I flew to DC on Thursday morning nervous about three things: the hills, how I'd handle myself once I got tired, and whether I'd prepared enough. I wrote them down on the plane so I couldn't revise them later.

Two of the three turned out fine. The third turned out to be the wrong question.

Thursday afternoon was quiet on purpose. A hotel near the airport, nowhere to be, nobody needing anything from me. I sat, didn't move much, and let the week drain out. With three kids and a full-time job back home, afternoons with nothing on the calendar don't come around often. I didn't waste it.

Dinner was a mild chicken fried rice from a Thai place down the street, plus a side of plain jasmine rice, because the day before the day before a race is not the time to get adventurous. Over 500 grams of carbs for the day.

Friday morning I met up with Zach and his friend, both running the 100k, and we drove two and a half hours west into the valley. Somewhere on that drive the terrain stopped looking like anything I train on. I said out loud that we were definitely out in some hills. It was not a confident observation.

Packet pickup at one, lunch in Staunton, then an Airbnb closer to the start. Pasta with red sauce and grilled chicken for dinner. Bed by 8:30. Slept the way you sleep the night before a race, which is to say not well, but not badly enough to matter.

Alarm at four. Coffee, a bagel with jelly, a banana. We left at five so I could get Zach and his friend to their 6 a.m. start. I watched them go through the first mile, then had an hour to myself: bathroom, no line, nothing to do.

That hour was the best logistical accident of the weekend. Most people spend the pre-race hour in a parking lot, alone with their nerves. I'd spent mine getting my friends to their start, which left a lot less room to think about my own.

We went off at 7:02.

The plan was nine-minute pace through the opening paved section. I did that. My right calf was tight from the first stride, which occupied more of my attention than it deserved, and which turned out to be entirely irrelevant.

Gel every thirty minutes. Salt capsule every hour. One bottle of Tailwind, and one of water. Through Lick Run 1 aid station at 5.7 miles, stopped, peed, refilled, kept moving.

I hit the first real incline somewhere after and heard a guy near me say it was around a thirty percent grade. I have no idea if that's true, but it certainly felt like it.

I arrived at the Wolf Ridge aid station at 11.6 miles in one hour fifty-eight minutes. I felt good. I was, at that point, in exactly the race I'd planned.

After Wolf Ridge it goes up for about five and a half miles and 2,100 feet.

I found a guy who I thought said he was from Peru, and I got in behind him and stayed there. His method was simple and correct: run the flats, run the gentle downs, walk everything that went up. I did what he did for the better part of an hour and a half.

I had it in my head that we'd top out around mile sixteen, seventeen at worst. It was more like eighteen. Those extra miles of climbing, past where I'd told myself it would end, were some of the worst of the day.

There was no view. The course stays under the tree line, so even on the ridges you're in thick woods. You could tell you were high up. You just couldn't see out. You climb for five and a half miles and the reward is that the climbing stops.

I'd spent the entire build worried about my calves.

It was my quads, and they went on the descent.

Coming down off the ridge my legs were on fire in a way I have never experienced on a road. I got in behind an older guy who was moving well and let him pull me down, but that was damage control, not running. By the time I reached Sand Spring the eccentric load had done what it was going to do, and every gradual uphill from there was a walk, because I didn't have the quads left to run them.

The stretch from Wolf Ridge to Lick Run 2 is where the race actually was. Sixteen and a half miles, including the big climb, the descent, and an aid station stop, and it took me almost four hours. Uphill, walk and hike. Flat or downhill, shuffle. Easier said than done.

By Lick Run 2 I was finished with gels. Couldn't look at them. What got me home was watermelon dipped in salt, peanut butter filled pretzels, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a bottle full of ice. Everyone plans a gel strategy. Almost nobody finishes on one.

The final 4.4 miles are on pavement, which felt like a gift. I ran, hit a wall, walked a little, ran again. It felt like a grind. It felt like the slowest part of the day.

It wasn't.

Those last 4.4 miles came in at 41:19, about a 9:22 pace. That's within half a minute per mile of the nine-minute pace I opened with on fresh legs, after 28 miles and nearly 5,000 feet of climbing. My heart rate over that section was among the highest of the day. I was not fading. I was closing, and I couldn't tell the difference from the inside.

Inside the last mile I found another gear. Crossing the line there's a flood of emotion I have never been able to describe properly and am not going to try to here.

6:29:20. Ninetieth overall. Seventh in the 45 to 49s.

Average heart rate for the day: 132. Max: 159.

The race said 32.4 miles. My watch logged 33.5. Trail GPS under tree cover is famously generous, so I'm not claiming the extra mile. I'm not giving it back either.

I never went anaerobic. Not on the thirty percent wall, not on the five-mile climb, not closing on the road. Thirty-three and a half miles and five thousand feet of climbing, and my engine idled the whole way.

Which answers the question I wrote down on the plane, just not the way I expected. Did I prepare enough? Aerobically, yes. Completely. The Zone 2 work did exactly what it's supposed to do, and my fueling held for six and a half hours, and my feet, after months of chasing a forefoot hotspot, never blistered once in the Peregrines.

I prepared every system except the one that broke.

You cannot train downhill running on a treadmill in Ohio. I knew that in the abstract. I know it differently now.

Train the descents. Whatever that requires. Parking garages, highway overpasses, repeat trips to anywhere with actual grade. The climbing was hard and I handled it. The descending was what ended my ability to run.

Carry more real food earlier. The gels were done by mile 28 and I should have planned for that instead of discovering it.

Otherwise, not much. The pacing was right, the aid station discipline was right (thirteen and a half minutes stopped across four stops), the shoes were right.

Not the time. Not the age group place.

I hit walls and I stayed pleasant. I walked when I had to walk, talked to people on the trail, and kept a smile on for most of it. On the plane I'd been worried about who I'd become once I got tired. Turns out I'm about the same guy, just slower.

Saturday Night

I'd finished at 1:31 in the afternoon. I left the Airbnb at 10:30 at night to go get Zach and his friend.

They both finished, late that night, after a very long day on the same mountain, twice as far.

They said it was brutal. I had just spent six and a half hours out there and could only extrapolate.

There's something specific about standing at a finish line at midnight having already run that day. You know exactly what's in their legs. You also know you got to stop hours earlier. Both of those are true at once and they don't cancel out.

We went back, ate the leftover pizza, and all crashed.

Sunday morning everyone was moving gingerly. They were worse off than I was, as they should be.

Walking was mostly fine. Stiff, but fine.

Going downstairs was very hard.

Twenty-four hours later, and it was still the descent.

Grindstone 50k, Natural Chimneys, Virginia. September 19, 2026.

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