Photo: Carl Laniak (r) and Matt Kirk

Carl Laniak has been obsessed with stage running for years, from the one-time Tuscarora stage run to multiple attempts at the Vol State stage run, which traverses Tenessee from East to West. Years of obsession paid of this month as Laniak won the  2006 Vol State by averaging over 50 miles per day on the hot backroads of the American South. Laniak's daily progress was reported daily in the Greenville, SC newspaper. Laniak became a road running machine and covered more than 300 miles in six days.

Once again I travel down to Rocky Bottom, SC for the illustrious Laurel Valley Trail Run. Like most runners, I had been watching the weather to determine what we would have to deal with during the race. In my hometown of Hamlet, NC the temperatures had been in the triple digits most of the week. They were calling for a high of approximately 97 for the areas contiguous to the event. That did not sound nearly as dreadful as 103 or 105 degrees. Still, it was going to be one more hot and humid Laurel Valley.

Laurel Valley has rapidly become the race of races. It’s a 35?-mile self-supported trail run through a beautiful section of the AT that goes through North and South Carolinas. The race starts at the trailhead located near Rocky Bottom, SC and finishes at the White Water Falls parking lot. It is conducted by Runner from Hell ruler, Claude Sinclair. Claude makes the rules straightforward. Pay your entry fee, run the race and maybe, just maybe you’ll get some coke and pretzels at the finish. It’s a race with little or no amenities. It however does promise to give spectacular views. It’s running in its purest form.

How woud you like to spend a week running and hiking some of the most scenic single track in the Eastern US? At the end of each day you arrive at a comfortable camp and enjoy a big meal sit around a campfire with friends. That's exactly what seven ultrarunners did during the first week of August.

Thanks to organizer Eric Grossman I was fortunate to join Eric, Kevin Townsend, Roger Sutton, Doug Blackford, Byron Backer, and Neal Jamison on a six-day stage run starting near Irwin, TN and finishing at Grayson Highlands state park in Virginia. Each day's stage was between 15 and 39 miles, which made for some long days on the trail. Eric, Byron, Doug, and Kevin each completed the entire 160 mile run (Byron was short on the last stage by a few miles), while Roger, Neal, and I finished some but not all stages.

Each day's stage was self-supported. While we were on the trail, our crews took down camp and set it up at the next stopping place. Eric designed the stages so that we would end near a nice campground. As the run progressed the crews and runners developed freindships and enjoyed the camraderie of a shared experience. The run couldn't have happened without the crews: Robin Grossman, Irene Backer, Anne Townsend, and Melinda Day.

The stage run was not all fun and games. Each day the runners suffered blisters, black toenails, sore muscles, and exhuastion. The worst part of the entire run was when I was stranded in the woods without a flashlight at dark on the longest stage. I had to bivouac seven miles from the end of the stage. My crew and the entire group suffered a night of uncertainty until I emerged from the woods the next morning. This was undoubtedly the one aspect of stage run we could do without. It was due to a stupid mistake (forgetting to pack a flashlight) and totally preventable.

Those of you on the shirt Run in June may have noticed that our son Sam was in a lot of pain and did not finish the run. The next week Sam had an MRI that showed a couple of loose pieces of cartilage in his left knee. 1 1/2 weeks ago Sam had arthroscpoic surgery to repair the cartilage.

Sam's injury ocurred during Spring Track in April. He doesn't recall any type of trauma or a single event that may have caused the injury. One day after practice he awoke and his left knee was swollen. Sam sat out for a couple of weeks and did a course of physical therapy. He started training again and was able to run without painn (he says) although his knee remained swollen. Sam rested again after school was out but then he had the painful shirt run.

Right now Sam is supposed to stay on crutches for another three weeks. We don't know when he can start running. He will probably be able to practice with the cross-country team near the end of the season.

I have a special concern about Sam's injury because I supported him in running 27 miles at Hinson lake in september, the Outer Banks Marathon in November, and the Holiday Lake 50k in February. I didn't need to encourage Sam in any of these races at all. Some people expressed concern that these races were too much for a 14-15 year old. Sam was able to recover quickly from each of these races. At the time he was injured Sam had run the mile and 2 mile back-to-back at several track meets and was doing a lot of interval training to get his mile time down. His injury is still mysterious.

photo: Chris Kostman
Charlie Engle, the NC ultra runner who recently traversed the Sahara Desert, finished 5th at this year's Badwater. Engle had finished 3rd in '05 and '06 but had a better time this year despite a lower positional finish. This year's Badwater saw Scott Jurek's course record crushed by Brazilian Valmir Nunes.

photo: Jeep World of Adventure interviews Annette Bednosky and Anne Lundblad before the 2007 WSER

The NBC sports magazine Jeep World of Adventure will show a special on the 2007 Western States Adventure Run at 3 pm on Saturday July 28th. The press release descibes the segment:

"Witness the jaw dropping, adrenalin pumping, sweat flying adventure of the Western States Endurance Run presented by Montrail®. This event is one of the oldest ultra trail events in the world and certainly one of the most challenging: one day-100 miles.  Extreme mental and physical preparation are of utmost importance to each runner, for the mountains, although beautiful, are relentless in their challenge and unforgiving to the ill-prepared."

By Joey Anderson

As I refilled my water bottle at aid station #4, about the 19 mile mark, I looked over and said to Bill Gentry, " my goal this year is to not have to sit down on the purple trail".
I'm not sure exactly what would cause someone to think running a tough, rocky trail 50K in July would be a good idea. Maybe it's genetic, or a virus, or maybe just poor judgement, but here I was for the 3rd time preparing to make my assault of the Purple Trail. The past two years had been a slow miserable slog to the summit with temperatures in the 90's and high humidity. In 2005 after running the Catoctin 50K the day before , it was near 99F and I had to sit down on the trail at least a dozen times. 2006 was a little better. Only in the low 90's and I only had to sit about three times. Would this year be different?

Photo: Club Fat Ass

Ultrarunners have a tendency to celebrate superficial injuries received on the trail. David Horton gives "best blood" awards in all his races. (I am proud of my "best blood" award from the '07 Holiday Lake 50K++.) And who can forget Senetor Max Baucus in the 2003 JFK? (Baucus later had to have surgery to remove a hematoma that resulted from the not-so-superficial injury.) A couple of years ago ultrarunner Vicki Kendall was much celebrated by her VHTRC clubmates because of an epic bruise on her right leg. Another VHTRC'er Scott Mills had a horrible groin chafing injury from WSER that was captured by Sophie Spiedel. While not an injury per se, who can forget Lisa Bliss' toenail removal? My hand innjury from the '05 Smokies Traverse was worse than it looked. It was a puncture wound that all the way through the pad on my right palm.

Now we have this latest example from Club Fat Ass, a ultrarunning club in the Pacific Northwest. CFA is one of my flickr contacts. I left a comment to find out the background behind this injury. While we love these superficial injuries, we really hate the more serious injuries that keep us from running, including the "superficial" injuries that have serious side effects such infection or hematoma.

NC Ultrarunner Annette Bednosky is featured in a new magazine that covers the Mountain lifestyle of Western North Carolina. The feature is a 2-page layout of Annette's "favorite things," including her running shoes and Montraill jersey, backpack, a gift from a student, and her engagement ring. Looks like a great magazine. Western North Carolina is really a tremendous resource and the running community is especially rich with Annette Bednosky, Mark and Anne Lundblad, Will Harlan, Adam Hill and his adventure runs, and many more people and places. Running the Grandfather Mountain Marathon last year with Doug Blackford I couldn't help but notice that Doug knew someone watching the race on seemingly every street corner. This type of community seems to be the theme of the new publication.

Injuries tend to beget more injuries. I've had kidney stones for quite a while. Last March I went on a trailing run with Mark Long and Rich Sexton, and we ran out of water for 15 miles or so, and got severely dehydrated. This is not too unusual in itself, but within two days I came down with a pretty serious urinary tract infection. Most probably it was caused by the combination of kidney stones and dehydration. For the UTI I took Cipro, which cleared it up, mostly. The UTI proved to be persistent - it was one reason I DNF'd the Boogie in June. I went back on Cipro, and started feeling really good.

After a great training week where I logged almost 80 quality miles I woke up one morning with an extremely sore left achilles tendon. I could not associate any single event with the soreness so I determined that it was something I could work through. That proved to be wrong, and I exacerbated the injury by continuing to train. I'm convinced that the antibiotic contributed greatly to my injury. I've been logging that level of milage (not every week) for several years and I've never had any significant tendon injuries. My training preceding the injury was not significantly strenuous or in any way unusual.

I'm not sure how typical my experience is, and it could also be possible that this injury was not due to antibiotics. However, next time I take a quinolone antibiotic I'm going to back off the training. I now have stage 4 tendonosis in my left achilles and am not running. I'm not sure how long it will be before I'm back on the trails - maybe a couple of weeks, possibly a lot longer.