From 0 to 100k - Part 7: Steep Ultra Course Test Run (2/2)

At the conclusion of my previous post, I had just gotten back to the Man in the Mountain trailhead after a navigation mishap had derailed the first half of my 50k training run. After a brief wait, I was picked up by a taxi and took the short drive to my refuelling supplies at the base of Marble Mountain.

When I arrived at Marble and reached my cooler, I was quite eager to change my clothes. It had rained most of the morning, and I was wet from head to toe. I put on a new shirt and a new pair of socks and immediately felt much better. I did discover the start of some blistering on my feet, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do about that with the supplies I had on hand.

After topping up my water bottles, grabbing my extra food, and plugging my phone into the charging block I was carrying with me, I began the climb up Marble. In light of the navigation errors in the morning, I was keeping my phone handy so that I could check the map when necessary.

The top of the mountain is in that fog somewhere.

About 10 minutes into the climb, I reached a fork in the road. One side was blocked by a gate, so I continued up the other. A smarter person probably would have checked the map, especially after my morning adventures, but I trudged on for a few minutes before doing so. When I did check it, I discovered I was already off course again. So I retreated to the fork, and made the decision to hold my phone in my hand for a little bit until I was confident I knew where I was going!

The trek up Marble was slow going, as my plan was to hike all the big uphills. By the time I reached the top, which included an out and back to the Doppler, I had covered around 5 km and about 500 m (1,640 feet) of climbing, which took basically an hour. The sun had broken through at this point, but there was still some decent fog cover. Even so, the view from the top was pretty incredible.

The best part of climbing up is the view from the top.

The one good thing about climbing to the top of a big hill is that you get to run down. I love downhill running, and following some of the ski routes down the other side of Marble was a lot of fun, although complicated slightly by me continuing to keep my phone in my hand to ensure I was going the right way.

The next couple of hours went by without much issue. The course passed through some power lines, a few fields, and some mountain bike runs. The navigation wasn't too bad, although there was one field I had to cut through where the path was anything but clear. Eventually I felt confident in stowing my phone away again. Around 1:30 pm I arrived in Massey Drive, having been moving for just under 8 hours, and covering just shy of 39 km. At this point, I had 5 separate text conversations active with people wondering about my status, so I took a brief break to update everyone before getting started on the final 11k.

Had to trust my phone a bit through here.

As I left Massey Drive, the next part of the course travelled up and around an old quarry. At this point, the sun was getting pretty hot, and I was definitely starting to feel the fatigue in my legs. After crossing the quarry, I linked up with some bike trails, on what I assumed would be a pretty straightforward part of the route. Unfortunately, when I took out my phone to check the map, no matter which way I went it didn't seem like I was taking the correct path. I wandered around for a few minutes and eventually started cutting through the woods in an attempt to match the route on the map. It was at this point that I looked up and saw a moose standing about 30 feet away!

Now, I'm not much of an outdoorsman. I've seen moose in the city before, or while driving, but always with some form of barrier between us. This was something totally different. I was in the middle of the woods, there was nothing but some brush between us, and for a second I thought it might have been a female with a calf. The last thing I wanted was for her to have a reason to get defensive.

I stopped moving and slowly sidestepped to put some cover between us in case she started coming towards me. I was able to determine that she was by herself, and for a moment we were just in a standoff. I attempted to get my phone up to get a picture or video, but as I started to move she turned and ran off. I took a deep breath and decided that was enough wandering off-trail. I moved back onto the bike paths and tried my best to follow a line as close to the route on my map as possible.

As I continued on, I quickly realized that I was heading in the direction that the moose had run. I stayed on high alert, and sure enough after about 5 minutes or so I caught sight of her standing in an opening, about 40 feet off the left side of the trail. This time there was absolutely nothing between us, so all I could think to do was stand there and hope she decided to run off again. Thankfully, after about 15 to 20 seconds she took off into the woods, and I ran in the other direction, hopeful that we wouldn't cross paths again.

This entire section ended up being quite confusing. I've attached two pics below; the first is the intended route, and the second is the route I ended up taking. To this day, I still have no idea where I went wrong, or why I couldn't find the correct path, but after about an hour I was out on the other side, with around 6 km to go to the finish line.

The intended route, shown in red.

The route I took, not exactly the same!

When I got back to the road, I began travelling up on off-ramp from the TCH. In hindsight, I have no idea why I thought this would be part of the course, but I guess after 9 hours of running, and everything that had happened, my brain wasn't firing on all cylinders. I got to the top and realized there was no way I was supposed to be running up there. I turned around and ran back down, crossed the road, and got on the trails that would take me to the finish.

Even though I was less than an hour from the finish, there was still some fun yet to be had. Shortly after crossing the road, there was a small tower off the trail, to provide a nice view of the river/gorge. It had about 15 stairs, and normally I would've just climbed right up and had a look. Perception is different after 45k of running though, and those 15 stairs looked like a mountain. I eventually decided to climb up and have a look, but the internal negotiation was a tough one.

This looked SO much taller that day!

A little while later, the course led me to a large pipe that had water spewing out of it! There wasn't much of a walking path on my side of the pipe, and there was a set of stairs to allow people to cross from one side to the other. But from what I could tell, if I crossed I would get soaked walking down the other side. So, I basically crawled down some rocks, crossed a small stream of water, and climbed up some more rocks, in an attempt to continue moving forward on the same side of the pipe. After all this effort, I realized there were more water sprays further down, and I would get drenched continuing on this side as well!

I retraced my steps down the rocks, over the stream, and back up the rocks. I crossed over the stairs, and noticed that if I walked up a small hill on this side, I could avoid the bulk of the water. I continued on and eventually came across a second set of steps to bring me back to the side of the pipe I was originally on. Crisis averted, and I was still dry with only about 3 km to go...

....and then it started to pour! All that effort to avoid getting wet was for naught. And, after hours of drying off from the morning rain, and thinking I was going to get back to the car with dry clothes, I was faced with the reality of a wet finish. Oh well, a fitting capper to a very interesting run.

I completed the last 3k without issue and arrived at the car at around 3:45 PM. It had been almost 11 hours since I originally started, however allowing for the break to take a taxi ride, I had covered 50.4 km in 10 hours and 8 minutes. It was on the slow end of my predicted time, but given all the calamity with navigation, rain, moose, etc., I was quite happy just to have finished!

That's a lot of km, a lot of elevation, and a lot of calories!

Since I had checked out of my hotel before leaving that morning, I didn't have access to a shower. My plan was to drive as far as I felt comfortable that evening, and since any change of clothes I attempted to put on was only going to get wet in the rain, I jumped right in the car and headed to Marble to get my cooler.

When I got my cooler at Marble, it was still raining pretty hard. I was tired, hungry, and soaking wet, but I was also anxious to get home. I made the decision to press on to Deer Lake, and grab some food there and find a washroom where I could dry off and change my clothes.

I got to Tim Hortons in Deer Lake, and thankfully the rain had let up. I got my dry clothes and towel from my suitcase and began the process of changing out of my soaking wet running gear. Removing my sneakers and socks was quite an ordeal, and this was the first chance to access the damage to my feet. I had a few minor heel blisters, but the real carnage was on my right pinky toe. I won't get too graphic here, but let's just say the friction between my toes had left one of them missing more skin than I would have preferred!

Having a mother who is a nurse comes in handy.
Flip flops were the shoe of choice for a little bit!

Feeling like a new man after a change of clothes, I picked up some food and hit the road again. I was feeling pretty awake and lively, probably from the adrenaline of the day, so I was going to trudge on with my plan to drive as far as it seemed safe. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with the same weather I had encountered on my drive across the province. There would be patches of clear sky and dry pavement, but then I would come upon downpours, where driving anything above 70 km/h felt reckless.

I stopped for gas in Badger, and again for food in Gander. As I came upon rain for the umpteenth time entering Terra Nova National Park around 9:00 pm, I decided it was soon time to call it quits for the day. I had been in communication with my parents throughout the drive, and I asked them if they could find a hotel somewhere in the Clarenville area for me to stay. They were able to book one at the Terra Nova Golf Resort, and I pulled in there around 10:00 pm.

I had been awake for 18 hours, run 50 km, and then driven close to 500 km. It had been quite a day, and I was pretty excited to just be able to put my feet up and relax. I got to my hotel room, opened up my email....and found out that the Steep Ultra race for 2020 had been cancelled! Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the news wasn't shocking, but the timing couldn't have been any more of a punch in the guts. I stared at my phone in disbelief for about a minute, and then I burst out laughing. Because, really, what else could I do?

That concludes the story of my trip to Corner Brook for a test run on the Steep Ultra course, and simultaneously brings an end to my quest to run the Steep 100k in September 2020. The next couple of posts will cover the fallout from the cancellation, my alternate plans, and the final two months of training. Thanks as always for following along, and until next time, take care.