Eight years in the making

In 2002, I entered the Mount Washington Road Race for the first time, and on race morning I arrived at the start to learn that we were not going to be allowed to run to the top. Sub-freezing temperatures, freezing rain, and the notorious Mt. Washington winds meant the race directors considered it unsafe to send 1000 runners and their support cars to the summit. We ended up racing about half way, which was a new experience but not the one I had prepared myself for. Ever since, I have kept my "only one hill" t-shirt in the closet, feeling like I didn't earn the right to wear it.

I stayed away from the race for years, until this year a group from GBTC decided to enter en masse. With some help from our coach Tom we managed to get through the lottery, so for the last few months I've known I had this race in my future. I remember running up the final, comparatively gentle hill at the New Bedford half marathon and wondering what foolishness had led me to enter a race that was entirely uphill at an average 11% grade.

Arthur's seat, site of my early 2010 training and first serious hill race in 1988.

My training for the race got kicked off by a timely business trip to Edinburgh, where I first tried my hand at hill running in 1986 (and learned that I was pretty poor at it). The biggest hill in Edinburgh is Arthur's Seat, and on the day I arrived in Edinburgh, Christy and I ran to the top (about a 600 foot climb) and then did a few more hill repeats on the lower slopes. I repeated the climb again once more before leaving Edinburgh. Once back in Boston my hill options were more limited, and my main preparation was to race the Pack Monadnock hill race 2 weeks before the big race. The last 1.3 miles of that race is comparable in gradient to Mt. Washington, but comes after a more gentle 8.7 miles of gradual climbing. As I struggled up that hill at the slowest non-walking pace I could muster, I was seriously questioning the wisdom of running a race that holds that gradient for 7.6 miles. Still, placing tenth and inside 70 minutes at Pack Monadnock gave me just a little confidence that I might not be crushed by Mount Washington. Looking at people who ran times similar to mine in the Monadnock race made me think a 1:15 at Mt. Washington was possible, but only if I was able to extrapolate my mountain running skills from a 900ft vertical climb to a 4600ft one.

Race day at the base of Mt. Washington (1600ft) was pretty warm although not too humid, and I was good and sweaty before the gun went off. I drank a lot more water than normal, with the predictable effect that I had to race from my last bathroom visit to line up at the start. In the end I think this was a good tradeoff. The canon was fired to start the race, and a thousand or so people raced off across the only downhill section on the course to reach the start of the climb. I followed CRC member Chad Carr, who has a habit of passing me after I go out too fast, but on this occasion I was never tempted to get ahead of him.

Determined not to feel as bad as I did at the end of Pack Monadnock too quickly, I took the first mile pretty cautiously, but in the second mile, which is actually one of the steepest, I started to feel pretty bad. I tried to slow down - in fact one of my strong memories of the race is of constantly trying to slow down while still running. This definitely helped, and as we approached half way I was in good company: near team-mates Ted Breen and Ryan Aschbrenner, as well as experienced Mt. Washington runners Dave Quintal
and Jim Pawlicki (who is next to me in the photo above). My split at the half was about 35:30, and I had heard that the 2nd half would be longer, so I just hoped I could keep it under 45 minutes to get in the 1:20 range. A little while after the nominal half, a sign indicating 4,000 feet of elevation is passed, and I calculated that this was about the mid-point in terms of elevation gain, with 2,300 feet to go. That wasn't a good moment in the race.

Soon we were on the fabled dirt section of the course, which just seems to rise relentlessly for ever with no turns. I passed the 45 minute mark during this section, and decided to eat the gel I had brought along. Unfortunately I was very dry and there was no water until sometime later, so I ran for a while with a coating of gel on my throat. Just one more annoyance at this point. Also on this section I was passed by Matt Harringa, who is never behind me in races - clearly he had gone out very cautiously and was now passing people with abandon. He said something about GBTC's entry in this race being my idea, and I reminded him it was Ted's - fortunately, Ted was just ahead, so Matt promised to hit him as he went past.

Not too long after the dirt section, we reached the final water stop, the terrain seemed a bit less steep, and there was a nice cooling breeze - summit temperatures were in the mid-50s at this point - and I started to feel good about the race. Not knowing how long the last 0.6 mile would take, I wasn't thinking much about my time, but I was feeling good about my place, as I had kept up with Jim and Ryan while passing Ted and Dave. I didn't want to take any chances, not knowing much about the last part of the course except that it included the infamous 22% "wall". So I just kept trying to make progress until I could see that section, and then suddenly I was facing it and chasing Jim towards a finish line that said "1:15:xx". I was frankly astonished to see that number and so happy. I couldn't quite catch Jim, but my reward was to be the 50th person to cross the line on the 50th anniversary of the race. Officially 1:15:14, 8th master, 45th male, and remarkably the 4th GBTC runner. Our team took 2nd place behind the unbeatably strong CMS but ahead of the formidable Whirlaway.

I am forced to re-evaluate my assessment that I am no good at hills. My 3 best races this year arguably have been the two hill races and the very hilly Amherst 10 miler. I feel sure I could go faster up Mount Washington now that I know the course, and I think I'll be giving it a try next year.

Enjoying the view after the race