Uwharrie 100M Race Report (2024)
The Uwharrie 100 was a death by a thousand paper cuts. I'm fairly positive I'm not using this saying in its proper context, but it is the statement that most adequately describes my experience during the run and subsequently aligns with my reflection on the run sitting in a climate-controlled room reminiscing on this brutal thirty five and a half hour ordeal.
This race is fairly unassuming by the numbers. It boasts just over 18,000 feet of elevation gain over a course totalling 102.5 miles. While those are each on the high end of the bell curve for 100-milers in terms of distance and elevation gain, the race also had a 36 hour cutoff. With some simple math, it works out to a 21:04 min/mile pace over the course of the race for a 36 hr finish. Pretty manageable, right? I certainly thought so as I drove 11 hours southeast from last week's debacle in Albion, IN.
The race itslef nestled in the hills a little over an hour east of Charlotte. After spending a few days in Blacksburg, VA visiting a friend in his final year at Virginia Tech, I drove the last three hours out to the race location Friday morning. As we got closer and closer, I noticed the hills got bigger and bigger but I wasn't worried yet.
In usual late fashion, I prepped my two drop bags (one for the start/finish area) and one for the aid station at mile 11.7 in a Walmart parking lot and arrived at Wood Run Trailhead for packet pickup at 6:50pm. I noticed two things: just how dark it got in the forest so early (~6:30 pm) and how chilly the temperatures quickly turned as the sun went down.
After turning in my drop bags, snagging a slice of cold pizza, I headed 12 minutes in the town of Albemarle, NC, where I would be staying for the night. I had no desire to repeat last week's dreadful night of tossing and turning more than a 7-eleven hotdog on a skewer and so I booked the cheapest motel I could find.
Ironically named America's Best Value, this place was a dump. My room smelled like the previous guests had hotboxed the place and I noticed a few cockroaches who had made this room their home, but ladies and gentlemen, it had a bed. And it allowed me to sleep horizontal. For me, that made the $86 pricetag a steal.
I laid out my gear and headed across the street to check out the food options. I am quite a sentimental guy and the more I read about this race, I percieved it to be not to dissimilar from the Hawaiian Ultra Running Team (HURT) 100 miler I had run in January of this year. They were both five loops, with a lot of gain, super technical, and about half the people don't finish.
For those reasons, it became the HURT of the East in my mind. I remembered the first night in Hawaii, my parents and I got ramen. And even though our pre-race tradition is pizza, I opted to keep on brand with the ramen. For the middle of nowhere, North Carolina, it was shockingly good.
After a quick session of rolling out and covering my legs in Icy Hot, I tucked myself into the stiff bed for a six hour night. With far more sleep under my belt than the week prior, I rose from the dead around 4am, eat a quick breakfast, donned my Santa suit like the armor I perceive it to be and headed to the start line.
The nervous energy was palpable as everyone shifted about, adjusting their packs, laughing to cover the fear and catching up with friends. Even though it was quite chilly, I found myself a spot by one of the heaters and tried to ignore the fact of the pain I was about to go through for the next 30ish hours.
Soon, Ryan and Meghaan Hampton, the race directors, gave us a last minute brief and we were off.
The course itself is five 20.5 mile loops designed as a figure 8, starting in counterclockwise fashion. That middle aid station (Crossroads), we would hit at mile 6 and mile 15 of each loop. And then there was a far side station (Kelly's Kitchen) at mile 11.7 of each loop. For me, I broke the race up into start/finish to Kelly's and back to start/finish. I find 10-mile segments to be manageable regardless of how deep into a race I am.
As the first couple miles rolled in the early morning darkness rolled by, I was glad to not feel the shooting pain in my right knee I felt at the start of the Indiana Trail 100 last week. Instead, there was a dull instability and that I could live with.
I noticed quickly that the course was not going to have any flat spots. Everything was up or down. And there was a ton of creek crossings. All were manageable by hopping on the rocks, but I knew this would be tough later in the race.
In this first mile section, I spoke with a local runner, Reggie Johnson. He had got into ultrarunning last year and had run the 100k here. I mentioned to him that I didn't think it was that technical. He told me to just wait... and boy, would I eat those words later.
He reinforced the narrative to me that I had read about in all the pre-race emails, website, and branding. This course is "simply unrelenting." It will not stop attacking you. He said the 100k last year had taken him nearly 20 hours. I couldn't fathom this, and I knew the course must be seriously difficult in later loops.
The sun was coming up right as we reached Crossroads A/S (mm 6). Absolutely floored by the food creations already at the A/S table, I snagged some Spring Energy gels and rolled right on through. I noticed here that I felt it nearly impossible to run faster than a 14-minute mile on any of these trails.
It was slowly becoming clear to me why only seven people in the 10-year history of this race have gone sub-24 and the vast majority of finishers come in in the 33-36 hour time frame.
This section to Kelly's Kitchen (mm 11.7) contained two of the three 'named' hills on the course. Even with about 4,000 feet of gain per loop, only three of the climbs were significant enough to develop a personality of sorts.
The first of these was Sasquatch Summit. It was virtually a wall and felt more like scrambling than trail running. Perched near the top of the hill, the photographer commented that I was second in the costume competition. A man fully dressed in a Sasquatch costume had already come through!
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| Sasquatch Summit climb |
From Sasquatch Summit, there was an unforgiving short descent and then straight into the beginner of Soul Crusher. In my humble opinion, this was the worst of the three hills, especially because it comes right after Sasquatch Summit.
But during the first loop, these climbs didn't even cause me to bat an eye. Instead, I was focused on my right knee where I started to feel the recognizable pain and instability. I was frustrated to feel it early, but I took it in stride and vowed to figure it out when I got back to the start/finish where my big drop bag was waiting.
Soon, we made it to the only turn of the course, which was preposterously well-marked. It led us out to Kelly's Kitchen on a short 0.5 mile out-and-back. The rest of the course, we simply had to follow the native trail blazes on the trees. The first half we followed the yellow blazes of Dutchman's Creek Trail and then after this one turn, we followed the white blazes of the Uwharrie Trail all the way home.
Leaving Kelly's Kitchen on the Uwharrie trail was a special experience each lap. The crew at the aid station had lined a clothesline of index cards with motivational sayings. It was truly one of the most unique and sweet gestures I've seen in my 10-year ultrarunning career. My first path through I decided not to take one in order to leave that mental boost for later laps.
The roughly three miles from Kelly's Kitchen back to Crossroads (mm 15) were the most runnable of the course and possibly the only redeemable section of this course. Each loop these seemed to fly by and this first loop was no exception.
From Crossroads back to the Start/Finish (mm 20.5), I got to experience some more rugged North Carolina trails and the last of the three major climbs (Hallucination Hill). This hill lived up to its name later in the race, but for now it was a speedbump. Instead, I was focused on the steadily growing pain in my right knee.
I ended up closing the loop out in 5:39. I knew from HURT that that was a bit of a slow lap for a tough 5-loop course with a 36 hour cutoff, especially because of how much I knew I would slow down.
Even so, I took twenty minutes here, rebooting mentally and physically. I attempted to tape my knee up for support with some off-brand KT tape. It would work for about 3 miles before becoming a loose Band-aid.
Starting out the second loop around the 6 hour mark, I was in a good spot mentally. I knew I just had to put in one more loop before I would be paced by my buddy Alex East, who I ran with at HURT. He was a North Carolina native and had run the Uwharrie 100 before. If I could make it to 40, I would have him with me the third loop as I went into the night.
In this second loop, the pack had really thinned out and I didn't see many other competitors. Instead, I plugged in some music and podcasts and got to work.
I was excited to see what kinds of foods were on the menu at Crossroads (mm 26.5) and I was not disappointed. And I was not kidding about a menu.
I opted for the Guiness-marinated steak strips. I know the last couple of weeks, I've been commenting on food creations and how each aid station has the best food. But hands-down (and I promise this is not recency bias), Crossroads aid station wins.
Working at the aid station were Vincent Swendsen and Mike Detrick. I had run with both of these guys before - Vincent at Arkansas Traveller and Mike at the Pistol 100 a few years back. Both had a ton of ultra experience and aid station experience and brought that to the table. They crushed the cooking and were there for the whole thirty six hour ordeal.
The section from Crossroads to Kelly's (mm 32.2) was lonely and the first time I experienced the true nature of Sasquatch Summit and Soulcrusher. I remember literally taking a break to sit on a rock near the top of Sasquatch Summit and questioning all of my life choices.
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I trudged my way to Kelly's and took a sizeable break here. I drank some sweet tea and had to go deep into my mind to find that place of peace. The one rarely accessible during modern-day life, but totally accessible deep into ultras. I knew physically this was going to be one of the toughest races I had ever completed. I just had to choose to take one step more. And after that, another one. And on and on, ad infinitum.
Leaving Kelly's, I grabbed a card which read: "This course is unrelenting. So don't let it break you. Keep moving, steady and strong..."
I translated this into a mantra which I repeated to myself a number of times throughout the rest of the race: "Nothing breaks me." I repeated this to myself the whole way home this loop. And to be honest, I don't think its that far from the truth.
Deep in the pain cave in 100's, I look back at my life. I see all the pain, the addiction, the struggle with depression, the not feeling welcomed or accepted no matter where I went in life, and I see the way I came out of that. And I realize, nothing breaks me. It's not bullshit when I say it to myself because my lived life experience and my ultrarunning career proves it to me.
Nearing the end of the loop, I was ironically in a better mental state, but worse physical state. I remember coming up Hallucination Hill, excited to pick up Alex as a pacer soon but hurting bad in my knee. Straight up shooting pain in my knee. I tried to clamp down on it with some Tiger Balm I was carrying and that helped, but I knew I needed something different.
Despite the shooting pain and questionable headspace, I really wanted to finish the loop in the light and so I pushed through it all the way home. I ended up closing out the loop in 12:21.
Mentally, this helped a lot. I knew I had about 24 hours to run the back 100k, and in my mind, with 24 hours, any 100k can be finished. I don't care what lies in those 62 miles.
I saw Alex right as I was coming up the last little bit of trail into the station and instantly, I was stoked. He was all business, taking care of my pack and encouraging to get my booty out of there. I let him work on that while I went out to my care and snagged a knee brace which I had gotten right after my ACL and meniscus tears back in April. I hadn't run long distance with it yet, but I figured if anything was going to work, this would be it. And I was right. I still felt pain for the rest of the race, but significantly less.
With Alex there to keep me moving, we left for the third loop with around 12:45 on the race clock. Generally, I don't have pacers. That's less of a decision I've made and more that I just rarely reach out to people and ask them to help because it feels like a big ask.
Alex, however, had reached out a few days prior on Facebook and mentioned he would be volunteering at the race. And I couldn't resist the offer.
That third loop, despite taking nearly seven hours, felt like the quickest loop of the whole race. And we were moving, passing about eight people over the course of the loop.
Alex kept my spirits up, telling me the most ridiculous stories about his run out here a few years back and many others. I should mention here that in his running of this course, he managed to only run loops in times with a 5 or an 8 at the front of it. In other words, he blasted the first 3 loops around 5:30 a pop and then took nearly 8:30 for each of the back two loops.
As you can imagine, this lead to some legendary stories of hallucination and pain. Subsequently, I actually doubled over a few times laughing and he had to remind me to keep moving.
During the first half of that loop as the sun was going down, we were treated to a beautiful sunset and a sky absolutely lit up by all the warm colors of the rainbow.
I was proud of myself, too, during the climbs of Sasquatch and Soulcrusher to have stronger climbing legs than Alex. In retrosepct, he was probably just making me feel better about my slow pace, but he claimed I was one hll of a climber and that keep me moving. A+ job Alex.
Leaving Kelly's, I picked up my second index card which read: "Stop negative thinking. Take a deep breath. PROCEED to the Finish." I took this message to heart, though I remember laughing with Alex about how imperative and commanding the message was.
In short order, we came in with 19:19 on the race clock, or 1:19 AM. I was curious to check out the awards table where Alex had told me they turn over the buckles of those that DNF. I thought this was an absolutely savage invention. Speaking with Ry, the RD, about it, he stated that many of those that DNF'd this year actually turned their own buckles over. I can't imagine emotionally handling that.
The last few miles in I was excited, but also nervous to pick up my next pacer, David Di Nardo. A great friend of mine from Virginia Tech, he had assured me he would be there. But I was also worried that he would get lost or caught up in something else and I would be left hanging for the fourth loop. I thought my fears came true when I came into the start/finish and didn't see him anywhere.
I called him a few times, but the calls weren't going through. I was bummed, but had some perogies to bring my spirit up. As I was getting ready to leave, I get a text from him: "I am literally here." Something his call manages to come through and we talk for a minute, but I still can't see him. In true Nardo fashion, he was sleeping somewhere in the grass and had just gotten up to see if I had come through.
I tossed him a few headlamps and we headed out into the woods with around 19:40 on the race clock. It would turn out to be one of the slowest loops, but it didn't feel like it with Nardo pacing me and for that, I am very grateful.
It was a real pleasure having him out there, especially because he had never been to an ultra before and was pumped to experience it all. He kept talking about how cool it was that we were out there and that these aid stations have all these epic food choices. His excitement at it really pulled me forward and reminded me of what we're doing out here.
But excitement and energy alone could not stop the sleep gods from stomping me on the head. Before we got to Crossroads (mm 67.5) that loop, I laid out on the trail for a 5 minute nap. I didn't get any real shut-eye, but I did get a mental reprieve from where I was.
For a lot of this loop, I had Nardo pace in front, walking most of the time and then jogging in the very short increments that were forgivable. I found that we moved the quickest if I just stared at his feet on the trail and committed to following each foot step.
During this loop, I really began to experience a lot of foot pain. There's a couple of reasons for this. The first being how technical this race is. It is unavoidable that you will be stepping on rocks and roots as you go along. This aspect reminded me of HURT, where it's just impossible to avoid the roots.
But added on top of that, I was wearing the Altra Experience Flows. They are actually terrific shoes, but the same shoes I had worn for the last four 100 milers and so they had very little cushion and life left in them. The cherry on top was that I had removed the insoles so that my super wide feet could actually fit.
This left me feeling every single bump on the trail, and the trail was an exceedingly bumpy ride. I will not make this mistake at No Business on Friday, where I will be wearing a new pair of Altra Lone Peak 7's which I've been saving because I don't particularly like the newer models.
Leaving Kelly's (mm 73.2) this loop, the message waiting for was more existential than I expected: "This is your Story. How will it end?" As previously mentioned, this index cards were super helpful emotionally and mentally. And I knew how it was going to end... I was going to finish. I just didn't know how slow.
On our pass through Crossroads on the way back, I had one of the most unexpectedly good food creations at all ultra of all time: Shrimp and grits. But hey, the sun was up and Nardo and I were in good spirits.
I probably spent a bit too long here and at the other aid stations throughout the loop and we ended up closing out the fourth loop with the race clock at 27:18 or 9:18AM.
Volunteering at the start/finish were Angie and Chad Cato, two people my parents had met and befriended at the Fat Dog 120 a few years back in British Columbia. Angie recognized me from the Santa costume and it was such an emotional boost running into her.
Pumped up on vibes and perogies, I headed out with Nardo for the last loop. I knew that I would finish, but I was also hurting bad. The first half of the loop and especially my last pass through Sasquatch summit and Soulcrusher were slow.
And I mean very slow. Two or three runners passed us during the first half of the loop and considering that only 23 of the original 52 were still on the course, it was pretty embarassing.
I was also dreading the last nine miles of the loop because I knew Nardo would be leaving and I would have to brave them on my own. I was moving slowly enough that I was legitimately concerned about the overall cutoff.
The cutoff to leave Kelly's (mm 93.7) was 3:00pm and we got there with plenty of time to spare at 1:59 pm. But the miles were so slow and the energy and life force was gone.
After finding Nardo a ride at Kelly's and smashing some peanut butter oatmeal balls, I headed out on the last pass of the back half of the Uwharrie loop. I knew I just had to make it to Crossroads and there would only be one more segment.
I was bummed however when I came to the intersection the index cards had been at previous loops. I was looking forward to one more emotional boost, but the clotheslines were gone!
Instead, I listened to a Joe Rogan podcast with Norman Ohler about drug use in the Third Reich and let my mind wander. Back at Crossroads, I hung out with Mike and Vincent for a little while and smashed a couple of hot dogs.
I actually got passed twice while sitting in that aid station which motivated me to get a move on. Those final miles were hallucination central for me. I really started losing it. My eyelid twiching incessantly, the sun slowing fading behind the ridge line, the monsters came out.
I was seeing people, posters, and banners in the trees. And hearing voices. It was one of the worst states I've been in during a 100-miler and on top of that, I managed to drop an airpod and had to spend 10 minutes looking for it when it was right in the middle of the trail.
But by the grace of God, I eventually made it to the tree marked with three blazes which Alex had told me was the one mile left marker.
And then to the bridge of the glory (about .3 mile left).
And then the drainpipe, and then "Let's gooooooo Stefan!!!"
Ry Hampton, the race director, was standing at the top of the final climb cheering in us final four finishers and in my delirious state, his screaming startled the heck out of me. I wasn't sure what planet I was on anymore.
He walked in the last 200 yards with me and I relayed to him the horrors of this last lap and congratulated him on an epic race with incredible volunteers.
By a power greater than myself, I cartwheeled across the finish in 35:36:15, my slowest 100-mile finisher ever.
It damn near broke me... but it didn't. Because nothing breaks me.
But I will say, writing this two days later in a hotel lobby in Winston-Salem. I am never running this race again. I'm glad I ran it, but my feet are destroyed and my ego is obliterated. I am deeply grateful to have had this experience and glad to be one of the 45% that actually finished, but I have no desire to come back here.
As my buddy Alex put it perfectly, this race is like HURT, but without any of the magic. You're not in Hawaii, it's not particularly pretty. It's just hard, really hard. But hey, if that's what you're looking for, you'll find it here.
Off to No Business 100 in Jamestown TN this Friday (three days after this writing) to close out the four 100's in four weeks. Let's pray I don't die.
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