“Long, As You Run, I Couldn’t Give You Up” – Lumineers
Definitions:
I – Pronoun, yours truly, the first-person accounting of a far from first place finishing of The Big Schloss.
I – Abbreviation, short for Idiot.
Schloss – Verb, To run, jog, hike, and walk a long distance around a mountain. Possibly Yiddish, for a certain schlub’s activities. [Forget the German word for Castle, that can’t be related].
Schloss – Noun, a peak atop a mountain in West Virginia
FAR – Adjective, 32 miles of rolling, rocky trails through the George Washington National Forest.
FAR – Abbreviation, short for Fat Ass Run.
Fat Ass Run – Noun, a no-frills, low-key community race with minimal entry fees (e.g. bananas to share), where camaraderie is key and competition is secondary. The Big Schloss is a Fat Ass Run.
The Big Schloss 50k – Noun, an annual event in West Virginia, where fat ass runners link up a bunch of trails and a smattering of fire roads to notch a 32.1 mile effort, with 6100 feet of climbing.
50k – Noun, supposed to be fifty kilometers, which converts to 31.1 miles. 32.1 miles is closer to 51.7 kilometers if you’re counting. But no one recognizes the 51.7k distance, and course records are course specific, so it doesn’t matter unless you’re desperate to finish and don’t want to run an extra mile after your 50k. Whereas road marathons are generally fixed at a precise 26.2 miles (aside from those silly South African marathons, comrades), trail 50ks are more like approximate distances.
Now that we got that out of the way, you’re ready to read my race report for The Big Schloss, 2022 edition.
The Blame Game
I have a running friend named Brian, who is insane and is keen to share the insanity by asking me to run crazy stupid distances with him. Every time I do, it hurts, he crushes me, and I ask myself why I keep falling for it. There are enabling friends, like my companions who encourage me to come out drinking with them (when the wife allows it), and there’s Brian, a disabling friend, who encourages me to run painful trails with him (when the wife allows it). Perhaps I need to find new friends, ones who will support my preferred activity of sitting on the couch and watching TV (when the wife and kids allow it).
Brian proposed multiple strenuous activities, and I felt like I had to opt for one of them or he’d escalate to climbing Everest or something. A fat ass run seemed like the right choice because I am a fat ass. I figured I could fake my way through a 50k, since I’ve done that distance and more before. Just not in a while. And Sai allowed it, weeks ago when she was still speaking to me. Although she stopped speaking to me days before Schloss, she still allowed it because 1) It got me away from her for the better part of a day; 2) She knew it would cause me pain; 3) Maybe I’d fall off a mountain?
I awoke alone at 4 a.m., packed the car and headed west for the 2-hour drive to West Virginia. The local forecast in Falls Church was upper 40s and rising to upper 60s for the day, but WV is colder by several degrees. When I stepped out of the car to low 40s (summer is officially over now), it was frigid! Glad I remembered my arm sleeves.
The prerace check-in and briefing were brief – You waived your rights to sue us if you fall off a mountain. The WV wildlife will take care of your carcass. If you are an Idiot and get lost on our well-marked course, you’ll end up in the yard of some MAGA-loving, hippie-runner hating, gun toting individual, so good luck with that. [See, it’s not just me who injects politics into everything!] Then he told us to go, without any countdown or clock or gun (low-key, remember).
Banking Time
And with that, I sprinted after the crowd, immediately leaving Brian in my dust. This is our usual M.O. I start out strong and he finishes strong. It’s like a Yin and Yang thing. I positioned myself somewhere around top ten, figuring this way I would have the other 50 +/- people behind to push me for the rest of the race. If we were following Ragnar kill rules, not only would I finish in the red, I’d be left for dead by the side of the mountain for the aforementioned wildlife to finish (sorry Sai, just figuratively). [In Ragnar races, every person you pass counts as a kill. Everyone who passes you is like a death. It’s very serious business, mixed in with lots of drinking. At least that’s been my experience.]
The first eight miles to the first aid station went by fairly uneventfully. After sixteen minutes of running, I’d broken a sweat so I dumped my sleeves on the side of the trail like an empty Gu packet, for the deer to enjoy (they have arms too you know). Just kidding! Contain your outrage. I am not a trail litterbug (Gu or sleeves). I am sometimes a trail shitterbug, but that’s different. FTR, for the day, I managed not to need to dump in the woods.
It took Brian approximately 40 minutes to reel me in, and we chatted briefly during this stretch. His wife Beth was doing her own casual trail run concurrently, but not the same distance or intensity. A funner fun run? This part of the course was mostly runnable, with moderate rolling hills and plenty of rocks but they were manageable on fresh legs. When I reached the aid station in 85 minutes, ten minutes longer than I’d predicted, and this was the easiest part of the effort, I started to think that this might be a long day.
2-4-6-8 – Whose knees do we aggravate?
During the push to aid station #2, we had ten miles to go before the next refill, with a lot of it generally uphill. Right at the 2-hour mark for me (your mileage won’t vary but your time may), I turned left and looked at a bitch of a molehill (really a mountain), and started walking. I mean power hiking. It took around 30 minutes of this hiking / walking before I felt enough of a leveling off to even consider trying to run again. And the rocks were getting bigger, making it more treacherous to try to move faster than a fat ass walker.
Mushroom Tripping with Joan Rivers
Eyeing the scenery, besides roots, rocks, occasional piles of horse crap (honestly, it was the horses shitterbuggering up the trail, not me; I’d go behind some trees at least), I also espied some pretty mushrooms… I’d packed some ibuprofen to ward off the anticipated pain from my patellofemoral pain syndrome (runner’s knee). The right knee has been bothering me for a while on steep uphills and downhill pounding. The left knee has recently started sharing sympathy pains. The West Virginia mountains seemed like the perfect place to show these knees who’s boss. But instead of ingesting an OTC aspirin that could cause intestinal distress when combined with the beer(s) that I promised myself after, maybe I could use something more natural like a WV mushroom or ten?
Tripping over rocks did not seem like a good idea after all. I thought of the words of running hero Tommy Rivers Puzey – “Stay vertical.” But then I thought of the words of River Phoenix “Drugs are fun.” And this was followed by Joan Rivers, who loudly proclaimed “You suck Ben!” I know what you’re thinking – “Wow, Joan Rivers knows his name!” Or are you questioning how she’s proclaiming anything, years after her death? Well it was my trip down dead celebrity lane. But just to be safe, I backed off the mushrooms for the rest of the day.
I reached Aid Station #2, 18 miles in, at 3:45 time elapsed. The ten miles took me 140 minutes, for a leisurely 14 minute per mile average pace, almost 3.5 minutes per mile slower than the first section, and 45 minutes later than I had anticipated. So much for my best-laid plans. [They weren’t the best].
Speedy Devil
We jogged up a nice fire road for half a mile before turning back into the woods for more climbing. At first it wasn’t too bad, but right at the 4-hour mark, the hill steepened. I noted how there seemed to be a cruel pattern, whereby every 2 hours there would be a brutal climb, slowing me for thirty minutes at a stretch (I did need to stop and stretch a few times because of these climbs). It was to only be a 5.5 mile section to Aid Station #3, but with the terrain, it would not be a quick 5.5.
I believe it was Frank Shorter who observed that “Hills are Satan’s work in disguise.” Well said, Mr. Shorter, who ironically is a lot taller than me. I cursed these cursed hellish hills, but it did not seem to hurt them any. The pain appeared to be one way today, with me the sole recipient. [Foot joke]
I dreaded the upcoming 6th hour hill, but first we had a five-hour surprise!
The Big Schloss
Right at the 5-hour mark, I found myself schlossing up another steep, rocky escarpment to the namesake of this godforsaken race. Perched a mere 21.7 miles from our start, the high castle rock offered a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. Is it worth schlossing 21.7 miles to get there? Debatable, since apparently there are shorter trails I noted based on the families with small children heading towards the top, who clearly hadn’t just journeyed for five hours to get there. You could also get there in 10.4 miles by running backwards from the way we were heading, but who wants a 21.7 mile cool-down? It was a breathtaking vista for those of us who’d run / hiked / walked a great distance.
After easing my way back down the short out-and-back Schloss View trail (the only course U-turn), I looked forward to soon seeing Aid Station #3, our penultimate stop before we could stop for good. On the Schloss decline, I passed a couple of runners making the trip up. I tried offering words of encouragement and even went for a fist bump with one of them. With the tricky footing and my lack of coordination, we missed and I landed a blow to his solar plexus. But it’s the thought that counts.
Why was I walking more and more of the rocky ridge? Mere hours before I was moving a lot faster. Shouldn’t Aid Station #3, only 5.5 miles from #2, only take an hour to reach, give or take? It took a lot more. Perhaps I spent too much time taking selfies atop the Schloss, or some lingering mushroom trips led me astray, but either way it was two hours for this part of the “run.” We’re talking almost 22 minutes per mile, which is like a really slow walk. I admit my walking was not the impressive power hiking I’d hoped to do, but I did also run periodically when the terrain allowed it. At this rate of degression, I might need to start worrying about cutoffs, except that this was the last point to be pulled off course. For some reason, it never occurred to me to give up. Perhaps because I feared that Sai was busy changing the locks in my absence, I felt no need to rush home. Only 8.5 miles to go!
The Devil’s Hour
Fifteen minutes after my Aid Station #3 arrival, I watched my watch strike 6 hours. And you know what that means – that’s right, that’s when I curled up into the fetal position and cried like a baby for thirty minutes, rather than facing the hill. Devil be damned, but when I regained my composure, the trick to avoid the even hour climb had seemingly no effect on the mountain. So up I went.
Story of my life
The sixth hour hill had me chasing casual hikers, since so many race participants had left me for dead per the race director’s instructions. We scrambled up some truly steep boulders, with me grunting through each step like a pathetic old man. Only tennis players are supposed to grunt like that. Most of the group in front of me decided to let the “competitor” through, which only meant that they could witness just how slowly I was moving at this point. However, one Asian woman kept in front of me, showing me where to go. Whenever I’d try a different route, it turned out that her way was better. Somewhere 100 miles to the east, Sai was smirking. At least this woman didn’t (outwardly) wish me off the cliff at the top of the Tibbet Knob trail. Is it a coincidence that knob is bonk backwards?
One of the group asked if we were running JFK. “I wish” I thought, as the dozen miles on the Appalachian Trail in that 50 miler are so much easier than these rugged ankle-busters. Only 7 miles to go, someone said at this time. “7 miles? But I left that last aid station so long ago! Wow, I’m slow” were my thoughts, thanks to this person who thought she was being helpful. My cheap Timex counts the time, leaving me ignorant (of the distance).
The Road to Nowhere
I plodded on, eventually reaching the two-mile stretch of dirt road that I’d heard someone talking about hours before. I overestimated that I must have covered 3 miles in the hour plus since I’d left the last checkpoint. Two miles on this road would mean only three miles to go once I left the lane. (I had a map in my pocket with all of the distances and directions, but as noted above, I preferred ignorance to checking or knowing). But wait, you astute observers are surely running the numbers and noting that I had 8.5 miles to go from the last aid station, not an even 8. And crawling up Tibbet probably was no faster than when I crawled up the previous climbs, since my trajectory was heading the other direction. Well bully for you, you’re right. I was wrong (as Sai loves to point out). By the time I reached the end of the road, a sign told me I still had four miles to go.
But at least I blazed through the couple of miles on the smoother surface. Running on the roads is always easier than the technical terrain. The gravel stones did not try to trip me up at all. So why did I keep finding myself walking when I wanted to run? They say that the real race doesn’t start in a marathon until the last 10k (i.e., at Mile 20). One could make a similar argument that this ultramarathon didn’t really start until the last 10k, and the previous nearly seven hours of effort were just warmup. From a technical standpoint, I’d agree that until you pass the marathon distance, you’re not running an ultra. Regardless, I was determined to push through this last bit of the race to finish under eight hours, because you know what happens to me at every even hour…
So why the walk when I needed to run? Because the road was two miles uphill! It wasn’t a steep hill, but it kept going and going and going, like an Energizer Bunny pounding its drumsticks against my joints. And the worst part? While the trails kept blue ribbons regularly to assure you that you were still on the right trail, (blue means good, red means bad just like in politics), they figured that you didn’t need regular reminding to stay straight on the road. But I wanted to see those ribbons! They were my comfort color, telling me that I didn’t somehow screw it up and set myself up for disqualification from this backyard race. I had to earn my finisher’s prize. During most of the day I spent my time enjoying the solitude of the long-distance hiker (Sillitoe called it loneliness, but I’m antisocial). However, when you’re hoping for some affirmation that you’re still on track, the dreaded footsteps from behind would have been welcome. Alas I saw no one on the course after my friends at the Bonk Tebbit.
I walked. A lot. I ran a little. The two-mile stretch of easy running road took me thirty minutes. And that’s when I realized that my math was off and I had an extra mile to go beyond what I’d been telling myself for those last long 30 minutes. Now if the race was a true 50k, I’d be stopping at 31 miles… Just saying. I was around 7:20 into the effort, needing 10-minute miles to beat the reaper at 8 hours, and I hadn’t managed 10-minute miles at any point in the day. Guess where this is going?
Rock, Rock, Till You Drop
Believe me, I’d love to tell you that I found another gear and glided over the damn rocks that laid between mile 28 and the finish. But I cannot tell a lie in George Washington National Forest (maybe some exaggerations, but those are for entertainment only).
I knew that surpassing eight hours was inevitable. Rather than facing another climb head-on, and recollecting the futility of fetal position crying about it, I took a new approach. I picked up the largest rock I could find (not very large – I’m a wimp to begin with, and finish even weaker), and started bashing myself in the head with it to distract from the climbing. With the fear that the race would never end, leading to this report running on forever, you may want to consider bashing yourself in the head with a rock as well as you try to power through it. Couldn’t hurt, right?
Going for Broke
I saw a familiar trail. The course lollipops off a very short stem and seeing that opening stem in reverse meant that I was finally close to finished! To lighten the load, I tossed the arm sleeves, dumped the hydration pack, and ran so much lighter towards the nearby finish. I was nearly there when I remembered that my phone was buried in my hydration pack, and that littering is a no-no, so I ran back and picked everything up and charged forth again.
Ten minutes after I thought I was close, the trail turned and went up a hill I hadn’t remembered running down eight plus hours earlier. What was seemingly relatively flat in the a.m. felt mountainous in the afternoon. I walked this hill. But after that, it really did flatten out again, and I ran (like A Flock of Seagulls song) all the way to the finish line, and I earned my BS sticker! BS are my buddy Brian’s initials, and he must have prearranged it so that the finisher prize was a reminder that he owned me in this event. Or maybe his initials coincide with Big Schloss – you decide. Before BS could plaster his sticker on my forehead (which is what I would have done if it was a BA sticker and I’d beaten him), he had to take off and miss my late finish. Allegedly, it was more important for Brian to take Beth to the hospital for an x-ray of the finger she broke during a fall on her fun run. Beth and I may opt to couch surf together next time Brian goes for a crazy run. Much safer.
Eight hours twenty-two minutes (8:22) according to my watch, which must be skipping or something. Because I’ve run 50 milers faster than that (the JFK race I was longing for pages ago, though that was a younger, fitter version of me). Close to 16 minutes per mile average for the day? That was brutal. Sorry to put you through it.
I think I finished somewhere around the middle of the pack. I haven’t seen the official results yet, nor do I necessarily want to see them. I was very disappointed to learn that the fat ass run had so many fit asses instead. And what’s with all these young ‘uns, taking over the sport? How am I supposed to compete with the kids today? [The average age for entrants this year was 45.7 years old. The author’s age at the time of competition? 45.7 years old. Guess my roughly median position was tied to my mean age and out of my control, dictated by statistics.]
I grabbed a couple of cookies at the post-race picnic. These were in addition to the multitude of cookies I ate at all the previous aid stations. In the words of a famous fat blue monster, “me love cookies!” I also stopped for a milkshake on the way home. Do you think a healthier diet might help? “Diet? No, no” said Jo Schoonbroodt, the 71-year-old who ran a 2:54 marathon this past spring. So who am I to argue?
The event was well-run by the organizers, support staff, families, friends, et al. If you’re looking to dip your toes into the world of ultras, look somewhere else. If you’re looking to run a PR for a 50k, run away. But if you’re just hoping to spend a long day on some gnarly trails with the occasional mountain vistas amid a laidback group of happy runners, keep this one in mind. Believe it or not, I had fun.
“Oh, you gotta love that pain” – Blues Traveler: The Mountains Win Again.
Traipse Reports - Trips and Races 