When I was in High School, I came across this article in a sports magazine about ultra running. The article mentioned the Barkley Marathons, and I didn't believe the author at all. I was not a runner in high school. I dreaded the mile test during PE. So, I couldn't even wrap my head around cross country running. When I lived in Virginia, I came across an article on the internet about the Barkley. I was in my early twenties and was a pretty content 5Ker. As I read the article, I became fascinated by the secretive and fascinating nature of this race.
As I somehow became an ultra runner in the past two years, I have always kept the Barkley Marathons on a huge pedestal. Trail and ultra running have grown in popularity over the years, as has the Barkley Marathon. The more I was finding more information on this race, the more obsessed and horrified I became. One day, I was goofing around on Ultrasignup, and wondered what it would do if I searched for Barkley. I about fell over when I saw the search results. The Barkley Fall Classic? I instantly called Matty, and made him go on the site to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.
I received an email about two weeks before Sawtooth, stating that I have been accepted into the BFC and had to decide RIGHT NOW if I was going to go. As I instantly said "Oh Hell Yes", I realized that it was also two weeks after Sawtooth100. I grew hesitant as I was fully aware that the BFC may be just as tough as Sawtooth. Everyone knows that I hate when people tell me that I'm "doing too much", but even this was a little crazy to me. I had promised many fellow athletes, my trainer, and my gyms that I would put the running shoes away and start preparing for WTM. However, as I laid in bed after Sawtooth, dying from muscle spasms, I knew that there really wasn't any question. I had to do BFC.
Have you ever tried to recover, train, and taper at the same time? Don't. I didn't even try to run in the two weeks that I had, and just stuck with biking. I foam rolled and laid in epsom salt/ice baths for hours every day. I really didn't taper at all for this race, but I wasn't killing myself with training either. I just made sure to keep the legs moving and prayed every day for no injuries.
I arrived to Tennessee early Friday afternoon, and immediately when to Frozen Head State Park. It was like meeting a celebrity. Only it wasn't a person.. it was woods and mountains. Matty still hasn't arrived yet, so I went down to the packet pickup, and met Steve Durbin (co director). He instantly made me feel more relaxed by his calm and welcoming personality. I saw Laz in the corner of my eye taking pictures with other runners. I had to pinch myself. I felt like I was in a dream/nightmare come true. I just couldn't (still can't) believe that I was in Wartburg, TN doing 1/5 of my dream race.
I drove back to the hotel to pick up Matty. I finally met him in the lobby, and couldn't stop smiling. There was no one else in this world who I wanted to share this experience with. As he got settled in, we went back to the packet pickup. We talked to many other runners and to Steve about the course map. Steve went over the places where it was easy to get lost at, and really gave us a detailed description on how to read the map. Even though, 1/4 of his description were complete lies, the overall summary was accurate. Matty and I had to decided to stay and watch the documentary, so as were walking to grab food, Laz came across the corner. I'm pretty sure Matty was laughing at me, because I suddenly couldn't breathe. Suddenly, I found words and introduced myself.
"Ohhh, Frayah!" "I have a great day planned for you tomorrow".
Two things were going through my head at this point.
1. Does Laz know who I am? If so, fuck. If not, damn it.
2. God, I sounded like an idiot.
We went to dinner and I met up with John Sharp who ran the GDR with me. After talking to him for awhile, we met a lot of other runners and all of the Legion members. I was so overwhelmed, but my excitement level was through the roof. I wanted to know everything about everyone who was doing this race, and I couldn't stop smiling. We watched the documentary ( I will share that experience in another blog) and finally got back to the hotel to start packing and panicking.
We set the alarms for 3 in the morning, which allowed me a 4 hour sleep. We devoured some pancakes and eggs at the American Legion and headed down to Frozen Head. Matty and I discussed that we would run the race together, mainly because of the 100 miler I had just done the week before. My legs were nowhere near ready and I needed some pressure off of me. The conch shell blew, which gave me shivers. This.was.really.happening.
We were finally off. Instantly, I took off my thermal gear and headlamp. The temperature was perfect and I knew it was just going to get warmer. I was trying to keep up with Matty, but I have never started a race out that fast .I knew I had to do my own race, as I have learned my lesson before with going too fast. So, I held back and I didn't see him again until Rat Jaw. The first 8 miles were all up hill. I tried to run when I could, but it was literally seconds and then back to climbing. I got to the aid station about 8 miles in, and I realized I was the second girl. I knew I had a lot of downhill coming, which is a strength. However, I was now lost. I somehow lost the trail and only saw a huge hole from where a tree fell over. A couple people had caught up to me, and no one knew what to do. I decided to just do some tree climbing, because I knew the trail was on the other side. IT HAD TO BE. As sticks were digging into my legs, I finally found the trail again, with legs looking like I just got repeatedly stabbed.
I came to a jeep road, which I would be following for the next 5-6 miles. I have a really hard time transitioning to trail to gravel roads. I was frustrated at this point. I couldn't believe I was feeling so defeated and I wasn't even halfway done. My hips were screaming at me, and I kept thinking on how stupid I am for doing this race two weeks after Sawtooth. I finally started getting passed, and dropped down to third place at the turnaround. I was 18 miles in at this point, and just going even slower. John caught up to me and asked if I was injured. I told him that my ass hurt and I was so exhausted. He mentioned that my leg was looking really weird, which meant it was overcompensating for my hip. ( I had a very bad hip injury 3 years ago). I just getting passed left and right now, and I just didn't care anymore. I knew I had to keep moving forward, because the race hadn't even begun.
I finally reached Rat Jaw, and Matty and some other runners were there waiting to go up it. Matty led the way, and it was the most absurd experience of my life. The briar patches were relentless. They were in my hair, stabbing my legs/arms, and I couldn't see ahead because it was all.. briar patches. Not only was it all briar patches, it was also all uphill. Matty did a great job screaming out what was ahead between all his F bombs. It got to the point where I didn't even feel being stabbed anymore. When we finally got out of the patches, we were completely lost. There was about 9 of us running around, trying to find a trail.Some were crabbier than others, and Matty was doing very well with trying to just find the damn trail. We knew we were going in the right direction, but not being on a trail was out of my element. We rock climbed, crawled around,and went through about 5 more briar patches. What Matty said was 10 minutes of being lost (2 hours), I finally saw a person 500 feet up yelling at us to come up by him. I realized he was on the right trail, and I almost died from relief.
We had to climb the tower to reach a checkpoint, and Matty and I just chilled on top for awhile to collect our thoughts. I was getting to the point of just wanting to get to finish. The worst part was that my watch was at 27 miles, and the check point was at 18. I felt pretty shitty.. kind of like how I feel around mile 90 in a 100 miler. My body was exhausted, my mind was screaming at me, but I was ready to go. I really enjoyed running with Matty at the next sections. He knew I was in a mood, so he just sang and had conversations with himself. This was randomly making me laugh, and my spirits were perking up. We finally reached the last section, and I had to change out of my compressions, because my legs felt like they were going to explode with them on. (FYI, first time wearing compression socks.. never again). I instantly felt so much better, and we were receiving a lot of encouragement from the spectators. Laz was also there, and we were able to chat with him for a bit. He told Matty that is was "all downhill from here" at the last section we had to complete. This made Matty excited to know that we were so close to the finish, and we set off.
Right away, we were lost. All we saw was a huge creek and no trail. Were we supposed to swim through the creek? We had no idea. We literally walked in circles for awhile, until we finally found the trail on the other side. As we finally got moving, we began to climb. I don't think we were realizing all the climbing we were doing, because we were talking a lot and just enjoying the course. I passed a runner who I met earlier on in the course, who was taking a nap on the side of the trail. I asked him if he was ok, and he told me that he knew he was going to finish, he was in no rush. For some reason, this gave me instant gratitude. He knew he had completed the challenge, and he was just appreciating his surroundings. Pretty cool.
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Matty began to get cranky, as there was "no downhill from here" happening anytime soon. I was ahead of him, and would see the next climb, and would have to act like it wasn't a big deal to Matty. It was my turn to be the positive one, even though I was crying inside. These climbs were taking our breaths away, and it was hard to get a rhythm with our breathing. About 4 miles of climbing, Matty's back began to hurt, and we were out of water. We also saw some major climbs ahead as well. I just had to laugh. It was so beyond ridiculous, and seeing Matty so mad about being lied to from Laz, just made me chuckle. We ran into some hikers who gave us some water, and we really took our time to just get through the climbs. We were randomly bitching, laughing, and getting anxious to see the finish line.
As we finally got downhill, we began to fly. I finally got a second wind with my running, and wanted to keep it going until the finish line. We hit about a mile of road running, and finally saw the finish line. We received our medals, began laughing hysterically, hugged, and just passed out in the grass.
Matty: "Want to do that 4 more times?"
Frayah: "Shut up Matty"
This race really gave me a sense of humility. I entered this race knowing that it was going to be about a finish, and that was it. And I was OK with that. We watched a documentary about the real Barkley Marathons the night before, and hearing Laz speak about what the race meant, really made me think about me as a runner. One thing that stuck out was when he said "Runners who have never DNFed have never truly tested their limits. You don't know what your limits are until you attempt to do something that you can't do". This race opened my eyes to what I want my next season of racing to be about. Will I ever do the real Barkley? I really do hope so. Until that day, I'm still going to be attempting and completing epic shit :)
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