This is why we run trails...
The short version: 6 friends, 34 miles, 15 hours, elevation gain- 7139 feet, elevation loss- 7116 feet (of which I probably did 4ooo feet backwards), 12 water crossings, 3 blisters, 8 Motrin, 10 salt tablets,168 ounces of water/gatorade mix, 2 PB&J sandwiches, trail mix, 1 good-sized bruise and scratches too numerous to count, and only a couple of minor falls. (And so far no poison ivy.) It was the hardest thing I have ever done, and I could not have done it alone. There were 504 starters and 336 finishers.
The rest of the story:
Friday afternoon I drove to Lorrie and Luis's home and rode up to Pittsburgh with them. If you have never driven into the city- the view as you come out of the tunnel is AMAZING! I will never forget that.
We met Chris, Michelle, Bill, Ralph and Barb at Olive Garden and talked a little strategy and adopted Michelle's phrase/mantra 'Relentless Forward Motion'. Later the next day 'Motion' would come to include walking, climbing, leaning, crawling, sliding and jumping. As long as we made forward progress we would be okay.
Saturday AM we were up early and at the start in time to meet Ralph Michelle and Bill. We got our chips, applied IvyBlock, took a couple of pics and we were off around 5:50 AM. The first part of the trail took us in and out of the woods and a few service roads. We had a pretty good hill early on but it was a lot different than the trail hills in KY- these were not winding, swithchback elevation gains- they were straight up quad killers, but they were mostly in the woods and not too bad. We had out first major descent in this section and I was grateful for the tread on my Adidas. There were a lot of water crossing in this section, which I LOVED! occasionally we would end up on the road- climbing over guardrails to cross the street ever so mindful of the yellow blaze marks to keep us on the right track. At the first checkpoint were were treated to plenty of trail mix- PB & J, water, gatorade, and fruit. We packed some food to take and headed out for the second leg.
The second leg was more of the same- highway-woods- and a surreal equipment graveyard. We had some more hills, but nothing we couldn't handle on the climbing end. Here I started to have some discomfort with my right knee on the downhills, so I began to do them backwards. Relentles Forward Motion. Whatever works. We stopped briefly in Emmerling Park- with real restroom facilities. Shortly after leaving the park we hit a pretty good hill followed quickly by a descent. A little more time in the woods to recover and then we hit the first beast of a hill about mile 13. Now- I looked at the elevation chart on the website but there is no way to wrap your mind aound a bunch of numbers until you stand at the bottom and look up and think "There's NO WAY I can do that." But we did- with a lot of encouragement and waiting. That first hill was a good indication of waht was ahead for me. We had a couple more smaller up and downs and then a beastly downhill and we were at the second checkpoint. Here Luis and Chris did some blister/foot repair. The back drop of checkpoint 2 was our next big hill and my first crisis of faith.
This hill is a beast. It goes on seemingly forever. The challengers ahead of us literally look liked specks. Luis was behind me and never left, stopped when I needed to and I needed to stop a lot. Mentally I dug deep and came up with NOTHING! I couldn't slow my breathing- my heart was racing and people were passing us like crazy. Luis stuck with me and somehow we got to the top. I looked behind us to see what we had just climbed and said it was the hardest thing I had ever done. Later inthe day when I dug deep, afraid that I would have no resources I would remember this moment. Chris, bless your heart for not telling me it was only the first hill in the section called "the roller coaster". There were several more significant hills, and I soon perfected my backwards descent technique- because what goes up eventually goes down and we had our share of both. After a few more monster inclines I had decided to re-evaluate my goal to finish at the next checkpoint. I felt that if I only had 5 or so monster hills I could handle it- but much more than that I would slow everyone else down. After careful study of the elevation chart we figured there were 4 or 5 significant hills and one of them was on a highway, so I fueled up and made the decision to go on. It turned out to be the right decision for me. We made sure Luis was going to meet with Lorrie and the 5 of took off for what was to be the most difficult leg so far. (We later heard over 100 challengers stopped at this point.)
This was probably the most varied surface section. LOTS of hills, but I found some inner strenght and I actually started feeling stronger. By this time we are beginning to see a lot of the same people on the trails and we are all encouraged and making progress. I kept hydrated and taking my salt tablets, so I had no cramping or dehydration issues. I would name this section the section of quiet determination. Mentally I had come far. I had come to a point where I knew I was going to finish. This was the hardest leg by far and took us the longest. We had a downhill where there was supposed to be a cable and there was none. At first people looked and kinda shook their heads. Michelle turned around and started down on hands and toes- what she nicknamed the "Spiderman" move- except in reverse. It got the job done. Chris was starting to feel the effects of a long day- travel and little sleep. As we approached the 4th and final checkpoint he made the wise decision to stop after 12 hours, our original goal time. Lorrie and Luis were at checkpoint 4, so we spent just enough time to re-fuel and get back on the road.
The last leg had the first major incline on the road, so it was long, but not as steep. We were in and out of the woods and had a lot of big- not monster hills for a while. At this point we are not seeing as many challengers anymore, but we have a time goal and a second wind and we keep going. We do hit another huge hill, but this time I get to the top legs shaking. We spend a lot of time on service roads and climbing over fallen trees froma recnt storm, but soon we're back in the woods and on the home stretch. We can hear the finishers and smell the hamburgers and around 8:30 we are done.
You could not ask for better people to spend sunrise to sunset on this odessy. I am grateful and humbled and in awe of everyone's contribution.
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