After having run trails for several years, this morning I actually ran in my first trail run race, the Bushwacker Adventure Running Race, which is hosted by ex2.Adventures.com. The course is point to point, running from Hemlock Overlook Regional Park to Fountainhead Regional Park in northern Virginia. Most of the race can be run by following the Bull Run - Occoquan Trail (Blue Blazes) along the Occoquan Reservoir; however, what makes this special is one simple change: runners, feel free to choose your own path (ie., bushwack). All runners were supplied with a detailed, accurate and colorful topo map of the course, and we were encouraged to bring a compass.Put simply, THIS RACE WAS AWESOME!!! Our family met up with longtime friends Karen and Alan along with their kids at the start, and Al and I ran the race together (well, 90% of the way at least).
Although I'd spent some time reviewing the trail map online, and then studied the supplied map as much as possible, everything went haywire 20 seconds after the start! It was at that point that the other 100 or so runners suddenly started going in about 100 different directions! Everyone ditched the main path for some immediate off-trail running, and in no-time I had no idea where I really was, or worse, which way I needed to go! Runners were everywhere, hopping over fallen tree trunks and dipping under low-hanging limbs, dodging this way then that. Al and I roughly stayed together, and perhaps he had a better idea of what we were doing, but as far as I was concerned it was just a giant case of the blind leading the blind!
So that's how we start, and within about a quarter mile we have a tiny creek to cross -- easy to jump normally, but the banks were quite steep. And then there's the mud. Earlier in the week it rained. A lot. Like a few inches worth. Nicer weather in the last couple of days left me thinking that MAYBE it wouldn't be terribly muddy after all. But then, out of nowhere, from about 4am to 6am we get showers. So, everything's wet. And muddy.
So back to this stupid creek. Al carefully steps down the nearside bank, hop over, and scampers up the other side. No biggie. I follow suit. I start down the bank, and immediately both feet slide out from under me in the mud. My ass hits next, mud squishing its way up the legs of my shorts, and I'm off! I zoom right on down the bank, stopping only when my feet hit the next change in the topography, which is the 4" deep shoe-sucking mud and water. I curse under my breathe (I don't remember this, but I simply must have!), hop over the rest of the water and start up the other side. And my feet now slide out from under me going the other way! I'm quickly on my hands and knees, digging my fingernails into the side of the bank, to desperately cling my way out of this quagmire.
So that was the first 3 minutes of the race.
Eventually, I resume running, holding a map that is no longer particularly readable thanks to its protective coating of mud. I follow Al and in him I trust. I'm frazzled, slimey, and lost. And we run. After a few more minutes of chaos, we find our way onto an actual trail. I had no clue what trail, but Al thought it was the one we wanted, and, as it turned out, it was. Great. Another 1/4 mile up the trail is where we actually planned to start a bushwack to cut a corner. The Horseshoe Trail bent right, and we went left. Oh, boy. Here goes nothin'!
This would be the first of many optimistically-mileage-cutting bushwacks that we would attempt, and I would become rather amazed to find that by and large, they worked! The first bushwack cut out a nice chunk of trail. Soon we were back on the Blue path! Hey, this was fun!
From here the details get a little blurry. We cut tiny corners on the trails frequently; pretty much anytime you could see the trail bending up ahead, you'd be looking for a quicker way to get there. And occasionally we took calculated risks and bushwacked for real. We hit the first of 3 checkpoints (you had to check in at each, in order) quickly, and the pace for the first 3 miles must have been a good one. Pace while trail running is a relative thing, of course. I just know we ran it pretty fast.
One of the other bigger bushwacks came right after the 2nd checkpoint, and it was not intentional. We're running along the trail, and woman fan claps and encourages us as we go by her. A few seconds later and the trail we were on dumped us into a parking lot, with no real indication of where the blue trail is! We pick a direction and go. We're again running all over the place, no one else is with us, and eventually we hit another trail. We charge down it and it brings us back to blue!
The best bushwack came during the longest stage of the race, between the 2nd and 3rd checkpoints. The blue trail had mile markers on it, and we knew we wanted to ditch the trail at around mile 13.75. We get roughly there and turn left and downhill. Were zooming along in this fashion, again dodging low hanging branches and such, when suddenly we find ourselves crossing a marsh! There's standing water, a few inches deep, all around us and also some different vegetation, low-lying plants with huge leaves. We go charging right through and I impulsively start singing the Charlie Daniels Band's Legen of Wooley Swamp:
Well, if you ever go back into Wooley Swamp,
Well, you better not go at night.
There's things out there in the middle of them woods
That make a strong man die from fright.
Things that crawl and things that fly
And things that creep around on the ground.
And they say the ghost of Lucius Clay gets up and he walks
around.
Feet soaked, water splashing, everything stinking, and right there ahead of us running from right to left are a few relatively dry-footed racers! We storm our way out of the swamp and rejoin the runners! This was kicking butt!
Alas, we still had several miles to go, and the plentiful hills were taking their toll on me. A couple of weeks ago I was ready for this, but unfortunately in the mean time I'd had a bad cold and had a sore neck and then sore back. The net effect was that I hadn't run much in the last two weeks.
Oh, well, I knew this would probably happen. I started cutting back to a walk and many of the uphills. Al was kind enough to stick with me for quite a while, even though he felt fairly good. With about a mile to go, Al had gotten far enough ahead of me that he went ahead to the finish. My last mile was pretty strong still, but I did lose maybe another minute or so when I suddenly found myself not on the trail and without a clue as to how I lost it! Two guys followed me, and together we found our way back to the blue trail.
A little farther and we could hear music...that was the finish! I picked it up a little more for the end and soon we were punching our chips at the finish! I finished in 1:50:51, in 10th place in my age group (19 had pre-registered in my age group; so about 50th percentile). Al finished a few minutes ahead and in 8th in our age group. We reunited with family and enjoyed the feast laid out at the finish. Tons of pizza, drinks and snacks. They had so much extra that we ended up walking away with a complete sausage pizza!
They had plenty of giveaways, but neither of us happened to win. Overall, the race was well organized and the course was incredible! This was such a fun experience! It was challenging not only in terms of all the hills and all of the bushwacking, but also because the trail was all muddy. The center of the trail was mostly muck, and we'd run along the sides more. If at all possible, I'm sure we'll be returning next year -- and this time maybe Andrea will run it, too!
