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slkdriving · 1 year

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Devil's Den Ultra - 30 hr

Background

In early September, I was thinking about long trail efforts. One reason was my friend Julia's ManHump effort to celebrate her birthday. Living in Vermont, any excuse to hike and run in the beautiful trails in an effort to train for a bigger event is appealing. A couple days later I rediscovered the Devil's Den Ultra, an event that I heard of but didn't get involved with in the past. As the website says, "The devil will be testing what you believe you are capable of on all distances." It's an annual event that happens to have existed only as long as I've lived in the area and only an hour and half away from home. And conveniently it was not the same weekend as the Newport Marathon that I had put on my calendar several months ago. Knowing that it was entirely a trail run was justification that I could do both the road marathon and ultramarathon in back to back weeks, as it would not be working the body quite in the same way.

So on September 11, 2023, I registered for the 30 hour race and immediately thought of who I'd love to have with me to crew and pace. Thinking back to the Hawk Hundred experience 7 years ago, and even the THON dance marathon back in 2010, I knew I would be physically and emotionally drained in the middle of the night. So my buddy John would be perfect to share the experience with, and I also recruited Ken to pace some nighttime miles (although he was not able to join race weekend). They were down to join, so I now turned to focus on how my training would look. It was the middle of my marathon training, so I figured as I peaked my mileage in the next couple weeks, I'd transition to doing more trail runs and hikes. In fact, this day corresponded to the end of a normally scheduled set of 7 overnight shifts; I actually paused my training after consistent weeks going back to July, so this gave me an extra push to resume with a new spin.

photo credit: @ACARTERCLARK

One of the training runs was the Three Peaks Mountain Race at the Bolton Valley ski resort (seen above approaching the summit of Vista Mountain). As part of the awesome Wednesday evening trail series Nik Ponzio was organizing/advertising was one of the Three Peaks course previews at the very end of August. It happened to be on a day I could join, and there was a pretty good turn out for a group run at a fairly out of the way location with lousy/wet weather. While the main appeal of the trail race was the 25K event, being only a week before my marathon I was eyeing the new 10K option. That worked out well once I decided to do the Devil's Den on top of the Newport Marathon. The uphill slog early in the race was a good proxy to the type of climbing I'd have at the ultramarathon, but there was also a beautiful, flowy descent that made it a real joy to return to the mountain base before an additional smaller climb and more technical descent. With some of the fastest folks doing the full race, I managed to come in 2nd place; as a well-sponsored event, I netted a $35 Outdoor Gear Exchange coupon and generous pick of random gear, which included a pair of Salomon Speedcross sandals (designed for hiking or recovering from a trail race) in my foot size.

Race Weekend

Friday

I happened to be off from work on Friday, October 14, coinciding with the kickoff of Skirack 9 AM weekly group runs. A nice easy 6ish mile run under 24 hours from Devil's Den was perfect, primarily on the waterfront bike trail. New local business Plink! provided some electrolyte refreshment and samples of their powder as well. At the store, I picked up some sale items including backup fuel and water bottle+bladder. At home after that I finished packing up for the event, including sleeping bag, camp chair, a couple pairs of trail running shoes, multiple shirts including base layers and outer layers, change of pants and shorts, some food for a small cooler and food for snacks, and massage gear.

Around 5 PM John arrived at my place and soon we hit the road. Arriving at the campsite/base operations of the event a quarter mile from the Devil's Den trailhead, we checked in with Jay Mozey, race director/creator, picking up a bag that had unusual items. The four items, aside from my included our favorite candy bar (I said caramello!), a tarot card, Untapped maple syrup "gel", and a red devil hoodie that says The Devil upside on the front (like the art on the race bib) so you see the words right side up looking down while wearing it. We also set up John's tent that we shared back over Memorial Day weekend in the Adirondacks. Since we both were hungry and in search of dinner, we hit the road again for a much shorter drive into downtown Bradford, VT.

As a very small town, seemingly everybody eating out was at the impressive Italian restaurant (Colatina Exit) that we wanted to go to. An 18 minute wait gave us time to mosey along the tiny main street area and stop by the well-regarded Vittles coffee shop, still open for a special event according to the shop's friendly co-owner. Once it was time to be seated, bizarrely, the host said a party had refused to sit upstairs, switching us to a better option than the initial spot by the kitchen. The seating upstairs was within earshot of a live cover band and aside from a wobbly table was flawless. A couple of Cashmere Hoodie pints from local brewery Upper Pass (Tunbridge), stuffed mushrooms, and ample chicken parm made for great pre-race fuel. It was enough food to save a bunch of pasta for after the race, as I was stuffed without being overly so.

After driving back 10 minutes to the race starting area, we got back around 9 PM which meant it was time to sleep! I felt cozy and warm in my sleeping bag and fell asleep quickly.

Saturday

With an adequate, albeit limited amount of sleep in the tent waking up in the middle of the night a couple of times, I awoke for the day to some pre-race satanic type of music before doing final preparations for the race.

This turned out to be a test for the real pump up at 6:55 AM following our pre-race 6:30 meeting. Jay (wearing The Devil hoodie in center of picture) intensely encouraged us to push ourselves using whatever motivation you possess, even when you may think you want to quit.

As he wrapped up with some fist bumps, we got ready to begin.

According to my watch we actually started seconds before 7 AM.

In this picture very early in the first lap, I ran with a small group including a 12-hour runner Elliot and 30-hr runner Eugene. Eugene and I would run all of lap 2 together. Holding his trekking poles here, he said had only used them once before. It turned out many folks used them on this course, which may have been particularly helpful for me on the relentlessly steep downhills. More on that later!

At the top of the big ascent near the overlook at Wright Mountain, the photographer Pete Wood captured each of us nicely.

One of us (not recalling who) also took a selfie of the group of us that power hiked and ran this first of many climbs to the gorgeous vista. I separately took a photo of this view, seen below.

Thanks to this event and the shirt Scott was wearing, I'm now aware of 46climbs, and on a related note, the entry fee for Devil's Den goes towards the Josh Pallotta Fund. Scott and I would run part of lap 8 together when he was doing lap 7. He would go on to finish two more laps than I did with 140km, finishing in 2nd place.

On the third lap, I think, this picture was taken on that initial ascent of Wrights Mountain. It wasn't lap 2 because I was still wearing pants (these shorts were underneath for a quick change). Unlike most steep climbs where ropes are attached to trees to aid in navigation, this was actually kind of loose and unhelpful, especially with the trail's direction drawing you to the right of it pretty quickly. But it looks cool!

Lap 3 was also the one I had the pleasure to spend a big chunk of it with Lee, who was the winner of the 30 hour race. He came prepared and confident, coming off a 100 mile race victory in July. Lee wasn't wrong when he said I was gonna want poles (as you can see him use below), like on lap 10. Although he came a lap short of reaching our shared goal of 100 miles for this devilish race, he did improve on last year's distance completed; this was his third attempt. If these trends continue he will pull it off next time if he wants it!

After the first of two baselayer shirt changes, this photo must have been somewhere in the range of laps 5 through 7, when there was still daylight. I was starting to get physical fatigue but could still run all of the flats and downhills with power hiking the ascents. Relative to the average lap pace I was looking to pull off to complete 100 miles, I was right on target but knew I was using too much energy to do so. Still, I was happy with my effort and was having a great time.

Saturday Night

This is the part of the race I anticipated being the toughest for several, additive (multiplicative?) reasons. 1) Darkness. With a headlamp, while you can see what's in front of you, your vision overall is diminished which lowers your ability to best plan your footfalls. 2) Time on feet. You've now been running/moving for 12 hours. That's a lot. 3) Temperature. It's going to be getting colder, or at the very least feel colder, as you tend to slow down and sweat less. Loss of body heat can lead to hypothermia. 4) Fuel. This is a big one that builds up after all this time. You've now passed through all three primary meal times and it's unlikely you've been able to eat enough food equivalent to that and all the energy and salt you've been using up through the exertion of more than 10,000 feet of elevation gain. With the steep, technical downhills, the breaking on the descents doesn't give much of a break, either. 5) And that ties into the big one, muscle fatigue. As mentioned in the last paragraph, I was starting to feel this a bit during the afternoon well before nightfall. Following lap 7 I was so thankful for a massage therapist who treated my sore calves and hammies. Based on how much discomfort I felt during the massage, the muscles were indeed breaking down. Thinking back to the Hawk Hundred, I could only anticipate a potential debilitating leg cramp as what could happen. Through that massage, an early morning nap, and good fuel, maybe I avoided that type of injury!

The main other thing to note is the importance of having a pacer at this point. While laps 8 and 9 I did by myself in the dark (albeit I'd see other 30 hr folks on the course at times), I could no longer really run much so laps were getting slower as evident from the smoothed pace chart above. And I expected the next one would get slower since it was almost 11 PM when I got back from lap 9. All five of those factors listed above were coming together, and spending a lot of time fueling and not moving at the base area made me decide - yep, I could use a pacer right now. Thankfully, while not dressed to run, John was wearing boots and warm clothes that were good enough to hike through the woods. So after 33 minutes (way more time than any other lap breaks), we set off for a late night journey. John got to experience the whole course, and he set a very fair pace for my energy level. It felt difficult physically going uphill but not overly so, and by walking the downhills, though still challenging, I didn't risk injury as much as if I tried pushing those, in particular the frequent twisting, rocky and rooty sections. We also rested a few times, including at the Wrights Mountain overlook (which still was beautiful in the middle of the night with an assortment of street lights in the distance).

According to the big, handwritten scoreboard, by the time we returned, 3 hours and 8 minutes had elapsed. That was more than 50% more time than the previous lap. Even if I had attempted to resume 2 hour laps, time was not on my side to complete 16 laps (100 miles). Simple arithmetic (even with a sleep-deprived brain) could calculate 6 laps x 2 hours being a minimum of 12 hours needed. It was just shy of 2 AM, so there were 11 hours remaining in the race. There's a reason why it's supposed to be really hard to run 100 miles in 30 hours on this course! So my new goal was to just continue. Unfortunately, over the next hour, aside from the nourishment of bbq pizza (one of I think four slices of pizza I ate over the weekend), I struggled through shivering cold. After slowly finishing noodles and soup that had become cold, I finally motivated myself to leave the fire and make it to the tent a short distance away for much needed sleep. But I arose not only to instantly shiver but could only limp with huge discomfort now putting weight on my right leg. John opened the tent and helped me get comfortable as quickly as possible, minimizing the amount of time I shivered uncontrollably in a pretty damp tent that made it hard to feel warm unless I had fully dry covering. Thankfully the air inside the tent was still relatively warm, and I was exhausted so I soon fell asleep sometime after 3 AM.

Sunday

I woke up from my nap in the tent feeling cold but not shivering. Thank you Hannah for the warm blanket - don't know what I would have done without it with all my warm clothing having become damp from early morning dew. Although I wasn't immediately ready to exit the tent, I forced myself out a little later, after sunrise or a bit after 7 AM. After crawling out of the tent, I first put weight on my left leg, and then surprised myself finding that I could now put weight on my right leg without it hurting much. Walking back and forth from the porta pot, I felt it was go time; no time to think more on it, I would continue as soon as possible. The pizza and cup o'noodles I consumed before the nap would be enough fuel for now.

On lap 11, the first of two that I did not expect to run, I got a boost by watching the 6 mile folks run by me one by one. The leader came by roughly half way through on the nasty Cindy's Trail, closely followed by another runner. Some others passed me on Cindy's big ascent, including Shelly, a beast of an ultrarunner who did 100 miles at RUTfest in 2021. And there was a runner with a dog!

Another runner (I think Matt Hayes?) chatted with me for a little bit as he passed me on the out and back to the eponymous Devil's Den. He was coming off an injury but seemed to be doing pretty well, considering. Running even one lap of this course isn't easy. He expressed that folks doing the 30 hours inspired him and I definitely took that as encouragement to continue the best I could as the final hours ticked by. From this picture, note that I'm only able to fast walk downhills with the pain in my right hamstring and inability to go any faster versus a shuffle. At this point, I'm wearing my final outfit including entirely different shoes, socks, shorts, and shirt with an unnecessary double jacket look around my waist if I started feeling chilled.

[Side note: the socks were nice to change into and entirely expected. The shoes, while great, were forced upon me. Let's go back to Saturday night/early Sunday morning. At 2 something in the morning, I took off the Pearl Izumi trail shoes I had been running in while sitting in front of the fiery fire pit that kept me from shivering. John, after some time, noted the smell of burning rubber. I had minutes prior, visually took account of smoke between the pit and myself but didn't remember or see the shoes in front of me. Sure enough, rubber from one of the shoes had indeed been burning. If you're wondering what that looks like afterwards, here it is.]

As I returned to the base, it was well before 10 AM, which was my mental cutoff as to if I would have to consider not running another lap. So I was mentally set to do one more, a 12th lap to complete 120 km or roughly 75 miles. The lap would not count if I got back at 1 PM and 1 second. Based on how long lap 11 took and how that pace didn't feel overly difficult, I would have plenty of wiggle room if something went wrong. Also, since there were only 3 wristbands - nice thick bands with the iconic devil font saying YOUR WHY>EXCUSES - remaining in the bracelet box, I would be coming back to the finish area for the final time still with 11 bands on my right wrist. Jay assured me it was no matter. Also appreciated him signing me in and out on the big board for most of the laps after the first several - more time to refuel the better, with even seconds adding up.

After taking down some more sugary treats (including homemade, moist pumpkin muffins) to keep my energy up, I asked John if I could have my phone back for the final lap, and he obliged. This was the only lap I didn't log any of on my watch which had shut off its GPS automatically when its battery dropped to 2% on the previous lap. This would also provide some satisfying symmetry as the only other lap I took pictures was during the first lap. Some of the awesome Halloween themed decorations along the course were not set up yet early on, so I snapped a pic of one early in the big ascent.

Many of the trails criss-crossed each other necessitating clear markings like this one. Especially at night, even tracing over the same trails over and over again, the clear signage was clutch.

I also took a picture of some educational material that was part of the Wrights Mountain/Devil's Den Town Forest about various birds that live in this forest. Many may soon migrate southward, such as the chestnut-sided warbler and hermit thrush.

The course includes a series of several trails with people's names, as well as trail names such as Appreciation Way. The sequence includes Ernie to Cindy.

As referred to previously, Cindy is kind of a b*tch. In contrast, Ernie is short and gentle.

However, Cindy does provide a break in the technical steeps by this vernal pool.

After finishing the incline that marks the end of Cindy's Trail for the final time, and after a relatively short time going downhill, I heard some voices. Given the lack of people still on the course, it had to be Calvin and Nick who had been doing the whole thing together. In fact, John and I happened to join the two of them a couple of times in the middle of the night when they were on lap 7 and I was on lap 10. Their goal as stated much earlier in the event was to complete 10 laps, and sure enough, that's what they were on! At this point, I was moving only very slightly faster than they were. So once I caught them, along with Wayne (on lap 11) and another Nick who was pacing them on the lap, I decided to stick with them for the remaining roughly 1.5 miles.

One last look from the overlook at Devil's Den. While skies were overcast for most of the daylight hours on both Saturday and Sunday, there were intervals of sun. A little bit of blue sky can be seen at this time (11:37 AM).

Considering the clock, we were in a perfect position to celebrate our accomplishment hiking into the finish area without time pressure. The four of us were marked in with a last lap return time of 1214 and presented with a heavy and stylish devil medal.

I snapped a photo of the near-final results before we began to make our exit from the race base.

It was noteworthy and impressive that Scott (finished with 14 laps completed) and Lee (finished with 15 laps completed) each were determined to set out again when time was not on their side, based on when they last checked out of the starting area. I figured bragging rights, and the Devil's Skull (!), was on the line even if the odds of completing one final lap were low.

Quick Wrap Up

Although I didn't achieve my primary goal, this event definitely challenged me physically and mentally as it was meant to do. Got to fight back from "the abyss" and came back with the classic black toenails!

So no question about it, this was a successful ultramarathon and a great reminder of what's so great about these types of events. Looking forward to hanging out and doing a few laps at this year's RUTfest, where I'll see some of the same awesome people around.

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