It is said that an idea can be a dangerous thing.
Your humble correspondent has had the idea of doing the Pilot Mountain to Hanging Rock Ultra for a few years now, but because the race happens the weekend after the Blue Ridge Relay each year (and because YHC is not quite as tough as Steaks, though often as shirtless), this same correspondent had yet to tackle the race.
Then back in the spring, perhaps suffering under the pain of the fourth iteration of the Hill Climb Challenge, none of the pax seemed enthusiastic about doing BRR again this year. And so YHC thought it might be the perfect year to run from one iconic NC landmark to the other. But for some reason, no one else wanted to commit to a 50-mile ultra. So the dangerous idea became a little less dangerous by morphing into a 4-man relay team with Clockwork, Imp, I-Beam, and Rooney. And then it became a little more fun when Jockey, Gibraltar, Ramsay, and Mr. Safety formed a second team.
The race experience
Every good odyssey starts in medias res, so I will first tease you with a picture of the mountains calling.
Hopefully you agree that this picture was worth it. It may have cost us the race. But more on that later.
Getting there
Inundated by so many emails and pre-race organizer meetings that not even ChatGPT could summarize, it felt like the day would never come.
But on Friday, despite Town of Apex construction lane closures, all the pax made it to Mr. Safety’s slice of paradise to depart in an early and late van.
One of the best parts of any trip is the mumblechatter along the way, made even more dramatic when some of YHC’s more morbid stories and 9/11 recollections were accented by the special effects of a lightning show and rainstorm.
But the storms cleared up within the 2-hr drive to the packet pickup, a beautiful place called the Green Heron Ale House along the Dan River.
Peep the Mt. Olive pickles in Bloody Mary mix.
The rental cabin atop Grammy’s Mountain in the late afternoon sun was a sight to behold, as was the dead Carolina chickadee that greeted us on the porch. That and the lack of a hot tub were the only negatives about the place.
The night before
One of the best pieces of advice that YHC can give to anyone assembling a relay team is to invite chefs. The night before race day, Ramsay whipped up a Blackburn’s Revenge team favorite: Teriyaki Grilled Chicken, Soy-Sesame Scallion Noodles, and Thai Peanut Crunch Salad. This year featured a vegetarian twist of Grilled Tofu, too.
The morning at Pilot Mountain
The night sky was dark and full of stars, as Rooney and Mr. Safety prepared to kick off the race alongside the 50-mile participants (one of whom carried a boombox of latin tunes).
The trails were darker, narrower, and trailier than anticipated, but that didn’t stop Safety from blazing through the first leg and finish near the head of the pack. Thus began a bit of a friendly competition between the two teams.
Early dawn showed a few clouds hovering around Pilot Mountain.
The forecast said rain, but the stars and early sun made us hopeful. That hope was further beclouded the closer Pilot Mountain came.
I-Beam and Gibraltar did great on the longest, 11-mile leg of the race. Though the view at the top was not quite what one would have hoped for.
But in true race irony, by the time they finished at the bottom of the mountain, the skies had cleared.
To Hanging Rock
The sun and heat were manageable throughout the middle of the race, but as we drew near Hanging Rock, the weather curiously began to repeat itself, with dark clouds drawing up.
Note that Imp assured YHC Hanging Rock was “not too far” at this point.
This was also the part of the race where we began to pass a lot of the 50k and 50mi participants, uttering a pathetic “Good job,” as we breezed by them struggling being ~40mi in while we had been switching on and off and were relatively fresh. Someone’s gotta be the bad guy, I guess.
After a grueling uphill climb, YHC would like to report that Hanging Rock got easier on the way down, but it actually got worse, with stone step drops that seemed endless. This is where YHC lost the second-place, and possibly first-place relay finish…if only I had swapped bibs with Mr. Safety, who crushed it.
End the stairs eventually did, as YHC heard the echoes of the aid station waft across the hazy lake. A lake that proved to be roped off at the last exchange. Probably for the best to spare I-Beam’s super nice Expedition.
The last leg also proved to be a blistering one, but Rooney and Jockey pulled it off, with the whole rest of the evening left to enjoy.
Finish
Your Peak City finishers
Some of us finished in the cool indoors.
Some of us finished by swimming in the creek outback. I’ll let you guess who. Hint: this same person had earlier taught the pax how to identify sweetgrass to chew on.
One final descent down stairs…slightly less treacherous than the stone steps (but only slightly)
After party
Imp had warned us that college football impacted his mood and that we might seem him fall apart more unexpectedly than NC State in the last 10 seconds of the game. But I have to say with some disappointment, his composure was cool and less-than-Peach’s-Instagram-worthy. We had the best intentions of having a bonfire, but instead we watched a bunch of games…
ate a second delicious meal courtesy of I-Beam and his vegetarian enchiladas…
and tried to figure out the mysterious plumbing of the luxury showers in the rental house.
And after a quick sleep, we were out of the house ere dawn and back home in time for Sunday morning church services and NFL football.
Results
Team 1: F3 Peak City
The creatively named F3 Peak City team.
(LR) I-Beam, Imp, Clockwork, Rooney
- 3/25 relay place
- 10hrs, 11min total time
- 12:14 average pace
This was a surprisingly competitive relay race, as we were leading throughout much of the race. There was some controversy because we were only a minute behind the second-place relay team.
Suggestions for the team to improve next time:
- Rooney avoids taking glam shots
- Clockwork actually tries
- I-Beam doesn’t break the bib
The only one to emerge blameless was Imp. He did what he said he would. Plus he had the Sling log-in to watch all the college football games so we were probably just staying in his good graces.
Team 2: F3 Peak City Dos
The even more creatively named F3 Peak City Dos team.
(LR) Gibraltar, Ramsay, Jockey, Mr. Safety
- 5/25 relay place
- 10hrs, 24min total time
- 12:29 average pace
Other teams
We chatted with the second-place team, who had done some Ragnar events, but this was one of their first trail race.
…and the last place team was appropriately named the Worst Pace Scenario.
Takeaways
The relay course is the same as the PMHR 50-mile course, except you can split it up in any combination of 2- to 4-man, everyone just has to run 1 leg, order doesn’t matter.
Logistics
Logistics are much simpler vs. longer relays like the BRR.
| PMHR | Other relays like BRR |
|---|---|
| 50 miles total | 200 miles total |
| 2 legs/~12mi pp in 4-man | 3 legs/~17mi pp in 12-man |
| Shorter breaks between legs | Longer breaks between legs |
| Done ~10hrs | Done ~28-32hrs |
| Only a couple headlamp legs | Overnight legs |
| ~2hr drive | ~5hr drive |
| 1 SUV fits whole team | Often rent 2 passenger vans |
| ~$300 total cost pp | ~$600 total cost pp |
One thing that was not as simple as the BRR was estimating the pace. Because it’s a trail with a few legs that feature significant climbs, the pace predictions were harder to guess than simply taking a 10k time, or even our average Umstead trail run pace (~12min/mi).
New stuff
Gibraltar introduced us to a Splitwise app to make sharing expenses a bit easier, especially since we had some team-specific expenses and some shared across everyone.
Training
Summer is a special time in Peak City, when we bring in a bunch of seasonal AOs, many of which are calibrated to help you train for fall races.
YHC’s personal training looked like:
- Tuesdays: Ovaltime speedwork
- Wednesdays: EC run then yoga at 7th Inning
- Thursdays: Half Dome hills (year round)
- Fridays: Paddleboarding…because everyone needs some rest!
- Saturdays: Umstead trails collab with the full team
And then I would try to get an afternoon run in either Thursdays or Sundays. YHC also intended to do strength training Mondays, but several minor hand surgeries and unexpected travel this summer set me back.
Overall, I think the team did well doing training runs together. Shoutout to Gibraltar for coming up with schedules, calendars, and taper plans.
If I could do it over, I would have us do team ruck stairclimbs…at least definitely for whoever runs Leg 3 (Pilot Mountain) and Leg 7 (Hanging Rock).
In sum
In F3 we often say, “If you can do this, you can do the BRR.” Even more so PMHR. It would be a very nice race to do if you haven’t done the BRR or aren’t sure you can commit to the full BRR experience. And it might be a nice way to do an ultra at the same times as other F3 guys do the relay.
I will also say on a personal note, this might have been the most upended summer I’ve had in F3 to date, what with a lot of personal stuff and travel going on. I really appreciate the team stepping in, taking over the last-minute logistics, and making it a great sort of welcome-back trip. Hopefully you won’t come down too hard on me for not pushing it on my last leg…at least I wrote up the backblast this time (sorry Blackburns).