Soapstone Mountain 24K

Stafford, CT

Sunday, May 16, 2021

The waiting.  This was one of several races this year in which I registered after capacity was reached and I entered the waiting list.  This is a once in a lifetime (hopefully!) phenomena this year of so many races initially sold out and then reopening with much larger capacity, all due to gradual easing of COVID-19 restrictions.  The same happened with our own Clamdigger race, with an initial limit of 100 runners, and then increased to 175.  Several weeks after registering for Soapstone, I indeed received an e-mail that I was in.

The drive.  Driving the 100-minutes to Soapstone was one of those "you can't get there from here experiences".  Following the GPS instructions blindly, I changed highways sometimes every few minutes, and went through unfamiliar towns like Ellington and Willington and Stafford.  Is this still Connecticut?  Alas, we pull into the Reddington Rock Riding Club in Stafford Springs, the staging area for today's race.

Plenty of parking in the fields at the riding club

Line up.  I arrived about 45 minutes early, and after the usual milling about and catching up with the few faces I recognized, I headed to the starting line.  Since it was announced that the race would be cupless due to COVID, and it was fairly warm today, I opted for a hydration pack, as did most others.  Today would feature a staggered start with four runners every ten seconds.  It's been fourteen months since I ran in a mass start race, and I just come to expect and am very familiar and comfortable with staggered starts.  I much prefer them to rolling starts.  There is a young 30ish looking guy in blue standing near the start line and then a big gap before the next clumps of runners behind him.  I'm not looking to run in the first wave but I'm not going way back in the pack either.  Kind of awkward.  Just before the start, Adrian Massie comes up to the start, and another fit looking guy maybe in his 30s.  I guess this will be our group of four.

And here's the start/finish line

And go.  Our merry group of four were off.  I never got anyone's name, and only recognized Adrian.  (There were others further back that I knew as well, including Steve S, Bill B and Sharon, and Faith.)  I followed the three across the fields (above pic), onto a short trail spur, and then we were on a dirt road for almost a mile with a net downhill.  This would be a long race, so I let the other three go.  My first mile was a 6:40 pace, and nothing else would come close for the rest of the race.

Leaving the field and onto single-track;
well marked.  (taken during warmup)

Some fun downed logs for jumping over!

After another mile, we were onto single-track.  I figured I would be in no man's land for a while, but that wasn't the case.  In the second mile, I caught up to the blue guy and stayed behind him on a 100' climb, and then on the downhill went past.  I figured he'd catch me again soon, but I never saw him again.

Smooth, easy, net downhill road in 1st mile
(again, taken during warmup)

In the third mile, a runner caught up to me going uphill.  Probably no surprise there, as I lack any uphill talent.  He went by me pretty easily, and as he did, I dropped to 4th place and lost my age group lead.  Fortunately, I was able to keep him in sight after we crossed an asphalt road and started the ascent on Killer Hill.  Oof!  Killer Hill lived up to its name.  It's only a quarter-mile long, but packs quite a wallop with a 27% average incline over the 300' climb.  

Making my way up Killer Hill.
(Photos purchased from J. Koteen Photography)

Technical and steep climb up Killer Hill,
keeping even with my competitor just ahead of me
(at least for the time being).

What goes up must go down.  And it was my turn now.  At the top, my competitor was in sight.  The next 1/4 mile featured a 20% decline with a 285' drop on a rough rock-strewn ankle twisting double-track.  I quickly caught and went past him.  This was followed by 100' climb, which he caught up to me but didn't pass me this time, followed by another 250' rough descent that I bombed down.  I was on the ragged edge of control when I stumbled, went completely off the trail into scrub bushes.  I was sensing a massive fall when I somehow recovered from my stumbling, bumbling mishap and was able to get back on trail, and continued bombing downhill with reckless abandon, of course.  I was happy to round a sharp corner, look back, and not see him at all.  I figured my only chance of beating him would be if we continued to have sharp downhill technical sections, but alas, it was not to be.  After a couple more miles, at about Mile 9, we had reached the lowest point on the course near the southern turnaround, the course turned gradually uphill, and he caught and passed me for the final time.

Turning and heading back towards the finish, another 200' climb just about does me in.  I'm getting pretty tired now.  Kind of like how I felt after climbing out of Rodman Hollow at Shad Bloom, except that at that race I only had one mile that I had to keep it going for.  Now I'm at Mile 10, with another 5 miles to go.  I just want the race to be over.  But in Mile 12, I make a big mistake.  Running on another double-track section here, I notice I haven't seen any of the familiar markers in a little while now.  I am in a no-man's zone, and stopping completely, can see no one ahead of me and no one behind me.  I turn around and run back, finding that I missed both a sharp turn onto single-track, and also a subsequent sign telling me wrong way.  I've lost time and added about a quarter of a mile.  I'm done.  I've had it.  Fortunately for me, there is no simple way to just go to an aid station and DNF as I'm way out in the woods.  

Mile 13.  One of the flatter sections of the course, but I'm mentally and physically checked out now.  One guy comes up on me and just blows past me like I'm standing still.  Very shortly after, another guy comes up on me, passes me, and then crashes pretty bad and is lying off the trail in rocks.  I ask him if he's OK, and he said, yes, just keep going.  OK.  A few minutes later, he catches up to me again, and I'm not making this stuff up, but he falls and crashes again!  He looks tired, but the third time catching up to me is the charm and he goes past and is gone.

Late in the race.  I look much better than I actually feel.

Mile 14.  The "flat" section finally ends.  A 300' climb this time.  Ugh.  I won't couch it as a "power hike" because it wasn't.  It was a walk, a slow walk, an "I don't care who passes me" walk.  The hill climb continues into Mile 15, and even with a subsequent downhill, this is by far my slowest mile split at 12:27.  Some of the downhill is even paved now, and this should be gravy for me, but I am just so beat.  An old guy comes up and goes past me easily on the downhill road.  This guy is so old that he's older than me.  I have no response.  I am fully expecting that at any moment now, grandmothers pushing strollers will be passing me.  Finally, I see the final turn off onto single-track and I know we're close now.  The log pic above was no longer fun to jump over; in fact, it was an effort to get over it at all without falling!  I "ran" into the field and across the finish line.  I held off the stroller-pushing grandmothers!

Final results:  2:28:29.  7th overall.  4th in 50s age group.  Pretty embarrassing.  Full results here.

I caught up with Adrian post-race.  It turns out he made the same off-course turn that I did.  I spoke briefly with the guy who passed me late in the race, but only after falling twice right near me.  It turns out he fell one more time on the way to the finish, for a total of five falls overall.  Ouch.

The one nice advantage of wearing my hydration pack was that I had very cold and refreshing ice water available to me on demand through the entire race, and I never had to stop once at an aid station.

Overall, not one of my better races by any stretch.  I was tired and got progressively slower.  I can blame the weather (76° at finish), my medical time off, ya da ya da, but the reality is I just wasn't physically trained and prepared for this one.  Onward.