» A Wicked Little Run – Trail of Torment III

The Trail of Torment III would be my third official trail race leaving me somewhat confident in terms of what to expect from an outdoor adventure. Having recently completed my first 50-miler, I found myself thinking, 20k? How hard could it be? I would soon realize the difficulty of this wicked little run.

Photo by Bryan & Jamie Sheasby

Runners gathered in the parking lot of Mission Trails Park at about 6:30 am. The air was cool and excitement gathered as we waited in line to collect our bib numbers. There were familiar faces that were comforting as the countdown began to the 7:00 am start. Doc, Krista, Jay, Chavva, Steven, Kevin and other members of the San Diego Running Institute and Dirt Devils Trail Running Club quickly worked to get everyone their race garb.

After a brief delay, about 100 runners found themselves lined up in the foothills of Mission Trails Park, staring at the mountain peaks ahead. I purposely didn’t look at these hills. Having run a course similar to this a few years back, I briefly recalled the pain endured as one crests the peak of Mt. Fortuna Which one was it? The hill on the right? That one on the left? Head down. Don’t try to guess, just focus. There it is – the horn, Garmin – start. We’re off!

We started out at a rather quick pace of 8:15 minutes per mile (faster than I’d like at the beginning of a race), but I held to it, keeping in line behind a stream of runners as we made our way along the first three miles of the course. It was beautiful. I felt like Laura Ingles Wilder, running along the prairies. The sun was just beginning to come up, and the race pack eventually began to thin out. I felt good. These first few miles would prove to be a nice warm-up to the contrasting torment my body would endure around mile 4.

Relaxation turned to exhaustion as I began to ascend the first major hill. This was not an ordinary hill, it was more like a ski slope – “no way,” I thought. “This cannot be in the race. I must be off course.” Just then I saw a trail marker and realized that I was on course. Damn!

I began to ascend. At this point, my run has been forced to a very slow walk. Doc’s words are ringing through my ears “Don’t be afraid to walk. Save your legs.” Being a runner, walking is probably the most humbling part of trail running. My body was forced to obey. Suddenly, another woman passed me as she gracefully ascended up this wicked little hill. She was good at this, I thought as I admired the gracefulness she displayed as she quickly passed me. “Keep your head up,” she said, it will help. At this point I would try anything. I looked straight up at the peak and didn’t take my eyes off of it. I found a rhythm to my hike. I was going to make it. As I crested the hill, Doc and another man greeted me. At this point, I thought Doc actually looked like the Devil himself. He knew the evilness of that hill and just smiled as you finally peaked. I weakly smiled back, happy with my accomplishment and cursing them in my head.  “Go catch Kris,” he yelled as I passed. Kris, my boyfriend, is like a mountain goat when it comes to hills, he was at least a mile ahead of me. “Yeah, ok” I yelled back as I re-focused my efforts on the downhill that looked as if it was begging to swallow me. “Here we go!” The rub of this race, you see, is that not only are the uphills built by the devil himself, there are also the downhills, which will thrash your quads into oblivion. I love it!

Miles 5 through 8 are relatively nice providing much needed relief from the past few miles. Rolling hills offered me the chance to check out the beautiful scenery. Until I started trail running with the “Dirt Devils”, SDRI’s trail running club, I had no idea such magnificent places existed among the bustle of San Diego. Lost in my thoughts, I slowly started to feel my heart rate picking back up. I look at a sign that said “South Fortuna Mt.” with an arrow. I remembered hearing the South Fortuna hill was a little rough. It was. It was more gradual than the hell hill experienced a few miles back, but challenging nonetheless. I slowed to a walk again. Inhaling and exhaling – I tried to control my breathing. “Walk the up hills, run the down hills”  – more of Docs words of wisdom flooded my thoughts.

As I crested, I could see a mountain in front of me. Knowing what was in store, I ran toward it, wanting to get this final summit out of the way so I could head to the finish line for the promised bagels and donuts. It’s amazing how food can be a motivator out on the trails. I looked up and saw some blue shorts three-fourths the way up the mountain. It was Kris and he had almost completed his ascension. “Lucky.” I thought to myself. This mountain was a bit different than the rest. It has man-made stairs built in. You think they’d help, but they don’t. The really are there just to keep you from falling off the face of the mountain. I remembered someone saying there were 100 of these nasty things. I started counting in 10’s. I lost count somewhere but soon noticed I could see two faces looking down over me. They were rangers cheering me on. “Thanks” I huffed, as I completed the ascension. Damn that was hard!

Soon I found myself running down hill again – able to catch my breath and use my quads giving my hamstrings a break. About a mile or so down the hill I saw Kris! He was at an aid station refueling. I couldn’t believe I caught up to him. We ran together the rest of the way down the mountain. The last few miles we meandered through the open fields. In synch with our running stride, neither of us could speak from exhaustion.

It was nice to see some familiar faces as they guided us toward the finish line. As we rounded the final corner, we could see the finish line tent with the SDRI crew and some volunteers cheering us across. What a great feeling to be done! We received our nice-sized finishers medals and hugged each other. The real award, however, was defeating the appropriately named “Trail of Torment” with a true sense of accomplishment and the fire for trail running still burning in both of our eyes. “That was fun.” “Yep.” “Next year?” “Definitely!”