Wakely
2007 - ADK Mirages, or, the
View From the Back of the Pack
Having missed the 2005 Wakely
event with a pulled plantar fascia, I was not inclined to skip another,
so when pulled glutes became the limiting injury of this season, I
learned to run “around” them. Trails
and mountains were fine. Roads
not. Then an overdose of AC
lead to a 4-week bout with pneumonia just before the big event.
Not the taper I wanted. Desperate
for a little training, I ran Ascutney and Indian Ladder the weekend
before Wakely.
With residual cough, I pitched
my tent in the rain at Wakely Dam. Limped
a mile up the road to review the finish of the race.
Limped back. Not a
good sign. Rational choice
would have been withdrawal. But
then, is anyone who runs this race rational?
The semi-rational runners seem to appear magically at the start,
refreshed with a real night’s sleep. Crescent moon flirted with clouds
as I crawled into a damp tent, the water-proof floor of which had long
ago become water-permeable.
Boarded bus as sky hinted at
dawn. Good sign.
It would be a clear day. Not
a biblical deluge like the great flood of 2006.
At the starting rendezvous,
spoke to a runner with a large pod-like device on the laces of his right
shoe. A pedometer. It was a streamlined plastic cylinder, about 1 x 3
inches, with no visible attachment.
Perhaps it was hooked to the laces on its underside.
The fact that the fastening was not evident showed that it was
minimal. Clearly it could
not survive the course. Clearly
its owner did not know what lay ahead.
I should have warned him.
As usual, the pace was fast to
the first (S) Spruce Lake lean-to, about 9.6 miles out.
Easy trail and ideal conditions. I slowed down, trying to save
something for the end. But
this seems to be the wrong strategy for tortoises.
The infamous “grassy road” before the finish is endless no
matter what. The first 9.6
miles offer the only real chance to make good time.
Rich smelled bacon.
A reality from the canoe campers at the lean-to?
A wishful mirage?
Trail is almost overgrown
shortly thereafter. Seems it
would vanish in the absence of this race.
It is certainly not an overused resource.
Trail between 9.6 miles and the caretaker’s clearing (half-way)
is the inherently slowest part of the course. It
cost 15 minutes more than ~ 4 mph I’d planned for an 8 hr completion.
The half-log “puncheons” are
always treacherous when wet, and now they had been well lubricated by
the passage of 100 soaked shoes. Slow
to a judicious walk for all of them.
Water can be problematic between
Sampson Bog and a stream about 8.5 miles from the finish.
One should plan carefully, or not pass good water without
refilling. The trail
description mentions a spring 0.2 miles beyond the first (N) Cedar Lake
lean-to. Rich and I spent
long, cold and precious minutes collecting slow drips in a cramped
“cave” beneath the land-mark birch tree. This was definitely not a
two-man cave, so I waited as Rich collected a few swallows. My harvest
was insufficient to wash down the scheduled gel, so I courted
hypoglycemia and ran on.
Rich spoke of desert oases. I thought I remembered a functional
spring under a birch tree, but that mental image must have been from
another trail, another time, another place. I needed that gel. This
spring is a mirage. Make
other plans.
At about 8.8 miles from the
finish, a good-humored ranger was stationed. I report the following
because it was doubtless born of boredom, long after the front runners
had passed. His advance notes promised “free hugs & kisses
ahead.” We looked in vain
for his female associate. A
subsequent sign indicated there was none; it was all a threat to urge us
on. Another Wakely mirage.
The trail improves past this
point. Fresh sawdust and the
bright butts of logs showed that DEC had been hard at work removing
recent blow-downs. All of it
was done by hand (small chips indicated a bow saw), because chain saws
are not permitted in the wilderness.
At
Carry Lean-to, about 4.4 miles from finish, the infamous endless
“grassy road” began and my glutes quit.
The repetitive motion of road-running always reactivates my
injuries. Say, RD, how about
an alternative finish? -
kayak or canoe to by-pass the endless road.
If you do not see me in 2008, it will be because I have decided
to try Escarpment, NO ROAD! Wish
I could do both races.
Two members of the public spoke
to me just before and after the finish.
Both were curious and supportive.
No sign of a PR problem that I could see.
But then, who am I to say what can be seen and what cannot?
Mirages toy with the brain in these mountains, and hypoglycemia
takes its toll. Perhaps the
entire day was a mirage. For
after all, would any rational person attempt to run the NLP trail?
