Green Lakes Endurance Runs 50k - stupidity and catharsis

Ok, fair warning: there's not a whole lot of stupidity in the tale itself. I would love for you to come along on this journey, but if you want stupidity, you're just going to have to follow this blog and wait. I promise, I'm guaranteed to oblige eventually.

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I find myself thinking a lot about my emotional state when approaching a long race - how I'll deal with dark points and what things from my life I'm bringing in - I evaluate these things as carefully as more mundane elements like water, food and pace. Well, actually, those things aren't so mundane, to me at least, but they're relatively easy to fine tune given enough time. The emotional aspect is so much more slippery, and unlike the others, I know that there's a part of me that hopes for everything to go awry. That's when those cherished cathartic moments occur... the ones that make for such good stories.

So although I had previously decided not to use anger as fuel , it's not like it suddenly goes away. I mean, I'm not GG Allin or anything, but there's always the STUFF. And I got to thinking: what if there was a moment when you could get rid of it? Stranger things have happened to me out on the trail. I started to envision the course like a mile race (I've done a few of these lately): The first two quarters you muster as much speed as you can while staying smooth and easy, the third quarter is all guts and gnashing of teeth and the last quarter is hallucinatory, where you find what you didn't think you had in you. SO -  however unlikely, that became part of the fourth quarter plan:

GET RID OF STUFF. OK.

But what became clear over the course of the day is- you have to bungle the mundane aspects first to get into catharsis. Neglect your nutrition until you hallucinate, fry yourself to a desiccated skeleton in the sun, go out way too fast and then need to grind out miles on legs that explode in fire every step - they'll all punch your ticket. You have to do something stupid, or be horribly unlucky, to get there. In a long race there's a lot of opportunity for both, and I had just never been without.

So now let me tell you about Green Lakes.

It's a dream of a course. Wide trails of crushed gravel and woodchips and lined with giant white cedars wind around beautiful, anomalously turquoise lakes. It's a drop of the Mediterranean in the upland forest of central New York. The moderately rooty climbs and descents are limited to ~500ft of vertical per 12.5k loop. The open fields of the upper portion boast scores of wildflowers and breathtaking views of the surrounding hills. Seriously, no ultra is easy, but those thinking of dipping a toe in this wonderful world could do a lot worse. And afterward you can swim in the lake!

I awoke in the campground, oddly bustling with runners, at 4:30am. It was 60 degrees - great temps, though by 10am it would hit 73 on its way to a high in the mid 80's. The race began with a pep talk in the half darkness and the national anthem, a whisper of a recording amplified by a megaphone at a distance of 50 yards and sounding as though the real world was very far away indeed. Tim, the friendly RD, counted down the seconds to 6am and we were off. I started out in the lead group of four, running easy with super-talented Cole Crosby, gracious course veteran Justin Weiler (who showed the way and gave tips on the course) and chatting with Jason McElwain who has seen his share of recognition in athletics and was on his first ultra jaunt. We got strung out in the fields (called 'Serengeti' by local runners) with Cole out front and looking for a course record, then Justin, me, Jason. I was feeling good and enjoying the rolling hills in the fields and the descent back to the lake path. As I was coming up to the start/finish at the end of the first lap I caught a glimpse of someone catching up to me, and quickly. This turned out to be Cole, who had gotten turned around on one of the two-way-traffic sections of the course. This should have been a warning to me, because well into the second loop, after finishing the one bigger climb and successfully dodging bees, I heard a recently stung runner who was finishing his first lap call out from behind me, "Hey, you're going the wrong way!"

"No, I'm not," I said. But by now you know - I was. I finally met a couple of nice ladies who were able to convince me that even if I was on loop two, I was now heading in the reverse direction on the upper portion. I thanked them and backtracked. This all cost me about 8 minutes, but I only found that out later (it was also at this point that the excellent Jason Mintz passed me on his way to winning his very first 100k). In the moment I just set myself to the task of getting back the places I had lost during my detour. It sucked, but you know what? I got all but one of them back, and it was the only thing that went wrong.

Before the race I'd set out my stuff on a chair along the stretch of course between the start/finish and the main aid station as was allowed. Just a towel, some extra gear, a handful of gels and three handheld bottles of Tailwind (at 200cal/18oz bottle). Each lap I would just grab a new bottle and a gel. I got to find out how great the main aid station was when feasting on watermelon etc after the finish, but as for the race I was expertly crewed - by a chair. In all, I took in around 900 calories (most of the Tailwind plus a caffeinated gel in laps two and three) and drank about 64 ounces and it was perfect. The easy early pace made sure that although things got tough, especially out on the Serengeti as the temperature began to climb, there was enough life in my legs toward the end.

So late in the race when I pulled up that STUFF, I found that it was only chalk outlines and I couldn't hold onto it. I wasn't hurting that much and it all just seemed to flow away from me... and I think that's because there was no crucible to put it into, which is maybe because I mostly avoided doing stupid things for a day. And maybe being out on trails in a kind of otherworldly, beautiful place, succeeding at doing something that I love - some days that's more than enough. My cup overflows.

Official time - 4:15:44 - 4th overall - lap splits (56:02, 1:06:40, 1:03:37, 1:09:26) - Strava data here.