2022 Lost Turkey Trail Races 100K

It's 1:30am on a Monday morning and I'm eating a turkey dinner that, by my estimation, weighs about two pounds.

I have always noticed that in recovery from a tough race, my body follows a strict hierarchy of needs. When I got home late Sunday afternoon from running the Lost Turkey 100K, I had been awake for over 36 hours not counting the little nap I took Saturday afternoon before the race's 6pm start. I badly needed sleep, but I also had not eaten a real meal since noon on Saturday.

Which would take priority? My stomach told me, unequivocally. I ate a turkey dinner (just like the one I am eating now, both supplied by the race). After that I couldn't keep my eyes open no matter what I did, and I went to bed around 6pm.

But now it's 1:30, I've slept for seven hours, and I woke up kind of hungry. At first I thought to mollify my re-disgruntled stomach by feeding it a nutrition shake and going back to bed, but as I lay there (not going back to sleep) it became obvious that though it had accepted the shake (and some leftover popcorn that Karen had left on the kitchen counter) happily enough, it was still prodding me to go scrounge around for something more, and was now hopefully suggesting, "You know, that second turkey dinner might be good about now."

That's why I'm eating a two-pound turkey dinner at 1:30 in the morning.

But I've finished it now, and I'm pretty sure I'll be asleep again before I can finish this race report. Maybe I'll do this one in installments.

'night, everyone!

The Lost Turkey Trail (LTT) covers twenty-six miles, from the Babcock trailhead, on state route 56, near Windber, PA, to the top of Herman Point, in Blue Knob State Park - at around 3025 feet, the second highest point in Pennsylvania. Five additional miles of rugged trail connect the Herman Point terminus to the Chappells Field campground at Blue Knob, where race headquarters for the Lost Turkey Trail Races (LTTR) is located.

The race has variously offered 50K and 50M distances since its inception in 2016 (along with some shorter distances for normal people). The 50K buses runners to start at the route 56 trailhead, and they run the thirty-one miles back to Chappells Field. The 50M, I believe, covered that course, plus some side loops to get the total distance.

This year they went even bigger. Surely there must be some lunatics out there who would just run from Blue Knob to Babcock and then run back? It turns out there were sixteen. I was one of them, and this is my report of my experience at the inaugural Lost Turkey Trail Races 100K.

First Some History

Lost Turkey Trail was my first ultra experience - self-supported. My parents live in Windber (as do I now) and I was aware of the trail back when I first became interested in running ultras. One weekend in 2009, while visiting, I devoured a new book I'd recently picked up: "Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" - a book that romanticized, mythologized and popularized the little-known sport of ultrarunning for quite a few of us. My head was filled with visions of lithe, super-fit athletes gliding effortlessly over unimaginable miles of rugged terrain - for fun. It sounded epic. It was instantly something I wanted to do, and I wondered, "Why couldn't I just hike the whole Lost Turkey Trail, end-to-end, right now?"

A family outing was born. Me, my two children, nineteen and seventeen at the time, and my seventy year old mother were dropped off at Herman Point. As a group, we made it nine miles back along the trail, to the route 869 road crossing at Blue Knob's Burnt House Picnic Area. Those are without doubt the most brutally difficult nine miles of the trail. Mom and the kids were done. Mom - at, again, seventy - had earned epic status.

I persevered for nine miles more, making it to the site now identified on Google Maps as "3 State Vista," where I called for help and waited for the family to come pick me up.

3 State Vista
The states would have to be PA, MD and WV.

With plenty of time to sit, enjoy the admittedly spectacular view, and to think about my life choices, I figured out the answer to the question of 'why I couldn't do that' - because it was really danged hard, and I wasn't in anywhere near the shape I thought I was.

Two years later, in August of 2011, with what seemed to me at the time to be quite a bit more running under my belt - and with my first official 50K scheduled in early October at Oil Creek in Titusville, PA - I returned to Lost Turkey for a 'check-up' and a peak training run. This time it was just me dropped at Herman Point on a very warm, very humid morning. I had stashed a water drop near the overlook, at that eighteen mile point, and  I was determined to reach there and then cover the remaining eight miles to Babcock whatever it took. I did it, and it was an adventure I told in my first 'race report,' published as a rank newbie on the Ultra email listserv.

The day after this feat, when we all went out to a favorite restaurant for an Italian dinner, I used the accessibility ramp to get to the front door. Karen said I walked like a ninety year old man. Over the following few years she would revise my post-race apparent age downward by decades, as I continued to train and get fitter and stronger for the challenges I had chosen to pursue, and to recover from them faster.

For the record, very few ultrarunners (if any) "glide effortlessly over unimaginable miles of rugged terrain."

The Course

So I knew very well what I was getting into when I decided to sign up for the 100K. The five miles from the start to the summit of Herman Point were unknown to me, but the twenty-six miles of the LTT were pretty well etched in memory.

The descent from Herman Point is long and fairly steep - giving up around 1400 feet of elevation in two miles, bringing you to the level of two connecting streams, Ciana Run and Bobs Creek, near the Cox Monument - a memorial to the two 'Lost Children of the Alleghenies' who in 1856 were found, tragically, dead of exposure at this spot after a massive search mounted by local residents had failed to turn them up. This was a very big story locally at the time.

The early terrain. Herman Point (center right). Chappells Field near
center bottom, where "Blue Knob State Park" is labeled.

The trail passes by the monument, and then slowly ascends about 800 feet to the top of Stein Mountain before plunging, very steeply, back to the creek level and a crossing of Bobs Creek. That is immediately followed by another slow climb up Forks Ridge - back up 600 feet or so to the 2200 foot level. It then follows the ridgeline for about two miles before descending steeply once more to the Burnt House Picnic Area, returning to around 1600 feet elevation.

Those nine miles of trail I've just described are steep, rugged, rocky single-track. The steepest climbs and descents have no switchbacks, probably because they would be too hard to maintain. A long section of the trail along Forks Ridge parallels the ridgeline, but down along the steep flank, tipped sideways at about a 45-degree angle, offering uncertain footing at a place where a fall could be catastrophic. Few normal people would hike all of this in a day.

Leaving Burnt House, you ascend again on old logging roads and rail beds, following a winding, two mile path to the top of the apparently nameless ridge I generally refer to (from this direction) as the 'Allegheny Front,' and that locals (looking the other direction) refer to as 'Pleasantville Mountain.' This climb totals about 1200 feet, bringing you back up to about 2800 feet of elevation.

Burnt House (lower center).
Forks Ridge running north-to-south (center) leads there.
Allegheny Front and the Allegheny Plateau to the west.

At this point you've covered a bit more than half the 50K course and all of the big climbing is done. The rest is mostly double-track forest roads over rolling terrain at elevation, give or take a couple of two or three hundred foot 'humps.' You follow the ridgeline south to the vicinity of the "3 State Vista," then turn westward for eight-and-a-half miles or so to the Babcock trailhead.

Burnt House (upper right).
3 State Vista (lower left).

3 State Vista (center right).
Lost Turkey Babcock trailhead (center left).
Hollow Rd. and Pot Ridge, just right of center image.
Note: there's a scale change here - zoomed out to be able
to get both ends of this section in the same view.

It took me ten and a half hours to cover all of that on my self-supported trek eleven years ago, but I was hoping for better this time around.

Of course, this time I would have to turn around and go back.

Preparation

The LTTR 100K would be my thirtieth ultra start. I've done big trail races, 50K to seventy miles; road races, 50K to 50M; short-loop, fixed time races from twelve hours to six days; and one journey run of 314 miles over ten days. All of that experience inevitably has altered my perspectives on taking something like this on.

I know what it will be like. I know how to prepare. I know how my body responds, and what it will need. I know how to use all of the equipment I will bring, and everything the race will provide. I've run at night on rugged single-track before, multiple times. I've learned from mistakes. I've rolled with surprises. Above all, I've learned that simple, relentless forward progress - at almost any pace - will get an ultrarunner to most finish lines.

Confidence.

Really, the one worry I had leading up to this was that I might be over-confident; that I might be under-prepared, physically - but I knew I had good mileage under my belt coming in, and I'd had a pretty decent run at a trail 34-miler back in May to sort of 'jump start' my training which had, admittedly, fallen off a bit over the winter.

I was probably underestimating how long it would actually take me to finish. I always do (these things are so much easier in your mind before you actually start doing them) but I had the base endurance to finish within the twenty-four hour cutoff - the time limit for the race.

Race Day! - Outbound

The start, at Chappells Field - looking toward Herman Point.
I didn't know it at the time, but the couple (foreground) would be
consistent trail companions later in the race.

I made the forty-minute drive from my house to Chappells field in plenty of time to pick up my packet and be ready to start. RD Jen Soisson gave us a short pre-race brief on course markings and a few other things and in short order the sixteen of us were off and running. Most of the route up to the first aid station ("Hairpin") and to the summit of Herman Point was gradual, runnable up-grade. Feeling strong, I did run most of it, though I kept saying to other runners around me, "I'd better start running this like the old man I am or I'm not going to make it."

Always a tough call - making hay while the sun shines vs. keeping enough in the tank for later. The "sun shines" part of that was literal in this case, too. The more tough terrain covered before we lost the light to see well, the less we'd have to do by headlamp and flashlight.

I kept pace for a lot of this early time with a younger runner named Sid, and got to share some 'war stories' with him. I'm noticing that I can no longer pass for a young guy while I'm doing these things. Some people explicitly ask my age (and are gratifyingly impressed when I tell them). There was one other runner as old as me - about a month older actually - and the next oldest was twelve years younger.

Sid and I hung together all the way down Herman, until we bottomed out on the creek road near the Cox Monument and the Lost Children aid station. I had a little bit of a sit-down here as I ate some perogies and watermelon, while Sid carried on. The aid stations were well-stocked with some good real-food choices. For a sports drink they were offering Tailwind, and I took to keeping my one bottle filled with that, with water in the bladder of my pack.

I left Lost Children not too far behind another runner, and shadowed her a good bit of the way up the back side of Stein before losing contact. The light was noticeably fading during this climb, and eventually I had to pull out one of my backup pen lights to help me see the trail surface well enough to avoid something like a nasty ankle turn. I always resist going to artificial light, because once you do your world soon shrinks to the circle of your headlamp and stays that way for a very long time - but at some point safety forces the issue.

I decided to make do with just the pen light until I got back down off of Stein and made the Bobs Creek crossing. That way I could keep my headlamp protected in its zip lock bag in the waterproof compartment of my pack in case I slipped and fell in the creek. There was a nice, fallen-log 'bench' just on the other side of the creek, and I sat down there for a minute to pull out the headlamp and get fully into 'night mode.' The next ten hours or so would be me and my little circle of light moving through the nighttime forest.

Bonus Miles

Getting up and getting going again was already starting to feel like a chore. I was nine miles and 3500 feet of elevation change into this thing, and I was feeling it. It was time to engage not only the headlamp, but the experienced ultrarunner's understanding that, "Yeah, it's uncomfortable. What did you expect? Doesn't mean you can't just keep going."

The trail from here parallels Bobs Creek for a ways, and I took it at an easy lope, feeling my way into night running again (it had been a while). Unfortunately, the lope was too easy, and I wasn't good enough at the night running to notice when the hot pink tape trail markers turned to orange along the way. I came to a second point where the trail was clearly crossing back over Bobs Creek.

"Hmm. I don't remember this on the trail before."

But, hey, it had been eleven years. Maybe they'd rerouted things a bit. I crossed and continued on, happy and ignorant. Fortunately for me, I wasn't too much further along when I saw headlamps coming at me from the other direction. "That's strange," I thought. Even then, it didn't occur to me that I was off-course! I assumed it must be some race staff coming that way for some reason - though what the heck reason that would have been, I have no idea. The mind's ability to rationalize away the simple fact that you've screwed up is awe-inspiring.

"Pat?" (It was Sid.) "We're going the wrong way." (I still didn't quite get it.)

"What?"

"The markers are orange."

Slowly it all came together for me. The second creek crossing... duh! I turned around and led the way back. We turned another runner around at the creek, and came on a group of three more that had missed the turn before we found our way back to it. I continued to lead, joking, "I ran this trail eleven years ago. You'd think I would know it." It was probably something between a half mile and a mile back from where Sid had turned me around where I spotted the turn away from the creek and toward the ridge I knew we should be climbing to our west.

It could have been worse, and apparently, for some, it had been much worse. I think this navigation glitch led to some drops - and I think I even heard that some runners had actually ended up back at Chappells Field. It would take some pretty incredible mental fortitude to recover from something that demoralizing.

Am I In Trouble?

I started out strongly (for me) on the climb up Forks Ridge. It wasn't too long before the younger folk overcame their deference to the old guy who'd resolved the navigation error and passed me. I kep' climbin' - at my own pace.

It was on this climb that I began to think I might be in trouble. I just kept getting badly winded on anything steep, and I started having to stop periodically to suck wind and let my heart rate come down. The 'sidewise' section along the ridge was a stumbling, cursing mess with (again) lots of brief stops to collect myself. I was thrilled (and dismayed) when I finally reached the steep descent off the ridge, down to Burnt House.

The trail dumps you into a creek (Wallacks Branch) just at the bottom of the descent - within sight of the lights of the Burnt House aid station - but the creek bed sort of splits there, and the course markings were not obviously signaling which way to cross and pick up the trail on the other side. I might have spent as much as five minutes there going back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. It was maddening!

Clearly my brain was as fogged as my body was gassed. I was barely thirteen miles into this thing and I was already hoping for some sort of miracle of recovery at the aid station. In retrospect, what was happening here was that I was pushing through 'old man bedtime.' It takes a bit of a shove, sometimes, to convince the body that, 'no, we're really not doing the normal thing here today, and you really need to turn the furnace back up and roll with it.'

I had perogies and watermelon again - after filling my bottle with Tailwind and immediately draining it upon arrival.

Aid Station to Aid Station - In Praise of Volunteers

By the way, I should take a moment to say a few words about the aid stations. You run these things aid station to aid station, each one appearing - especially at night - as a beacon of hope, an oasis in the wilderness - and it is volunteers who make the aid stations happen in the vast majority of ultras.

Appreciate that there were just sixteen of us out there Saturday night. Sixteen! The 50K would not start until 6am. Nevertheless, there was a full complement of volunteers at each aid station along the way. The Bedford County Amateur Radio Society supports the race with communication (and benefits from race entry fees). Race HQ is informed when each runner arrives at the next aid station.

Not only were there a lot of volunteers, these were some of the best I've seen, showing a dedication to the job, and an eagerness to help each runner that was, in my experience, a cut above the usual excellent standard you find in most ultras. And let me remind you again, these folks came out to spend all night helping sixteen lunatics run through the night. A huge thank you to each and every one of them!

Burnt House to Skyline

"Beware the chair," is an ultrarunning maxim - and one that I've never held to. I find that after a tough section, arriving depleted, and questioning my ability to go on, just a five or ten minute sit-down to eat some food and rehydrate in a mode of relaxation can work wonders for both my attitude and my physical condition. After about that amount of time here, I heaved myself up, refilled my bottle with Tailwind, and headed out, directed back onto the trail by the aid station captain, wished well and encouraged to be careful.

Immediately ahead of me was the 1200 foot climb up the Allegheny Front. I was not optimistic, but I sure wasn't ready to quit this early!

It turns out wonders have not ceased. As I started power hiking again up what was a much gentler grade than the climb up Forks, the calories I'd just pounded at the aid station started hitting my bloodstream, my brain cleared, and my attitude quickly turned positive. My pace was strong and (even better) sustainable! I power-hiked the entire climb, non-stop, and when I hit the ridgetop I started adding in some running again as I worked my way steadily down-ridge, about five miles, toward the Skyline aid station.

I have to confess, the whole thing turned out to be at least a mile or two longer than would have been ideal in my opinion, but I kept up a pretty good pace, even as I faded and started hallucinating signs of civilization that might mean I had finally reached the aid station. (These weren't 'real' hallucinations, but just tricks of my headlight, catching a glimmer off a white tree branch, or a reflective marker of some sort on a tree trunk.)

I must have made good time though, because I caught up to a group of three runners who stopped at a water drop - oddly placed less than a mile from the aid station. I didn't remember seeing them at Burnt House, so I'd certainly gained ground on them over this long section.

Skyline to Windber

I was ready for a sit-down again at the Skyline aid station, which I needed not only to eat, drink and recover,  but to change the batteries in my headlamp, which had started to dim the last few miles, and I'd had to supplement it with one of my backup handhelds. They were grilling hot dogs here, and I had one. I let the three other runners move on while I finished sorting myself out and moved on myself.

From here it was about four miles to a water drop on Hollow Rd., and then another five-ish miles to the turnaround aid station at Windber. There would be one steep climb, about 300 feet up Pot Ridge, just past Hollow Rd. Apart from that big landmark, this would feel like a long trek down a dark tunnel. The headlamp, circle-of-light effect was getting old. I mostly just trudged, head slightly down to light and watch my footing, in relentless forward progress mode. I briefly saw the other party of three at the water drop but, again, let them move on ahead of me.

Apparently there was little distance between me and this group the whole way after we briefly met during the navigation problem all the way back at Bobs Creek. I suppose some might wonder why I didn't make more of an effort to stay with them after making contact. Part of the answer to that lies in that word "effort." Matching someone else's pace takes effort. Sometimes you feel up to a brief jog and sometimes you just want to trudge, and a group pace is some implicit negotiation of those individual feelings. I'd rather do my own pacing - run my own race.

Also, I do most of my running alone. I'm an introvert, I like a lot of solitude, and prefer my socialization in small doses.  'The loneliness of the long distance runner' - just being in my own head space for many, many hours - is a happy place for me. So far, I haven't worked out the formula for world peace while trudging through the night during an ultra, but one day - who knows?

The last mile or two leading into the turnaround at the Babcock trailhead are another difficult section - very rocky and rooty. I was getting depleted again, making the footing even less certain, and I really had to carefully pick my way along. It just seemed to go on forever!

I'd started encountering the lead runners returning along the course back shortly before Hollow Rd., and I continued seeing others - most of them on this last, difficult stretch. I'd counted seven of them altogether. Being 'only' twelve miles behind the leader at this point didn't seem too bad to me.

Turnaround - Windber

Finally reaching the aid station, I found my party of three there - and also Sid, about to head back down the trail on his return.

------ <begin whine>

It's here I have to voice my one disappointment with the support. I'd been conditioned to expect a good choice of hot foods at the aid stations - something special and filling - in addition to the usual array of snacks and candies you find at an ultra aid station. The best the Windber aid station had to offer was some cold potatoes in little cups and some lukewarm broth you could pour on them to slightly warm them up. I would find (spoiler alert) when I got back to Skyline, that they had folded up the hot dog operation by then and were reduced to normal aid station fare there, too.

It seemed the race organizers had decided to offer something special for the 100K runners through the night - which was an absolutely great idea -  but scale back those offerings once the 50K got underway in the morning. This had the effect on me, as a 100K runner, of seeing support dry up just as I was beginning the harder half of my race. I joked with the aid station folks at Skyline on the way back, when they asked what I needed, "I'll take my eggs over-easy, with hash browns and bacon, please." But I wasn't completely joking. I could have used a solid, hot breakfast somewhere in the vicinity of sunrise.

I think the root of the 'problem' here may be the night start. I think many long, trail races - 100-milers - have their aid stations break out hot, real food at night to help runners through those dark, difficult (and often cooler) hours. In a 100-miler with a typical, morning start, those hours also happen to correspond to when the runners' circadian rhythms are falling, and they're reaching their depths of depletion and exhaustion. In this race the darkness and the exhaustion didn't quite correspond. The hot food was welcome and wonderful on the way out, but it wasn't quite needed the way it is at night in a 100-miler. That sort of need came (for me, anyway) in the morning - when the food went away.

Hey, I'm an experienced ultrarunner, and I really don't mean to make too much of this. I came in assuming minimal, normal aid station support, and I was carrying a nutrition shake and two meal replacement bars for just this kind of nutrition support on the back side of the event. I rolled with it. I really just offer this observation as feedback on an inaugural event - fodder for planning for next year?

I would suggest at least make sure there's something solid and filling available at the turnaround for all of the 100K-ers - and let them know if it's likely to be shutting down on the way back.

------ <end whine>

So I had some cold potatoes and broth and a bag of chips at Windber. Maybe some watermelon, too. I checked the time. It was after 4am - ten-plus hours since I started. I guess that meant I did cover Lost Turkey itself faster than I had eleven years ago. Still, I had hoped to be turning around much sooner.

Daylight would be coming soon, but there would still be two hours of near-total darkness, and a little longer before trail visibility under the trees would be good enough to go without light - and my headlamp was dimming again.

I'm a yutz when it comes to prepping light for nighttime running. When I'd checked my lights and batteries at home a few days prior, I'd found that we only had random odds and ends of AAAs in our battery bin - but we had quite a few of them. I really should have gone out and picked up some fresh lithiums for all three of my lights and for spare batteries to carry with me, but I didn't. I just loaded the headlamp and the two backup pen lights with what seemed like the best of what we had, confirmed they all threw bright light, and packed enough spares for one replacement for each light. I was already on the second set for the headlamp. I'd been using the first backup off an on, but it was still throwing great light. The second backup had been untouched, and I had replacement batteries for both of them. I was pretty sure I had ample light to get me the final two hours through the night.

Still, I asked the aid station volunteers if they happened to have spare batteries. They didn't, but a woman who I think was there with her husband to crew another runner overheard my concern, checked with her husband, and offered me the batteries out of his headlamp. I sheepishly and gratefully accepted, kicking myself again for being such a moron. I'd have probably gotten by as I was, but the extra confidence of having the headlamp fully brightened up would be a welcome relief from worry.

Thank you again, whoever you are!

Okay, Just Do it All Again

As I sat, recovered, and dealt with all of this, two of the group of three runners I'd been following headed out. The third, it turned out, would drop there at Windber. I kind of wish I'd realized he was making that decision. I might have tried to talk him out of it, get him moving back the other direction with me, give him a chance to maybe find his legs again at my 'old man pace' and have a shot at reaching the finish. There was still a lot of time. But I didn't know, and I headed back out not too long after the other pair had left. A few hundred yards down the trail, one of the aid station volunteers caught up with me to inform me that I was now the last runner, and that a sweeper would soon catch up to shadow me down the course.

That would be a novel experience for me! I'd never been 'swept' before. Honestly I was surprised. Never having really thought about course sweeps before, I had always pictured it as a runner following the course at cut-off pace - and that if they caught you that meant you were effectively dead and probably forced to drop at the next aid station. In reality (at least in this race) they sent somebody out to follow along behind the last runner in line. Now, the way this race was structured, they could have sent one sweep behind the last 50K runner and effectively swept both races, but they had a separate sweep for each.

Knowing someone was trying to catch up to me proved to be good motivation on top of the recovery I was (again) enjoying from the aid station stop. Somehow the rocky, rooty section going back out seemed like no challenge at all, and was over in what seemed like no time. I made it to an unadvertised water drop on an unnamed road, maybe two or three miles from the aid station, that I'd seen on the way in - with no sign of a headlamp chasing me down from behind, and I was pretty happy with that. Shortly past there, I met the outbound sweeps (who apparently were sweeping that direction more like what I always thought) and they confirmed again that I was the last runner and would soon be joined by a different sweep coming back my direction.

They also told me I'd be overrun by 50K runners soon ("within a half-hour or so"). I resolved to try to postpone that for as long as possible, too. With my recovered pace after the aid station stop, I was chewing up ground pretty efficiently.

However...

I'd made the mistake of not availing myself of the porta-potty at the aid station to try to take care of some usual morning 'business,' and as I moved on down the trail, I was increasingly regretting that oversight. When I eventually reached a point where there was a lean-to shelter campsite just off-trail, I decided I had to bite the bullet and detour to find a place to take care of the problem. It was a good place to get pretty far off-trail without bushwhacking through tick-infested underbrush - and who knew but that there might even be an outhouse? It turned out there wasn't, but I did find a good, out of the way spot. As Murphy's law would have it, while I was 'occupied' I saw a headlamp appear over on the trail, about to go by me.

"Are you the sweep?" I yelled.

"Yes," came a female voice in reply.

"I'm the last runner. I'm over here taking a dump."

Not exactly the way you'd choose to meet a stranger you're about to spend a lot of time with, but we're all ultrarunners and we all know you've gotta do what you've gotta do out there. When I emerged back onto the trail, Victoria was patiently waiting, headlamp off. We had a brief conversation. I told her I hadn't been swept before. She told me she'd follow along behind me, that some runners prefer to run with the sweeps, while some prefer them to hang back. I told her I'd be fine either way, and she chose to hang back. Don't know if that choice had anything to do with the circumstances of our meeting. True to my word (and my personality that I've already described) I was fine with it. :)

So I hunkered down and made the best pace I could back across the plateau toward Skyline, Victoria dawdling along behind me, most often far enough back that I couldn't even see her headlamp. I caught up with the other two runners at Hollow Rd. and we traveled together for a short distance until my pace fell off theirs a little and I let them go. We'd stay mostly in sight of each other all the way to Skyline though.

It was on the long, slow upgrade toward Skyline that we were first passed by the 50K leaders. That was pretty satisfying - it had taken much longer than the thirty minutes the outbound sweeps had estimated.

I once again took a little more time at the aid station than the other two runners, but I would regain line-of-sight contact with them later, along the ridgeline, and catch up to them again at Burnt House.

Burnt House Redux - and Gut Check

Getting back to Burnt House had been on my mind for many, many hours. My experience getting up onto the ridge and across to Windber and back over the plateau had been decent - the usual cycles of ups and downs, of moving better and worse, against a backdrop of basic, persistent discomfort - but I had not forgotten how those last big climbs coming into Burnt House the other way had absolutely kicked my butt. When I got there coming this way, I'd be facing those same big climbs and descents now with about forty-eight or forty-nine miles on my legs.

I didn't know how I could do it. Well, okay, actually I did. I would have to get up and down all of it one step at a time, however I managed to keep taking that next step. I expected it to be brutal, painful, and ugly.

To give myself the mental strength to face it and go on after Burnt House, I needed to do two things: 1) I needed to make the best time I could getting there - buy myself as big a margin for those last thirteen miles as I could; and 2) I had to keep reminding myself of the sunk cost I'd have invested by the time I got there. If you can stay mindful of the pain and effort you've already put into it (which, honestly, isn't too hard when you're feeling all of it at the time) it puts you in a mindset where you're going to insist on really being beaten before you'll quit!

I did make good time getting into Burnt House. Remembering the gradual slope of the hike to the ridgeline, I hoped to be able to run a good bit of that going down - and I did. On the way, I passed a struggling 100K runner who was not one of the two I'd been shadowing for miles. I asked if he was ok, and he said he was. There isn't too much one runner can do for another out there when the problem is just the physical ability to move well. We're each left pretty much to our own struggles there.

I was no longer the last 100K runner though. You just never know, if you keep pressing forward at the best you can do, what may happen in a race.

Burnt House was busy when I was cheered in there. There were a lot of volunteers, my two other 100K runners, and two or three 50K runners hanging out. I checked the time on arrival. I think they said it was about 10:15am. I drained some Tailwind, and sat for just a few minutes, eating something and chatting with the other runners. Victoria came in while I sat there, not realizing that the struggling runner she'd last passed was actually in the 100K. He came in not too long afterward, behind a couple of more 50K runners, at just about the time I was ready to leave.

I got my butt up, refilled my Tailwind bottle, and headed out - ahead of the other two 100K runners also (not that I expected that to last). I mentally estimated that I was setting out at 10:30 or a little before - and that I had seven-and-a-half hours to cover the final thirteen miles. If that sounds like ample time, it was - which was just where I wanted to be. Psychologically, it told me, "Just keep moving and you'll make it. Don't sweat it. Do what you can do. Do your best without killing yourself and don't worry about it. You'll make it."

I was fueled and rehydrated. I'd pounded my nutrition shake a while back as breakfast. I had the two meal bars I wouldn't hesitate to use anytime I felt my energy dropping. There were aid stations at about six and ten miles away. There was a lot of race in front of me, but I was as ready as I could make myself to get through it successfully.

Leapfrog

Unsurprisingly, the other 100K pair soon passed me on the big climb back up Forks Ridge. Kind of also unsurprisingly, Victoria soon caught up to me. The other guy had made the (no doubt very difficult) decision to drop at Burnt House. From what Victoria said it seemed his feet were trashed - sounded like blisters and maceration. I was bringing up the rear again, and pretty much expected it to stay that way now. I did not expect to see the other two again.

I started leap-frogging one of the latter 50K runners along the top of Forks Ridge, and this would continue pretty much the rest of both our races. This was his first 50K, a step up from having run the half-marathon here the previous year. By my assessment, he was running well. His biggest problem was that he'd chosen to run this in a pair of slick Adidas road shoes. There are some trail races where you can get by with road shoes if you prefer them, but LTTR is not one of those! Every time the footing got difficult I tended to catch and pass him, and all of the extra slipping and stumbling he was stuck doing had to be costing him extra energy as well as time.

Victoria and I got into close contact again on the trail section along Bobs Creek - just before the crossing and the beginning of the climb up Stein. The 50K guy pulled ahead again here.

Stein. Was. Brutal.

In this direction, the climb is almost straight up - 800 feet of elevation gain in less than half a mile. I would not be surprised if it took me most of an hour to get up it. I literally had to stop about every fifth tree to lean against it, hunched over, hands on knees, sucking wind and waiting for my pounding heart to slow down a bit. Each time I started upward again, I was immediately put back into oxygen deficit as the cycle repeated. Victoria patiently followed along behind, and we had some of our best chats here (when I could speak).

After what seemed an eternity, I finally came to a fifth tree and realized that the grade had leveled out. I knew that time I could recover on the move and I just kept walking. After a hundred yards or so, I was walking strongly, and when the next easy downgrade came along, I ran.

I ran a good bit of the long, gradual descent down the back side of Stein, passing the 50K guy through a rough section along the way, and came into Lost Children - surprise! - to find my other two 100K companions there. I told them I hadn't expected to see them again, and they joked that they didn't want to lose my company. Of course, they were about ready to head out and I was in need of my usual brief rest, refuel and rehydration. They took off, and our usual pattern continued.

If I recall correctly, Lost Children still had a few real food items leftover. 50K guy came in, shortly followed by Victoria and another young woman - the 50K sweeper. They chatted like friends. One of the volunteers gave me the bad news about how far I actually still had to go. (I tried really hard to make it just two miles from Lost Children to Hairpin, but he insisted it was four. I accepted what he said... skeptically.)

Ahead of me was just one last big climb, but it was a doozy - 1400 feet back up to Herman Point. It wasn't going to climb itself, so once again I heaved myself up out of a chair and then started down the short road section leading to the foot of the climb. I shouted out to Victoria, letting her know I was heading out.

"You won't have any trouble catching up to me on Herman!"

She agreed she wouldn't.

One of the only photos of me on the course.
This was just at the foot of the climb up Herman.
(photo credit - Linda Wible)

Neither of us anticipated the effect that 'smelling the barn' would have on my effort (though I should have anticipated it). The grade on Herman was ever so slightly less than the grade had been on Stein - and I made an important discovery: on this grade, if I started sucking wind immediately when I started moving, like I had been sucking wind whenever I had stopped on Stein, I could keep moving for much, much longer before I got so far behind on oxygen that I had to stop and rest.

I actually made pretty short work of the first steep section, then was immediately able to power hike and run a bit on the short, 'bench' section before the final climb. My competitive juices kicked in and I started taking perverse pleasure in trying to make it as hard on Victoria as I could. Near the top, after the road crossing halfway up the mountain, I heard a group of 50K runners coming behind me - and rather than follow my usual pattern of letting them catch and pass me rather than letting them push me, I pushed to reach the summit before they could catch me - then I continued to push to beat them to Hairpin (which I did).

Once again, I found my two 100K friends there, about ready to leave. The 50K group came in shortly behind me. From here, there were just four miles left to go - mostly flat or downhill - and barring something catastrophic, a finish was guaranteed. This, you may not be surprised, was a very good feeling.

At the End of the Day

Photo I took from the Pavia Lookout on the flank of Herman.
Looking straight out over the sign, I believe you're seeing Forks Ridge,
just above the near tree line, with the Allegheny Front on the horizon.

I set off, with the group of 50K runners not too far behind me. They passed me on the first decent climb on a short, loop section on top of the mountain here, and I was content with that. I was definitely in a 'let's just get this done without killing ourselves' frame of mind at this point.

When I hit the steep, rocky, major descent off Herman, I caught up to 'my' 50K guy again, struggling with the miles on his legs and the poor footing with his road shoes again (as far as I could tell). That fired up my competitive juices a bit again, as I'd have disliked having him pass me again this late in the route. I was hoping I could finish ahead of at least one other runner in either race!

I hadn't remembered this section being so long and rocky on the way out, and it was really starting to annoy me! When was this going to end? I was so ready to get off that stupid mountain at that point.

Then I caught up to my 100K friends again, sitting down for a break alongside the trail. They greeted me happily, but quickly got up and started moving again. I asked if they knew how far we had to go, and the guy (the pair was a man and a woman) told me he thought it was a little less than a mile.

'Racing' at the end of something ridiculously long and exhausting like this can be a pretty farcical thing. I don't think any one of the three of us felt like doing much more than just trudging it out and being done - but somewhere in each of our minds (at least in mine, anyway) was the notion that we'd each like to trudge it out ahead of the others.

Picture something like a walker race at a retirement home and you might not be too far off!

I think the woman could have beaten me if she'd wanted to, but the man was struggling. I followed along behind him for a way as she opened a pretty large gap between us. I was pretty sure he was pushing himself to keep me behind him, but eventually it became clear that my power hike was stronger than his, and he let me go by. I just kept pushing at the strongest hiking pace I could muster, and was steadily catching up to the woman. When she looked behind and realized it was me on her heels, and that her companion had fallen behind, she stopped to wait for him and let me go by.

Well that put me into a new position - literally actually, but I mean mentally. I honestly don't like passing people so close to the end of a race. It feels petty to me, even though it's absolutely fair. When it happens, it burdens me with a sense of responsibility to prove that I deserved it - to put an undeniable period (so to speak) on the statement made in the passing.

I continued expanding the gap between us with my power hike and some light, downhill jogging. Then I finally broke out of the woods and onto the double-track, grassy trail I remembered from the start. It was an upgrade this direction, but I knew I was within half a mile of the finish - so I kicked it and ran the whole thing, coming in at the finish about five minutes ahead of my competitors - satisfactory.

My finish time was 22:38:22 (twenty-two hours, thirty-eight minutes and twenty-two seconds). I had just a little over an hour and twenty minutes to spare on the twenty-four hour time limit - not the great time I'd been hoping for going in, but I finished seventh of nine finishers out of the sixteen of us who'd toed the line the previous evening - and the next oldest finisher was fourteen years younger than me.

The rest of the story I told in the introduction.

It mostly had to do with turkey dinners.

Final Thoughts

I had an absolutely fantastic time at LTTR! It was a triumphant return to big, mountain trail running after a pretty long hiatus. I'd done nothing on this order of magnitude since Laurel Highlands in 2016.

I highly recommend the race. There are not that many 100K trail races around, and this one is legit. Granted, it was an inaugural event, thinly competed, but Hellgate, by comparison, has never had a finish rate as low as this year's LTTR, and I believe no one has taken as long to finish Hellgate as more than half the finishers took to complete this. The race is also extremely well supported.

I don't know if Jen and her team want it to get bigger, but I honestly feel it could become one of the premier trail races on the east coast (or at least in the northeast) if they keep it going and word gets around. I'm doing my part here, for those who have the perseverance to read the formidable number of words I'm capable of putting down. :)

Thanks, Jen, thanks, all you volunteers, thanks, all you fellow runners - and congratulations to all you finishers!

A unique finisher's memento - a 3D printed rendering of the course
(elevation to scale)

Also, this heavy 'metal' - stamped from 1/8" sheet steel