2025 Crooked Road 24-Hour
Moving Up Again

 

It's been over three years since my last 24-Hour race, which coincidentally was at Crooked Road. I've been mildly annoyed that I've never managed to reach 100K in my previous 24-Hour races, so I thought I'd finally make a concerted effort this year. Crooked Road is more of a first step to that with my major focus and goal race being Six Days in the Dome in June where I know conditions will be ideal. Weather in early March in Virginia can be a toss up. My last couple races there when it was held in November were cold and rainy. That's also a possibility for March. Cold weather this winter has hampered my effort to increase my weekly mileage, so I'm not as prepared as I had hoped. I actually feel more primed for a solid 50K race than a 24-Hour race. With two weeks until Crooked Road I finally managed a good back-to-back long run weekend, but still short of the 2:45 to 3:00 runs I would have liked. At this point my focus has to be on recovery and getting more used to what I hope is a reasonable race pace. I expected the biggest challenge will be to stay on the course, not take too many breaks, especially long ones, and be prepared for inclement weather.

My goals for this race are modest as I don't expect to be able to reach 100K after the abbreviated winter training. The easiest, and one I should reach under almost any conditions, is my M75 PB of 44.909 which I ran at Crooked Road in 2021. My next goal, and what I consider my minimum acceptable one, is 50 miles. If only full laps are counted, that would require 43 laps for 50.654 miles. Anything after would be a bonus, including exceeding my all time PB of 58.04 miles set at North Coast 24 in 2015 which would be 50 laps for 58.9 miles. I doubt that any of the standard split distances are certified or reported, so the only PA resident single age record I could conceivably break is 33.6 miles for 24 hours. The race would have to be a total disaster for me not to do that.

Taper week gives indications that the race may not unfold as I would hope. The most aggravating development is a pain in my right hip that makes it difficult to run at all, and even walking is mildly uncomfortable. If I'm to have any hope of reaching my goals and expectations, I'll probably have to walk much more than I originally planned. Weather is another factor, though it may not impact me as much as I feared. The latest extended forecast had decent temperatures on Saturday, and even into early Sunday hours. It's not until about the time we set the clocks ahead that the feels like temperature drops close to freezing. With my past experience in 24-hour races, I have doubts that I will still be on the course then. With only 13.9 miles for taper week leading into the race, I did not feel sharp or confident about my final preparations.

The drive down was uneventful. My first stop was Waid Park to pick up my bib and walk a couple laps of the course to see what the margin of error was with my Garmin. It looked like it was measuring about 2% long, so I knew how much to adjust the Garmin mileage to help keep track of what lap I was on and what my pace was. (It's so much easier to keep track of pace on a 400m track or a course that's exactly one mile.) Crooked Road is 1.178 miles. The Baymont was one of the race hotels, so they knew all about the race. There were also quite a few runners at breakfast, which was at 6:30 AM, so plenty of time to eat at the hotel and still get to the race 15 minutes away for the 8:00 AM start.

I found my friend, Sue Ardrey, at the start, which is always a pleasant experience knowing there's a friend in the race. Despite her reservations she finished as third woman and sixth overall. After everything leading up to the race, I felt mildly under the weather that morning, not quite to the point of considering not running, but enough to add yet another negative factor impacting my confidence in reaching my goals.

With my hip being a concern, I began with walking two minutes and jogging one minute making mild adjustments on the small rises and dips on the course. While the pace was slower than what I planned before all the late issues, it was still fast enough that my goals were attainable if I could last long enough. One of the biggest positives was that I was able to maintain that for 5:36, when normally I would be shifting to a brisk walk after about 3 hours. Knowing I was under prepared, I planned on taking short 5-10 minute breaks every 3 hours of so. What I had not planned on was how inadequate that was as the breaks became more frequent. I tried to couple those with aid station breaks when I would eat better trying to replace my energy stores. In retrospect I don;t think it was low energy stores, rather it was muscle fatigue.

While my unofficial marathon split was a relatively slow 8:30:28, I reached 50K in 9:57:28, my fastest in a year. I was helped immensely during that stretch by another runner who walked with me for several laps as we kept a brisk pace while chatting. Things rapidly deteriorated after that. It required extra effort to maintain that pace and I wanted another break after completing that lap. I rested for a while and consumed a pulled pork sandwich. After that and with no one walking with me I couldn't maintain even a 20:00 pace. On my 30th lap I not only drifted off the trail, I almost fell where the trail sloped away. Some fancy footwork and flailing arms kept me from falling, but I took that as an indication that I had reached my limit for the day. I finished the lap and notified the race director that I was leaving the course. We left it open to the possibility of me returning in the morning for a more laps, but I didn't expect I would feel up to that, and I wasn't. With 30 laps completed in 11:49:37, I had 35.34 miles, good enough for 86th of 205 runners, 52th of 95 men.

Going forward I need to build up again to at least 3 hour workouts and more back-to-back long runs. I would consider an April race if I could find one that's convenient, but the only option at this time is an expensive 12-hour race that starts at 10:00 PM. I'm not comfortable with a 10:00 PM start because that might throw off my daily schedule and sleep pattern for a while. I could enter the 24-hour event there, but that would also drive up the expense and I would still be planning on stopping after 12 hours. My immediate focus is on the D3 50K in May so staying the full 24 hours would be counter productive. My next 24-hour race won't be until Six Days in the Dome in late June.