When David Horton says “3 minutes,” he means 3 minutes; not 4 minutes, certainly not 5 ½ or 6 minutes, not even 3 mins. 30 secs.  3 minutes.  Saturday early morning as the entire race field was crammed into the Holliday Lake Rec Center, David Horton announced the start of the race.

“Three minutes.”

“Yeah right,” I thought to myself.  “It’ll take that long just to get everybody out the door, much less down to the starting line and ready to go…. He really means in about 5 minutes.”  I still needed to answer nature’s call one last time, change my shoes, and put on another shirt, figuring I had plenty of time.

“One Minute.” 

I’m still answering Nature’s call.  “Uh oh, maybe he was serious about that 3 minute thing,” I nervously thought.  Got the right shoe on. 

“10 seconds.”  Damn.

“Go.”

I slip my left heel into the shoe, tie it up with numbing fingers, and in a mad scramble, grab my bag to toss it near the starting line, clutching my shirt, flashlight, and three energy gels, and dash in the dark towards the starting line.  Moving through the back of the pack, I try to organize my handful of items, and in the process drop two of the three energy gels.  Damn.  Now I have to re-strategize when I am going to consume the remaining three.  “Let’s see, now that article said these guys will provide energy for approx. 45 mins., so if I take my first one at 1 ½ hours, my second at 2 ¼ hours, the third at 3 hours, I should have just enough boost to get me through this race.”  Now, hopefully there will be an aid station at these exact intervals to coincide with my taking these gels.  Need the water to get it down.

It doesn’t feel THAT cold out, I don’t think I’ll need the shirt after all.  Great, I get to carry this shirt to the first aid station.  Everything was going according to plan.  By the beginning of the single track trail around the lake, I had weaseled my way near the front, and thinking I had made good progress in spite of the late start, noticed a small group of runners who were significantly further ahead on the trail.  “O.k., I really need to pass this group I’m with, and get up there.  How long is this ‘single track’ going to last?”  Everyone was polite, and let me pass with no real complaints, at least none that I could hear.  “O.k, this is good.  I was on a trail with no one in front of me, I could open it up a bit and get moving.”  Until that fork where the course veered off the trail, up and to the right, away from the lake.  I kept straight, taking a few runners with me. 

We heard a lady’s voice call out, “You’re going the wrong way!”  Crap. 

Getting back to the course, a whole new gaggle of runners now followed the old gaggle I had worked so hard to pass earlier.  The course now opened up on a dirt roadway/firetrail, but running uphill in panic mode wasn’t going to benefit me later in the race, my legs began to tell me.  So I relaxed, and settled into a more reasonable pace. 

Eventually I caught the lead group, and making very small talk (“Who are you?”  “I’m nobody.”  Then looking at my bib number, “Oh, you’re that guy, well, better get up there then.”), pulled away.

Alright then, this was nice.  Happy with the pace; putting some distance on those guys.  Just wish this icicle growing on my left eyelashes would melt away.  I didn’t want to pluck it off, I was afraid I might rip out eyelashes.  “Who’s that?”  A guy just turned left off the pavement; was he a runner?  Or a volunteer?  What was that they said to me at the previous aid station, something about two minutes ahead.  Maybe I was two minutes behind.  Damn.

Sure enough, at the next straightaway, there he was.  A lone runner, way up ahead.  Somewhere between the first water crossing and next aid station I finally caught him, much surprised at his apparent age.  He had a full beard that was by now completely white with frost/ice; that was the first thing I noticed.  Other than the fact that his shirt had NO SLEEVES.  Walking out of the rec center before the start of the race, I overheard some people talking, “Yeah, and there’s this guy in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt.  But he has a low bib number, so he must be fast.”  To which I turned around and offered, “I don’t care how fast you are, cold is cold.”

Here he was, the guy with shorts and a short sleeve shirt.  And frosted beard.  But a young face.  And moving very comfortably.  We talked a bit, about what took me so long to get there, he had wondered where I was; of the trail, which hadn’t shown him anything challenging yet, not compared to what he gets to train on in West Virginia.  There’s only one real set of trails I’m aware of in the entire Hampton Roads area (to include Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, VA Beach, Chesapeake, and Portsmouth); I’m speaking of the trails at Newport News State Park.  VA Beach Seashore State Park follow a close second.  He spoke of the surprising lack of snow on the ground, and the warm temps.  I complained about the icicle that refused to stop growing on my eyelashes.  Now the vision out of my left eye was getting cloudy. 

We ran together for a little while, until I had to stop to answer Nature’s call again.  40 seconds behind, again.  At the next aid station, about 1 hr. 30 mins. into the race, I decided I’d stop for my first drink of water, and grabbed a cup of Mountain Dew, thinking it was Gatorade. 

“That’s Mountain Dew.”

“Where’s the Gatorade?”  I’m great at reading directions.  I know it was in the pre-race instructions.

“We don’t have Gatorade, we have Conquest.”

“Super, I’ll take it.”

“O.k, wait a minute.” 

It was then I realized there was no Conquest poured, or water for that matter.  The guy fumbled with a bag, trying desperately to get a cup out.  All’s they had ready was the sodas. 

“Never mind,” I muttered, “I’ll get some at the next stop.”

Now for some reason, this put me in a really foul mood.  And motivated me.  I felt a sudden sense of urgency, thinking I had wasted valuable seconds waiting for water or Gatorade or Conquest that I never got, and needed to get down to the business of running this race.  I tried to relax, remembering that in my last ultra I didn’t get my first drink until almost two hours into the race.  And I figured the water wasn’t poured because probably it would have frozen as soon as it hit the cup.  Soda must have a lower freezing point.  I really can’t see well at all from my left eye.  My eyes aren’t watering anymore.  I feel tears well up, then coldness.  There’s Mongold.  Bradley Mongold was slowing down on the trail, fumbling with his water bottle.  Seems it was common that morning, water bottles freezing up.  I passed him rather quickly, not in the mood for small talk at this point, just wanting to get this race over with.  Still in a bad mood.  I got to the turn around and was very disappointed that Bradley came in so close behind me; I thought I had a bigger lead on him.  I left rather quickly, hoping to put as much distance on him as soon as possible, thinking that if I broke contact quickly, it would demoralize him a bit.  Then I passed the 3^rd and 4^th runners in the race, and again was surprised at how close they seemed to be.  I quickened my pace again.  Icicle disappeared over my left eye, which had by now completely clouded over, and new icicle growing over right eye.  Odd, left eye going out, right eye coming back.  I guess it made sense, in Bizarro World.  Where the temperature is always 16 degrees. 

Running back along the course, it occurred to me that I really wasn’t having fun.  I couldn’t see anything but vague shapes out of my left eye, which was really throwing off my depth perception; above my right eye an icicle had formed, so I felt terribly uncomfortable on the trail.  I was unsure of my pace, so I just tried to hammer the straights and downhills, and run somewhat cautiously over the trickier parts of the trail.  Still somewhat new to the whole ultra thing, the course now seemed much hillier than described (flat and fast).  Reaching the final aid station, I heard the sweetest words: 

“You’re in the homestretch now.” 

In the finish area, I was able to reflect on the event.  The experience HAD been fun.  The start was almost comical.  It couldn’t possibly have gone worse.  The volunteers were wonderful, very vocal, shouting encouragement.  And they did an excellent job keeping me on the course.  There were at least two aid stations where I tried running off in the wrong direction.  And I made a friend along the way.  Bradley and I exchanged email addresses after the race; we spoke of hooking up for some long training runs together.  And of the shoes I had worn, he commented, “Nobody runs ultras in those things.”  (They were road racing flats).  I’m learning. 

Many, many thanks to David Horton for putting on a first class event.  From the output of information about the race in the days ahead to the post-race meal, it was all planned and executed with near flawlessness, which had the best possible effect on me as a participant:  I can’t wait to do it again next year. 

 Pete Breckinridge