Hellbender 100

One Hellacious Hellbender Race Recap

Prelude
I ran part of the Hellbender course once some years ago. Lee and I were a new couple out on a road trip when she said some friends were running part of the course and asked if I wanted to detour and go do that. I wanted to, but it was also very intimidating. Going on a run with “real” ultra runners.. I was training for my first 100, but the month prior, at a 40k race, a distance PR at the time, things had gone pretty south, and I finished last place after being reduced to limping for the last lap. My confidence wasn’t exactly up, and I’d never done an ultra or ultra distance, so I remember it feeling like a big deal to push myself out of my comfort zone to go do this group run with people who had run 100s.
Regardless, after that run? Hellbender got added to the growing 100 miler bucket list that I had even back then, so this one was a little special.

Wednesday, Race Start - 32.5 Hours
We were driving from the Charlotte airport to Old Fort, where we realized the power was out in the area and there were downed branches and trees everywhere. I looked it up and sure enough there had been astronomical storms that hit the day before. We drove through looking at the wreckage, with this evenings storms throwing lightening and thunder from the direction we were headed. The rain and thunder and lightening picked up, the windshield became a mosaic and suddenly our phones started going off with the terrible high pitched weather alert. “Tornado warning in your area. Get into a basement or seek shelter immediately” of course there was nowhere to do that. Lee and I cracked a joke about having warned Jim to not register for things we register for, given our recent 100 miler weather streak.
We survived and made it to the Airbnb

Foreshadowing: The Time We Didn’t Get Batteries Thursday, Race Start - 15 Hours
We were getting foods at the grocery store the next town over.
Lee: all set?
Me: yep! Oh wait, I was going to grab triple A’s
Lee: for what?
Me: For the Silva, it’s my back up headlamp (having a backup is mandatory on the gear list) I only have one set and that’s only good for about 2-3 hours (part of why we abandoned our Silva for the far superior Fenixes.)
Lee: but it’s only your back up, it’s not like you’re going to use it.
Me: guess that’s true.


Thursday, Race Start - 9 hours
With the next day holding a 4:30am start and 3am wake up, we began our final checks on our gear and drop bags for the morning, with the plan of heading to bed early shortly thereafter. I realized at this time that my bladder was missing. 7:30pm, out in the middle of nowhere North Carolina and I didn’t have this crucial item, especially with a mandated 2L carry capacity. Jim offered to loan me his, claiming he was only going to use his flasks and that the bladder was just to satisfy the mandatory gear requirement (you had to have the capacity, not use it). He would, in turn just need a small water bottle from the gas station that he could crumple up in the back of the pack to hit capacity.
Instead of going to the gas station, frazzled, I drove to a Walmart 25 minutes away, as it was the only thing I could find open that may have flasks or bladders. Why would I do this when Jim already said he’d loan me his? Child hood trauma stuff I suppose. The kind of thing that 100s have done wonders for healing, but that there may always be remnants of. I cannot rely on someone else for things. Walmart only had a crappy bladder, the kind that you always have to pull all the way out and mess with the large lid to fill. The kind we already have like five of at home in Ohio and never use because they’re junk. I purchased it, and a bottle of water, fully knowing I’d prefer to use Jim’s, and I did use Jim’s, but simultaneously had to prove to myself I would have been able to make it work without anyone else. It’s twisted, but believe it or not it’s also progress, as five years ago I wouldn’t have accepted Jim’s and would have used the crappy bladder that was now only being used as some kind of weird symbolism. (I kept the receipt so I can get my $12 for the symbolism back.)

Thursday, Race Start - 7 Hours
My head is spinning. I can’t sleep. How could I have done this? Heck, I posted in WHMP here is my race packing list so I don’t forget anything! And then forgot an important thing! I looked at the packing list with “hydration bladder” and the checked checkbox next to it. Lee’s too good of a partner or person to throw it in my face in the future, but having been in so many relationships where it would have been considered potent ammo for the rest of forever, I brace for it, because that’s the kind of stuff you want to start thinking about race night when you should already be sleeping.

Friday, Race Start - 6 Minutes
We had just done mandatory gear check and were standing around bullshitting.
Me, “guess I should get my headlamp on since we’re a ways away from sunrise.”

I stick the battery into my Fenix, tighten it up, push the button, and nothing happens.
“Damn’t, every time! I told you!” I said to Lee.
I’d been claiming that my start battery was somehow always dead. Lee, the self proclaimed battery charger in our house thought it impossible.
I stuck a new one in, and hit on. Nothing.
Lee, as people tend to do when faced with these kind of crises, grabbed the light away from me and tried the same thing, expecting a different outcome with her magical touch. Nothing. She even tried the battery that was powering her Fénix just fine. Still nothing.

Me: I only have the one set of triple A’s for the Silva, I’m lucky to get three hours!!! I’m f@$ked!!

Race Start - 3 minutes
Lee finds a friend who is only volunteering and has a spare black diamond that takes double A’s in the car. She sends her husband for them, in the mean time I put the batteries in the Silva, it won’t turn on, Lee gets it to turn on.

Race Start - 45 seconds
The husband comes running back saying he can ‘t find them, but he brought a whole bag. Our friend knew just where in the bag and grabbed it out with some spare batteries. I’m unsure if between the two headlamps I have enough juice for the night, but it’s looking more promising. I run to the back of the race line, and I turn on the Silva. It turns on but shuts off. I try again. The same thing. Again. Same.
The race starts. It’s still not working, I walk with the crowd while troubleshooting. I mess with the wire that connects the battery pack and the light, and finally, approximately race start + two minutes, I have a working light.

The course starts with a lot of climbing, and I was in a mood, but some woman came up and started chatting with me. It was welcome chat at that time. I found it humorous when she learned my goal was to finish in under 35 hours, and she was simply trying to make the 40 hour cutoff that she encouraged me to pass. “Oh no, you feel free to press on faster, but I have no intention of picking up my pace until much later or I won’t make my goal time!” I told her. She seemed confused by this.
She did break off for a bathroom stop, but she’d been pleasant, the first hour passed quickly with the chat, and I found myself calmer after the headlamp shenanigans. Before I knew it I was at the first aid station. I looked at my watch to see if there was any discrepancy between the aid station chart and what my watch was reading. It read 0.00. It’s not that I forgot to start it, the duration read as should, close to 1.5 hours. Why wouldn’t my watch pick now to malfunction this way for the first time ever, as well?! It was on par for the course.
I would have probably been better off leaving accurate duration up, but I ended the run, started over, and neither distance nor duration were correct at any point in the race.

My First Drop Bag Stop
Based on preliminary forecasts I’d expected upper 60s lower 70s, but I believe it hit 80, and drop bags were laid out right in the sun. As often is the case, my deplorable homemade race food made up the bulk of my planned calories, but at every drop bag I got to, my pouches were hot to the touch, despite having still been frozen when I dropped my bags that morning. I do have added precautions I take for hot races, but I hadn’t anticipated this would be one of those. I smelled, took a taste, and spit it out. They were suspect and there was no way I was chancing THAT 💩💩💩 in addition to everything else this race was throwing my way. After that I spent many hours of this race calorie crashed, or nauseous from trying new things that weren’t sitting well.

The Race
The first 25 miles of this race was everything I needed so desperately, after three hundreds of rain and flooded courses, and of course Jigger Johnson, which was its own special kind of slogging. I just needed some time out running in the mountains.
I wrongfully thought that Hellbender would be on par with Massanutten. It’s not, it is SUBSTANTIALLY harder, and my assumption costed me.
The first 25 miles trick you into thinking you’re on a relatively gentle course with rolling hills and very runnable descents. The next section, a steep never ending climb in brutal heat painted a different picture, along with a bajillion false summits. Next was Mt. Mitchell. I reckon it was about 80 degrees when I started up Mitchell. Given that and the previous section that kicked my ass, when it started to rain, I thought, “thank friggin goodness” cherishing the cool drops on my face, until a man walking a dog, on his was down, said, “I’m so sorry you all are getting rained on! That SUCKS!” To which I replied, “oh, no, this is great! I’ve been so hot, it feels wonderful”, and he bursted my bubble with, “yeah, but it’s below freezing at the top right now..”
well shit. I’ve always said this is the hardest to manage - hot, wet, and then a drop to 30s is worse than say, the year we ran outlaw and temperature was between 2 and 17 degrees the whole time. You just go into that dressed right.
To stop myself from getting soaked before reaching 30 degree temperatures, I put on my rain jacket, but at my current elevation it was still so hot that I began sweating profusely, and I realized, with or without a jacket, I was going to be soaked, one way or the other, for the cold. It didn’t take much longer to get up to levels of tanking temperatures and wind gusts substantially higher than what the RD of Orcas Island tried to cancel the race over last year.
This was just what to expect on Mt. Mitchell, and by the time I left it, I understood why we were being made to carry so much required gear for the entire race.
Despite having it, I experienced a whole new level of cold. I realized, as it alternated between rain and hail, and the occasional snowflake, that there was no way to pull out my base layer, hat or gloves without them getting instantly soaked and the hope of warmth being lost. So I kept them protected, and pressed on the coldest I’ve ever been in my life, toward the summit,
and to the false summits, and on the extremely technical rocks covered now in mud, with one section offering a rope to assist you down, but beckoning the question of ‘is the rope safer or is crab walking down it safer?
It’s funny, coming down Mitchell I thought about how I couldn’t wait to get to aid. How I’d likely be pre-hypothermic by the time I got there, and how I’d have to stay there and find a way to change and get warm and okay again, but with at least a 40 degree, if not more, temperature difference from summit to base, nearing the base I once again was hot and sweating, and removed my jacket. Cold was nowhere on my mind when I got to aid.
Night fell and one of the next sections was ankle deep mud and standing water. Conditions that have plagued me for four races now. I started to mentally get in a rut. Why do these? This was miserable. I have no interest in being out for 30+ hours shlepping through mud and water to the finish just to prove I can anymore. In the moment I found myself identifying more with the people who had dropped out of Rocky Racoon and Forgotten Florida, saying “ I didn’t come here to swim, I came here to run!” Previously I’d argued that unpredictability was part of what made trail running great, but frankly I’m sick of it. “Maybe I’m done with 100s,” I thought.. getting so moody made me realize it was nighttime and past 50 miles. Generally, whenever one of those things happens, it’s time for me to take my first Tylenol and dump a Starbucks via, that’s right, raw instant coffee, down my throat, and chase it with water. I become fresh again with this regime, and this time was no different. I decided I didn’t give a shit and was going to run through the mud and water and technical. A little later, with my Silva turned to bright, I became the most uninhibited I’ve been in ages about bombing a technical down, leaping from rock to rock, galloping in spaces between, when without any warning at all, my headlamp went out again. In the pitch black I missed my rock, but my shin and knee found it hard, it didn’t stop there, I couldn’t stop the fall and rolled down to the next rock that my elbow and wrist found. It’s officially the hardest trail running fall I ever had. My phone, fortunately had stayed in my vest pocket, and I was able to use its light to collect things that hadn’t and try to get the Silva back on. I couldn’t. Now it was on to a light I’d never used before. Nothing new on race day, except the shoes, the vest, the bladder, and the headlamp. Do as I say, not as I do!
In the new light I could see a softball sized lump bulging out of my leg where I’d hit. But pain, at this point, was tolerable, and I pressed on despite being unsure of what the look of it may imply.

Rump and My Goal
Prior to the race I’d come up with two goals, an aggressive one and a reasonable one. Once i got a taste of the course and realized this was a different kind of beast than Massanutten, I knew the aggressive goal was and should be out. It was born of ignorance and not appropriate for this race and my ability.
My medium goal, however, I would not let go of. And to understand my decision, I’ll have to tell you about a man we’ll call Rump.

Rump was someone met out on a 100 miler course, who seemed nice enough.
Months later we’d go out to his home area for a race and he was involved in the ride situation. I asked for clarification on the post race plan, and he said, in the most condescending tone:
“The plan is that Lee is going to finish, and then I’m going to finish, and then we are going to hang out and nap by the pool for however long it takes you to finish, and then ride to the house.”
This would be a stupid thing for ANYONE who understands the nature of 100s to say or even think, and it was far from his only comment like this. What’s particularly interesting here, is that while he ran Cloudsplitter about two hours faster than me, I ran Cloudsplitter two weeks after No Business, and I ran both of those races still battling an injury. I intentionally paced them closer to cutoffs to 1.) be able to accomplish the goal of 100s two weeks apart for the first time, and 2.) to keep the injury at bay, as it would rear its ugly head harder with speed.

Months later I’d come in well ahead of Rump at Massanutten.
Now, my medium goal for Hellbender was to run it two hours faster than Rump’s time.
So when my possibly fractured or deep tissue damaged leg started to scream at me for the last twenty miles of this race, I did everything I could to silence it. It slowed me down tremendously none the less.

The Finish
In addition to the leg slowing me, was the continued issue of nutrition, as in I had none I could tolerate at this stage in the game without my homemades. With that, I made a rookie mistake. I used my only water carrying vessel for Skratch, thinking, if I can’t get anything in, then at least I’d get some calories as I hydrated, the thing was I couldn’t get skratch in either, so for the home stretch, with the morning sun beginning its relentless beat down, and my leg shooting with excruciating pain on every step, I got to dry heave my way down toward the finish, desperate for water, and every once in awhile getting desperate enough to take a sip of the skratch just to have something wet my mouth, and every time almost throwing up and thinking, well I’m not going to do that again!
I made it, none the less, and ahead of my goal.
My hurt leg is destroyed. I’m not sure if that’s admirable, especially when the cutoff was such that I didn’t even need to DNF, just letting go of my goal and pacing to the 40 hour cutoff would have probably found me in a significantly better state today.
(Sigh) Transylvania 100k in two weeks might be a no go for me, but going to do everything I can to rehab this and see if I can still start.
Relentless stubbornness has pros and cons, alas