Ken Swab's Seneca Creek Greenway Trail 50K Report
March 6, 2010
"A man's got to know his limitations." – Dirty Harry Callahan, Magnum Force
Looking into the Eyes of Dirty Harry
The Eastwood quote comes to mind as I realize that the male voice chattering away just ahead on the trail around Clopper Lake belongs to Mark Zimmermann. I'm about 18 miles into the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail 50K and I've caught up to Mark and Kate A., who not only are faster runners than me, but who took the early start and began the race 50 minutes before me. Running with them are Holly F. and Judith W., who have been lured into doing the Clopper Lake loop by Mark and Kate. I didn't expect to see them all day, and now, barely halfway thru the race, I've caught them. That means that I've averaged about three minutes a mile faster than them, an utterly absurd pace. Not only is Mark's best marathon time 39 minutes faster than mine (both set in Fall, 2009), but last week he beat me by 12 minutes in a ten miler. This pace does not bode well for the rest of the day.
Can You Run a Trail with a Shopping Cart?
Hours before, in the pre-dawn glow of what will turn out to be a sunny day, Barry S. and Rebecca R. had showed up at my door to carpool to the finish of the race at Riley's Lock. Rebecca brings muffins and donuts for the ride as well as a seemingly vast amount of clothing and supplies for during and after the race. I joke that she will need a shopping cart to push everything along the course. At Riley's we board busses to the start in Damascus and promptly at 8 a.m. about 170 runners start off, most to do the 50K and rest to run the marathon-like distance that does not include a four mile loop around Clopper Lake. Another 30 runners like Mark and Kate who arrived on early busses took up Race Director Ed Schultze's invitation to start at 7:10.
The early part of the course is covered in snow several inches deep. But the morning temperature is still below freezing and in some places it is possible to run on the frozen top of the snow rather than in the narrow path crushed thru the snow on the trail. The significant numbers of blow-downs across the trail have been cleared by Ed and his indefatigable volunteers. One large tree that had fallen across the trail had been so freshly cut to allow passage that the scent of the wood hangs in the air.
About five miles along, the trail crosses Seneca Creek. There are stepping stones and a rope to steady oneself during the crossing, but the water is a couple of inches over the stepping stones and cold water wets everyone's feet.
On the other side I begin to chat with Chery Y. of Brooklyn. She tells of having an allergic reaction to her Injinji socks while running the Vermont 100 last year, most likely to the one or more of the dyes used to color the individual toes of the socks. She says that she is running today as a training run for the Umstead 100 Miler in a few weeks and I tell her that I'm doing it as a training run for the Miwok 100K on May 1. "I'm also running Miwok," she tells me, and so I'll know at least one runner there. We stay together until we enter the loop for Clopper Lake at mile 15. She goes on to finish in 6:31, the 10th female overall. I may see her at Miwok, but it won't be for long, as she is a very strong ultrarunner.
Goldfish Ahead
Near the aid station at Route 355 (mile 11), the signs in the familiar style of Don Libes begin. The first few have general references to fish but then they become more specific: goldfish. A pair of runners passes me and one remarks to the other that he will be disappointed if it is just about goldfish crackers. But he is doomed to be disappointed, as Don runs the aid station at the Route 28 crossing (mile 25.5) and its now clear from the signs that his food theme this year will be goldfish crackers. This, in any case, will be a culinary improvement over the 2007 tofu theme.
But the goldfish still lie ahead. I've fallen in with Mark and the three women around the still mostly ice-covered Clopper Lake and now the five of us move around the lake with Mark, Kate and I babbling on non-stop. Our new trail friends are generally silent.
We finish our circuit of the lake are return to the Clopper Lake aid station where I'm surprised to see Barry and Rebecca. They are just doing the marathon version of the race, so I'm a frightening four miles ahead of them in terms of distance traveled. This is another opportunity to recall Dirty Harry's admonition, as last year Barry finished the marathon distance 22 minutes faster than I took to do the 50K, so there is no good reason I should be with him now.
Off we all go. I pick up a pretzel and an M&M off the ground, inspect them, and pop them into my mouth. This is real trail food!
Shortly after crossing Route 118 at about mile 23, Mark decides that the pace is too slow, and he takes off. We see him on the top of one of the long climbs up the hill on the course, but by the time we reach the switchback, he is out of sight.
"You got to ask yourself a question, 'Do I feel lucky?'"
Kate is setting a fine pace for us, neither too fast nor too slow and Holly, Judith and I follow her lead. About a quarter mile from Black Rock Mill we are running on the soft, but not muddy, flat section parallel to the creek and I take a tumble to the right. As I hit the ground I roll over and am on my feet almost immediately with nothing but some dirt on my right shoulder to show for it. Someone compliments me on a 'textbook drop and roll' and we all laugh.
But as we get on the short section of paved road that leads over the creek and to the trail on the other side of the mill, I'm suddenly exhausted. "Go on," I tell the others, and I begin to walk.
Dirty Harry has got me now, because I have reached my limits. It isn't really a surprise, as my longest run in the past three months has been only 12 miles, and I've gone almost twice that distance at an imprudent at best, suicidal at worst, pace. "A man's got to know his limitations," indeed. But knowing them, you better take them into account.
But I also figure there are only about 6.5 miles to the finish and I can walk the rest of the way. A couple of runners pass me talking which pizza place they will order pizza from after they get home. I join in the conversation to see if I can learn a new pizza place. It helps the time pass and I actually run a bit.
The goldfish-themed signs are now showing up with increasing frequency. For some reason the one that reads, "Goldfish: the other white meat" cracks me up. And then we are at 'The Aquarium' aid station. It is stocked with a variety of the little fish-shaped crackers, from multi-colored ones, to pretzel ones, to the classic orange cheddar cheese ones. It also has another trademark touch of Don's – no cups, only a community mug for drinking. Notwithstanding my earlier eating of food dropped on the ground by previous runners, I become squeamish about sharing the mug, and try to twist into a position where my mouth is under the spout of the water barrel.
Back on the trail I trudge onward. The sun has warmed up the surface of the trail, and there is no snow on it, but as it is now mostly bottomland, the footing is muddy with occasional small rivulets to jump over. (Barry will lose his footing trying to cross one and wind up sitting in it.)
I try running every now and then, at one point trying to get inspiration from trying to follow the lead of the only runner nearby, but it is really hard, and I'm deep in despair. I'm used to facing the inevitable 'bad patch' that comes in every long race, but this is going on and on. I start using the mileposts on the trail that occur every half mile to try to figure out how much longer I'm going to have to endure this agony, basing my calculations that walking at three miles an hour means each half mile will take ten minutes.
After a couple of miles of this, it finally dawns on me to check my actual pace. I take a split between MP 4 and MP 3.5 and am surprised to see that it only takes me about 8 minutes. I repeat the exercise the next half mile and get the same result. Suddenly, I don't feel so bad, and start to run more.
I get to the final aid station at Berryville Road, grumble to Megan C. and Michele P. about how badly I feel while thanking them for being there. I carefully cross the rocks over Hookers Branch stream without getting wet, take my time getting up the steep steps on the other side to climb the last hill and now am running at least half the time.
Somewhere between Black Rock Mill and near the finish Judith W. had fallen behind me. Now she catches up to me on the last half mile of the course on the unpaved packed dirt Tshiffley Road. We finish together. I'm beat, and concerned that I may not be up to the challenges that Miwok will bring in eight weeks. On the other hand, I finished in a time comparable to last year, under less favorable conditions and with less training, so maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all.
My time was 7:05. Kate and Holly finished in 7:48. Mark was done in 7:35, meaning he ran the last eight miles 20 minutes faster than me, a repeat of his performance from last year. Rebecca finishes her first trail marathon in 7:14. Barry brings his marathon home in a leisurely 7:20.