Warrior Dash 2010

This past Sunday I drove up to Mountain City, GA, and ran the Warrior Dash!!!

"Warrior Dash is the ultimate event for thrill-seeking athletes. This running series is held on some of the nation's most demanding and unique terrain. Participants will conquer extreme obstacles and celebrate their feat with music, beer, warrior helmets and muddy shorts."

I drove up with my six year old son (Peyton) and two of my friends (Coach Greg and Allen).

We left Charleston at around 6:00am.  The drive took about five hours and as soon as we got to Mountain City I knew we were in for a treat.  The small town was overflowing with all kinds of crazy people getting ready to run the race and muddy people who had already gone through the course.  Over 14,000 people had signed up for the race (Saturday and Sunday).

We found a place to park, paid a local guy $10, and walked across the street to get our packets.  It was
crazy how many people were dressed up for the race (including me).  I had decided the day before to dress up as a warrior (Spartan Warrior).

As we made it up the hill to the packet pick up we could hear the band and crowd.  When we made it over the hill we saw people getting ready to race, washing off in the lake, and laying out in the field listening to the band.  It was crazy!!!

After putting our things away we made it back to the starting line for our 1:30pm heat.  I took off my cape and moved toward the front of the line.

The start was so cool.  There was a countdown and then fire shot up from the sides of the starting line.  We ran straight down a hill for the first half mile then turned onto a trail.  The first obstacle was running over planks and mounds through the water.  Then running chest deep in the water for about twenty meters.  The water was cold, but felt great!  We climbed over a hill and then ran to the second obstacle.  There were tons of tires and I decided it would be faster to just leap over them and land on the side of each tire (it worked).  We then had to jump over four walls that were about four feet high.  From here we ran up a trail to a slanted wall with a rope.  I climbed it without any problem.  We headed up the trail and then climbed a rope ladder up and down.  Next we ran up a trail and then had to jump over old cars (loved this section).

The trail was steep and most people were walking up at this point.  I finally found a way around a few people and started running again.  The trail started to come back down and everything was muddy.  We came out and had to run through a tunnel then kept running down hill.  We ran to the mud pit and had to low crawl through the mud and under barbed wire (real barbed wire).  When I first jumped into the mud pit my shoe got stuck and came off my foot!  I had to dig it out and then my other shoe came off.  I ended up crawling through the pit with both shoes in my hands.  I carried them for the rest of the race.

After the mud pit I ran to another water obstacle where I had to roll over logs in the water.  From there I ran up a hill and saw the "Fire Pits"!  It was too cool.  As I ran up to the obstacle I heard the commentator yelling, "Here comes a real warrior! He's going barefoot through the fire!".  I could feel the fire and was pumped as I ran down the last hill to the finish line!

What an awesome race!   

Attack of the Killer Wiener Dog!

WARNING: Parental guidance is suggested for this bog entry (if you are afraid of small, long, furry animals)...

Saturday morning I met Michael (aka Ninja Stuntman) for a ten mile long run.  We were supposed to meet two other runners (Cathy and Andrew no names), but they wimped out were sick.  We started our run from St. Andrews Church in the Old Village and headed toward Patriots Point on Coleman Boulevard (9:50).  I have used this route several times, but I decided to add the Patriot's Trail to the middle of the run (my son Peyton actually showed this to me a few weeks ago).   


Ninja Stuntman has decided to run his first marathon this Fall so we had plenty to talk about on the run (I work with his wife and after finding out about his new goal she politely threatened my life).  It brought back a lot of memories from when I first started training for a marathon so I shared a few tips as we ran.


We made our way onto the trail at about the mile two mark (9:48).  The shade was nice and the trail was wide enough for two people to run side by side.  It was a blast having this as part of the run.  The trail was well worn, so the footing was not bad at all.  We ran to the end of the trail and doubled back to Patriot's Point Boulevard (9:58).  It was perfect timing because the giant bugs were starting to dive bomb us as we made it to the end.


We ran under the Cooper River Bridge and stopped for water at the Memorial Waterfront Park (9:54).  From there we ran to an area called Rimley's Point (9:54, 9:42).  This is where the attack occurred...


We were minding our own business when out of nowhere (well, actually out of a really nice house) comes a vicious attack dog!  Luckily for me, the dog was more interested in Ninja Stuntman than me.  We picked up the pace (9:33, 9:40) and finally outran the killer wiener dog, but we knew (and so did he) that we would have to come back the same way...


As we turned to come back, I braced myself for the onslaught that would come.  Once again, the wiener dog wanted nothing to do with me and focused all its attention on Ninja Stuntman :)


I was actually laughing so hard that it was hard to run...


Anyway, the vicious dog returned to guarding its multi million dollar home and we headed back toward the Memorial Waterfront Park (9:23).  We ran up the path between the park and the bridge and decided to pick up the pace for the last two and half miles (9:22, 9:09, 8:52).  We ended up running ten and half miles (the trail was hard to map out before the run).


It was nice to end my week of training with a great run that was a lot of fun (even with the killer dog incident)...


Week Recap:
Monday
- six mile afternoon recovery run
Tuesday
- four mile easy run in the afternoon
- track workout at night (1x800 warm up, 4x200 (100 recovery), 4x300 (200 recovery), 4x400 (300 recovery), 1x800 cool down and then soccer with my son)
Wednesday
- five mile bridge run in the morning
- five mile easy run in the afternoon
Thursday
- five mile tempo run
Friday
- six mile easy run


Next Sunday is the Warrior Dash!!!

Hell Hole Swamp 10k

Although my time for this race has never been great, I always have a great time running this race!

The Hell Hole Swamp Gator Trot, "A 10K Run and Walk through the Francis Marion National Forest. Sightings of alligators, snakes, boar and wild turkeys (but no lions, tigers and bears oh my) are possible." - from the web site (I love it)...

I am always excited to do this race, but I am even more excited to tell all my friends about it :)  This race is thirty-five years old and is part of the Hell Hole Swamp Festival that has been going on for thirty-nine years.

The race takes place in the small town of Jamestown, South Carolina.  Directions to the race are as follows: "middle of town".

The check-in is at the town courthouse.  There is one public restroom for men and women (the clerk of court lets women use the office restroom too).  On the outside of the courtroom there is a sign that states, "Please be quite while court is in session" - really.

There are tons of people lining the road before the race starts (not to see or cheer us on - they are there to get a good spot for the parade that starts three hours after the race!).  I'll get back to the parade in just a minute.

The race starts around the corner from the courthouse on Highway 17A.  The police are there and people are standing in the road, but the road is not actually closed to traffic so cars (trucks) are still driving through the crowd.  Everyone moves to the starting line (three soccer cones) and waits for the last minute instructions from the race director.  The race starts with a shotgun blast (no joke - a real shotgun), Mr. James Pipkins, who always started the race pasted away last year so his son Roy Pipkin did it this year...

 

The 10k turns right from Highway 17A (after passing a dead snake in the road) to a dirt road in the Francis Marion Forest.  The road is well used and you basically have to find the tire rut you are conformable with and stick with it.  This year the weather was hot and humid, but there was a nice breeze on this part of the road.  The course turns right again to another dirt road where you cross railroad tracks (no lights or cross bars).  The last turn is another right that takes you back to Highway 41 and finishes in front of the courthouse.



While on the last part of the course you get to pass all the fire trucks, Shriners, beauty pageant winners (Teen Hell Hole Swamp, Baby Hell Hole Swamp, etc...) that are part of the parade (one of my favorite parts of the race).










This year the race organizers made it even more special by adding a finisher's medal!!!

I ran slower than I wanted (50:56), but two minutes faster than I ran last year.  I have always wanted a trophy from this race, but they are hard to get.  Only the top runner in each age group and the top ten runners get the prized Gator Head trophy.  A runner (Annie P.) that I talked into running the race came in first in her age group and took home this awesome piece of hardware!  I have come in second in the my age group, but never first.  Maybe next year...

After the race there is an awards ceremony at the "shack" where the festival is set up.  Just walking over to the shack is an experience.  If you are not from the South, the number of Confederate flags may be a little overwhelming.  The race director pulls up his van, loaded with gator heads, and reads a poem that he writes during the race each year (my absolute favorite part of the Hell Hole Swamp race).  Then he butchers everyone's name as he calls up the winners (he only knew some of the times) and hands out the trophies (from the organizer - the gator heads are from a farm in Florida that would have thrown them away so please no "pita" protests").

The parade starts right after the awards so you either

stay for the whole thing or you run to your car and try to get out of town before it starts.






You really have to see the whole thing to have a true appreciation of this race.  No doubt about it, this is a cultural experience...

Recap for the Week (May 7, 2010)

Just a quick recap for the week.

I took it easy this week to recover from running the Palmetto 200 and to get ready for the Hell Hole Swamp 10k.

Sunday - rest day
Monday - four miles (9:53) recovery run
Tuesday - five miles (9:21) steady state run
Wednesday - five miles (8:27) supposed to be an easy run, but turned into a tempo run...
Thursday - rest day
Friday - track workout: 1x800 warm up, drills, 3x400 (10k pace), 3x800 (10k pace), 1x800 cool down

Recap of the Hell Hole Swamp 10k to come soon...

Palmetto 200 Race Recap

There are races and then there are adventures.  The Palmetto 200 was an adventure...

After months of training, the time had come to run the Palmetto 200.  I spent the last week before the race tapering and ensuring I had everything I needed.  Thursday night I spent packing and double checking my supplies.  I reread the Palmetto 200 web site at least fifty times and then I went to bed.

Friday morning I woke up at 4:30am.  I ate a light breakfast, showered, loaded my car and kissed my wife and son goodbye (they had both woken up early to see me off - very cool).

I was picking up "Cathy's Mom's Van" (I love saying that) in Mount Pleasant and then driving over to Folly Beach to pick up the rest of the team.

Our team of twelve people was split in half and we had a van for my half (Van #2) and an SUV for the other half (Van #1).

Team members in order of how we ran:

(Van #1): Annie, Jen, Jeff, Michael, Cathy, Stacey (and Jeff's wife Lauren - the driver).

(Van #2): Me, Daphne, Heather, Jon, Betsey, Richard (we took turns driving).

The adventure started pretty early.  One of Van #1's runners, Stacey, was late; so she met us on James Island and road up in our van.  I drove first and of course we stopped at Starbucks before we even left James Island.

We made it to the starting line at about 8:15am (15 minutes to spare).  The race started at the old Columbia Speedway right outside of downtown Columbia.  It was not much to look at, but it was really cool to be starting our 200 mile race on an old race car track (actual race mileage was 201.7 miles).

Our first runner was Annie and she made a lap around the track with the other runners and then headed out on to the road.  It was so strange standing there watching the start of the race, but knowing that I had over five hours before I would start running.

With that in mind, Van#2 made our way to breakfast.  That's right, we had breakfast at the start of the race.  We went to a cool little place (Cafe Strudel) and I had a bagel and coffee and just enjoyed being with the team.  This was a really easy going crew and I was already having fun.




Before we got back in the race, we stopped and bought decorating supplies for the van.  We put the new name of our team on the van - IHNBTDTR200MTW (I had nothing better to do than run 200 miles this weekend) on the back. We then made the van into the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo (it was so cool and should have won the van competition - just saying...).

We made our way to the exchange zone of the fourth leg in time to talk with the Van#1 runners and watch Jeff hand off the bracelet to Michael (each runner wore a yellow bracelet and had to hand it off to the next runner at the end of their leg).  Funny thing is that I found out that this was Michael's first race (no joke, he had never even run a 5k).  After the exchange we left and made our way to the end of the sixth leg where our van would be taking over.  As we drove the course we were amazed at the hills.  I had no idea it would be this hilly.  We saw Annie from Team Happy Feet coming down a hill on leg #6.  We honked and waved and she was smiling.  As we drove on, we hit a massive hill and everyone in our van just went (ooohhh).  We knew how hard that hill was going to be on the runners (sorry Annie)...

We stopped at the exchange zone and looked at all the team vans.  It was so cool seeing so many groups of runners doing this crazy race.  We were getting text messages from the other van and could see that we were ahead of our projected pace.  My first run was a short sprint (1.7 miles).  It hardly seemed like a real run.  I was actually a little embarrassed to be doing such a short distance...

I saw Stacey coming down the road and knew I needed to power through this leg as fast as I could.  I started strong going down hill.  The road went up a hill for half a mile and then turned through the town of St. Matthews.  I maintained a sub 7:00 pace the whole way and ended up doing the leg in under twelve minutes.  It felt good to get going in the race, but twelve minutes was not even long enough to get me sweating much.  I ate a sandwich to ensure I was fueled for my next run.  We drove ahead and supported our runner, Daphne, with water and cheers.  The road was still hilly and the temperature was really heating up.  Daphne handed off to Heather and she handed off to Jon (super fast kid with an incredible attitude).  Jon handed off to Betsey and she handed off to Richard (did I mention they are married?).  Richard ran a long leg that ended in the Santee State Park.  He handed off to Annie from Van#1 and our van was ready to rest.

The park had showers and we had rented a camp site for our teams (brilliant idea Richard and Betsey).  Most of the group took showers and talked about going to get BBQ.  I was checking the camp area for places to buy ice and as I was coming back to the site I could see Jon holding up a big fish!  Apparently, while he was standing in the camp site a bird flew over and dropped the fish right next to him (how crazy is that?).  Can you imagine telling people that you were injured in a 200 mile race by a fish flying through the air?

After that excitement, everyone sat around eating or just trying to rest.  I was still feeling a little out of place at this point (I barely ran).  Everyone else had run hard legs in the crazy heat and I had only sprinted 1.7 miles.  I was not even thinking about taking a shower, so I laid on my bag and tried to rest.  I was getting anxious to start my real running and ended up just talking with everyone and laughing about stuff we had already experience (forgot to mention that a semi truck almost killed us at the beginning of the race as I was checking my text messages - forget you read that Cathy and don't tell your mom)...

I finally got up and headed to the bathroom to change clothes for my night run.  I was stoked to get started, so we loaded the van and headed to the exchange zone.  The first thing we noticed was that we were in the deep country.  We had already heard that this was a dangerous area and the locals thought we were crazy for running through here at night (comforting)...

I was running first again and had a reflector vest on with blinking lights on the front and back.  I also had a hat with a spotlight (I looked like a Christmas Tree running down the road).  This was a 7.7 mile leg and I felt good right away.  It was crazy being out on a busy road and jumping to the side as cars blew past me, but I was having a blast.  This is what I had imagined when I first started thinking about this race.  This was an adventure!   At one point a car pulled over and turned off its lights ahead of me.  Our van pulled up next to it and the car took off (freaky).  Near the end of my leg, a car pulled along side of me and a lady stuck her head out the window and asked me why all these people were running.  I told her that it was a relay race from Columbia to Folly Beach and she just said, "but why are you running?".  I said, "to get to Folly Beach."  She seamed to take this as a good explanation and said good luck.  I waved and said have a good night and she drove off.  I ran harder for the last part of my leg and ended at Cross High School.  There were volunteers there cheering us on (all the volunteers working this race were incredible!).

I changed clothes, had some chocolate milk and then we headed out to support our next runner.  We were really staying close to Daphne and Heather during their legs of the race.  We dealt with some strange cars and noises and even saw Heather fall down when she hit a pothole.  Even though I was finished running, this was one of the more stressful parts of the race (it was hard to relax when knowing our teammates were running in the dark with a bunch of people around that were crazier than us).  Jon ran his part of the race really fast and seemed to really be enjoying the freedom of running on a country road in the middle of the night.  Betsey ran next and had a great leg through downtown Monks Corner.  It was nice to have some light as she made it through town.  She handed off to Richard for a short 2.3 mile leg up hill.  There were a few rain drops at this point, but nothing major.  Richard handed off the bracelet to Annie and we were done for a few hours.

We were all exhausted and had decided to go to Richard and Betsey's house to shower and get a few hours of rest.  We drove about forty-five minutes to Downtown Charleston and dragged our selves into their house.  I took a shower and laid down on a bed and fell asleep for about an hour.  I heard my phone and checked the text.  It looked like Van#1 was ahead of schedule.  I just sat there staring at my phone.  I could not even think straight...  I heard other people moving around outside my room so I got up and made my way downstairs.  I could not eat anything (my stomach was a mess), but I did drink some coffee and started to feel ok.  It took awhile, but we finally realized that Van#1 was actually still on time and we could have slept another hour (our brains were fried).  We loaded the van again and headed to Mount Pleasant for the final part of the race!

My last leg of the race (7.3 miles) was a great section (I run in this area all the time).  I ran down Rifle Range Road to the Isle of Palms Connector.  I passed one runner on that road and could see another runner about one hundred meters in front of me.  I could feel my pace picking up and I pushed it to the bridge.  I passed the runner and pushed it to the top.  As I came over the IOP Connector Bridge I saw my team at the bottom and could hear them cheering.  It was sick!  They gave me water and then I ran down the road to Sullivan's Island.  I handed off to Daphne and could not believe my part of the race was over.

We followed Daphne over the Ben Sawyer Bridge (we found out later that the bridge had opened a few minutes after she ran over).  Daphne handed off to Heather in front of my son's school (Mount Pleasant Academy).  It felt good to be back in familiar territory as we went through the Old Village.  Heather ran to the Mount Pleasant Water Front Park and handed off to Jon who ran over the Cooper River Bridge.

While we were waiting at the Water Front Park Richard had taken his shoes off and put them in front of the van to air out (you know what came next... we left them)...

Richard jumped in another van and drove back to the park and luckily found his shoes.  The trip over to the next exchange was a little crazy as we weaved through Downtown Charleston traffic (I think my driving was annoying Betsey a little)...

We made it to the exchange and Jon handed off to Betsey.  Betsey ran over the Ashley River and then to James Island (she did get stopped by the James Island Draw Bridge).  The heat was brutal again, but she made good time and finished her leg.  She handed off to Richard and he made his way to Folly Beach for the end of the race.

We all lined up and waited for Richard.  It was cool to see him running down the road and turning for the finish line.  The whole group got behind him and ran through the finish line together.

Team IHNBTDTR200TW finished the 201.7 miles in 29 hours and 20 minutes and made the top ten!

Finisher medals were given to the whole group and we took some team photos and then we all just kind of stood there amazed at what we had just done.

Even though this was the first year of this race it was unbelievably well organized; the route was great (although some parts were a little sketchy); the volunteers were awesome and the experience was priceless.

This was an adventure...