Uwharrie 20 (18.5) Miler 2010

By: Jason Rose

For me, this one started 2 weeks ago at Winterplace, WV. My last ski run of the day really was my last run of the day after I split open my uhhh, the area over my glut medius while not-so-successfully attempting a rail-slide. 4 hours and 1 middle brother orthopaedic surgeon later, I had the first 8 stitches of my life. Not sure how I had made it this far in life without any; also wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to run Uwharrie 14 days later. Thankfully, my bro is a good doc and the gash healed fairly well. Stitches out after 8 days and a couple light runs on the treadmill after 10 days. A total of 6 treadmill miles the 2 weeks before Uwharrie wasn’t exactly how I envisioned my prep for the rocky, hilly course, but I was gonna be at the start line so that’s what counted. Or maybe. In the 19 year history of the race, it had been cancelled once, due to a “snow hurricane” (not sure if those even exist). Uwharrie organizers sent an email stating they would give 24-hour notice for cancellation if the Forest Service forced them to axe the race this year due to flooding. After much anticipation, Thursday they sent an email saying the race was on….then it proceeded to rain for the next 24 hours plus.

Jeff Larson and I rolled up to the check-in for the 20 and while we were hanging around we saw our first shoe casualty of the day. Not a good sign when it occurs before the race starts. Some rando guy steps in the mud, shoe stays in, foot comes out. Yep, this is gonna be fun. For those of you not familiar with Uwharrie, the 40-miler starts at 7, the 20-miler at 8, and the 8-miler at 9. As the 150 or so people for the 20 miler await the starting gun/horn/I don’t remember, they tell us runners this is the wettest the trail has ever been and they had to change the course. Miles 14-20 are impassable due to flooded conditions. Something about chest-high waters, people drowning, yada-yada. Don’t they know that trail running is not safe to begin with and most of us are not quite fully sane anyhow? So the final portion of the race would be run on 4.5 miles of fire road. Thus, the Uwharrie 20 was about 18.5ish this year.

By about mile 15, I had no problem whatsoever that the race was shortened slightly. My hip flexors were fried by the uphills and my feet were wet and semi-frozen it seemed from the mud/streams. While Mohammed the Flip-Flop Sultan was well on his way to an impressive 7th place finish in the 40-miler, Jeff, myself, and my newfound friend Allan were off on our 20ish mile trek, starting an hour behind the 40-milers. Allan and I ran the first 5 miles together to aid station #1 with Jeff a couple steps ahead (the trail is all single track, so there is no side-by-side running and passing is done carefully). At that point, I left behind Allan and Jeff proceeded ahead of me, which is why all the pictures of him are of his backside! He ran a great race but I can’t tell you much more about it other than what I saw of him almost going down as he multi-passed several people ahead of me and drifted off into the forest. No falls for Jeff and no falls for me either, so that qualifies as a good day in the forest; I had one close call but managed to put down a hand while also protecting 2 famous Uwharrie cookies that were in said hand! The feet stayed shall we say, “damp” for the first several miles but after the first of about 5 true stream crossings they were downgraded to “soaked” for pretty much the rest of the day. Quick-draining shoes are a must at Uwharrie! Also of note is that stream water is quite cold when the air temp is 35 degrees, although it could’ve been a much worse day if it had actually been raining during the run:) This proceeded on for 14 miles until reaching the fire road.
Uwharrie basically had four footing options this day: rock, mud, stream or leaves. The latter option usually lay on top of one of the 3 previous possibilities. Needless to say, the feet get pretty beat up by this trail so the fire road was a welcome change of pace. Its gentler ups and downs allowed me and many others to run the whole way whereas the climbs of the single-track bring many runners to a walk. Plus at that point, I think you are afraid to stop for fear of what might happen. 3 hours and 39 minutes after getting the feet going, I had reached the hot chocolate, cookies, handmade pottery, soft green long-sleeve shirt, and a smiling Jeff Larson who had been waiting there for 12 minutes already! For $45, that is not a bad haul at all. There is no wonder this race fills up in less than 30 minutes!
2011 will be the 20th anniversary of this adventure; hope to see you out there!