Winter Beast 2020

"Yeah, we know you can run 100 miles. You can run it through the hills of the highest mountains and through the heat of the sun in the desert valleys, but can you run it in the heart of winter? Through inches or feet of snow? Are you ready to unleash the beast inside of you and run 100 miles on the frigid, historic Erie Canal Towpath? Ladies and Gentlemen, throw away your razors for the New Year. This winter, you're going to need all the insulation you can muster!"

Thus reads the tagline on the Beast of Burden Ultramarathon's web site. After running the 50-mile option in reasonably good weather in 2016 and 2018, I was skeptical about the organizer's claims. Were winters on the canal ever remotely comparable to harsh, endless winters in the Finger Lakes or Southern Tier? Did snowstorms take the weekends off in those sleepy northern New York canal towns?

After clear trails and unseasonably warm weather for 2018 Winter Beast, I had it in my head that the 2020 race day weather and course conditions would be more of the same. I based my three months of training on this by running mostly on roads, rail trails, and bike paths, all free of snow and slush. I managed my first 100-mile training week and still felt pretty good after logging that last mile. I thought a sub-18-hour day was reasonable if the canal path was dry and the temperature kept above 20° F.

"If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all." - Albert King, "Born Under a Bad Sign"

Race week rolled around and as luck would have it, Lockport, and most of Upstate New York for that matter, got hit with three days of snow mid-week.  This left the canal path from Lockport to Middleport covered in 8-10 inches and no chance of an 18-hour
hundred. I decided I'd just take what I could get and at least break 23 for a 100-mile PR. Like most ultras I've run, this one was to be sans pacer and crew.

Lap I

One nice thing about the Beast is the 10 a.m. start. I don't have to spend the night in Lockport or leave Ithaca at "throw-the-alarm-at-the-wall" o'clock, and it's a little warmer outside by the time the gun goes off.

The race was a mass start in which 35 of us were attempting to go the distance, plus 33 in the 50-mile race and 30 in the 25-miler. The gun was replaced by race director Bob blasting The Stone's "Beast of Burden" over the PA, Keith Richard's jangly opening E major chord syncing perfectly with the race clock's opening second. 10:00:00... 10:00:01.

The first mile took us down a sidewalk on the canal's south side before crossing a bridge to run back up the canal path on the north side. The fresh snow meant the dozen of us in the front of the pack had to break trail. After crossing the bridge to the towpath we were treated to snow that had already been pre-packed by snowmobilers. Some good Samaritans had ridden snowmobiles over the entire stretch of towpath—we didn't have to break trail for the full 12.5 miles out to the turn-around.

My original plan was to run at a steady 10-minute-per-mile pace for as long a possible, taking me clear past the 50-mile point. With the snow, however, the 10-minute-per-mile effort fell to an 11-minute pace. I plugged along maintaining an even effort level, completing the first 25-mile out-and-back with a group of guys in 4:34.

Lap II

The going was a little easier now that the snow had been packed down to a harder, uniform layer. There was no solid ice or any slipping hazards anywhere on the towpath, and a lack of race-day precipitation made the logistics more manageable.

I had one major issue that slowed me down a ton, and it was something I'd never experienced before or expected to have to deal with. The start of the race it was about 10°F. It barely warmed up the rest of the day, peaking in the upper teens. After four-plus hours of running in the cold, my muscles and joints had stiffened up a great deal. My body was not tired at all, yet the start of Lap 2 had me physically unable to manage anything beyond a shuffle. I couldn't figure out how to stretch my legs and regain full range of motion in all my lower limb joints. It was frustrating to say the least, since I had the energy to continue running at a 10- to 11-minute pace. My frozen muscles just wouldn't allow it. This was something I had to manage for the final 75 miles.

I shuffled my way out to Middleport for the second time and made it back to the Gasport aid station at mile 43 before it became dark enough to turn on my headlamp. The seven-mile stretch from Gasport to race HQ in Lockport was a mental battle. The flat terrain, mostly devoid of any interesting scenery, provided a mental challenge unique to The Beast. In short, it's the most boring ultra race course I've run to date.

Back in the day, ice skating on the frozen Erie Canal was a popular recreational activity. Plodding along the wintry path, I imagined the Beast of Burden adding a 100-mile ice skate division. How long would it take an experienced endurance skater to cover 100 miles? As a non-skater, how badly would that damage the supporting ligaments around my ankles? Is endurance skating even a real thing?

Pondering this scenario for the better part of the seven-mile leg, I made it to the 50-mile aid station in 10:04 elapsed, for a 5:30 second lap.

Skating on the canal in Rochester, sometime in the 1890s.

Lap III

In every hundred I run, miles 70-85 are the toughest. I'm far enough out from the finish that the time left to run is unfathomable, and I'm already exhausted from the cumulative miles. The lonely nighttime miles wear me down mentally and despair creeps in. Once I reach mile 85, I have barely a half marathon remaining and look at the remainder as sort of a victory lap.

This time is different. By the time I set out for the second 50 it has already been dark for two hours. I share the first few miles of Lap 3 with Phil McCarthy until his pace become just a little too much. Phil tells me we're on pace for a 22-hour finish after we both thought we'd be done in about 20. I stop to water a frozen tree stump and he pulled on ahead, headlamp bouncing along and then fading off in the distance. He knows his pace and ends up with a 21:54.

The moon lights the way so brilliantly there's no need for a headlamp. By now most of the 25-mile and 50-mile runners are done and several 100-mile runners have dropped. With no crew or pacer I'm out there all alone with no signs of intelligent life along the canal's vast, frozen wasteland.

Or so it feels. The canal and its towpath actual run straight through an array of sprawling suburbs and rural residential roads, with houses occasionally separated by orchard comprising endless rows of gnarled, fruitless trees. Hell, I even have cell service for the duration of the race and a relatively easy out if I lose my will to continue. But with daylight long gone, all I can do is focus on distant bridges and porch lights as intermittent finish lines. "Just run until you're even with that garage light across the canal. It's only a mile and a half!" A lifetime later I'm across the canal from the light and find I've gone a third of a mile when rounding up generously.

I enter the Gasport Community Center to check in at the turn-around aid station. 100 kilometers in the bag. I crash my crippled body into a chair and ask for some soup with rice. The few volunteers have been here for hours and tell me they've committed to the graveyard shift. One woman's teenage son is passed out cold in the corner on an air mattress. A familiar 80s-tinged tune gradually wafts its way into my sensory field and I realize it's the Spaceballs theme song blaring from the wall mounted television as the credits roll. I'm handed my soup and mutter to no one in particular: "Ugh, I would've run faster if I knew I could catch the end of Spaceballs." I switch headlamps, thank all the volunteers that are still conscious, and trudge back into the frigid void. It's only 11:30 p.m. and I have nearly 40 miles to go.

I run-walk my way through mile 75 as the temperature drops to single digits, slogging my sorry ass into race HQ with 16:34 elapsed. Lap 3 took a full six and half hours.

Lap IV

The Lockport aid station's Mountain Dew supply keeps me going as I trudge through the first few miles of Lap 4, but the reprieve is brief. Soon I'm falling asleep on my feet and seriously worried I may give in and lie down in the snow for a nap. It's 4 a.m., 7° F, and no one might find me for over an hour. I try talking to myself aloud, walking backwards, staring into the moon, and pulling on my hair to stay awake long enough to reach the Gasport aid station tent and its electric heater. These are some of my slowest miles.

I stumble into the tent around 5 o'clock and am greeted by a lone volunteer who's working the tail end of the graveyard shift while rocking out to your run-of-the-mill classic rock mix on Pandora. I drop my pack, and collapse into a chair with the jumbo-jet-engine-of-a-heater blasting me in the face. I ask the guy to just let me be, I'll wake up on my own...

——the heater's glowing red core meets my eyes as I slowly fade back into the world of the living, the constant heat blast and windy drone confirming that I'm still in possession of my senses. Short-term amnesia is a real thing. It takes a minute to piece together who and where and what I am while Axl Rose is is shrieking over the Bluetooth speaker "Welcome to the jungle, baby! You're gonna die!"

Am I in an ICU bed, fresh out of a month-long medically-induced coma, oblivious to the changing world outside my bubble? Coming down from a lethal cocktail of stimulant + hallucinogen + a few gel capsules of God-knows-what? "Oh hey, I'm wearing bib 127 and my legs are afflicted with rigor mortis. Must be the Beast of Burden."

Veggie broth and more Mountain Dew get me back on my feet. I decide to stick it to Axl and Duff, reentering the jungle while avoiding a visit from the Niagra County coroner.

I reach Middleport for the fourth and final time and realize I can still break 24 hours if I don't mess around on the 12.5-mile trek back to Lockport. It's now light enough to ditch the headlamp in my drop bag. I leave the community center with 2:50 to go until 24 hours.

I'm able to shuffle 12- to 13-minute miles most of the way back. The morning sun reflecting off the snowy landscape warms and wakens me up. The new time goal motivates me to avoid walking. I stop inside the Gasport tent for only a few seconds so I'm not tempted to kill time. When I see the finish line straight across the canal I know I'm down to the final two miles and a sub-24 is in imminent. My official time is 23:57:22, making it only the second time I broke 24 hours out of six 100-mile races. (Results.)

Thank you again to RDs Bob and Ken and your volunteer crew for spending a weekend freezing yourselves to pull off this race. I now have 200 lifetime miles along the canal from Lockport to Middleport. I'm sure I'll be back to add to it.