Month: October 2011

Tussey MountainBack 50-mile relay

State College, PA

Sunday October 23, 2011

 

I was impossibly nice to the cashier at Trader Joes in Bethesda last night.  I gave my mom an unusually long hug last night after our Monday night Old Lady Aerobics + dinner tradition.  I spent all morning cleaning my apartment, scrubbing parts of my toilet and under furniture that have never been cleaned since I moved in, because I knew sitting at a computer and trying to do phylogenetic analysis simply wouldn’t work today.  I’ve had a somewhat delayed reaction to Ed’s tragic death on Leg 8 of the Tussey MountainBack 50-mile relay.  Maybe it’s because our van was ahead of the event and really didn’t grasp the severity of the situation until Marty broke the news just as I was saying my last goodbyes before driving back to DC.  So I never had a chance to share my grief with other NVRC runners, departing for DC before the sadness really set in.  For the few minutes between learning the news from Marty and departing I was caught in a bizarre state of shock combined with lingering post-race high (I must confess, with a tinge of guilt, that our team had a great time, as we were largely spared from the terrible shadows of the day until the very end when we were departing).

I may have to return to State College for the memorial run in two weeks.  I can’t think of any way to cope with the sadness other than to be with my Nittany Valley Running Club (NVRC)  family as we collectively grieve along the trail of Ed’s last steps.

It may seem inappropriate to speak of this year’s MountainBack experience in light of Ed’s tragedy, given that up until the very end my experience was so overwhelmingly positive, while it was so traumatic for others.  But MountainBack is something sacred for me, and even this darkest cloud does not diminish its standing as the most exceptional race there is — the only race where when my friend Tany asked me to be a bridesmaid in the wedding she held two weeks ago, I told her (to a bit of her chagrin) that I had to check my calendar first to make sure it didn’t conflict with Tussey (I’m sorry, MtBk comes first!).  It meant so much to be able to give Aaron a taste of why this little relay is so special.

Maybe next year I’ll write more details about what Tussey MountainBack is all about — how the Draft Relay Challenge (DCR) works with its captains and bios and picks and such.  How our dear Commish John Sheakoski thwarts my plans every year to bend the rules so that I can have the people I want on my team (poor Aaron had to chug up Legs 4 and 10 with me since John deemed him too fast to replace Selena).  Or to explain why the race is the greatest running party in the world, a simultaneous celebration of gut-busting effort and the social bonds that seem to naturally germinate within and among the teams as the race goes on.

For now you’re just going to have to take my word that there is no running group as tight-knit as the NVRC, no relay scheme as ingenious as the DCR, and no race that so captures the spirit of running as the Tussey MountainBack.  Ed’s tragedy — and the way our group has responded to it — has only intensified these convictions.

 

After hearing about YUTC from Tom and Kirstin last year, Kerry and I decided to give it a try. Bob Combs, Jim Harris and the rest of the Ohio crowd welcomed us to come out. Since they are always coming to the Massanuttens for MMT and the Ring, we figured it was time to return the favor.

We made the 4hr drive the night prior straight from DC/work and got a hotel in Poland Ohio, just a few miles west of the Pa. line. Poland is a nice small town that surprisingly is well equipped for any type shopping you might need coming from out of town. We were only 15 minutes from the start at Mill Creek Park. The start area is at an old log cabin facing Glacier Lake. The trails run around the lake area and I would compare the terrain to rock Creek Park. We were also surprised at how many of the Ohio crowd we knew from other events. Plus, Dan Lehmann showed up all the way from West Virginia for the event. There were some 60+ signed up for the 25K version and another 110+ for the 50K.

We all began at the reasonable hour of 8AM to crisp 60 degree temps. Bob Combs and Bill Losey just moved out to Evergreen Colorado, but they came back to help Jim Harris one last time as Jim is the new RD.

The run is a lot of fun, the Ohio group are the most friendly bunch you could run with and the swag and post-race food and drink in the old log cabin are great. I’d recommend this race to anyone looking for a fun event in September.

With only one day to go before the WUS Donut Run of Champions (DROC), it seemed that the WUSsies were living up to their name.  Robin & Kirsten had shown donut spirit, but no male freely dared to challenge Neal Gorman’s feats of sugary domination from last April: we assumed Adam didn’t have a choice, Sean was moaning about excess patent work, Doug was infatuated by his Ben & Jerry’s, and Keith was leading a rival run to promote sugary temperance.

But on race day the WUS responded to Neal’s call to arms (http://www.twitvid.com/61YZT). Jon L-D had run DROC’s sister run, UROC, just days before, and was nursing a bruised foot. It was not until the middle of the afternoon that he confirmed his participation in DROC. Sean was able to put aside the drill bit reviews for an evening of running and junk food consumption (which, truth be told, is a fairly standard evening for Sean). The ringer of the run, though, was Matt W, having had several weeks to recover from his dominating performance at the 100k world championship race.

Several donut run groupies gathered at the fountain in Dupont Circle, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first runner. Martha, Aaron, Ryon and Tom were joined by Kerry, who brought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, so Doug could take the ice cream option for the run, and several more pints in case anyone else chose to do the same (Keith & Mario swung by during their WUS Normale to dip into Kerry’s ice cream).

The first runners to arrive were Jon L-D and Neal, neck and neck.  JLD got an early jump on the donut eating, but Neal’s strategic use of the Semen Collection Cup helped his later donuts go down extra smooth and he left the Circle first.  However, the donut bitsies churned up some activity in Neal’s intestines on R Street and someone’s yard got a little present there, allowing JLD to pass and finish victorious in a new record of 47 minutes.

We had considered Matty Woods to be a strong contender, but he forgot his light and tagged along with Sean, whose decades of junk food consumption should have poised him to seriously challenge Neal & JLD (apparently some long nights in the patent office during the end of the fiscal year set him back a notch or two).  Matty recommended that we up the donut intake to 8 at least — 6 was trivial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was a gentleman and waited for his fiance Robin, who stole the ladies championship, redeeming last April’s beer mile spewfest.

Doug found his pint of Ben & Jerry’s to be considerably more difficult to scarf than he’d imagined.

Since Seanie hadn’t RSVPed and we hadn’t bought him donuts, we had to make an emergency return trip to Krispy Kreme to get Kirstin donuts, although this turned out to be fortuitous because Jeff Reed also late-showed and needed 6 sugary goodnesses as well.

Here is JLD during the post-race sugar high: http://www.twitvid.com/XMBL5 and Neal Gorman’s post-mortem, continuing to enjoy his beverage container of choice http://www.twitvid.com/MLHI2.