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.
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Coming into the cutoff sectionSections five and six: It's Not that Easy to Pee in the Woods |
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.
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| 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.
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.
