Overall, JFK was a great experience. I learned a lot about where I am
at as an ultra runner, experienced an entirely new type of course,
and met some amazing athletes and new friends! As great as the
experience was the race portion of the weekend did not go quite as
well as I would have liked. Personally, I believe there were two main
reasons for this. First, a relative inexperience with the type of
course. Secondly, my body caught up with me.
A description of the course and how I responded to it will help
explain my inexperience. The first six miles of the course presents
an ascent of approximately 1200 ft. This was not too daunting as I
have done some hill work in the past few months (although more “real”
climbing would certainly have helped). I reached the peak of this
portion of the Appalachian Trail in sixth place. I was fine with this
because I tend to be aggressive on the descents and assumed I could
make up some ground on the next stage.
The
next stage presented a type of running terrain I had no experience
with because of the rocks. The trail was covered in rocks. It is
really hard for me to describe this properly, but I will do my best.
Picture rocks ranging in size of two feet wide one foot high to rocks
the size of a baseball. Portions of the the trail were covered with
these. This is just a personal guess, but it seemed like parts of the
trail were up to 75 percent of these different sized rocks. This made
a typical stride out descent nearly impossible (for a rookie like me
anyway). I found myself galloping down parts of the trail, because I
was simply unable to navigate through this rock obstacle course with
any consistency. I counted four times where I nearly rolled my ankle.
I do have an interesting side story that describes what experience
can do for you in these situations. Jeffrey Buechler ,
who went on to finish third place overall, was behind me for the
majority of the ascent. As soon as we reached the peak and began to
descend it felt like I blinked once and he was already out of sight.
At times I would tell myself just to get out of this portion of the
trail in one piece. It was frustrating because in my previous three
ultras I would really attack the descents, but this time I just
didn't have the tools to comfortably do so without bashing my knees
and face on rocks! In retrospect I realize the way I “galloped”
and sped up and slowed down during this portion of the course
probably took an enormous toll on my legs. This final portion of the
descent presented what is called switch back trail. This is when the
trail serpentines down the side because it is too steep to descend
straight down. I'd be lying if I said this part was not scary. There
were spots where you had to literally stop in order to change
directions and avoid shooting right of the side of the trail in what
would certainly be a race ending experience if not worse. Despite my
inexperience I did manage to make a bit of a surge on the descent. I
found myself going through the mile 15.5 aid station in third place.
I was optimistic about this because we were about to enter a 26.4
mile stretch of flat tow path. I got after it pretty good at first. I
was probably clipping approximately 6:30 miles for the first few
miles on the tow path. As I came up to the mile 20 aid station I
stopped to fill up my bottles. I was carrying a Fuel
Belt, which holds two 20 ounce bottles. This device served me
well and allowed me to shoot through a lot of aid stations.
I
didn't realize it at the time but Kalib Wilkinson was right behind
me and blew right passed me at the aid station. I would not see him
again for the remainder of the race. At first I thought he was
Michael Wardian because he had
caught me a few minutes earlier, but immediately stopped for a
bathroom brake. A few minutes later Wardian, who I had passed right
at the end of the switch back trail caught back up with me. He must
have been dropping sub 6:10 min/mile pace at this point. I was
already starting to realize how much the descent took out of me, and
knew I would not be able to carry a 6:10 min/mile pace without
blowing up before the finish, so I let Wardian go by. This put me in
fifth place. Somewhere around mile 30 I began to hear another runner
gaining on me. As he approached I realized it was Matt Woods. He was
cruising and looking strong. I thought he might make a push for third
place by the way he looked. I hung with him for a few minutes, but
ultimately he gapped me by approximately 300 meters. I wasn't going
very fast at this point, probably between 6:50/7:00 min/mile. I was
trying not to look ahead, because the monotony of the long straight
shots was beginning to get to me. Somewhere close to mile 35 Michael
Arnstein
came flying by me. He encouraged me to keep pushing, because lots of
guys were suffering. This gave me a bit of motivation, which I sorely
needed. Arnstein ultimately held on for a fifth place finish. When I
started getting close to the mile 38 aid station I looked up and
noticed that I had closed the gap between Woods to about 150 meters.
This gave me a bit of energy. As I began to enter the aid station I
realized Woods had stopped to fuel up. I had a bottle waiting for me
there so I was able to shoot right through and reclaim sixth place.
Woods caught back up with me, and told me he was not feeling to good
at this point. I was able to hold close to a 7 min/mile pace, which
allowed me to gap him. The next 3.8 miles were the last part of the
two path before entering the the final road section.
The last 8.2 miles was speckled with rolling hills and one steep
200-300 foot climb. I spent the previous 7 miles trying to convince
myself if I could get to this part I would be able to put together a
respectable finish on the pavement. However, this was not the case.
When I began the steep hill my pace became quite slow. It was a
grind. I could not seem to get the turnover I had when at the Fall 50
four weeks earlier. At this point I just hoped to hold steady enough
to keep seventh place from catching me, and maybe catch someone who
really blew up. I managed to hold off seventh place, but did not
catch anyone. I finished in a time of 6 hrs 11 min 59 sec.
As I reflect on this race and the past few months I try to be
realistic about everything. I personally tend to think three 50
milers in 9 weeks might have been a little aggressive for someone who
previously had only done one ultra. Despite this assumption, I'm
still glad I did this. I feel I learned a lot about the sport be
attempting three completely different courses. It allowed me to learn
what type of courses my current training program allows me to excel
at. It also taught me that as a new ultra runner it is probably in my
best interest to focus on a few races that I want to peak at, while
using others as workouts.
A big thanks to Matt Woods and his sister Heather for allowing me to
send some of my fuel with Heather. It certainly saved me some time
out on the course. A big thanks to Fuel
Belt for supplying me with the tools I needed to stay hydrated on
the course.
The athletes at this years JFK 50 were superb. It was probably the
strongest field in this races deep history. To put it into
perspective two runners, David
Riddle and Michael Wardian,
ran under the previous course record held by Eric Clifton, which had
stood for 17 years!
