I realized I hadn’t added this race recap to my site. Maybe I was trying to put it out of my mind. Somewhere along the way in Frozen Head State Park, I destroyed my knee. I am nearly 100% certain that it was this race that I tore my meniscus at the root and have not recovered since. Regardless, here is my short recap I shared on Facebook after the race.
The The Barkley Fall Classic was a very tough race, both physically and mentally. I was not sure if I was going to do it at all less than a week out. It fell on Lucas’s birthday and I was seriously debating if I wanted to run the race I had tried to get into for three years, or do a mileage challenge to raise money for the Lucas Fund. I had some guilt and anxiety going into the race, after deciding to just do it while I have the chance. And I really had not trained a whole lot. It was going to be hard.
Boy was it ever.
But at the same time, fun in a sick kind of way. If you have watched the Barkley Marathon documentaries, you are familiar with terms like “The Yellow Gate”, “Rat Jaw”, “Testicle Spectacle”, “Chimney Top”, “The Prison Tunnel”, “The Meth Lab” and of course, Lazarus Lake. Throw in a thunderstorm and torrential downpours, bees, hornets, and you have one mean race course.
The short and sweet version of a quite long and muddy race report is that I made it through all of the famous landmarks and pulled out at the second half of the ascent of Rat Jaw. I am guessing around 23 miles in. Even after dropping out, I still had to walk/run 3 or so miles to get back to the finish line to officially quit.
DNF.
It was a surreal experience. I made a lot of cool memories.
Thanks go to Becky for keeping me company, being my crew, and catching some cool photos of the action.
And thank you to all who donated to the Lucas Fund on his birthday. It means the world to me to keep his memory alive and help others at the UVA Childrens Hospital.
www.forlucas.com