Love, Virginia - Gabriel was committed. As a storm front moved over the eastern range, Gabriel still wanted to race. The Bel Monte Endurance Races had a pretty solid reputation, especially with RD'ers Gill and Francesca. He wanted to pay homage to those that give so much and to trails that were renowned for their technical nature.
Case in point, on a course with less trail and more road, the winning times from last year's events were 2:57 for the 25K, 5:08 for 50K, and 8:08 for the 50M. Terribly "slow" times, relative, to most trails. So there had to be a caveat: was there too much climbing, too many rocks, horrible conditions? Gabriel had to find out.
And so, he drove out Friday evening, after a stressful Monday in Boston and two late nights in Denver on business, to Staunton, VA, to crash asleep, awake early, and finish off the drive to the Sherando Lake area.
The storms brought rain and tornados, but he hoped it wasn't enough rain to wash out the trails and make it miserable. However, the storm also brought a cold front, and plans of running in his new undercover prototype singlet would be put on hold. Rather, he opted for his Under Armour HeatGear Flyweight Run Shortsleeve in Graphite/Parrot paired with the UA HG Flyweight Run Short, gloves, a beanie, and two GUs. It was cold (43-degrees), but it would warm up quickly.
The race started at dawn and due to a late bathroom break, Gabriel basically took the field in the wrong direction in the first 100 meters. Pretty hillarious he didn't pay attention to the course briefing. Immediately he was in the lead for 2 miles of downhill road running, chatted a bit with the RunBum, who was undecided on which race he should run (strange), and then kept pressing at 6:20/mile pace. He entered the trail in the lead.
Within a mile, the RunBum worked up to Gabriel's shoulder at the river crossing, which was raging and caused Gabriel to stop and consider how to cross. They opted to just go for it, get wet almost waist deep and keep going on a series of uphill switchbacks. All the while, Gabriel was noting that he could out-climb the RunBum, but the RunBum was strong on descents and flat trail. This would be an interesting, and painful, race.
After summiting Bald Mountain, Gabriel was still in amazement of the amount of climbing he had already done (3,741ft total), which was good and bad: good, because he had a lead, bad because the RunBum could catch him on the return home if he didn't build a big enough cushion. Bittersweetly, at the Camp Marty aid station, Gabriel was sent down the "seven switchbacks" although his Garmin already read over 7.5 miles. The Seven Switchbacks ended up being over 1.5 miles of nasty descent that would bottom-out at a waterfall and he would have to turn around and retrace his steps, back up the 15% avg. grade for 1.5 miles all uphill. It was mentally and physically devastating.
Crossing paths with the RunBum, Gabriel noted he had about a 1-min (in reality 2 min) cushion. Not good. That was not enough. Oh well, this was a massive climb, so he dug in his forefoot and got to work, getting into rhythm. His thighs were screaming, as were his calves. Hitting the summit, he got back to the fire road, back down Balt Mtn, battling the on-coming traffic (hating out and back courses) and fighting the fatigue in his quads. His legs were definitely going to a place of fatigue they had never been. He finally found some good running and kept pressing, paranoid of getting away.
And then he started thinking about the final 2 mile climb back to the finish. Imagine having two miles of Mt. Washington to climb after running 14 miles hard! But before that, he had to climb out of the raging river basin to the road, which took him to depletion. Gabriel hit the road and he was unable to run for more than 2-3 min on the 8-12% climb. His left leg was just locking up and he was slamming with every step. This was a muscular bonk. He tried to figure it out and finally just decided to power it and ran 6:45-6:50/mile to finish, absolutely destroyed. It was a well-earned victory, but man, that was not fun.
