2014 10-11 Cumberland Trail 50K

The Cumberland Trail 50K was a race where I had a long history, but had never had the opportunity to run it before this year. The race was started by Susan Donnelly, a friend from our Haw Ridge Tuesday Group. I had helped her and Rob with the initial scouting of the course. Their work resulted in a 2009 race launch featuring an out and back course mostly on the Cumberland Trail, but also using some other jeep and ATV roads in the North Cumberland WMA. The route followed the CT from Cove Lake State Park to Greens Branch, then had an ascent on an ATV road to Massengale Mountain, a jog east on the gravel Mine 10 Road, and then a final ridgetop stretch out to an elk field which served as the turnaround.

 

Elk along the New River from a scouting run.

The first year Susan wanted me to try to lead the field out on a mountain bike, but I demonstrated that I couldn’t ride any faster than the runners through the dark on the bike. My roles for the race evolved to helping with course marking the day prior to the race, and managing Aid Station #1 on Cross Mountain, most often with John Storey. Aid 1 was also the last aid station for runners on the return leg, resulting in a very long day. However, we were never busy in the middle of the day, so John and I would take advantage of some down time and run over and back to Aid #2 on the Red Ash/Mine 10 road.

 

Scouting with Susan, Rob, and Aaron

The start of the race in 2009 was perfectly timed to ride the wave of popularity of trail ultra runs. The first year the field was kept small as we expected some glitches in a new race. Over the next two years the number of finishers grew from 19 to 29 to 43, despite almost no publicity or advertising for the race. One factor working against the success of the race was the lack of maintenance of the Cumberland Trail between Caryville and Frozen Head. There was almost no way to run or hike that section once the summer growth had arrived, so the race crews had to do a lot of cutting and flagging just to allow the runners to get through. The only other time to run the course was midwinter when all the vegetation had died back. Susan and I were both on the board of the Cumberland Trail Conference for much of this time, and to see the lack of use of the trail during this time was frustrating.

 

Race Map for the original course.

In 2013 Susan turned the race over Tony Branam and Brian Williams. Their decision to hold the race was last minute led to a very small field and only 13 finishers. That year I volunteered for the last time, again working the Cross Mountain Aid Station.  

For 2014, Brian and Tony decided to go back to the original intent of the race and organized a point to point course on the Cumberland Trail to Caryville from Cave Branch, deep in the most remote part of the Cumberlands. I had a real dilemma trying to decide if I should run the race. Since 2009 when the race started, I’d favored the point to point course over the easier to manage out and back course. With the point to point back on the slate, the lure of all that remote single track was strong.

But conversely, I didn’t want to risk hurting my knee, especially with the long steep downhill at the end. My last 50K race at Duncan Ridge in 2012 had led to a long, slow, and painful rehab from knee tendonitis, a 2+ hour personal worst result, and most humiliatingly the failure to finish a lap at Barkley earlier in the year.

Also, I hadn’t met the qualifier of having finished another 50K within the last year. Luckily, Brian allowed my run with him on his birthday to count. And, I was not in particularly good running shape. But I had felt good at the Barkley Fall Classic (in good conditions) and had done a lot of long run/walk training. I thought if I just tried to finish, and did not push hard on any steep downhill or sloping trail that my knee might be OK, and luckily for me this worked out.

 

Brian's Birthday Run

However, the day did not start well. Driving to the start and turning onto the I-40 East ramp, I lost my line in the oncoming headlights and turned too sharply hitting the curb hard. I got out of the car, and no surprise, I had a flat tire. It was too dark to change it there, so I drove the mile back home. I tried to make a few calls for a ride before remembering that my near neighbor Misty was in the race. She answered my call and said that Kirby had just gotten to her place, and they could pick me up. Five minutes later I was on my way.

We had lots of rain prior to the race, and we had a mix of fog and light drizzle all race day. This kept the temps down in the 60s, but it was humid, and a lot of us risked cramps during the run. The trail was in pretty good shape and draining well. Brian and Tony had done a lot of work on the trail just prior to the race. The local crew Kirby, Misty, Kathy, Leah, Steve Barber, and I got in one van with Stephanie Johnson for the shuttle to Cave Branch. Starting out like a trip with friends helped me treat the day as a run, rather than a race,

The start was at 7AM, still in the dark, so things went slowly up the first climb up Cave Branch, which we pushed pretty well. I took it easy dropping into Bowling Branch, and got a bit worried on water when there was no aid station there. But the climb to Lawson Mountain was the easiest of the day’s four major climbs. Brian had driven, somehow, up to the crest, and had an aid station where they had added a 3 mile lollipop loop to get the course to ~50K. The stem of the lollipop was so short  I never did see another runner on it. Brian said the extra was about 3 miles and I’d only been out this road 0.6 mile to the top of Lawson Mtn., so this at least was some new trail to me. I think except for Susan and I, none of the other runners had ever been on the CT west of the end of the old course.

Auto ford over the New River.

I took it easy on next descent down Lick Creek to the New River and ran from this point to the final aid station with Thomas Booker.  Stephanie was at the Norma Road aid station. It turned out Brian had only a few aid workers, and they were leap frogging the runners along the course. The Anderson Mountain climb wasn’t too hard either, there are some long flat stretches. Brian and Tony had to mark a lot of this section, through the coal benches. Brian’s really herculean work was in clearing a path through the upper elk field. Apparently, he’d been out until 9:30 the night before cutting a rough path, lost his phone (found by Steve) and had been picked up by Tony. Once down to the lower field there was some aid. The next piece of trail may be the best running on the course. The new course joined the old course at the ATV Road. I decided to not push the climbs out of the next two stream valleys, but did make one really stupid decision down there. On the second crossing I tried to jump to a rock, slipped of course, and bruised my right butt cheek pretty good along with putting a good bend in my hiking pole. It could have been a lot worse, and my feet weren’t even dry to being with.

 

Leaving the aid station.

Brian was at the campsite  stream crossing to mark the start of the last climb. I wasn’t able to push this climb, but also didn’t suffer too badly. I been near cramping since I had retied my shoes near the lower elk field aid station, so was trying to do a better job of eating and drinking. We got thru that climb and the next pitch to the top of Cross Mountain wasn’t near as bad as I’d remembered, we were even able to run a bit of the gentle downhill to the final aid station. But just as we got there it looked like they were driving off! No problem though, the crew was just changing out.

 

Still on trail.

Susan Donnelly caught us there, and Thomas took off with her. I went very conservatively down the hill but hadn’t had any knee trouble all day, and nothing popped up on the descent. I don’t think though that I could have pushed hard anyway, I was pretty well spent by then. The last two miles were long and tedious. This section was also poorly, if at all maintained. There’s long section parallel to I-75,and I think most folks just want the race over by then. But finally, the picnic area was in sight and I was done. I’d finished in 8:44, 16^th of 19 finishers.

Despite the relatively slow time this was a good race for me. For the most part, my knee issues were behind me, I was able to run well at the Norris Dam 25K later that fall and even got a measure of redemption the next year at Barkley. The CT 50K was held until 2018, when there were again only 16 finishers. The lack of publicity for the CT 50K and the torrent of publicity for the similar Barkley Fall Classic were enough that the race was not held in 2019 or planned for 2020.