Long story short, I regained all the weight I lost in 2020, and then dropped it all again last year (and into this year). Going into GDR '23, I was probably close to my all-time best fitness as well as my lowest weight since high school. Countless hours spent on the stair machine had given me super-strong quads ready to tackle the Georgia mountains. I did a lot of running on a recent trip to Mexico, which gave me confidence to cruise for 10-20 miles in the heat. I felt ready. The only "wild cards" (I thought) were whether my left knee and right Achilles could take the strain of the "74-ish" miles that make up the GDR course.
Anyway, after the briefing, we grabbed dinner, went back to the room, organized stuff for the morning, and tried to get some sleep. The race starts at 5am and is a point-to-point race. Amicalola Falls is the *finish*, so there are shuttles to take the runners to the start in the morning. The shuttles leave at 2:45am, which means I had to wake up around 1:30am to have enough time to get ready and get down to where the shuttles would be. Nothing like starting a 20-25hr race on 3.5 hours of sleep!
About 5 minutes before the start, the skies opened up and it started *pouring* rain. This was expected, but still not welcome. At least it was around 60 degrees, so we didn't have to worry about hypothermia or anything. Most everyone seemed appropriately dressed for the weather.
Finally - the race starts! In prior years, the course started almost immediately on the single-track hiking trail. This year, we had about 2 miles of (downhill) road before hitting the trail. This made for a very fast start (my first mile was a little over 8 minutes) and allowed the field to spread out a bit before getting bottlenecked on the single track.
We charged up the climb to Coosa Bald. My heart rate was a little higher than I wanted (150-155 bpm) but I felt okay. I ended up disabling the "high heart rate" alert on my watch, since it uses battery every time it goes off by lighting up the backlight, vibrating, and beeping. I was pretty sure it would last anyway, but didn't want to take the chance of it dying before the end. My plan was to re-enable the alert later once things settled down.
The rain made for a little slippage as we climbed, but it wasn't too bad. The problem was the descents - the first of which was down into the first aid station: White Oak. At this point, there were probably 40ish people in front of me and the trail was already trashed. You could see where people were sliding all over the place and it made the descent very challenging. Downhill technical running is where I usually make up time, and now that was taken away. Fortunately, my fitness gains translated into faster ascents, so it kinda canceled out. Still, it made me very wary of my knees, ankles, and Achilles. One misstep could put me out of the race.
We half-ran, half slid into White Oak around 1:51 from the start. Based on my previous times at GDR, I had guessed it would take around 2:15. So I'm already 24 minutes ahead of where I thought I would be. I also had allowed for a 5-minute stop to grab food and water. I still had plenty of water & gatorade to get me to the next aid station, so I slowed down enough to grab a banana, and kept going. Let's call it a 30-second stop, though it was probably less than that. So, leaving White Oak I was around 28 minutes ahead of schedule.
The course between AS1 and AS2 (Mulky Gap) was tough, but only because of the rain. The trail was a complete mess. This was more of a mud run than an ultramarathon. Fortunately, I could use the one trekking pole I carried from the start now. This allowed me a little more traction on the climbs, and a little more stability on the descents. Why one pole instead of two? Well, I found that when I use trekking poles, I tend to not eat and drink as often - which is critical in an ultramarathon. So I thought using one pole would give me most of the benefit, but still leave a hand free for eating and drinking. Seemed like a good compromise, and I think it worked well.
It wasn't long into this section that I slipped and twisted my knee. The left one, of course. The problematic one. The one I was worried wouldn't make it to the end. "Great", I thought. This is what takes me out. It isn't fair. I popped some pain meds and hoped I would be able to work through it.
Not long after that, I slipped again and fell on my right side, catching myself on my right forearm. My right shoulder instantly hurt. Things are not looking good now. Still, I went on. The pack has spread out a bit and I'm not feeling as claustrophobic as I was going into the first aid station. Still, there are runners within sight ahead and behind me at this point.
I get to Mulky Gap around 3:21. I had predicted 3:35, with another 5 minute stop. I quickly refilled water, grabbed some bacon and quesadillas, and was moving again at 3:24. A quick, 3-minute stop. Very nice. So I'm still 16 minutes ahead of schedule.
By this point, the rain had stopped and the trail was in slightly better condition. You still had to be careful, but it was much more runnable. I made good time getting to the third aid station (Skeenah Gap) which was the first place I would see my crew. As I got closer to Skeenah, I realized I was way ahead of schedule. Would I arrive before they got there? It wouldn't be a disaster if I did, but it would be nice to drop some of my cold/rainy-weather clothes and swap them for lighter/cooler stuff as the temperature was starting to rise.
So... now I'm nine hours into this thing. Still feeling okay. Obviously "feeling" the effort. But I'm starting to think about my potential finishing time. After all, the hardest climbs on the course were behind me. There was an outside chance I could finish around (or under) 20 hours!! That would be insane, considering my 2018 finish was around 22 1/2 hours. Even more insane considering the conditions at the start of the race!
I cruised to AS6 - Long Creek. 36.8 miles. Halfway done. Arrived 10:44. Left 10:46. Don't remember much about that section. Looking at the elevation profile, there was a little climbing at the start, then some rolling hills. Very runnable. I'm now 46 minutes ahead of schedule, and 2:06 ahead of the cutoff. The next time I see my crew is AS8, so I have one more aid station (Winding Stair) before then.
Long Creek to Winding Stair starts off very runnable and ends with a climb to the aid station. Nothing crazy, but you feel it after 40+ miles. It was in this section that things started to go awry...
About 30 minutes after Long Creek, my stomach started feeling a little "off". A little strange, but it has happened before. It's never been a hindrance in a race. Over the next 10-15 minutes, though, I felt more and more nauseated. Then, around 11.5 hours into the race - I found myself bent over at the side of the road, heaving. Two minutes later, I felt better and was back moving again. 30 minutes later - I was dry heaving. And again, 15 minutes after that.I texted my crew and let them know the situation, and that I was planning on sitting down for a bit at AS7 to try to settle my stomach. I got into Winding Stair at 12:25. At this point, I was still 35 minutes ahead of schedule and 2:20 ahead of the cutoff. I sat down, got some ginger ale, and asked for a plain tortilla to nibble on. My stomach is definitely not happy, but things are staying down - for now. Still, I'm not making much progress on the tortilla. Precious minutes go by. At 13:13 (nice omen there), I decide that sitting isn't doing much good, so I may as well start walking at least. Now, I'm 8 minutes behind schedule but still 1:32 ahead of the cutoff.
I ate a bunch of Tums, and that seemed to help for a little bit. I may have even run a couple miles. But, about an hour later, I was retching on the side of the road again. The section from Winding Stair to Jake Bull (AS8) should be the fastest and easiest on the whole course, and I'm walking it - with periodic pauses to vomit. All that buffer I had built up is slipping away. Dreams of a PR are gone. Now, even
finishing the race is a gigantic question mark.
I immediately sat down. My crew was prepared with tummy-friendly food, but I couldn't eat much of it. I shivered under a blanket. I eventually changed into some dry clothes - and warmer clothes for the night section of the course (including my new running kilt). As I had been approaching the aid station, I had made peace with the likely DNF that would occur. I honestly wasn't sure if I had enough time to make the cutoff for the final aid station (Nimblewell) or the overall 25-hour cutoff for the race. I probably didn't have enough buffer to just walk it in. Even if I did, I was losing about 2 minutes every time I had to stop to vomit.
My crew encouraged me to get up and get going. "There's still time. Don't quit." For me, I'm wondering if it's even physically possible to complete the course if I'm not able to hold down any food or liquids. Almost an hour goes by. It's now or never. If I don't get moving, there definitely won't be enough time. So, I decide to give one more push. I grabbed a banana just in case I might be able to eat it, and left the aid station at 16:37. Forget about being on schedule now. It's all about cutoffs, and I left 23 minutes ahead of the Jake Bull cutoff. (Remember the good times when I was 2 hours ahead of the cutoffs?) I had to reach Nimblewell, and leave, before 21:00 on the race clock (2am).
The road went up and up and up. I kept waiting for the turn onto the "trail section". At that point, I thought they had only moved the aid station - not that they had changed the course. Once in a while, I would question if I was still on the course. But I had preloaded the course on my watch, and it would alert me if I were off-course. So I kept trudging along and would eventually see a course marking a few minutes later. Maybe 2/3 into the climb, the "sweepers" caught up to me. That meant I was the last runner. No other runners behind me. My tired brain had thought I had more time to reach the aid station than I really had. But even once I figured out my miscalculation, I figured I would just barely make it in time. The sweepers kept me company until we came across another runner, sitting down on the side of the road. (He looked fine, and in good spirits. Just obviously had decided he had had enough.) So I continued on to Nimblewell, leaving the runner and two sweepers behind. Along that long climb, I had to stop **13** times to vomit or dry-heave. Each stop took 1-2 minutes. Still, I kept going.
I made the final turn toward the aid station and saw a car coming my way. I recognized the driver as the race director. He slowed down, leaned his head out of the window, and said "If you want to continue, you better start jogging! The aid station is just up ahead." I looked at my watch and saw I had 5 or 6 minutes before the cutoff. Unless I had misjudged the location of the aid station, I should be able to walk it in. Still, I didn't want to miss the cutoff by minutes (or seconds), being that close. So, I started jogging.
I got to Nimblewell 2 minutes before the cutoff.
Nimblewell was probably my shortest stop of the day. I stopped long enough to tell the aid station volunteers I was moving on, and that I didn't need anything. I had barely drank any of the water I took from Jake Bull, so there was plenty to get me to the finish. I kept moving down the trail toward Amicalola Falls...
Once I got down into the park, the course was definitely hillier than I remembered. Nothing crazy, but it was not the "mostly flat" I had in my brain leading up to the final climb up the waterfall. Nope, there were actual hills to go up and down. I kept struggling to stay awake, nodding off on my feet every now and then. In the first two hours after Nimblewell, I vomited/heaved 5 times. At one point, I decided to sit down on a bench to wait for the next wave of nausea. It didn't come, and I felt myself falling asleep. So, I got back up and started moving again. It was a 5 minute stop, but felt like 30 seconds. Looking at my watch, I thought there was a chance I might not make the 25-hour cutoff.
My eyes/brain continued to play tricks. I saw a couple oblong black shapes laying along the trail. This was not long after seeing signs to "be aware of bears". I started making some noise, but the shapes didn't move. When I got closer, I finally saw they were just logs.
Based on my 2018 finish, I wanted to allow an hour for climbing the 700 stairs to get to the top of the waterfall, then descend to the finish line. My pace was going to get me to the stairs right around the 24-hour mark. It was going to be close!! I stopped to vomit/heave 3 more times after my brief stop on the bench.
The course descends down an old busted road, then turns onto a paved path before you get to the waterfall. While going down the busted road, I finally saw another runner. The first one since Nimblewell. We recognized each other from earlier in the race. She apparently had made a wrong turn and was also now in danger of finishing before the final cutoff. She said she was glad I made the Nimblewell cutoff, and that I looked like I was moving well. I told her I didn't come this far not to make the final cutoff. I passed her on the downhill and didn't see her after that. I hoped she would pick up her pace enough to finish in time.
I emerged from the woods near the Amicalola visitor center at 23:46 and got on the path toward the falls. It was definitely steeper than I remembered! I definitely remembered a slight climb from 2018, but this was some serious effort. Enough effort that I started to wonder - did they take out the stairs when they were damaged in 2021, and replace them with a paved path up the falls? Of course, they didn't. But that's what it felt like.
I reached the base of the stairs right around the 24-hour mark, as I expected/feared. In 2018, it took me 52 minutes to ascend the stairs, then descend to the finish. (Or so I thought at the time- I think it was actually 52 minutes including the paved path...) But I didn't realize that until later. Instead, I was seriously wondering - would an hour be enough time?
I continued my charge, anticipating a wave of nausea at any moment. Fortunately, it never came. About halfway up, I backed off slightly on the effort, but kept a steady pace. Total time to ascend *all* the stairs: less than 10 minutes. Now, all that was left was to run a short bit down the road, turn into the woods, and head for the finish! As I mentioned before, downhill running has always been a strength, and something I can do even on tired legs.
A new visitor center is being built for the park. Due to the construction, parking was limited so there were no after-race festivities. I thanked the race director, took a couple more pictures, then we drove back to our room for some much-needed sleep. (After a quick shower of course.)
It's hard to say what caused the nausea. Dehydration probably played a factor. All the junk food I was eating probably played a factor. Maybe allergies - my nose was running a lot the second half of the race. I suspect there was significant drainage going into my stomach that could have contributed to the nausea. Heck - maybe it was the Miller Lite? Maybe all of the above?
What I did learn was that sitting for an extended period of time didn't make a bit of difference. So, it's better to keep moving, even if it's slow. Perhaps if my crew had been at Winding Stair, when the symptoms were relatively new, they could have made a difference. By the time I got to Jake Bull, I think it was too late. If it happens again, I will try to keep eating and drinking, even if I just end up vomiting. I figure if I can keep 5% of it down, maybe it'll accumulate enough to get out of the death spiral.
On a positive note, I felt so strong the first half of the race that it really re-invigorated my love of trail running (and racing). Going into the race, I had some doubts whether my body could take the pounding and abuse. I think I've gained some more confidence that my ultra-running days aren't over quite yet.
Next up is the Mountains-to-Sea 50K on April 16th. Not much time to recover from GDR, and I normally would not have signed up for another race so soon after a big one like that. But it's the final race in the "Tough as Trails" race series that I signed up for... I ought to have enough time to be ready. At the time I'm writing this, it's 11 days away. I'm still working through some knee issues with my PT. It may be a game-day decision whether to run or not, but I think it's pretty likely I'll be able to. After that, it's the Eastern States 100 in mid-August. It's supposed to be one of the toughest races on the east coast. I'm envisioning something akin to GDR, but longer. So I have some things to figure out between now and then.
I'll also give a quick shout out to Dr Askeland and Dr Lintz at Askeland Chiropractic and Acupuncture, as well as Dr Bill at MyPotential Life & Body. You all have helped me work through the various aches, pains, and injuries I've incurred while training for this race. I wouldn't have even made it to the start line without you.
