of this and as he whipped out his camera someone was walking by, so he asked her to take a photo, however it wasn't just somebody it was Tracy Garneau!  She was happy to help and we got a great photo of us enjoying a local Colorado brew.

After trading stories everyone went their separate ways to check in to our hotels and get ready for the after parties...that story in the next post!

Final Results!

Start of Stage 6

Running through Vail

Across the highway

Running through the trees

They don't mess around with trail marking here...that marker is 5 ft long!

Heading up the last climb

Stage 4 - Nova Guides-Red Cliff

Stage 4, I returned from the dead.  After running really conservative on stages 2 and 3 I felt good enough before stage 4 that I thought we could run more like ourselves.  As good as I felt, we were both starting to get pretty sore from the first three days of running.  We still started out on the slow side but right from the start we saw that we were closer to some of the teams that we hadn't been around since stage 1.  Stage 4 was only 14.2 miles but you start out climbing for the first 5 miles.  After all that climbing you pop out on the top of the mountain, at least what you think is the top, there was still one more climb from about 7 to 7.5 miles that we needed to get up before descending for the remainder of the run.  Most of this course seemed to be dirt roads that were wide, but when we started to come off the mountain there was a good amount of loose rock, which we navigated well enough, but technical down hill running was not our strength at TRANSROCKIES!

One of the cool things about this stage was with about 3 miles to go you began a 1 mile trek through a riverbed.  There were times that the water was just a few inches deep, but other times it was calf deep or more.  Once through that mess you popped out onto a dirt road that was a gradual 2 miles all the way to the finish.  On this road we were really able to open it up and passed multiple teams.  This was by far the strongest we had finished for the week, and it was a good day to feel good at the end because Mango's Mountain Grill and taco's were waiting for us when we were done!

Today's creek to bath in was by far the coldest!  We were lucky to get in and out of there before the temperatures dropped a little bit and some rain rolled in.  Finally we used the mandatory gear, but it wasn't for the race, it was for sitting on the balcony at Mango's sipping on a Guinness and eating some tacos.  

Once back at camp we had a lot of time to waste, we listened to a talk from the founder of Salt Stick and had a drink courtesy of the roaming Margarita bar.   And to sound like a broken record, dinner was wonderful again, with the photos, videos, etc. etc.  

4 days down two to go!

Up we go.

Running in the river.

Have I told you about Red Cliff?

Mango's

Our group hanging out on the balcony.

Roaming Margarita Bar

Some of the ladies were lonely, so they found a friend.

Stage 3 - Leadville to Nova Guides

Stage 3 started in Leadville on Main Street.  We started over 10,000 ft and stayed high most of the day.  The begining of this stage was on road then we turned onto a jeep road that climbed up, up, up.  This was also the longest stage of the week, so it was not to be taken for granted.  I think this stage is where things started coming together for us, it wasn't our best stage but it got things rolling.  We finished in 4:27:22 for the 24.3 mile stage.  There was nothing exciting about this stage but it was a good day, we ended in Camp Hale where we would be staying for 2 nights, this meant we didn't have to get all our crap together the next morning.

When we finished stage 3 we jumped in another pond, soaked the legs then grabbed a burger and a beer.  I was finally feeling like myself and came out of this stage with a positive attitude.  I would say the highlight of stage 3 was the after stage question and answer session that happened in the back of the Budget truck.  This is a Transrockies tradition, the luggage man Memphis Joe serves margarita's and has the elite runners in the Budget truck where we can ask all the questions we want.  Max King, Ryan Bak, Rickey Gates, Anna Frost, Nikki Kimball and others were in attendance.  It was an informal event with only a few of us hanging out listening to what these folks had to say.  I had great position bellied up to the bumper, so I got in good with the bumper tender and received quick refills and had a perfect spot to hear what everyone had to say.  This was a lot of fun and made the afternoon go by pretty quickly.

As you can see this stage was uneventful, at this point in the week we were getting into a good routine and just trying to get to the next day....so enjoy some photos!

Up we go...

Looking back at the views.

So many places, so little time.

Can't get enough of these views

Horses.

Running down the road trying to...

Colorado field.

Bike jeep

Bunkers at Camp Hale

Jackie telling me to get going!

Ian Torrence, I didn't think he saw me...until I looked at the photo.  Sorry Ian!

Views from the deck.

Memphis Joe's Margarita's!

Some big names in there!

Gordy!!

Camp life.

Stage 1 Buena Vista to Railway Bridge

We woke up on race morning to blue skies and cool air, unfortunatley the cool air would only last until the sun was high in the sky.  We threw our bags in front of the Lakeside Motel and starting making the trek down Main Street to eat breakfast in the very place we ate the night before.  The food that TRANSROCKIES put out is crazy, and most people would not want to eat this stuff before running.  Jackie and I ate enough but stayed true to normal foods like oatmeal and toast, there were no breakfast burrito's for either of us on Day 1.

Because we got to breakfast so early we had a lot of time to kill before the 9am start.  We hung around outside and met up with Thor and Jay.  On day 1 we did not have to carry the mandatory gear (rain jacket, gloves, winter hat, survival blanket) but we did have to check into the starting chute about 20 mins early.  There was plenty of room to move around the chute, so were not corralled in there like cattle.  When it was getting closer to gun time they rocked the music and the field moved closer to the starting line and things tightened up.  We made sure to get near the front but not too close!  We had 20.8 miles to sort this whole mess out and plenty of wide road at the start before the single track began.  At 9am on the dot; BANG!  the first stage of the TRANSROCKIES RUN had finally started.  We made are way down Main Street towards a dirt road and over the Arkansas River.  The course stayed flat for about 1 mile and then started a gradual climb.

As the race started climbing we started passing some teams that started out fast on the road.  We eventually caught up to the Inov-8 team of Amy Lane and Sabrina Moran and ran with them for a little bit chatting about New England running and the RI 6 Hour.  After another steep climb we pulled away from them as well which was a big surprise because they are a strong team.  Throughout the middle part of the race we caught up to many teams which kept the confidence high.  Niether of us was having a hard time with the breathing, but it was getting pretty hot and we both had some short bad patches that we had to get through during the middle to late parts of the stage.  As things worked themseleves out we ended up going back and forth with two teams for quite a while from probably miles 14-16 or so.  Rachel Cieslewicz of Team Good People Run for Neways/Newton-CW-X was having some GI issues and we would go by every time she had to stop and then they would pass us again.  We also were running with Team PNB of AJ and Keri Wheeler.  Running with them on Day 1 set us up for a great friendship for the rest of the week and hopefully for years to come.

Our good fortune in Stage 1 started to come to an end with about 3 miles to go.  I was getting dizzy and the legs just did not want to move anymore.  The funny thing about this whole episode was we went through all the steep hills of the mountainous section of this stage and I start bonking on a pancake flat dirt road.  I finally had to walk run for the last 2 or so miles and teams started to come back by us, including Amy and Sabrina.  When we finally saw the finish line I was happy as hell.  We ran it in and crossed the finish line in 3:20:55 we made are way over to the food table to get replenished.  I went through a few minute period where I was super dizzy and my vision was blurred but I seemed to come out of it after some fluid and a dip in the river.

With Stage 1 completed mostly intact, we took the shuttle back to camp.  This was our first night in camp and to our dismay when we arrived we saw that there was another huge hill we had to walk up to get to our tents!  The good thing was that they had a truck to bring our 50+ pound bags up for us.

When at top we picked out a tent and started getting our shit together.  At this point I started to feel like hell again.  This went on for most of the afternoon with numerous trips to the bathroom because I felt like I was going to throw up.  I continued pushing fluids all day and by the time dinner came around I was happy t see that I was able to eat!

At dinner we met up with AJ and Keri, Thor and Jay.  This would be ritual everynight of the week.  It was nice to have regulars to look for every night at dinner.  On top of a great dinner, Stage 1 photos and video and a preview of Stage 2 we also were given some more merchdandise, on this day it was a pair of Windstopper Gloves.

After all the day 1 festivities were finally over, we headed up to our tent, zipped it all up and feel asleep  to the wind which turned into a heavy over night rain.  We needed all the rest we could get (especially me) if we were going to be ready to climb up and over the 12,600 ft Hope Pass in the morning.  Stage 2 coming "soon"...

Jackie and Me ready to roll...

Stage 1 fun

Cool tunnel

River bathing

Tent life

Inov-8 snacks...yummm