September 22, 2007
Haw Ridge 54k

In my infinite wisdom, I opted for a night of drinking before the race. This turned into a much longer night than was planned. Midnight rolled around and it was time to stop drinking and sober up. I wasn’t in bad shape, but it was time to quit. I still hung out for a while and headed home at 2am. By 3am, I was out the door and on my way to Tennessee. The drive was difficult on no sleep, but I arrived ready to run.

Haw Ridge is a peninsula near Oak Ridge. It consists of some modest climbing and a fair deal of running along the lakeshore. It’s a four loop course and it’s nearly impossible to make a wrong turn.

I started out strong but slowed down near the top of the first climb. Some runners were only doing one or two loops, so they were going far too quickly for me. My body was tired from the Bridge to Bridge ride six days prior to this race.

The course was nearly all singletrack. The lay of the land was well suited to me but I couldn’t perform as well as I would have like to due to all over body fatigue. The first lap saw me come in near the back and I didn’t improve on the second one. Embarrassingly, I was lapped by two runners before I completed two laps. I knew it would be a long day.

The temperature rose rapidly and I slowed accordingly. On the third lap, I saw a man with trekking poles. I thought that a walker had caught up to me. My anxiety was eased after I talked to the man for a while. He was Leonard Martin, who had run Massanutten, Hard Rock and Barkley many times. He just ran Wasatch two weeks prior and rode the Bridge to Bridge one week ago. We were both moving slowly, but we were both beat down from so many endurance events. My anxiety faded and I became content with the idea of just finishing, no matter what the time or placing.

As I came through, I said goodbye to Chris Kaylor, who put me up at Burning River. He and Amy Bly were heading up to Ohio after the race. Amy had paced me at both Mohican and Burning River. She finished this race seventh overall, and was the first female finisher, on only her second ultra race.

I continued to struggle with the heat. I was only ahead of one runner at this point. He would drop out so I had to catch the guy ahead of me to avoid finishing last. I knew he would walk the entire course so I wasn’t too concerned. I caught him about a mile in and stayed with him for a moment before heading on. I finished second to last but it was still an accomplishment since I’d pushed my body so hard the previous weekend. I knew all of this racing would eventually catch up to me as well as the lack of sleep the night before.