Author: martha

Episode 3. Michele Harmon

Michele is the ultimate ultra running survivor. The Coma. The Burn Unit. Being Married to Joe. She’s been the woman to beat. She’s been the cautionary tale. Decades later, she’s still running and finding new adventures.

[soundcloud height=”166″]https://soundcloud.com/martha-nelson-545150281/running-stories-with-michele-harmon[/soundcloud]

 

 

Episode 2. Sean Andrish

Sean dominated East Coast trail running for many years by taking every race out like a 10k and disappearing down rocky downhills. Sometimes while getting epileptic seizures.

[soundcloud height=”166″]https://soundcloud.com/martha-nelson-545150281/seanie[/soundcloud]

 

 

Episode 1. Keith Knipling

Keith is known for (a) going from being DFL at the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 mile race to almost winning; (b) running three 100-mile races in three back-to-back weeks; and (c) being deadpan.

[soundcloud height=”166″]https://soundcloud.com/martha-nelson-545150281/keith-kniplings-tales-of-ultra-running[/soundcloud]

Running streaks. I hate doing the same races over and over again. I do not have Aaron’s Hellgate gene. If I like a race, I’ll maybe do it three times (Boston Marathon). If I really, really love a race, maybe I’ll do it five times (Womens Half Marathon). If a race has become embedded into my soul through a larger birthday tradition, maybe I’ll do it six or seven times (Race for the Birds). But there’s only one race that I’ve gotten to every year over the past thirteen years. Because I’d rather miss Christmas. And that’s the Tussey MountainBack 50-mile relay in State College, PA.

Ultra runners. People are always asking me if I plan on running the entire 50-mile race. Which is also the USATF 50 mile road national championship. Let’s see, I can either spend six hours having the time of my life in a van full of friends. Or I can slog along for eight or so hours by myself, with a best case scenario that I see a couple familiar faces along the way and only really suffer for the last couple hours or so. I guess there are people who feel torn between these two options. But I am not one of them.

The Meira Rejects. There were several challenges at this year’s MountainBack. My right shin had started hurting a few weeks before and made me stop running. It ominously threatened to derail what was supposed to be my 13th consecutive race. But even as the shin showed signs of life, I didn’t have a fully formed team until days before the race. Renz at registration was not impressed. I don’t know whom to blame more: Meira or Cali. Cali was at least totally upfront about informing me that I was not invited to join his father-child relay team (4 dads, 4 kids). (He was unamused by my suggestion that after all these years I should definitely qualify as a Cali child.) Meir-cat took a less direct route in her exit from Team Rodentia, but it was equally effective. While I opted for a maximally inclusive 8-person team where runners can do one or two legs, Meira skimmed off the folks who were interested in running three legs each. Dividing the group of interested folks we’d amassed accordingly resulted in some winners and some losers. Dave Moore, who’d only agreed to do MountainBack only on the promise of being on Team Meira, got stuck on the Leftovers, which we decided was a little more tasteful team name than The Meira Rejects. Still, the Leftovers did not become fully viable until the 11 o’clock hour, when we got the clutch additions of Mike M. and his father-in-law Greg, thanks to the heroic efforts of Joel.

Dress code. The Leftovers knew it would be easy to find each other race day morning. All we had to do was locate the Greek guy flaunting the bright orange shorty shorts (Costas). [Michele H. appropriately noted that Costas and Clapper have convergent fashion tastes. There are likely convergences in personality, but their divergence in shoe choice may be more informative.] The Leftovers were in good spirits on race morning, imagining how Dave was going to crush the competition up Leg 1. Dave had off-handedly mentioned the night before that he had done a workout in which all of his 800m intervals had been under 2 minutes. But I didn’t want newbies Mike and Greg to get the wrong impression about our team.  Just so you guys know, we don’t care.

Decorum. The Leftovers made it through a full two legs before our decorum turned south. Which was mostly my fault. But was it really my fault that a portion of my Mott’s gummies were shaped like normal fruit, but a couple were clearly penises? No ambiguity here, though: as Costas was waiting at the 2/3 transition zone, I told him the story about giving Tara a good pinch in the butt when I passed her on Leg 3 last year. I still remember her jolt of shock, followed by relief when she saw it was just me.

Inspired, Costas spent the next four miles hunting down Domico so he could sneak in a good pinch of baldy’s unexpectedly firm roundness. Nothing gets Costas’s blood flowing like a good ass grab, which he channeled to power up Leg 11 in the Performance of the Day for the Leftovers. Mike’s Leg 4 and Dave’s Leg 9 also get Honorable Mentions, but nothing topped the drama of Costas tearing down at the end of Leg 11 on poor Tony, who fled in terror from Costas’s approaching pinchers.

Lil dudes. As much fun as the Leftovers had in our own van, part of the fun of MountainBack is getting to interact with the other teams at all the transition zones. Meira’s team eventually pulled away, but not before I got my own Domico bum pinch as I started Leg 6, with Dommie just strolling to his car like a sitting duck. Costas mentioned several times that he received no friendly bum pinch when I shot past him on Leg 4 a few years ago. Costas and I had never been on a MountainBack team together before, and I’m afraid we were not on ass grabbing terms at that time. What exactly does it take to get on ass grabbing terms? I’m not sure. When you’re running your guts out, the snap decision To Pinch or Not to Pinch is purely instinctual.

But remarkably the Leftovers finished within 45 seconds of Tom’s father-child team. Most of the kids on Tom’s team were around 12 years of age, but they were fast and tough and I swiftly dubbed them the Lil Dudes. Having not run much over the past couple weeks on account of my injury, one of my great fears was that I was going to suffer the humiliation of being passed by a 12-year old on Leg 6, which climbs over 1,300 feet in four miles. [Next year, Joco, you can run Leg 6 for me.] I have to admit, I felt a lot worse on Leg 6 this year than I did on Leg 11 last year, even as my second leg of the day. Leg 6 is just a relentless slog. But my little pity party was sharply interrupted when I passed George, who is 97 years old. If I can climb Leg 6 when I’m 97 years old, I’m going to throw myself a birthday party every damn day.

Acknowledgments. State College has amazing small-town hospitality. Big bear hug thanks to Kathy and Tommy, for making time out of their hectic lives to host me. To Michelle, for a delicious post-race dinner that felt like Thanksgiving. To Dave, for hauling my car-less ass around and helping me get back to DC. To Tommy, for running so hard he puked (okay, dry heaved).To Cali, for organizing Friday night happy hour at Zenos. To the clover gods, for helping me find two four-leaf clovers and one five-leaf clover at Colyer Lake. And to all the super cute doggies (Bud, Winston, Lucca). Everything is better with doggies.

Post-script. As much as I love MountainBack, it is clear that the race is not thriving. Despite being the 50 mile road national championship, there were less than 25 ultra finishers, male and female combined. They still get some great runners, but the field is thin. The number of relay teams also has been dropping off, perhaps due to competition from the ever-popular Ragnar Relays. For me, MountainBack is infinitely superior to Ragnar. Let me count the ways:

(1) Timing. A six-hour race is the perfect time to have a heap of fun without the time ever dragging. You can actually keep a six-hour high. The overnight aspect of Ragnar totally grinds you down.

(2) Natural beauty. The MountainBack course is so much more beautiful, on gravel roads winding through Rothrock forest as the leaves are changing.

(3) Flexibility. It’s fun having a race that can accommodate so many different breeds of runner. To have some of the country’s most elite ultra runners competing at the same time as 97-year old George. Our team was highly diverse, from Young Buck Dave to those who warned us all to ‘bring reading material’ for their legs. Part of why I wanted a 8-person team is because I like being able to include folks that just want to do one leg.

(4) Team-team interactions.  At a Ragnar race, you better like your team, because that’s pretty much the only folks you’ll be seeing for the next 30+ hours. At MountainBack, the short format of the relay means that teams don’t get spread out and get to interact at transition zones throughout the day. Not only does that facilitate bum pinches, but it also makes it an exciting race, as with Costas and Tony at the top of Leg 11.

(5) Hybrid. MountainBack is just about as traily as guys like Costas ‘it is impassible!’ will get. And just about as roady as Meira and her trail gang will get. While the PA trail running scene is thriving, MountainBack lags because it doesn’t really fit either bin. It’s too hilly and gravely for road runners looking for fast times. And it’s not the technical single track most trail runners are after. But for me,  what’s magical about MountainBack is that there’s no other race like it. It’s a unicorn.

Best Course Marshall: Joco

Best use of a birthday hat: Joco

 

First Place, Male: T-Puff, with a new PR and CR of 8:10

Prize: A bottle of the Marmot’s favorite beer. Well, actually, it’s a slightly inferior cousin of the Marmot’s favorite beer, which is displayed below and is bloody hard to find even in Belgium.

First Place, Female: Marmot. Only because she actually did the whole thing.

Second Place, Male: JJ

Overall Champion, Pinot Grigio Division: Brienne

Overall Champion, Beer Relay Division: Ashlinn and Lexy

Third Place, Male: Doug

Overall Champion, Dry Mile: Bernard

Best DFL: Sean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAQ

1. When will the Beer Mile occur?  7pm on Tuesday, September 19, 2017
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.

Abstract

Sean, Miles, and Daniel designed a killer five-day adventure itinerary for me and Aaron in Frisco, Colorado. For anyone headed yonder, here are some tips to maximize your summer adventure within the constraints of altitude.

Introduction

In the fall of 2016, Sean stunned the VHTRC by deciding suddenly to sell his home in Leesburg and move permanently to Frisco, CO. The move drove a dramatic improvement in the quality of life of Mr Andrish, including the arrival of his service dog Miles, a yellow lab who is the first known creature to rival Sean in pure love of mountains and trails. Sean’s airy condo has views of mountains on all sides, and a paradise of trails for running, skiing, and snowshoeing. World class downhill skiing is just a free shuttle ride away at Copper Mountain. Mountain air has also been good for healing Sean’s post-surgery knee, which has been letting him trail race again.

Frisco’s gems have been known to the VHTRC for many years, owing to the real estate prowess of Kerry, who was the first to buy property here. Sean’s translocation has made it even easier for Virginians to get a taste of the Rockies, and Sean spent much of his summer hosting visitors: Keith and Tracy en route to Hardrock, the Schmidt family, Tom S., Steve and Heather, and even the peripatetic Britt Z. Aaron and I were slotted in for Labor Day weekend, the finale to Sean’s long summer of hosting.

Aaron and I also made last-ditch efforts to link up with other recent Colorado transplants, Daniel and Phil. Daniel and his wife Jenny recently introduced baby Lilia to the world, who we’ve only gotten to know via Facebook to date. I was particularly concerned that their wonderful cat Buster might need extra attention. But I’m afraid I don’t have the Wechsler gene for planning, and we only managed to link up briefly with Daniel, and will have to plan better next time (including getting a rental car) if we want to make it to Golden.

 

Results

Tip #1: There will be blood. You can’t control everything in a good adventure. You can try to do everything right: slather sunblock head to toe, bring enough water, stash extra clothes in case the weather changes suddenly, which it is bound to do in the West. But there will be blood. In my case, the gore looked more gruesome than it really was: just a gusher of a nose bleed.

I just stuffed my right nostril with tissues and moseyed along. Sean, on the other hand, got a real doozie of a hand gash after taking a wicked fall that slammed his shoulder into a tree. Sean is accustomed to taking a slide, but this one was so painful he went into a kind of shock and had to sit down for a while. The Andrish Family Way is to stick some leaves in there and move on. But Sean accepted my demand that we take him to the hospital and get him stitched up. Sean’s ER doc told him he could still run, but I doubt he’d guess we’d do another epic run the next day, shuttling to Copper so we could make our way back to Frisco via Uneva Pass. Since when did a little blood keep an Andrish down?

 

Tip #2: the Kite Lake Trail is an efficient way to bag 14ers. The plan for our five days in Frisco could be summed up as: bring running clothes, show up. So when Daniel announced that he could arrive at 7am on Friday and drive us to the Kite Lake Loop for our first big adventure, we were totally game. The Kite Lake trail takes you over four mountains over 14,000 feet (Mt. Democrat, Mt. Cameron, Mt. Lincoln, and Mt. Bross) over a mere eight miles. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more efficient way to bag a handful of 14ers.

Tip #3: Take an Easy Day. On your first adventure, you’re going to have an altitude-be-damned attitude and push through the dizziness and fatigue because you’re just so stoked to be out there. Your lungs will burn, your head will spin, but you’ll soldier on. But take a tip from the ole marmot and back off the next day. Summit County’s event calendar is chock full o’ fun stuff all all summer, and a quick glance at a local newspaper will yield a host of activities that won’t burn your lungs.

Since the Kite Lake trail had knocked the snot out of the two sea level-dwellers, we took the free shuttle to Breckenridge and began Day 2’s adventure with the Summit Foundation’s Great Rubber Duck Race. Over 10,000 rubber duckies were released into the river, and the winner got $3,000. Someone finally came up with a better way to raffle. We topped off the festivities with awesome Higgles ice cream, and a free gondola ride up Peak 7 [Tip #4: Free gondola rides are offered at Breckenridge all summer long.] so we could so we could cruise eight miles downhill on the beautiful Peaks trail all the way to Frisco [Tip #5: Point-to-point adventures are made dead easy by the Summit Stage, which runs a free shuttle every half hour between points of interest, including Frisco, Copper, Breckenridge, and Keystone].

Tip #6: Skip the race. Our visit coincided with the Breckenridge Crest Mountain Marathon, Half Marathon & 10k, a temptation most VHTRCers wouldn’t have been able to resist. I get it: races are a good excuse to travel and see beautiful parts of the world. But why exactly do you need an excuse? Can’t you just go out to visit Sean and Miles and run in the mountains? We covered some of the same trails as the marathon course, but we got to all run together, giggling and farting, and stopping for all the views and all the critters. And there were a lot of critters.

Critter highlights: Mamma moose with calf, yellow-bellied marmot, pika, steller’s jay, hummingbird (females are tough to ID but possibly black-chinned), hummingbird clearwinged moth (that was originally mistaken for a hummingbird), clark’s nutcracker, snake (unidentified), sharp-shinned hawk, red-tailed hawk, black-billed magpie

Tip #7: Wait a couple days for your big adventure. We arrived in Colorado on a Wednesday evening, and it wasn’t until Sunday that we felt like we’d adjusted to the altitude enough to have the big adventure of the trip. The run around Buffalo Mountain was the highlight for me. Not as otherworldly as Kite Lake, but just pure pleasure. Waterfalls, sweeping vistas, and, maybe most critically, peaks where you weren’t freezing your ass off and could just bask in the sun for a while and watch the marmots scurry through the rocks. Where Miles had plenty of water to frolic in, and where the scenery was always changing, from pine-floored forests to meadows peppered with wildflowers. It reminded me in many places of Fat Dog. Sure, Sean and I ended up covered in blood (see Tip #1). But this is the day I’ll recall when I need to go to my ‘happy place’.

Tip #8: Encore. Always encore. We might have reeled it in after our the Buffalo Mountain bloodbath. The irony of Sean’s fall is that it was actually in one of the least technical stretches, as we reached the popular, groomed Lily Pad Lake trails down at the bottom of the mountain. Sean had no trouble with the boulder fields, but meandering tourists are a whole ‘nother thing.

But I’m so glad we rallied for a final point-to-point adventure, taking the Summit Stage out in the other direction to Copper Mountain so we could run back to Frisco on yet another route. We went slooow, demonstrating to Sean just how long a human could spend watching marmots. But we managed not to incur any more blood, and found some unexpectedly beautiful country on some less-traveled trails.

 

Tip #9: Everything is more fun with dogs. Creatures tend to fall into one of two categories: spirited or obedient. Miles is rare for being both. One moment he’s thrashing in a lake like a puppy, then crashing through the forest understory chasing imaginary prey. Miles is a force of nature, a true athlete, and at the young age of two we’re only beginning to see how far he can go in the mountains (I suspect very far). But Miles also takes his service responsibilities seriously, obeying Sean’s commands like they’re gospel. One thing Miles is not is a guard dog. When another dog snarled and snapped at Miles while we were in line at the coffee shop, the poor sweet thing bounded into my lap for protection.

 

Discussion

Mission: Frisco was another glowing example of the success of the concept of Noncation. With the three-day weekend and the relatively short stay, there wasn’t quite as much work accomplished as when we do longer 10-day trips. But there is something wonderful about just crashing at a friend’s and not having any of the standard stresses of vacation: (a) the sinking feeling that you’re going to have hundreds of emails when you get home; and (b) the pressure that you need to do everything, because this is your one chance. We covered a lot of territory, but we left a long list of things we didn’t get to do in Frisco. We never climbed Mt Royal. We didn’t make it to Golden to see Jenny, Lilia, and Buster. We didn’t join Phil and Kim in Leadville. We didn’t make it out to Aaron’s childhood neighbor’s ranch in Eagle (ponies!). But, we can leave with the comfortable knowledge that we’ll be back. Sure, there’s a place for real vacation, and I’d like to go somewhere exotic like Brazil or Kyrgystan (someone is still owned a honeymoon….). But in the mean time there’s something absolutely wonderful about vacations that involve zero planning.

The trip was also a proof-of-concept that Martha and Sean can spend five whole days together and not want to rip each other’s face off. Back in the day in Woodley Park, there were loads of good times, but there were also times when Sean’s stubbornness brought me to my knees. I guess Sean left all the old ticks in Virginia, because in five days in Frisco I couldn’t even manage an eye roll.

Materials and Methods

Running gear. You know I’m not a big gear person, but I have to give a shout-out to my new Ultimate Direction Groove Stereo waist belt. I noticed it on Adam W. when he did Highland Sky back in June and hit him up for the details. It impresses me in terms of comfort, including not making me as hot as a vest, and storage, including a nice front pack.  I’ll add that Sean and I are also big fans of the Saucony Peregrine trail shoes.

Food and beverage. I would also add that if you’re heading to Frisco, there is great food to be found at Tavern West (a bit more upscale) and a new Mexican place near the Whole Foods called Rio Grande (casual). Great ice cream can be found at Breckenridge’s Higgles. For coffee, head to Rocky Mountain Coffee Roasters on Main Street. And your best local dive bar is definitely Moose Jaw, where we dragged Sean to play billiards even with his hand freshly stitched. Why most women can’t properly wield a pool cue remained an unresolved question, even with hours on the trails to come up with plausible hypotheses. Sean provided a useful insight that he learned to shoot pool in the basement of his college fraternity, while his sister’s sorority had no table. But this just seems to beg the question of why women don’t take up such an elegant sport that doesn’t require any male muscle strength. The marmot would like to know!

 

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Sean Andrish, for so kindly sharing his space with a bear and a marmot who is not always so tidy. A big thanks also to Miles, who was like the rainbow jimmies on an ice cream scoop and just made every grand adventure sparkle that much brighter. A thanks also goes out to the cute PA at Summit County Hospital who made Sean’s visit to get stitches a lot more pleasant. Daniel deserves a big shout-out for enabling our adventure to Kite Lake. We can get around pretty far in the Summit Stage (which also deserve a big acknowledgment here for shuttling our asses around for free between restaurants, trail heads, and medical centers all week), but we wouldn’t have been able to do that awesome hike without Daniel’s truck. We also appreciated Daniel’s colorful commentary, which could be considered a different flavor of jimmies. Finally, we’d like to acknowledge a nameless group of hikers who very kindly gave us an entire bottle of water when Sean was sitting on a rock in a state of post-trauma shock after splitting open his hand.