February 2, 2008
Uwharrie Mountain Run 41 miler

Uwharrie was the site of my first ever ultra. It took me over 11 hours to complete it but the only goal was to finish. This year I'd hoped to improve on that time a good bit. I was looking to do it in under 9 1/2.

My body was well rested but I'd been running slowly for the past several months. I just didn't feel like turning it up a notch. I'd overdone it last year with so many high mileage runs and with the frequency of them.

Matt, Uwharrie and I headed out Fridy to attend the dinner. The pre-race dinner is the best one I'd attended so it was a must to attend. They even had premium brew. I had my 2500 calories and was stuffed to the gills. After the meal, door prizes were given away and I got a fleece blanket which had the Uwharrie Run logo embroidered on it. It came in handy right away.

I opted for sleeping in my car rather than set up a tent. It got quite cold at night so the fleece certainly helped. Getting ready in the morning, I dropped a contact and could not locate it. I'd have to run with impaired vision.

I started out quickly but the first climb slowed me down. The rock garden was a major challenge to my eyesight. My depth perception was off, especially in the predawn hour. Most people fall at least once on this course so I fully expected to fall several times.

I fell back in the pack a bit and ran with Andy "Hellfire" Wright for a good while. It was going to be a long day but dealing with adversity tends to reward a runner in the long run.

The trail was pretty much how I remembered it. Shortly after the first aid station, an extensive downhill allowed for some recovery. I couldn't go as quickly as I'd liked but I made reasonable time on it. I'd traded places with Jen Jacobs numerous times and then got to talking. She had been a triathlete but was focusing more on trail running and ultras these days. We'd each done Massanutten as our first 100 last year.

Eventually, she pulled ahead and I was left by myself for a quite a while. Runners on their return kept flying by. These were the only people I saw for extended periods.

The turn around had sevral friendly faces including Charlie Roberts, Amy "Flame" Brown and DC Lucchesi. DC had crewed for a group of us at Massanutten. I talked for a bit and then headed back for the return trip. It had taken almost five hours for the first half so ten hours for the entire run was extremely doubtful.

I had few issues with eyesight during the middle of the day. The long shadows were what played havoc on my sight so I wanted to make sure I made good time while the sun was high in the sky.

I ran with a few different guys for spells but was by myself for much of the last 20 miles. Eventually, I hooked up with Paul Menser after catching up with him at a few aid stations. We stayed reasonably close and ran in together from the last aid station. We wanted to break 11 hours but it wasn't worth the risk to do so. My eye sight had deteriorated with the loss of light and that rock garden would be quite formidable with my hindrance so we jusrt eased to the finish in 11:05.

My knees, which were my greatest concern, held up over the entire run. My contact problem probably helped my knees since I wasn't able to hammer any downhills. No other ailments reared their ugly heads so despite the slow time it was actually a pretty successful run and will hopefully be a catalyst for the myriad long runs I have planned for this year.

B-Rex