Stump Jump
As everyone knows, fall is definitely the best season ever. As the summer heat gives way to the autumn cool and as starbucks begins to offer its pumpkin spice lattes, trail races across the south start to get into gear. Stump Jump didn't waste any time as 200 runners line up on October 2nd in Signal Mountain's High School parking lot on a cool, sub 60 degree morning to start a great day of 50k racing.
My parents had come into town and had gotten a hotel room for me to crash in Friday night. As per my usual pre ultra ritual, I stop by a starbucks en route to the race and pick up an Americana and a delicious pumpkin scone, a great way to warm anyone's day up.
Coming into this race I had thought I'd use it primarily as a training run for Pinhoti and not so much as a "race" race. That mentality lasted all the way up until Matt Sims yelled "GO!" over the loudspeaker. I started off with a somewhat hard pace with the intention of avoiding the inevitable conga line that builds up once the runners hit the trailhead after exiting the half mile worth of asfault that leads us there. The first 3 miles of double track leads us to the all too familier mushroom rock where I have made plenty of other memories during other races in this area (I got lost pretty badly here the first time I ran a race through this intersection of trails.)
We make our way down and up the first two (and really only) major hills and arrive at the first aid station at a road intersection. Not needing much aid this early on in the race (mile 5 I think?) I pass a few people and make my way across the road to the next trailhead. By now I'm with a fairly large group of runners who seem to be running a good pace. Before long though, I start to get suspetious about the trail we find ourselves on, or lack thereof. Indeed, the lead lemming took a wrong turn and about 15 people followed. Foretunately though it didn't take us long to figure out our error so we didn't loose more than about 4-5 minutes of time. (The trails were well marked throughout, but someone had made a little bluder that cost the rest of us a few minutes. no biggie.) The trail took us up to the rim of the mountain and onto some very scenic acres of wood. Between the passing trees one could see out to some great views of the Tennessee River in the valley severl hundred feet below us.
Several more miles pass without incedent and I arrive at an aid station that I recognize from pictures I'd seen in the June 2010 issue of Trail Runner. This aid station is situated underneath a large rock formation that makes for an interesting place to chow down on some m&m's. I would find out later that this was sort of the release point for the "lollipop" loop that makes up the entire course.
Thus far I had been able to more or less figure out where I was in relation to the starting line but the next couple of miles threw me off a little. These were all new trails to me so I just sorta let myself loose track and just enjoy the race (paying special attention to the flags that marked our route.)
Arriving at the mile 16 aid station, I was welcomed with a particularly peppy race volunteer cheering everyone in sight up the hill to the table of goodies. From here on out, I began passing a large number of people. All those who started out too quickly started bonking and I was taking advantage.
I wasn't immune to hitting walls either, though. Between the 16 and 19 mile mark I hit my low point of the day. I wasn't feeling too bad really, but I could tell I needed some replenishment. I truged my way to the 20 mile mark where food and beverage a plenty were waiting on me to consume them.
After downing some coke, water, bananas and m&m's I almost immediately felt better and started off on the last 11 or so miles, retracing my steps from earlier in the day. (If you imagine the route like a circle on a stick, I just completed one portion of the stick and the circle, and now I was heading back down the "stick" the way I had come.) The next 5.8 miles seemed to fly by. I was catching up on my salt intake with an extra dosage of S!caps to keep cramps away. With that taken care of, all systems were green.
I passed a few more runners who were slowing down at this point and hit the road crossing for the second time, about to head back up and over those first two hills that started the race off. Maybe I was growing over confident or just careless, or maybe the law of probabilities had finally caught up to me, but going down one of those hills, I guess there was just one stump I didn't jump. My foot hit something and it came very close to knocking me completely off balance and sending me down a steep hillside. I execute some new dance moves to get me back onto the trail and continue on, a little more cautiously than before.
10-20 minutes later and I had passed several others going those hills and before I knew it, I was on the final stretch. I tried to pick up my pace a bit; I was ready for that finish line. A mile and a half left and I was, and maybe for the first time all day, starting to feel the suck. Though I wasn't cramping, 30 something miles were starting to take their toll, especially as I was trying to run the rest of the trail back to the starting line.
Eventually my feet once again meet asfault and it's just one more little hill before the finish line is in sight.
Overall, I placed 30th out of 125 finishers with a time of 5:30:40, but really that information was trivial compared to the awesome time I had on the Cumberland trail that day. The weather was great, the volunteers did outstanding work with the aid stations and the race director did an exemplory job with the whole event (not to mention, I got a lot of great free stuff from the sponsors). No doubt I'll return to these trails at the genesis of next year's autumn.
My parents had come into town and had gotten a hotel room for me to crash in Friday night. As per my usual pre ultra ritual, I stop by a starbucks en route to the race and pick up an Americana and a delicious pumpkin scone, a great way to warm anyone's day up.
Coming into this race I had thought I'd use it primarily as a training run for Pinhoti and not so much as a "race" race. That mentality lasted all the way up until Matt Sims yelled "GO!" over the loudspeaker. I started off with a somewhat hard pace with the intention of avoiding the inevitable conga line that builds up once the runners hit the trailhead after exiting the half mile worth of asfault that leads us there. The first 3 miles of double track leads us to the all too familier mushroom rock where I have made plenty of other memories during other races in this area (I got lost pretty badly here the first time I ran a race through this intersection of trails.)
We make our way down and up the first two (and really only) major hills and arrive at the first aid station at a road intersection. Not needing much aid this early on in the race (mile 5 I think?) I pass a few people and make my way across the road to the next trailhead. By now I'm with a fairly large group of runners who seem to be running a good pace. Before long though, I start to get suspetious about the trail we find ourselves on, or lack thereof. Indeed, the lead lemming took a wrong turn and about 15 people followed. Foretunately though it didn't take us long to figure out our error so we didn't loose more than about 4-5 minutes of time. (The trails were well marked throughout, but someone had made a little bluder that cost the rest of us a few minutes. no biggie.) The trail took us up to the rim of the mountain and onto some very scenic acres of wood. Between the passing trees one could see out to some great views of the Tennessee River in the valley severl hundred feet below us.
Several more miles pass without incedent and I arrive at an aid station that I recognize from pictures I'd seen in the June 2010 issue of Trail Runner. This aid station is situated underneath a large rock formation that makes for an interesting place to chow down on some m&m's. I would find out later that this was sort of the release point for the "lollipop" loop that makes up the entire course.
Thus far I had been able to more or less figure out where I was in relation to the starting line but the next couple of miles threw me off a little. These were all new trails to me so I just sorta let myself loose track and just enjoy the race (paying special attention to the flags that marked our route.)
Arriving at the mile 16 aid station, I was welcomed with a particularly peppy race volunteer cheering everyone in sight up the hill to the table of goodies. From here on out, I began passing a large number of people. All those who started out too quickly started bonking and I was taking advantage.
I wasn't immune to hitting walls either, though. Between the 16 and 19 mile mark I hit my low point of the day. I wasn't feeling too bad really, but I could tell I needed some replenishment. I truged my way to the 20 mile mark where food and beverage a plenty were waiting on me to consume them.
After downing some coke, water, bananas and m&m's I almost immediately felt better and started off on the last 11 or so miles, retracing my steps from earlier in the day. (If you imagine the route like a circle on a stick, I just completed one portion of the stick and the circle, and now I was heading back down the "stick" the way I had come.) The next 5.8 miles seemed to fly by. I was catching up on my salt intake with an extra dosage of S!caps to keep cramps away. With that taken care of, all systems were green.
I passed a few more runners who were slowing down at this point and hit the road crossing for the second time, about to head back up and over those first two hills that started the race off. Maybe I was growing over confident or just careless, or maybe the law of probabilities had finally caught up to me, but going down one of those hills, I guess there was just one stump I didn't jump. My foot hit something and it came very close to knocking me completely off balance and sending me down a steep hillside. I execute some new dance moves to get me back onto the trail and continue on, a little more cautiously than before.
10-20 minutes later and I had passed several others going those hills and before I knew it, I was on the final stretch. I tried to pick up my pace a bit; I was ready for that finish line. A mile and a half left and I was, and maybe for the first time all day, starting to feel the suck. Though I wasn't cramping, 30 something miles were starting to take their toll, especially as I was trying to run the rest of the trail back to the starting line.
Eventually my feet once again meet asfault and it's just one more little hill before the finish line is in sight.
Overall, I placed 30th out of 125 finishers with a time of 5:30:40, but really that information was trivial compared to the awesome time I had on the Cumberland trail that day. The weather was great, the volunteers did outstanding work with the aid stations and the race director did an exemplory job with the whole event (not to mention, I got a lot of great free stuff from the sponsors). No doubt I'll return to these trails at the genesis of next year's autumn.
Comments
Post a Comment