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All Night Long: Blue Ridge Relay 2006
All Night Long: Blue Ridge Relay 2006
December 2006, Featured
By Jedd Ferris
Reprinted from Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine
Grayson Highlands State Park is not an easy place to reach, especially in a shroud of fog. The gateway to Virginia's highest mountainscapes-lands of windswept 5,000 footers with wild ponies grazing in craggy meadows-is many miles off the interstate's commercial melee. But in September a few hundred groggy runners found the park before daybreak on a Friday morning and lined up for an epic new race. Ahead of them was a 208-mile journey south on windy mountain roads through the rugged interior of the Blue Ridge countryside.
Fortunately, as these runners continuously slogged through the 24 hours, they weren't completely alone. They got by with a little help from their friends.
The Blue Ridge Relay is one of the longest running relay races in the United States and one of the newest and most creative mountain sports events in the Southern region. A maximum of 12 people per team run through 36 segments of a course that winds through the highest mountains in the Southeast, starting at the base of 5,729-foot Mount Rogers and eventually finishing in Asheville, N.C.
Each relay team member runs three legs of varying lengths and difficulty and covers an average total distance of almost 17 miles.
Longtime regional runner Ken Sevensky first put on the race just two years ago. And in its second year attendance tripled in 2006, setting the stage for this to become one of the most popular and inevitably longstanding events in the region and beyond.
"There are several well-known biking events here, but we wanted to bring something on a larger scale for running," says Sevensky. "I sat down for countless hours with maps and tried to find the best routes and avoid the main thoroughfares. After that, it was getting out there on the country roads and putting the miles in to find the best way to go."
"We wanted to run through some small communities and share what we have in this region," he continues. "In most running events you're by yourself, but here you have a common goal with other runners."
This year teams with monikers like Asskickin' Nametakers, Low Hanging Fruit, and Bitchingly Close came for the challenge from eight states and as far away as Oklahoma. Besides the appeal of the physical challenge, what drew runners from all over the country to the race is the course's one-stop showcase of the most scenic natural treasures in the Blue Ridge.
Starting in the windswept balds of the Virginia Highlands the race moves down along the New River into North Carolina's High Country for stints along the Blue Ridge Parkway and past 5,964-foot Grandfather Mountain. Then it winds into the rugged Black Mountain Range with a portion of the all-night adventure in the shadow of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River. The run has a total elevation change of over 26,000 feet with 12,000 feet of gain and 14,000 feet of descent.
This is terrain that's cold and lonely at 1:30 in the morning-which makes it even tougher to run up a steep, dark, mountain road through a small town you've never heard of.
Getting here isn't easy, so how do you get 12 of your friends to commit on the same weekend?
Maybe that's why the Asheville-based Team Shoulder to Shoulder took on many incarnations in the final weeks leading up to the relay. As race day approached, team members were lost, and replacements were begged for, borrowed, and stolen-friends were called, then friends of friends, in pursuit of new teammates crazy enough to run three legs of challenging mountain terrain over 200 miles in around 24 hours for a marathon blur of gravel roads, reflective vests, Gu wrappers, and Gatorade.
The 12-member, co-ed team that emerged was varied enough to rival the castaways of Gilligan's Island. There was a stay-at-home mom, a yoga instructor, a physical therapist, a Rhodes Scholar, a national champion adventure racer, a small-mammal wildlife biologist, a food-service professional, and a smattering of physicians and med students. All these strangers had in common was a love of adventure, as well as a commitment to their team sponsor, Shoulder to Shoulder-a nonprofit humanitarian organization that provides life-saving health, nutrition, and education programs to villages in Honduras (www.shouldertoshoulder.org).
Despite the early morning fog, the starting line was full of spirit. Shoulder to Shoulder's first runner Monica Curwen sprinted away in her famed Superman cape and steamed down the four-mile downhill to the next hand-off.
Running country roads was peaceful, and-at times-unpredictable. Typically vans from other teams passed beside runners and honked in support. But on other stretches of the relay, runners are totally alone with the countryside. Shoulder to Shoulder's Ellie Bonnett learned how unpredictable things can get in the sticks, when halfway through her first section, she was joined by three tail-chasing friends. As Bonnett came in to the exchange point she had three dogs running happily along side her. "They just kept me company," she said with a laugh.
Bonnett passed off to Erinna Hegarty, who ran a challenging leg past the Christmas tree farms of West Jefferson, N.C. Fortunately for her overheated teammates, the New River bends around town, so everyone decided to ice their legs in the cool running water of one of America's oldest rivers.
From here, the relay climbed through some of the Blue Ridge's highest terrain. Elite adventure racer Jay Curwen tackled a long, uphill climb to the entrance of Grandfather Mountain, where he managed to pass a handful of runners.
But Curwen doesn't remember the running as the toughest part of the race. Acting as the main driver and navigator, he was at the wheel in the pitch-black night, maneuvering narrow gravel roads in a huge van, while his teammates were conked out and crammed like sardines in the back seats. Curwen says trying to find Banner Elk in the dark fog was more challenging than any of his runs. His only solace: "The nighttime raid on Wendy's-those were the best hamburgers I've ever had."
The Blue Ridge Relay was not just a race, but an adventure that harkens back to the old days of college road trips-survived with 7-11 snacks and strong Honduran coffee. By night, the team caught a few hours of sleep in a Spruce Pine motel, arriving at 10pm and heading out the door again by one in the morning. That's when things really got tough-when runners headed into their final legs in the dead of night.
Team Shoulder to Shoulder's John Langlois, a 49-year-old physician, felt like he was sleepwalking when he set out at 3am. Patches of kudzu by the side of the road made strange patterns in his headlamp as he trudged along through the dark, misty night. Then he heard the overlapping barks and growls of several vicious dogs in a shed about 20 yards off the road. Their eyes reflected in the headlamp and the sound of rattling chains was frightening. Several times he wondered if he had made a wrong turn during the gradual climb of his 4.8-mile leg. After finally passing on that baton, a crowded van full of stinky runners never looked so inviting.
The final 30 miles of the relay had three major climbs and some of the course's toughest legs.
"We couldn't find an easy way into the finish in Asheville," Sevensky explains. "When most people are looking to enjoy a finish after running all night, they get hit with some major ascents."
At 6am Jeff Graham tackled one of the most difficult legs in the race-6.5 miles and 1,400 feet of elevation gain that's been donned "mountain-goat hard." Dazed from the lack of sleep, he pounded a can of chicken soup and took off with enough grit left to maintain his 7:30-pace goal.
By 8am, Team Shoulder to Shoulder gathered at the finish line in downtown Asheville to await the arrival of their final runner Rich Keppel, who cruised in wearing the same cape that Monica Curwen had started with. Despite a punishing leg down Town Mountain Road, Keppel glided with glee across the finish.
Shoulder to Shoulder placed fourth overall and easily won the co-ed division with a record time of 26:42:57. But everyone on the team agreed that the best part wasn't the finish but the sweaty, smelly journey along the way.
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