MMTR  I  (A First 5(0) Miler)

            I first heard of the Mountain Masochist from a New Jersey friend who dropped out in 2003, I think.  He said that it was incredibly scenic and enjoyable, despite his failure to finish, and that he hoped to try again.  This sounded good – for those of us of more advanced age, scenery is a nice compensation for lack of speed.  So I decided to enter.  I was at work and decided to google “Mountain Masochist”.  Immediately, a screen came up saying that I had tried to enter a pornographic web site.  This should have been some indication to me of the difficulties that would follow, but somehow I made it to the starting line, about to embark into the predawn.

            The MMTR may not be pornographic, but it is certainly XXX-rated in terms of difficulty, not to mention those few extra miles that pop up, here and there.  Anyway, I started the race with my ultra running friend, Herm Richards, hoping that he would set a reasonable pace.  I was startled to find that we were all running a 7:30 or 8:00 minute/mile pace, and that there were people running even faster!  Not knowing what to make of this, I decided to follow.  Now I really don’t know how that first stretch on the road took 52 minutes at that pace.  Yet another of the mysteries of life that would plague me all day.  But I didn’t care.  I was just out for a tour of the mountains of Virginia, or so I told myself.

            On reaching the second aid station, I managed to somehow inhale a salt tablet up my nose.  Fortunately, we were walking at this point, so I recovered in about five minutes.  (By the way, my friend Saul and I tried to find the “jeep trail” at Cashaw Creek the previous day, and started out on the wrong side of the stream – it is a larger trail, you know – only to find that it doesn’t go anywhere.  I challenge anyone to drive a jeep up the trail that makes up the course at this point!)  From there on in, things got better and we soon reached altitude.  The views off the mountain were just wonderful, as was most of the scenery for the rest of the day.  It is truly amazing to me that you can travel through the remote places the MMTR visits in one day over a distance it would take at least three days to hike.

            I ran the first half of the course with a young guy named Cory, who seemed to have a large following, mostly consisting of young women, who greeted him at every aid station.  This was entertaining.  After I waited for my friend, Herm, at the halfway point, this Cory person just took off and I never saw him again till after the race.  There was also a guy from Georgia who consistently ran the uphills.  I would pass him back on the downhills, but eventually he lost me for good.  At the prerace dinner, Lew McGrath told me at least five times to walk the uphills, which I did, at least when they became steep.  Lo and behold, about 11/2 hours into the race, he blew by me, running up a fairly steep section!  He went on to have a great race, as did Herm.  Hmm….

            Shortly after starting the second half of the race, my legs started to cramp up.  (I think that in the future, I will have to do some really, really long training runs, like 10-12 hours or so, so that I can overcome this problem.  This tactic worked in my previous marathon career, although those long runs were much shorter).  I wanted to continue.  Up to this point, I had been taking one Endurolyte pill every 45 minutes.  Now I went for broke.  I took one every 15 minutes until the cramps went away, reasoning that I had an electrolyte deficit, and probably couldn’t take too many.  Probably medically inadvisable, but it worked.  Unfortunately, I used up my cache of pills by 81/2 hours into the race and my cramps returned.  I slowed by 10-15 minutes over the second half, but still had a lot of fun.  I guess that’s what matters anyway.

            I know it’s been said many times before, but I’ll repeat it anyway.  Dr. Horton works in a higher sphere.  He also uses a sort of higher math which must be peculiar to Virginians.  How else can a five mile loop take so long?  Why should the four mile or so stretch on the AT seem like 6 or 7?  Why do the last three miles, which are often dead dog downhill, take over thirty minutes to do?  Well, I guess I was prepared for all of this.  One of the most amazing discoveries was that despite the fact that my quads were screaming at me in an unfamiliar language, I could still keep running!  This is useful to know.

            All in all, it was a great day.  The weather was terrific, by New Jersey standards.  It was a great feeling to cross the finish line and shake hands with Dr. Horton.  And with any luck, I will be back to try this one all over again.