2017 NJ Ultra Festival 50K

 

Missed Opportunities

 

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him. ---  Cicero   (106 BC - 43 BC)

 

The bridge crossing the dam just after leaving the aid station.
Photo Credit:  Kleinschmidt Group

Have you ever had a race or a training run after which it left you in a bit of a funk? I’m not talking about what seems to be the somewhat common “post race blues” I see people posting about and hear people on podcasts talking about that occurs after the excitement of the finish has faded. I’m referring to a race experience that felt like something was missing from the start to the finish and although it for some reason feels incomplete, as many times as you replay the experience back through your head searching for that missing piece you just can’t seem to identify what it was that was missing. The deeper and more thoroughly you search you realize that there was nothing lacking with the course, the aid stations, or the organization of the race. You realize that the lacking piece was an internal factor, your interpretation of the experience and your outlook and attitude leading up to, during, and after the experience. I am not proud of it, but I am willing to admit that this was the conclusion that I came to after the process of searching and analyzing that I went through following the 2017 NJ Ultra Festival 50K.
 

The view of the falls overflowing from the dam.

Photo Credit:  Princetonblairstown.org

The 2017 Ultra Festival is a multi distance event put on by NJ Trail Series. The distances offered include half marathon, marathon, 50K, 50 mile, 100K, and 100 mile. Something for everyone, right? The 2017 race took place on April 1st at the Princeton Blairstown Center in Hardwick, NJ. The course consists of two loops which both start and end at the race headquarters which also acts as the solo aid station. The two loops were referred to as the forest loop and the lake loop. Respectively, the distances of the two loops according to my Garmin were 3.1 and 2.25 miles making each lap about 5.35 miles long. The 50K distance consisted of 5 full laps and an additional lake loop which my Garmin recorded as a total distance of 28.99 miles with 4200 feet of elevation gain, the majority of which was on the forest loop as the lake loop is relatively flat.  

I signed up the Ultra Festival 50K because the timing and terrain seemed to be perfect for a final long training run before the Hyner 50K, the first of the three “A” races (PA Triple Crown Series) I had planned for 2017. It was three weeks out from the Hyner giving me plenty of time to recover and taper. Little did I know at the time, but the weather and trail conditions of the Ultra Festival 50K would be the best possible training conditions to prepare for the Hyner. Looking back, this mindset of going into a race as a training run may have been part of or nearly all of the reason why I felt that something was lacking when the run was over. Every other ultra I’ve run has always been a test to see what I can do. There have been plenty of times where I have fallen short of my goals in a race, but even in those situations when I realize my top goal is no longer feasible I have continued to push myself to reach the goal at the next tier down. With this race, it felt like I gave up when my “A” goal of a sub five hour finish began to slip out of reach.
 



The first water crossing of the forest loop.
Photo Credit:  @khaosnrg (Instagram)

Race day followed a day of severe thunderstorms that dropped a tremendous amount of rain in a short amount of time. To say the trails were wet is one of the greatest understatements that could be made. Although there are four water crossings along the route of the course, many sections of the trail had become miniature creeks with flowing water due to the previous day’s storm. It was basically the best situation for someone like myself to overcome their fear of running with wet feet. Facing this fear and dealing with it was better than any training run I could have planned to prepare for the conditions of the Hyner 50K. Unfortunately I wouldn’t appreciate it until three weeks later when I was running some similarly wet trails at Hyner View State Park with soggy Lone Peaks on my feet. Just before the start of the 50K the race director, Rick McNulty, let us all know about the trail conditions. In short the message was to plan on having wet feet. With that encouragement and advice, we were off for our first time around the forest loop.

 



The second water crossing of the forest loop.
Photo Credit:  @rick.stahl512 (Instagram)

Both loops leave the aid station by crossing a bridge over a dam before coming to a “Y” where the lake loop cuts left and the forest loop cuts right. Shortly after the split, the forest loop makes about a half mile ascent along what appeared to be a maintenance road before hitting a true hiking trail. By this point my shoes had already sank ankle deep in mud and although my shoes had not been completely submersed in water, they were already saturated throughout. The course then has about

The wooden bridge near the end of the forest loop.
Photo Credit:  @khaosnrg (Instagram)

a half mile descent before reaching the first water crossing. This crossing had a downed tree with high and low limbs across it which you could walk across and use for balance to avoid getting wet feet relatively easily. However, given the trail conditions it did little good to keep your feet dry at the water crossings. Following this came one of the muckiest sections of the trail and the biggest climb of the course. Water was actually flowing down the trail in sections as I climbed the next half mile up with a little over 200 feet of gain. Then it was about a half mile descent back down to the water for the second water crossing. This crossing had what appeared to be a slick, narrow limb that you could balance on to cross, but I opted to walk through the knee deep water rather than risk slipping and taking a bad landing in the water. By this point my feet weren’t getting any more wet. This was followed by another sloppy, half mile climb before a quick descent to a wooden bridge crossing the water. The trail then followed along side the water for a short run before the final water crossing of the loop. After this there was a short but steep climb during which we were treated to a view of the falls where the overflow from the dam is released to feed the stream we had just crossed several times during the forest loop before making it back to the aid station.

The final water crossing for both loops.

Photo Credit:  @khaosnrg (Instagram)

It was at this first aid station stop that I met another runner who asked me if I was racing this. It was still early in the race (about 3 miles) and I was still well within reach of my 5 hour time goal so my response was simply a “yeah, kinda…”. He headed out from the aid station as I was filling my bottle. Shortly after I started out for my first time around the lake loop. The lake loop was flat compared to the forest loop. It likely would have nearly all been pretty fast and runnable if conditions were decent, but on this day it had basically become a mudfest. Conditions had become sloppy and slick causing my pace to slow. The loop follows the east side of the lake from the dam crossing. At about a half mile from the dam the lake ends and the trail crosses the stream that feeds the lake. This crossing had a few options for getting across. There was a rope bridge or a fallen log that could be used to cross. The rope bridge seemed to always have a line at it and the water level was high enough to flow over the log so that option wouldn’t do much good to keep your feet dry. Dry feet, however, had become a lost cause altogether. I simply used the log for balance as I waded through the waist deep stream. And wow, that water was chilly, but it felt good to wash all the mud and grit off my legs. The trail then followed the west side of the lake back towards the aid station. Just when you near the aid station, the course cuts away and heads back into the woods for about a 1 mile loop where the trail merges with the end of the forest loop trail just after the bridge crossing and before the final water crossing. I spent the majority of the lake loop with the runner I had just met at the aid station and one other runner. After grabbing some food and refilling my bottle I headed back out for lap 2 alone.


  

Another view of the rope bridge.
Photo Credit:  @rick.stahl512 (Instagram)

The rope bridge crossing option.
Photo Credit:  @khaosnrg (Instagram)

Lap 1 had taken me just under 1 hour to finish. I knew I would have to move faster to meet my goal as I had a lake loop to do after 5 full laps. I could blame it on the conditions of the day or the fact that I hadn’t trained on hills much leading up to the race, but my target time slipped farther out of reach as I ticked the miles off. At the end of lap 2 my total time was just over 2 hours. At the end of lap 3 my total time was just a little further over 3 hours. It was during lap 3 that I was so desperate to shave a little time off that I urinated in my shorts. It wasn’t as bad as it initially sounds. During the deepest water crossing of the lake loop, which was about waist deep for me, I let it flow while wading across. The flowing water washed away the urine as it was released keeping me relatively clean and not smelling like urine while saving the time it would have taken me to hop off the trail to go. Even with this completely ingenious tactic, rather than gaining on my time goal, it was getting farther out of reach with every lap. Now just a little past the halfway point, I was beginning to accept the fact that today was not going to go as I had hoped. At the end of the forest loop during lap 4 around the 19 mile mark I was about 3 hours and 51 minutes into the race, well behind my target pace with almost no chance of catching up to my target time. It was at this point that I met up again with the other runner who had asked me about racing the event. I hadn’t seen him since the end of lap 1 and this time he asked if I wanted to run the rest of the race together. Having just realized that my goal time was completely out of reach I was feeling a bit defeated and not competitive at all. I said yes thinking it would be nice to have some company for the last few loops and take my mind off of what I was currently viewing as a failed race. I had the singular time goal for this race and if I didn’t reach that my only secondary goal was to get a good training run with some hills. With this mindset and my goal time a lost cause, I did not have any motivation to push myself harder to compete for a higher placing at the finish. Even considering the fact that as we left the aid station for the second half of our fourth lap we now shared the lead.


The muckiness of the trails was impressive.
Photo Credit:  @rick.stahl512 (Instagram)

We had some conversation during the lake loop and I explained how earlier I had been aiming for a time goal that was now an impossibility. We finished the loop at a comfortable pace without either of us pushing the other. It was during the forest loop of our next and final lap that another runner caught up with us. She past me and was on the heels of the guy I had been running with during the first big climb of the loop. I watched as they both climbed hard and eventually out of sight while my legs and my mind refused to push. It was like the shoe sucking mud I had been running through all day had sucked the will out of me as well. It was towards the end of the forest loop that I caught back up to the guy I had been running with. We basically picked up our plan to finish the run out together once first place was out of both of our sights. So together we ran the last 2 lake loops and finished at the same time about 16 minutes behind the first place finisher.  

     

   Left: Finisher medal; Center:  Race registration swag; Right:  Sweet placement prize

At the finish I was content with getting through a tough day in rough conditions and getting a good training run done leading up to the Hyner, but after leaving the race and some time passed I began

Drying my feet by the
 fire after the finish

feeling disappointed about it and just a bit empty. After examining the how and why I was feeling this way I came to a few conclusions. The first being that maybe I’m a bit more competitive than I thought I was. I tell myself and others that I don’t run ultras competitively, but for personal enjoyment. But when I think back to how I felt as first and second place raced up that hill and out of sight while I felt powerless to chase them and I didn’t particularly enjoy it. I ran decently in pretty tough conditions. I thought that I should have been proud of that, but for some reason I wasn’t feeling that way about the run. I ran about a third of the race with the company of another runner. This should have been a positive as well I thought. However, looking back at the day and my finishing time, I kept on asking if I really pushed myself to my limit and the answer I kept getting was no. Maybe part of the reason why I had this feeling after this race and no other race I’ve done is because of a conversation I had with my brother in law a few hours after the finish. He was basically asking how it went and I explained how I finished with one other runner for second place. He immediately asked “How’d you tie?”. I tried to explain that we ran the last 10 miles together then just decided to finish together. Just as a side note and some background info that may clear things up a bit, my brother in law was a competitive trampolinist who competed in the 2012 London Olympics. So even though I may be more competitive than I had thought I was, he may have an even stronger hunger for competition. It was after this conversation that I started questioning my race effort and whether I ran my race or someone else’s race. The more I relived and examined the experience the less happy I was with it. The last ten miles I ran with another runner had benefits for sure, but also negatives. Honestly, it left me with more “what if” questions than I liked. What if I had run the last ten miles alone? What would the outcome have been? Would I have been faster? Would I have been slower? I guess I’ll never know. I’d say the lesson I’m taking away from this race is how important it is to me, for better or for worse, to run my own race. Whether I meet my goals or fail spectacularly, at least I did it on my terms and have no excuse for the results other than the effort I put forth. Most importantly though, I want to enjoy the experience and the memories of it. If I am looking back on any given race and questioning my effort I feel it is somewhat tarnished as a subpar effort, even if I went into it with the mindset of it being a training run. Maybe this is a fault within me that I need to reconcile in some way. For the time being at least, I am recognizing it.

 

 

Scott Snell

May 16, 2017

2017 Naked Bavarian

A Muddy and Bloody Run With The Naked Bavarian 40 Miler

The 2017 Naked Bavarian 40 miler marked a bit of a milestone in ultrarunning for me. My second crack at the Naked Bavarian 40 miler was my first time to make a second attempt at an ultramarathon course. I’ve always set goals for myself for every ultramarathon, but with the variation in course difficulties and weather conditions my goals have more or less been guesses of what I think I am capable of achieving. This was the first trail race I was attempting where I had solid data on what I was capable of and my goal was to improve on my performance from the previous year. My finishing time from the previous year was 7:13:14 and I believed that if everything went well on race day I could get to the finish in under 7 hours.

 

2016 Finisher Award!

The Naked Bavarian is a young race with 2015 being the inaugural running of it and this year being only the third running of the event. It is advertised and marketed as a low cost, no frills race. I agree with the first part because at 40 miles for $35 (or about $0.88 per mile) it is the most miles I have

2017 Finisher Award!

ever gotten for my money at any event with an entry fee. The second “no frills” part is a bit debatable. While the swag is not overwhelming, I have received a finishers’ award both years I have run it; in 2016 it was a bottle opener and in 2017 it was a mini glass growler. Additionally, the aid stations are frequent (about every 3.5 miles) and well stocked (no gels, but plenty of other standard ultra aid station foods). The Naked Bavarian, along with at least seven other events, is organized and put on by Uberendurancesports  under the guidance of race director Stephen Weiss. I’ve only run three of his events (Naked Bavarian twice and Blues Cruise once, both of which share the same venue and many of the same trails), but all three have left me impressed and wanting to return for another!

 

The 2016 Finisher Award!
 

The Naked Bavarian course is basically a 20 mile lollipop route with the loop at the end of the lollipop being about 7 miles and the beginning and the end of the course being a 6.5 miles out and back. The 20 mile runners do the course once and the 40 mile runners run the entire course twice. It is

Just one beautiful view of the area.

held at The Blue Marsh National Recreation Area which is just northwest of Reading, PA. It really is a beautiful venue for a trail race as many sections of the trail run along the lake edge and cross narrow sections of it at several points. Nearly the entire course is on single track trail with the few exceptions (maybe about a mile worth of the 40 mile course) being instances where you run along a road shoulder to cross a road bridge or connect to another trail. I’ve heard the trails for the course described as “beginning trail runner friendly” in regards to the amount of elevation change and technicality. I’d agree with this description, but they are by no means the easiest trails I’ve run. My Garmin and Strava data reported 3610’ and 3027’ of elevation gain respectively for the 40 mile course. So while the course is not a mountain ultra, it is not a flat course with a couple rolling hills either. In regard to the technicality of the trails, I would say the entirety of the course is runnable with the exception of one steep, rocky climb around the 10 mile mark. The only other item of note I would mention about the trails is the steepness of the cupping on the single track through the open grassy sections. When people say technical I think the most common interpretation is lots of exposed rock and roots, these trails have some of that. After running these trails for the third time, I would add excessive cupping to my list of technical aspects of the trail. It may not sound like much, but when the cupping creates a narrow enough channel with steep enough sides that you have to alter your running form and foot placement it is definitely adding a technical factor.

With a sub 7 hour finish as my one and only goal for the race I was confident I could achieve it with the experience I had gained since the previous year. My running of the 2016 Naked Bavarian 40 miler was the first time I had run over a 50k distance. Since then I had finished a 100 miler and a handful of 50 milers. I had become much better at understanding and anticipating the physical and mental obstacles that arise during ultras. I also understood much better what my body’s nutritional needs were and what kind of calories worked best for me. With this experience and the growing knowledge base, I found that I spent far less time at aid stations with every ultra I ran. Based on this alone, I figured that even if I only matched my running pace at the previous Naked Bavarian I could still bring it to under a 7 hour finish due to increased efficiency at the aid stations. Some people may be scoffing at this and saying “ultras are supposed to be fun, you should enjoy the aid stations and socialize a bit”. To which I reply we all choose to run because we chose to run. The motivation for that choice is yours and yours alone. Some people run to win a race. Some run because their friends run. Some run because their doctor told them to. I can’t simplify my motivation for running to a single reason in this race report, but I can say that my motivation for running this particular race for a second consecutive year was to improve my finishing time by at least 13 minutes and 15 seconds.

Flat Scott ready the night before.

Leading up to the run, everything did not play out as I had hoped. Training went well, but in the month before the race I developed a chest cold and was still feeling some symptoms from it as I readied for the run. I knew I could still achieve my goal even with that setback, it may be just a little less comfortable. It was a cold start for the race with the temperature in the low 20s and the anticipated high was only 35°. In the chilly yet fresh morning air we took off from the start on a mostly overcast and breezy day. I watched the lead pack head out from the start/finish area following a short stretch of road towards the trailhead. Probably less than a half mile later upon reaching the trailhead the leaders were out of sight likely maintaining a sub seven minute per mile pace. I was happy just to have them in sight up til the trailhead as my overall target pace was just over ten minutes per mile. With my target pace in mind, I felt good about the first three miles of singletrack leading to the first short stretch of road shoulder running to the first aid station. Even with some hills, I still managed close to nine minute miles for that first stretch.

After that first aid station, the course returns back to singletrack trail. After a little run through the woods, the trail heads out to some open grassland sections. It was in these sections that the trail cupping was the worst. However, this early in the run it didn’t bother me at all. Even though the lingering chest cold was keeping me from feeling 100%, as I was running I was happy and thankful to be out running on trails away from home that I don’t get to visit on a regular basis. After another three miles or so of single track, the trail turns back out onto a road where you hit the next aid station. This is the point of the course where the lollipop loop starts. From there the course follows the road shoulder across another bridge before turning back onto the singletrack. A few miles later just before the ten mile mark the course hits the largest climb, a gain of about 250’ in about a half mile. I remembered it from last year and pushed through it knowing the toughest part of my first lap was over. I hammered the downhill and was surprised and impressed to find that my time for the mile including the biggest climb was under 12 minutes. This was encouraging for me as I made my way through the remainder of the singletrack leading back to the aid station that marked the end of the lollipop loop. These three and a half miles or so of the course are very runnable being pretty much flat and not at all technical. With the extra motivation as a boost and the easy running terrain, I cranked out some of my fastest miles of the day.

 

Sweet Bibs This Year!

I was feeling great from the climb up until about the 17 mile point. For some reason, I just started feeling exhausted at that point. I had mostly just been drinking Gatorade and eating a few M&Ms at aid stations up to this point. I may have had a bit of Coca-Cola by this point, but I made a note to myself to be sure to drink some at every aid station going forward. I struggled a bit finishing up the last section of my first lap and then headed back out for my second lap feeling somewhat defeated. I was ahead of my target pace, but was hurting bad and feeling spent. I was just hoping to complete my second loop without falling behind my target pace for the day. The temperature had risen a few degrees since the start and the trails that were frozen had thawed for the most part and had become a bit sloppy and slick. This was more intimately impressed upon me a few miles into my second lap when I was coming down a short descent and my left foot flew out from under me. I immediately knew there was no avoiding it and I was going down. I hit the muddy slope and went into a bit of a roll. I bounced back up unharmed and continued on wearing a bit of the trail.

And another beautiful view of the area.

Not too long after my fall, I started noticing some blood in the snot that I was wiping from my nose. This continued for a few miles and I thought it might be a very mild nosebleed. I tried pinching my nostrils for a while to stop it, but no luck. This didn’t help my breathing any either. It was so minor and not getting worse so I soldiered on looking forward to the big climb of the course because I knew that marked the halfway point of the course. After finishing the climb I was excited for the fast, easy miles that followed. Unfortunately, this time through that section they did not seem anywhere near as easy and they were definitely not as fast. I think it was somewhere in this section that I realized that my “nosebleed” wasn’t a nosebleed at all. The edges of my nostrils had just been rubbed raw from my gloves wiping away snot. The little bit of blood seeping from the raw sections was mixing with my snot making my gloves look far bloodier than they were snotty. It was also around this time that I hacked up a monster loogie. As I went to launch it to my side, it had a weak ejection and as the phlegm went airborne it never totally detached from my mouth. The phlegm strand went to the side and floated for a bit until I caught it with my arm and chest. I didn’t care too much at this point (30 some miles in) so I just rubbed it into my muddy jacket with my bloody gloves.

It was during the last ten miles of the run that I probably felt about the crappiest I have ever felt during any run, ultra distances and shorter. Maybe it was because I had been struggling for the last 20 miles or so and during that time I was trying to use the mental trick of bargaining with myself by telling myself how good I’ll feel and what a motivational boost I’ll get knowing I just have to make it back to the start after the halfway point of the second lap. Maybe I had banked on that so much and

promised it to myself so hard that when that boost in motivation never materialized it was far more crushing than if I had just planned on suffering for the remainder of the run. At points, especially in the grassy areas open to the sun, I found myself so tempted to just hop off the trail and lay down and rest for awhile. I really wanted to stop running and just lay down. The grass hummocks looked so comfortable and inviting in the warm sun. I fought the temptations off by thinking about how much more awful I would feel as I was lying there and watching a line of runners that look much fresher than me pass by. Not that I was worried about where I was going to place at the finish, it was just the mental aspect of being passed and how that can affect your motivation to push on. Whether you’re towards the front, in the middle pack, or somewhere at the back, if you already feel like crap watching someone who looks like they’re still on fresh legs pass you and disappear ahead of you on the trail usually doesn’t improve your mental state. At least not for me. Maybe it was because this low surprised me so much that it seemed so bad. I thought this is my second time here; the first time was smooth so this one will be too. Surprise! I got the toughest mental and physical struggle I have ever felt at a race. Another reason this bonk and mental struggle surprised me so much was that I was ahead of my goal pace time the entire run. If I had fallen behind my target pace and my motivation crashed as a result that would be understandable, but that wasn’t the case. I stayed ahead of my target time the entire race; I just felt totally spent doing it. Feeling mentally and physically drained, I willed myself on past the last aid station and to within three miles of the finish.

I finally broke out of the funk I had been in when I could hear the music and smell the food at the start/finish area. I tried to smile for the photographer as I crossed the finish line with a time of 6:54:11. I should have been pumped since I beat my time goal, but as much as I struggled to get through the second half of the race I wasn’t feeling that excited about it. I was just glad it was over

See that smile

and I got through it. Writing the previous paragraph is the deepest I have analyzed the entire experience. As much as it sucked, I am thankful for the experience. It helped reinforce my resolve and determination to not give up even when things aren’t going well. It strengthened my belief that as long as I continue to push myself through hard times, I don’t give up, and I keep making progress towards my goals that they can be achieved. I’ve watched, read, and listened to plenty of videos, race reports, and interviews about terrible bonk stories and mental struggles during ultras. All the while, I wondered why I had never experienced anything as bad as these stories. Well, after two years of ultrarunning and with this most recent ultra experience, I think I can finally relate a bit more with these stories of ultra calamities. Feeling more humbled than I had ever felt at the finish of an ultra, I recovered a bit next to a fire at the finish area. Once my stomach began to feel more settled and my head felt less loopy I grabbed a plate of the post race fare that seems to be the standard at Uberendurancesports events:  German bratswurst with sauerkraut. It tasted like success and it was delicious!

Scott Snell
March 26, 2017