Once we arrived on the east side of the trail we drove up the road to our first scheduled water/food stop dropped our bags and headed up the road to drop off our bags for which would be our out and back stop. Once we pulled we decided and nature break was needed before sunrise. Once I went to shut the car off the radiator house decided to burst. There was nothing we could do about it so once we jumped in the car we headed down the road with my car almost over heating and parked at the east end of the trail. I figured we might as well not worry about the car until we finish the run, we were already there, might as well. Curtis was waiting for us, he could only do a small portion of the run b/c he had to head south for business later in the day.
We started nice and easy. The weather was pretty much perfect. Great cloud cover, misting half way through the run. The sun only came out the last hour or so. We covered over 24 miles on this out and back adventure and we only 7 people and that was in the last 6 miles.
I will admit I totally underestimated "true" trail running. It is a whole different ball game when you incorporate roots, rocks, creek crossing, off camber sections, really long technical down hills, really long not so technical and very technical uphills. I did alot of speed walking.
I decided to try some different things on this run to really dial in what I want to use at the Stumpjump 50K. I used Nuun for 99% of my hydration needs with some watered down orange gatorade for the last 1.5hr. The only energy packets I used were Gu, which is new for me. I used there Roctane to get me through the last hour. I took a Gu every 30-45 minutes and drank appx. 16-20ounce of fluid an hour. I started to feel some cramps coming on the last 5 miles but it was very humid and no air flow for most of the run.
At the first stop (5 miles in) I filled up another bottle of Nuun and ate half a Clif Bar just to ease stomach. At the turn around point (12 miles in), we actually stopped and I had a peanut butter and bannana sandwich, some pistachios, and some fluid. The only problem I had with the sandwich was the first couple of minutes of running after stopping was a little of indigestion but it went away pretty quick.
With about 2 miles to go we stopped at Slippery Rock Falls for a nice relax soak. Here is a picture from the Pine Mountain website.
The gear I used for this run was:
Fuel Belt Trail Runner
Nathan Quick Draw Plus
Insport shorts
The Bike Store Champion Sytems Running Singlet
Sock Guy Dopers Suck Socks
Pearl Izumi UltraSensor Race Visor
Polar S625X Heartrate monitor
Asics Kahan Trail Shoes
I had no problem with any of these products. Minus cold/bad weather this is exactly what I will use for the Stumjump 50K.
About the car, to make a long story short we barely it made it to a very small gas station in Shilo, Ga and used product that clogs holes in radiotors or hoses and we made it home. What an adventure.
I have had so much fun training for this so far I might just add the Pine Mountain 40 miler put on by these guys and gals in December.
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