My first 50 Mile

JFK 50 Mile 2005

I have never felt so overwhelmed trying to write a race story. Fifty miles is a long way, even if there isn’t much real racing that goes on. My first 50 mile had more passing than most of my Grand Prix road races. Before I get to all the racing, though, I should put the race in perspective.

Although I had good intentions of getting in ever longer runs in preparation for this race, I ended up spending more time working on our new house. With a typical trail or road race, this might not be too detrimental for me. The rest would probably do me some good. However, JFK would be 19 miles longer than I had ever raced. A couple more hard 3 or four hour runs would have helped. In the end, I had to rely on my training and race at the Pisgah 50k in September, and the Cape Cod marathon three weeks before JFK. I was definitely recovered from Cape Cod, but I wasn’t all that confident of my ability to run for over 6 hours.

The key to my race was a fellow competitor, and I knew this several weeks before the race. While I was running the Savoy 20 miler with Leigh Schmitt, he had me informed me of his intention to run JFK. Leigh and I are of very similar abilities in New England trail races, and he had graduated to 50 milers a few years ago. As soon as I knew he was running JFK, I planned on running with him unless it became obvious that I was unprepared for the distance. Based on his strong finish at Savoy where he easily pulled away from me, I thought I might be running by myself beyond 40 miles.

There were several reasons why I chose JFK as my introduction to 50 miles. The course seemed to suit my abilities. It had some trail, and even when it wasn’t singletrack, it was mostly on dirt, and I find soft surfaces much more enjoyable to race on. JFK typically has a deep field which would make it more likely that I would have people to run with. It also is the oldest ultra in the U.S., and many of the best ultra runners over the past several decades have run the race.

I guess I should get to the actual race. My race started at 7am, but I wasn’t the first person on the course. A few hundred people started at 5 am to make sure they finished under the 14 hour time limit. I was shocked at the speed of the start. Two runners went through the mile in about 6 minutes, but most of the other frontrunners came through at least a half minute behind. The first 2.5 miles of the course climb 500 feet, mostly between mile 1 and 2.5. As the road steepened, I gradually drifted to the front of the field as the two frontrunners drifted back. I think by the time we got on the Appalachian Trail at 2.5, Leigh and I were in 4th and 5th.

I thought the pace might slow down on the singletrack, but most of the lead men were quite good on technical trails, at least on level terrain. On one of the first singletrack downhills, people started to change gears, and the better trail guys pulled away. Leigh are I are both reasonably good on singletrack, but neither of us felt the need to take any risks by pushing the pace so early in the race. Ian Torrance dropped the rest of the field at this point. Over the next several miles of rocky trail, there was quite a bit of passing back and forth between the rest of the top seven. Howard Nippert and his running partner would do well on the easier terrain, an ex-rower (I could tell by his long sleeve rowing top) took advantage of all the uphills, and Leigh, Paul Dewitt, and I were somewhere in between. Remember all those 5 am starters? We had to pass most of them on the AT, which takes some effort due to the difficult nature of the footing. Fortunately for me, Leigh did a phenomenal job of clearing the path.

As we got to the first main aid station at 15.5, there were tons of people cheering, and it made it hard to find my handler, Fritz Wells. Fritz is the father of my old teammate, Kit, and was graciously hosting me for the race. I was able to spot him, exchange water bottles, and head off after Leigh, who seemed to be tearing back onto the course. I told myself that I would let him go if he keep this pace up, but it seemed manageable for a little while. I was glad he didn’t slow down, as when we got to the train crossing, the train was only about 200 meters down the track! I was sure no one would make it behind us, but the train actually stopped for a couple minutes soon after we passed. This made it possible for Paul Dewitt, Howard, and his training partner to sneak by. Leigh and I had caught up with Howard on the switchbacks leading out of the AT. As we started down the C and O canal path, we could see the ex-rower, but Ian was out of sight. Leigh thought he was about 2 minutes ahead.

As I started to try and get mile splits off the markers along the canal, Leigh told me that he heard that they were not that accurate. After two splits of 6:30 and 7:30, this became obvious, and we only used them as a rough gauge of pace from time to time. During the first few miles on the canal, we were passed by Paul, Howard, and his training partner. By 20 miles, were firmly in 6th and 7th. However, the ex-rower seemed to be fading, and before long, we passed him and could suddenly see Paul closing on Ian. Howard and his friend were out of sight. We passed the ex-rower and went after Ian. As we closed on Ian, he stopped on the side of the trail to take care of some business. All of a sudden, we were in 4th and 5th.

At every main aid station, Fritz was right there with my bag full of sweetened ice tea, coke, Swedish fish, first aid supplies, as well as extra clothing and shoes. The thing is, the only thing I ever did was switch water bottles. I knew that I would need a ton of calories to stay upright and running for over 6 hours, but I couldn’t make myself eat on the run. I just wasn’t hungry. I was drinking lots of sugary beverages, but was still extremely concerned that I was going to run out of gas somewhere beyond 31 miles. When Leigh would stop to load up with supplies, I would actually just wait for him to continue.

When we hit the aid station somewhere around 27 miles, they informed us that we were in 3rd and 4th. I had postulated that Howard's friend might drop out at some point, and that is what had happened. We also learned that Howard was 10 minutes ahead, which did not surprise me at all. Leigh and I simply continued on at the same pace, or at least what felt like the same pace. By this time he was ready to get off the monotonous canal path, but I didn’t mind it quite as much. I knew my legs would not like 8 miles of paved rolling hills after 42 miles.

Somewhere around 34 miles we saw Paul Dewitt off in the distance. The pace probably quickened for a bit following this, and as we approached, he started walking. I had heard him twist his ankle on the AT a couple times, and now it was really starting to bother him. We wished each other good luck as we passed. The satisfaction of moving into 2nd and 3rd place was short-lived however. Within a couple of miles, I spotted Ian coming back on us. Leigh and I would have been content to run the rest of the race together, but now it became more competitive.

At the aid station at about 38.4 miles, I couldn’t wait for Leigh with Ian closing in on us. I still felt fine energy-wise, and Leigh was grabbing some food. After filling my water bottle with Pepsi, I took off. I picked up the pace a little, and it felt easy. I quickly had a decent gap on Ian, who was pulling away from Leigh. A local journalist rode up on a bike to tell me I wasn’t supposed to be in second and congratulated me on a good run so far. He asked my name, and I just said, “Ben.” Ian couldn’t seem to close the gap, and as climbed onto the final road section at 41.7, I started to pull away a little more on the uphill. Unfortunately, this only lasted until 43 miles. The incessant undulations on the pavement were ruining my legs. My energy level was fine, but my quads were shooting pains straight through my skull. I would have given anything to get back on that canal path. Ian passed me around 44.5, but I managed to pass him back at the aid station at 45 miles and hold him off for a couple of minutes. The only thing I could hope for is that he cramped. It was not to be. He expressed his displeasure of the road as he went by, but looked very strong.

Those last five miles were almost unbearable. I have never been in so much pain while racing. I guess I could have backed off, but I wanted to try and hold off Leigh, and then try and stay as close as possible when he moved into third. I tried to get off the pavement, but the side of the road went off into a ditch. I was gritting my teeth so hard, I thought they were going to splinter, and odd, guttural sounds were emanating from my mouth. I just wanted to fall off the road into the grass and curl up into the fetal position. The worst thing about it was that I wasn’t absolutely exhausted, it was just that my legs couldn’t take it any more. Looking back, it is easy to say that I should have been a bit more patient in the last 10 miles, but I’m pretty sure I would had a slower time if I had not taken advantage of those last 3 miles on the canal path. Of course, the real key was trusting in Leigh’s experience and not pushing the pace too soon. My project for next year is to get them to drop the road section at the end. It shouldn’t be too hard, the race has only been held for the past 43 years.

I have to thank Susan and Kit Wells for making it possible for me to run 50 miles without eating anything during the race due to their superb pre-race fueling, and Dave Dunham on detailed advice from his second place run in 2001.






THE 43TH ANNUAL JOHN F. KENNEDY
50 MILE RACE
Hagerstown, Md November 19, 2005 5 & 7:00 A.M.

Place Name Ag S Div/Tot City Sta Time Pace
===== =================== == = ======== ================== === ======= =====
1 HOWARD NIPPERT 40 M 1/235 FORK UNION VA 5:51:28 7:01
2 IAN TORRENCE 33 M 1/166 BOULDER CITY NV 6:15:11 7:29
3 LEIGH SCHMITT 33 M 2/166 CONWAY MA 6:17:46 7:32
4 BEN NEPHEW 30 M 3/166 MANSFIELD MA 6:18:39 7:33
5 MARK LUNDBLAD 36 M 4/166 ASHEVILLE NC 6:24:36 7:40
6 ANDREW BARTLE 29 M 1/103 SAN DIEGO CA 6:27:06 7:43
7 ANNE LUNDBLAD 39 F 1/62 ASHEVILLE NC 6:29:42 7:46
8 PAUL DEWITT 37 M 5/166 MONUMENT CO 6:31:08 7:48
9 BLAKE BENKE 29 M 2/103 NEW YORK NY 6:34:58 7:53
10 GREIG ARENDT 29 M 3/103 CAMBRIDGE MA 6:35:48 7:54