Devil's Tramping Ground: Part Two
Recapping the 2024 Uwharrie 100
What follows is a continuation of part one. I hope you enjoy. Remember to subscribe and share.
Before I saw the lights, I heard the music. The strings of lights lined the trail as it led to the start/finish. The light of the start/finish line grew brighter as I approached. I finished my second lap in just over seven hours for a total of 13, with one lap to go. It took a minute to wrap my head around the swarm of people that surrounded me.
I saw Tony, Jen, Cameron, and Stacey. Then the NASCAR pit stop started. A chair appeared. My bottles were filled. Drop bag opened. I (brilliantly) gave Tony a checklist a few days before so I would not miss anything before my last lap. Food. Check. Warm clothes. Check. Liquids. Check. Change sock. Shit. Back in the chair. My shoes were off in an instant and Jen was cleaning my feet. I (stupidly) had not turned my toe socks right-side out before the race, which I found out the hard way.
Finally ready to depart, with a hamburger in hand, Tony and I marched out of the aid station and into the dark. I was instructed to tell him the story of the “Rez Bear.” Once I was done eating, I went into every single detail of the battle I had been waging for my local trails. I also gave him a rundown on what to expect from the course because I was now a pro after two laps.
I had never been paced before and we spent some time figuring out how to handle it. Leading did not sound great for Tony as I had some awful gas. I am also prone to move too fast when I lead. We tried side-by-side but that didn’t work on the singletrack. And we tried having him lead. We eventually alternated leading throughout the night.
Night had fully set in when we arrived at Crossroads. I went through my routine of resupplying while Tony, ever the social butterfly, chitchatted with the folks we knew from TUFF. I head back into the night with Tony promising to catch up.
The darkness played tricks on your eye. The yellow and white blazes I had been following all day had reflectors in the middle for visibility at night. The trouble was that I thought the whole blaze was reflective, when it was only a small reflector in the middle of the blaze. This made them appear much further away than they were. It took me much longer to figure out than I care to admit.
There were people backcountry camping all over the course. I would have turned around and gone home the second I realized there was a race going on, but these people did not. Most of the night, we were talking as loud as possible, just having a jolly good time until we realized we were right next to a campsite. Something would always catch your eye, and I would automatically turn my head to investigate, only to realize I was shining my headlamp directly into someone’s tent. I felt this was fair payback for hearing “you are almost there” over and over through the day.
The rugged, “simply unrelentingly” nature of the course began to take its toll, which was entirely expected. I had trouble moving my legs to walk, let alone navigate through technical terrain. Every foot placement was now deliberate or I risked falling. I used my trekking poles to offset some of the difficulty. I made my final ascent up Sasquatch Summit, one step at a time, taking breaks along the way as needed. I remembered being very concerned about falling off the edge, a concern I did not have the two previous climbs in the daylight.
I finally made it to the top and realized that this was the last time I would have to climb Sasquatch. It almost made me sad. Everything hurt but I loved what I was accomplishing, plus every step was now a distance PR because the furthest I had run previously was 34 miles. The sadness quickly vanished once I reached Soul Crusher and I remembered that I was on the toughest section on my toughest lap in complete darkness.
You can see several of the blazes way ahead when climbing Soul Crusher at night. The problem comes with how far above you they seem. You begin to wonder if you even have the legs to make it up the climb, let alone finish the race.
The race holds monthly training runs that begin in March with the URE Marathon and continue until October, a couple of weeks before the race. Somehow my schedule conflicted with all but one training run. Making that training run was a Godsend though. The entire run was done in the pouring ran but I was able to see the course and I went into the race having respect for what I was about to attempt. I may have had 36 hours to complete the 100k, a generous time that would not have been offered unless it was part of a 100-mile race, but the course had the ability to end my day if not treated with the respect it deserved.
During that training run I also discovered how lonely it is in the woods. I have backpacked before, but I was generally with someone or was somewhere with a lot of people. Out there, aside from campsites, you may as well be in a desert. I joked with a friend a few weeks before the race that I was going to meet the devil out there in the middle of the night if I was not careful. That put into motion my effort to find a pacer.
Coming down Soul Crusher was harder than going up. We kept hearing noises that sounded like a bear. I knew there were not many, if any, bears out there so I tried to rationalize that in my head each time I heard the noise. “He’s here for my soul!” I thought each time I heard it. I finally was able to associate the noise with a tent and realized I was hearing people snore.
We came up on an injured runner as we approached Kelly’s Kitchen. I went ahead because I needed to move faster than she was moving, but Tony stayed behind to help her into the aid station so she could drop. At the aid station I was greeted my more TUFF members, Emily and Tony, not my pacer, but also with an M last name. My pacer Tony introduced himself to other Tony’s kids as “Tony M” to avoid confusion. I sat down a chair and munched on a hamburger. I felt so grateful for the volunteers at the remote aid stations in the middle of the night. They just see the carnage and none of the joy at the finish line and no one really knows they are there except the runners they help.
Tony stuck his phone in front of my face. Princess Anna appeared and demonstrated how to use her wand. My wife got her back on task and asked her to tell me I was doing a great job. The camera panned to my infant son who started to choke on an apple before my wife turned the camera to herself and told me to keep moving. A wave of emotion hit me. This was a lonely endeavor, and I missed my family. I was so happy to see that video in the middle of the woods. I could not believe that Tony went through the trouble reaching out to my wife to have that video ready for me. I found out later that it was intended to be used at mile 40 if I needed motivation to go back out.
With that, I turned on my headlamp and we headed back out. As we left, one of my legs swelled up in an instant and it felt like my shoelace was cutting into the top of my ankle. I had to stop and loosen my laces. Emily mentioned something about how I was crushing her finish time from a few years prior and that was the first realization that I might actually finish this thing. 10 miles to go. One foot in front of the other. It was a simple task.
When we reached Crossroads for the final time, we ran into Kory who was running the 100-miler. He sat by the fire, wrapped in a blanket. Thinking he had dropped and I had caught him while waiting for a ride out, I felt really bad for him. I tried to avoid the topic as we shook hands. I mentioned to Tony as we left that I hated that for Kory and Tony reminded me that he was headed out on his fourth lap. My little ultra-brain was unable to figure out that he was headed out as I was headed in and that I had, in fact, not caught him. Relieved, we pressed on.
My body hurt. Over 20 miles further than I had ever gone before, the last six miles were brutal. My toes began to blister because I was walking funny. I wished for hills because going up was easier than going down. But none of that mattered. I just needed to keep moving and I would finish it. With three miles to go, I ate the last gels I was going to eat for the race and asked Tony how fast he could run a 5k. He told me 18 minutes and I suggested we do that to end the suffering.
I started to see signs that we were getting close: the boardwalk I knew was a marker that we were almost done and he glow of the lights leading to the finish line. As we made our way through the chute, I turned off my lights (so as not to screw up my precious finish line photos) and folded my poles (so as not to poke out someone’s eye).
21 hours 50 minutes and 49 seconds. The first person I saw a was Ryan, the RD. He gave me a hug and put my medal over my head. I barely had time to react before I swarmed by angels. Jen, Stacey, and Rebecca wrapped me in a blanket and led me to the fire pit to get warm. They helped take care of my gear and get me fed. I told Jen that I was not a part of TUFF when I signed up for the race, but I damn sure would not have finished without the group.
In the weeks leading up to the race, I was certain I was going to meet the devil in the dark, lonely hills. Alone, physically and mentally, I was easy prey. Coming off two DNFs, I did not know how I could even fathom finishing the 100k on a course like Uwharrie.
What actually happened was I found a community of angels I did not know I had. Of course, I have my wife. Despite what she says about ultrarunning, she is my biggest supporter. I also put out a plea for a pacer at the last minute that I thought went unheard until I found it to be the opposite. Several people were looking for me and Tony stepped into fill the void and I would not have finished without him. TUFF was there to set me up for success going into my final lap and to try to put the pieces back together when I finished. They were also scattered throughout the course at the various aid stations, running, and pacing. It only took my 100 kilometers to figure what a wonderful community I have.
So maybe this Godforsaken figure eight ain’t so bad after all.
Great pair of race reports, congratulations!! I'm signed up for the 100K this year, that was a great insight.