Stu visits West Virginia.

Stuart Thompson
Sep 28, 2024
11 min read

It’s been a few years since I’ve done a race report, mainly due to a few epic failures. It is always easier to report the good results right? In all honesty , this result doesn’t happen without prior screwups. Going into this year, I had 3 races all of them 100 milers. Some would call that ambitious some would call it crazy. I would agree with both opinions. I had Riverlands 100 in May , Capes 100 in August and then Grindstone 100 in September.

While I agree that sounds crazy and border line stupid, I also placed a level of importance to each race.

It was always clear that Grindstone would be my ‘A’ race for the year. Nothing would change that and I wouldn’t hesitate shutting down the other 2 races if i felt it would jeopardize my Grindstone race.

So, as this report it based off the Grindstone race I’ll quickly jump ahead and tell you that :

- Riverlands was going great until around 60miles when I started having serious knee/quad issues and couldn’t bend my leg so that ended my race.

- Fast forward to Capes 100. This race was also going well in some pretty challenging conditions but going into the halfway mark I again made a decision to stop. This was not due to any injury, infact I felt pretty good considering, but I knew another 50miles on my feet would cause some damage that could potentially make it very difficult to run Grindstone, which was only 5 weeks away at that point. So I dropped and decided to save my body. I treated it as a great training run with lots of time on feet.

The 5 weeks leading up to Grindstone , I focused on climbing and not so much distance. I had plenty of big runs over the summer so that wasn’t a worry but I knew this race had huge hills and lots of them. This consisted of mainly visits to Wentworth ski hills. Luckily, I had a good friend , Krystal Parrott who is also training for a big race and needed some time on the big hills too. We did a bunch of runs together in preparation for both our races.

Let’s get to the fun stuff!

My crew for this race consisted of my wife (Leigh Anne), sister in law (Angie) and brother in law (Derrick). Angie would actually pace me for the last 10 miles too. This would be a big deal for her also as it would be the longest distance she has run. Some may call that plan silly, but I’ve seen her determination and I can relate to being doubted by people. Nothing better than running with a chip on your shoulder because some may doubt what you can do. I had no worries that she’d be fine with the distance and terrain. “Spoiler Alert” She crushed it! But more on that later. We arrived Thursday evening a little later than planned due to traffic so we missed the Thursday check in. No big deal , we would end up checking in Friday morning and then scout out the crew accessible aid stations during the early afternoon. I would get back to the Airbnb and relax for a couple of hours before the 6pm start.

Race start!

I managed to track down my good buddy, Mike Hansom, at the start who was also running this race. We have run races together before and had a hope we would run a fair bit together. Obviously, in such a long race the chances of that actually happening are slim but it was nice to start together and chill for a bit.

After a brief countdown from the RD we were off. The first few Kms take you through the park and then on to the road for about 7kms leading into the mountains. I felt good! I wanted to stay middle of the pack with a good pace on the flat road. I turned around and couldn’t see my buddy Mike. I was guessing he was taking it super easy at the start so I pushed on. The weather was great and the sun was close to setting on a beautiful evening. At this point I was preparing myself for the first big climb of the day. It’s not huge, but at approximately 400m , it gets your heart pumping and warms you up for the next section which is actually one of the biggest of the entire race. It comes early and it comes hard. It is also in this section that I kicked a largish rock! Oh boy did I smack it! I kick rocks and roots a fair bit and it’s never fun but this time it hit different. I knew right away I potentially did some damage. The instant pain in my toe radiated throughout my foot for a few minutes before it just went numb. This was a blessing as now it didn’t really hurt so I was able to put it out of my mind.

The climb up to Reddish Knob aid station is approximately 15km and almost 1000m of climbing. It’s unrelenting and intimidating. You question your life decisions on a climb like this, and I certainly did more than once! I tried a slow methodical one foot in front of the other approach - concentrating on keeping the heart rate low, slow and steady. I took a good couple of hours on this climb and got passed by a lot of people. ‘It’s a long race’ I kept telling myself trying not to get disheartened by the amount of people passing me. Eventually, after what seemed a lifetime, I got to the summit and approached the aid station looking forward to filling up my flasks which were now completely empty. What happened next was a kick in the gut, literally! ‘No water’ were the only words I heard. I’m thinking wtf? How can you have no water this early in the race after a 1000m climb? ‘Only 4 miles to the next side station ´I heard someone say. Well, that didn’t help my state of mind at that point. Luckily the stretch to the next aid station wasn’t too bad so I adjusted accordingly and made it without too much trouble.

Next was a 20km run down to North River Gap aid station (which was the first crew spot )where I could meet my crew which was an exciting thought. The run down is also lots of fun as it’s almost all down hills and pretty runnable. I made short work of the downhill and passed a bunch of people along the way. I was also aware of the cutoff times and they’re pretty tough in this race. I had an hour to spare ,which doesn’t seem a lot, but it’s about what I expected at this point. I felt if I could get to the crew spot - there were places I could make up a little extra time on the course.

I arrived into North River Gap in about 8hrs which is 54km into the race. I felt good apart from a few hotspots that I could feel in the feet and other than that the body felt great. I see my crew ready with a chair and as I sit down and explain I want to be out within 10 minutes they go to work. Like we had planned - everyone had a roll to play.

Derrick took my flasks, Leigh Anne got me a good spread of aid station food and refilled my vest with gels and supplies., Angie took care of foot care. Right away as she removed my shoes and socks, I could see slight damage already. A couple of small blisters in the heel and one very ugly looking toe which was a beautiful shade of blue. I explained what happened and she said ‘yup looks broken’ and nothing else - just cleaned , dried and powered the foot. A pair of fresh socks and I was ready to go. After a few thanks, I took a quick glance at the next section on my map and set off knowing I wouldn’t see them for another 21km. Little did I know it would be much, much longer than that!!

The run from North River Gap to Dowells Draft is about 21km with about 750m of climbing, mostly all of it in the first 12km. Feeling good, I made short work of the next big climb. This section went well. My biggest concern being my feet as I knew blisters were starting to form on multiple parts of my feet. Everything else was going great - gels going down a treat and Naak hydration was on point. Coming into Dowells Draft, was the first big ‘Fuck me’ moment. My plan was to have a full foot makeover! Clean and dry feet, lube them up fresh socks fresh shoes and get ready for what is the toughest part of the course. Arriving into the aid station and not seeing my crew was a big low moment. This race is awfully difficult to crew. If you are not familiar with the area, and we had issues finding aid station spots in the race preparation so I was aware that this could happen but hoped it wouldn’t. Well it did! It was happening right now and for a few minutes all I could think of was ´I’m entering the hardest section of this race with destroyed feet and I don’t have away to do anything about it for potentially another 35km with 2000m of climbing.´ That’s a long way and a lot of climbing with messed up feet. After a few minutes of panic , I settled down enough to realize I had a fresh pair of socks in my pack and some lube. I decided to take a few extra minutes and clean my feet, as best as I could, and lube up all the hot spots and put a fresh pair of socks on. It wasn’t perfect but it helped. I grabbed some bacon and salted potatoes as well as some coke from the aid station and set off. I still have 1 hr on the cutoff time at this point but I was also aware this section could and potentially would decide my race.

This section has three massive climbs all of which are technical and steep. What happened over the next 3 hours is probably the highlight of my ultra running career so far. I climbed stronger than I’ve ever climbed before! I felt stronger than I ever felt, especially this deep into a race! I was passing people all throughout this section moving up over 35 spots in the standings. Entering the last climb, before I’d again hit Dowells draft aid station for the 2nd time, we got hit with only what I can call the biggest thunderstorm I’ve ever seen! The thunder was real! The rain turned to hail! And it hurt! I just kept telling myself get this climb done and don’t screw anything up on the downhill. We really have a great chance of finishing this thing. I also knew I’d made up a lot of time and figured by my tired brain math skills that I was now over 2.5 hrs ahead of cutoff. My feet hadn’t really got any worse and I was getting more and more confident.

Coming into the aid station and crew spot, all I was thinking about was please make my crew be there! As I approached, and the storm passed through, I looked up to see all my crew waiting for me. Everything was ready. I think they could see I was feeling good and I told them ‘this is getting done’ . They went to work each taking control of what needed to be done. I did nothing but sit and eat. After lots of bacon, coke, broth , a dry shirt, cleaned and taped feet, fresh socks and a nice fresh pair of gortex shoes. I was ready to go with headlamp in hand as it was now close to getting dark. I had approximately 50km to go!!

The next section to Magic Moss aid station was about 10km with only a little climbing. Being freshly refuelled , as well as full of confidence , I absolutely crushed this section and it felt quite easy just stopping only for about 30 seconds, I passed through that aid station.

Now with a boring gravel road section of about 11km to Cape Todd aid station and then the rain came again! Absolutely torrential and cold! This sucked as my gortex shoes started to get some water in them and of course would not drain. This started the foot issues again - a big mistake from me and literally nothing I could do about it now. The road was a slog and all I could think about was the section to come next as it had a huge 800m climb. I had time to mentally prepare and after hearing trees had come down and blocked access to this aid station seeing my crew there was probably not going to happen which would be a blow. As it happened that’s exactly how it was.

Arriving at Camp Todd and no crew, Shit! I know I had time so I decided to use my last dry shirt, get warm , put on my dry rain jacket, powder my already wet feet and basically fill up my shoes with baby powder in the hope It would dry up some of the moisture. Didn’t eat much as eating was now limited, still drinking lots of Naak hydration which was continuing to work well. I set off, put on my music playlist , and crushed the final 800m climb. It wasn’t easy but it also was never in doubt. I had a new confidence. I felt I belonged. I felt respected in a field of absolute legends. It’s an unbelievable feeling to be so tired, so sore and yet feel indestructible in that moment. The moment was real. The skies had cleared. The blood moon was out as bright as I’ve ever seen and in that moment I really did feel I belonged. I’ll never be the fastest runner, never be the best athlete but I’m sure as hell tough as fuck when the pain cave comes calling.

The climb down to the next crew spot was pretty brutal but always knowing I’d be able to pick up my pacer Angie was a motivator for sure. Just someone to lean on, someone to talk, the company would be a huge lift. Arriving at the aid station, with close to 2hrs on the cutoff, gave us lots of time to take care of everything we could at that point. Feet were wrecked by then, blisters everywhere, a broken horrid looking toe - but, only 20km to go! The crew took care of everything they could. At this point , I got them to take everything I didn’t need or wasn’t going to use out of my pack to lighten it if only by a pound or two. After a 15 minute turnaround , we left with Angie leading the way. As I mentioned before this was big for her as it would be a PB distance for her and after only recently starting her running adventure I knew this was an exciting challenge for her. I also knew she’d see terrain she probably hadn’t experienced before and that could have been a worry for her. Well , she absolutely crushed this 20km and carried me home. We hit the last aid station with about 7km to go, the same road that we started on about 34hrs ago. This is the time I think about the process, the sacrifices, the time away from family, the guilt it’s all there. This is always a team effort and this one was big. I know people doubted I could do this race, hell even I did. But, I also had incredible people in my corner who always believed in me. Family who always support my dreams , even if it means sacrifices in their part. Friends who I class as family, who constantly tell me I’m talking shit when I’m doubting myself. These are my crew,. These are my people. Finishing this race and receiving this buckle , in particular, is very special for me. It wasn’t easy and nor should it be.