Article by Gene Gatens

It was shortly after the 2000 edition of this race last fall  that I  started thinking about running it this year.  It was one of the 2000 race reports on David Horton's website, in particular, that inspired me to give this race a good long look. In his story,  Kent Holder described the regret he felt for not having done this race sooner, in his 22 years  of ultrarunning. We save our long travel destinations for 100s, he said, but there are so many great little 50ks and 50 milers that are worth travelling to as well.

I felt drawn to the race because I knew that that region would be a beautiful place to run this time of year, and because the race features so many distinguished runners, not the least of whom is the race director, David Horton, who blew all of our minds last spring when he set a new record at the Barkley.  A wacky self- promoter who's gained a reputation for tacking extra miles onto his runs and packing as much wallop into a 50k as is legally allowed, Horton, to the outside world, is just some guy who hears a who, but to ultrarunners, he's in the Who's Who.

So anyway, fall became winter and winter became spring and one day I took out my pen and traced over the letters MMTR that had begun to fade since I first wrote them in the little box on my calendar marked Oct. 20. Despite all the open dates leading up to it, this one was starting to long like a sure thing. It was still far off, but I had no reason to doubt that I wouldn't be going. No reason, that is, until I ran the Vermont 100, in July. Or, I should say, until a truck ran into me at the Vermont 100. Not literally, but it felt that way.  I ran a too fast 9:30 split and was still on 22-hour pace at mile 68 when the wheels feel completely off. Quitting my first 100 was out of the question, so I ended up walking huge sections between miles 75 and 95, and actually considered bagging it at the second to last aid station. It had become unfun, and when I snuck in five minutes under the wire for a buckle, I decided that I had had enough of ultras for awhile.

I shifted my focus to a fast fall marathon, since I already had the base, and began doing a lot of shorter, faster workouts. As the weeks progressed I got more excited about running a p.r., and chose the Atlantic City marathon as my target. Flat, fast, relatively cheap and close to my south Jersey home, it had everything I wanted.

And then all hell broke loose. On Tues., Sept. 11, a maniac drove an airplane through my little brother's office building, and things once thought important began to look a lot less so. In the immediate aftermath I spent hours, days,  with my brother trying to console him, comfort him, do whatever  a big brother is supposed to do after his closest sibling loses 60 coworkers in one day, 20 from his very office, many of them his closest friends.  I was struggling to find the meaning in this myself, let alone be of help to him.  Running seemed so unimportant those first few days; it hurt so much to know that someone hated us this badly, and that so many of my friends in the financial world were the object of this hatred.  It was Friday of that week before I would run again, an easy five miles in a light drizzle around the Manasquan Reservoir with another guy. It felt good to be out in the woods again, breathing heavily, sweating, drenched in the smell of the pines.

On Saturday I was responsible for marking the trail sections of the Garden State 50/50, in Allaire State Park, to be held the next day. Allaire is the home base for our loosely organized Crash and Burn Ultrarunners Club. It's where we do our Sunday long runs, and where we  hold our winter Fat Ass 50k, and some other even less serious events.  Part of the GS 50/50 cuts through Allaire, so a buddy and I volunteered to mark it. We spent hours in the woods that day -- I couldn't believe how long it took to adequately mark a simple seven-mile loop -- and on race day, when reports came in that some ribbons had been removed, I spent several more hours doing repairs and monitoring the  trails.  Again, it felt good to be in the woods. It was comfortable, familiar, a feeling I could trust, trust having been in short supply lately.   And in the next couple of days, as I reflected on the weekend and collected my emotions from the previous week, I just knew that this is where I should be:  in the woods, climbing hills and adoring nature with 240 other like-minded crazies. A marathon p.r. would be nice, but as Kent Holder put it so well in his story, "What really matters is going and  running and getting to know more of our wonderful family and more of our spectacular country." I signed up for MMTR that week.

The race did not dissappoint. The weather was glorious, perfect for ultrarunning. Some thought it humid, but being from Jersey, humidty is like death and taxes. The scenery was beautiful, plenty enough to take one's mind off the quadbusting climbs. And the volunteers gave new meaning to the words Southern hospitality. They could not have been more cheery, helpful or accomodating. I had the pleasure of meeting and running with some interesting and outstanding individuals including, but certainly not limited to, Tom Green, the 18-time finisher who, in the closing miles of the race, schooled me on the meaning of "steady";  John Owensby,  the polite southern gentleman who was coming off open heart surgery; and my new friend from Florida whose name I forget but whose face I will surely remember when we meet again.  (Remember: North Central Trail Marathon, Nov. 24. Be there!) Congratulations also to my travelling companion Ellen Bentz, who finished her first 50 in 10:30. You are as tough as they come, girl.

But without a doubt, my most lasting memory from this race will be of the final mile. I had been reeling people in on the hills all day long but there was one pesky competitor who would not give in, a blonde- haired fellow who looked a lot younger than his stated 33 years.  As I approached the last aid station, I saw him seated on the ground, crosslegged, in front of the table. He was reaching up and pulling paper cups off the table and downing them one after the other, a little bleary-eyed.  I stuck out my hand and commanded "let's go" but he was not encouraged. I didn't want to lose Tom Green's draft, so I split.  Within seconds, it seemed, a blonde blur went by shouting "8:20 to finish under 10 hours",  and since we had just passed the sign indicating one mile to the finish, I did the math, and knew I had a shot, albeit a slim one. Speed ain't my forte, especially at the end of a 50-miler, or 53, or whatever it was.  But I hopped on his butt anyway and stayed with him as long as I could, which wasn't very long; he was moving too fast. When I saw him at the finish, I mentioned that that last mile seemed a lot faster than 8:20 pace, and he replied "it was a sub-7."

That's one of the things I love about ultrarunning: one minute you're sitting in the dirt pouring drinks down your shirt watching the bark grow on the trees, and the next minute you're on your feet, running a sub 7-minute mile to break 10 hours. One day you're staggering to the finish of your first 100 miler, a hilly beast, vowing never to do another, and soon enough you're signing up for races with even bigger hills. One day you think the world is about to crash,  and that nothing makes any sense, and then you spend a day running in the hills of southwest Va. with your buddies, and you realize that it still doesn't make any sense,  but at least we've got this. And that ain't bad.

Gene Gatens
Brick, NJ
10/26/01