October 2010 - Ultrarunning World

Ultrarunning News
these guys plan to run the Barkley?!
One of Abigail Meadows 5 kids had
a birthday Friday and Abi's mother
had made a frosted chocolate layer
birthday cake, a large cookie sandwich
and a cheeseball covered in pecans
that was shared with the group. I
brought some ice cream and chocolate
syrup. Pretty good last supper.
One of the highlights of the Barkley is the
uncertainty of the start time. This year
Laz decided to have a late start, ensuring
most loop1 finishers would be finishing
in the dark. This was OK with me, as it
gave me more time for my breakfast to
settle and time for another reading of the
course instructions. At 9:53 a long loud
blow on a conch shell meant the lighting
of the cigarette signalling the start of the
race would be promptly at 10:53 AM.
With the improvements (removal of
downed trees and tree swatches for
trail markers) along 2/3 of the North
Boundary Trail, I was well ahead of my
previous time and keeping up with a
group of reasonably fast runners. Then
I tripped, bruising my upper arm. I was
OK and five minutes later I noticed I had
lost one of my two water bottles. It took
me 10 minutes walking back uphill to the
bottle (where I had fallen). At that point
I was alone. I proceeded OK back down
and past SOB ditch and through the coal
ponds. Then a spread of streams through
a rock garden at the base of a hill left me
confused as to where to go, there being
no obvious path in any direction. About
10 minutes later though Leonard Martin
and a couple other runners arrived.
Leonard has been over this course maybe
16 times and he knew where to go very
well. I stayed with him the rest of loop 1.
There were a few moments of uncertainty
on his part, but only regarding the
absolute best line to take on some of the
bushwhacking sections, nothing serious.
Darkness fell on us as we started up Big
Hell. Leonard was not fully satisfied
with the path we took down the Zip
Line leading to Big Hell and vowed to
do better next loop. A short ways up
Big Hell Leonard and I caught up with
another runner. As Leonard felt he could
see better in the dim light of night on
Big Hell without using any artificial
light, I kept my bright handheld off
until we reached the last book at the
top. We found a couple more runners
at that book and met another coming
off of Chimney top on the last 3.5
miles of candyass trail back to camp.
Leonard and I came in together at 11
hours 32 minutes. The cut-off for the
men's race (5 loops - yeah right!) was to
be back on the course by 12 hours and for
the 3-loop fun run the cut-off to be back
on the course was 13 hours minutes.
After being well over the fun run cut-off
each of my previous 2 Barkley attempts
there was no way I was not going to start
loop 2 this year. Leonard said he would
be ready to go in minutes. I hurried to
refill my maltodextrin bottle and my
John DeWalt crossing Son of a Bitch Ditch at mile 7 with a split time of 3:24. Photo: Matt Mahoney
Ultrarunning World| October 2010 19