A couple days ago I did the Black Mountain Marathon in the Black Mountains of North Carolina and that was my first trail marathon.
I signed up for it several months ago and seemingly I picked out a good one, as it is considered to be one of the tougher ones on the East Coast. Concurrently to the Black Mountain Marathon, the organizers also offer a slightly longer and more scenic run called the Mt. Mitchell Challenge, which goes all the way to the top of Mount Mitchell and offers 40 miles of fun on the trails. Several guys from the Winston-Salem area (most of them good triathletes) had signed up for the events too, so I was going to know a few folks. Plus I had a few training partners leading up to the event.
At the package pickup/athlete meeting on Friday night I noticed that there were several other triathletes present too. Ironman logos and a few compression socks gave that away. 
Most folks though seemed to be trail runners / outdoorsy people. The weather forecast for the next morning wasn’t very promising with lots of rain all day and everywhere, and cold temperatures and high winds higher up on the mountains. Sweet. Both events had been sold out for quite some time now with about 160 field limit in each but my guess is that about 270 total athletes started.
Temps were in the mid 40s at the start and low 30s higher up and I decided to wear running shorts, a thin long sleeve top, a technical T-shirt (Winston-Salem Tri Cows) on top of that, gloves and a hat and Avia trail running shoes. I used a racebelt for my number and used safety pins to pin 6 eGel packs to the belt, spread nicely around. Plus I held a bottle of water in my hand, but used no bottle holder/attachment. There was quite a bit of foot traffic on race morning in the town of Black Mountain (elevation 2,200) and most everybody tried to stay dry before the race. Racers were sporting garbage bags and were huddled under roofs and awnings until the race start. With a few minutes to go I ran across Cid Cardos Jr from Inside Out Sports. He is a great athlete and had done well in the Mt. Mitchell Challenge a few times and he said “Hey, what are you doing here?” After that question I felt a bit fat and out of place, because why else would he ask that.
Right at 7 the run started and I tried to pace myself nicely knowing that the first half of the marathon is pretty much all uphill. The first couple miles were on pavement, but we were going up for sure and the field started to stretch thin. My nutrition goal was to have a gel every 30 minutes or so and to stop at the feed stations to refill the bottle and eat other stuff. Once we hit the trails it was obvious that it was going to be a messy day. The trails were muddy and big puddles of water were everywhere, and the puddles were very cold if you stepped into them. On the way up I made a very big effort to avoid them but that wasn’t always possible. The first aid station was at about 6 miles and it was a welcome sight. I had just about run out of water plus it was nice to get rid of the gel wrapper and eat another gel right under the cover. With an almost full water bottle and 4 gels left I started to run on and started to run with a few guys who had done this event a few times before. They thought that the conditions were the worst they had seen. At times it actually felt like we were running up a creek bed.
At about mile 10 was another aid station and now I had half a banana and the 3rd gel but didn’t refill the water as I still had half a bottle. Soon after we came past a little lodge and some hunters were hanging out there. They gave us the update that we were 20 minutes behind the leaders. Hmmmm. As we went higher we came across more ice patches and the footing became more precarious. Some guys went down but I was lucky and never lost my balance. It was about 2 hours into the race when I finally saw the marathon leader coming towards me, and my buddies Jeff Ickes and Ned Tobey were running in 3rd and 5th respectively. There were about 15 total runners coming back before I hit the marathon halfway point and that aid station with about 2;20 on my watch. The turnaround was on the Parkway and the wind was very strong. To my surprise, my wife amy had driven to that station and was one of the volunteers when I came up. It was nice to see her, and she told me that I looked good. I actually did feel decently well and sucked down another gel and happily headed back down the mountain.
As I was running down the hill I no longer worried about puddles and mud and just had to look out for ice. I was amazed how many people were still coming up and everyone had words of encouragement. It was very nice and before to long I was at the feed station where I had about 10 miles to go. Down another gel, eat another half a banana and some nuts and off I went. The next couple miles 2 people passed me, first a tall skinny female flew past me on a steeper section and later one guy slowly gained on me and eventually passed me. There were still people coming up and that was so until the roughly 6 mile to go aid station. Some folks on the way up were really taking their time, but everyone was very friendly and supportive. I ate the last gel, drank a coke and ran on. By now I could feel how my legs were getting tired and I didn’t move as swift as i had just a few miles ago. Some of the downhills were very steep and it was tough to run fast on them, but I kept moving. Once I hit the pavement I was very happy as the end seemed within sight. But on the return trip we were routed on some cute singletrack through town of Montreat and some little wooden bridges and ladders. Nice maybe any other time but now I was ready to be done. As I got towards the finish line I looked at my watch and thought sweet, I’ll go under 4:15. But the volunteers directed us to run not straight to the finish, but clockwise around the little lake to the finish. Ouch. A couple minutes later I crossed the line in a time of 4:15:05 and 17th place overall out of about 185 finishers*. The marathon winner did a 3:21:11.
We then heard that the conditions on the top of Mount Mitchell were really bad and quite a few people had to be brought down via EMT. Other challenge racers were turned around at the marathon turnaround and were not allowed to continue to the top as the conditions were getting worse, so now more people were in the marathon. In the end only 64 people finished the 40 mile Challenge including Cid Cardoso who rocked to another top ten finish in 5:59. The winner did the 40 miles in an impressive 5:10.
The volunteers were amazing and I highly recommend this event. Plus below are a few pictures.
Still relaxed before leaving to the start
It was very wet indeed.
Amy snapped that picture of me soaking wet sucking down a gel at the marathon turnaround
The conditions on top of Mount Mitchell weren’t very nice
Only 64 people finished the Mount Mitchell Challenge
