March 2010 - Space Coast Runners

I wish to thank Steve Chin and Jessica Crate who talked me into running the Dances With Dirt 50-Mile Extreme
Swamp run, bless their hearts. I knew it would be tough, but I was surprised to find it tougher than I expected,
partly due to the heavy rains the day and night before. The effect was to turn many dry runnable trail
segments into soggy wet somewhat runnable trail segments. By design, the majority of any DWD trail run consists
of deep water, deep mud and tangled undergrowth. More on that later.
I also wish to thank Mark “Action” Jackson for giving me his bib as he recovers from knee surgery after an
Ancient Oaks 100 injury; note his advice, “Hey Jimbo, 90 percent of DWD is dry trail and 10 percent consists
of so called, ‘stupid sections,’ by design to make the trail run a proper, ‘Dances WITH Dirt’ event,” then keep
his remarks in mind as you read the race report.
A detailed course description may be found at http://www.dwdgreenswamp.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=47 so I will not dwell on this. I will remark, however that in
keeping with ultramarathon trail running tradition I wrongly assumed no small amount of hyperbole present
within the write up. How wrong I was!
For the record, courtesy of Andy “A2” Barrett, the Overall Male winner, the complete 50-Mile course is defined
by the following segments. The aid stations were never more than a few miles apart and staffed with
wonderful volunteers. The food consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bananas, nuts, M & Ms and
boiled potatoes, plus the usual jugs of water and Gatorade.
Leg Distance
Cumulative Distance
White Loop 5.18 5.18
Orange Loop 4.16 9.34
Hunt Club 1 6.22 15.56
Hunt Club 2 4.14 19.70
Decider 4.03 23.73
Colt Creek 4.66 28.39
Decider 5.30 33.69
Traffic Jam 5.03 38.72
Ranch Road 3.58 42.30
NW Passage 5.05 47.35
Finish 3.38 50.73
We started off in a cold, O’Dark-Thirty morning at 0530 Hours in blustery 15 mile-per-hour northerly winds,
luckily often shielded by trees. The first two loops were uneventful, the roots easily visible in our head lamps,
especially running as a pack. There were just two or three water diversions that we cleverly avoided by crawling
under barbed wire. In retrospect, that specific duck and tuck maneuver was pointless to avoid the water as
pretty much the rest of the run was through water and mud. And thorny vines. And razor sharp palmettos. And
unbelievably sucking mud!
Loop three initiated the extreme swamp running test. Very long stretches of knee deep water broken up by ankle
deep mud became the norm for the next four hours worth of running. Well, one perseveres and stops look-
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