WUS celebrates 10 years of drinking beer, not getting arrested, and fitting in some running in there

The Woodley Ultra Society running club has survived since 2006, owing to the strength of its core principle: trail running should be fun.  And preferably combined with tasty beverages and gooey pizza, in an establishment where the staff knows us well enough to not care that we stink.

Recognizing the importance of beverages in the history of WUS, we celebrated the tin anniversary with a Beer Mile, trail-style.  Kerry O. and Kirstin attended as the sole representatives of the original WUS group, which has mostly scattered to other nationally recognized trail running meccas like Bend, Frisco, and….Alexandria.

The high turnover of WUSsies means that newcomers are often the lifeblood of the club, and it was fitting that the Mile winners were both newbies.  Trevor B., WUS’s latest pride and joy, cruised to victory in the men’s race, even besting the JLD Donut King.

The fact that Sheila hasn’t WUSsed in a year appeared to be no limitation during her dominating victory in the women’s race.  But the Beer Mile is a race where the losers and winners pretty much get the same prize at the end: the chance to see Martha totally blasted out her mind.

 

Results

Trevor	8:17 – mic drop
JLD	10:02 – so tantalizing close to being Donut/Beer double champ, maybe if he WUSed more
Sheila	11:15 – queen of suds
Dr. JJ	11:40 – winner, PhD category
WHTom	11:53 – winner, best effort to make it to a Beer Mile
Marmot	13:19 – winner, didn’t poop my pants!
JoCo	18:21 – winner, best Beer Mile blowup
O’Sullivans	21:31 – winners!  always.  inscribed in the WUS rulebook
Kir and Ma Walcott	26:14:00 – first ma!
Brienne	DNF – but brought tasty snacks
Angie	DNF – but performed a vital task that unfortunately cannot be credited due to the tenuous nature of Angie’s employment
Liana	DNS – best reason for not doing a Beer Mile
Jabooter	DNS – best nickname
Aras	DNS – best performance by a toddler in what must have seemed a horror movie of bright lights and belching zombies
Momma Julian	DNS – best performance in soothing a toddler trapped inside a horror movie
Aaron	DNS – points points points!  for timing….for tolerating the drunk marmot….for finding Trevor’s wallet
Sarah and Scott	DNS – best visual depiction of a marmot

As commemoration of 10 years of WUSsies, we stretched our memories to come up with a top-10 list of WUS lore:

10.  Neal dropping a deuce in the fancy Georgetown house’s backyard in the final stretch of the Donut Run.

9.  The WUS when Aaron & co tried their best not to interuptus the coitus that was brazenly occurring along our WUS route.

8.  ‘I would run the s%*& out of that hill’ – PHT 2015

 

7.  The night Tom C. tried to get Matt to pass him the damn pepper.

6.  The Plague of Frogs WUS.

5.  The WUS when Joe and Michele were Uh, Just Looking at These Rocks Over Here.

4.  The moment when Nancy from the Track faceplanted over the final chain on the Glover Archibald Trail.  Trail fairies everywhere were extinguished in sorrow.

3.  Neal and Bobby collapsed beside each other at the finish line of the most Epic Beer Mile WUS.

2.  The surreal snowfall WUS when we came across a man with a long white beard and no shoes riding a white horse bareback while carrying a staff.

1. The time that Sean swapped his slightly-less-sweat-drenched shirt for Keith’s at CPBG so that Keith could keep macking unsuccessfully on waitress Kathleen.

Run For It 5k

Davis, WV

September 24, 2016

 

‘Why don’t you walk with me?’  My cousin ‘Kigali’ Claire had flown in from Rwanda the previous day with a tantalizing idea.

I sighed.  ‘That sounds awfully nice.’  The pain that had angered my left kneecap on Monday was still making me limp.  I’d also gotten my period that morning and was doubled over, both hands clutching the belly.  I was still in sweatpants even though the sun was getting wicked hot.  I did not look like much of a runner.  ‘I wish I could.’

She shot me a perplexed look.  We hadn’t seen each other much over the last decade, ever since she started her grand life adventure tour of Beijing-London-Berlin-Kigali.

‘Aaron said I should pick priority races.  I should be less of a turd runner.   So I picked three special races this year to focus on.  I planned my work travel schedule around them.  I trained.  And then I missed the first two because I was injured.  I sucked double butt this year at Priority Races.  Today is my last chance.’

‘But this isn’t a marathon or anything.  Why’d you choose this one?’

‘I didn’t pick my races because they were big things.  But they have a special place in my heart.  Laurel was my first ultra.  Escarpment was my first trail race.  And Run For It is this awesome little race in our beloved Canaan Valley.  For the past 5 years I’ve wanted to run it.  And every year there’s a stupid conflict: a work trip, a Bar Mitzvah, an injury…’

‘Wait, you’ve never run it before?’  Cecily had woken up at the crack of dawn and driven three hours….for what exactly?

‘No, never,’ I sighed again in resignation.  ‘That’s why I need to run today.’

~          ~          ~

Aaron, Cecily, Claire, and I were all on the Heart of the Highlands team.  What makes Run For It so unique is the prize structure.  You don’t win prize money for yourself, but for the charity you’ve designated.  The overall winner gets $1000 to the charity of their choosing, second place is $750, third is $500, etc.  Age group winners get $100.  Our friend Dan Lehman was organizing the Heart of the Highlands team to raise money for trail building.  I was torn because there was also a Tucker County Animal Shelter team.  But Dan is awesome.  And Aaron and I live for Canaan’s trails.  But I vowed that if the TCAS didn’t raise much money this year, next time I’d run for the kitties.

I’ve learned that the start of 5k races are shit shows.  All the kids position themselves right at the starting line, and it’s like a herd of cats.  Some flash out like it’s a 100 yard dash.  Others plod along, causing ripple effects of destruction as the mob wildly circles around.  I took an elbow to the face, realized I was totally boxed in at the mob’s center, and sprinted to the outside to find some clearing.  It got my heart rate shooting up so high, I coasted on pure terror and adrenaline all the way to the front pack, ahead of the other women.

I found myself playing my favorite running game with 2 dudes.  The game is called Weeeee Down the Hills!  Booooooooo Up the Hills!  I’d get passed by both dudes up all the hills, then flip a switch and pass them both down the hills.  It occurred to me that bombing down hills wasn’t the best thing for my injured shin and knee.  But try telling that to the lungs.

Now, Aaron and I’d had a pre-race conversation that went something like this:

‘So the race winds around up like a snake through the neighborhood.  You start out going east and then….’

‘No, no, no,’ I cut him off.  ‘Don’t confuse me.  There are mile markers.  I’ll be fine.’

~          ~          ~

Marmots should perhaps glance at course maps.  They don’t like to, with all those confusing squizzly lines.  There was a marker for Mile 1.  But that only made it more disturbing when there was no marker for Mile 2.

The course was a lot harder than I anticipated.  All those hills gave me and my 2 dudes plenty of turf to play our little hill game, switching the lead at least 10 times.  It was also a lot hotter than it was supposed to be.  By the 11am start time the sun was blaring.  Claire deeply regretted wearing jeans.

My legs got heavier and heavier with each hill.  Maybe it was because my racing flats were packed in storage.  Aaron and I are moving into a new home on September 30th, and in order to sell my apartment we’ve been homeless since late August.  We remembered to keep toothbrushes and and checkbooks, but barely a day went by without me realizing I needed something that had been packed away.  You know I’m all messed up when I don’t even have any gummies to carry on my runs (I finally found some raisins).  Poor Aaron’s going full bush this month because he packed his sideburn clippers.

Or maybe my legs were heavy because I’d run the NIH 5 x 800m relay two days earlier.  Not the best plan to barely run all summer and then try to sprint a half mile.  Even stupider to follow up your little Intro to Speedwork with a 5k two days later.  But our FIC Globetrotters relay team nabbed its first top-10 finish in history (this was the 33rd year of the NIH relay), finishing 7th out of 107 teams.  It was worth it.

Or maybe I felt like death because I hadn’t been sleeping for a month.  Doug and Kerry have been extraordinarily gracious in letting me and Aaron crash at their pad in Woodley Park for our month of homelessness.  But marmots, like kitties, are poor at adjustment.  The marmot has been through the ringer this summer, particularly the last month.  My poor kitty got so stressed out living with my parents that she scratched her ear, making a hematoma that needs to be surgically removed.  I detailed my own typical night in my last blog post, The Hungry Badger.

But if I had to make a top-10 list for why my legs felt like lead, it would go something like this:

10. Had to wear clunky trail shoes;

9. Got my period that morning;

8. Had gummy bears for breakfast;

7. Blasting sun heat (wearing just a sports bra was a good call);

6. The elevation profile looked like this:

5. Haven’t been running much (injured all summer)

4. Tired from the NIH relay

3. Despair that I still hadn’t reached a second mile mark 18 minutes into the race

2. A month of not sleeping

1. A month of not having my kitty.

But this race was my last chance at redemption.  2016 was supposed to be a big race year for me.  The sixes always are.  In 1996 I was a State Champion in cross country.  In 2006 I ran my first Boston Marathon.  I had big plans for 2016.

My time wasn’t very fast (19:09).  I was not my peppy self.  I didn’t even have the energy to give a thumbs up to folks cheering from their lawn chairs.  But I finished right in between the 2 dudes, one ahead and one behind, and won the women’s race.  Aaron made sure that I stepped back after the race and gave myself a smidgen of credit for rallying.  It was a tough course, a hot day, I wasn’t in race shape, and I still beat a  WVU trackster by a margin as wide as Aaron was ahead of me by.  Thumbing through the results going back to 2009, I couldn’t find a female who’d run faster.  Sure, it’s a little local race of a couple hundred people.  But after feeling like I’ve been through a blender these last months, particularly low after I wasn’t even in shape to run the Women’s Half Marathon, it was nice to see even a shard of daylight.  And together, Cecily (2nd in her age group), Aaron (3rd overall), and I brought in $1,600 for Heart of the Highlands!

Overall, Run For It was everything I’d dreamed it would be, rivaling This Race Is For the Birds in small-town spirit and adorableness.  I kid you not one of the 5k finishers was 99 years old!  It will definitely be on the try-our-damnedest-to-do-every-year list.  No matter how beat down I get, I oughta be able to go 3 miles.

We celebrated with a glorious sunny jam at the Leaf Peepers Festival (bought some WV honey mead), a starlit hot tub at PJ’s house, and a gorgeous bike ride around the valley the next day.   For a flicker of time, I forgot about the last months: the pain and injury, the hunger and the sleeplessness, my kitty’s poor ear, and the sense that all my belongings are scattered across so many places (storage, my parents’ house, my office, Woodley) that sometimes I can’t recall where my toothbrush is.  For one day, out in the Valley, even the Donald didn’t exist.

The first sign that I’m starving is sweat.  It’s 2am and a thin layer of moisture has pooled across my chest.  It will leave funny little bumps in the morning.  Through my slumber I can feel droplets tickle my chest as they funnel their way towards my belly button.  I’ve been dreaming about food for some time now.  Vine-ripened tomatoes and mozzarella.  A filet I can cut with a butter knife.  I’m overheating and have kicked off blankets.  It’s called my ‘reaction’.

I imagine that if I just squeeze my eyes tight I’ll fall back to sleep, dreaming of tomatoes again.  I’m so dog tired.

But I know that in the Battle of Tired v. Hungry, Hungry almost always wins.  Hungry is the Duke Blue Devils of my nights: the little fuckers that always win.

Hungry is a little green leprechaun dancing on my chest, singing Time to Get Up.  Time for Snausages!

I try to convince the leprechaun that 2am is actually not a great time for snausages.

But I know the drill.  It’s been particularly bad lately, but the Reactions have been going on for years.  My body is churning, and the longer I lie in bed, the angrier it will get.  My legs are already starting the throb.

I’m not used to having to navigate stairs to get to the kitchen.  We didn’t have stairs at Macomb Street.  I have to grip the bannister with one hand and steady myself against the wall with the other.  My tight Achilles are not ready for stairs yet, and I have to rely on my upper body to descend without putting weight on my feet.

Okay, little fucker stomach, what do you want to eat….?  The yellow light from the fridge is blinding, and I squint to see its contents.  How ’bout some fuckin’ Cheerios?  Cursing makes me feel better.  It deflects blame.

Oh, don’t worry, the blame will come later.  Why didn’t I shove more food down my throat before going to bed?  As if a tall glass of whole milk and a couple handfuls of almonds was possibly enough snack to get through the night.  I should have had Cheerios…and a snausage…and a yogurt….and my monkey chips. And prophylactic Z-quil.

But at this very moment I’m still too tired to start going down the blame game.  I barely have the energy to pour a bowl of cereal.  I’m too tired to sit up on the couch, so I slouch at an angle somewhere between prone and seated, like a rag doll, and dole spoonfuls of milky oats.  My esophagus would rather I sit up like a big girl.  It hurts to swallow food at this angle.  But I’m too tired to care.

The second stage of starvation is called Wishful Thinking.  It’s the part where I think, Okay, the Beast is Fed!  Back to Bed!  As I crawl back up the steps and under the warm covers, my belly purrs with contentment over the crunchy oats and creamy milk.

It lasts for about five minutes.  Starvation is different from hunger.  Hunger can be satisfied.  Starvation is in your bones.  The cereal bowl was enough to get me to stop sweating.  But it feels like a very hungry badger has taken residence inside my gut and is ransacking my organs in search of some tasty bites.

I look at the clock.  It’s now 3am, too late to take any sleeping pills.  It’s going to be a very long night for me and the Badger.

Wait a minute.  It did not take you an hour to roll down the stairs and nosh on some cereal.

Oh, but it did.  It would only take 10 minutes max in day time.  But when you’re sleepwalking the simplest tasks get drawn out by an multitude of at least four.  My Cheerios get so soggy, no one who wasn’t starving would eat them.

The Wishful Thinking stage eventually gives way to the third stage called I Would Like To Die Now.  This is the stage where you are so hungry and tired that tears start to stream down your cheeks.  Your body seems to have come full circle in its secretions, from sweat to tears.  As if I could somehow push this rabid badger out of my kitchen with a waterfall of fluids.

Eventually I don’t feel tired anymore, and I just feel hunger, boredom, and throbbing.  I can still tell I’m tired because my thoughts get all mangled.  The story lines I make up in my head start to fray and not make sense.  The delirium is the closest I get to knowing what it feels like to be mad.

One benefit of not feeling tired is it’s way easier to make trips to the kitchen now.  I feast.

I lay some towels down in the bathroom floor and lie there, giggling at the recollection of how much Aaron hates my stinky snausages.  One time the odor was so overpowering that it woke him up.  This time I close the door to contain the fumes.

The knowledge that the throbbing in my legs is going to make for a pretty painful WUS the next day is the opposite of soothing.

But dawn light is coming in.  Just making it through another night feels like a victory.  Tomorrow before bed I’ll try to shove down more food and pills.

There is a long term plan.  I’ve enlisted in the Baltimore Aging Study, and next month I’ll go to Hopkins for some serious diagnostics.  My physicals never detect anything abnormal — fine thyroid, hormones, glucose, iron, etc.  But there is something queer about my physiology, and maybe three consecutive rigorous days of testing will uncover it.

FAQ

1. When will the Beer Mile occur?  7pm on Tuesday, October 4, 2016
2. Where will the Beer Mile occur?  Soapstone Valley trail

3.  Is there parking?  We encourage taking the metro to binge drinking events.  But if you opt to drive, there is not parking at the trail head.  The best option is to convene at Julian’s house, approx. 0.6 miles away, and walk or trot over.  To facilitate the carriage of the beer, a single vehicle will transport everyone’s beer (metro-goers can carry their beer discretely in backpacks).

4.  So, this Beer Mile doesn’t go around a track?  Wussies have gotten away with a lot over the years, but needn’t press their luck.  The top portion of the Soapstone is a wide, relatively flat and groomed double-track, easily accessible from the metro, and a sensible choice for this year’s BM.  The course will be 4 consecutive one-quarter mile out-and-backs preceded by a beer drunken within a single Drinking Station.

5.  What are the rules?  For those of you who did the Donut Run, you may recall that the RD allowed for competitors to take some liberties with the classic structure of the event, although these liberties were taken into account during the awarding of prizes.  The Real Prize goes to male and female competitors who drink a beer while confined to the Drinking Station and run the quarter mile (repeat 4 times), with no puking.  Puking requires a penalty lap, no exceptions.  This is approximately the 17th Beer Mile I have organized, and I’ll admit that there has always been a ‘Cali Clause’ that permits females and males no taller than 5’6 to drink 2 pinot grigios while completing the full mile (drinking not confined to Drinking Stations).  There has also been a ‘Momma Jill clause’ for seniors aged 65+ to drink 2 beers and complete 1 mile (drinking also not confined to Drinking Stations).  Jared will be scouting for rules violations.

6.  Prizes? Yes.

7.  What does a hoard of drunken BMers do after the event?  Cleveland Park Bar & Grill is a short trot/longish walk away.

8. Registration?  Please email Martha at marmot4281@gmail.com.  Please let her know whether you plan to be a ‘real’ Beer Mile or will be doing a version of your own creation.  Do to the nature of the course, the number of runners may have to be capped to avoid a stampede.

9.  What do I need to bring?  A light!!!!  Very important.  BYOB.  If you’re Joe Clapper, someone to count your laps for you.

10.  Any other tips?  We learned from Robin not to eat apples beforehand.

 

Wussies bludgeoned by friendly Canadians at the Fat Dog trail races

August 2016 — British Columbia, Canada

 

ABSTRACT

Outdoor magazine recently ranked the Fat Dog 120 one of the world’s 9 toughest ultramarathons.  Seemed like a good pick for this summer’s Wussie F.A.R.T. (Fun Adult Running Trip).  Julian won for Most Puking, Aaron won for Best Sidestep Ascent Style, Daniel won for Overall Most Suffering, and Trevor won for Best Overall Performance.  It was a tight contest between Nicki/Ann and Keli for Best Crew Team (for Julian and Trevor, respectively), but Nicki and Ann came out on top simply for knowing not to fly United.  Remarkably, all four Wussies finished and no pacers were murdered for talking too much.

INTRODUCTION

Aaron tricks a host of Wussies into thinking a race called ‘Fat Dog’ can’t be all that bad.  Four score and seven weeks ago, Aaron Schwartzbard had a vision.  The Wussies would make a pilgrimage to a distant land known as Canada.  In this remote land they would find a trail race of unsurpassed beauty and challenge.  The race would be very similar to a 100-miler, but for good measure there would be another 20 miles tacked on.  So the Wussies wouldn’t miss that lovely final 5,000 ft climb starting at mile 99, followed by eight false summits.

Julian and Trevor signed up for the 120 mile race.  Aaron would have loved to sign up for the 120, but still is suffering the effects of long-term Lyme infection and, to the great relief of his wife, settled for the 70.  Daniel also wisely settled for the 70, given that he hasn’t yet run a 100 miler.  The Marmot was very happy to be recovered just enough from her summer shin injury (Shinjury) to pace Trevor for the last big climb of the 120 (~20 miles).

 

METHODS

When faced with an enormous challenge, the Wussies resorted to multiple strategies for getting through the race with non-functioning limbs, some of which Daniel describes vividly in this clip:

Wussies are generally not pole people.  Maybe it’s the East Coast culture, where mountains aren’t as big and poles just seem to get in the way.  But poles turned out to be extremely useful on the very tough climbs at Fat Dog.  The 70 milers ended up wishing they’d had poles, and Daniel made makeshift versions out of sticks he found.  Until one of the aid station volunteers burned them.  Definitely one of Daniel’s low points during the race.

 

RESULTS

1. Fat Dog fully lived up to its reputation for toughness and beauty.  Here’s a little clip of some of the beautiful scenery:

2. Julian (40:53, 48th overall – 120 miles): By puking his guts out for many, many hours of the Fat Dog 120, Julian discovers what it means to really ‘live the dream’.

Of all the Wussies who went to Fat Dog, Julian was unanimously voted pre-race as Most Likely to Succeed.  Julian has finished Hardrock four times.  He’s finished loops of the Barkley.  If there’s anyone who can get through a long, tough mountain race, it’s our man Julian.

But anyone can have a bad stomach day.  Despite having the first-class crew/pacer combo of Nicki and Ann, a pair of delightful Canadian women Julian recruited to his cause, Julian’s race consisted of three non-winning stages: (1) nausea, (2) puking, and (3) ultra calorie depletion.

At one point when Julian was puking his guts out, another runner recognized him as the guy from the Barkley Marathon film.  Specifically, he recognized him as the guy who declared: ‘We should all have a little more suffering in our lives.‘

‘Guess that guy’s living the dream, then,’ the runner commented to his pacer.

3. Daniel (24:26, 40th overall – 70 miles): By having by far the worst race, Daniel had by far the best soundbites.

Apparently Daniel spent the majority of his Fat Dog 70-mile race trying unsuccessfully to drop out at each aid station.  The Canadian aid station volunteers’ words of sincerest encouragement apparently strangled each of Daniel’s efforts to quit.  The result was a 24+ hour torture-fest but many hilarious soundbites for the Wussies to enjoy at Daniel’s expense (see Methods).

4. Trevor (33:56, 13th overall/10th male – 120 miles): Trevor is the only Wussie to have a ‘good’ race, ostensibly due to sound gear selection, excellent crewing from wife Keli, and a surprisingly disciplined pacer over the last miles.

5. Aaron (18:22, 14th overall – 70 miles): Aaron revives his confidence that he can get through any race, no matter how bad it gets.

DISCUSSION

Trevor’s attempts to camouflage his ‘real’ (i.e., country clubbin’, golf shirt buttonin’) version by growing a mountain man beard came (predictably) undone during the Marmot’s 12+ hours of crewing and pacing.  

Trevor is quiet.  Despite running regularly with him for almost a year, the Wussies are still trying to tease apart Trevor’s seeming contradictions.  How can someone be so reserved and so funny?  How can someone drudged through a St Alban’s/Princeton/finance douchbag-in-the-making upbringing be so unpretentious?

Sure, over the course of six hours crewing with Trevor’s wife Keli and seven hours of pacing Trevor through the last 20 miles, which included my favorite trail game Three Truths and a Lie, I got a few more clues about this inscrutable Trevor creature.  But I also stumbled across more mysteries: how the heck does someone who trains 40-ish mile weeks in Rock Creek Park go out and crush a grueling suffer-fest of a mountain race like the Fat Dog 120?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS