The Scream! Half Marathon 2011

By: Theoden Janes

We arrived friday evening and had a nice dinner of pasta and various grilled meats, along with a few alcoholic beverages (including some tasty IPA brewed by Rusty Starnes). Our cabin seemed pretty cool and — at just $27 per person — a real steal at first … until the middle of the night, when we realized that 7 people in a 700 square foot living space + creaky wood floors + creaky wood doors that don’t close securely + only one bathroom + overactive bladders thanks to a few alcoholic beverages (including that tasty homebrew) = near-constant middle-of-the-night disturbances. Things got even dicier in the morning. Remember: 700 square foot living space, only one bathroom with doors that don’t close securely, 7 runners who need to make pre-race deposits. this created equal doses of amusement and suffering.

Having just done the ridge to bridge marathon less than 8 months ago, I took over a lot of the logistics. The logistics were complicated, as evidenced by roughly 100 pre-race e-mails the 7 of us traded in the preceding weeks that attempted to sort out the logistics. In brief: this was a point to point race that took place basically in the middle of nowhere, in an area with absolutely no cell signal and exceedingly limited GPS availability. We parked two cars at the finish and then followed a group of women who turned out to be trying to use The Force to get to the start; they wound up on the wrong dirt road and we all had to race back down it at about 70 mph (maximum safe speed was probably about 15). Brian Poplin and Janet may or may not have narrowly avoided getting carsick. Jack may or may not have almost driven Hazel’s car off the side of a mountain. I may or may not have put too much trust in the group of women we were following.

Anyway, we eventually found the staging area for the start, about 15 minutes before the gun went off. Got our packets, scattered into the forest to do what we had trouble doing in the bathroom with the doors that don’t close securely, then ran the 400 or 500 yards down the road to where runners were queuing up. About 2 minutes later, we were off.

Brian and Ed went out the fastest. I caught them after a few minutes, then Ed and I pulled away from Brian. Then Ed pulled away from me. The first two-plus miles are on rolling asphalt. there are more downs than ups in this section, but I ran the first mile a little slower than goal pace and the second mile a lot slower than goal pace. I think part of the problem was we didn’t get in a proper warm-up. I was starting to think it wasn’t going to be my day, and then we hung a right onto the packed-dirt forest service road and really started descending. Mile 3 I hit my goal pace, and then Mile 4-6 I was flying — almost 20 seconds faster per mile than I had hoped I’d be running. One thing that’s interesting — Hazel might say “infuriating” — about this course is that although it is billed as having crazy drop, and does in fact have a crazy net elevation loss (~2,400 feet!!!!!!!), there are a few hills. One comes around the halfway point and while it is by no means a soul-crusher, it does make you want to scream (maybe this is where the race got it’s name); another comes in Mile 12, after you get off the forest service road and are done with downhill sections. Again, if you ever run this race I would be willing to bet $5 that you will want to scream and/or go back in time about half an hour so you can conserve a little more energy.

For the most part, though, I am convinced that this is quite possibly one of the fastest half marathon courses I will ever run in my lifetime. On some of the steepest downhill sections, you literally feel like you are out of control. But what’s also uncanny is how low the effort level feels in relation to how fast you are running. I posted a 6:22 mile for mile 8. I rarely run miles that fast in a 5K!!

I’m proud of the fact that I ran strong throughout, and hope Ed doesn’t take this the wrong way when I say my fear was that I would blow it out coming down and then fade in the homestretch. Which is what Ed did. Although in the end, Ed did beat me by 3 seconds, so Ed’s way was still faster than mine.

It was fun to be there to cheer everyone in. Although I missed Rusty finish because I went to the car to get a dry shirt and a hat, and he finished way faster than expected. and I missed Janet finish because … you know, I’m not quite sure why. Some crazed fan must have been pestering me at that moment. but I got to see Brian P. finish, and Hazel finish, and Jack finish. And we all got to drink another one of Rusty’s beers after the race, which was almost as satisfying as collecting an age-group award (Hazel and Jack got one too).

It was a great UCRR weekend and a really unique event that yields fast times. Hopefully even more of you will do this next year, although next time we know we will need a satellite phone and — in lieu of additional toilets — at least one can of Febreze.