Highlands Sky is a tough,technical 40 (41) mile race in and around West Virginia’s
Dolly Sods Wilderness and finishing at Canaan Valley Resort State Park. The word is
that it runs more like a 50 miler, even though the profile doesn’t look all that imposing after 2 early
climbs.  My plan was to start conservatively and not exhaust my legs in
the first half, and make up time in the flatter/downhill, less technical second
half.  What I didn’t expect was the punch that would put me on the canvas
mid-race and nearly KO me.

I arrived shortly before the pre-race pasta dinner in the lodge, which should
be nice after the renovation is done.  Rooms in the outbuildings look like
they haven’t been updated since the 80s, but mine was adequate.  Sat with
Tammy and Rick Gray and some other VHTRCers at dinner. Tammy offered a ride
with them to the start in the morning, which was convenient and appreciated.

The weather looked good, high 40s to around 70 and dry.  But there had
been a lot of rain, and we were told the course would be wet.  Quite an
understatement.

The race started at 6am with 2 miles on the road to spread out the field before
we hit single track trail and the first muck and the first climb, about 2300
feet over 6 miles in the Monongahela National Forest.  The first mile or
so was pretty gentle and the pace seemed slow but I held back and let a few
people by while passing only a couple.  The grade increased, and in some
places water was pouring down the trail, the path of least resistance.
There was some stinging nettle, but my calf sleeves protected me
well.   It gets cooler as we go higher, and the clouds and fog keep
it very comfortable.  Somewhere in here we have the first of 3 major creek
crossings, which are running fast enough that the guide ropes are very
welcomed.

At around 4700 feet we top out and drop to Roaring Plains, still above 4000
feet.  A few sections are dry, but there are long sections of shoe-sucking
mud and/or ankle deep water.  Many try to find higher spots to run on but
it seems like a lot of effort is spent hopping from side to side and trying to
keep balance.  I’m already soaked so I mostly just straight-line it when
there’s not an easier way to avoid the hazards.  A couple times I step in
knee deep holes but no harm is done, and once I catch something and land almost
spread eagle in the mud, just barely keeping my face out of it.  For road
runners looking at finish times and wondering how they can be so slow for
barely more than a marathon and a half distance, imagine running on a road with
long stretches of rain filled potholes, and having to either run through them
or wear out your legs hopping between them on muddy ledges not even a shoe
width wide in many places.  Or running in a muddy roadside ditch after a
long rain might be more accurate.  Tack on 5400 feet of climb and 4800
feet of drop for good measure.  I knew it was a tough race, I didn’t
realize it would be this bad.

Finally aid station 2 comes after 8 miles, and I refuel on continue on.
For the first half I use my Nathan Endurance Vest with 70 oz bladder of water,
and a 10 oz bottle that I’ll refill every aid station and mix with
Perpetuem.  Hammer Gel for nutrition, and Endurolytes for electrolyte
replacement.  The only solid food I eat is a couple Zone Perfect bars and
whatever looks good at aid stations, usually banana chunks and pretzels.
In the second half of the race the aid stations aren’t as far apart so I swap
my vest for my Nathan Trek waist pack which holds a 20 oz bottle that I mix
with Perpetuem.  I also carry an all-purpose bandana, ginger and Imodium
pills in case of stomach issues, a blister patch, and a small packet of lube in
case of chafing.  Fortunately all I’ll need today is a couple of the
ginger pills, and the bandana.

After AS 2 and Flatrock Plains comes a big drop, 1200 feet over 2 miles.
The water was annoying on the climb and flats, but on the downhill it’s
treacherous.  I take my time making my way down, and I’m not the slowest
one.  I’m watching my step so carefully that I take a branch to the face
and it actually ends up between my teeth!  Luckily it’s not sharp so it’s
funny.  Finally it levels off and climbs 1000 feet in 2+ miles to the next
aid station.  I still feel good and I’m running where it’s not too steep,
able to run more uphills than I had been in training.

A short climb after AS 3 and we’re on Red Creek Plains.  In some places
the views are open and incredible.  Also incredible is how much water is
up here.  The trail is almost always either a foot under water, in 4
inches of mud, or very rocky.  You can run it,  but very slowly and
you can’t lose focus and let your mind drift.  I trip in one place and
once again catch a low branch between my teeth.  Never had this happen
before, and now twice within an hour or two!

Finally, about a mile from the next aid station the trail dries out and is much
more runnable.  I take stock and as difficult as the course has been, I’m
still in a good mood and have been for the entire race.  There will still
be some rollers but the climbing is really done, and most of the technical
sections are behind me.  The mud and water have slowed me but my legs
don’t feel tired.  I’ve never had a good race beyond a 50K, but maybe this
will be it.

And then it happens.  My foot catches the lip of a rock and before I can
even get my hands out, BAM!  Face plant right into a rock.  I see
stars and am stunned.  I had heard some guys a bit behind me so I don’t
even try to get up.  A few seconds later 2 or 3 of them come up and pretty
quickly realize this was a hard fall.  They tell me my nose is bleeding,
but I figure out its on the bridge and not from inside.  I worry about my
teeth but I feel with my tongue that I didn’t chip them.  I talk with them
and assure them that I’ll be ok and will just walk to the aid station to get
checked out and they start to move out, but first one of them checks my eyes
and all seems fine.  All pretty standard stuff for trail runners to do,
but still I am very appreciative that they did stop to help.  I saw the
guy I talked with the most after the race and thanked him again, and he was
very happy and a bit surprised to hear that I finished.

After my standing 8 count, I continue on, and even jog a bit, though I’m
spooked by the rocks.  I soak my bandana with water and hold it to my nose
but there doesn’t seem to be much blood.  I get to the Road Across the Sky
a bit before the aid station.  Crew is allowed here and I see Tammy
driving as she’s heading out, which confirms that Rick is ahead of me as
expected.  She yells some encouragement and then her eyes get wide as she
sees my face so I know it doesn’t look good.  She tells me after the race
that she wanted to stop but was afraid I’d use it as an excuse to drop.
That actually wasn’t even on my mind but it’s still good tough love.

I had my drop bag here and I had hoped to switch packs and move out pretty
quickly but I figure sitting for a minute is a good idea.  A volunteer
offers a wet wipe to clean my face, and even though tradition says to wear your
blood proudly, I figure I ought to clean it and make sure it’s not
flowing.  I also decide to take time to change into dry socks even though
my feet feel ok.  My shoes (Inov8 319) are doing well so I slip them back
on rather than switch.  I burn about 10 minutes here, but I feel like I’m
good to go with my smaller pack and my mp3 player for the dirt road section.

The Road Across the Sky goes for over 7 miles across the Dolly Sods, which is a
designated wilderness area.  Logging and a major fire years ago took out
the trees, and with the rugged weather what grew back looks more like northern Minnesota or Canada than anything this far
south.  There are breaks where the views are wide open.  For race
purposes, what you have is a rolling non-technical packed dirt road where you
can make up time, but it’s dead straight and pretty imposing to see how much of
it you have in front of you.  Plus it’s very exposed so the sun can take
it’s toll on a hot day, but today’s there’s a breeze and it’s not that bad, and
it‘s not buggy.  It takes a minute to loosen up from sitting too long, but
I’m able to crank out an 8:30 mile on one stretch, though I haveto walk more
stretches of the uphills than I’d like.  My mp3 player stops after about 2
songs.  Apparently it bumped on in my bag and drained the battery.
My legs are starting to give out, and my nose is throbbing some.  The fall
is still on my mind too much and I’m wondering if I’m using it as an excuse to
take it easy, or I really am physically affected, but in any case I’m spiraling
down.

Finally we’re off the road and into the Dolly Sods on the Bear Rocks and Raven
Ridge trails.  It’s beautiful open highlands, with views in all
directions.  I think how nice it would be to curl up with a book under a
shade tree and take a nap.  It’s mostly runnable with some muck, but my
legs just don’t want to go.  I clock a 17 minute mile and vow I won’t have
another.  I almost hold to my promise, but in the wrong direction with a
17:57 mile.  Then 2 more in the 17s and then a couple more even slower.
When I look back at why my time was so slow, this is the place I had the most
control over.  I stop caring about time and just enjoy the views, but I’m
not in a very happy place for these miles.  I won’t quit, but I really,
really want it all to be over.

Aid station 7, and they promise downhills after a short climb.  Someone
comments that we have 90 minutes to run 8 miles to break 10 hours, and I shake
my head and know I can’t do it.  But wait!  The race director said we
were routing around a “butt slide” section on the ski slopes since
Timberline didn’t want us ruining the bike trails in the mud, so the course is
probably really 40 miles, not 41.  7 miles, I can probably do in that
time.

I struggle on a rock hopping section and people appear from nowhere and pass
me.  I hang onto them for awhile and they sail away.  We get to the
top of Timberline Ski resort and start down a ski run, and the running starts
to come easy for me.  I’m starting to reel back in many of those who have
passed me.  So many of them were encouraging when they passed me, and I
try to return the good will.  Back on another dirt road, and the final aid
station appears at mile 36.9, confirmed by my GPS watch.  A sign says 4.1
miles left.  So is it really 41 miles, or 40?  I hope for the best
and run with short walk breaks.  A paved road section should feel good
after such difficult terrain, but it always seems tough in a trail race.
At least it has some good views of the mountains we‘ve put behind us.  We
run a grass trail parallel to the highway, but it’s so marshy and slow that I
know I can’t make it if it’s 41.

The park road comes, and I try to remember how far it is to the lodge, and I
know we loop around to get behind the building.  Mile 40 is approaching
and just ahead I see a sign that says “I mile left”.  So, it is
41, and a bit more.  My watch says 9:52 and seconds aren’t displayed, so
I’d have to run sub 8 for the final mile+.  We leave the road and the
trail rolls and there are still some mucky sections.  I run what I can
because I want to finish strong, but the 10 hour mark passes and I can’t see
the finish.  Finally it comes into view, and I cross at 10:04.

Overall, even though my time was slow, I’m happy that I finished pretty strong
and nothing was really hurting.  My feet usually hurt the worst on a rocky
course, and they actually feel pretty good.  This really was like a 50
miler, by far my toughest run since knee surgery last year, and I made
it.  I’ve proven to myself that I can do everything I did before the torn
ACL, just not quite as fast.  The course was by far the prettiest I’ve run
on.  I can definitely see coming back, hopefully on a drier day!

Highland Sky 40

Canaan Valley, WV
June 15, 2013

Aaron was right: the 50k distance wasn’t too long for me, it was too short. Although I had been reluctant to try running a longer distance until I had mastered eating and holding my stomach in the 50k, Aaron had a theory that the 50k distance was my sweet spot (or rather my not-so-sweet spot), because the race was long enough to require me to eat a lot, but fast enough that I never had good opportunities to relax enough to chow down.  He had a notion that if I lengthened the distance and could lower the intensity, I’d be able to walk and eat and take my merry time and not experience my stomach eruptions.

Despite my catastrophically bad 2011 DNF at Highland Sky two years ago, the only DNF in my trail and road racing career, we decided to put Aaron’s notion to the test back at Highland Sky this year. Aaron has a vacation house in Canaan Valley and I have come to love running in the area, wiping away all the bad memories from the 2011 race, where my stomach went south and stumbling across that damned Road Across the Sky was one of my most miserable experiences of my running career.

I had never run as far as 40 miles before, but this year I was prepared. Aaron and I have been running together in the Sodds for two years now and I have come to adore the area and know the trails and terrain. I had a breakthrough a month ago when I finally discovered trail shoes that aren’t so high-cut and don’t irritate my ankle bone (Vasques), and here they made their racing debut and wonderfully spared my feet against the jagged rocks (although it was a bit terrifying how much more slippery they were than my Pegasus on wet rocks and wood). I also made the racing debut of my relatively light 1.5 liter bladder, complete with a drink mix I’ve found that agrees with me: U-CAN blueberry pomegranate.

Still, my ultra newbie was quickly made apparent by the fact that I put my bladder in upside down and Aaron had to fix it at mile 2 when I started complaining about the hose smacking me in the face. The guy running behind us who witnessed the blunder quickly identified me to the woman he was running with as someone who would surely come back to them later in the race. He told me this story at the finish line after the race, when it was particularly amusing as I had just set a new CR. My running green exhibited itself again when I asked Aaron at mile 10 to adjust my bladder straps, as it was entirely too loose and had been bouncing painfully on my poor innards.

But overall I couldn’t have asked for a smoother sail. Everything fell into place. Even though I felt bad for Doug that he had a work crisis and ended up having to crew instead of run, Let Me Tell You How Much I Love Crewing. Not that there was a lot of crewing to be done here, just one crewing spot at the half-way point. But having Doug drive Kerry, Aaron, and me to the race, Getting to Leave on My Warm Hoodie until the gun went off (yes, it was actually quite chilly at 6am). Divinity! And the highlight of the race was seeing Doug and Joe running up the road, keys and wallets jangling, to get drop bags for me and Aaron at mile 20.

Although the first half of Highland Sky is quite technical, the second half rewards those who can spare enough juice in their legs to clip right along in the faster road and Dolly Sods plains sections.  This year the first half of the race was particularly arduous, as Hurricane Andrea had dumped buckets on Canaan Valley over the last week, obscuring the rocks beneath long black puddle ponds and deep shoe-sucking black mud. One unfortunate runner this year actually lost her shoe in the mud and had it swept away by the water and had to run 7 miles with only one shoe to the next aid station. Due to the mud, the course had to be altered slightly at Timberline, going down the long and winding Salamander ski slope instead of the infamously steep ‘butt slide.’

Aaron ran with me for the first half, splashing through the puddles and doing our darndest to keep upright. During the first half we also ran with Regan for a bit, and three of us enjoyed a good 3-WUS pee at the top of the first climb. At mile 20 is the major aid station, where Doug and Joe provided excellent crewing (and an excellent opportunity for Kerry to drop when her tendinitis flared up). Aaron’s heel bursitis was also flaring, so at the aid station he told me to ‘Fly away, little bird’ for the next 7 miles of the dreaded ‘Road from the Sky’.

Running the long, straight road is dull enough, so I was particularly lonely running it without Aaron. But after that brutally slow mudfest, it was a somewhat welcome relief to be able to tick off some easier miles and look at something besides your feet for a bit. And there was something awfully nice about getting to that aid station at the end at mile 27 and being about to look back and see a mile of empty road with no one coming.

I was happy to catch up to two guys in the Sodds, including Matt Bugin, whose wife Holly I know from previous races. Given my complete ignorance of how to pace a 40-mile run, particularly those long gradual climbs in the Sodds, I was glad to have some guys to key off of, and I ran behind Matt to the end of the Sodds, where I took off down the long Salamander Ski slope. I spent much of the second half just trying to stay calm, cool, and collected. Whenever I felt my pace creeping up on me, I chided myself to ‘keep it in the pants’. Somehow this catchphrase always got me to slow down, maybe because it made me laugh so hard.

Although, as Brian G will attest to from last year, the last 5 miles of straight road are somewhat boring and onerous, it is awfully nice at the end of a race to be able to look back a half mile behind you and see nothing but empty road. By the time I rolled into the last aid station, I couldn’t see any runners behind me. I wasn’t wearing a watch, so I had no inkling that I was potentially set to break a CR. Apparently RD Dan Lehman had been tracking me and I went through the last aid station at 6:30-something and with 4.1 miles to go the CR was 7:03:51. But the end was mainly road (except for one abominable stretch of high grass that had turned to swamp in sections — by far Brian’s least favorite part of the finish when I paced him last year).

With no one behind me, I walked wherever it suited me. But fortunately after running for 7 hours there was an overwhelming drive to just get to the finish and I did sneak below the previous CR by a mere 30 seconds. More importantly, I felt strong and good and held my stomach, as my goal had not been to win, but to run a strong, comfortable race where I felt good. The last two aid stations I wasn’t having a whole lot of appetite, but I took a whole cup of ginger ale and made myself walk out of the aid station sipping it until I finished it. Honestly, if I had won the race, but barfed and felt terrible in the process, it would have been more disappointing than finishing 2nd or 3rd.

It was nice to be able to celebrate my good race with other WUSsies at the finish. Ragan finished second behind me, completing the WUSsie 1-2 domination reminiscent of the Women’s Half Marathon. She’s coming off a challenging spring of training while on sabbatical in NYC, which has a dearth of parks you can pee in. And Michele represented by winning the Masters division. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and Doug and Kerry continued to be angels of divinity by fetching a couple Siriani’s pizzas. There is a very friendly vibe at the finish area of Highland Sky, probably because all of us are so grateful to have had the opportunity to experience such a beautiful course — and so relieved to have survived its punishing design.

When we were driving home from the race, I remarked to Aaron that even though part of what we love about coming to our vacation house here in Canaan is getting away from everything and being entirely unfettered and unstructured with time and commitments, that the area has such a friendly and vibrant local community (including RD Dan Lehman, Adam Cassidy, Luke Fleishmen), that we should try to be more involved, even if it means having to set an alarm and plan a day from time to time.