Race Report: Georgia Death Race 2018

This is going to be a long one...  Grab a beverage and settle in...  :-)

A little background...

I first heard of GDR back around November 2016, so around a year and a half ago.  Prior to that, I had never really done any trail running.  I had completed one road marathon, and a couple half marathons.  But a Facebook friend mentioned she was signed up for GDR and was looking for a 'pacer' to run with her for the last 30 miles of the course.

I looked up the event, and immediately knew it was just the kind of batshit-crazy thing for me.  And the race director was taunting the runners on Facebook, with stuff like "You'll all be in a ditch, wanting to die.  And I'll be there laughing at you."  I'm paraphrasing of course - but that was the general tone, and it made me want to do the event even more.  (WTF is wrong with me?)

Of course, the event sells out within hours of the registration opening (this year he had to start doing a lottery to get it), so I couldn't sign up for the 2017 event even if I wanted to.  But I figured it was better to get my feet wet running part of the course, and maybe doing some other trail runs first.  :-)  As it turned out, I did not pace anyone last year, but I volunteered at a couple aid stations.  So I got a little feel for the event.  I have also ran many trail 50k races, and a 12hr race.  So I have a little experience now.  Having volunteered in 2017, I was guaranteed a spot in 2018 - so I of course signed up.

There's a 24hr cutoff for GDR, which seems generous until you consider the insane amount of climbing involved.  The RD says there is 20,000 ft of ascent over the "68ish" (more like 74) miles.  My Garmin watch recorded about 16,000 ft of climbing.  This wasn't the first 24hr event I've done - I did a 24hr inline ultramarathon about 11 years ago.  So I know a bit about pacing/nutrition/hydration for long stuff like this.  Or so I thought.

Training for GDR was perhaps a bit lax on my part.  Living in Wake Forest (Raleigh), there are some "rolling hills" around, but nothing crazy like the mountains in northern Georgia.  I did add some hour-long workouts on the stair machine, which probably helped.  But I didn't train like a sane person would.  You really want to mimic the conditions of the course as closely as possibly.  I trained on rolling hills.  The closest I really came to anything like GDR was the South Mountains Marathon, which had some long hard climbs, and a similar amount of climbing per mile as GDR.  But only 26 miles.  So, basically I'd need to do SMM 3 times.  When I finished SMM, I was certainly not able to do it a second time - but that was back in January.  I did improve my fitness quite a bit before GDR, and knocked out a 50k (Wicked Root) as my last long run before GDR.

So, heading into GDR weekend, I'm in "decent" shape - but not "great" shape.  There are a lot of unknowns.  I alternate between optimism and not expecting to finish.  Honestly, I was mentally prepared to DNF.  But I wanted to see how far I could get.  This is probably the first event I've done where I was not sure if I could finish it or not.  It has a 33% DNF rate - and there are certainly stronger runners than me who have attempted it and failed to finish.

My wife and I drive down to Amicalola State Park (where the GDR finish line is) on Friday.  We barely get there in time for the check-in and mandatory pre-race meeting.  (Traffic sucked.)  Sean (race director) offers some last minute advice and condolences.  After, we grab some dinner at the lodge and head to the room to get a little sleep.

And I do mean "little".  Buses take the runners from Amicalola State Park (finish) to the start at Vogel State Park.  The buses leave at 2am, which means I needed to wake up at 1am to get ready.  Which means I got 3 hours of sleep the night before my race.

Race day...

The bus ride was long & boring.  I closed my eyes to rest a little bit, without much success.  It was a school bus, so not exactly comfortable for a 90-minute ride.  We get to Vogel and check-in again, and pick up the all-important railroad spike that runners are required to carry during the entire race (along with some other mandatory gear).  I cram down some mini-cakes I bought at Walmart for "breakfast", and drink some water to pre-hydrate myself.  I also drank a 5-hour energy shot for a little caffeine boost.  A few minutes before 5am, we walked over to the start line.

A few more comments from Sean, a quick "happy birthday" song (it was Sean's birthday) and the race started.  We start on a slight uphill, and a lot of people started running (jogging, really).  I had positioned myself maybe 1/3 of the way back, and I let another 1/3 of the runners pass me.  I shuffled along the road, which turned onto a trail.  After a mile, we went downhill for a couple miles, then started the longest climb of the course - 4 miles of continuous climbing with about 2300 ft of ascent.

One thing I discovered in SMM after my legs were exhausted is that I could still make progress on the uphills by taking "baby steps".  Basically, like shifting gears on a bike, increase my cadence but shorten the stride dramatically.  This was consistent with some of the advice Sean gave Friday night (take short steps).  We're in a long "conga line" on the climb, with not much passing going on.  As I followed the person in front of me, I always tried to take shorter/quicker steps than they were.

I had also set a heart rate alarm on my watch for 143 bpm, which was lower than what I thought I needed to maintain an effort for 20+ hours.  It would creep up over 143 on the climbs, but it was a great reminder to not get carried away.  That one thing probably helped me maintain a conservative pace in the early hours of the race.

Of course, we're climbing in the dark.  I opted to use my smaller/lighter headlamp for the beginning of the race.  It worked okay.  I figured we'd only be in the dark 90 minutes or so, and I didn't want to carry my big/bulky headlamp all day.  I was glad when there was enough light that I no longer needed it.  (My big, insanely bright headlamp was waiting for me in my mile-51 drop bag.)

Some of the advice I had seen on GDR suggested there weren't any runnable downhill sections in the first half of the race.  I did not find that to be true.  But I tend to run technical downhills more aggressively than other mid-pack runners like me.  In fact, just about anyone will pass me on the uphills, but I'll fly past them on the downhills.  That was key for me to stay on a finishing pace.

The first aid station, White Oak was at mile 8.1(ish) and I got there around 2:23.  I had guessed 2:45, so I was ahead of the pace.  But my estimated pace was based on almost no knowledge of the course - really just looking at the elevation profile and trying to come up with something.  Still, it was encouraging.  I had a laminated "cheat sheet" with notes on each section that I carried with me, so I (mostly) knew what was coming up.

I only spent about 4 minutes minutes at the first aid station - just enough time to refill my water bladder, grab some food.  I walked out of the aid station, eating the food as I walked.

It was mostly downhill between AS1 and AS2, and I made pretty good time there.  I rolled into Mulky Gap at 3:44, and again spent about 4 minutes there.  I'm still about 15 minutes ahead of my estimated pace, and 36 minutes ahead of the cutoff time.  Not bad!

At this point, I'm feeling GREAT.  I have to keep reminding myself that the first 10ish miles always feel good.  "Pride cometh before the fall" crossed my mind a few times, and I kept obeying the heart rate alarm on my watch.  The "baby steps up the hill" strategy seemed to be working as far as saving my legs.  And I was FLYING on the downhills.  Anyone near me would pass on the uphills, but I would go zooming by later on the downhills.

GDR Tip:  If you're not a strong climber (like me), get really good at running technical downhills.  You can make up A LOT of time!

 The next aid station is Skeenah Gap, where the cutest crew in the world (my lovely wife) would be waiting for me.  The course does an short(ish) out-and-back to get to the aid station, then back to the trail.  So you get to see some runners coming the other direction who have already left the aid station.  It's also almost entirely downhill to the aid station, so you know you have a crapload of climbing to do as soon as you leave the aid station...

So I make it to Skeenah Gap (21.4 miles) right at 6 hours...  About 30 minutes ahead of my estimated time.  And Jaime is nowhere to be found.  (I was super early after all.)  So I go through the usual routine of refilling water, grabbing food, etc.  I'm just about ready to leave and I see her walking up to the aid station.  So I extended the stay a few more minutes, changed my shirt, and liberally applied some more 2Toms Sport Shield to the chafing-prone areas.  Total time at Skeenah Gap was around 11 minutes.

Everything is still going great.  I'm cruising along...  Then suddenly I roll my left ankle - HARD.  Hard enough that I'm a little worried.  I keep moving, thinking I'll just walk/run it off.  I also dig out 800mg of Ibuprofen and take it immediately.  After a couple minutes, it seems to be okay.  About a mile later, a roll it again.  FUCK!  Again, I keep going - and it seems to work itself out.  A mile later - you guessed it, I roll it again.  MOTHER FUCKER!  I'm not even sure how I kept rolling it.  The trail was not technical at all in that section.  Perhaps I just got complacent.  The gently rolling hills lulled me into a false sense of security.  I'd have to pay more attention if I was going to make it to the end of the race!

So it couldn't have been more than another mile or two, and I trip - and I'm falling.  But I had the presence of mind to execute a nearly flawless barrel roll and avoided injury (almost) completely.  (I bumped my ankle a bit, but that's it.)  A couple people not-too-far behind me witnessed it and seemed impressed.  I even landed in a soft pile of leaves - if you have to fall, you can't get much luckier than that.  Still, the sudden onset of rolling my ankle and tripping within such a short time was worrisome. Of course, I'm 7+ hours in at this point, so it's natural for one's attention to start to wander.  I wasn't even listening to music (yet) - so I didn't even have that as an excuse.

The rest of the run to AS4 (Point Bravo) was fortunately uneventful.  I got there at 7:49 - about 25 minutes ahead of my target time (71 minutes ahead of the cutoff).  I had a drop bag waiting for me there.  I was getting some "hot spots" on my feet, so I decided to sit down and changed my shoes and socks.  (I had spares in my drop bag.)  I also applied some more 2Toms to my feet while I had my socks off.  After refilling water and grabbing food, I ended up spending 18 minutes there.  A long but necessary stop.  So when I left, I was about 53 minutes ahead of the cutoff.

GDR Tip:  Take care of your feet!  Blisters will slow you down a lot more than taking a few minutes to change your shoes & socks.

The next section was TOUGH!  There is a huge climb to get to Sapling Gap.  And by this time, my GPS is a little off, so I have no idea how much further away it is.  To make matters worse, there was a point where I hadn't seen a course flag in a while, so I started wondering if I had made a wrong turn.  Well, I didn't have to worry too long - several people caught up to me on the climb and said there was no other place to turn.  And we spotted a flag not too long after that.  

Then we finally arrived at the aid station.  It's now 9:26 into the race.  I see they have beer (Yuengling Light) and I drink one.  I took a short pee break, and realized I couldn't remember the last time I went.  The urine was pretty dark - indicating I was getting dehydrated.  NOT GOOD.  I would need to take care of that immediately.  They had these mashed potato burritos there, and I grabbed one to eat on the go.  I had been feeling a little rough when I got there, and stayed a little longer than I probably should have (12 minutes).  But I did feel MUCH better when I left.  I'm still about 52 minutes ahead of the cutoff - and pretty much right at what my estimated time was.  So I'm slowing down a bit.



GDR Tip:  Force yourself to drink.  Set a 10-minute timer on your watch
so you don't forget.

While I felt much better after leaving Sapling Gap, it was getting more and more difficult to eat anything.  My stomach just didn't feel right.  It took forever to eat that stupid burrito, and it was fairly bland - so should have gone down pretty easy.  In retrospect, I think the dehydration messed up my stomach and I never really recovered from that standpoint.  I tried eating tums, pepto, even crystallized ginger - nothing would settle my stomach.  Every now and then, I'd choke down some gel, but I was running a severe calorie deficit now.

I think it might have been in this section that I came across a couple runners, one of whom was lying on the ground.  I stopped to see if they were okay.  The guy on the ground, Rohan, said his hamstring was bothering him.  I helped him stretch it out for a couple minutes (the other dude took off).  After stretching, I dug some ibuprofen out of my pack - the last I had on me - and gave it to him.  (I had more in my drop/crew bags, so not a big deal.)  We started off running together, he dropped me of the first uphill.  I zoomed past him later on a downhill.  Maybe 30 minutes later, he passed me again on an uphill and I didn't see him again.

By the time I got to Long Creek, I was not having fun.  I actually sat down and let a volunteer refill my hydration pack.  I also drank some gatorade while I was there.  NOTHING sounded good to eat.  On a whim, I decided to try some ramen noodles.  (Which, believe it or not, I had never eaten before then.)  To my delight, I was actually able to eat them, and it settled my stomach a bit.  I got there around 11:27, left around 11:40.  So another 13 minutes...  Now I'm 30 minutes BEHIND my estimated time.  But I'm still 50 minutes ahead of the cutoff.  I just need to keep moving.  The early cutoffs are more aggressive, so I have a bit more buffer for the second half of the race.  (Hard to believe I'm only halfway done at this point!)  The ramen has given me some hope that I'll be able to finish despite the stomach issues.  And there is less climbing in the second half - or so they tell me...

Next stop:  Winding Stair aid station - the second crew-accessible aid station.  So I'll get to see Jaime again.  In fact, when I was at Long Creek, I had cell service and saw she sent a text saying she was already there.

While en-route, I was thinking about what a great decision I made to wear compression shorts.  (A bit of a risk, since I hadn't done any training runs in them.)  But here I was, 12+ hours into the race and no chafing issues.  Well, that didn't last long.  I certainly jinxed myself there because I started getting very uncomfortable.  I thought I would just tough it out until the aid station, but eventually decided I better take care of it soon.  Just like taking care of the feet, you have to be proactive on this stuff, so little annoyances don't turn into big problems.  I had a 2Toms wipe that I tried using, as well as some Squirrels Nut Butter...  Nothing seemed to help.  So maybe after a mile or so, I decide the compression shorts have to go.  (I had running shorts over them.)  I'm on a gravel road at this point, with no one in-sight ahead or behind me.  I could have gone into the woods, but instead opted to drop-trow right there in the middle of the road.  I stuffed the compression shorts into my pack and kept going.  Within another mile, I knew I had made the right choice.  Things seems to be settling down chafing-wise...

The rest of the run to Winding Stair was uneventful.  I got there around 13:06 - about 26 minutes behind schedule.  I saw Jaime's chair, but not Jaime.  I texted her, and got going with refilling water and seeing what food options there were.  NO RAMEN!  FUCK!!  I grabbed a few pieces of quesadilla (or maybe grilled cheese).  Jaime showed up, and I changed my shirt again.  It was colder now, so I put in a short-sleeved shirt and a long-sleeved shirt.  (More 2Toms in between.)

GDR Tip:  Have clothes in your drop bags and/or crew bags.  I'm sure that changing my shirts a few times helped me not to get chafed there...

I even put my jacket back on, it was so cold.  I left around 13:28 - so this was a long 22-minute stop.  You start running downhill immediately after leaving Winding Stair, and once I lost some elevation, the temperature rose a bit (the wind died down too.)  So now I'm too warm.  I unzip the jacket all the way, and unzip my long-sleeved shirt to cool down.  It's a nice easy run from there to Jake Bull, with only a couple little climbs.

I arrive at Jake Bull just before sunset, which was nice.  I hadn't needed to dig my headlamp out of my pack.  It's 15:01 into the race, and I'm 51(ish) miles in.  They have a bonfire going, so I sit down near it and go through my dropbag.  I sweated quite a bit coming out of Winding Stair, so I changed my shirt again.  I had a dry jacket in the bag as well, and my super-bright headlamp.  So I swamped everything around, had some ramen and gatorade.  Changed shoes & socks.  Repacked the drop bag.  Took a pee break, and got going.  I left the aid station around 15:34.  So over 30 minutes at that one!  I'm still about an hour ahead of the cutoff, and it's (only) 20ish miles to the finish.  So I'm pretty sure I'm going to finish now, although it's certainly not going to be easy.  

I catch a couple women that left the same time I did.  I can't recall their names - one was a runner, and the other was her pacer.  I wasn't motivated to push the pace, and I figured there was safety in numbers, so I decided to hang around them for a while.

We eventually get to the on-road portion of the course heading up to Nimblewell.  We stick together for a while but then the women stopped for a bit.  I kept walking, thinking they would catch me.  I'd look back occasionally and they were getting further and further back.  I decided to just pick up the pace, since they'd be okay on their own.  Another runner caught me - it was the early portion of the uphill climb to Nimblewell.  While it wasn't steep, I was walking anything remotely uphill now.  This was Michael (who I'd spend more time with later) and he asked what mile we were at, and how far away the aid station was. (His GPS watch ran out of battery.)  I gave him what information I had, and he went on ahead.  He was still about to jog the gentle uphill we were on.  I kept walking.

A GDR sign appeared on the side of the road:  "1 more mile and you'll be there!"  Now, I was familiar enough with the course that I knew the aid station was much further than a mile away...  I figured the race director was playing mind games with people now...  Two more signs:  "1/2 mile and you'll be there!"  "1/4 mile and you'll be there!"

Then - you guessed it...  A sign: "Congratulations!  You are HERE!  Now only 3 miles to go until the aid station!"  If I hadn't known that was coming, that could have been seriously demoralizing.

Not far after than, I started hearing music.  It certainly hadn't been 3 miles.  I see a volunteer who tells me Death is ahead and he'll pose for pictures.  Okay...

So the Grim Reaper offers the sweet release of death, and I say go for it.  :-)  He says just turn over my spike, and it'll all be over.  Well, that's just crazy talk.  Sorry - you can't have my spike, but let's take a picture.  "Only" another 1.5 miles to the aid station.  This part of the climb is a bit steeper, but not as steep as the climbs earlier in the race.  I can walk with a fairly normal stride - no need to "baby step" up the hill.

I actually passed a few people on the climb, and made it to Nimblewell at 19 hours - midnight.  I'm 70 minutes passed my predicted time.  But I'm 90 minutes ahead of the cutoff.  I did sit down for a few minutes.  A volunteer refilled my water and got me some ramen noodles.  (RAMEN IS LIFE.)  Forced down some gatorade.  And I figure I'm not going to feel any better at this point, so might as well get moving again.  Only spent 9 minutes at Nimblewell.

You have a long downhill immediately out of Nimblewell, and my legs are surprisingly responsive enough to jog down it.  I actually caught up to Michael on the flat.  As soon as it turned (very slightly) uphill, I started walking.  Michael tried to encourage me to run, but there was no way.  I told him to go on, but he decided to stick around with me.  We made pretty good time, and having someone there definitely lifted my spirits.  Not enough to run anything that wasn't flat or downhill, but we started "power hiking" a bit.

We start doing the math to predict a finishing time, and figure it'll be somewhere between 22:00-22:30.  Michael remarks that anything under 23 hours is a qualifying time for Western States, so that is some (minor) motivation to keep moving.

The race director listed the next checkpoint at mile 68.  But my GPS was a little off, so we were unsure how much further we had to go.  There was also a lot more climbing than I expected.  Short but steep up-and-down sections, and the trail was fairly technical.  But we kept power-hiking, and even passed a few people.  Mile 68 came and went, 69, 70, 71...  We descended a ridiculously bad trail that was strewn with boulders and busted-up cement (I think).  Eventually, we passed the Visitor Center and knew we were in the final miles.

GDR infamously finishes with a ridiculous climb up 700 stairs to the top of a waterfall.  Cruelly, this happens after you pass within sight of the finish line.  What I didn't expect was some relatively steep paved paths that you climb before you even get to the stairs.  I fell behind on those climbs, and didn't begrudge Michael for going ahead.  I'm back in "baby-step up the path" mode now.

The stairs were miserable!  But I vowed not to stop.  The first section was 175 steps (according to the sign) and I briefly hoped that maybe the race director was messing with us when he said 700 stairs.  Nope.  There was another sign at the top of the first section.  Another 475 steps to go.  There were benches on many of the landings - so tempting to sit down and just rest a minute.  But I kept going - SLOWLY.  I see headlamps far above me, which is the only indication of how much higher the stairs go.  One of the headlamps is Michael.  There were probably another 5-6 people too.

I don't know how long it took to climb the stairs.  Probably not that long.  It could have been as much as 30 minutes.  (Including the paved paths before the stairs.)  Once you get to the top, you're on a paved downhill for about 1/3 mile before you get to a very technical trail that takes you down to the finish.

Amazingly, I can still run downhill.  I catch up to, and pass, many of the people that were ahead of me (waaaay ahead of me) on the stairs.  Just before I turned onto the trail, I caught up to Michael.  I thought we might finish together, but I got ahead of him on the trail, and started running a little bit of the less-technical downhill parts.  I passed 3 more people in the final section before I came out of the woods, plunged into the (shallow) creek, and climbed over the bank on the other side to the finish.  Clock time:  22:17:47.

I dug the spike out of my pack and exchanged it for the "finisher's spike", which is the same except it is stamped with "Georgia Death Race" on it.  A couple minutes later, Michael crossed the finish line and did the same.

Jaime didn't make it to the finish line in time to see me cross, but she pulled up in her Jeep a minute after Michael finished.  So I collected my drop bags, got in the Jeep, and we went back to the room at the lodge.  By this time, I am shivering ALOT.

Post race...

I was hungry but still nauseated after finishing.  So when we got to the room, I just got cleaned up and went to bed.  I cranked the heat up in the room and tried to warm up.  It's about 4am by the time I get in the bed.

A couple hours later, I woke up ridiculously hot.  I waddled to the bathroom to pee, turned down the thermostat, and went back to bed.  Woke up a couple hours later (8am now) and couldn't fall asleep.  I was so sore, it was hard to get comfortable enough to sleep.  I turned on the tv and watched the news with the volume off (subtitles on) for about 30 minutes before I dozed off again.

We got up about 10:00.  So I have at most maybe 5 hours of sleep post-race.  (And only had 3 hours before the race.)  We got cleaned up and hit the road around 11:00.  Stopped for lunch at noon, and I had a huge cheesesteak sandwich that I couldn't finish.  (Stomach still wasn't quite right.)  But that was enough to knock me out when I got back in the car.  I passed out and when I woke up we were already in North Carolina.

Sunday was absolutely miserable.  I could barely walk.  Everything hurt.  Stomach still a little messed up, but eating better.  Monday was about the same.  Tuesday I finally started feeling human again.  Wednesday I could walk fairly normally again.  Thursday saw more improvement.  Friday I actually felt pretty good!

I got a race reminder on Friday that there was a 12-hour trail race in a week and I thought "I'm recovering really quickly!  I might sign up for that..."  Well, today (Saturday) I did a 6-mile run, my first since GDR, and my legs were dead.  So normal life is relatively pain free now, but I'm in no shape to run another race yet.

Final thoughts...

So, I'm really happy with the way the race went.  I finished about an hour slower than what I predicted.  But I had no real knowledge of the course, and had never done anything this difficult before.  So I think I got pretty close, all things considered.  And several things could have caused me not to finish at all:  rolling the same ankle 3 times, not being able to eat much the second half of the race, getting dehydrated in the middle of the race...  The dehydration thing bothers me the most - that's a rookie mistake and I should know better.

I feel like I compensated well for being a weak climber.  I did a good job of keeping my heart rate low, like I planned.  I had everything I needed in my drop bags and crew bags.  So I was well-prepared in that regard.

I did spend MUCH more time at aid stations than I anticipated.  I had "budgeted" 5 minutes per aid station, which only happened at the first two.  Total, I spent just over 2 hours stopped at aid stations, instead of the "optimistic" 45 minutes I planned.  So I can potentially make up some time by being more efficient in my stops.

The race is run really well, and has great volunteers.  I will definitely do it again someday.  Perhaps not next year - I may volunteer again and/or be a pacer for somebody.  This might be an every-other-year event for me.  But I would like to attempt it again with stronger legs, and 15 pounds less fat on me...  :-)

The next race I'm signed up for is Wicked Grit 50k in July.  Although I may sign up for the Veterans Memorial 150-mile race across Michigan, which is Memorial Day weekend.  That one is super-flat, so it may play to my strengths more than a mountain race.  I have 1 more week to decide before registration closes on that one.  Stay tuned!

Race results:  http://ultrasignup.com/results_event.aspx?did=48295#id1171850

Garmin data:  https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2593937754

Strava:  https://www.strava.com/activities/1483850058