2017 Barkley Fall Classic 50k

Barkley Fall Classic 50k
September 16, 2017 at Frozen Head State Park in Wartburg, TN
Watch Time: NO GPS
Chip Time: 11:48:46
Position: 118 of 178 marathon finishers / 120 50k finishers / several DNF

 

“This is the Varsity of ultra-running,” he told me as I walked from the yellow gate to Laz, two hours past the cut off to attempt the full distance.  “I don’t think I was even qualified to try out for the freshman team.”

Back Story

Let’s rewind a year when I knew nothing of the Barkley Marathons until I joined a group of runners near where I live in NC.  Then I watched the Netflix documentary and saw a new level of running insanity – and thought it was awesome.  I was struck by John Fegyveresi’s story about seizing the moment and taking a chance to do something in the here and now, because you never know where your life will take you or what could happen tomorrow.  That echoed almost exactly the reason why Katie and I had decided to move from Michigan and take our family an adventure down south.  When I found out about the Fall Classic and a chance to get a taste of what the big one is all about, I signed up.  Even though the race was full, I got put on a wait list, which would get me early notice for entry in 2018.  I would surely need at least a year to train for something like this.

Summer running in NC was a new experience for me.  It was brutal with the heat index routinely over 100 degrees, and when it wasn’t that hot, there was 100% humidity and running felt like swimming.  But I had a marathon coming up in October – the Marine Corps Marathon in DC.  So I slowly started building up my mileage, even trying interval run/walking for a while to extend my distances until the weather cooperated and I didn’t have nagging injuries from my ridiculous spring race schedule (3 full marathons and 1 half marathon within 7 weeks).  I built up to a long run of 16 miles until…..

Weeks before race day

10 days before some of the best ultra-runners would face down the giant that is the Barkley course, Laz was desperately trying to make sure his race was full of runners that would show.  Because of Hurricane Irma, or injuries, or fear, or whatever the reason, several registered runners continued dropping out and he was trying to pull in people from the wait list.  At one point, even listing 100 people from the top of the wait list and said whoever responds gets one of the 16 available spots.  Could I possibly be on the list?  I scroll through and carefully read every name…. nope not on it.  But I was dumb enough to respond to his post, saying that I was probably near the bottom of the waitlist but would love a chance to toe the line.  In less than a minute, he responded to me and simply said “check your email”.  My heart was bursting from my chest as I read “You have been selected to participate in the 2017 The Barkley Fall Classic – 50K! … confirm or decline your entry …”  A quick text to my awesome wife and figuring out what to do with the kids for the weekend (since she had a conference for school the same day), and I was naively clicking the Accept button.

What was I thinking? My long run had only been 16 miles.  I have never run on technical trails.  Elite runners from all over the world come do this race, I don’t belong in that group.  I have only done one 50k in Michigan 4 years ago, and that had one steep hill that maybe lasted 1/10 of a mile.  Could I even make it up Rat Jaw, a hill that by all accounts is a bit over 1 mile long with steady inclines of 45 degrees?  Maybe not, but I am just dumb enough to give everything I have and hope it is enough.  It felt like everything came together perfectly for this to happen.  About a month ago, I had purchased my first hydration pack and had been wearing it on long runs to get used to the feeling.  I was given a pair of the same shoes I have worn for my past 400 miles running, but they had only been used just a bit and had tread almost like new.  Within an hour of registering, I had a cabin to share with 3 other runners because the guy who booked it had 3 friends who decided to DNS.  I was meant to run this race.

Friday I was driving to Wartburg Tennessee.  The mountains taunted me and my little Kia for 7 hours.  At some points I realized my car was struggling, and I was going to be using my own motor to climb mountains steeper than this tomorrow!!  I finally drove past the park entrance and decided I needed to see these hallowed running trails.  I took a short jog/hike from the trail head to loosen up my legs after being in the car so long.  I thought it wasn’t too bad, but knew better than to think the whole trail would be like that.  In fact, not a single part of the run was that easy.   I headed over to packet pickup/pre-race dinner/viewing of the Netflix doc, and met the legendary sadist.  We took a quick pic and he said that today felt like his Rat Jaw – despite his notoriety he is still just a regular dude that I’m not sure is really comfortable with all the attention from strangers.

One thing I had to make sure to do for this race was putting a semi-colon on.  Since joining HSRC this symbol has come to mean so much more to me.  It is a symbol about people who have to face mountains every day and choose to climb them instead of turning back and giving up.  I would need to draw strength from pain for this race, just as so many of my friends have shared with me about struggles in their lives and how they have overcome them.  I put one on each leg, right above my knees, so when I was climbing up hills and bent over in pain, I would see them and know I could push on and keep going.

Race Day

Beautiful sun rays through the trees

I met many people who had ran in previous years, and they all eventually told me that there was nothing they could tell me to prepare me for what was to come.  So what was that?  We start in a campground grass parking lot and Laz lights his ceremonious cigarette to signify the start of the race.  I started near the front as “someone who wants to go fast”, meaning I just hoped to get ahead of the slow moving conga line.  We run a mile down the road before we turn onto a single track trail with ups and downs (mostly ups), some switchbacks, and basketball sized rocks – which I would later refer to as landmines waiting to blow up your race.  This climb was supposed to be “easy” compared to the others, but a park map told me that it has almost 1600 feet elevation change over 3ish miles, most of that being gain.  The typical route for hill training I ran at home – Crossway Challenge – is about 400 feet of gain over 3.6 miles.  I would later read this advice: “Take the elevation training you think you need to do. Now double it and quadruple the incline.”  I start looking for the first aid station, which is at “exactly” 4.3 miles.  I don’t get there until 8:10ish.  What!? 17 minutes per mile??? They actually told us we were on a good pace so far…

The fog of Frozen Head

What comes next can’t be expressed in words.  They are the hills with well-known names that strike fear into the hearts of anyone who has experienced them.  Testicle Spectacle, Meth Lab Hill, and Rat Jaw.  These are “trails” that follow the power line cuts through the mountain side.  I described them to Katie as this – imagine running/walking/crawling on your roof.  Now extend it for a mile.  Cover it in mud because of remnants of Hurricane Irma that hit the area the few days before.  I’m talking the kind of mud that can suck your shoe right off, or forces you to go down a mud slide and hope you can grab on the saw briars to stop yourself before you tumble over the next edge.  You will later use those horrible briars to pull yourself up those mud slides, so you don’t continually slide back down.  And sprinkle in some rocks, because it’s too easy without the rocks.  Going down TS and the first slide, a guy misplaced one step, and tucked into a forward summersault into a pile of briars off the trail.  After I checked that he was ok, I said “if it helps you feel better, you made it look graceful.”  He laughed so I knew he was ok.  The danger and the beating my legs took were worth it.  Have you ever stood on the top of a clear cutting down a mountain, and stared down into a valley of fog that is burning up from the rising sun shining between the trees?  It’s a sight that can’t be described.

Down TS, cross a stream with water almost knee high, to a quick aid station being worked by several young men – maybe 10 year olds.  One filled my camelback and said I looked great and asked if I was having fun.  I said yes and asked him if he planned on trying this when he was old enough.  And he said absolutely.  Cross a bridge and right back up TS.  Get to the top and what do we have next?  Yep right back down the other side of the road on Meth Lab Hill.  Sliding down the mud slides made this race sound like a bunch of kids at a water park going down water slides, whooping it up.  I go down one so fast that when I stand up a break into a run to keep from face planting.

Light at the end of the tunnel, or a freight
train coming your way?

At the bottom of ML is the prison, and I will get to cross the first timing mat – that would let Katie know I was still alive, which was my only instructions for the weekend – “DON’T DIE!”  First I hit the aid station before the prison, and thought it would be a good idea to drink a Pepsi and eat a Snickers.  I have had Coke in races before, but it has always been flat and warm.  The mixture of carbonation and a morning full of trail food started a horrendous gurgling in my stomach as I started walking.  I was sure I was going to lose it and puke in front of everyone and end my race right there, until I saw the “Bus of Disgrace” waiting to haul me back to the start.  I wasn’t about to let a little bit of Pepsi be the thing that stops me, so I caught my breath, got my heart rate down, and kept moving.  Cross the timing mat just after 11:00 and I’m told I am still in good shape to meet the cutoff at Laz.  10.1 miles “exactly” in 4 hours, now averaging almost 24 minutes a mile.

Hurting at the top
of Rat Jaw

Through the prison, climb over the prison wall, and escaped through the drainage tunnel to be met with the beast that is Rat Jaw.  This unrelenting climb is everything that TS and ML are, mixed in with forest overgrowth over your head at points.  I get quite a few rat bites on my legs and arms, and had to stop a couple times on the way up.  People are cramping left and right and stepping off the trail.  For a while I was content to go at their pace, but eventually had to push ahead and conquer the Rat on my own.  The photographer at the top perfectly captured my exhaustion, but the elation I also felt at having just climbed the most difficult part of the Barkley course was nowhere to be seen on my face.  I just spent 1 hour and 25 minutes to go about 1 mile.  The reward for beating Rat Jaw is a climb up to the lookout tower, three flights of extremely steep stairs and the most incredible 360 view of the mountain range.  My favorite part of the course.

Do you know what the most delicious beverage in the world is?  I discovered that it is Tennessee tap water with 3 big scoops of ice from a hydration pack from the aid station after climbing Rat Jaw.  Never have I felt so refreshed, and the ice in my pack sitting directly on my back had a cooling effect on my core, so much so that I felt ok to run despite how sore my legs were.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it had taken me 5.5 hours to go exactly 11.3 miles, and now I only had 4 hours to go another “11”.  My day was done but I didn’t know it so on I went.  The next few hours taught me why the race was subtitled “Can You Beat The Rat?”  By having Rat Jaw early in the course, we thought it was good that the hardest part would be out of the way early.  But the Rat doesn’t give up just because you climb it.  The Rat festers, and waits for the perfect chance to strike when your guard is down.  You think you beat me?  Here have a cramp in your quad.  You took care of that with some food and water?  What about your toes going numb, or feeling like your entire foot is one large blister?  How about 3 trees covering the path that you have to climb over?  Then more cramps and more physical misery, and the mental battle has not gone away as the trail is always technical and one slip up could be the difference between walking out and being carried out.

A few times the small group I was with thought we were off the trail, so we stopped to confirm with our map and compass where we were, even though none of us really knew how to use them properly.  But unlike the big Barkley, this course generally stays on the trails with blazes, and we could still see those so we kept moving.  We did hit a few spots to confirm we were still on course.  We get a bib punch at the Garden Spot, which is the most north east corner of the park.  Finally hit the aid station and they tell me it’s only 6 more miles to Laz.  I check my watch and it is 2:45pm, and I have 1 hr 45 mins before cutoff.  I quickly do some math and think I need to average 16-17 minutes per mile to get there.  I will have to fly but I can still do this!

One of our group quit at this point, he just couldn’t take any more, even knowing that a marathon finish was easily within his grasp.  I refused to give up and went on, power hiking up the mountain.  Up to the top we go, then start back down and we are running recklessly.  Fastest I have gone all day, but we are racing a clock and just want a chance to go for the full distance.  Clock passes 4:00pm and we know we are going to cut it close.  Please don’t let me be like the guys I talked to this morning, who took too long on Rat Jaw last year and missed cut off by 1 minute.  We hear the creek that runs near the camp and get excited that we are going to make it.  Then it comes into sight.  Where is Laz?  Where are the people cheering us in that we beat the cut off?  They aren’t there.  We quickly check our map and realize that we still have Bird Mountain left to climb, and the realization that we won’t have a choice once we reach the check point.  

My heart sinks.  I feel very disappointed and that I let a huge opportunity go to waste.  I begin a long slow meaningless climb up, getting angry every time there is another switchback.  People keep passing me asking if I’m ok.  I’m fine physically but mentally broken.  The Rat has beaten me.  Then I stop and consider what I have done.  I was able to go probably twice as far as I have ran since April – a marathon finish will end up being over 30 miles from what I’m told by others (the 50k tracked at 41 miles on one guy’s FitBit).  Just 10 days ago, it had been a dream to run at the Barkley, and now I had done it.  I had the balls to tackle Testicle Spectable, went over the prison wall, through the drain tunnel, and made it up Rat Jaw.  I didn’t get lost or injured after spending almost 12 hours “out there”.  Slowly I realized that I could be extremely proud of what I had accomplished.  So I decided to just enjoy whatever time I had left until I got to Laz.  Those last “6” miles took me 4 hours.  I was able to get a picture at the famous yellow gate, where the Big Barkley loops start/end.  I couldn’t imagine going out to do another loop AT NIGHT like some do.  When I rolled in to the cutoff point a full 2 hours late, I told Laz that I thought he took extra pleasure in letting in untrained, unqualified idiots like myself into this race, to which he just chuckled.  Yeah, I was right.

The Barkley Fall Classic is a race.  There is a winner and there are those that DNF and everything in between.  There is a time limit that you must beat, or you are timed out and don’t get a choice to continue on.  But it is so much more than a race.  It is a mental game; a test of your will; your desire; your human spirit.  Can you face the mountain and choose to climb it with courage, knowing that it might beat you down?  And when it does almost cause you to quit but you persevere and get to the top, you must be prepared to have to do it all over again.  No matter what the course throws at you, it is within you to beat it – you just have to dig deep to find it.

“This is the Varsity of ultra-running,” he told me as I walked from the yellow gate to Laz, two hours past the cut off to attempt the full distance.  “I don’t think I was even qualified to try out for the freshman team.”  “No way, you faced the giant and did something very few have done.  You should be proud.”  

Maybe with getting a marathon finish, I at least proved that I’m too stubborn to quit even when something is ridiculously difficult.  I won’t say I have unfinished business with Barkley but that if given the opportunity again, I will jump at the chance... not necessarily to chase the cut off and try to earn the croix, but to put myself to the test and climb the big mountains again.