Pacer's Perspective - G.U.T.S. Reactor Run 100, Dawsonville, GA

G.U.T.S. Reactor Run 100 (GRR100) Inaugural Year (GUTS=Georgia Ultrarunning & Trail Society)

Below: Dawson Forest in Northern Georgia

1)      GRR Tool Kit – What you’ll need…

Some people are tough and some are strong. Some people are both. This year, at the GRR100, I would wager that you had to be MORE than tough & strong; you had to be HARD to get it done in the inaugural year for the event.

2)      The Event & the Course…

The event is held near Dawsonville, GA in the appropriately named Dawson Forest, which is in the mountains of northern part of the state. A unique characteristic of the course is that it rests in a former nuclear reactor test area, complete with flooded underground parking garages and all sorts of interesting history associated with nuclear reactor testing (in an open environment!). Kind of creepy, really. The options for race distances were 100 miles, 50 miles & 50k. The course is a trail consisting of two separate loops that return to the start finish area. The 1^st loop is approximately 13 miles and the second, once you’ve returned to the start finish, is about a 7 mile loop. 5 times around these loops in their proper order nets a runner 101 miles. It’s not an extremely hilly course, but each loop had a “pretty good pop” of a hill or two that would challenge any granite legged mountain runner, but the course (in the best of conditions) is largely “run-able”. For those who are reading and don’t run ultras, yes: 101 miles is a long way. Couple that with the fact that you’re running in the woods overnight and you quickly realize you have your work cut out for you. All distances start at 6:30am Saturday and there’s a 30 hour cut-off time for the 100 miler, which means you have to cover the 101 miles by 12:30pm Sunday.

Below: The start/finish area for all GRR events

3)      The Players… 

Florida Ultrarunner’s Group (affectionately known as FURs) is a group I joined upon moving to Tampa in late October of 2010. It’s a diverse group of people and a fun loving bunch. They log tons of miles on the trails of Florida and the experience of the group is deep. Many of these runners have completed multiple 100’s, and many of those 100’s being the “BIG SHOWS” like Western States, Leadville, and the like.

The first FUR I ever met was Andrea Risi. It turns out that Andrea lives down the street from me in the same neighborhood where Lauren and I built our home near Tampa. By “happenstance” I connected with Andrea through the FUR Yahoo! email group and joined her for a run or two in the last few months. I also had the pleasure of meeting the other FURs in attendance at some point or another on these runs, but a few of them for the first time the day before the GRR100 at packet pickup. Andrea didn’t really know me all that well, but asked me to join her as a pacer for 40 miles of her 100 mile effort. Really??? What makes you think I’m qualified??? Alas, I’m a sucker to help a fellow runner and Andrea is a nice person. She’s a tiny thing, 5’4”-ish? I’m not even sure she’s 100lbs soaking wet, which would turn out to be relevant way to consider the “tale of the tape” weigh-in given the ominous weather forecast for GRR100.

More FURs: Andy Barrett (a.k.a. “A2”) was running the 100 and planned to run the 1^st 60 with Andrea, then “gas it” with intentions of a sub-22 hour finish for himself. John Wood (a.k.a. Woody) with crew being his lovely wife, Trudi, would be gunning for the 50 miler. Andrea’s friend and fellow FUR, Ilene was biting off her 1^st 50 miler. Patrick was planning on running the 50k, then diving back in later to pace A2 to the finish of his100. June & Jerry would have their hand at 50 miles as well.

Below: FURs (from left to right) Andy (a.k.a. "A2"), Woody, Andrea, Patrick, Ilene & June

4)      Base Camp – Warning: NO LIFEGAURD ON DUTY

Patrick supplied a VERY nice RV that would serve as our start/finish line headquarters. This isn’t a rolling shack; it’s a practical palace complete with two flat screen televisions, an audio system, kitchen…you get the idea. We wouldn’t be “roughing” it during any pit stops thanks to the diesel powered generator that would keep the heat going in the RV and allow for people to change warm/dry clothes in comfort. The weather had been forecasted to rain, and rain, and rain, and RAIN. I’ll be damned if the weather forecasters actually got one right for a change. I had been bragging to the group (prior to coming to Georgia for this race) that I had the BEST of weather luck when it came to ultras. OOOOoooops. The odds finally caught up with me at my FUR friend’s expense. But in fairness to myself, I wasn’t entered as a race participant – I was there to pace, so I figure it doesn’t count against my “good race weather luck” total? As the RV was set and the race start was approaching quickly, the rain came and it had no intentions of stopping for the duration of the event. It wasn’t warm either, and the overnight temperatures would prove to be dangerous for some runners if they weren’t able to keep up their pace and thus, their body temperature. For those of you that have spent any time in Georgia and are familiar with red clay – it doesn’t make for a ‘pleasant’ running experience for 101 miles when it’s rained on for 25 consecutive hours. Nor is it fun for 50k or 50 miles, for that matter. That clay mud will sap the life out of anyone’s legs.

Below: Andy & Andrea, preparing for the start in the plush RV - last time I'd see them dry for a couple of days!

5)      7-Mile Island, trails & trials…

After about 3 hours the runners start making their way through the various loops and back around to the start finish. Had it not been for the fact that I was certain I was at an ultra I would have sworn I was in a war zone. People kept emerging from the woods caked in mud and enduring rain that was utterly relentless. Worse yet, as the red clay coated your shoes the standing water (EVERYWHERE on the course) and the torrential showers would soak the finer silt through the runners shoes, ultimately settling on the top of the runner’s insoles (under their feet). It would pack up and feel like you had a stack of two or three quarters glued together and stuck underneath your toes, forefoot or heal. There was really no avoiding it and offered one of many good explanations as to why so many runners were limping around and (worse yet) dropping like flies from the race. Goretex wasn’t really going to help you here and gaiters can only do so much. With rain and muck soaked feet for 10+ hours in, it was turning out to be more than most runners cared to tackle. This was wreaking havoc any hopes for these runners to PR at any distance. The G.U.T.S. race officials & volunteers were merciless and began hanging dropped runner’s bibs around the start finish area tent. It was tagged “The Wall of Shame”, and of course that was meant all in good fun. With first hand experience in what they were dealing with I can honestly say it was going to take lot for anyone to race or pace this thing on this day.

Below: Muddy would have been an understatement

Below: The early beginnings of the GRR WALL OF SHAME

I hadn’t planned to dive in and pace until Andrea had 60 miles down, but since Andrea & A2 had fallen off pace by about 2 hours through 50 miles I decided to get off my duff and see what I could do to help. At mile 53 I joined A2 and Andrea in the (now dark) cold rain for the 7 mile “small loop” portion of the course. I tried to keep the three of us moving, but that mud would not let up on A2’s feet. Andrea wouldn’t let up on him either. She was chippy and hard on A2 (all in good fun, of course) to try to keep him motivated. A2 was coming to grips with the fact that he wasn’t planning on continuing after 60 miles, but didn’t want to concern Andrea and fill her head with thoughts of stopping. She was one of only a few women even left in the race and there weren’t many men left in it or ahead of her, either. A2 and I got ahead for brief moment while Andrea took a pit stop to discuss his decision to withdraw. I couldn’t change his mind and I couldn’t blame him for dropping once it was clear that he had settled on being finished as his final verdict.

So, as we completed that lap and A2 & Andrea clocked their 60^th mile we refueled and bid farewell to A2 and the others that had completed their 50k’s/50ms or DNF’d. It was a big decision for Andrea on whether she would go back out. I tried to lighten the mood by presenting Andrea with some glow-in-the dark bracelets I found at the local store for $1. I thought they fit perfectly with the nuclear test area theme and Andrea definitely needed a chuckle. Mission accomplished and $1 well spent!

Below: Glow Jewelry, fits the nuclear reactor theme just perfectly!

6)      How high is the water, Mama? Four Feet High & Risin…

After only 20 miles of this stuff I had to change my socks. Not that my feet would stay dry or clean, but the aforementioned mud had to be removed or I would become incapacitated and useless to Andrea. Of course, I tried not to EVER tip my hand on how crappy I felt, or how little I “enjoyed” being out in these conditions. Hey, that’s ultra running and when you sign up to help a friend you gotta realize they don’t need your negative energy dragging them down when it’s all they can do to stay in the damned race. Beginning this loop and the 80^th mile for Andrea had brought about at least two GREAT things: Andrea had passed the only other woman competitor still in the 100 mile race AND she was still running. Mentally she was fading FAST, but physically she didn’t seem tired and when I pushed her to run she never flinched – she just ran. I could hardly believe it because these conditions didn’t lend themselves to running at all, and it was so late in the race. Nevertheless, it kept getting colder, the rain kept coming, and the wind was picking up something fierce. We’re both getting tried by this time (wee hours of the morning) and having a little difficulty navigating one of the sections of the loop that has a lot of turns on it. I just did my best to keep us on track, as did Andrea, as I didn’t want to put any more stress on her than she already had piling up on her by getting ourselves lost.

We reached mile 85-ish and a high, exposed, and extremely windy ridge. This is where things really started to get ugly. I mean, c’mon, SIDEWAYS rain, 38 degrees and 30-40 MPH wind? Yeah, that was FUN. What more could be thrown at these racers? Unfortunately, this was a particularly low point for both Andrea and I and I was really questioning whether continuing would be an option because we couldn’t move quickly enough to keep body temperature up in that maelstrom. We finally reached Aid-Station two, which at this point meant Andrea had covered about 88 miles. The aid-station workers wanted to make sure we were OK because a couple of other runners had just been pulled from the race due to hypothermia setting in on them. SHIT – it made me wonder whether they were going that route with us, too. However, these were VERY good aid station workers.

This aid-station was a tempting place to drop because you could “short-cut” back to the start finish (and the PLUSH RV) for 2.5 miles, or you could stay on course and in the race to get back to the start/finish in about 5.9 miles. The savvy AS workers explained to Andreas that “it’s really more like 3 miles to take the short cut and more like 5.5 miles to stay on course, not that big a difference”. I used that opportunity to VERY KINDLY explain to Andrea ;-) that it was my job to keep her in the race if I thought she was safe. In my opinion, she was. I also explained that you DON’T MAKE A DECISION TO DROP if you can still run and you’re still on the course. She was going to have to run back to the start/finish either way, the question was whether it was going to be a 2.5 mile route that would DQ her, or the 5.9 mile route that would allow her a chance to evaluate whether to continue with the last 7 miles of the race once back to the start/finish.

Andrea stepped up BIG TIME, donned a large black garbage bag to help shield her from some of the fierce wind & rain, and we took off. She was running like a rocket out of this aid station – what a STUD! Better yet, the sun was starting to rise and we ‘enjoyed’ the views of some absolutely gorgeous forests as we made our way down course. About 2 miles from the start/finish, Andrea had a complete mental breakdown. Yes, crying was involved, but again, she wasn’t physically defeated – but mentally she was really questioning her sanity. She had convinced herself that it would never stop raining for the rest of her life. Silly I know, but when you’re in that black hole of 25 hours of running in the dark & cold rain, these are the mental hurdles you’re presented with. I just reminded her that she was 20 minutes or less from the opportunity to refresh her gear at the start/finish, then we could pick off the last measly 7 miles. I started relaying the math on how much time we had to finish – she was WAY ahead of the cut – but you gotta be in it, to win it!

As we arrived back at the start finish the look of SHOCK and empathy on the faces of the FUR crew was palpable. It’s still a lucid memory in my mind and I was 110% convinced that Andrea wouldn’t continue. Wrong again. After Andrea got herself together, Trudi & Ilene ripped through a clothing change on Andrea like a professional pit crew changes tires and tops off fuel at Daytona! AMAZING. Andrea shot me a wry glance and said “all right, let’s GO!”. I couldn’t only respond one way, “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, RISI!!!!”. I was pumped!!! This was her race to win if she could just hold it together for 7 more miles.

Not only did Andrea hold it together for those 7 miles, but the skies broke open and the sun shined on us! No shit, only on this last 7 mile loop did the rain stop and the clouds break. It was like heaven compared to what she’d been dealing with for the previous 27 hours. Andrea even passed two more men on the way in, which was awesome. Shortly after passing the last person before the finished she needed a pit stop. Andrea told me she needed a quick break, but that she wasn’t stopping because she wanted to chick that guy she just passed – hilarious! Her mood was good now and we knew we were cruising to the women’s title! I assured her that as well as she was running there was NO WAY anyone was catching her – she was still laying down solid miles, this was no death march to the finish. She’s a BEAST!

7)      300yds & beyond

Woody & Trudi surprised us by waiting near a turn in the last mile to the finish to cheer Andrea on – what and awesome show of support! It really picked us up, thanks guys. A2 & Patrick were also at the top of the very last, EXTRA MUDDY hill that is only about 300 yds from the finish. They were there to run it in with us – so awesome! To Andrea’s and my surprise, there was a huge crowd gathered around the finish line. Word had gotten out that Andrea was the ONLY woman still on the course, that she would finish well under cut off, and take the women’s title – establishing the women’s course record. I peeled off to let her finish in the crowd about 30yds from the finish – I wanted to enjoy cheering her in as well!

Andrea finished in 29:01:47, First Female – BOOM!

Andrea: You are really something you HARD MF’er! I learn lessons from running and the folks associated with it all the time. You taught me what it means to stick it out, suck it up (even in the LOWEST of moments) and fight to the finish – no matter what it takes. You also proved that the last 7 miles doesn’t “have” to suck, even if every single step of the previous 94 miles did :-) Great job, my hat is off to you, and you are THE woman! It was a pleasure and an honor to be part of the experience with you and the other FURs.

Below: Andrea brings home ALL of the hardware!

Below: Andrea and I at the fninsh - BIG things come in small packages!