My adventures at Deam Wilderness

 

 

  My run at Deam today had a little of everything. It had zen moments of clarity, internal dialogue, external confusion, a little reality tilting, a couple of anxious horses to deal with and some heartstopping moments of spiderweb ninja moves.

 

   I started out getting up at 4:45am so I could get on the road by 5:30am so I could get to Deam by 6'ish to start running. I had it all planned out. Park at the Horseman's Camp, hit Grubb Ridge (11miles) return to Horseman's Camp to the car, eat some PB-J sandwiches, get more water, freshen a bit and then head out and run Cope Hollow trail (10 miles) thereby getting in my scheduled 22 mile run for the weekend.

   First: I got lost getting out to Deam. It was early, dark and I missed the sign on the way out. Finally wized up when I read "Lawrence county line" OH OH! I turned around and almost missed it again! Just barely saw the sign. So I breathed a sigh of relief, turned in and headed to the camp. I parked, got all my gear together and then...couldn't find the trail head.....doh! I had only been to Deam once that I could remember with Christy and Erin LAST YEAR. So...okay...I walked around the camp a bit, ran down the gravel road, looked at the map, went back to the camp, looked at the map again and finally found the trailhead. By now it was after 7am and I had 22 miles to do before I had to return the car around 1pm. I was cutting it close running a new set of trails with a lunch stop. So I headed off a bit anxious.

    Immediately my anxiety started to dissipate as I took in the quiet, green woods. It was so quiet, so still and so majestic seeming around me. I started to practice my Chi Running which I have been studying a bit. I used a mindfulness skill I once learned where when I quieted my mind down and envisioned a conveyer belt which had bins at the end labeled "music", "sad thoughts", "worries", "funny thoughts", etc...Then whenever my inner attention was distracted from the quiet beauty around me I would put the thought on the conveyer belt and have it taken away and deposited into one of the bins to be thought about later. You can also use moving clouds or any number of things to do this. I am a very visual learner and this kind of thing always helps me more than a mantra or repeating things to myself like "return to breath" so I did that and just enjoyed it.

   I felt like I was following the signs well. I was checking my map frequently at the intersections. The signs I saw were very vague however. Most of them just said "trail" with no designation. I found one that said "545 Trail" and then "Grubb Ridge" pointing either left or right. I chose right and up I ran up a big technical hill. I felt like I was making progress although the vaguery of the signs was getting to me. "TRAIL"???  what trail? where? huh???  Then I found myself after an hour staring back at the "545 Trail" and "Grubb Ridge Trail" sign. I had gone in a big loop!! AUUGH! Here my zen started to break down into frustration. I felt I had wasted an hour of my precious trail time going around in some circle and now had no idea what to do. Oh well. I started out again now changing my tactics to the other way.

   Then as I was running more I started to see familiar landmarks only the other direction. So I had come around but knew by how much time had passed there was no way I had gone the complete 11 mile trail. I was not putting THAT much pedal to the metal although I was making some very good time on some of the run-able spots. I was feeling good physically so that was terrific. And the trails were all so pretty. I found the horseman's camp again and decided to take my lunch stop and then try to make it up by hitting the Cope Hollow trail. I was wishing so hard I had GPS so I could know how many miles I went but my watch only did Heart Rate and Time so I had to go by the time: 2:12. I had been running in circles for two hours! ACK! Okay so I would do what I had heard on a Trail Runner Nation podcast about the long run and do it by Time on The Trail. I had put in two good hours of steady, nicely paced running. So..okay. I changed my attitude, checked my perfectionism and ate my sandwich, had a bathroom break and started out again.

    Now here it gets really sketchy: I found some little trail off to the side of the Grubb Ridge Trail. It was this little windy thing...really technical but I thought according to my map it COULD Be Cope Hollow trail by the direction. Maybe it just started out little and got better a little later. So down I went this little trail full of rocks and these windy dry creekbeds and WAY too many spiderwebs I kept running into which led to a fresh bit of Ninja behavior trying to desperately rid myself of any spider hitchhikers. I found none so YAY! That would have been a royal bummer!

   So I follow this trail and little by little realize this is a LITTLE trail. Even horses weren't allowed on it because of that. It wound down and down and disappeared after another creek crossing. Couldn't find it anymore. So now I had to walk back UP the tech trail. It was pretty steep elevation. Like the walking-with-hands-on-thighs kind of steep. So Up I go again and now have wasted another half hour. I find Grubb Ridge and go again. By now I am just going to do an out and back as I was worried about getting my friend's car back in time for her. Then I found out I didn't have my phone. Oh JEEZ! So I decided to just go back to get my phone and that is when I ran into the horses. A man and woman on horseback. I had scared the horses appearing suddenly from behind running. The people said wait and let them turn around and see you! So the horses turned around and I have this kind of awkward wave at them like Hey horses...just a little old trail runner. No worries! They got the horses positioned kind of awkwardly and I scurried past the back ends of horses. Don't like going behind anxious horses! So after that I finally chucked the rest of the run, headed back to camp and decided to call it a day. My watch said I had been running for 3:58:11 so I rounded it up to 4 hours of consistent running as I had paused the watch while I ate lunch and bathroomed.

   So I had a nice run in the pretty woods, thought some thoughts, had some adventures, got a nice picture or two and OH ran around with some cool rocks stuffed into my hydration pack. 4 hours, possibly 12 to 13 min. pace? So...doing the maths...maybe 16 miles? Not the full amount but a pretty good run after all.

The brilliant agony of distance running

    There is something I didn't know before I started running...specifically long distance running:

  Feeling like hell can actually be liberating. Before anyone says it I don't mean the "running through injury pain" hell but once I am in the in the middle of a long run, a sucky run, a too-hot, not enough hydration, calf cramping, tired legs run I think "Hey here is probably the worst I am going to feel and I only have 8 miles left to go!" See what I mean? Liberating!
  Heading into the final few weeks to my first Ultra I am reminded of this. There was a saying I read long ago from an ultrarunner that said "It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse." I laughed at that but really it is the basis for extreme running. Fighting through the body's defense mechanisms that says "HEY STOP!...UM...HEY STOP!......." 
  No matter how disciplined you are in your training, diet, emotional/mental/physical readiness at the starting line if you have done this enough times you know there will come a point where you don't want to do this anymore and that is when you need to toughen up inside. Anyone, no matter how highly trained is going to get tired and a little cranky after running more than 20 miles. Things are going to ache, things are going to feel tired, you are going to get bored, you are going to curse the day you started running, you are going to wish that a couch would magically appear in the middle of the trail or road and you can just lie down for a "little bit", you may be prone to some jealousy of the bystanders but inside if you are made for this you will have that spark...that fire of amazement and joy that you are doing this! You are fighting through, digging deep, finding strength that could lift mountains and that overrides all the other things.
   And that....is when the magic happens. People who don't run this kind of extreme distance do not get this but we embrace the difficulties. It is part of our sport! And it makes us instead of breaks us. This is the best thing I have ever started doing. I will take all the achy, tired, worn down runs because so many more of them are epic, amazing, satisfying, transcending runs. They are early morning runs seeing the sunrise; they are muddy trails; they are quiet runs, noisy runs, solo runs with your thoughts or group runs with your friends. They are all these things and so much more.........
   And after a long, long run you are forever changed. You run by the usual places and think " I just ran 20 miles! This all feels different. I AM different. I have done what most don't do."

             "...but I, I walked the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference."  

Be original. Be bold. Be yourself. Do what makes you happy. Everything else will fall into place.

Race report---Eagle Creek Trail Marathon

 

     I  did it! I ran my THIRD marathon! Wow! And it was fun and the time seemed to fly by as I got to share it with good friends. I was happy that I got to run the whole thing pretty much with Erin. She is so fun to run with! 

   So this morning I started out feeling kind of anxious about the race. Melanie and Rachel got to hear all about it on the way up. I think it was just because I hadn't had a marathon since last December and had dealt with a few injuries this year to take care of so was hoping they wouldn't come out and bother me. It was raining buckets too all the way up there. I though OH NO. It's going to be a pouring rain slogfest for 26.2 miles. 

  We got up there though and the rain let up. It was a nicely overcast day though which was delightful. We saw Erin, her husband Chris, Amara and Maria. Then we saw Cheryl Hickock and that was fun too! In fact the whole day was kinda like that. A big party. So I got all together and Erin, Chris and I got ready to go at the start line. We started and Chris took off. He was pretty speedy. I stuck with Erin. I was doing this as a training run for my Flatrock 50k in a month and a half and she also was doing it for her 50k that same time. So we started running together. She thought I was racing it but I said no. I was going to just take it easy and get the miles in and use it as prep for Flatrock. 

  It was really fun running with a friend! I am usually a runner who ends up solo on races and so it was really cool this time to have someone along to share the experience with. It was a nice little rain that guided us through the woods...just a little misty rain. It felt nice. We were running on the causeway and there was a "famous person sighting" Namely Persistent Runner! Erin and I were running down the causeway for the first time and this guy came along...no one we had ever seen before...and yelled "Are you Persistent Runner? LOVE YOUR BLOG!" and off he went. WOW. It was like being at a club with a celebrity..."yeah so i am with her so everything is complimentary right? She will sign your camelback if you play your cards right."  It was super cool. 

   We ran into a whole pack of people we knew next: First Jonathon Lee in his green shorts and top, running backwards and chatting with us. Then we had a Rachel sighting, a Miranda sighting and then ran into a whole pack of people..actually they ran into US: Maria, Amara, Cheryl. We ran with them for awhile and it was so much fun to be part of a big, noisy fun group! 

    And then we were coming around a corner and HOLY COW we saw Christy Victor just standing there in her BARA shirt! Whahooo! What a sight for sore eyes. It meant so much to me to see her there. :-)  We saw Chris fly by. Then someone came by singing and of course it was Melanie. that's what friends are for! I saw my buddy Jen. So we pretty much leapfrogged around for awhile and then we got back to the finish-restart line. We just said Okay now we are pressing the "restart" button. That was just a warm up now we run our race. 

   So then it was just me and Erin again. We saw some more people we knew: Chris again, Miranda again. I also can't say enough about Planet Adventure! They are a class outfit. The aid stations were always well stocked, the volunteers and employees were constantly cheerful, supportive and awesome to us! When we ran into the aid stations we got applause, power arches, joking and people making sure we were well hydrated and taken care of. I felt so much for these folks. Really made our day!

Around mile 20 we started to count things off like "here is the shi** road one". "Here is the shi** road two. Here is the shi** muddy part." Yeah it was kinda like that. I realized that flat coke is NOT my friend. So not going to do that again. The main thing was I felt GOOD. I was sore. Heck YES! You cannot run more than 20 miles and not be sore. But I felt like I was doing fine and that tacking on another 6 or so miles to finish an Ultra would be fine. 

  Oh and at this point we also started to compare who we thought could tackle this the best: Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman Yes it was late in the race and we were getting...ahem...more silly if that was possible. Then we came into the finish line and all was rainbows and unicorns and our friends were there cheering and taking pictures and it was a great end to a great race!

Third Marathon Down! Ready for Flatrock!