Return to Nipmuck Trail Marathon 2006

Back in 2001, I ran the Nipmuck trail marathon mostly due to the fact that it was on the Grand Tree trail racing series circuit. It left such an impression on me, I haven’t returned until this year. It’s not really that dramatic. In the five years between races, I’ve been doing more mountain races, and Nipmuck seems to either conflict with the Wachusett mountain race, or I end up being out of town for the race. Of course, the fact that Nipmuck tends to be hot and more challenging in the second half didn’t help.

After a rough start to my trail racing year, with no wins so far and a 4th at 7 Sisters after winning it last year, I figured I should give Nipmuck another trail. The worst that could happen would be that I would get a better idea of the state of my endurance. Although sections of Nipmuck are fast, it is at least a three hour affair, with only Dave Dunham coming close to running under three hours. Due to fact that my long runs have been mostly around 2-2.5 hours, I planned on running easy for the first half. Going out too hard at Nipmuck is not fun; the course gets progressively harder in the second half, and it usually starts to get much warmer.

After Dave’s lengthy warnings about the dangers of the Nipmuck trail, the runners bolted for the singletrack. I was pleased to find myself in the lead without much effort. At the front I could control the pace and make sure things didn’t get too aggressive early on. Of course, this plan depends on cooperation from the guys following me. Well, I led for a little while, but when the trail opened up, three guys came flying by me. Considering how many trail races I do in NE, I was surprised that I didn’t recognize any of them. The guy behind me, Dave Herr, I knew. Dave and I have had many close races on the trails and at mountain races. Dave had actually just PR’ed in the marathon the week before with a 2:29 at age 41. Obviously Dave was in shape, but it remained to be seen how his recovery was progressing.

The runner leading our pack was a young guy by the name of Nick, and he seemed to be in pretty good shape. Dave seemed pretty comfortable with the pace, but the two other guys were breathing hard considering we were only a few miles into the race. The first half was pretty uneventful. Nick lead for a ways, but I ended up leading again to the turnaround at six miles when he got a bit off course. I took my time getting drinks at the turn, and everyone was content to let me take the lead back to the start/finish area. About 9 miles into the race, I had to take a pit stop, and Nick was back at the front. The pace now seemed to pick up a bit. By the time we hit the aid tables at 12 miles, Nick, Dave, and myself had separated ourselves from the rest of the field.

As Nick dashed back to the trail for the last 14 miles of race, I grabbed my water bottle and followed. Dave was the last to get back on the trail, but quickly caught back up with me. Although he surely could have passed me, he seemed content to relax in third place. He probably noticed that I was keeping contact with Nick, but not getting close enough to encourage an increase in the pace. At this point, the day was definitely warming up, and both Dave and I had suffered bad experiences on hot days at Nipmuck.

It’s always when you are relaxing. I was trying to put it on autopilot to conserve some energy for the last hour of the race, and I fell, hard. I caught the toe of one shoe on a rock, and didn’t even have time to get my arms out in front of me. To make matters worse, I ended up finding a nice pile of rocks to land on. The damage consisted of deep scrapes on my right arm and rib cage, and a bruised quadriceps.

Now, a lot of trail runners fall quite frequently. I don’t happen to be one of those people. I can remember the first time I feel on trails; it was three years after starting to run trails, and was caused by a low-lying strand of barbed wire. I was not only shocked at falling, but it was probably my worst fall in 15 years of trail running. I’ve never had to drop out of a race due to a fall, but suddenly I had to consider this strange notion. The scrapes were fine, I could deal with that. However, my leg was really sore, and I had more than 90 minutes of running on treacherous, hilly terrain. If I had to pull out of the race at the second turn around, it would probably be hours until I would be able to be driven back to the finish. Most importantly, I might be doing permanent damage to my leg.

I decided to give it a shot, and although it took awhile, my quad began to feel better. The downhills were always painful, but the flats and uphills were manageable. I was pretty astounded to catch up to Dave and Nick after 15 minutes of limping. They were taking there time at an aid station, making sure to drink enough. Dave bolted away first, still looking quite fresh. Nick seemed to be struggling, and I passed him soon after the aid station. He was having problems on the technical sections, but was still very strong on the uphills. By the time we hit the second turn around, I had about 20 seconds on him.

The 16 inch high stairs leading back from the turn around aid station sent sharp pains up my leg, which didn’t help my speed over the last miles of the course. Dave had passed me well before the turn around, so it seemed he was headed for the win, but I still wanted to salvage second place. I was getting used to the stinging of sweat in my wounds, and my leg was feeling marginally better over miles 18-25. However, by the last mile, my quad wanted to quit on me. I backed off even more on the downhills, and hoped that Nick wasn’t getting a second wind (an unlikely occurrence at Nipmuck). The long last 1.4 miles was longer than usual, but I managed to stay about two minutes ahead of Nick. I stumbled out of the woods and pretty much directly to the EMT, who did a great job of cleaning up my scrapes. I got a pretty bad infection at 7 Sisters one year from a cut hand, and didn’t want to deal with that again.

Dave won in about 3:21, nine minutes ahead of my battered carcass. After congratulating Dave on his strong run on a hot day, and his marathon the weekend before, I eased myself into my car for the drive home. Standard transmission. This is going to be a bit painful. With my shirt sticking to my chest wound, I wondered if I should have just dropped out. In hindsight, I luckily did not do any permanent damage, so I think I choose wisely. The fact is, I doubt I would have beaten Dave even without the fall. It would have been a closer race, though. Falling down on the trails……..I think I need my inner ear checked out.