The Old Dominion 100 Mile Endurance Run - Hamilton Tyler “What are you running from?” is a frequent question I am asked when someone learns that I enjoy running ultramarathons. My usual response is that if I ever figure out what I am running from, maybe I will stop. At least in the short term for the Old Dominion 100 Mile Endurance Run, there was an easy answer. I was running from a drop or “DNF” (did not finish) at the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 Mile Run three weeks earlier. I had trained hard all winter and spring and made a lot of sacrifices in order to run other shorter ultras and training runs on the mountain trails that make up the course which is over two hours from my home near Annapolis, Maryland. Among other things, kids’ lacrosse games were skipped and an Easter family trip to relatives was missed for a crucial group night training run in the mountains. This was going to be my year for Massanutten, one of the most difficult 100 milers in the country held on May 16-17, 2009. I believed I was both physically and mentally prepared for Massanutten though it had been three years since my last 100 mile race. Race day for Massanutten brought hot and humid weather. I handled the heat well, but it slowed me considerably. I was caught in severe thunderstorms on the worst part of the course for wet weather and ultimately dropped out at the Gap Creek aid station after 65 miles and 20 hours at 1:00 am. Physically I was very tired, but nothing was broken except my spirit. My first drop ever at any distance was a “mental” drop if ever there was one and that hurt the most. The Massanutten drop haunted me. After two days I was thinking about the drop constantly and waking up at night in a cold sweat with flashbacks of the race. I would lay awake contemplating the mistakes I had made and whether some different decision would have made a difference. Some in my household (well – maybe all of my household) would say that I became difficult to live with. I could not wait another year until the next Massanutten race to exercise these demons. Luckily, the Old Dominion 100 Mile Endurance Run was scheduled for three weeks after Massanutten and registration was still open. My legs had not suffered the typical brutalization from a 100 miler due to the drop and the fact that I walked a great deal toward the end of Massanutten. I had nothing to lose so I sent in the entry form. Old Dominion and Massanutten are both held in Fort Valley, Virginia. While Massanutten is predominantly rocky mountain single track trail with lots of climb, Old Dominion is a mixture of paved and dirt county roads, single track trail (some of which is the same as the Massanutten course) and ATV trails. Old Dominion is the second oldest 100 mile race in the United States. The race was first run in 1979 as an east coast alternative to the venerable Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run which was first run in 1974. Similar to Western States, Old Dominion evolved from an equestrian endurance event which had started in 1974. For the first few years of the running race both riders and runners shared the same course which started and finished in Leesburg, Virginia. In 1992 the start and finish of the race moved to its current home in Woodstock, Virginia. Old Dominion was originally part of the “Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.” The Grand Slam was originated in 1986 as recognition for runners who officially complete four of the oldest 100 mile trail runs in the United States which were then Western States (1974), Old Dominion (1979), Wasatch (1980) and Leadville (1983) in the same year. When the Vermont 100 miler started in 1989, it became an alternative to Old Dominion. Old Dominion continued to flourish and became one of the preeminent 100 milers in the country. Unfortunately, the events of September 11, 2001 pressed the event’s organizers into military service and the race was not held in 2002. Old Dominion lost its status as a Grand Slam event and the number of starters fell drastically from the 103 starters who toed the line in 2001. A competing 100 miler on the prior weekend in the same area also siphoned runners away from the event. Finally, in 2008, despite brutal heat, 49 starters began the race, signaling that Old Dominion was back. The race started at 4:00 am on Saturday, June 6, 2009 at the Shenandoah County Fairgrounds in Woodstock, Virginia with 37 runners. Luckily, two straight days of heavy rain had given way to a high pressure system which promised sunshine and moderate temperatures for race day. The first 10 miles of the course are on paved and dirt roads, so the darkness did not affect running much. I carried a small handheld flashlight but probably could have done without it. The first few miles are run through the still sleeping town of Woodstock. I run off and on with some other runners, asking questions about the course and swapping stories of prior ultras. It is a relief to finally be running after the stress of the prior few days spent packing and repacking drop bags and worrying about the weather forecast. After crossing the North Fork of the Shenandoah River around mile 5 at the Burnshire Dam, I begin climbing Woodstock Gap to the top of the mountain to crest the western ridgeline of Fort Valley on a gravel road that consists of seemingly endless switchbacks which climb approximately 1,300 feet in 2 miles. Still fresh, I run some of the straightaways and walk the steeper corners. I reach the top of the mountain in 1 hour and 18 minutes and stop at the aid station to refill my bottles, having run just over 7 miles. After a gradual 3 mile run down Mine Mountain Road on the backside of the mountain to the Boyer aid station, I turn upward onto a rocky trail for a 4.5 mile loop that is 3 miles of rocky trail and a fair amount of climb up to a ridgeline. I walk all of the uphill trail which eventually loops around and back down to a dirt road for a fast drop back down to the beginning of the loop. I run the same pace as another runner and the conversation makes the miles tick by quickly. The Boyer aid station appears for the second time at mile 14.5 at a total time of 2 hours and 46 minutes. The next 18 miles are on country roads which vary from pavement to gravel or dirt. There is a climb up to mile 20, an aid station on Woodstock Tower Road just above the little town of Detrick in Fort Valley. My first of six drop bags is at this aid station and I quickly fill the bottles once more, add Clif Shot electrolyte replacement powder to them and off I go, 3 hours and 42 minutes into the race at 7:42 a.m. I walk the steeper uphills, but mostly run the next section of 12 miles which heads south to the southern end of Fort Valley. The course becomes more difficult as it progresses, so I want to put some time in the bank on the easier road sections. I run for a few miles with other runners, but runners are becoming spread out over the course. As I pull away from another runner I am left with my thoughts as I gaze out over fields of flowers blooming in the green valley as the mountains loom above, outlined against a cloudless bright blue sky. It is a good day to be running in the country. The ease of running on the road allows my mind to wander. My mind returns to the question of what I am running from and I contemplate the possibilities for many miles as I continue southbound. The answers undoubtedly relate to the typical mid- life crisis issues a 45 year old man usually encounters, although they are certainly new to me, not that anybody ever accused me of acting my age. Ultramarathons provide a connection to my youth which I stubbornly refuse to release. I reach the Four Points aid station at the southern end of Fort Valley after 32 miles and 6 hours and 9 minutes for a pace of just over 11:30 per mile. While 11:30 per mile is a good pace for a 100 miler, I am not lulled into a false sense of security as the first one-third of the race is by far the most forgiving with only 3 miles of trail and one significant climb. Because of the diversity of road and trail in this race, I have planned several shoe changes by leaving drop bags that race officials transport to designated aid stations on the course. While I don’t want to sit during the race, I quickly plop down in a chair and change from road shoes to heavy duty trail shoes as I know the next section well. I keep repeating the phrase, “beware the chair,” to keep myself from sitting any longer than necessary. Exiting Four Points I make a right turn and head up the road for a short section past Camp Roosevelt which leads to a trail to the top of the mountain that separates Fort Valley from the town of Luray. After a nice climb I pop out at the top of the mountain and start chugging down the road back from where I had just come. It is a scenic route and many motorcyclists and pickup trucks suddenly appear as they fly around the steep blind sharp curves. I step off the road every time I hear a vehicle appearing in this mile and a half stretch downhill to avoid becoming roadkill. I reach the Massanutten trail in short order and head into Duncan Hollow. I know this section is going to be wet and rocky as it is part of the Massanutten course that I experienced three weeks earlier. True to form the 3-4 inches of rain from the previous two days has swollen the creeks which flow onto the trail. I splash across several creeks and have to walk for a mile or two in over ankle deep water on the trail which has become a small stream with a rocky bottom. After almost 4 miles on the trail I reach the aid station which consists of a gas can looking container that contains water and a few bits of food that two guys on motorcycles have been kind enough to drive in on the trail I had just run. I thank them profusely as I am almost out of water and know that it must have been one rough ride in. The next two miles are a gradual climb out of Duncan Hollow and become progressively drier as the trail turns up the mountain. There are a few open areas and the heat bakes down on my head. I stop at streams and dip a bandana in the cool water and wrap it around my neck. I reach the top and head down the Scothorn Gap Trail towards Crisman Hollow Road. This is where I cracked three weeks earlier in the Massanutten race. Alone at midnight after 19 hours on the trail and making little progress I was unable to get my mind around another 38 miles. What a difference to be doing the same trail in the daylight with energy at 1:00 p.m. I silently curse the drop for the last time and sweep the negative thoughts from my mind. I reach Crisman Hollow Road at the 43 mile mark in just over 9 hours. While it has taken me almost 3 hours to travel 11 miles, I am trying to conserve energy and taking it a little easier as the heat of the day takes over. After a 5 mile stretch on the gravel of Crisman Hollow Road, I am back to Four Points aid station. A volunteer helps me change back to my road shoes and dry socks and fill the bottles. I try to eat to get some calories for energy, but the typical aid station fare of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips and pretzels is just not appetizing in the heat. I pull an Ensure from my drop bag and take it with me. I am out of the aid station quickly and turn west to climb Moreland Gap. I had driven this road once before, but did not remember it being so steep. It is a little over 3 miles to the top of the gap and the next aid station, but it takes me almost 50 minutes. I walk most of the road, but run the portions that are not so steep. There is a picturesque stream that flows down the mountain that jumps from one side of the road to the other, running beneath it from time to time which makes the climb a little easier. I contemplate the beauty of the stream and can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing. The joy is short-lived as concerns begin to flood my mind. At 45 years old how long will I be able to continue to run in the mountains? After foot surgery and surgery to repair a sports hernia in the past three years, such concerns are genuine. How will I channel my energy if I am suddenly unable to run? The long layoff after the foot surgery was one of the most unpleasant periods for me in recent years. Shortly before the aid station I see the 50 mile mark on the road which I pass in 10 hours 31 minutes, a pace of 12 minutes and 37 seconds per mile. I had been hoping to reach the halfway point in 10 hours with a goal of 24 hours for the race, so I am a little behind schedule. I reach the Moreland Gap aid station, fill the bottles once more, grab some potato chips and begin the ascent of Short Mountain with two other runners. There is another 2 miles of climb before the gravel road levels off. It is 3:00 p.m. so I am in the heat of the day and the temperature is somewhere in the upper 70s. One runner falls behind and the other runs up an incline that I am walking and I am alone again. With no company I plod along and fantasize about ice cold drinks. While the 5 mile climb was on road, it was slow going. I reach the Edinburg Gap aid station at mile 56 in 12 hours and 9 minutes. I change from road shoes to light trail shoes because most of the next sections are trail. The section from Edinburg Gap to Little Fort campground just off Woodstock Tower Road is an ATV trail which I had not experienced before. The first mile and a half is a steady climb up a wide trail which is very rocky with some mud. Several times ATVs and motorcycles and even a jeep come screaming by me. I stop and move aside to avoid any problems. It is the hottest point of the day and I am happy to reach Peter’s Mill Pond where a volunteer has driven a jeep on the trail with some water and limited food. A runner I had run with earlier is sitting and asking to drop. I am not sure how he is going to get out since the aid station jeep probably won’t leave with runners still on the course. After another 5 miles I finally reach Little Fort campground at mile 64 just after 6:10 p.m. for a total time of 14 hours and 10 minutes. Little Fort is one of the major aid stations and a drop bag point where I have my lights for the evening as well as a Camelback pack and bladder which I exchange with the two bottle belt that I wore during the day. Aid station volunteers are cooking on the grill and I eat a little kielbasa and soup, happy to have someone to talk to for a few minutes. These volunteers are experienced ultra runners and they sense I am dawdling as I spend 11 minutes here eating and changing hydration systems. A crew definitely would have saved some time at the aid stations, but I was solo for this race. After the volunteers have fed me and filled my Camelback I am thankful that they toss me out in short order, as they should, and I am on my way, alone again once more, but with good energy from the food and a positive mood. I climb for 10 minutes to just below the top of Woodstock Gap. I passed this same point over 13 hours earlier. A left turn and I am back to the start in 8 miles. But the course goes right and I head down Mine Mountain Road for the second time that day. I am reminded of a phrase often repeated by my eighth grade lacrosse coach when we would round off the corners while running laps around the field. “You can’t cut corners in life” he would scream. I really didn’t know what he meant at the time, but the older I get the more sense it makes. I arrive at Mudhole Gap after a little over 5 miles and 1 hour and 14 minutes for a total time of 15 hours and 32 minutes. Because I am on the east side of the mountain the light is beginning to fade during the next section which I start at just after 7:30 p.m. This section is called “Mudhole Gap” for a reason. I trudge through cool waters of Little Passage Creek several times as the trail travels back and forth across the creek. I finally break out onto a forest service road and push onward as I want to reach the Elizabeth’s Furnace aid station before dark. I drop onto a trail section and it is barely light but I stubbornly refuse to retrieve my flashlight out of my pack. I run by some campers who wish me good luck. I arrive at the Elizabeth’s Furnace aid station, the 75 mile mark, after 17 hours just before 9:00 p.m. There is a party atmosphere at this aid station with many crews and pacers waiting for runners as well as volunteers. One volunteer fills my Camelback and another gets me food. I have some warmer clothes at this aid station, but I am warm enough so I just pack a long sleeve shirt in the pack. I am weighed for a medical check and only down a couple of pounds. Too much weight loss and you are pulled from the race. I finally tear myself away from the aid station and cross the bridge over Passage Creek which runs the length of Fort Valley. I encounter a runner sitting on the trail with a pacer standing next to him. I try to get him moving and standing up, but he is having none of it and continues to sit as I head up the mountain. I later learn that he has been hobbling on a badly twisted ankle for 20 miles and drops. I have good energy from the food at the aid station and my legs are still feeling decent. I am in the hunt for a sub-24 hour finish and the coveted sub-24 hour belt buckle as I have 7 hours to cover the final 25 miles. I could care less about the actual buckle. The buckle I do have from Umstead sits in a box on my dresser, never having been worn. I had heard a lot about the brutal climb up the trail to Sherman Gap, the most difficult section of the course. I now realize it is all true. I have a headlamp as well as a flashlight and turn both on the high settings for the very few sections I am able to run. After a mile or so, the trail turns up the mountain and becomes steep and very rocky. There are chem lights hung from the trees every few hundred yards to mark the trail. I regret not pushing harder earlier in the day so that I could have done this climb in daylight. I look up occasionally as I walk upward, hoping I am topping out on the mountain only to see another chem light several hundred feet higher in the darkness. The trail is so steep that when I stand straight up a couple of times I am afraid I am going to fall backwards. I stop twice for a couple of minutes because I feel my heart rate red-lining. I finally reach the top and am hoping to be rewarded with a long quick decent down the other side of the mountain, but the trail down the backside of the mountain is rocky, muddy and very wet. As I slip and slide my way down the mountain, narrowly avoiding falls several times, the sub-24 hour finish slips away as well. I fall in with a runner from London and his pacer as we mostly trudge down the mountain. The aid station consists of two unmanned coolers at the bottom of the mountain. I had covered only 6 miles in almost 2 hours. A right turn onto route 613 leads to a hard surface road that steeply climbs to the Veech East aid station. I step aside several times as cars come barreling down the road in the darkness, oblivious to my presence. The boy scouts manning the Veech East aid station quickly heat me some soup and I follow the trail up the mountain to climb over Veech Gap back into the valley. The climb is not as bad as Sherman Gap, but still steep. I crest the top and head down the rocky trail which is very wet and has a small stream running through it. I reach the Little Crease Shelter and make a left turn down the trail. After a treacherous rocky stretch, the trail evens out and I break into a jog for the first time in this section. All the walking over the last couple of hours has allowed my legs to tighten up. There are several lanterns along the trail as I approach the Veech West aid station which is in full swing. There is a raging campfire which I try to avoid as that was my downfall in the Massanutten race. Once I sat by the fire in that race I was done. I have my last drop bag at Veech West which is at just under 87 miles. I have been on the move for 21 hours and 18 minutes and it is 1:18 a.m. I have some blisters on the insides of my big toes and I change back to road shoes and dry socks. I eat some food and finally tear myself away from the conviviality of the aid station personnel and head out for the final 13 miles across the valley and over the mountain which is all dirt, gravel and paved roads. My confidence is buoyed by the fact that the worst section is now behind me. A full moon has risen and it is a beautiful night for running. It is very peaceful in the early morning of the valley. I am alone in the country and it is completely quiet except for the sound of my breathing. I think back to the despair I felt three weeks earlier as I dropped from Massanutten at the same time of the morning. I jog along as best I can, still running the downhills and level sections, but walking all uphills. The temperature is in the low 50s and I have changed into a long sleeve shirt. It is a little lonely, but I push forward and crest the last of the upward road to the Woodstock Tower Road aid station. I grab a little to eat but my stomach is a little queasy. I trudge up Woodstock Tower Road to crest the mountain. I reach the top and the aid station at the top in 23 hours and 34 minutes at 93 miles. I attempt to eat because I need the energy for the final push, but can’t get much down and don’t want to risk becoming sick. I start down the switchbacks that I climbed over 22 hours earlier. I begin to run and every step is jarring and pain fills my quads and knees. After 40 minutes I hear the dam and know that I am near the bottom. I cross the Shenandoah River again and head back into Woodstock. I pass a dejected runner who did not see the road turn right after the dam and lost an hour backtracking after getting onto a side road. I catch another runner who is walking and moving well but conserving his energy to run the last 2 miles. I reach the edge of town and again the town is asleep. Little do the good people of Woodstock know that I am shuffling through their town at 4:30 a.m. in the morning after running 99 miles and climbing and descending 14,000 feet. I run through the empty streets past the courthouse and Main Street in the center of town without seeing a person or a vehicle. Although I remember the course, it is nice that the turns are well marked with glow sticks. I finally begin to relax and enjoy the thought that I am going to finish my third 100 mile race and at least partially shed the pain of the DNF three weeks earlier. I crest the last hill and enter the fairgrounds and follow the lights around the outside of the complex to reach the finish line. A feeling of tranquility washes over me. There is a single volunteer who is recording finishing times and offers his congratulations. I finish in 25 hours and 11 minutes at 5:11 a.m. on Sunday morning. At least for the time being, I am finally able to stop running.