Subject: Superior Trail 100 Report - Midpack View (long) From: Rock Cogar Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 16:52:38 -0400 Title: Race Report: Superior Trail 100 mile Trail Run. Date: September 8, 2001, By: Rockford Cogar I. The Course. The 100.9 mile point to point course is made up of roughly 2 miles of gravel roads and 99 miles of rooty, rocky, muddy hiking trails. Unlike Hardrock and Massanutten 100 milers, the climbs are random and the aid station locations were not always located in the valley locations (around 700 feet). In fact sometimes the aid stations were located up on the highest land areas (around 1800 feet). Total course time was to be 36 hours. The tightest cut-off was a 17.5 min/mi pace for the first quarter of the race. After that cut-offs were on the order of 21 min/mi pace. I should mention that ST100 takes place in glaciated north woods environment. To me this resembles the highest elevation forested valleys in Colorado. For example: the wet rooty sections of the Hardrock 100 course near Silverton. Specifically the ST100 environment is on of Spruce, Fir, Maple, Birch, Beech and Cedar forests on thin often saturated soils with frequent bogs, ponds, lakes and brown water streams and rivers. II. The Weather. Weather was cloudy during the entire 36 hour race event. Rain, heavy at times fell from miles 3 through 40. Saturday afternoon was just cloudy, but Saturday night and Sunday afternoon had drizzle. Temperatures ranged from about 59F at race start and fell to the low 50s during Saturday. Saturday night Temperatures fell to about 46F and on Sunday it warmed up to around 60F. By race end (after 33 hours) rain showers caused temperatures to fall back into the mid 50s. III. Pre-Race. Susan Donnelly and J.J. Rochelle drove to Duluth MN airport from Oak Ridge TN and picked me up at the airport Thursday evening. We stayed over in Duluth and headed up the "shore" the next morning to Silver Bay for the pre-race meeting. After a low key and friendly meeting with the 53 other runners, we headed further up the "shore" to Grand Marias which is where the race ends. There we stayed in a 5 room log cabin that J.J. had rented. The way Grand Marias is sited along Lake Superior reminded me greatly of fishing towns like Bar Harbor or Rockport along Maine's rocky seacoast. At 3:45 AM Saturday, we jumped in the car and traveled back to the southwest to the 5:00 AM race start near Silver Bay. IV. Race. We started the race on about a 200 yard length of paved road (the only on the whole course) and then entered the Superior Hiking Trail. From the very beginning conditions were rooty, rocky, muddy narrow trails. This never really changed. Conditions were very crowded because the road section was too short to spread out the pack of 56 runners. After 2:02 I reached the first aid station at 7.9 miles. Incredibly, this slow pace was typical for me during the entire daytime segment on the first day. Shortly afterwards, J.J. and I started running together as we did much of the Massanutten 100 miler back in May. Susan was up ahead somewhere. I fell after hooking a toe on a root and hurt something in my right thigh (groin?). J.J. also fell except that he hurt his right shin really bad. On and on we ran through the rain, roots, rocks and mud to the mile 19.8 aid station at the beginning of a 5 mile loop that contained about 1.5 miles of gravel road. We then blew through the mile 24.8 aid station 70 minutes ahead of course's tightest cut-off. The next 25 miles involved a great deal of climbs/descents and a couple of wrong turns (just so we could claim we ran an honest 101 miles). Much of this was run with Chris from Michigan and Johnny from Minnesota. At last, at 13.5 hours we arrived at the midpoint. This was half an hour slower than what J.J. and I ran the first 50 miles of Massanutten 100 back in May. That is why I believe that Superior Trail 100 is the toughest 100 miler east of the Rockies. Perhaps it should be a Hardrock 100 qualifier? After seeing my socks were bloody, I patched up my toes with band-aids and duct tape and headed back out with J.J. and Susan. Darkness caught us at just 53 miles, which was about 4 miles behind our "plan". It is good that we all had some lights on us to get us to our primary night mode aid station at mile 54.9. There we got extra clothes, lights, food (I sucked down more "Boost") and off we went into the muddiest section of the the 2001 ST100 course. Yuk. Now our night plan was to hike at 3 mph on the rooty trail for the 10 hour night to get us 30 miles in the dark. We did make it 28 miles in that interval, which was OK. Along the way we met Kathy from Wisconsin and ran with her and Chris for some sections. The aid stations were nice and warm and hard to leave. As usual, I noticed that runners always wanted company when leaving these night stations. Daylight caught us around mile 81 or so. Right about then I had a big blister on my right forefoot bust. Oh the pain. Next another bust on my left forefoot. Finally I hobbled into the Cascade Lodge aid station at mile 83 where I had clean socks to replace my mud covered socks. I suspect that having shoes and socks full of mud, generated a massive outbreak of blisters on my toes and forefeet. After 19 minutes of band-aids and duct taping, I was ready to go with 27:20 on the clock. J.J. arrived just before so we took off together. This was also the last time that I saw Susan on the course. The next two miles was a gradual upgrade, we even ran some of that. Then the trail dropped down endless slippery tall stairs to the Cascade river. Even worse were the slippery sloped boardwalks over swampy sections. After more ups and downs over slippery tall stairs, we arrived at County Road 45 aid station mile at mile 87. In and out fast, we pushed on, higher and higher to the highest elevations on the course (about 1800'). These section had some smooth stretches that allowed some running. At last J.J. and I arrived at Bally Creek RD. aid station at mile 92.6 in 31:00. While I had expected this to be a low (like 700') elevation aid station, I was very surprised to find that it was up on top of the plateau. After a 10 minute soup break, we were off, while we were both in too much pain to run, we could hike OK and we made the next 3.1 miles to US Forest RD. 115 aid station at mile 95.7 in just 62 minutes. Yes, I admit, 3 mph is slow, but we were actually kind of pleased to not be slower! OK, now past the last aid station, we were hurting (we were both due for another 800 mg of vitamin "I", but skipped it due to kidney injury worries) but hiking hard as we could. We made it 3 miles to the rightward turnoff in 67 minutes which was slow but almost OK. We did not know it then, but that was the end of our "good miles". So here we are at mile 98.7 with just 2.2 miles to go. Piece of cake? No, we had to lose 700' of altitude and then meander all through Grand Marias to get to the high school. I trotted down to the highway below, while J.J. picked his way to minimize shin pain, knowing that he would catch up soon. Now from the highway, we had to travel mostly uphill along single track in the rain. Right as it leveled out, J.J. caught me and we hiked in for what seemed like miles and miles to the finish line (mile 100.9) at the high school in 34:34. I think that were tied for 30th place out of 56 starters. V. Post-Race. After a quick burger and adding warm clothes, I bummed a ride to our cabin with the course director. At the cabin, I showered, took a two hour nap, patched up dozens blisters and still was in too much pain (torn up feet and groin injury) to go out to eat. Mostly I just shivered. Thankfully, Susan who finished a couple hours before J.J. and I, was able to go out and get us some food. The next day, I was able to walk just well enough to get around to mostly eat and get to the airport to return to Colorado Springs. ST100 sure was tough!