me all fall down.

Late February in Pennsylvania sometimes means snow, cold rain or, as is the case this year, clear skies and mild temperatures.  You just never can tell.

What you can count on is another running of Pretzel City's Ugly Mudder, a self-proclaimed "doggone ugly way to spend a day" on the trails on Mt. Penn.

The trails are plenty rocky and, depending on the whim of race director extraordinaire Ron Horn, full of steep climbs. This year, apparently, he felt the need to add a few more and steeper inclines than last year.

I've been climbing well as of late (and enjoying the hell out of it), so this should have played in my favor.

I can't seem to turn down a good climb, however, and had made the mistake of putting some time in on Mole Hill the day before (though it was good company, Steve).  Not the wisest decision the day before Ugly Mudder, not when I recover like the 37 year old I am rather than the 24 year old who's body I sometimes seem to ignorantly think I am in possession of and certainly not when that trip up/down Mole also resulted in a body-jarring fall on an iced-over log.

Anyway, Jefferson and I drove to West Reading on Sunday morning relaxed and ready to run and I was blissfully unaware of any latent fatigue.  The weather was perfect.  I have no idea what the temperature was but I felt perfectly comfortable in shorts, tights, long-sleeved t-shirt and lightweight windshirt.  There was just enough chill to merit the addition of gloves and a hat, but there was little wind (unlike the day before when friends at the FebApple 50 were pummelled with wicked gusts all day long) and the sun was shining.

The Ugly Mudder had been added to the renowned La Sportiva Mountain Cup, a series of a dozen or so sub-marathon distance trail races strewn all around the country each year.  This lured out some fast legs from afar (here's a race report from eventual 3rd place finisher and La Sportiva-sponsored runner Jason Bryant: http://lifethroughtheeyeofarunner.blogspot.com/2012/02/la-sportiva-mountain-cup-ugly-mudder.html) and added further interest to an event that routinely draws over 700 participants all on its own.  If I understood correctly, there were over 700 pre-race registrants and another 150+ on the day of the event, though the posted finishing times would suggest either a lot of DNF's, a bunch of no-shows or some combination of the two.

Long story short, there were a ton of bodies packed behind the starting line and only a couple of hundred yards before those bodies needed to funnel into an uphill section of singletrack.  I'd hit that clogged mess the year before and made up my mind to stay ahead of the fray if at all possible.

I managed to meet that goal and scampered up that first climb somewhere just behind the lead runners and the next chase pack.  I hadn't gone far, though, before I recognized that I was working on two tired legs.

Dumbass.

The flat in-the-park start and quick transition to singletrack was comparable to last year but, if I'm not mistaken, we actually took a slightly different route up that initial climb than we did in 2011.  If anyone reading this can confirm, I'd appreciate it.

Regardless, at some point we were back on familiar sections and I settled into as quick a pace as I could manage in expectation of maintaining it throughout the full 7 miles.  I wanted to be going a bit faster, but I was definitely "racing" and pushing the pace any harder at that point was sure to bring on a bonk later.

No more than a mile or two into the race, we hit a road crossing at which runners were receiving on-the-fly course instructions from the Horns, Ron and his lovely bride and fellow person-who-makes-Pretzel-City-happen Helene...the very sound of Helene's voice makes me happy and the smile she always (and I mean always) has to offer only adds to that happiness. 

There was a steep 5-foot section of poured concrete that led from the trail down to the road surface and it had three or four runners in front of me drawn basically to a stand still.  Determined to keep moving, I scooted by them on their left and leaped almost to the bottom of the "step", fell forward, rolled on my shoulder, popped back up and kept going.  It happened quickly enough that my brain failed to process an "ouch".  Seeing Ron a few feet ahead, I decided to run behind him so I could give him a congratulatory smack on the butt.  In doing so, I gave myself an odd angle back onto the trail and didn't really make sense of his advice to "look out for the cable" before falling to the ground a second time, having struck said cable full on with my left shin.

While my brain FULLY processed the "ouch" and even found some time to go back and address the one it had missed a moment earlier, I mumbled something like "oh, that cable?" and dragged myself back to my feet.

Dumbass.

Not only had I fallen off my pace but I wasn't going to get back there right away as the next short section was a relatively steep scramble up to the Pagoda.

A peculiar out-of-place landmark, the Pagoda has loomed high above Reading since just after the turn of the 20th century.  The first half of my childhood was spent in Berks County and because the Pagoda was always "up there", its oddity didn't really strike me until later in life.  Its constant presence and touch of uniqueness has made it beloved (I think) and I genuinely love the strange touch it gives Pretzel City races and am always amazed by how sweeping a view is offered from its high perch.  The image below was taken sometime in the 20's and while it gives some sense of its elevation above the city, it also shows a deforestation that, thankfully, has been replaced nicely by new growth.

The next portion of the course was the most strikingly different from the year before, at least the way I'm remembering it, serving up a fairly sustained and more-than-fairly steep climb soon after leaving the Pagoda behind.

None of it was so steep that it was completely unrunnable, at least not in a 7 mile race (50K+ and I would've considered these sections as hiking required) and, on fresher legs, I shouldn't have had to do any hiking at all.

To say it another way, I did some hiking.

We finally hit an aid station at the mid-way point and while I didn't need any actual aid, I did enjoy the confirmation that we'd made it halfway.

There were other climbs to be had in the second half, but nothing like the first 3.5 miles and, instead, it was a matter of keeping the pace and managing the technical track.  To make sure I stayed focused, I drank a beer at the mile 6 aid station.  I'm not sure it worked but it tasted great.

As I made the final clamber up Ron's infamous finishing hill, I heard familiar cheers from Erin, Finn, Noah and Helene.  Knowing it had an audience, the shameless clown-in-me decided it would be funny to turn around and run a few steps backwards.  No, I didn't fall down (yet again), but I did find when I turned back around that my body now wanted to puke.

I really didn't want to puke, so I walked the last few steps and came across in 1:02:47 with 35 runners already in ahead of me.  In 2011 I finished 32nd in 1:02:02 and, frankly, was hoping to improve upon those numbers this go round.  That disappointment came and went in a hurry, however, as I embraced the victory of not puking when I was sure it was going to happen.

Win!

In the end, as is usually the case at a Pretzel City event, I walked away thrilled to have taken part.  I met some new folks, reconnected with old friends, finally saw J.C. in the flesh (let's make it a habit, brother), witnessed Jefferson shave 2 minutes off of his 2011 time (!) and was there for Sheldon's impressive trail race debut.

A doggone pretty way to spend a day, I'd say.

Now if I can just stay upright next year....

finally.

How I've dreamed of a complete race.  Just one solid start to finish effort that didn't leave me questioning or second guessing myself at the end of the day. 

I think I may have had one or two over the years, but I was a much younger man the last time it happened.  Even my better results were usually accompanied by some missteps or sections of the race that could have gone differently and ended with a lower time.

So, I'm 37 now and no longer in possession of the speed and lack of wear-and-tear I had at 20.  I'm only gonna go so fast.  Which leaves me needing to be disciplined and smart.  Neither is my strong suit.

All the better, then, to have things come together at a race that references the "not smart" in its very name, Pretzel City Sports's third annual Ghouls & Fools 10K.

A Ron Horn original, this little gem of a race starts after the sun sets and winds its way up and around Mt. Penn, asking runners to weave around trees, duck under branches, clamber over logs and endure endless rocks and roots with just your flashlight or headlamp beam to guide the way.

I ran this race for the first time in 2010, placing 39th out of well over 400 finishers with a time of 52:44.  I was pretty pleased with that result, especially with the hesitancy I felt during the first mile or two as I questioned every footfall on the leaf strewn, rocky course.  I'd also managed to start further back in the pack than I had intended, always a potential obstacle at the well attended (and for good reason) Pretzel City events.

I almost missed this year's race entirely as I had somehow managed to convince myself that it was scheduled for the 29th of October, a day I would be in a little cabin north and east of Williamsport enjoying a weekend away with family.  Thankfully, I emerged from the fog on Friday morning to realize that the race was actually happening on Saturday, October 22nd.

Jefferson was there in body and spirit, but was leaning on a trekking pole that confirmed his ankle hadn't recovered from not one but two nasty falls on a predawn run the weekend before.  I was glad to see him even if he'd only shown up to claim his prepaid race tee.  Steve (50:22!) and Cassie (who earned a 3rd place finish in her age group!) were there, as was Jason though I didn't actually see him until later in the evening.  Shasta, as promised, showed up to try her first night run and ended up running it like it was routine.  There were plenty of other familiar faces too, but many of my closer running friends were out of town, the only bummer of the night.

The weather was perfect...just cool enough to run in long sleeves and a hat without wishing you could ditch them 10 minutes after you started.

After listening to Ron's pre-race threats, I succeeded in wedging in right behind the speedsters at the front of the pack and waited for the gun.  I stayed inside on the first crowded turn out of the parking lot and consciously moved quickly during the first few hundred yards to ensure that I was free of the fray when we hit the initial section of singletrack.

I was really psyched to vanish into the woods with no more than 15-20 bobbing headlamps out in front of me.  The pace was speedy during the first mile as the track tumbled mostly downhill ahead of the climbing to be done later in the course.

It was during the downhill stretch, as I tried to get a peek at how fast we were going, that I discovered I'd left my GPS in the car.  I immediately decided that it didn't matter and never gave it another thought.

At some point within the first two miles, the small pack that I was in fell apart at a spot where a few runners started off course and the others began to follow.  I emerged from that confusion at the front of the group and dug into the uphill section that immediately followed.  Some minutes later I realized that I was running alone and had been for a time as the trail continued to climb and snake here and there in the darkness.

I spent the next few miles mostly alone and shot right past the aid stations, not feeling the need for anything over the short distance and in the cool conditions.  I was eventually caught by a couple of other runners but stayed in the same headspace, just cranking out the miles and relishing the way my brain stayed out of the way of my body doing its thing.

I began to wonder if I should consider ONLY running at night as I really think I was running more purely with the lack of visibility because in order to hold pace I had to pretty much turn things over to my legs and hope that they were making the right decisions.  Every now and then I would hit a rock or root oddly and understand that I was a single misstep away from a disaster, but, thankfully, that misstep never happened.

I was almost disappointed to see the old familiar guard rail that marks the start of Ron's beloved one-last-kick-in-the-ass finishing climb.  A scramble over that last rocky ridge deposited me on the grass just ahead of the finish.  Jefferson threw me some kind words as I passed him and glanced up at the clock.  Crossing the line at 45:39, I'd shaved a full 7 minutes off of last year.

I felt great and loved that the race had felt less like a race and more like the best of runs, free of any expectations and, instead, just a total escape with the sound and noise of real life turned all the way down.

Beautiful.

Turned out my time was good enough to land me in 9th place and 2nd in my age group.  And the best part of all that was having Ron proclaim my beard the "best beard in the race" when he handed me this ghoulish medal:

I usually don't mingle with clowns, but I'm making an exception for this guy.

smith's challenge (and the week after).

Father's Day means Smith's Challenge, a 10K men's only race held for 20+ years in Lancaster County Park.  Reportedly, this 23rd running would be the last, but we've heard that before.  I hope I hear that claim every year for as many years as I'm able to keep running and that it keeps people coming back each time.  It's a beauty of a race.

Last year I'd not run the entire week prior, resting up after my leg of the Laurel Highlands 50K Team Relay put its hurt on me.  I had pretty dead legs and, frankly, took the course too lightly, running 1:00:59 and feeling lucky to have managed that.  This year I'd logged a good many miles on the heels of Laurel and felt pretty good about the effort I'd given in the altitude of Boulder in the days just before Smith's.  I hoped to improve dramatically on my 2010 time.

Lindsay and the girls came along this year (which was awesome) and joined Erin, Noah and Finn at one of the playgrounds while Jefferson and I chatted about the course.  I spoke with Chris McDougall for a bit and was stoked to hear about some of the forward progress on the Born to Run film and Chris's confirmation that he had every intention of again doing the Conestoga Trail Run in September.

Before long, we toed the starting line, listened to Ron Horn do his schtick and then headed off into the park.  My legs weren't nearly as fresh as I'd hoped but I felt certain I was running stronger than last year.

It was nice to see numerous familiar faces on the course, be they running or volunteering.  I'd forgottent that, despite the fact that much of the course is under the trees, there are some sustained exposed sections that felt awfully warm in the sun that greets a 10:00 AM start.  Most of my running happens before or right after sunrise or in late afternoon/early evening.  I definitely noticed the difference but was slightly irritated to be feeling like it was negatively impacting my efforts.  What a baby.

Thankfully, I was holding a good pace in spite of not feeling terribly strong.  I hit the finish line in 50:32, having shaved just over 10 minutes off my time.  True to form, I immediately started pondering where I might've done better and gotten down in the 40's, but that faded away pretty quickly as I lounged with Erin, Lindsay and the kids.  Jefferson came across the line looking strong, rightfully psyched to have run sub-59.



Forgot my bib!

Admittedly, I spent much of the rest of the day being L-A-Z-Y, but I suppose if there's a day to get away with it, it's Father's Day.  I was slightly concerned that as fatigued as my legs felt, I might be looking at a weak week ahead, but I'm proud to report that I rebounded nicely and got in my fair share over the days that followed.

See:

Monday, June 20 - Post-work loop on Colebrook, Hossler, Power and Sun Hill roads.

 

Tuesday, June 21 - Mt Joy Rd to Power and Sun Hill roads.

Wednesday, June 22 - Pumping Station - locked my key in the car and needed a ride home from John.

Wednesday, June 22 - PM Run from work out to Pumping Station to retrieve the car.

Thursday, June 23 - Run to work.

Sunday, June 26 - (Post-Western States nerd-out) Pumping Station and Horseshoe Trail.

one ugly mudder.

By Monday morning it was evident that Piper Bea had something far worse than the common cold.  Infants can be cranky and sport runny noses with enough frequency to often have it seem the norm.  Piper had crankiness and snot in spades but was listless in a completely unrecognizable way.

All week long we monitored a whip-sawing fever that would leap to 102.9 before vanishing entirely only to reemerge at a heart-stopping 104.  We visited the doctor on three different occasions and had taken the prescribed chest x-rays that thankfully revealed no major respiratory concerns.

Basically, our week looked (and sounded) a lot like this:

At bedtime on Saturday evening and with the prospect of another restless night looming, I was still uncertain of whether I'd make it to the start line of Pretzel City Sports's Ugly Mudder.  Another Ron Horn creation, the Mudder travels the rocky, rooty and, you guessed it, muddy trails of Mt. Penn above Reading, Pennsylvania in all their post-snow glory.

Jefferson had made up his mind to test his knee at the event several weeks earlier and I'd caught the bug myself.  At just a hair over 7 miles, the Ugly Mudder was shorter than the events that I was training toward tackling later in the year, but would be a great chance to see if I had any fleetness whatsoever and an opportunity to "race" early in the season.

Besides, there was a killer hoodie to be had.

We arrived with a good half hour to spare before the 11:00 start time and the place was packed.  Really packed.  I believe that there were nearly 600 signed up beforehand and there were enough walk-ups to push the start time out by a good 40 minutes as the good folks at Pretzel City kept registration open.

That is a whole lot of bodies leaving a start line headed for the beginning section of single-track on a course that consists mostly of the same.  In other words, this was not an event at which to get buried in the pack at the start.  But, true to form, Jefferson and I managed to do just that.

As Ron went over final instructions, I searched desperately and unsuccessfully for cracks in the crowd that might allow passage to somewhere closer to the front of the line.  When the gun went off, I was feeling frustrated and wasted adrenaline because of it.  By mile 2, I was feeling plenty gassed and wondered what the next 5 miles would bring.

Thankfully, I settled into a rhythm and my spirits started to pick up along with my pace.  The course overlapped periodically with the Ghouls n' Fools track and it was interesting to see in full daylight what had been cloaked in darkness back in October.  We passed beneath the storied Pagoda and Reading spread out in all directions below us.  A right turn dumped us back into the woods and off we went, up and down, sometimes on all fours.

Apparently some vandals removed a stretch of trail markers that led to some confusion in the middle of the course.  I'm pretty sure  I covered a small section of trail twice, but that didn't bother me nearly as much as it seemed to those individuals who'd had some hope of placing near the top of the standings.  I suppose there are some benefits to being short on talent.

Late in the course there were some wild downhills that included treacherous footing, loose rocks and tons and tons of thorns.  I had blood pouring from my knees and legs but dodged a real bullet when my shirt bore the brunt of what could've been a wicked goring from a downed tree limb.  I knew I'd totalled the shirt, but it wasn't until I got home later in the day that I realized a huge chunk of the shirt had actually been removed entirely. 

A final unpleasant uphill clamber that mirrored the end of Ghouls n' Fools deposited me at the finish line a couple minutes over an hour from when I started.  Especially considering that I'd boxed myself in at the start and felt fairly miserable a short while into the race, I was rather pleased.  I believe I ended up just outside of the top 30 which is about as close to the top as I can realistically hope to be.  More importantly, I'd had a wondrously enjoyable day on the trail (and before and afterwards) with an extended family of trail runners, including Jesse and Derek whom I hadn't seen together since they began their shared march to tackling a 100-miler.

Erin, Noah, Finn and Jefferson's mum-in-law were waiting at the finish and it was a joy to see the boys light up at the sight of their dad approaching.  As soon as Jeff appeared at the bottom of the last climb, their encouraging shouts drowned out the voices of all the other supporters on the course.

That was awesome and made my thoughts return to Piper.  Though she was asleep when I got home, she woke from her nap with bright-again-at-last eyes and a glorious grin that hinted her illness might finally be on the wane.

I couldn't have asked for a better end to an Ugly Mudder of a week.

abe pagoda.

I snuck in a final organized run in October and it was a fun one.  On the evening of October 21st, Pretzel City Sports, a/k/a Ron Horn (the madman), hosted its second annual Ghouls 'n Fools 6.2 Mile Trail Run on the ridge above Reading, Pennsylvania.

http://www.pretzelcitysports.com/ghoulsandfools.html

Kicking off at 7:00 PM, the run meandered its way through the woods, demanding the guiding power of either a headlamp or a flashlight.  The Pretzel City crew had been kind enough to hang reflective trail markers and/or glow sticks here or there, but navigation was still tricky. With the exception of a couple of road crossings, the route consisted of mostly technical single(or just slightly wider)track with a blanket of fallen leaves to mask the rocks, roots and downed logs.

Considering the odd demands of this race, I was surprised to find a parking lot busting at the seams with parked cars, cars looking for places to be parked and tons of runners, some in Halloween garb and others cloaked in their standard uniforms of streamlined running shorts and wicking tee-shirts.  I didn't know it at the time, but the night would end with almost 450 official finishers.  What I did know is that there were A LOT of people there to take part in the race.

Ron barked his signature ominous and hilarious pre-race instructions/threats before sending the throng shuffling off into a darkness broken only by the bobbing of headworn beams of light.

Photo courtesy of Derek Schultz

I also pulled off a signature move, placing myself foolishly too far back in the pack, resulting in a first mile that demanded the acrobatics of weaving through the crowd and maneuvering off and back onto the trail to get to where I should have been in the first place.  I am just smart enough to know that I have no business being anywhere near the front of a starting line pack while recognizing that I'm also unlikely to come in dead last.  My intelligence seems to poop out after that point and I end up placing myself firmly in the middle.  Someday (maybe) I will better learn where I belong.  On this night, 10 minutes of hard running were devoted solely to getting to where I should have been in the first place.  The upside to starting too far back instead of positioning yourself too far forward is that you get a psychological boost from passing runners instead of being passed.

Because of being in under the trees and as some of those trees were either evergreens or deciduous trees stubbornly clinging to the last of this season's leaves, I didn't enjoy the benefit of the night's full moon.  Instead, I relied on the light cast by my Black Diamond Sprinter headlamp (love it) and snuck some quick peeks into the beams thrown by those runners just ahead of me.

I'd put 4 miles and one water station behind me before getting my first glimpse of scenery outside of a narrow beam of artificial light.  Topping out on a high point and breaking out from under the trees, I was greeted by the sprawling lights of the city way down below and, high overhead, the towering red lights of Reading's iconic (though eternally peculiar) Pagoda perched on the edge of the ridge.  Passing beneath the out of place structure, I was further greeted by enthusiastic race supporters and the offer of my choice of beer or water (though conflicted, I went with the water).  A few strides later, the pagoda and its corresponding brightness vanished back into the darkness.

Thinking that all of the climbing was behind me (being unfamiliar with the course and unaided by sunlight, I have little idea of how much or how little elevation gain there was), I struggled a bit with an unexpected incline that presented itself soon thereafter.  It was the first time that night that my legs felt heavy.  After suffering a slowed pace for a couple of hundred yards, I sucked it up and got back to running hard.

Most of the remaining track was technical but manageable downhill before one last kicker that consisted of having to clamber over a guardrail before hitting a steep, rocky stretch that ultimately deposited me within sight of the finish line.

I passed the time clock at 52:44 and, as the start/finish was strategically located in the biergarten of the Reading Liederkranz (Did I mention that it's located on Spook Lane?  How Halloween-y.), I headed straight for the beer I'd passed up at the Pagoda water station.  Authentic German accordion music played by an authentic German (at least he looked the part) escorted me to a fine post-race thirst-quenching lager.

I'd ended up 39th out of 440 and, most importantly, I finished with a big smile on my face and two not-twisted ankles.