The Wapack and Back
How road marathon training translates poorly to mountain running!
I was having trouble walking. My quads were totally trashed. Like a newbie flatlander after racing the downhills at their first Boston Marathon. My balance was wonky from the lack of strength in my hips and quads. I was stumbling a bit as those body parts weren’t doing what my brain was telling them.
My Mom asked me if I was ok. I was ok. But I was worried that I may have over done it a bit this weekend. Here I was bringing some flowers on Mother’s Day and chatting with my mom and I felt like a train wreck. What the heck? I’m indestructible, right? Hmm….
I went over to visit my mom after a morning 10.5-mile trail run with my buddies around the Nashua River and the Groton Town Forest. I was glad they showed up. I was hurting a bit from pushing through the Wapack Trail end-to-end 21.5 miles the day before. I could tell my legs were gone but the whole point of my Ultra-marathon training is to train on trashed legs.
If that was the intent, I think I nailed it.
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Saturday Morning when I showed up at the Watatic Mountain trailhead I was excited. It’s only a 45-minute drive northwest for me. I love the trails up there on the border of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I was looking forward to getting out there and having some fun.
I am in the throes of training for my first 100-mile race. The meat of the training is back to back long trail runs on the weekends. Saturday multi-hour runs followed by Sunday runs on tired legs to simulate the 100. The plan called for 25 miles on Saturday and another 10 on Sunday.
I was looking through the Trail Animals Running Club (TARC) Facebook page earlier in the week hoping to find some interesting, local, long trail run options. I saw that they were hosting the Wapack and Back races up at Watatic. This is a race I’m familiar with because my club, the Squannacook River Runners, hosts the Wapack Trail race 18 miler on part of the same trail in the fall on Labor Day weekend. And that has always been one of my favorite runs.
This spring version of the race has a 50-mile option, a 43-mile option and a 21.5-mile option. Knowing the difficulty of the course, at least the half I was familiar with, I figured 21.5 of these trails were worth about 50K of regular trails. This would be a perfect substitute for my planned 25 mile training run. Perfect!
I saw a registration button and promptly signed up! I went through the credit card thing and received a confirmation email. Saturday morning, I drove up to the start excited about running some mountains.
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“Name?” The volunteer asked.
“Russell” I said smiling in my bright orange Wapack Trail Race shirt. I was among my tribe! This was going to be epic!
“You’re not listed.”
“Really? Maybe I didn’t make the printout because I just registered this week?”
“You mean you signed up for the wait list? The race has been sold out for over 2 months…”
“Huh, I thought I got a confirmation, let me check the email…”
Sure enough. The confirmation I got was “You’re on the waitlist.” I just hadn’t read it.
I apologized profusely and told them it was cool, I knew the course, had run it a dozen times, I was here already I’d just go run myself, no worries.
The race director was listening to all this and sort of shook his head and said to the volunteer, “Write him in, give him a number”, and to me, “Get on the bus.” He knew I was one of the people who organized the fall race and could tell I probably wasn’t a risk to the race. I wasn’t some crazy newbie showing up to ‘try’ a trail race.
And that’s how my lack of attention to detail caused me to bandit the Wapack and Back.
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Technically I ran the 21.5-mile Wapack Trail, end-to-end, not the Wapack and Back. The ‘And Back’ people ran it twice for 43 miles and the 50 milers added Watatic Mountain and a bit of Pratt Mountain again to add another 7 miles at the end. The 50 folks ran out and back the length of the Wapack and then out and back again to make up the difference. I guess that would be the Wapack and back and Wapack and back.
“The trail was born in a conversation in the summer of 1922 at the Shattuck Inn in Jaffrey, New Hampshire between Allen Chamberlain, who later became president of the Appalachian Mountain Club, and Jaffrey farmer Albert Annett while overlooking the Wapack Range, then known as the Boundary Mountains. The two talked about the possibility of a skyline trail along the ridge of the Boundary Mountains from Mt. Watatic to North Pack Monadnock. Later, Albert brought the idea to fellow farmers Frank Robbins and Marion Buck of Rindge, New Hampshire. The three started cutting the trail near the end of the summer using hand tools. The trail was opened in 1923. Buck named it by joining the Wa from Mt. Watatic and Pack from North Pack Monadnock, and soon the Boundary Mountains became known as the Wapack Range.” – Wikipedia
This is not an easy course. The part of the course I’m familiar with is the southern half of the Wapack Trail where we run our race in the fall. We do an 18-mile out and back from Windblown Ski Area in New Ipswich NH to the Parking lot of Watatic Mountain and back. Our version traverses 4 mountains twice for around 4,000 feet of elevation gain a lot of it on gnarly technical single path.
The full Wapack Trail starts another 11 or so miles north from where our race starts. It starts on the far side of a North Pack Monnadnock Mountain. They bussed up there. For a 9:00 AM start. Based on my experience with this trail I figured it would take me 4-5 hours to run the 21.5. Which seems slow but is decent for this course. Even the course record is over 3 hours.
On the bus ride up and waiting for the start I was chatting with folks and listening. You know you’re at an ultra-marathon trail race when the elites are talking about what their favorite micro-brews are. Lots of skinny, hard looking, happy guys with great beards. I was glad they let me run with them. It’s like some happy, hippy, skinny, lumberjack festival.
I wasn’t worried about finishing. It was just a training run for me. I knew I had the legs and the fitness from my Boston training cycle. I also knew that I’d get a chance to practice my hiking skills on the climbs and my test some nutrition strategies. I knew I’d have to be careful on the technical downhills. I wasn’t trained for that and didn’t want to break anything. I always joke that the over-under for me falling down in a technical trail race is 5 and the line for getting lost is 2.
It was a chilly morning and overcast at the start. The general consensus was that it would start raining at some point during the day. Rain can be an issue on these courses because the footing gets slick. The rain brings out the natural slickness of the rocks and roots. When you’re trying to navigate technical climbs and descents it adds another challenge to your foot-placement skills. It was hard not to think about the recent Boston weather event and how badly I had called that.
I had a just the tech tee shirt and regular shorts and my Diabetes Action Team hat from the 2012 Chicago Marathon. In hindsight, I probably could have used my rain shell. I did think enough to throw a pair of tech gloves in the bag before I left.
I had my Hoka Challenger trail shoes. I was wearing my water pack with a full 1.5 liters in the bladder. I experimented with putting a couple of my homemade smoothies in the pack too. They had worked so well at the Kettle Town 50K last year. I also had my hand held, the old bike bottle, with F2C endurance mix in it.
That was probably too much weight, a full 3+ liters of fluid in the back pack. I could feel it on the first couple climbs. I think one smoothie would be the right call for this distance. Since it was a chilly day I never refilled my pack bladder although I drank about all of the water in it. I did top off my hand held a couple times and I drank one of the smoothies at the first aid station.
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The race started by slamming us right into a climb. About 1,00 feet of vertical up the back of North Pack Monnadnock. I went out a little too hard, my heart rate was hammering, and I quickly switched to hiking up the rocky single path. I was trying to conserve energy and practice the continued-forward-motion tactics that an ultra requires. As long as you’re moving forward you’re making progress.
We crested North Pack Monnadnock, dropped into the saddle and then slammed right back into the climb up Pack Monnadnock. I was feeling the weight of my full pack up these but kept hiking forward without any issues. My Heart rate settled in and I settled in for the long mountain race I had come up for.
The descent down the back of Pack Monnadnock was a doozy. The trial cut down a broken field of refrigerator sized boulders. I was pretty slow on theses technical descents. This is where my fitness and marathon training were fairly worthless. This kind of running is like doing a couple thousand forward lunges in a row.
I slowed way down on these sections. I knew I didn’t have that fitness and didn’t want to fall. Falling could be seriously painful in these steep rock fields. But, by slowing down I was fighting gravity more and adding the quad burnout that would haunt me all week. The elites bounce down these sections like little flying wood elves.
I got passed a lot on the descents, but then I’d make it up on the flats where my marathon training was reasonably useful.
Coming down the back side of Pack Monnadnock I checked my watch and we were averaging somewhere slower than 4 miles per hour! I laughed at this. I was ‘running’ about a fast walking pace on level ground.
We got some reasonable rolling trail into the first aid station and then slammed right into the gravel road that climbs up Temple Mountain. I was feeling a like I was behind schedule for some reason and did a good job of power hiking up the Temple road.
I was feeling good but was a little bit confused to where I was on the course. I knew it joined up with the section I was familiar with, at some point, but didn’t know when or where. All this technical single track with rocks and roots and trees looks the same at times.
The other thing I was under-trained, or at least under-seasoned for, was the abuse my feet were taking on the technical trail. Not blisters, just bruising from all the weird angles and impacts that you don’t get running on the road.
The trail was surprisingly dry, even though it’s been a wet spring. It did start in with a cold drizzle about 2 hours into my race but under the canopy it really didn’t bother you. There wasn’t’ a driving wind like at Boston.
It did make the views a bit less enthralling. Since this trail runs the ridge line, you pop out into the open on top of the mountains and get wonderful panoramic views of the area. With the cloud cover – not so much.
I hit the second aid station in fine form and dug out one of my smoothies to drink. I also choked down a couple endurolytes to keep my electrolytes up and topped off my hand held. The smoothie tasted great so a drank the whole thing. I probably should have just had half because it made my tummy a bit full.
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Then coming out of the second aid station we crossed a road and I knew where I was! There was the entrance to the Windblown Ski area and the starting line of our 18-mile race in the fall. It was all downhill from here!
Now I simply had to climb and descend 4 more familiar mountains to get back to my truck at Watatic. Piece of cake. I really enjoyed the swoopy section between the back of Pratt Mountain and the Binney Road Aid station. Since I knew the course I could stretch my stride a little and get a good flow going. I had a couple guys on my heels and they were commenting on how comfortable I looked.
I slowed a bit coming down the final descent off the back of Watatic. My legs were pretty trashed and I knew it so I wanted to be careful. Watatic is a popular day hike so the trails there are pretty mangled by erosion. They should probably stake off some sections to keep it from degrading more.
And then I was trotting happily into the Watatic parking lot, just a little after 5 hours of hiking and running. They gave all the finishers a cookie with the trail map on it. Very cute. I thanked the race director and made my way back to my truck before hypothermia could take hold.
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It was good day of trail running. I was more thrashed than I thought I would be. I was hoping to do some yard work later in the day but ended up couch-bound, and there may have been a nap involved.
It being a cold, wet day I don’t think my nutrition strategies got a real test, but I’m comfortable with being able to race with the pack and keep my energy up. My engine is good and I’m fairly fat-adapted.
I ran the next following day, that 10.5-mile trail run with my buddies and felt totally trashed after that. I could barely walk the rest of Sunday and Monday. I can’t remember my quads being so sore I had to go down stairs sideways for two days. I’m partly happy to get that good shot of strength training this early in my cycle and I’m partly frightened of how badly it beat me up!
All in all it was a successful outing. I didn’t fall down once! I didn’t get lost at all! I met some nice people and had an adventure. Love those New England Mountain trails!