Trotting downhill, alone in the woods, at mile 33 I trip on a log and tumble to the ground. I try to cushion the impact with my hands, one of which holds a drinking bottle. The overpressure blows the top off and spews a jet of Gatorade straight into my eyes. My right knee is scraped and bruised. For a few minutes I fear I'm going to be yet another casualty of Bull Run. But the bloody knee keeps working, aided by ibuprofen. As I limp onward I recite the poem Face Plant aloud to myself. It comforts me.

Such are the joys of ultrarunning, when on 14 April 2007 the Bull Run Run 50 Miler celebrates its fifteenth "Battle". The BRR this year has 370 entrants, 336 starters, and 301 finishers. I'm 284rd among them, crossing the line at 12 hours 25 minutes 6 seconds, 51st among 58 in the male 50-59 age group. Conditions are near-optimal — fortunately for me, given my pitiful lack of talent, training, and toughness. Contrary to past experience the legendary BRR mud remains a mere legend, the temperature remains mild, and the forecast of heavy rains remains a forecast until a few minutes after I finish. During the afternoon sporadic light sprinkles patter on the dry leaves that carpet the forest floor.

Ironman triathlete Mary Ewell is less lucky today. Three weeks ago we ran much of her first ultra together, the HAT Run 2007. Three weeks before that we both were slip-sliding on the ice and in the mud during the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail Marathon 2007. Today is her first attempt at a 50 miler. Mary is a wonderful person to journey with, optimistic, realistic and congenitally cheerful. Runners who meet us remark on her sunny smile. We stick together for the first 28 miles of the BRR. At the Fountainhead aid station I feel strong and press onward, while she pauses to regroup.

Later, I learn what happens next: a mile down the course and only a few minutes behind me Mary slips and falls while crossing a stream: a rock flips out from under her and she goes flying. She twists an ankle and scrapes an arm. Worse, her knee is bruised and then goes "crunchy". It becomes harder and harder to bend. But Mary treks on for another nine miles, until she misses an official time cutoff by one minute and has to withdraw from the race. Indomitable Mary stays happy, however, and is already planning ahead to another 50 miler, and to BRR'08. Brava!

Joyful Moments

• at 5am, watching a thin crescent moon peek through the clouds and between the trees of Hemlock Overlook Regional Park
• meeting Mary's patient fiancé Andy who serves along with two friends as our helpful crew. (I tell Andy that "CREW" is an acronym for Cranky Runner Endless Waiting. Andy is prepared, with books and guitar.)
• chatting with Nancy Summers, a friendly lady who likes our controlled pace and cruises along with Mary and me at the back of the pack for the first dozen or so miles. When she hears my race plan — to barely make the cutoffs and finish slightly under 13 hours — Nancy announces, "Then I'm going to stick to your ass!"
• swimming through a sea of Virginia Bluebells as the Bull Run Trail winds across lowland meadows
• re-encountering William Rohrs, out today for a carefree jog (his wife Maureen is racing). I remind him that after the HAT Run 2005 he told me, "The HAT is a teenager's ultra. Bull Run is a grown-up challenge!" He's right.
• getting scolded by geese and ducks as the trail parallels Bull Run
• crossing narrow wooden-plank bouncy bridges over tributary streams, and not falling off
• changing socks at mile 16, where the BRR course returns to the starting area. (My initial pair has already accumulated an unfortunate amount of grit.)
• dusting off my high school German to chat with Joachim Grigull, a 70 year old runner born in East Prussia and now living in New York, attempting his third BRR. I get a mini vocabulary lesson as we talk about his childhood, family, recent birthday, and soccer experience as we cross the fields near the Bull Run Marina. (Joachim is a certified referee and a former coach; I recommend the movie "Run Lola Run" — cf. Pure Theory). He introduces me to his sister at the next aid station and I shake her hand.
• finding an unopened 4x Sodium Power Gel packet on the trail near mile 22, tearing it open, and sucking it down
• snagging a symbolic sip of Harp Lager at a late-race aid station
• consuming, without stomach upset, ~8 Clif Shots, 4 "Succeed!" electrolyte capsules, several chunks of potato dipped in salt, and handfuls of potato chips and chocolate candies at almost every aid station
• stumbling ~50 times but only falling once
• squeaking by the most stringent time cut-offs by ~15 minutes, and thus maintaining my "never Did Not Finish" streak through yet another at-times-scary ultramarathon

Sad Moments

• passing a gravel-voiced runner near mile 12, who when we ask how he's doing says that his cancer is likely to make this year his last Bull Run Run
• learning from a Race Official at mile 40 that Mary didn't quite make the prior cut-off and had to withdraw

Schadenfreude Moments

• jogging by more than a dozen injured or exhausted runners during the final miles of the race (coming out of the Do Loop at mile 36, I was probably dead last among those who made the subsequent cutoffs)

Painful Moment

• in the shower after I get home, when the hot water hits my diaper rash, dissolves the dried sweat-salt, and washes it onto inflamed nether regions. Yow! During the race I pause at a majority of the aid stations to grab great globs of petroleum jelly. I always caution the volunteers, "You don't want to see where I'm putting this!"

Split Analysis

My overall pace is 14:47 minutes/mile — roughly what I hope for when I create the charts that Mary and I carry. Before the race I vow to go no slower than 15 min/mi but no faster than 14 min/mi, especially early on when great freshness begets great hubris. The plan works.

(huge thanks to Mary Ewell for running with me, to Caren Jew and Ken Swab for taunting me mercilessly in January until I signed up for the BRR, and to the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club for creating and managing the BRR; cf. Tussey Mountainback 2004 (8 Oct 2004), JFK 50 Mile Run 2006 (20 Nov 2006), JFK 50 Miler 2006 Split Analysis (21 Jan 2007), Bull Run Run 2007 Photos (17 Apr 2007), ...)

TopicRunning - TopicPersonalHistory - 2007-04-15

(correlates: PureTheory, RunningOnTheSun, Bull Run Run 2007 Photos, ...)