The Day (or two) After Stump Jump

9 hours. 52 minutes. 57 seconds.

That's how long it took to travel 32.42 miles.

Some days don't go like you plan.  

Some days you don't know what to even plan.

Saturday was one of those not-sure-what-i-planned-but-it-sure-wasn't-this kind of days.

And (spoiler alert) it was all kinds of awesome.

The start:

Woke up feeling great and ready to go.  Headed from my hotel in the dark (which then made sense to me why they don't start the race until 7:30 because runners flying down mountains in the dark would not be a great idea) to Signal Mountain High School, the start of the race and was a little nervous and a whole lot excited.  

The sun was coming up and the weather was the best we've had for running in a long time.  Here's one awesome thing about trail races (at least this one)---no line for the women's bathroom  (there was one for the men's).   Pre-race pic with the training crew:

Before the race I told the girls of my strategy--that the course was 31.7 (that's what I thought) miles so I figured I would segment it into 8 sections of four miles and that meant that mentally, I  just had to run 8 segments.  Just 8..that doesn't sound so bad, right??

Segment One:

We had been warned several times that the beginning of the course is "runnable" and "fairly easy" so we shouldn't go out too fast.  In fact, the race director said this in the pre-race email:

"don't go crazy"

"the course only gets HARDER."

From the beginning the four of us had one main fear (other than dying of yellow jacket stings or falling off a mountain or smashing our faces into a rock) and that was we would not make the first cutoff.  You had to be in under four hours.  We calculated that to be about 15 minute miles so we knew in that first section when it was "runnable" we should not "go crazy" and should try to keep our pace at what we hoped we be around 12 minutes to take advantage of the easy part.

Except it wasn't.

Easy.

Because of the rain and people being nervous everyone was moving extra slow and the line of runners running single track meant you couldn't go anywhere.  It was eating up our time that we were trying to cushion and in my head I was going a little crazy.  But man, the scenery was already gorgeous.

Segments two and three:  

Something to know before I go any further--  The real story of yesterday was Kelli.  This would be her third attempt at Stump Jump.  The first year she did it the weather was horrible, she got separated from everyone and in her words "had a mental breakdown" on the course and ended up quitting before the last section of the race.  Her next attempt ended with a jacked up ham string and motion sickness from the swinging bridge (did I mention she is scared of heights and swinging bridges?).    She had given up on the race until Allison signed up this year and then sneakily (is that a word?) signed up for another try.  In that first segments of the race Kelli took the swinging bridge like a boss.

Tara knew going into the course she likely wouldn't finish.  She didn't get to train like she knew she would need (and she has completed Stump twice so she knew was she was in for)  but she wanted to be out there to help Kelli get to that first checkpoint.  Around mile 12 (I think) she let Kelli know she was stopping at the first checkpoint. 

The course was sloppy and slick and there were so many beautiful water crossings but man--getting across them got a little tricky because the rocks would give under your feet.  It was funny to see the progression of people going from trying to keep their shoes dry in the first couple of miles, to getting in puddles, to slopping straight through the mud, to straight up just stomping right into the water, even when there was a bridge right next to it.  At first, though, everyone was pretty cautious.  Here was one of the tamer crossings:

Here was one that I had to stand there and figure out how to get across:

Segment four:  when the wheels fell off

In my training before Stump I had been dealing with some knee pain--nothing major and it usually didn't start until I ran at least 16 miles so I had already knew that it might be a possibility at stump.  I told myself I would just suck it up and deal with the hurt when it eventually came.  I just didn't know that would happen

by mile 12.

By mile 12 my knee was in screaming pain.  I'm not going to lie.  I cussed a lot.  A LOT.  I made up some new words.  But mostly I was freaking out because not only was my knee hurting, I couldn't get it to take weight on the downhills--If i came down directly on it at all it would give and my ankles would turn which meant I said an even bigger string of profanity.   (sorry to all the people for all the words btw).  I fell so many times because I was trying not to bend my knee so my foot was dragging. In one fall, I fell downhill and spun around on my back and Kelli said we would call that one the turtle fall.  I'm super graceful that way.

 The minutes were ticking by and I realized we weren't going to make the cutoff.  I tried to speed up. I was trying to keep up with Allison.  My watch said our pace was a 15:05.  And then we came around a corner and saw the amazing NRC support crew standing there cheering and yelling.  I was aggravated that they were there and not at the checkpoint.  

At that point, I was completely overwhelmed.  So I may have had  a minor major meltdown.  There might have been tears. Ugly tears.  I was in a ton of pain and had no idea how I was going to get to the cutoff and the race guy was yelling that we needed to hurry or we would miss it.  Except for he meant the next cutoff. What I didn't realize (although the fact  there was a ton of family and friends cheering and runners hanging out having snacks and a clipboard guy) was that I was AT the cutoff.  

We had made the cutoff.

Coming into the cutoff section

Sections five and six:  It's Not that Easy to Pee in the Woods

After my two minute euphoria of knowing I had made it wore off I had to deal with my reality.  I started out thinking I was on borrowed time.  Allison had left the checkin point and I knew I couldn't catch up to her.  Kelli had left as well, but I wasn't sure how far she was ahead.  I just planned on going out and just getting each mile I could on my knee.   But two great things happened. 1.  I caught up to Kelli and 2. We started doing a lot more climbing.  I never thought I would be so happy to go uphill on a course but as long as I was going uphill or level my knee was doing okay.  And I was soooo happy to make it past that checkpoint--there was plenty of time to make it to the next one and so I started  to breathe again.  Kelli and I were loving life...as much as you can when you are climbing a mountain.

Most of the day I didn't see any of the scenery around me.  If you looked up you died.  Or at least fell hard.  So I don't know what anyone looked like for the entire day but I can describe a lot of shoes and socks.  (shout out to American Flag sock guy who was super nice and pink stripe sock girl who was a complete oversharer--hope your cousin gets better).  

  I can also tell you about the few moments we were able to take it all in and the rock garden was one of those.

The major issue besides dealing with my knee at that point was my growing need to pee.  In the woods.  But I couldn't find the right kind of tree situation to make that happen where the whole stump community running our way would not get to see me peeing  (which shows what a novice I am because if I were legit I would not care).  Kelli picked me out a good tree setup and off i went.  But if you were anywhere close to those trees you heard me screaming a lot of bad words.  Turns out.  I decided to pee in thorn-briar city.  Which scratched my legs (fortunately just my legs) up.  Which gave me a bit of a badass bloody look except for yeah..it was from peeing.  So whatever.

post race war wounds :)

Segment Seven:  Kelli panics

The second check-in point was at mile 24.6.  We knew we had plenty of time to get there and our pace was okay.  So we were running along chatting.  We had run into our friend Bryan Snyder earlier in the day and were leap frogging him.  We had told him of our segment plan and so every time we saw him we would yell out what segment we were on--"Segment Six!  only two more to go" and it seemed to keep all our heads together.  

Towards the end of mile six Kelli was leading and started pushing the pace.  She was running without any walk breaks and I was just doing my best to keep up trying to figure out why in the world she had picked that particular time to start pushing our pace.   She also got very. very. quiet.  As we headed into segment seven she started her own freak out--"there's NO way we are going to make it.  We only have four minutes."  "Kelli," I said, "we have like 45 more minutes to make the check point."  She had been looking at her time and not the time elapsed running and got confused and without telling me, had been freaking out that whole time, which was why she was pushing our pace so hard.  

We head into the check point with plenty of time.  There was the NRC support crew and this time I was all smiles.

 Max and Jeff had diet coke waiting on me and a hug.  I slammed some pickle juice to go with the juice and paydays (my nutrition plan that worked surprisingly well) I had been consuming and we were off again.  My knee was manageable as long as I sort of dragged it behind me.  We were feeling good.

Segment Eight:   I hate everyone but you and James

We started mile 29 pretty happy that we were on the last segment.  We were going slow enough to love the scenery

But then the course got all kinds of hateful.  The course punched us in the face.  This would be the first time Kelli had made it this far and I had only heard that there was a "tough climb" so when we got to the tough climb I knew it was going to suck and it did. 

 What no one had ALSO told us is that the "tough climb" was like seventeen miles long and hot and very technical which meant running wasn't really doable, if we had wanted to run at that point.  We knew the course was 31.7 miles long so we started saying things like "we are 1/4 of the way through segment 8.  

My phone was getting service and was making the sound it makes when messages came through and I let Kelli know that I thought it was the group chat of people waiting at the finish line.  Kelli, "They are all just laughing and having a good old time, watching tv and hanging out I bet. I hate them.  Matter of fact, I hate everyone.  I hate everyone except for you and James (her grandbaby). "  

From that point on my conversation was almost relegated to one word, and it was almost always the same word.  But we were doing okay, because we could hear the finish line and we were almost done with segment eight.  We were at mile 31 baby!!!!  

.....

And then there was an aid station.  AN AID station.   And I said, "Kelli, why is there an aid station at the finish line of our race??"  And the guy working the aid station said the most hateful thing anyone said to us all day, "You're almost there girls, you've only got 1.25 miles to go."

And then Kelli said, "WHY ARE WE STARTING SEGMENT NINE??  THERE IS NO SEGMENT NINE!!!"  And yet there was.  

Segment Nine:  seven minutes and three seconds

At that point we had given up on life.  I looked up and saw Max coming towards me and I remember thinking how happy I was to see him, mostly because surely he didn't really walk out 1.25 miles to see us, so surely the guy at the aid station was wrong but then Max started telling us about all the terrain he had gone through to see us "Mom, it's not far!  You just have to go down this road, and over a bridge and you climb some more hills."  And Kelli and I both gave him the death look and I told him to run ahead, mostly because I was afraid of the words word he might hear me say in that next mile.

What we didn't know at the time, was the group at the finish line was FREAKING OUT worrying that we weren't going to make the 10 hour race cutoff.  In fact, we didn't even know we were close to not making it because we had thought there were only 8 segments of the course. 😒 We actually didn't find out until the race was completely over how close we came.  

And that last 1.25 miles suuuuuucks.  

But THEN...we finally come out of the trees and there was the most beautiful sound of people we love screaming and going crazy.   There is no cheer time like an NRC cheer team.  

 I can't describe what it was like to get to be part of that moment when Kelli finished that race but I will remember it for a very long time.   It's just cool to see someone work that hard for so long and fail and try again and again.  There were a whole lot of tears and it was ...man....there just really isn't words.  But it was amazing.

Would I do it again:

I need to figure out the knee stuff to make it work on that kind of course but would I  do it again?  100percentabsolutelyheckyeahofcourse.  It was the best kind of day.It was perfect.

The day before Stump Jump

Three years ago I started training for Stump Jump, a 50k trail race and I failed miserably.  Turns out I was a terrible trail runner.  I thought trail runners were the coolest people and trail running looked completely badass and I really wanted to be one of the cool kids.  Turns out, I just ended up looking more like their special cousin they let tag along.

I fell all.the.time. I couldn't get brave enough to blaze downhill (or run...or jog...) I couldn't get my heart rate down on the uphill.  I'm also a talker (BAH!  I know you find this very surprising) and when you run on trails you run single file, making it difficult to hear so you don't talk as much, which was my own special challenge.  Also, the cool scenery everyone else talked about sorta just looked like hella lotta trees to me.  About six weeks into the program I did something I had never done before in a training cycle.  I quit.

I gave up, realizing I was pretty much always going to have to leave this one to the cool kids.  And then, early this summer, I decided I thought I wanted to give trails another go.  It's been Tennessee hot and I wanted to run and trails meant less heat. Plus, all my friends seem to be converted to trails for the summer and all those road miles were getting kind of lonely.  PLUS, I didn't want to be scared of trails anymore.  Do the hard things, ya know? 

So I headed out there again.  My friend Lauren, who can always talk me into anything, talked me into it and I joined other friends who would have me along the way.

This time I just did my own thing.   I didnt worry about my pace.  I didn't worry about my awkward descents...or slow climbs...or constant tripping from not picking up my clunky feet.  Runners always say "run your own race" but we often don't listen to our own advice but this time I just went out and did my thing. In my new shockingly ugly trail shoes.

 And I still sucked.  But I sucked my way and it sure was fun.  I still fell but was managing to run upright more (with one minor accident). 

There is still nothing speedy or graceful about the way I go downhill but it's now fun to try to make my way to the bottom. I still cuss my way through every major climb but they really deserve to be cussed so whatever.  And most surprisingly I can run hours out there without saying anything and I kind of like it.  I still can't say much about the scenery because I'm too terrified to look up from the ground but it smells pretty :).

So I had no intention of doing anything other than just being out there, even though my friends had all signed up for Stump Jump.  To me, that race has always represented the hard thing--the hardest hard thing because I have heard all the stories from the people who have done it and those people are all badasses.  They are stories of puking, falling, pooping in the woods, getting lost,  yellow jacket stings , sitting alone on a path crying and of getting beaten up by the course  ( a few stories where it sounds like all these things happened simultaneously).

But guess what I'm going to try to do tomorrow?  Im going to attempt to run 31 (32, 33?  ish) miles through a course that's likely to be my biggest running challenge.

There's a chance I won't make a cut off and a good chance I just won't finish.  Better people than me have had those outcomes.  But the thing is, it won't matter.  Because I have had an absolute blast this training cycle.   Every long training run is a story and the stories of these runs have been so cool--I've watched friends get so much stronger and faster.

  We've braved horrible temps with molasses humidity and some of the runs have gone into the dark.

  I've learned the story of being out there by myself and finding my brave.  I definitely have laughed my guts out more than a few times.    I would definitely do it all over again just for the long runs in the woods.


I would do it all over again for the fun I've had with all these people:

So today I'm drinking all the water, eating some  ALL the carbs, trying to remember what I'll probably forget to pack and I'm absolutely not freaking out about all the stuff I have zero control over.  LIke this:

Orrrr.....things like yellow jackets...and getting washed away by flash flood waters, or sliding off the side of a mountain, or falling and smashing my head into a rock, or having to use the bathroom in the woods, or having someone push me off the side of the mountain because I  have thrown by body down and it's the only way they can clear the path for other runners to get through.


I'm not freaking out about any of that.   Because the training?  That was the party.