Sauratown Shuffle
Fear and Loafing at the Pilot Mountain to Hanging Rock Ultras
“Motherfuckin’ fuck,” I muttered to myself repeatedly as if it was some kind of mantra for the day. I had been chasing a cutoff for a few hours but had resolved not to miss it. I had a second wind and was flying down the road. Unfortunately, there was a swamp between me and the cutoff, and that nasty bitch Helene had taken her fury out on it.
The Pilot Mountain to Hanging Rock Ultra is a running race from, well, Pilot Mountain State Park to Hanging Rock State Park in the Piedmont of North Carolina. The route runs along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail for nearly the whole race. The course is mostly singletrack but has some road sections between the parks. Both parks are situated in the Sauratown Mountains, north of Winston-Salem. The 2024 edition was the 10th running of the 50k and 50-mile race.
What the race’s name lacks in imagination, it makes up for in views. From the top of Pilot Mountain early in the race, you can see all along the course to Moore’s Knob in Hanging Rock State Park. I ran the 2023 50k as my first ultra and was back to see the rest of the course and maybe get a little redemption from my DNF at Philmont the month before. The icing on the cake was that my friend, Cyndi, gave me an entry on behalf of LOWA Boots.
“All Roads Closed in Western NC, Do Not Travel in Western NC” read the signs on Interstate 40. “That’s a bit dramatic. All the roads in Western NC are closed? No one can go anywhere?” I thought to myself as I sped down the highway the day before the race. Having just driven through a band of Hurricane Helene an hour before, I had a hard time believing those signs were necessary1. Luckily (or unluckily), my destination of Danbury, NC was accessible, and it was turning out to be a beautiful day as the sun started to break through the clouds.
The race held a virtual meeting the night before I left. They indicated that the storm had taken its toll on the course, and it was still raining heavily even as they held the meeting. The race staff, however, communicated that they were confident the race would be held as planned, but they would reassess in the morning when the rain subsided.
I arrived at my rental house in the afternoon. The sun vaporized every drop of rain from the hurricane, turning it into humidity just in time to unload the car. I figured this was going to be a problem the next day. I picked up my packet and prepared my gear for the next day. About 7 pm, we received an email from the race director with an offer to drop down to the 50k distance. I thought about it until after the deadline, deciding that I needed to stick with the distance I signed up for, conditions be damned.
It was pitch black and chaotic when we pulled into the trailhead parking lot just after 5:30 am. The only light came from the red glow of the tail lights. My wife and I tried to park in one spot and got yelled at to move. Then tried something else and got yelled at again. I finally told my wife to just leave because it seemed we could not do anything right.
The runners milled around a bit before the pre-race meeting. The RD, Rich, told us the state of the course and how his team had worked tirelessly over the last 48 hours to ensure we would have a race. He said that it all came together in the last 24 hours. He warned us that the course was still muddy and there were a lot of trees down, especially on the first half of the course. I accepted my fate as we started filing to toward the start line.
The first section was six miles of smooth and relatively flat single track that took us to the first aid station (and the start of the 50k race). I knew I wanted to get there before they started since it would be a huge mess if I did not. I settled into a good pace but kept hitting blowdown after blowdown. And where there was not a blowdown, there was mud. So much mud. I had to crawl over and under and through tree after tree. Despite all of this, I kept moving at a good pace and hit the aid station with about ten minutes to spare before the 50k gun.
We headed up Pilot Mountain. The trees were not nearly as bad but where there were, they were nearly impossible to get around. On a wide, almost dirt road section that I would have run in normal conditions, I had to tiptoe through because the leaves concealed the rocks and roots. My first sign of trouble came during the big climb up to the top of Pilot Mountain. I struggled and nearly everyone behind me ended up passing. I did not understand where my legs had gone. I was only 12 miles into the race and I could hardly move. Feeling defeated, I finally rounded Big Pinnacle at the top and made my way to the aid station.
Coming down the mountain did me no favors either. More trees. More mud. No time recovered. As I approached the road out of the park, I knew there was not a chance in hell I would make the first cutoff if things did not improve. Luckily, this next section was mostly road, and I would be able to make up a little time. I caught a second wind, ticking off a few faster miles and gaining back some of the time I lost. Things were looking up.
There did not appear to be a way through. The deadfall sucked you in with the trail terminating in the heart of it. Turning around, my shirt got caught, as if it did not want me to leave. “Dammit!” I muttered, growing frustrated that I was losing all the progress I had made in the last few miles. I could not even see a social trail that had been the norm throughout the day to get around the blowdowns. Another runner popped up and mentioned that he would stick with me through this section since he was lost. This only frustrated me more because now I felt responsible for this guy, and I could barely take care of myself. He proved to be no help navigating through the mess and I was quickly rid of him.
Eventually, I found a route around the deadfall only to come up on a new one every few hundred feet. My phone buzzed and my wife let me know that she was going to be at the next aid station with our children and that gave me a little bit of motivation to keep moving. Seeing their faces boosted my spirits but my daughter refused to get out of her chair for a photo because she was “busy eating strawberries.”
In the shadow of Sauratown Mountain, the mile-22 aid station greeted me with snacks and water. I knew my situation was dire as I only had 30 minutes to cover three miles that traversed the side the of the mountain. I joked with the aid station volunteer that it was a good thing that one of my strengths was 15-minute 5ks through the mountains. Despite the knowledge of the impending cutoff, I gave it hell.
I ran when I could, but mostly hiked up the side of Sauratown Mountain. The woods were well maintained and felt like there was a lot of open space as the trail switchbacked up. Just over the top, I passed a couple of guys that had mailed it in. They encouraged me but I could not tell if they were being genuine or not. As I came down the mountain, I crossed a few creeks and experienced a new sensation. My feet slid all the way to the front of my shoes as I ran down hill with the soaking wet shoes and I had to revert to a walk… I mean power hike.
With just under a mile to go, the cutoff came and went. I decided to keep moving to preserve my pride. I finally emerged on to the dirt road that led to the aid station, excited to see my friends Cyndi and Cameron and hoping one of them would drive me to the finish line. Unfortunately, I was greeted with the news that the race had extended the cutoff by 20 minutes and I would have to continue. Cameron filled my water bottles as I restocked my nutrition from my drop bag. As I got up to leave, I heard “do you have a podcast?” and I finally got to meet Craig, who works for Trivium. He told me that he recognized my voice and we introduced ourselves before I headed up the road.
Having made the cutoff, I gained some new life as I left the aid station. The next section was a gradual grade up a gravel road, my favorite terrain. Excited to make up time, I pushed this section, but the sun had decided to make an appearance and I quickly overheated. This is when I realized I left one of my hydration flasks at the aid station. I kept an extra flask in my vest in case one burst but that would do me little good until I was somewhere I could fill it. The cruel irony was that Helene had dumped so much water on the course that the creeks were overflowing and this section had to be rerouted to the asphalt and away from the creeks and I could only breathe in the humidity for hydration.
The asphalt hammered the final nail in the coffin. Priscilla, another Trivium RD, drove up beside me and said I looked good, but I knew she was lying. Hot and dehydrated, I rolled in to the mile-29 aid station having already decided I was done, but knowing I still needed to cover four more miles to get to a convenient drop point. As I death marched in, a woman yelled at me, telling me to eat something. I did. And reluctantly left. A volunteer followed me out so he could begin picking up the course markings. He told me he was going to follow me out and I asked him if that was a threat.
The last four or so miles were a mix of sloppy single track and asphalt, most of which were uphill. It was one foot in front of the other until I finally reached the best view on the course as I approached Hanging Rock State Park. Behind me, I could see everything I had covered throughout the day: Pilot and Sauratown Mountains. A reminder of how far I had come. To my left, the field gently sloped away revealing the mountains on the horizon in Virginia. In front of me loomed Moore’s Wall and a reminder of how far I still had to go.
I stumbled into the aid station at the Tory’s Den parking lot at mile 34 with 15 minutes to spare before the cutoff. I hoped someone would pull me but that never came. I may have made the cutoff but to make the next one, I would need to cover 10 miles across the most difficult part of the course in just over two hours. I needed to cover that distance at about 13 minutes per mile through some very technical single track with about 1500 feet of gain, but I had been moving at about 20 minutes per mile on asphalt. With that information, I pulled myself from the race. I decided not to be a liability to the race knowing I was not going to finish anyway.
Already on her way to meet me, my wife had pizza in the car which taunted me the whole drive to the rental. We ate and I got cleaned up and drove to the finish line to get my drop bag. The timing worked out as I arrived just in time to see my friend Natalia finish her first 50 miler. Seeing her and others finish filled me with regret, but that always happens with a shower and some rest. You forget the pain and the condition you were in just a few hours earlier and wonder why you quit.
They were.