Dances with Dirt 50k: Good as Hell

This Sucks.

Stripper Pole.

Styx, River of Death.

Those were just a few names of the legs sections of my first 50k: Dances with Dirt – Hell. This race took place in Hell, Michigan on September 21, 2019. And boy, did it hurt like Hell.

 

The day started bright and early, with a 6:15am start time. With it being dark at the start, we all needed headlamps in order to see the course for roughly the first hour. My headlamp, which I’ve had for years, was strapped on and ready to go. As the announcer gave a 1-minute warning, I decided that it needed to be tightened on my head a bit. In trying to tighten it, I somehow undid one of the straps. Freaking out, I tried to figure out how to put it back together as the announcer was counting down.

30 seconds to go.

The headlamp strap was just not going back into place. I decided it was better to try to wear the headlamp as is, with one strap still in place, then to worry about it any longer. So, I pulled the elastic to go over my head once more.

And the other strap came out of the its slot as well.

It was this moment that the announcer set off the runners.

I panicked and didn’t know what to do. Running in the dark, on the trails that I trip on in daylight, was something I was a bit nervous about going into it. And now to have my headlamp break on top of it!

I called out to my friend Ryan, who was crewing me, in a panic. He used his quick thinking to trade headlamps, since he had a working one (with a working strap, no less). I thanked him and ran off, not even bothering to ask him how it worked.

Being an engineer, I figured out how to turn it on pretty quickly. I got it all adjusted to my head and started to pass some of the people that I guessed would be slower than me on the trails. Once we got into the mountain bike trails though, I realized that the headlamp wasn’t quite bright enough for me to be comfortable running fast. It was certainly better than nothing, but I was likely to trip if I wasn’t super careful.

So I started using another strategy – sticking with people who *did* have brighter headlamps to light the way. I didn’t even care if I went faster than I should be – staying up on two legs for the first hour was a priority for me. I started counting down the minutes until dawn arrived and I wouldn’t need to run by headlamp anymore. The metaphor of starting in the pitch black dark for a race in Hell was not lost on me, and just waiting for the dawn seemed to push that even further.

Right around the first aid station at mile 6ish of the course, I ditched my (Ryan’s) headlamp into my backpack for safe keeping, as it was bright enough that I didn’t need it. I was so relieved that I had made it through the night! I grabbed some Gatorade at the aid station and continued on my way.

The next section was pretty uneventful. It was more mountain bike trails that I had run before, and with it being daylight, I was feeling much more comfortable. I stayed with being slow and steady: walking up the significant hills and running the downhills and flats. I arrived at the ranch – right around mile 11 – in 2 hours, 15 minutes. If I kept up this pace, I would make it in under 7 hours! Little did I know what lied ahead…

After leaving the ranch, we were supposed to run through the “This Sucks” leg. This was the leg that I was looking forward to the most, as it had been described as “swampy”. Getting muddy and running through swamps is probably my favorite part of trail running, as the people who have seen me jump in mud puddles can attest to (shout-out to my GLR fam).

However, this leg was not swampy. It was pretty dry, and on more mountain bike trails. The only way it lived up to it’s name was that I was getting bored of the mountain bike trails after 15 miles. Almost half way through, and no swamps? Nothing cool or exciting at all? I was honestly getting disappointed. Being tired on top of being bored, I felt that this was going to be an extremely long day.

After stopping at the next aid station and eating some of the best cookies I’ve had in my life, I continued back on the trail. After around a quarter of a mile, the course turned left into the woods. But man, did it feel like a 180.

That “boring” course suddenly turned into a hike. Instead of following a path of any sort, we were following pink ribbons hanging from trees. Pretty much right away, we hit a big hill. Knowing that this leg was called “Stripper Pole”, I assumed this big hill was the name sake of the leg. That was, until I got to a bigger, steeper hill on the course that really *was* the namesake. This hill was so steep, I just crawled up it on my hands and knees, as that used less energy than trying to walk up it would have.

The entire 4 mile section back to the ranch was a whirlwind of pink flags and trying not to get lost. The Race Directors say that you can see the next pink flag from where the previous one was, but that was not always the case. I ended up teaming up with 2 fellow runners and we worked as team to make it out of the woods and into the ranch for the next aid station.

Mentally I felt much better at this aid station – right around mile 19 – than I did at the previous one at mile 15. Turns out running through the woods, following flags, and getting lost in the woods made me a whole lot happier than running on what had been becoming monotonous trails.

I was really excited leaving the ranch; I had just ran a fantastic 4 mile section, and I knew the next 2+ miles would be memorable. After all, I had reach “Styx, The River of Death”. From the description, I knew I would have a few river crossings during this leg. From the river crossings I’d had at other races, I figured it’d be more like a stream crossing.

Hell does have a way of messing with you.

These were not stream crossings. They were literal river crossings. The bottom of the river was mucky, you were stepping over logs in the water, and I was scared I was going to loose my balance and plop head first into the river. After the first one, there was another. And another. At the last one that we crossed, you could stop in the middle of the river, look over to your left, and see a bridge not 10 feet from you. It felt like the race directors were really messing with you.

After the river crossings, there was a beautiful, runnable part through large pine trees. This was a welcome reprieve after the last mile which had been pink-flagged and not runnable. I even felt like I was getting a good pace going.

Nothing like a false sense of security.

The trail after the pine trees lead straight into a swamp. Let’s be clear, I was super stocked to run through a swamp. It was muddy, and grassy…and super easy to get tripped by the logs that resided just under the tall grasses. It was muddy enough that with every step, I was getting splashed in mud. My white t shirt had splatters of mud all over it, and I was covered in it.

However, I did not get to show off all the mud splashing I did in the swamp, because when you finished running through the swamp, you get dumped into the river. This was not just a river crossing, but a 0.25 mile stretch of progressing through the river. Not just through the river, but fighting the current to go upstream. There wasn’t any running, it was more like a shuffle. In some parts, the river was up past my waist. If my phone hadn’t been in my backpack, I would have swam because that would have been easier. As you climbed out of the river, you were greeted by two volunteers yelling “Welcome to Hell!”

This aid station, located in the city of Hell, was the holding place for our drop bags for the race. As much as the race directors liked to torture us with the terrain, they also knew that to keep people coming back they had to make some concessions. In my drop bag was a change of dry shoes and socks, and I was thankful to get out of my trail shoes and into some more cushioned shoes.

Just as I opened up my bag to put on my dry garments, the skies decided *that* was the time it was going to start raining. And so I put on my mostly dry shoes and socks, threw my river-logged shoes into the drop back for return, and continued on my way as fast as I could. The sooner I got into the woods under trail cover, the better.

The next section consisted of more pink flagged, trails-that-really-aren’t-trails. I honestly don’t remember too much about this section, which seemed kinda miserable. I was over 20 miles in, my feet and muscles were aching, and I had come to terms with the fact that I probably didn’t train as well as I should have. Add the rain on top of it, and I was mentally done.

When I saw the last aid station at mile 24 (ish), I didn’t even bother running towards it. Part of me wanted to quit right then and there. But I knew the rest of the course was on those “boring” mountain bike trails that I had run on earlier, and so I knew it would be much easier to get through those last miles than some of the previous ones. After loading up on carbs (and salt!), filling up my water, and getting a pep talk from Ryan, I took off on the final leg of the course.

Just 6 miles left. I run 6 miles on an easy day, this should be a piece of cake.

I walked a good portion of the next mile or two, as I was just tired, mentally and physically. I knew I would make time if I could just keep putting one foot in front of the other, even if I was just walking. Slow and steady gets the job done.

Then right around when I hit the marathon mark, I started to feel better: running felt better than walking, and my mood improved. There could have been many things that caused it: carbs from the aid station finally hitting my system, the reality that with every step I was running further than I ever had before, or simply the magic of a second wind. This was the point in the race where I started passing people.

As I started counting down the mileage, and the course got more runnable, I sped up more and more. I didn’t really have to walk the last half mile of the course – which was saying something, as I had spent whole miles walking earlier in the day. Suddenly the trail dropped me off near where we started, and I knew it was a nice downhill to the finish line.

 

After crossing the finish line, I just started crying. I couldn’t hold my emotions in any longer – I had just run a really tough race and lived to tell the tale. I’m pretty sure the finish line people were worried about me (they pointed me to the first aid tent if I needed anything), but instead I went and found Ryan who helped me get food. Let me tell you, pizza never tastes as good as it does after running 31 miles.

And just like that, I’m officially an ultra marathoner! Even if I have had to go through Hell and back to accomplish it.