“I am going to cut off my f*****g piece of s**t hamstrings
and feed it to the raccoons!” That thought imprinted very vehemently on my mind
as I stomped my hiking poles on the trail in the middle of a 1200 feet steep
climb starting out of Old Dial Road at mile 75ish. Two points of note here – one,
luckily, I did not have a knife/machete/sword/epee etc. Two – the use of the
word “steep” in the previous sentence is superfluous when describing any
section of the Cruel Jewel (CJ) course. The course is 108 (or, thereabouts)
out-and-back with over 30K ft of elevation gain/loss. The course website says
33K ft – I am not sure about that number, but I won’t argue too much. It is a
hard course, but not particularly technical. There are some occasional
rocks/roots, but, for the most part, the trail is very runnable. On the
downhill sections. Last year, I did CJ, but the course was what I considered a
baby CJ course. Due to rains (and general BMTA a**holery), they had to reroute
the “back” part of the “out-and-back” through a significantly easier section.
Accordingly, although I officially did CJ 100 last year, I thought I had
cheated to gain the finish.
So yeah, fast forward to 2015, and here I found myself at
the CJ 100 starting line. Coming off of several good training runs, including
doing SCAR a month ago, I was feeling pretty good. I had set myself a very
challenging goal time of 30 hours (time limit is 48), and that (and adrenaline)
played a bit of a role in the first section of the course – 21 miles from Vogel
State Park to Skeenah Gap. A subsection of this – about 4 miles between Fish
Gap and Rhodes Mountain (~mile 20) – is probably the hardest part of the course
with the climb up Rhodes being pretty ridiculous. I thought I was not pushing
myself too much, and still I found myself at Skeenah in under 5:15. That was
almost half an hour faster than I had ever done that section! On the plus side,
I got to run a bit with Kevin (from Philly) and Lee (from Akron) for a bit on
this section, and that was fun. Another exciting part was getting to the Fish
Gap AS and diving into the scones that Molly made. As I rambled down to Skeenah
Gap, I saw Alicia. I wasn’t expecting to see her for another 5 miles – so that
was a pleasant surprise.
I was feeling pretty good at this point, and the feeling
stayed on till the next aid station at Wilscot Gap. Mostly – I started having
some issues with my stomach. It had been pretty muggy (80ish and humid), and I
may have had more neat water than I probably should have had. And, then, came
the first signs of rosy things not continuing to be so. The next section
between Wilscot and Old Dial road (miles 26 to 32) went much slower. Correction
– the section between Wilscot and Deep Gap (26 to 42) was fairly slow. My
hamstrings started complaining (although not the point stated in the beginning
of this post), and I had to bite the bullet and take alleve around mile 40 –
sooner than I would have liked. Just after Old Dial Road, Lee and, then, Kevin
passed me and I think I was quite grumpy at that point. I tried to keep up with
them, but they were faster (probably to escape a grump).
Descending to Deep Gap, I saw someone running up the trail
faster than I was going down it. Karl Meltzer was already 18 miles ahead of me!
I stepped aside and said “good job” and got a dismissive “thanks” in reply. Oh
well. After deep gap, I got to a very annoying part of the course – Aska Lollipop
done counterclockwise. Now, this section is quite fun going clockwise, but
awful the other way. All the nice smooth downhill sections in the clockwise
direction are now unrunnable uphills.
The last 3ish miles to the turnaround are
on the road, but not too bad. There I was – 13:15 hours after the start to the
turnaround. On the way back, there is an extra 5ish mile section – so, I was
not quite halfway. Still, I thought I had a reasonable chance at being under 30
hours. And, then (well, not immediately) came the section between Old Weaver
Road and Stanley Gap. Halfway between the two gaps (mile 66ish) just before the
sun came up, I started having a lot of trouble staying up. I got passed by
Kevin and another guy (I will call him the Bostonian due to the way he
pronounced “coffee”), and they both seemed a bit concerned about my state. I
assured them it was just a passing phase and I would feel better once the sun
came up. And, soon it did and so did I. Things from there back to Old Dial Road
(mile 75) went reasonably well, and I caught up with and passed Kevin. And, then, came the climb up on BMT (Benton
Mackaye Trail) from Old Dial Road with its cutting-of-the-hamstrings shenanigans.
Somehow, I managed to crest the climb just before the downhill into Wilscot Gap.
At Wilscot, I caught up with the Bostonian and he was
surprised to see me – he said he thought I was done with when he had passed me
at dawn. I guess, I might have been – had it not being for my quads
strengthened by countless feet of jarring downhill on SCAR a few weeks ago: I could
still maintain a decent pace on downhill sections. As I started up from
Wilscot, I soon ran into Alicia who was doing her run backward on the course
from Skeenah. That really perked me up and the section to Skeenah went pretty
smoothly. There, Alicia gave me my elixir – ice cold Starbucks frappucino! I checked the
time – I had just over 6 hours remaining till the 30 hour mark. That was going
to be tough – 21 miles on (mostly) the Duncan Ridge Trail. But, maybe… Let’s
just give it a try.
In the section between Skeenah and Fish Gap, I passed two
people, and surprised myself by taking just over 1:30 on this section. Still a
chance to get under 30 hours! Then, things got bad, and I took almost 3 hours
to get to the next aid station at Whiteoak Stomp (almost 8 miles). I had to take
a short break midway to pop my second alleve of the race.
In the state my hamstrings were in, I was dreading the climb
up Coosa. But, I didn’t realize I had a secret weapon there – Alicia had turned
up at that crew stop and offered to go up Coosa with me! It was slow and
painful, but I was perked up now to make up Coosa without too much whinging. On
the big downhill (about 2200 ft in about 4 miles), I realized that my tired
quads still had enough juice and I ran down at a reasonable pace. I caught up
with Lee and someone else halfway down Coosa. I was reasonably buoyed up at
this point that even the most annoying section between Wolf Creek and Highway
180 (3 miles of uphill that it just steep enough to not being runnable, but you
don’t really feel you go anywhere) did not damped my spirits too much. And, then
final mile. I was in a lot of pain, but tried to make it a sprint finish (or,
what felt like one). Final time 30:44 – a bit over what I had myself a goal of,
but still very satisfied with the result.
With the slow going and pain at mile 40 before the first
alleve kicked in, I was toying with the idea of dropping out. But, as someone
formerly famous once said – “pain is temporary, regret is permanent, and drugs
take you far.”
PS: There were reports of course marking being tampered with
on the Benton Mackaye Trail. Given how much BMT Association (BMTA) hates
runners and their ongoing efforts to ban races (or, probably even anyone going
over 1 mile/hour and not carrying a 60 lbs pack replete with banging pots and
pans hanging outside), I would not put it past someone from BMTA doing that.
