Manitou's Revenge 56-mile race

I recently heard about a new race, 56 miles on rocky trails in the Catskills.  I've been up and down the Escarpment Trail a few times, and I've been wanting to see the Devil's Path.  The timing was good as a lead-up race for the Vermont 100, so I said "what the heck".  John agreed to crew for me and it looked like he would also be able to come with me for the Devil's Path portion, so that settled it.

We got up ridiculously early, got to chat with a local policeman who was curious why we were out driving at such an odd hour, and made it to the start without further incident.  There were quite a few people running this inaugural race (and a tough race at that).  We started with a 3-mile jog up the road, which was the only easy part of the whole event.

Whoever was still behind me when we started into the woods and up the hill, I let most of them by.  Today was all about training for my climbing legs.  The Long Trail treks had been a great start, now it was time to get serious.  So I didn't want to go crazy at the beginning, just treat this like a training run and ease my legs into the work of getting up the hills.

I was impressed with how most of the field disappeared ahead of me.  These folks are serious athletes, very few back-of-the-packers.  I made my way up to the Escarpment Trail and over to the steep climb up to Blackhead Mountain.  There was a photographer and his dog coming down, hi guys!

We got occasional views into the cloud-covered valleys as the trail climbed up into the sunshine.  A nice morning, starting to get a bit warm.

There were a couple friendly volunteers at the Dutcher Notch aid station - thank you!  The climb up to Stoppel Point went well, and I started seeing a couple other runners on the way to North Point.  Compared to the lung-buster Escarpment Trail Race, this was a very pleasant way to traverse the trail.

John found me as I was approaching North/South Lake and got to see some views down toward the Hudson Valley.  Good morning!

I grabbed a couple snacks at the aid station and gave John a kiss.  The next few miles down to Palenville were mostly pretty easy, and I was warmed up and ready to run a little.  I enjoyed the long downhill to the next aid station where John was waiting.  More water, a couple snacks, time for some real work.

I had previously climbed the next trail in training so I was ready for a long, steep grind.  Yep, that's what it was.  A group of 3 runners passed me, but for the most part I was alone in this section.  I had heard that the trails on top were quite muddy, but the traverse over to Buttermilk Falls was actually better than my previous experience.  There were, however, quite a few large downed trees to climb over.  I enjoyed sitting on each one as I swung my legs over, a nice rest for a couple seconds.

On the next little climb I actually passed someone, I must be doing OK.  The traverse back toward Platte Clove took a long time.  I had done this section in training too, but from the other direction.  Now the trail was in worse condition than I had seen before.  Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

Ho hum, how long does this trail go?  Finally I got to the last big aid station.  Hi John!  He was dressed and ready to come with me for a few miles.  Awesome!  We started with a jog down the road to the beginning of the Devil's Path.  Time to go see some Catskill trails I had not been on before.

I was surprised to start catching up to several other runners.  My legs were doing great so I motored up the climb to Indian Head.  Well, at least until the trail got gnarly and required some grabbing onto tree roots to pull ourselves up.  Very cool.  Glad that John got to experience it too.

Devil's Path was super interesting - lots of rocks, roots, figuring out how to get up and down.  We went over Indian Head, Twin Mountain (2 peaks close together), then a long drop and climb over Sugarloaf.

John took several photos through here - he had no trouble keeping up and taking pictures at the same time:

Who came up with the idea for this trail?

It took quite a long time to get to Mink Hollow and the next aid station.  I had been ahead of my estimates for the first half of the race, but this section started cutting into that "lead".  Mostly I was hoping to get off Devil's Path before dark.  The sun was dropping but there was still light left when we reached Mink.

This is where John was taking off back to the car.  Thank you for the great company!  I refilled my water bottles, ate a cup of delicious chicken noodle soup (wow, that was really good), and bade farewell to John for the evening.

Time for one last big climb.  I passed another guy on the steep ascent of Plateau Mountain, then near the top I saw two guys taking a break.  They commented on the fact that I was still moving, and I told them that it was still light out - we can rest when it gets dark.  They seemed to agree, so we headed on together.  Their pace matched mine so we decided to hang out for a while.

That turned out to be a great way to spend the next 10 miles.  It was David's first time doing a challenging 50-miler, and Bryan was working on running a race (marathon or more, I believe) in every state.  They were funny and talkative, and David set a great pace with his trekking poles and trail-finding ability.  We turned off Devil's Path onto a trail that was much less traveled, more overgrown, and a bit of a challenge to follow in the dark sometimes.

It seemed like we were making good time, but these miles still took forever.  Part of "overgrown" included stinging nettle, ouch.  Not a fan!  David was smart with his knee-high gaiters.  We descended to a notch and then climbed a bit before a long downhill toward the creek.  Here is where my downhill ability decided it was done for the night.  I got slow and tentative on the rocky trail.  Sigh.

Eventually we got to the creek and waded across.  The cool water was nice, and my feet are plenty used to being wet lately.  I took the lead on the other side, setting a solid uphill pace and enjoying feeling strong again after that wimpy descent.  I wasn't looking forward to the final 3-mile downhill, but first things first.

The climb made several sharp switchbacks, and there was often a trail marking on the tree right at the corner.  I would walk up to the marker and stare at it, trying to figure out where the trail went from there.  The guys then would tell me that the trail was behind me - funny!  After a while I learned to look for the switchback over my shoulder.

The trail leveled out and we found the Willow aid station.  They were rationing out water, like half a cup per person.  Hmm, that's not ideal, but at least I was still carrying just enough to mix my last Spiz.  Their campfire was blowing smoke in our faces so we didn't stick around long.  Thank you for being there, ladies!

It was a decent traverse/slight uphill to Tremper Mountain.  Bryan was moving slower so they told me to go on ahead.  I told them I would need some extra time to get down the hill, so on ahead I went.  There was a fire tower at the top, also some rustling in the bushes - porcupine!  Time to go!

Just three miles down a small road, yep, that was the hardest part of the whole race for me.  Mostly because my knees were tired of going downhill (a remnant of the Long Trail training, I believe) and my feet were starting to hurt.  The gentler slopes were OK but the steeper stuff was a challenge.  I made my way down the best I could.

After way longer than I would have liked, I neared the bottom.  There was John waiting on a rock.  Hi sweetheart!  We went down to the last aid station, got a reflective vest for the road section, and walked it in to the finish line.  Phew, I am so glad that's over.  No photo, let's just say I looked relieved.  David and Bryan finished not long after - well done!

It's hard to believe, but it took me 21 hours and 40 minutes to travel 56 miles.  One person at the finish line commented that he beat his Vermont 100 time by 15 minutes... that's pretty much how I felt.  It's a doozy of a race, an excellent experience and super good training.  Thank you to Charlie for putting it together, I think you've got a good idea on your hands!

The Sniper Adventure Challenge

Time for a guest post!  Last summer John and I were honored to crew for a couple of our friends at the Death Race in Vermont.  Steve Daniel and John Murphy are now preparing for another big adventure, and it sounds like another amazing experience!

Steve explains:

24 - 40 hours in the New Mexico desert. 45+ pound pack. Rattlesnakes. Dehydration. Getting hooded and handcuffed to a tree.  Does that sound like fun to you?  Well it does to me and my teammate, John Murphy.  We'll be competing in the 24 hour Sniper Adventure Challenge over the July 4th weekend, and those things plus other unknown challenges await us.

John has been doing triathlons, bike racing, adventure races and canoe races at a competitive level since high school.  We met through adventure racing in 2003 when I moved to Denver from Austin, Texas.  I had been doing adventure races and canoe races for some time, and we quickly became friends.  Since that time we've done a number of longer adventure races, two bouts of the Texas Water Safari, a Goruck, and the Spartan Death Race together.  Two years ago, John got me interested in long range shooting competitions.  I've always enjoyed shooting rifles, so the thought of competitions centered around shooting sounded like fun.  Although the formats vary, most involve having to travel over various terrain to areas where you have a limited amount of time to locate, range, and engage metal targets.  At distances of 300 - 1000 yards, this can be relatively difficult for a novice like me.

 
In 2011, John convinced me to enter the Competition Dynamics Team Challenge.  This was a three day stage race involving shooting at targets in various scenarios.  We had such a great time, that when CD announced it was going to run an adventure race in 2012 with shooting, it seemed like the perfect match for us.  The race was in northern Utah in late July.  I can honestly say that it was one of the harder races I've ever done, but it was also the most fun I've ever had at an adventure race.  Not only were there six different shooting stages for both pistol and rifle (one pistol stage at night), but there were special challenges we had to overcome to gain additional points. The hardest challenge was the first, where they had us carry a 100 pound duffle bag full of rocks 3-4 miles towards the first checkpoint.  Adding the 100 pounds to our already heavy packs was a real crusher for a lot of teams.   We had to solve a math problem involving two buckets of water.  We did a tyrolean traverse at night with our full 45-50 pound packs.  At a signal challenge we had to send a signal to someone a few miles away at the top of another hill.  Another challenge found us having to break a code they provided.  Our favorite challenge was the "escape and evade".  Both of us were hooded.  My hands were duct taped around a tree.  John was handcuffed, and our packs were chained up with a padlock.  We had 15 minutes to get out of our bindings and pick the lock to the packs.  Although we quickly got out of our binds, we couldn't pick the lock.  Add to all those challenges about 40 miles of hiking some of the steepest terrain you can imagine while trying to locate various checkpoints.  It was a tough race.  At the end of the 24 hours, John and I ended up 2nd overall - missing first place by only 18 points out of over 2460 points that the first place team received.

Our goal this year is to improve on our performance from last year.  We would like to shoot better as we were in the bottom half of last year's competitors.  I made a few navigation errors last year as well, so hopefully we can have a cleaner race from that perspective.  We don't hold any illusions that we'll win this year.  Most of the teams that are competing are current or former military - Rangers, Delta Force, Marine Recon, etc.  Those guys are tough, they can shoot very well, and they have a lot of real world practice navigating.  In order to improve on our chances, we've been practicing our shooting more than last year.  John has done several practical shooting matches as well.  I've worked more on my navigation skills through doing as many orienteering meets as possible.  We've been doing quite a bit of rucking with heavy packs as well.

Many people will think we're crazy for doing an event like this.  For some reason, most people tend to think that anything more than a two hour bike ride, a half marathon, or a ten mile hike is extreme.   John and I are part of a very small group of folks who enjoy the physical, mental, and emotional challenges that come with pushing yourself beyond what is considered normal or "acceptable" by the general population.   By pushing ourselves beyond what our bodies and minds tell us we can do, we learn a bit more about ourselves and what we're capable of.  In just a few days I have a feeling we're going to be doing a whole lot of learning about ourselves...

Good luck guys!

Finishing the Long Trail (part 2)

Continued from part 1 of my Long Trail ramblings...

Day 5/June 16: USFS 10 to route 103, 14.5 (?) miles [mileage note: this is an estimate based on conflicting numbers from different sources, including 2 different numbers on the same Long Trail map, the LT guidebook, and the trail signs]

My shin felt fine in the morning, so I kept it wrapped with the Ace bandage and Mom drove us back to where we had gotten in the car the previous day.  We made a plan to try an easy day, in 2 parts, with Mom meeting us in the middle to see how I was doing.  And we would take it from there.

Another fine day for a walk in the Vermont woods:

The trail started so beautifully that I had to double-check that we were actually on the Long Trail...

It eventually went back to its normal rocky/wet ways, but it was a nice welcome to the morning.

Soon we were at Little Rock Pond, with several of Dad's signs to greet us:

Pretty little pond:

The trail climbed gradually toward White Rocks Mountain.  We took it easy and my leg felt fine.

A little Bridge Barre:

At the high point of the trail, we came upon this odd collection of cairns.  People were going a little crazy with the rock sculptures.  Very cool.

Lemmings and a rock bridge?

Further along, we found another set of cairns at the intersection with the side trail to a view point:

This is getting a little ridiculous.  We approve.

The view to the west:

Mom and Renee met us up here on their hike to the overlook.  My shin was doing great, so we greeted them and continued on down the hill.  John found a nice set of rocks to hop across a moving brook, then there was a nice downhill run on a mostly smooth trail.  Sweet.

We crossed over route 140 and John chatted with a guy who had been doing trail work in this next section. Thank you sir!

It was a pleasant climb up Bear Mountain with a snack stop on a rock partway up.  I was wishing we didn't have to skip the next section over Killington but couldn't figure out a way to make up that many miles in 3 days without an obvious pickup/drop off parking spot in the middle of it.  Oh well, just enjoy this lovely morning and figure it out later.

Toad tried to hide in plain sight and didn't move a muscle:

Lovely woods.  We were having just a marvelous day and the trails made me happy.

Looking out toward the airport south of Rutland:

I had just been thinking how nice it was to finally have dry feet all day when we came upon a huge puddle.  My bad.  There were multiple ways over or around it, so I got a pass for jumping the gun.

Mom and Renee met us at the bottom of Clarendon Gorge, Renee got to run around and happily greet us, then John got a brilliant idea for this photo:

River raging:

Renee was not excited about the bouncy bridge but she gamely followed us across:

I had been trying (again) to finish a day of hiking at the Inn at Long Trail, but we had to drive around to it (again).  At least we would be starting the next day at the trailhead down the road, that was something.  And my shin was doing great, that was the important news.

The Inn itself was wonderful!  We loved our fireplace suite, the cozy bar in the evening, and especially the breakfast.  The whole trip was worth it just for that.

Day 6/June 17: Route 4/Sherburne Pass to Brandon Gap, 19.9 miles

Time to tackle a long section in the middle of nowhere with few benchmarks along the way.  These 20 miles look benign on the map, but on the Long Trail that usually means you can roam along for hours not knowing where you are or how far you still have to go.

First, a fond farewell to the Inn:

The day started in the clouds but soon cleared up into sunshine.  After a mile we also said goodbye to the Appalachian Trail as it took off to the east toward New Hampshire.  It's been fun!

We moved well up and down a couple small hills and past a shelter.  John can never resist a little trail work when an opportunity pops up:

Walking in the sunshine:

Another caption contest entry (i.e. I'm at a loss for words):

We caught several glimpses of the reservoir to the west but never a full-on view of it:

We heard thunder for a while and then it started raining.  No gentle lead-up, it was an immediate downpour. We hustled to put on our jackets and hoped it would be a short one.  At the turn-off to David Logan shelter we debated going down to it but decided we didn't really need to go out of our way to stand under a roof.  So we continued on and the rain did stop.  Yay!  Jacket off.

John forecasted a second shower based on the thunder still behind us, and he was right.  Jacket on.  When that was done I asked if there would be another one?  No, he suspected it was over.  And he was right.  Not sure how my husband suddenly turned into a meteorologist but I wasn't arguing.  Jacket off.

The trail went a long, long way along the side of a hill.  Down, up, down over a little stream, up over a little rise.  Occasionally there was a view of the valley to the east and we could see sunshine down there.  Well that's just teasing us.

We crossed a bridge over a little stream and I thought it was funny that folks had carried materials all the way up here just to build something over a waterway that looked very similar to all the ones we had been rock-hopping up to that point.  Then we crossed a bridge over a big creek and I was thankful they had built that one (and apologized for my previous remark).

Finally we came to the intersection with Chittenden Brook Trail, only 2.3 downhill miles to go.  And they were the most excellent miles of the whole trail.  Smooth, wide trail that we could actually run and run and keep on running.

One of the many bridges down the hill - I thought it was hysterical that they included warning markers on the sides, like after all the little obstacles we had encountered, someone thought they needed to make sure no one ran into these.  I learned later that this is also a cross-country ski trail, well OK, I'll give you that then.

The Great Cliffs of Mount Horrid!

And one more shot of the beautiful trail (I probably needed a break from actual running, more than I was used to lately):

Day 7/June 18: Middlebury Gap to Brandon Gap, 9.9 miles

We spent a nice night at Blueberry Hill Inn, after a long drive to pick up the truck and some pizza for supper.  It rained off and on, nothing major.  We staged the truck at Brandon Gap before breakfast, then Mom dropped us off on her way back home.  Thank you Mom, we had a wonderful week with you!

(and sorry the photo is a little blurry)

Starting up the hill through the ski slopes of Middlebury Snow Bowl.  It rained lightly for a while and then thankfully stopped.

That's a butt-load of moose poop...

Enjoying a snack in the pretty woods.  On a related note, pop tarts from Trader Joe's are awesome hiking food.

Not even John's dedication to moving things off the trail is a match for this bad boy:

More pretty moss and trees on the way up to Mount Horrid:

The climb down to Brandon Gap was rocky, slippery, and slow, but we had plenty of time on this short day so no worries.  Happy to be done and connected back to our previous stopping point of Middlebury Gap!  Now just Killington Peak remains...

Day 8/June 19: Route 4/Sherburne Pass to route 103, ~17.8 miles

Originally we had planned to return home after 7 days (we were also planning to be finished after 7 days, ah well), but John suggested that we were already here, nothing was calling us urgently back to Albany, and the weather forecast was looking good for the next day. So we did a little "coffee shop time" in Rutland, slept overnight at the trailhead, and stayed one more day to tackle our final section of the Long Trail.

Let's do this thing!

John started out from route 103, taking on the bigger climb for the day.  Thank you sweetheart!

I drove around to the trailhead below the Inn at Long Trail (I can't seem to manage to finish there, but I sure can start a day from there).  Lovely morning sunshine!

It really was a beautiful day, up a few miles to the top of Killington Peak.  And a view, a view, finally an amazing view!

Look who I found  :)

I made my way down along a bit of a traverse with a few tree hop-overs, then down a trail with a few rock hops and found Gov. Clement shelter:

I knew there was a road detour in place after the 2011 floods, but even before I reached that point I had some navigational difficulty.  Firstly I didn't see any sign of a trail past the shelter, so I continued down the dirt road I had come in on.  It swung around back to an arrow pointing up the trail... to the shelter.  So I did the short up-and back to make sure I covered the whole trail.  Signage could be a bit better here.

The 2nd error was my fault - I continued again up the road for a ways but didn't see any blazes and finally turned around to return to the same spot.  Third time's a charm - finally I spotted the other little arrow pointing toward the creek and the ford I was expecting.  A fine waste of a few minutes, good training or something.

Fording the cool creek went well and soon I was traipsing off through the woods on a pretty trail.  The road detour also went well and I ran most of it.  Just 4 miles left!

I had some Glee! music in my ears now and that helped me with a good cadence and an inspired pace.

Some climbing in the woods, running down the other side, across a couple fields including some unavoidable marshy spots...

A bridge over a partly-missing rock wall... I'm sure this used to be useful.

A nice view back toward the airport - almost done!

Luckily I wasn't on any time goal, because the last downhill was steep and bouldery.

John was waiting at the end - yay!

Celebratory picture:

Celebratory drinks:

Final tally - I don't know but it was a long way and several years.  Thank you to Mom and Dad for all the great help in completing this quest and to Kip for his company in the first half (2007 and 2009).  Thank you to all the volunteers who make the Long Trail the beautiful challenge that it is.  We won't forget it!