DISCLAIMER: For most of you, this is the first time you've heard that I was doing this race. Generally, I find it fun to keep up on what races everyone has planned and return the favor. This time, I guess I wanted to avoid the buildup to the race in my own mind as much as possible. By not talking about it with anyone, I managed to accomplish that for the most part. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

I've never written a report for a running race before. Really, to me, there's always been very little to report. I went, I ran, I came home. Even for a marathon, look at the results and there's your report. Sure, for something unique like Krol's Hood to Coast adventure there's a great story to tell, but personally, when it comes to running races, I've never had much to say after the fact. Anyway, I'm not sure this is an exciting report, but running in the JFK 50-miler was most certainly an interesting experience and worth writing about. Here's the story.

Some quick thoughts on the month before the race. I had run the best marathon of my life about 5 weeks ago and at that time didn't have another raced lined up until January when SR, Eddy and I will be trying our first adventure race in the north Georgia mountains. The top of my left foot had been giving me problems – something tendon or ligament related – up to the marathon and bothered me a little during it, but nothing major and it was feeling pretty good after taking a few post-race recovery days. So of course, I was anxious to find another race to capitalize on what I felt like was a good level of fitness. I didn't have to wait long.

A few days later, I get an e-mail from Snyder asking if I wanted to crew for him at JFK. He had done the race two other times, placing in the top-50 both times and was looking for help with a shoe drop and maybe someone willing to ride a mountain bike next to him for company during the lonely stretches. I thought for a moment and wrote back – “No, I don't want to crew for you, but I'll do the race.” Now generally speaking, despite having run a relatively fast marathon, my training was most definitely not set up for this type of event. I do a lot of fast-paced running for training with an occasional long run, but not a lot of base miles. Considering that I had to taper as well, I had a few weeks to try to get ready for this race. What I felt I did have going for me was my Ironman experience and the mental toughness you build racing for 10 hours straight.

I start back in on the training for this and quickly started to pick up my miles. Too quickly I guess and my foot flared up again. I decided that if I can't get it feeling good, I'm never going to make it through the actual race, so I made a calculated gamble and didn't run for 10 straight days. I figured for something like this, sacrificing a little fitness for starting line health was a trade worth making. After 10 days I eased back in for a few days and then put in some good miles ending about eight days before the race. The foot felt pretty much fine and I was optimistic that I had done a good job balancing fitness and health going into the race. A few short treadmill runs the week of the race and I was on my way to Maryland Friday morning to meet Snyder, his friend John from Connecticut who was going to crew for us, and Kurt and Melissa Molter.

Typical race morning stuff, though we were all pretty confused about what to wear. It was around 30 degrees and the wind was howling at about 20-30 mph, which was supposed to keep up through the day. Obviously, you're running and you don't want to overdress, but at the same time you know you're eventually going to be slowing down dramatically and don't want to get too cold. I ended up going with shorts, a short-sleeved cool-max shirt, a wind-proof vest, lightweight fleece gloves and a running hat. I also had a fleece hat with me and a little neoprene pouch that held food, my enduralytes and some medical stuff in case my feet started giving me problems.

Just before the race, everyone lines up outside the school and walks about a half-mile into town. Snyder, Kurt, Melissa and I all give each other those going to war hugs and a few seconds later the crack of a starting gun gets us going. The first three miles are on a road that goes non-stop straight uphill towards the mountains. Sndyer and I ran together and tried to get ourselves situated in around the top 50-60 and not work too hard doing so. According to the veteran Snyder, you don't want to be too far back going into the trail sections because it's mostly single track and passing is difficult. We were talking and running around 8 minute miles at this point. After three miles, you do a one-mile trail section and then another mile on an asphalt trail that has a few hills so steep that everybody except the very elite guys walks them. I figured Snyder was the veteran who had very well in the past so I just tried to follow his lead through this section.

These first 5 miles are almost like a warm-up and the race really starts as you head onto a 10-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Snyder and Kurt had told me prior to the race that the trail was really rocky and all covered with leaves making your footing treacherous. I was like yeah, yeah, rocky, whatever. Let me tell you, no matter what I write here, you are not going to be able to visualize how difficult this ended up being unless you are an experienced trail runner. Picture how a jigsaw puzzle looks when you take the lid off the box and that's what we were trying to run on. Snyder and I were together going into this section, eventually though he fell a little behind me here. I wanted to check and see if he was still behind me, but I was scared to talk for fear of breaking my concentration. I'm not kidding, I couldn't talk. There was absolutely no way you could take your eyes off the trail, ever, or you'd be done. Probably 80% or so of the trail was like this. Occasional you'd hit a short stretch that was primarily dirt and leaves and you'd get a mental break, but they never lasted long. I did OK through the first eight miles of this section, though I could feel my old injury starting to flare up a little as my foot got jammed, twisted, jarred, and smacked. Then I screwed up and rolled my left ankle good. Adrenaline keeps you going thank God, but the stride before I rolled my ankle was the last pain-free step I would take for the rest of the race. Another kind of fun part are all the trees that down across the trail. There were probably 15-20 trees down that you had to jump over, climb over or go around through this 10-mile stretch. After rolling my ankle, I slowed down more and tried to cautiously pick my way through this part. The last mile before you get off the Appalachian Trail is a serious of switchbacks down this absolute cliff. I probably got passed by 20 people in those last 2 miles as I just wanted to get off the trail without doing anymore damage.

I finally jump off the rocks that take you off the trail and start looking for John who was meeting us here with some gear. Snyder and I were both switching to lighter, more marathon type shoes for the remaining 35 miles of the race. This is a standard meeting spot with a lot of people and it takes me a moment to find John. I switch shoes, grab a bar, tell him Snyder should be right behind me, give him a hug and take off again. Get about 10 seconds down the road and realize I forgot my gloves back there. A quick U-turn, grab my gloves and this time I was off. It felt so good to be able to just run that I was probably running faster than I should have been here. A little further down the path I hit the checkpoint and check my watch. At around 16 miles, my watch was at 2:30. Based on looking at past results, I wanted to be there at 2:20, but I couldn't have cared less at this point.

From here, you move onto a dirt path that runs along a river. It's pancake flat and a nice surface to run on. Life was actually enjoyable again and I was trying to keep myself running at a reasonable pace considering how much farther I still had to go. For the first time ever, the race had two starting times, ours at 7 and people who wanted some extra time and still officially finish could start at 5. At this point I was coming up on the majority of the 5 o'clock starters. On one hand, it was nice to be “passing” people, but really you weren't passing anyone so when you saw someone way up ahead, you couldn't think about it as reeling them in. Occasionally I would pass a 7 o'clock starter, but I was towards the front of the pack and I was already pretty spread out. There were only 3 aid stations for the first 16 miles of the race, but once onto the dirt path you would get an aid station every 3 miles or so. The day is so long, you can't really focus on the future or the past, you just stay in the present and keep moving your feet. I was really surprised how long I managed to feel OK. I passed Jeff Watern on his mountain bike heading the opposite direction to support his wife somewhere in the 20s and waved hello. At around 30 miles I was still feeling pretty good and was moving along at something around 7 minute pace. I managed to keep this up until mile 35, truly passing probably 10-15 people along the way and moving i would guess into the top 25. At this point I had grand visions in my head, thinking if I can just keep this up for a while longer, maybe I'll have a shot at breaking 7:20 and holding on and staying in the top 25. Well, of course, within the next mile it all went bad and I had to walk outside of an aid station for the first time. I looked down at my watch and it read 5:20. I thought man, no matter what happens, it's pretty incredible that I ran essentially for 5:20 straight. The wind was roaring straight into your face almost the whole time you're on the dirt path (the course is a horseshoe shaped point-to-point), so now that I was starting to slow down I did get cold. I managed to walk/run up to the 38-mile aid station where John was waiting again. It was really nice to see a friend here because I was mentally trying to into the proper frame of mind knowing I had about a half-marathon to suffer through still. I hung out there for a few minutes and finally shoved M&Ms in my mouth, drank some Coke and Gatorade and moseyed along. The final aid station for the dirt path section was about 3.5 miles down the path and most of the people I had passed decisively 5 miles ago were now easing themselves back in front of me. I finally get to the end of the path, fuel up a little more and head over to the road.

The final 8 miles or so of the race are on rolling asphalt roads that have no berm so an extra challenge at this point is keeping from getting run over by the locals. Of course, before you actually get to run the rolling roads, you've got a nice, steep hill to get up. Another section that, particularly at this point in the race, is not runnable. I had met up again with a Marine that I had met early in the race and had switched places with throughout the day, so we walked up the hill together and forged one of those spontaneous race alliances to help get each other to the finish line. We played the usual games, just keep running until we hit the next mile marker or up to that sign or whatever. Sometimes he would trick me and once we hit the sign where we were supposed to walk, he'd keep running, sometimes I'd do it to him. We were keeping an eye on our watch at this point, hoping to pull out the small victory of finishing in less than 8 hours. At one point I looked back and didn't see my new friend. But then a short while later there he was again. You could definitely feel the difference between running on roads vs. trails as my knees and back were really starting to bother me at this point. At the one mile to go marker he wanted to walk some. We had about 12 minutes to go under 8 hours, so as long as we could keep the feet turning over we'd be OK. I tricked him and got him to run up to a sign supposedly. We both knew what was going on and kept running right past the sign. A couple turns through town and we can see the line and clock off in the distance. We finally get up there and go across the line hands together up-raised. 7:56 on the clock and they tell us we were 52nd and 53rd overall. We tried to finish in dead tie, but they don't let us and the guy picks my marine buddy to finish ahead of me. Good for him, he has 3 kids and just ran a 2:42 at his first marathon. He deserves it.

I'm sore as hell sitting here writing the next day and I still can't help but think man that's a long way to run!! Interestingly, my arms are really sore, I guess they're not used to being held in running form for 8 hours. You know how it is, all the soreness goes away pretty quickly, but the memory of the accomplishment is there forever. Overall, I really enjoyed experience and look forward to trying another one some day. I can't ever see it becoming my focus because I enjoy the diversity of training for triathlons, but the challenge of running an ultra is unique and pretty cool. Very nice group of people too. I can honestly say I didn't run into one person who was unfriendly or seemed to have any kind of attitude at all. Don't know what else to say. Thanks for reading. Stay safe. EC

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