The Draper Mile: A Blacksburg Tradition

Since we moved to Blacksburg last summer we've found no shortage of cool events. Last year, Ginger and I tried our feet (ha ha) at the Draper Mile. It's a one mile foot race that starts near our house and ends one excruciating mile later downtown at the Stepping Out Festival. We don't typically run in races that short because Ginger and I tend to favor longer distances where you can measure out your effort and enjoy the scenery of the woods (read: ultras). But, we like hanging out with friends and enjoying local traditions, so the Draper Mile has become a bit of a tradition. Last year was our introduction to the crazy race, and we had a a lot of fun. Ginger even placed in her Age Group last year. This year, she did even better!

Lois came into town for her now traditional Stepping Out Festival visit on Friday afternoon. It was great to see her and catch up before we headed downtown for the race. I left the house for a little warm up run around the neighborhood while Ginger and Lois parked the car downtown with some fresh clothes so we could enjoy the festival after the race. I met Ginger at the Start/Finish just before the race after she'd had a little warm up too.

The race was as painful as I expected it to be. My goal was to see how much time I could shave off from last year, and, hopefully, find my way onto the Age Group podium for a race. I lined up at the start and just took off running as fast I could. It was a little crazy with people getting their feet tangled up in front of me, but I managed to stay out of the chaos and work my way to the side of the road so I could have some room to maneuver. At just past the halfway point, I heard a volunteer calling out splits and I was somewhere around 2:40. My lungs were burning and my chest was really yelling at me: "What are you DOING?!!" it screamed while my legs protested. In true Jens Voigt fashion, I said, "Shut up, legs. Do what I tell you!" and pushed on with my face crinkled up in a mask of pain. I was, as the commentators on the Tour De France might say, unpacking my suitcase of courage all over the road. I was keeping my eye on Ryan, a quick guy from VT Ultra community, and just hoping to close the gap between us before I got the finish line.

I stopped my watch as I crossed the line at 5:16.

This was good for about 20 seconds faster than last year, and second in my Age Group. I'll take it.

Ginger's race (women's elite) went off about 5 minutes after my race did. So I had a couple of minutes to try to start catching my breath and then try to see her come across the finish line. I wasn't able to get to a good spot to see her finish, but I found her as she was walking away from the finish line after running an impressive 6:11!!!!
The girl is quick! Quick enough to be first in her AG. Yeah, she's awesome!

After catching up with Lois, Jordan, Kristen, Heather, and Ryan for a few minutes, Ginger and I did a little cool down jog before joining Lois for a slice of pizza from Benny's. So good!! If you haven't had some, don't sleep on it! Then we enjoyed an evening of walking around taking in the festival and catching up with Lois.

Saturday morning Ginger and I had a nice run on the Huck and then we went up to Floyd to see the Farmer's market and enjoy a little tourist time.

Sunday was another great day as we took Lois on one of our favorite hikes: The Cascades in Pembroke. I was so proud of Lois for making this tough hike look easy.

After the hike we went to the Palisades for brunch. If you haven't eaten brunch there, you'll want to remedy that ASAP. IT. IS. AMAZING. Naps were in order after brunch before we had a great dinner with Jordan and Kristen.

It was a great weekend. It's always nice to have family in town and hang out with friends. 

Catching up: New River Trail 50 Mile Meeting of the Bad Idea Club

A few weeks ago the boys and I decided it was time to act on a bad idea that Brett floated last winter when we were getting ready for Umstead 100: Running the length of the New River Trail all at once. He figured it would be a good way to knock out a 50 mile training run. We couldn't get it together prior to Umstead, so it kept floating around in the background. Royce has been wanting to make the jump to running 100s, so we decided an all night training run was something that he needed to get under his belt. This created a perfect mix of ingredients for a great bad idea. With nothing pressing on anyone's calendar this summer, we've all been itching for a little adventure. Jordan was all recovered from San Diego 100, Royce has been killing it mileage-wise lately, Brett has been wanting to get out for a good long run, and Chris has fully invested himself in the world of bad ideas after the Eastern Divide 50K and Sundown 5K nonsense we did back in June, and I'm always up good time on the trail with friends. So, we decided to set a date and make it happen. Friday July 17th seemed like as good a time as any.

The boys assembled at our house on Friday after work, and Ginger saw us off as we loaded up the cars around 6 p.m.

First, we drove down to Pulaski to drop off a car at the Northern Trailhead, then we headed on down to Galax to get started.

Our journey began at 8:23 Friday night. It gave us a little time to get rolling before we had to break out the headlamps. The temperature at the trailhead was 86 degrees. We all thought it would cool off over night. But we were sooooooo wrong. It seemed like it only got hotter as the night went on.

The miles ticked off as the sun went down, and we jogged along having a good time. Somewhere around mile 2 someone said, "48 bottles of beer on the wall" in the sing songy tone of the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. We all had a good laugh and hoped someone would remember to bring that back at mile 49. We didn't. But we did have a lot of fun suffering our way through a lot of chaffing and what felt like a night of running uphill on a course we figured would be flat or totally down hill since we were following the New River downstream (It flows south to North). The lesson there: 50 miles is 50 miles and it's going to hurt no matter how "easy" you think the course is going to be.

I had the worst chaffing I've ever had on a run in my life. The heat caused me to feel pretty ill for a couple of miles and I even considered dropping out at one point. But, Jordan, Chris, and Royce all made sure I knew that dropping wasn't really an option. I also thought a lot about Travis Macey's book and the idea that no matter what happens: It's all good mental training. I vividly remember thinking: Would you drop at Leadville or Western States if you were chaffing? The answer is certainly not. So, I pushed on and decided it was a good lesson in pushing through the discomfort that you encounter when doing something that is difficult.

The sunrise was worth every bit of discomfort that I was feeling:

It was a wonderful sight to see the sun peaking above the horizon as we made our way to Pulaski in the early morning hours. We arrived at the northern trailhead in Pulaski happy to be back at the car and ready for breakfast. With 9:23 of moving time and 10:23 of total time since we left the trailhead in Galax, we all felt good about our effort. Here's the link to our Strava data if you're interested:
https://www.strava.com/activities/348818123


We were hoping to eat breakfast at the Draper Mercantile store on Saturday morning, but we finished too early. I won't complain about that. We decided to hit the IHOP in Dublin since it was open. They had a buffet. We dominated that buffet and amused our waitress and all the patrons as we shuffled into the restaurant looking like we'd been on a bender. I was walking with a hilarious gait because my legs were so chaffed (should have worn compression shorts), and I'm sure I was a sight to behold.

We couldn't find anyone's data on having completed the trail before, so we are thinking we have the FKT for the New River Trail from Galax to Pulaski at 10 hours and 23 minutes. Of course, someone else may have done this and not published the data. We weren't trying to go fast, and I'm certain someone will run it faster as soon as they have the idea to go knock it out. Plus, Jordan could have easily bolted off and finished hours before we all finished together. The FKT thing is just a funny side-note here, not the goal or the plan. Our goal was to have a fun 50 miles of communing on the trail with good friends. We accomplished that for sure.

My final thoughts on the adventure:
1. Running with friends for long distances in the woods is always worth it.The stories you have to share afterwards are always worth the price of admission.
2. If you're going out to run 50 miles, don't forget to plan for chaffing.
3. The New River Trail doesn't offer much in the way of water resupply. Plan for that.
4. I'm pretty happy with my fitness level. My legs weren't sore afterwards, and I'm pretty happy about that.
5. Big ups to Chris for running 50 miles for the first time in his running career.
6. Bad ideas are the best ideas. I'm looking forward to the next one already.