UBER Rock 50k Race Report, et cetera

Its been a long time since I've blogged. Even longer since I've run a 50k; which is what I did this past weekend. This is not to say that there haven't been any house projects to blog about since last October (there have been tons!) or that I haven't run any interesting races since my last 50k in August 2008 (I have!), but "running" thirty-one miles through the mountains provided me with ample time for introspection and prompted these reflections.

Still standing...!

Saturday morning started just before 5 AM, with a "shower" in Bodyglide. A friend showed me the stuff before the 2008 Death Valley Marathon and any run over 20 miles since then hasn't been pleasant without it. I ate half a Bodos bagel and poured two huge cups of coffee. My dad, who drove down from New York, and I jumped in his truck and were off. The race was being held at Wintergreen which is about an hour from where I live in Charlottesville.As we approached the Blue Ridge Mountains the fog started to descend on the mountains. The pre-dawn temperature was in the high 50s, fantastic for a long run. It had poured throughout Central Virginia the day before, which also helped cool things down. 

The big event on the day was the UROC 100k race. Some of the best runners from around the country were at Wintergreen to compete in what was being billed as the Superbowl of Ultraracing (one of the many reasons I stayed away from the 100k!). The elites were off at 7 AM; the rest of the field at 7:15. 

Something strange happened during the half-hour or so between the start of the 100k and 7.30. My dad, who hadn't run in some 6 weeks due to an injury, suddenly felt well enough to do the 1/2 Marathon. He had signed up in July but was "injured" in August. He took inventory of the clothes / gear he had brought up the mountain. If he wanted to run, he'd have to do it in a pair of hiking shorts and needed to borrow one sock and a running shirt from me. Other than that, and though he hadn't done a 10 mile run in over two months, he somehow figured he could run/walk his way through the whole thing.

While he was changing into my "backup" gear, I noticed that the race course had changed, A LOT. Apparently on Wednesday (three days before the race!) the directors decided to double up on some of the 100k course and avoid a grueling final 5-mile, 2500 foot climb. Luckily, I was fairly well acquainted with the revised section as it had been part of the the 1/2 Marathon course I'd run in the previous two years.

At 8 AM both the 50k and 1/2 Mar races took off. As part of a new strategy, I took off very slow. In the last 50k I ran, the Mount Disappointment 50k in Southern California, I started way too fast. By mile 10 I was exhausted and walked a good portion of the last 20 miles. This time would be different; I wouldn't get suckered into expending all my energy on the first climb. Admittedly however, I was a bit jealous of the general abandon with which the bearded-shirtless guy sprinted out of the gate.

In hindsight my strategy was probably off by 30 seconds, though I couldn't have known it at the time. Right after the first mile mark I was in roughly 20th place out of 200 or so runners. Accidentally (?), someone in those first 20 people set off a hornet's nest-booby trap that would entangle runners all the way back to my dad, who was running towards the end of the pack. Without warning, a swarm of hornets attacked me from the right side of the trail and I was swatting them off with two very ineffective, water-bottle holding hands. I felt stings everywhere and started hearing shrikes up the trail behind me. The stinging on my own body stopped after 100 years or so. And after another 1/4 mile I was mentally clear enough to take inventory: six stings, including the one that crawled up into my hat. My dad, about 150 runners back, got 5 stings. I hoped mine weren't enough to trigger an allergic reaction. The only other time I'd sustained multiple bee-stings was while mowing the lawn in high school. That adventure ended with me passing out in the ER. I didn't want a repeat. It would be 4 more miles to the first aid station (if I needed to drop), though it would definitely have sucked if I had trained all summer only to be taken out at mile-one by some pesky bees. 

Whether due to the multiple stings or the 1500 foot climb in the first few miles, by the time I reached Wintergreen summit, I was feeling pretty loopy. No hives, I just felt "off." I choked down a Cliff Shot and was thankful for some downhill. Most of the next section was made up of randomly strung together trails, roads, and connecting paths that wove their way between various vacation homes high up on the mountain. People gathered in small groups to watch the race--drinking coffee, wearing warm clothes, and not nursing hornet wounds. I was slightly jealous.

As the downhill continued and we came out onto Wintergreen Drive, I started to get into a groove. Hornets be damned, I was going to keep running. After a fairly steep uphill to Reeds Gap (where I finally caught up to a 3-month pregnant woman who had passed me on the downhill!), I buzzed through the second aid station at 9.8 miles feeling pretty good, especially after I dumped a dozen or so rocks out of my shoes. The pregnant woman went screaming by me again after briefly describing her desire to turn around and only do the 1/2 Marathon. Ultra runners are of a different breed...

The second 10-miles felt great. They were largely a rolling descent into Lake Sherando via the Blue Ridge Parkway and some nice single-track. I started catching people in the back of the 100k pack who had taken off 45 minutes earlier. I kept up the 10-minute per mile pace I wanted to hold through to the final climb. [For those uninitiated with mountain running, take your typical road pace and add 50% (at least!) to your time. In a long road race, my pace is generally around 7-minutes per mile; in the two 50k races I'd done previously, I hovered around 11-minutes per mile. Between rocky trails, steep mountains, and aggressive wildlife, the pace slows appreciably (at least, those are my excuses!)]. For this race, my hope was that in the three years since my last 50k, I had somehow learned how to pace myself rather than burn out early.

At 18 miles, I hit the second "lake" aid station and started what would be a long, rolling 9-mile ascent back up to Reeds Gap. My pace slowed but I still felt good. Around mile 20 I found the pregnant woman and bearded-shirtless guy down in a stream off the trail. Apparently her foot had swollen pretty badly and she had it sitting in the cold water. She had twisted it on a rock heading down and ran a few more miles before calling it quits. The bearded guy turned out to be her fiance. They both dropped. The race didn't really matter to him anyway; he was using it as training for the 100 Mile Grindstone in two weeks. Sheesh... Their child is going to be born with running shoes on...

By the time I got back onto the Parkway the mountains were completely socked in with fog. For the final 9 miles I didn't see another runner. It was somewhat lonely, but also relatively relaxing; as relaxing as a 9-mile run after you've already done 22 miles could be I suppose. I rolled through the aid station at mile 27 on pace and with only one mile of "running" left. The final 4 miles were 1 steep mile down, 3 steep miles up. My strategy was to run the downhill mile and powerwalk the final three. I'd been here before. The Mt Disappointment 50k ended with a brutal three-mile uphill. I only hoped that the Ibuprofen and salt tablets I'd choked down at mile 26 would help me not feel the searing pain in a portion of my lower-quads that I'd never known existed before I started "running" 50ks. Halfway up the hill I started running a bit. Strange... I actually felt good.

The final 1/2 mile or so was, generously, downhill. No one was cheering as I came in, in part because there are no crowds like there are at even the smallest marathon. And even if there was a crowd you could only see only a 100 feet or so anyway due to the fog. I think I only saw the timer when I finished. The one person who did see me within 10 seconds of finishing was my dad. He'd since changed into my spare hiking shorts after finishing his race. "Injured" though he was, he managed to win his age group in the 1/2 marathon! I hope I can hang like that when I'm in my late 50s! While writing this post, I received a text from him that said: "trouble walking BIG time today; feels good in a strange kind of way. hope you are ok."

Dad and I following the 50k.

Hobbling around this morning I feel similar to my dad: "trouble walking BIG time...but good in a strange kind of way.". For the first time ever, I had finished the 50k and felt good. I maybe even could have run a few more miles. I even had enough leg strength yesterday to stand on my feet for a few hours and paint some trim on the front porch. My 'go-out-slow' strategy seemed to work. I finished 12th out of 120 starters (apparently, 40 people dropped out, whether due to the bees or mountains or being pregnant, I don't know). And I took over 20 minutes off my 50k PR. Next up: the 50 miler in March? Maybe in 3 more years...

Rehydration strategy back at the house. Poured from a growler purchased at Devils Backbone.

Case Closed

Whew! Yesterday marked the end of a remarkable chapter in the life of our home. We finally closed the refinance of our construction loan. Normally this type of thing wouldn't result in a blog entry; I'm bad enough as it is with posts lately. But our refinance is a tale of deception, a local version of the banking crisis, and extremely good fortune (Providence?).

The front of the house nearly one year after we started work

Nearly one year ago, when we were still relatively on schedule with our renovations, I put down a deposit at Stellar One bank to refinance out of our construction loan (redflag #1 - most refis don't require deposits). Towards the middle of November 2009 it became clear our contractor wasn't going to finish on schedule due to a window placement issue. No big deal (to some degree); we canceled our refi and the bank said they were going to hold the deposit until we initiated the refi process again (redflag #2); who was I to argue. Admittedly, I wasn't super excited about this 'requirement' for them to keep our deposit, but at that point I had not reason to think things wouldn't work out down the road.

Fast forward 3 months. Towards the end of February, when the contractor finished the family room addition, I contacted Stellar One again to initiate the refinance. The original loan officer, who structured the construction loan and subsequent refinance was "no longer with the company" (we have heard through various channels: "fired"; redflag #3). A new loan officer had been assigned to the refi. And without going into all the bloody details over the subsequent six months we were strung with promise after promise to close the loan. Each time they didn't close it they refused to return our deposit because, so they said, they should be able to close it through some other loan process (redflag #4). By contract, we were required to refinance out of our construction loan one year after we started construction; i.e. by 9/1/10. However "new mortgage regulations", a lack of understanding of our file by subsequent loan officers (we had three new officers over 6 months), and, we later learned, some very incorrect dealings by the original loan officer resulted in us going nowhere by September.

The front of the house from another angle

Finally by mid-September I demanded (against the advice of my lawyer) that Stellar One return my original (and on their part bogus), several thousand dollar deposit so that I could pursue a refinance through another lender. Apparently the demand--directed to Stellar One's director of retail mortgage--was enough to cause them to finally return the deposit.

Throughout the course of the drama I nervously watched rates and prayed the local real estate market held firm long enough for our re-appraisal to stay high. If rates rose dramatically, especially as I expected after the end of the Fed's purchase of mortgage backed securities in March, we may not have been able to afford the new payments. If the local marked tanked, our appraisal may have came in with us showing less than 20% equity even though our original down payment and cash put into renovations put us well over that figure. Fortunately rates fell over those 6 months, netting us hundreds of dollars per month of interest savings. Had we refi'd back last fall, our rate would have been over a full point higher than where we are at today. And our final appraisal came in much higher than we expected, thanks to a slow but price-stable local market. Thus, the 'happy ending' yesterday at the lawyers office where Emili and I signed the paperwork for our permanent loan. Now if only we could get all the painting done...

Em and I out front of the homestead after trashing her wedding 

dress. More fun photos at: http://tinyurl.com/2010trashdress

Watch out for that Tree!

A few weeks ago during a bad windstorm, the Norwegian Maple in our front yard decided to let go of some branches. The results are below.

Ironically just a few weeks before this "free" cord of wood appeared in our yard, we had an arborist perform a survey of the trees on our property. The maple in question has given us concern due to its multiple dead and dying branches. And as expected, the arborist said that tree was past its typical lifespan of 50 years. He said we would continue to find dead limbs until in our yard and that in a few years (5-10?), it would have to be completely removed.

Interestingly, he also said that we shouldn't have any catastrophic branch failures and that he didn't see a problem with us parking beneath the tree. Well! Lucky for us, I had not yet used all of our mulch (see the first photo) and the remaining pile served to prop one of the branches up so as only to impose a minor dent on the hood of our car.

When another major storm blew in this past weekend (more on that later), I expected the entire tree to come down. Instead, just a few "minor" branches fell, even though damage within the 1/2 mile surrounding our house was extensive. My dad, who was here over the weekend, left me his pole saw so that I could remove more of the weaker limbs closer in to our house.

The entire episode has left us wondering what tree to replace the maple with. We love the privacy and shade it provides and would be loathe to cut it down until we have some replacement started. Currently we're considering one of the newer American Elm cultivars, known for both rapid growth and resistance to Dutch Elm Disease. Our plan (and hopefully our maple will go along with it), is to allow the Elm to grow up over a few years while we slowly take the maple down. Oh, and we're not planning to park under the tree any more either!

Progress: Mar & Apr 2010

New modernist structure in the front yard or something else?

The last two months has seen some good progress at the house, notwithstanding the lack of posts to this blog. Much of late February / early March was spent cleaning up all the construction debris strewn around the yard as it appeared from under the freakish 70" of snow that covered the ground this winter. I'm still awaiting a bill for the haul away (which will tell me the tonnage we discarded), however I filled most of a 21 cubic yard container with demo material from our side room, cottage, and siding. It pained me to create so much rubbish; but we donated as many good doors, sinks, and windows as we could to the Habitat Store.


The other big area of improvement for April has been the front porch. Easter weekend, when the concrete slab in the side room wasn't quite ready to be painted, we decided to paint the brick at the front of the house. We had always intended to paint the brick, Emili just bumped it up on the list when we couldn't paint the side room (due to drying time of the concrete). Within a few hours, the house looked transformed (again); from two colors and two materials to a single color. Now we just have to paint the brick on the other three sides!

Newly painted brick at the front of the house.

The other major undertaking at the front porch area was painting the porch itself. The contractors finished the front porch area just before we received our first 24" storm of the season in December. After the storm, it didn't get out of 30 degrees for two months making painting impossible. When the weather finally warmed, some of the floor boards, especially at the perimeter of the porch, had "cupped" a bit. As part of the final punchlist (which was finished last week!), the contractor belt-sanded the front before we painted it.

View of the sanded deck, prior to painting, 

from within the enclosed porch.

Another view of the porch with plastic around it, 

intended to keep the pollen off it while we painted. 

Once the sanding was done, we stapled plastic around the outside in order to keep pollen and leaves off the porch while we added 3 coats of paint. It was pretty fun to work inside of the plastic and we definitely saw a few people drive by slower than normal as if to ponder what the heck we were doing. This weekend brings good weather and goals of mulch, gardening, and possibly finishing the floor in the family room.

Finished floor on the porch.

Mulch pile. Hopefully I'll make some headway this weekend!

From the Archives: Ode to Los Angeles

A year ago last week Emili and I ended our seven year sojourn in Los Angeles and moved back to our historical roots on the East Coast. As I sat in a coffee shop in West LA last February, between beating rush-hour traffic out of downtown and waiting to arrive at my last construction site visit, I wrote the following in my journal:

The last three months have been incredibly hectic. Since taking the Structural Engineering Exam in late October I finally decided to return one last time to academia, selected a school, found a new job, gave notice at another. Today is my last day at that job--Structural Focus. As this day has approached I've often wondered whether we are making the right move. I love my job, my co-workers, Los Angeles... Right now Charlottesville feels very provincial by comparison.

In many ways I've learned most of my engineering skills--career related ones anyway--while at Structural Focus. I'm extremely thankful to have worked there these last 2-1/2 years. I'll truly miss the friendships I've formed with my coworkers. And I'll probably never find a work environment with the same mix of professionalism and freedom--relaxed professionalism--ever again. 

Beyond leaving my current job, moving out of Los Angeles is the end of an era. Shortly after getting married Emili and I moved to a city that was 2500 miles from our closest family members. We moved with many friends to a city that none of us knew. In our seven years here many of our friends have moved on, moved up, moved away, left the bonds of fellowship. Now is our time to move.

Last week while driving to Big Bear to go snowboarding with my coworkers we drove by the hotel where Emili and I spent our second anniversary, past two different campsites where we spent weekends with friends from kairos, past scores of burned acres from our first close up encounter with wildfires in 2003.

 I definitely miss having a mountain like Big Bear so close to home.

Emili and I had dinner recently with Amy Murphy and Michael Maltzan, a fantastic couple who have shaped our story  in so many ways... We also shared a few hours with Gary and Pam Hilliard, who took the daring step into homeownership in Southern California with us and who re-taught me the joy of trail running... We had a meal wtih Ben and Lauren Thompson--a couple we have grown up with individually and together for 12 years. And tomorrow we'll share our final meal on the West Coast with Kevin, Annie and their son Luke for his 2nd birthday. Our sons will say goodbye and probably never remember this best friendship they had for two years. 

 Photo from an annual Kings Canyon trek. This is at the 'summit' of Glen

Pass, 2008. Relatively close to Los Angeles, a bit further from Virginia.

So many times I've second guessed. Not completely, but deeply second guessed whether moving "home" is what will make us happy. Obviously no place will completely make us happy; our choice to move East is what we want for our family. We have wonderful friends who have already gone East before us and are hoping to reconnect with them. But its impossible to live somewhere this long and not put down roots. I assume we're going to feel uprooted and unstable for months to come...[] For now reality calls me back to my last site visit on this my last day of work--to look at the nearly completed construction of a house I started designing my first month at Structural Focus.

We've been in Virginia a year now. Roots are starting to grow. This second year will hopefully see the inauguration of annual traditions. And while Los Angeles and California now feel worlds away, on occasion there is a strong call to return and "Go West...", again.