Sticks and Stones Trail 15K @ Babcock State Park

Sticks and Stones Trail 15K @ Babcock State Park 
1st Place 60:53/ 1345ft elevation gain) 

Strava Map/Data: HERE

This was the first race of two during the weekend. We left on Friday morning and made the 2-hour drive to the New River Gorge region of the state arriving in Fayetteville right at lunch time which included a stop for a specialty pizza at Pies-n-Pints (our favorite pizza place). It was my first time stopping in Fayetteville and I was impressed. It doesn't have the mountains or in my opinion the overall beauty of Pocahontas County but they do a way better job of taking advantage of their wonderful outdoor recreation. They had 2 bike shops and a cool clothing/gear shop called Water Stone Outdoors that handled the packet pickup. The town had that historic feel and the places to eat were local and unique. I miss that feel here in Pocahontas County, we have Snowshoe Mountain that has all those things but it's a resort and does lack that local hometown feel to it like Fayetteville has going. 

(Dan Todd picture credit)

The race director (who is one of the best) did a great race recap here (http://sticksandstonesrun.com/2014-sticks-and-stones-run/) that I'm going to copy and post a section of below: 

"WOW – WHAT A RACE! THE 1ST STICKS & STONES RUN AT BABCOCK IS IN THE BOOKS. 
Weather: Fog, Fog and more Fog, though the temps were pretty ideal. Mud? Yes, plenty! Slick bridges? Yes, actually 5 of them! We did it though, and it all worked out well. I really liked the point to point format and thank you ACE Adventure Center and Adventures on the Gorge for the bus transportation. It was cool taking everyone to another location that most of them had never been to and just dropping them off, makes me smile thinking about it. 

The Start was perfect and beautiful with all those smiling and happy trail runner faces! It was certainly not fast conditions with the fog, flat light and slippery surfaces but some fast times were posted. The 1st Overall Man was Jason Pyles from Green Bank WV with a time of 1:00:04! The 1st Overall Woman was Morgan Gray from Milton WV with a time of 1:22:27, and check this out- Morgan is 14 years old!! Great work and congratulations to you both. The 2nd and 3rd men were only 2 minutes back and less than a tenth of a second apart. Wow. For the women behind Morgan they were only a couple minutes back as well. This was a strong field of runners and a first time Babcock running experience for several. Hope you can come back to join us in the spring for the Grinder! Check out the complete results!" 

As for my race recap, after arriving at the finish line area we boarded ACE provided buses and made the 15-minute or so drive to the start area at Camp Washington. I had time to only squeeze in a short mile warm up but I included a nice sized hill to help speed up the "warming up" process. There was quite a few friends in the race so it had that usual low key and relaxed trail race feel as we waited for the gun to go off. 

Right from the gun I took the lead as we had roughly 1/4 of a mile of downhill pavement to stretch out the field before making a sharp right onto Mann's Creek Trail which had ups and downs and like almost all of this race was rocky and root lined. The trail was muddy and slick from all the rain but that adds to the fun of trail racing. I was in cruise control early making little surges on the ups and taking the downs somewhat gingerly. With what has been the case so far in all my trail races, I have found that I'm in comparison to my competition a horrible technical downhill runner. Half of that is based off the fact that I know I can make my move and stretch my lead on any type of uphill or flat section. 

So at roughly 1.5miles into the race after a 6:39 opening mile, I first felt and than heard my former college teammate Zach Beckett come running onto my heels on one of those technical downs. Zach is a super talented "athlete", I use the word athlete just because he is all around talented let alone a former WV high school state 1600m champion. He has been a force on the trails for some years now and I knew his technical trail running skills are way ahead of mine so I wasn't surprised to hear his voice. We covered the 2nd mile of rocky trail in 6:49. During the 3rd mile I started to surge a little more when the footing allowed and could feel a lead start to happen. The tricky part of this mile was 2 slick as grease bridge crossings that both had no side handles (slide to the side and your in a fast flowing creek. But it was also during this stretch that we got on the narrow gorge trail that was basically flat and had good trail footing so I picked it up hitting the 3rd mile in 6:27. The 4th mile was one of those still new experiences for me as you hit a huge drop which was basically coming down rocks, trying not to slip off the hill side trail and finally crossing the last bridge of the race which was pretty long and not even possible to run across without going down. Had you fell off this bridge you were in a really fast flowing creek that would have resulted in a little white water swimming to stay out of trouble (no wonder we had to sign an extra liability release the night before! ha) My split for the 4th mile with all that was 6:53 as we had started to climb up a hill to end that mile. Miles 5-6.5 were basically a gradual climb up a forest road (paved but slick with water/leaves), I run scared in trail races feeling like people are right behind me so I tried to push this stretch and was 6:42 and 6:30 climbing over 600ft of elevation gain during the stretch and passing the classic Gristmill that was hard not to stop and just take in the sight. There was a lot of people during that section of the course (not common in trail races) since it is such a scenic section. After a quick and steep downhill we started up the toughest terrain wise hill of the race that cut though the woods and was narrow and rocky and included quite a few sections of rock steps early on. These were the toughest miles from mile 7 to the finish of 8.51 on my GPS. I had to power hike a few sections which I'm learning is not a bad thing in trail races if it prevents a complete blow up. AT this point in the race the in and outs of the trail were taking there toll just as much as the 1000ft plus gain I had just covered in the last 5.5 miles alone (1300+ gain total for race). So it was to great relief when I saw Dan Todd taking a picture and heard background music blaring not far behind him as I knew I was almost done. The finish usually greets runners with a very awesome scenic view I've seen in pictures but today the fog was so thick I could barely see 10 feet in front of me at this point. I was pumped to grab the win especially with a solid field of more experienced trail runners that followed in behind. 

I walk away from all my trail races thinking "how do you explain the toughness of what you just ran", I only wish I could put the entire course in pictures to better explain the toughness. I'm quickly learning that trail racing is an entirely different ballgame when it comes to running. But so far it is something I'm adapting to really well and my strengths as a runner are better suited for long term. 

(Picture from Tristateracer.com of me finishing, the Ace buses, and race banner)

One note on something that was happening and probably could have turned bad had the race been much longer was I was running out of fuel. The day before other than downing a big lunch of pizza, I really lacked the needed calories to power you through an entire trail race where you burn so much more energy with the much harder terrain and mental focus of watching your step. I dodged a bullet today but know more than ever not to make that mistake again. 

After shaking the hand of the race director, I looked to the right and saw two smiling faces cheering me on. It's always great to see Clara and Marian so soon after finishing a race! Clara toughed out the rainy foggy day and had a blast. Her pre-race pep talk to me included, "One, two, three....Get Set" and her post race first words were "Good job Dada". That pretty much highlighted a great day of racing! 

For winning I came out with some really cool awards. The race gave away awesome looking tech shirts but for winning I came away with a nice prize package that included a sweet Waterstonia shirt, a pair of Swiftwick running socks,  $25 Gift Card to Water Stone Outdoors, Free Pizza to PIES-n-PINTS (!!!), and another sweet coffee mug from Gauley Pottery (same company that made my Helvetia one...I would love to keep adding to the collection!) 

I can't wait to attend this race again next year and will definitely be signing up first thing for the Gristmill Grinder Trail Half Marathon (april race that sells out quick) when it opens up in a month. Top notch race director (Donnie Hudspeth), great state park of trails galore, and as always great trail running community of runners making the day so fun! 

Strava Data: http://www.strava.com/activities/206110614
Race Website Recap: http://sticksandstonesrun.com/2014-sticks-and-stones-run/
Race Results: http://www.tristateracer.com/resultsdb.php?race_id=3941&results=All
Race Pictures (Dan Todd): http://www.danieltoddphotography.com/sticks
Race Pictures (Race Director): https://picasaweb.google.com/104257724706729932844/BabcockSticksStones2014?authkey=Gv1sRgCIfHg5eNq5CzjAE#