kilt

The North Country Trail Races held in Manistee, Michigan proved to be a memorable experience.  Personally, the race was an abysmal failure (more on that later).  Despite my own poor showing, this was a weekend filled with great stories. The 50 Mile Finish The headline HAS to be the finish of the 50 miler.  Jesse Scott , my occasional training partner, pacer at Burning River , and friend was running his first-ever 50 miler.  He battled with Brad Hinton over the last miles of the course that culminated in a neck-and-neck sprint at the end.  See the video here: After some delay, Brad was awarded first (Brad in white), Jesse second (shirtless).  In my biased opinion, I think Jesse crossed the finish line first.  Unfortunately the officials (I believe the decision was made by Bart Yasso) ruled in favor of Brad.  Both Jesse and Brad were absolute class-acts and perfectly epitomize the sport of ultrarunning. The finish was even more dramatic as Brad h...

August 14th, Fallsburg marathon , Lowell, Michigan.  I set a personal worst for the marathon distance.  I experienced things in this race I have never experienced before.   Cramping.   Dead legs.  Extreme nausea. To top it off, I missed a turn and ran an alternate route for about a mile.  I have a seriously painful bruise on the arch of my left foot.  My body feels the cumulative effects of being beaten up repeatedly, and is not responding well. Despite all this, Fallsburg proved to be one of the most fun races I've had the opportunity to participate in.  I got to watch Shelly finish her first marathon ( read her race report here ), which she totally rocked!  I was exposed to an entirely new set of trails I had never run before.  I got to catch up with several people and meet many more. Shelly and Jen Jordan finishing Before the race, I was able to chat with a bunch of people including fellow Hallucination 100 finisher Tim Adai...

Part 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 Merriman Road to Memorial Parkway (3 miles, 96.3 total) This was a mostly flat section comprised almost entirely of tow path.  Shelly was now pacing me.  We walked a lot.  I peed a lot.  Apparently I was hallucinating a lot... I repeatedly asked Shelly if she had said something.  She had not. When she did talk, she told some more stories of the crew experiences throughout the night.  I really don't remember any of them.  We were passed by a handful of runners at this point, including a pair that were running.  I marveled at their ability to run at this point.  We were also passed by a few runners unaffiliated with the race.  All seemed aware of the race as they congratulated me for making it this far. Shelly reminded me of all the vomit piles during this section.  She could identify them as Burning River runners based on the partially-digested aid station food.  It was pretty gross. We were passed b...

Part 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 Pine Hollow #2 to Covered Bridge #1 (6.6 miles, 80.8 total) This section started innocently enough.  I drank a Red Bull at Pine Hollow, and it definitely picked me up!   Within about two minutes of leaving Pine Hollow for the second time, I felt a surge of energy that I hadn't felt since mile 20.  I felt very good physically and mentally.  My legs were still stiff, but the only pain radiated from my left Achilles.  Jesse and I were making great progress.  I don't remember if I ran at this point, but I was definitely hiking faster than I had over the last few sections. I'm pretty sure this was about the time Jesse and I started discussing his Mind the Ducks 12 Hour performance.  At the end of the race, Jesse ran one half-mile loop at a blistering 5:20 pace.  It was the fastest lap anyone ran all day... after he had already run over 64 miles.   I have also witnessed Jesse exhibiting this kick on some of our ...

Part 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 Boston Store to Pine Lane (4.1 miles, 58.6 total) This section was filled with memories.  In 2008, I was on a death march.  It took me about two and a half hours to navigate this 4.1 mile section.  This year, I was feeling immeasurably better.  I had Shelly to keep me company.  The trails were pretty gnarly, including an incredibly root-laden stretch.  This section was a net gain in altitude, so I powered uphill more than down.  We tried to stick with the 10/2 ratio, but our efforts were thwarted by the hills. Shelly gave me the run-down of the crew's experiences throughout the day.  As I expected, their day had been spent frantically rushing, relaxing, and laughing.  She told tales of goiters, the dude that had his crew spray him down with Axe body spray, a side-trip to a gourmet deli at a local grocery store, Jesse fixing our car (the guy really is the jack of all trades), Art's unnaturally-large big toes, and som...