This was the second running of this 50/100K event in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains. The 50K course--my Garmin GPS says it was actually 55K, and the race description had it at 32.5 miles-- has an elevation change of 7250 feet, with 13,041 feet of change for the 100K. The GEER is a "hybrid" trail run: the course starts with about 11 miles of rural roads, 12 miles of mostly single track trails with a 4 mile turnaround loop (the 100K breaks off here and is almost all trails for the extra 50K), and finishing back on the first 11 miles. There were some rolling hills, and 3 steep climbs. I had covered just about the entire course over the summer so I knew what to expect and fear. These may just be hills to those from the Rockies, and only the 100K gets higher than 3000 feet, but it's still a steep and rugged course. The final cutoff time was 18:30.

Three weeks before the run, I figured I was out when the calf muscle that had been bothering me popped during a run. When that has happened before, it took me out of running for 6-8 weeks. 6 days before the race I tried wrapping it and it held up 3 runs in a row, so I decided to stay in and hope if I broke down it'd be near an aid station.

The start of the race is at the 0 mile marker of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which runs across the crest of the mountains in VA and NC. North of this point it becomes Skyline Drive as it enters Shenandoah National Park. The BRP is a beautiful road, and I do a lot of long runs on it since I spend part of the summer in the area. The logistics for the race were quite easy for me as I had less than a 1/2 hour drive to the start/finish from my Virginia home. It was about 60 or so at the 6am start; highs were in the mid 80s at the lower elevations, but at high noon it was overcast and I doubt I ran in hotter than mid 70s, with low humidity.

96 50K and 72 100K runners started off. 67 would finish the 50K and 45 made the full 100. I actually took the early lead! I guess most people were sleepy or didn't want to get up too close to the starter with the bullhorn. My lead lasted maybe 100 yards, which is also when I remembered to start my watch. The downside is that it meant everyone who was to finish ahead of me would pass me. With no thoughts of winning the race, I watched about 10 people go by me in the first 2 miles. I try not to even consider these as races, though my competitive nature often takes over at the end if I see someone I can reel in. Heading south on the parkway, it was a 600 foot climb, which quickly spread out the field.

At the first aid station, skipped by most everyone, we turned onto a hard-packed road too narrow to even have a centerline. It rolled up and down for a couple of miles, then dropped straight down about 900 feet to the small valley town of Sherando and aid station 2 at about 8 miles. I knew I'd be walking some of the hills later, so I knocked off some low/mid 7 minute miles here and even passed 3 people back.

Then came the only flat section, a 3 mile stretch on a rural highway, a dirt road, and then a jeep trail to an aid station at the foot of the next mountain. I was still cruising and my calf was fine. While I swapped my road shoes for trail shoes, 5 others came in and out before I started on the trail. Maybe I need to work on my transition time! This aid station was perfectly placed for a shoe swap drop bag, except that it was over a mile from the road so I'd have to wait for it to close after dark for the 100K return to get my bag delivered at the finish.

The Mill Creek trail started innocently enough, a mild rise on some nice soft grass and just some downed trees to go over or under. Then UP, over 1000 feet in well under a mile to reach the Torrey Ridge trail. I walked much of this incline. The couple miles of ridgeline was rolling, with a lot of very rocky sections that got tough to navigate now that I was a bit tired. I seemed to be all by myself now, not catching anyone but not being passed. I heard some wildlife rustling in the woods, but didn't see much. Usually I see plenty of deer on these runs but the earlier runners probably flushed them out. There is no "above the treeline" in these mountains, so there are only a couple of good views from the top.

Next came the toughest part of the run, a 4 mile loop that dropped steeply down to a small lake, around the lake to the aid station/turnaround, back up the mountain, and back on the ridgeline to close the loop. The 800 foot descent was particularly wicked as the trail builder apparently did not know about switchbacks and parts of it were quite eroded. I came scary close to taking a header once. I must've been favoring my injured left calf, because my right knee and hip were screaming. Despite the decline I only clocked an 11:30 mile in this section and was glad to see it bottom out at the lake. Around the lake I chatted with a runner who had suffered multiple bee stings earlier in the course. At least two other people were also stung.

I had to pop a shoe off to treat a hot spot at the aid station. This was about the 1/2 way point for us, while the long runners continued deeper into the wilderness. I was at just under 3 hours. Before the injury I was guessing a 6 hour finish, but I knew I wasn't going to do even splits on this course, and it was a net 300 foot rise to the finish.

Up the mountain was a true death march. I clocked 22:20 in the mile that included this climb. Because of the thick foliage you couldn't tell how far it was to the top, but I finally made it. The 100K loop would return via a different route and bypass this climb so this is the one part we had tougher. There was a big boulder field to cross at one point. From the road below it looks like a bunch of pebbles, but it is really head-sized or bigger rocks. I don't know if this was from mining, tree-cutting, or rain--probably a combination. Hurricane Camille in 1969 was particularly devastating around here. 20+ inches of rain fell, first damming up behind fallen trees and then breaking through. The flash floods in the valley killed 120 people, 1% of Nelson County's population at the time.

I was spent from the climb, and didn't run much on the ridgeline because I wasn't landing my feet well among the rocks. These weren't smooth or flat rocks either, there were many jagged ones on this lightly traveled trail to beat up the feet. This was my worst part of the run, but Slow as I went, nobody passed me until right at the end of the 3 mile ridgeline, and that guy laughed and said he wasn't going any faster than me when I stepped aside. Funny though, I never did see him again.

Back on the Mill Creek downhill section, this was much smoother, though overgrown with mountain laurel in places. I got sloppy on a fairly flat part and caught a rock and went down. A woman had just passed me and she stopped to make sure I was ok. I had only scratched a leg and hand so I thanked her and waved her on. This wasn't nearly as bad as on a training run I had done here, when I had slipped on a log and went down hard on the back of my head--luckily not on a rock. I noticed they had scratched up the tops of these fallen logs for the race so they had a better grip.

At the jeep road aid station I swapped back to the road shoes and refueled, with perhaps a bit too much pepsi. I slapped a bit more tape over the ace bandage to better support the calf and fought off some leg cramps to stand up and start running. I was looking forward to opening up on this flat section, but soon had to back down to a walk for a mile or so until my stomach settled. Five runners passed me here, and I would wind up playing leap frog with them most of the rest of the way. After dodging a pickup truck going 50 or so on the curved dirt road (the limit was 25mph), I started running again on the highway. The highway was busier now at mid-day, but everyone gave us room or slowed way down if there was traffic both ways.

I caught the people who had passed me as we reached the narrow country road, and we all walked much of the long uphill, every once in awhile one of us breaking into a short run. Well, all but the one woman who kept up a steady, slow run almost all the way up. The hill that wouldn't end finally did, giving way to the rolling section, which was rolling up a whole lot more than I remember it rolling down on the way out! I also started feeling a pull in my calf, a sign it was likely to pop again and I'd have to walk the last 4 miles. Heel-striking or just luck seemed to get me past this. I also dropped the other 4 in the pack I had shared the hill with.

Finally came the last aid station and the 2 mile downhill finish. I had a quick cup of water and as soon as I started back running I knew I still had something left. I caught the woman about halfway down, and she had some encouraging words as she knew I had trouble earlier. I told her what an awesome job she did on the big hill. She wound up winning her age group--she said it was because she just made the 30s group today on her birthday, but I checked the results and she'd have won the 20s group anyway. We cheered when we saw the 1 mile post, and I bore down for the finish. My final full mile split turned out to my fastest, at 7:01. At the end of the parkway, we turned off into a grassy area for the finish chute and a very nice carved wooden finishers medal. Once again I botched my watch timer, turning it off about 5 seconds late. It had me at 6:56:00 for 34.36 miles; officially my time was 6:56:20, good for 15th place. Considering the extra distance, missed training time, and holding back a bit because of the calf, I was quite happy with it. In fact, I was happy just to feel able to start, and thrilled to finish.

I sat and untaped and rested for a few minutes before getting up for some post race food and a massage. Then I cracked a beer and watched other runners finish for a couple of hours. One youngster was complaining about how slow his dad must be running and I told him it was a very tough course. He pointed to a nearby mountain and asked if we had to run up anything like that. I looked at it, and replied "worse than that". He just said "wow". Unfortunately they had hoped to checkout after the race, but the wife and kid had to walk up to the inn to beat checkout time, and that's when the guy finished! I had to go to a neighborhood dinner so I went back home and showered, and came back in the evening to wait for my bag and watch some 100Kers finish. I met another Nebraska native also waiting for her bag, so we talked for quite awhile and she called her dad a couple of times to get updates on the Husker football opener. She had just come back from a stint in Iraq four months earlier, which was fortunately not too perilous.

Would I run this again? I'm not sure. The rocky sections really beat me up and I didn't like having to walk so much of it, though I felt strong at the end because of the walk breaks. I don't think the distance or even the hills bothered me nearly as much as the rocks. This was pretty much the consensus among runners I talked to afterwards. A couple were wondering why their times were so slow and were happy when I told them about the extra 5K. I heard that the rest of the 100K was the best part of the course, so I guess I just need to boost my distance! Or, stop whining about rocks.

Race management was fine with a couple of nits. They changed websites without telling us so we didn't get the final course changes until a week before the race. Fortunately I had emailed the director a couple months before and gotten a rough outline of the changes. I got a bit lost with those directions but on race day the course was very well marked. The distance being over 3 miles off seems like a bit much. Anyway, the aid stations were all great, drop bags handling was fine, I saw the sweeper with the last runner on my way back, decent food and free massages at a nice finish area, etc. For a second year event it seemed very smooth.