A Blue Ridge Relay Story, by Zero Drop
The conversation about forming a competitive, all-in BRR team started not too long after Steaks and YHC were invigorated by the Hill Climb Challenge. Rough ideas of a Peak City branded team and an as-fast-as-possible team were sketched out and started to become reality with commitments by Mr. Safety, Revere, and Mohawk. Captain Steaks then targeted Saban for the final spot, which played out like a European football transfer. Carpex was paid a fee and Saban would become a Peak City runner for the season. Lastly (and crucially as will be described later), Yahoo agreed to conduct this crazy train.
Name suggestions floated around before we decided on Peak City Pain Train - “pain” because we would be living deep in the pain cave for 200 miles and “train” as an homage to Apex roots.
As summer training ramped up, Slack motivational messages began to fly around, Strava kudos were issued on a daily basis, Oval Time and long run meetings were organized, and Mohawk’s giddiness was off the charts. Most importantly and miraculously, everyone stayed injury free while training hard all summer.
Once the official BRR seed sheet was released with us ranked 17th overall and 7th among ultra teams, YHC set some goals that the team agreed to:
- Top 10 overall
- Top 3 ultra
- Top F3 team
- Make sure to beat the women’s ultra team seeded just ahead of us, Lady Regerts, who also happened to own the BRR women’s ultra record at 7:42 pace.
The last piece to put in place before we headed out to the mountains was an idea brewing deep in the brain of Mr. Safety in all the months since last year’s BRR - the ultimate van organization system. He asked the captain’s permission and Steaks agreed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Mr. Safety then got to work obtaining van measurements and building his vision. Was it perfect? Well, there may not be any perfect way to keep the gear of 7 PAX neatly organized while traveling 200 miles and stopping to run 36 times. But this system was admired by dozens of racers who applauded Mr. Safety for his genius.
Figure: Safety-approved van organization system.
After weeks of anticipation, the Pain Train made its way to Grayson Highlands for a 10:00am race start and our first sight of the competition, which included the aforementioned Lady Regerts (an impressive group of badass, artfully tatted women from Asheville who looked like they crush these mountains in their sleep) and some other fast F3 teams, including the always strong Joco Locos from Johnson County, a crew from South Wake and a not-so-humbly-named World Champs from Birmingham, AL.
Figure: The Pain Train exits the station.
We also started to Strava stalk our fellow F3 brothers and learned that Prodigal clocked a speedy 6:20 pace for the downhill first leg. Steaks started us off with a plan of being conservative and not worrying about the competition, but making sure he dipped under Prodigal’s mark. Mission accomplished.
Lady Regerts led the wave with a sub-6:00 first leg and a little bit of fear set in for the Pain Train, but Saban quickly erased that by grabbing the lead and handing the slap bracelet to Revere, our top runner and probably one of the top handful of runners in the entire race. By the time Revere was done with leg 3, we opened a healthy gap on the other ultra teams around us.
All was mostly on track through everyone’s first two runs as Steaks awaited the handoff from our final runner, Mohawk, coming in for exchange 12. Mohawk had a tough couple of first legs, the day was exceptionally hot and he rolled his ankle during leg 12, causing him to fall off pace. An agitated Steaks dropped a “Slohawk” comment and the ever-smiling Mohawk got motivated, picking up steam as the race went along.
It was at this point we started to see the Carpex DILLIGAF team at exchange zones and the plan was made to show our brothers some appreciation with an ass slap on the way by, unless it was Banjo. We surmised that smacking Banjo’s cheeks would lead to an early grave in the mountains for the offending slapper. Luckily it was Saban who made the pass of Liverpool, realizing it a second too late and having to slow down to give him a proper spanking.
The fun of hanging with the DILLIGAF crew led to Grandfather Mountain, aka Revere’s bitch. Again this year Revere was teed up to crush the infamous mountain leg and yet again he would be handing off to Mr. Safety, who last year was ill-prepared for how fast Revere would be. This time Mr. Safety was ready and waiting, but the rest of our team was not ready for what would happen next. The DILLIGAF crew found us, frantically delivering the message that Pet Sounds was in bad shape, like scary bad. We rushed over to find him hunched over with Hello Kitty making a 911 call. By the grace of God, during a race in the mountains with remote locations and spotty cell coverage, this all happened in a place where help was able to come quickly. The Pain Train continued on our way with Yahoo leading a prayer as he drove, and we ran with heavy hearts hoping for the best.
As we ran into the night and everyone became more tired and hungry, the legend of the Ruhl boys continued to grow. While the old men of the Pain Train arrived with all of the fanciest runner’s nutrition - gels, waffles, electrolytes and protein shakes - the Ruhl boys showed up with cheese slices. They ran without water bottles. They were completely carefree amongst a group of over-prepared 40-year-olds. And while most runners on ultra teams barely get a wink of sleep, Revere and Mohawk had no problem catching shuteye, waking up minutes before their legs and crushing miles. They led us with 42 and 37 miles respectively.
To complement this team of all star runners, we were privileged to have a truly all star conductor in Yahoo, who did so much more than drive a van for a stretch of something like 15 straight hour’s worth of legs. The man drives fast yet carefully, which is important for shuttling around a fast ultra team. From last year’s experience, he knew many of the roads and exchanges well. He walked every runner over to the exchange point and brought the returning runner back to the van. He knocked out 20 merkins at the majority of the 36 exchanges. He pulled the van over a few times during Revere’s legs to hand him water (on the run no less!). And, most importantly, the guy is just a pleasure to have around at a time when the 6 runners were cranky as hell. He was constantly positive and encouraging when we needed it most.
Deep into the night we ran across the other Peak City team, the Happy Dinos and the mission for Ass Slap #2 was on. The smackage almost happened on a short 2.5 mile leg that Mr. Safety ran at a blistering 6:15 pace, but Clockwork, who started 2 minutes earlier, refused to be caught, running a sub-7:00 pace himself. That left YHC with the honor of winding up and smacking the backside of Decal, who might have enjoyed it a little too much.
By the time we reached our fifth round of running, the fatigue and soreness was peaking and grogginess was in full effect. At one point when the van was parked on a slope at an exchange and YHC was too tired and sore to sit on the back of the van to change my shoes, I instead sat on the ground. Unfortunately, gravity had other plans and the back door swung closed on my face, leaving me with a nice BRR souvenir.
Despite the increasing difficulty, our strong summer of training paid off and we continued to knock out mostly sub-8:00 pace mileage. Eventually our competitors from the 10:00am wave were long in our dust, except for the 12-man F3 Birmingham crew. We reached our final round of legs and sunrise was coming soon. Steaks knocked out a bruising leg that included a long 1400-ft. climb. Then with the first signs of daylight and a nice gravel road descent ahead of him, Saban was greeted by a bear as he rounded a curve in the road! The bear was startled and ran off while Saban continued on high alert. Saban was then joined by a hunting dog who was soon scooped up by its owner before Saban saw another bear crossing the road. That, coupled with a pounding 9 miles of downhills, ended a heck of a journey for Saban.
Next up Revere finished out his gutsy race with The Nipple, a leg that includes the steepest climb and descent of the course. Then Mr. Safety closed his strong and steady race, handing off to YHC for a brutal 900-foot climb to the Blue Ridge Parkway, a humbling and epic way to finish my first BRR. Finally, Mohawk accepted his challenge of bringing us home strong with an 8-miler at 7:20 pace and a massive smile into the finish line.
Figure: At the finish line.
As for our goals, we hit just about all of them: 8th place overall, 3rd ultra team, 2nd F3 team (the boys from Birmingham held us off but it took 12 of them!) and we did beat the ladies from Asheville despite their strong start. In total we spent 25 hours, 25 minutes (7:20 pace!) busting our asses to represent F3 and Peak City.
Figure: Final results.