First off, huge congratulations to the RD and all the volunteers who were able to pull off this year’s Stone Mill 50. I can’t imagine the time and effort required. I felt safe from start to finish. Simply an amazing job.
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Due to COVID, we started in waves of 20 people every 5 minutes from 5am till the normal 6am start. I got to the school a little before 5am so saw the first group head out. I stayed by my truck until 5 minutes before my start time then headed over to the corral. We were all supposed to start by a traffic cone and 2 ladies quickly grabbed the back 2. I ambled about halfway up and stood next to my cone as others filled in around me. There were quite a few DNSs though (25%ish) and no one was standing by the first 3 rows of cones. They looked lonely so we all walked up a bit with 10 seconds to go. And we were off.
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Given the wave format, I thought we would be spaced out pretty well and I would be running by myself for most of the day. So of course there was a nice 10 person conga line still rolling together about six miles in. Once you get onto the trails, there isn’t much room for passing but I was fine hanging out at the back of the group. I knew after a couple miles this wasn’t going to be a great day for me so I dialed back the expectations and just tried to enjoy things for as long as possible.
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I spent a couple miles in here running with Andrew. I typically don’t spend a ton of time with others during races, however we had a nice chat about how we got into this crazy sport and races we’ve done. It made the miles go by a little quicker than they otherwise would have.
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The 3.5 mile section along the C&O Canal has not been my favorite in years past. Mostly because I had been focused on my time and was frustrated by how slow I was moving along it. This year was a bit different. I was definitely not running it faster (10-11 minute pace), but I seemed more accepting of how things were going. It was a Zen mindset I was definitely going to need over the second half of the race.
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I ended up walking a decent amount of this road even though it was barely uphill (if that). You turn right onto this fairly busy road, cross a bridge, then a quick left up another back road. I was pretty sure the trail went left off this road, but it’s been 3 years since I’ve run the course and I wasn’t completely sure making me a little paranoid I would miss the turnoff.
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The course is relatively tame by East Coast standards. The trails aren’t too technical and my Garmin has measured the elevation gain at 3800-4300 feet in the years I’ve run the race. That said, it seems sneaky hard in some places. You’ll get lulled into complacency only to be hit with a couple miles of rolling hills, none of which are all that bad. The cumulative impact though will start to take a toll the more miles you start adding in.
![](https://chasing10k.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/DSC00740-1024x768.jpg)
Or I could just be a really poor trail runner. This is starting to become the more likely alternative considering how many times I fell during this year’s race. The first time was right before light when I stepped on wet leaves covering a wet root. I slipped and down I went. This left me with a small cut on my right knee. No big deal. The second time did some damage to my right toes though nothing too major. The third time I barely grazed the ground, but I’m starting to get a little worried about the number of times I’m eating dirt.
The fourth time was about 43 miles in and I got my left knee – hard. I’m sitting on the ground and feel like a turtle that’s been flipped onto its shell. My legs are pretty stiff at this point and I had a quick moment of panic before I was able to stand back up. I then hobbled for a couple hundred yards wondering if I had enough time to walk it in. Luckily, things loosened up and I was able to keep running. Crisis averted.
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Stone Mill likes to surprise you with their aid stations. For instance, the water only Germantown Rd one has had alcohol several of the times I’ve run the race. I had a small cup of Long Trail because it sounded good and I hadn’t had it in a while. One of the volunteers was really pushing the whiskey (“it’s really smooth”) and she almost had me convinced, but if there’s one thing I learned in college it’s that beer before liquor, never sicker. Maybe next time.
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I had managed to rally back a bit by the time I hit the last aid station. I thought it was only about 3 miles from the finish and was mildly surprised when informed it was 4 miles. Sigh. At this point it was a rounding error, so I thanked the volunteers and moved on down the trail.
It ended up being a little over 3 miles, but would have been 4 if we had to go all the way to the normal start/finish at the local elementary school. I crossed the mat with a time of 10:35. While well off my best performance, it was still 20 minutes faster than I ran 3 years ago so that was nice.
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Overall, I was happy to be one of the 167 finishers (194 started this year). Word on the trail is you get a hoodie for 5 finishes. While I’ve collected more than enough race merch over the years, I could definitely use some more time on these trails so I’ll definitely be back in the future. Maybe next time I’ll even manage to stay on my feet.
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Love the understated commentary in the race report. Look forward to racing this one in a couple of weeks!
Thanks for the visuals and course description. It is very helpful for someone who lives far from the area.
– Cheers, Eric
Eric,
It’s a truly wonderful race. Good luck!