K E Swab: Hell Hath No Hurry 50K - DNF

Prelude or Epilogue?

We are sitting at a picnic table at the finish of the Hell Hath No Hurry Trail Challenge at Settlers Cabin Park just west of Pittsburgh. It's about seven in the evening.

"I was going to say something inappropriate," Wanda [not her real name] says.

"Please do," I urge.

She takes a sip of her beer. "For doing that, I'll have your babies."

Emaad keeps his eyes down, intently studying the cheeseburger I brought him. A faint rumble of thunder sounds to the north, in the direction of our hotel.

I look at Wanda. Give a bit of a smile. Pause before answering.

Pre-Race Analytics
In 2016, while staying at my house before the 2016 Marine Corps Marathon, Peter gifts me a pair of Hell Hath No Hurry socks, a race which he founded and is the race director.

He describes it as a multiple loop course with varying distances, from 10K (one loop) to 50 miles (eight loops) with a nice cook-out at the end. For some reason I envision a stroll in the park. Nothing hard, and maybe a bit boring with the multiple loops. My brain disconnects that he is an experienced 100-mile runner, even though I paced him for 20 miles at the 2010 Massanutten Mountain Trail 100 Mile. And I gloss over the race's name.

Emaad and I are looking for a 50K in June and I easily convince him that this is a good race for us. We sign up, make our hotel reservation - conveniently within a mile of the start - and I let Peter know that we are coming.

Only then do I start to do some research. I look at previous years' results and see that the winning times are unusually slow - 6:25 in 2018, 5:25 in 2017, 5:56 in 2016, 5:58 in 2015.

The website ultrasignup.com has a deceptively simple, but surprisingly consistent, formula to compute runners' ranking. It takes a race winner's time as the numerator and divides it by each runner's finishing time to give the other runner a percentage ranking. For example, if the winner finishes in four hours and another runner finishes in five, the latter gets a ranking of 80 percent. Basically, it means the other runner had finished 80 percent of the race at the time when the winner finished. It is a useful tool to come up with a predicted finishing time.

I started to calculate what my expected finish time for the race should be. My ultrasignup ranking in the races I run is usually reliably between 50 and 55 percent. Extrapolating backward, if I ran HHNH in 2018, a relatively slow year, my predicted finishing time would be about 11:40. In a fast year, like 2017, my expected time would be 9:50. Since one had to start the fifth and final loop by the eight hour mark, there would be little margin for error even in a good year. I belatedly realize that this is not going to be an easy race and the chance of missing the cutoff is higher than usual.

On the drive to Pittsburgh I tell Emaad my gloomy assessment.

Dinner the night before with Peter, his father and my first cousin Bob, and the rest of the family, did nothing to inspire confidence. First Peter notes that the loops are actually more like 6.7 miles, rather than the 6.2 miles that would actually be 10k. That's OK, a trail race distance is whatever the race director says it is. Sometimes they are longer than advertised, sometimes shorter. He says that elevation change is about 800 feet per loop, for a total of about 4000 feet of climb and descent for the 50k.

Then his wife Jenny points out that rain on Thursday night will help make the course muddy. Peter adds that the trails were laid out by Boy Scouts who were not particularly skilled in trail routing so muddy areas abound. Peter then surprises his father, who will be manning the grill at the end, by telling him that he will be running on Saturday. "Like a loop or two," Bob says. "No," Peter replies, "All eight. I'm running the 50 miler."

Race Day
The 50K does not start until 10 a.m. so Emaad and I have time to go off for a good diner breakfast. The day promises to be hot and and humid, so I pack five shirts and handkerchiefs, figuring that I can change them every loop.

Approaching the Heaven Aid Station

A few minutes of driving gets us to the park, and a short walk takes us to the covered pavilion at the start/finish. We plunk down our bags and chat with another runner, Wanda, who indicates that she, like us, will be running slowly.

The co-race director gives some brief pre-race instructions: follow the pink ribbons and if you hear the air horn, it means take shelter from an imminent dangerous thunderstorm. The runners treat that as a bit of a joke, as there pretty much no shelter to be had in the woods.

Promptly at 10 we get the "go" command and the 45 of us in the 50K head off downhill across a grassy field, then onto some single track, across the edge of another grassy field and then into the woods on single track.

Entering Heaven

Sure enough we go up and down, and through patches of mud. Not all the mud is in bottom land as you would expect, but places where water drains down hillsides across the trail. Emaad and I move along at a modest pace. No hurry on this course.

Leaving the Heaven Aid Station

In about three miles we get to Heaven. That's the name for the mid-course aid station. It is well stocked with all the usual ultra foods and supplements, plus grilled cheese, enthusiastic volunteers and Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey. "Maybe on the last lap," I say, eyeing the bottle.

The second part of the course is even harder than the first. The uphills are not long, but some are steep. The course skirts a swamp, and the mud there is ankle deep and unavoidable. We press on, cursing the mud, walking the uphills and trying to run where we can.

Then a voice hails us from behind. It is Peter, on his fourth loop, as the 50 mile race started at 6 a.m. We chat and I follow along with him. He points out sections of the trial that volunteers had cleared out earlier in the week with grass whips, saying that they had been nearly impassible.

Peter and I
(Photo by E. Burki)

We finish our loop and he goes on while I go over to change my sweat-soaked shirt and handkerchief. I get through the first loop in about 1:43 and spend 5 minutes changing and getting refreshments at the aid station. That seems like it might be good enough to get through the five loops, as I need to average two hours per loop for the first four loops, and I know that the first loop is likely going to be the fastest. Emaad comes in and we set out on the second loop.

But a couple of miles in I'm starting to feel tired. Some of the steeper uphills are particularly difficult now and I think that on subsequent loops I might have to go up them on all fours.

Heaven comes and it is refreshing, but a mile beyond it there is a downhill and Emaad takes the opportunity to run it. I can't. Gradually he disappears from my sight. I travel a bit with another runner - really a hiker - and I can't even stay with him. I'm passed by a 50K runner on his third loop.

I finish the second loop in about 1:12, or about 3:55 for the first two loops. That's under the two hours per loop I need to average to make the cutoff. I go and change my shirt but decide that there is no sense to going on. I go to the scorer's tent and withdraw. Then I wash the mud from my legs and hang out with cousin Bob as he get ready to fire up the grill.

Fueling up at the Start/Finish Aid Station

after Loop 1

Muddy legs

Emaad comes in from his third loop at 4:10 p.m. By now temperatures have reached 90 or more and the humidity is oppressive. (His device will claim a high of 93.) He looks pretty good, but it is unlikely, although not impossible that he can make the 6 p.m. cutoff to start the final loop. I urge him on. He barely hesitates and sets out.

Once he is out of sight, I head back to the hotel to shower and change clothes before heading back to the park. He texts me how far he has to go, but there is no sight of him. My mobile buzzes with a severe thunderstorm alert for an area that ends less than a mile from the park. The sky to the north, toward the alert area, looks ominous.

About 6:25 p.m. Wanda finishes her fourth loop and is done for the day. Emaad comes in about seven minutes later, and he too, is done, timed out even if he wanted to do another loop, which he doesn't.

The three of us sit down and get some food and fine craft beer. (The night before Peter said that one of the pleasures of being the race director is getting to take a bunch of other people's money and go beer shopping.)

Peter finishes the 50-miler in at 7:14 p.m. in a time of 13:14, good for sixth place overall.

Emaad relieved that he is done

Results
This is an aptly named race. The course is hellish and you won't be done in a hurry.

The winning time for the 50K is 6:32. To give an idea of how hard the race was, due to the course and the weather, consider that I ran the Pemberton Trail 50K in February in 6:41. The Pemberton winner ran 3:41 (Alisa Macdonald, first female; first overall) It took me just under four hours to go 20K at HHNH. It took Emaad 8:32 to go 40K.

Other metrics of difficulty: there were 23 finishers out of 45 starters for the 50K, a 51 percent finishing rate. In the 50-mile, 37 started; only seven finished. That's a finishing rate of 19 percent. Even this year's Bull Run Run 50 miler, under very muddy conditions, had a finishing rate of 60 percent.

Choose Wisely

At the picnic table, with Emaad's eyes locked on his burger, and Wanda and I looking at each other, I choose my words carefully.

"That's awfully nice of you," I say, "but I don't think my wife and children would approve."

Done examining the cheeseburger Emaad picks it up and bites into it. Peter stops by to chat. Wanda takes another sip of beer and then cuts into the cheeseburger I brought her, the good deed that led to her remark.

No more thunder rumbles in the distance.