Mount Mitchell
Challenge!
In the winter of 2016-2017 trail runner magazine came out
with an article about the best winter races.
The one that caught my eye was the Mount Mitchell Challenge. A 40 mile race that goes to the top of the
highest peak east of the Mississippi. Unfortunately,
the lottery for the race was in September of the year before so I missed
2017. Out of the five lotteries that I
entered for 2018 running races, this was the only one I got in.
The race goes from the town of Black Mountain through the
private college community of Montreat and then up double track trails till it
hits the Blue Ridge Parkway. From there
it traditionally goes on road into Mount Mitchell state park and then to the
summit! This year, they changed the
course to cut a bit of the road part to the top and instead go through the
single track, rugged Old Mitchell trail.
Then we took the road back down back to the double track to a slightly
different route back into Montreat and took smaller roads back to the town Black
Mountain. The race has about 4800 feet
of elevation gain and of course you have to get back down! For reference to my city folks, Harlem hill
has about 82 feet of elevation gain.
The elevation gain wasn’t the crazy factor for me. Just in NY, close by Breakneck marathon had
10,000 feet of gain in Coldsprings and the Whiteface Sky race in the ADK has
8,000 feet of gain in just 18 miles. The
new factor for me was that 1/3 of the course was on the road and most of the
rest was on double track where I’m use to my ultras being out on single track. So the course overall is easier and I feel
like you could get away with training mostly on roads for this one.
I arrived to North Carolina two days before race day. I did a moderate trail in Montreat run up Graybeard
Mountain via Graybeard trail and then made a loop going down the West Ridge
which went through some of the seven sisters (short hills) before descending
back to Montreat. 9.1 miles and 2700
feet of elevation gain! I planned to use
my Nike Trail running shoes that I got for free from my 100 miler in the fall for
the race but on this trail run I found that in the descent my toes hit the
front. The shoes were too small. I recently got max cushion shoes and while
they are comfortable, I found them extremely heavy when they got some mud so I
switched back to my Brooks Puregrits.
These shoes have finger wide holes on both sizes and easily have done
more than 600 miles but my quest for trail running replacements haven’t been
going well. The day before I did an easy
trail run in the River trail by the agricultural Ward Wilson College, a flat 5
miles. The Town of Black Mountain is by
Asheville which the podcast hosts of No Meat Athlete are from. One of the host specifically moved to
Asheville because it was more vegan friendly so I was excited to eat around as
well.
The Fear of Pain
I recently realized that I could run a lot faster than I
previously thought. I have always run at
a comfortable pace for most of the race before pushing hard at the end. I always thought it of it as running smart. However, from racing shorter distances I
realized that I didn’t even know what I was capable of. When was the last time I blew up during a
race or hit the wall? I was determined
this race to start off a bit faster than what I would usually do and see what
happens.
Nutrition
I did both my practice runs wearing my Ultimate Direction SJ
racing vest but in the race briefing the night before I learned that aid
stations were only 5 miles apart. So I
decided to waist belt and double bottle it.
I had one ultimate direction hand handle and another Salmon soft flask
that wraps around your wrist. The Salmon
flask has a pocket where I stashed a few gels and my waist belt stored my gel
flask and more gels. I brought 24
Science in Sport gels for $7 during a promotion they had so I used them for
gels and I used my hammer gel flask which stores about 5 gels in a tiny
bottle. I planned to use the Science in
Sport gels first, they had water in them so I used them to get some of my water
needs in well. At aids stations I
usually ate two orange slices and then moved on. I drank about 28 ounces of water during the
almost 7.5 hours I ran the race. Overall
I felt like I didn’t need much. I ate my
first gel at 45 minutes and then ate another every 30 minutes or so. Halfway I ate half a banana and near the
marathon mark I felt slightly off so I ate a few chips and a shot cup of coke
soda. I ended up not eating half my
hammer gel flask.
Start line
I parked at the finishing area of the race about an hour
before start time. Easily got a
spot. I had laid out half my gear out in
the dashboard of my car the night before.
Bad idea, in the 20 minute drive quite a few things fell and got tossed
around. It took me about 45 minutes to
get ready. I actually had to rush out
with one of my bottles only a fourth filled up.
I ran about a half mile to the start, got in the bathroom (thank
goodness for a real bathroom at the start) and joined the 500+ runners at the
race 3 minutes before start time. Had
enough time to tie my shoes and move near the back of the pack. The race has two distances, the challengers
who are doing the 40 miler and the marathoners who will run only to the Blue
Ridge Parkway and then turnaround. 500
people was a lot for an ultra and it had a road running start feeling to it.
The first 13 miles
The first 3 miles of the race were on main roads going to
Montreat. I maintained about 10 mile
pace with some steady elevation gain. I
passed a few people here and there. Then
we hit the double track where the pace quickly picked by. Passed a lot of people in the next few miles
here. It was hard not to get excited
when you finally hit the trails. Despite
the uphill the pace was quick but I stuck with it. I passed by the first aid station without
getting anything. The next few miles you
started to go back and forth with some people which allowed for some small
conversations. A guy gave me some of his
dried mango which I found delicious.
Conservations were a mostly about where you’re from, training, and gear
you’re wearing. I met a man that is
running this race for the 19th time and he talked about someone else
on course that is doing his 21st one (that’s every year since the
race started). This man ended up running
a lot faster than me and it blows my mind that someone who started running this
race when I was around eight years is still crushing it! As the trail got steeper I fell into a jog
walk but still moved on the quick side. Around mile 11 I started seeing the marathoners going back
down.
The Road Ascent
At around mile 13 we hit the Blue Ridge Parkway and started
a 2.5 mile ascend up on road. I drove up
this road the day before to take some pictures from the summit of Mount Mitchell. Recently, I stopped carrying a phone with me
while racing (since I should be focusing my attention on moving faster) so I
like to take my time the day before getting the photos. It was weird seeing the road from this point
of view. I started jogging up, I figure
that road would be a good way to do well on time but about a mile in, I got
passed by three individuals walking. So
then I started walking but I couldn’t walk as fast as these three. I fell about .8 of a mile behind by the end
of the 2.5 mile road ascent. Then the
course turned to single track, rugged trail with plenty of roots and
rocks. It was very similar to Catskill
terrain. It was also wet from the light
rain and fog. I made good time here,
easily passing those that passed me earlier.
I talked a bit with a man from Atlanta before I picked up the pace. I kind of just went whatever pace was natural
for me but people afterwards would tell me I crushed it there. Two miles later and we end up right below the
summit. A volunteer marks an S on my
bib. Summit and turn around to the aid
station. I eat a bit more here since I’m
halfway done before moving on. Now the
way back down is all roads till we are back on the double track. I was expecting to make good time here. Maybe 9 minutes a mile but I found my pace to
be around 10:30 a mile. I didn’t
practice running downhill fast so I wasn’t able to pick it up here. I found it different that running downhill on
trails which I am somewhat good at. Halfway
through the three that passed me on the initial road climb passed me
again. I started feeling off towards the
end of this section and then I touched my neck to find that there was a lot of
salt on it. As I hit the aid station at
the end of the Blue ridge parkway I decided to drink a shot cup of coke with a
few chips to get some salt and calories back in. I passed a few runners here with my shorter
time on the aid station.
The Double Track Downhill
The double back down was pretty rocky. I sorted of noticed on the ascent but on the
downhill I guess your feet hits the ground a bit harder so you feel it a lot
more. I did well here. I passed by quite a lot of runners. I talked briefly with a man from Burlington,
NC, it seemed like quite a few people were here from there. He was pretty impressed that I could manage
this race while training in NYC. The
double track became less rocky but still downhill and I slowed a bit here. There were quite a few splits of the trail
and the course wasn’t marked that well in my opinion. On the way up there were so many people so I
had no trouble finding my way but now I was running alone 95% of the way. I checked the map of my watch on a few of the
splits; I pretty much had to assume that the larger trail was the right
way. After what the first aid station on
the way up was is now the last aid station on the double track trail the trail
became a very steep downhill. I flew
down but at one of the turns I couldn’t tell if I went the right way (again
marking wasn’t as frequent as I’m used to).
So I went back up and found out that I was going the right way. I wasted two or so minutes here which sucked
since I was moving so fast.
Back to Black
Mountain!
The double track trail ended on Montreat roads and now the
road descend was crazy steep. It was the
steepest road downhill I ever encountered (even steeper than San Francisco
marathon downhills). I passed by an aid
station manned by Montreat college students.
As I got closer to finishing I thought about tips about moving fast that
I have gotten recently. I focused a bit
on picking my legs up a bit. A small
section cut through park trails and in one of them I spotted orange marking in
the middle of a stream and more orange marking on the other side. It was hard to tell at this point if they
belonged to the race or not. I jumped to
the giant boulder in the middle and was ready to jump into the stream to get to
the other till I realized that the orange marking on the other side was no way
a trail. I must have wasted 3-4 minutes
figuring this out and then proceed to continue the usual route. Found more orange marking so I assumed that
the other orange marking were a county or town mark for something else. Rest of the two or so miles went
smoothly. The race ended with a loop
around Lake Tomahawk.
After the race they had food in a community center
building. They had some delicious
mushroom soups and I filled up on bread with peanut butter, bananas and pinto
beans. I talked with a few of the
finishers and even a bit with the overall winner Morgan. He finished the race in 4:20, more than three
hours faster than my 7:23! Others that
finished the race said it was easier with snow since that covered up
rocks. It was the second hottest
temperature of the race, high 60s in the bottom and high 40s on top. After a little more than an hour of relaxing
and talking I went back to Asheville to get a postcard which ended up being a
lot harder than I thought. Next was
dinner and then the 10.5 hour drive back to NY!
I had two free beers that I could have claimed where they were doing the
overall awards but I thought that to be a bad idea before a long drive.
