Countdown to 100

I am 11 weeks out from running the Umstead100 Endurance Run while fundraising for Go Conscious Earth, whose mission is to empower the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo Basin Rainforest to protect their ancestral land upon which we all depend for survival. Please visit (and share!) my fundraising page GCE100 and make a donation for this critical cause. Also, please forward my collection of blogs to anyone who might be interested in learning more about my experience preparing for a very long race!

Thank you so much!

xo Anne

Get Lost

Training for a 100-miler requires me to get up in the wee hours of the morning, prepare a mix of fruity electrolyte, and fill my pockets with food.  I’ll be running and eating continuously for over 24 hours to complete the 100-mile course, so I need to prepare my legs as well as my stomach. A hydration vest keeps everything organized with a bladder for liquids, front pockets for energy bars, and zip liners for shedded hats, gloves and tops. To prepare for a pre-dawn trail run, two light sources are helpful. Depth-of-field is an issue with just one light source, so to aid with night vision I’ll have a headlamp pointing a few feet up the trail and a handheld or waist light pointing in front of my feet. My gut is not accustomed to running and eating at 4 am, so it must be trained. With experience, my body will learn to accept this new style of eating, allowing me to run through the night without “bonking”, a term used to describe the body breaking down. But training in the dark also requires a certain fearlessness, it’s disorienting no matter how many lumens of light I carry. There’s also the possibility of getting lost which I’m actually pretty good at.   

When I was a child, I loved losing myself in the woods. There were six of us kids growing up in a classic, white clapboard house that had a name, “Denemede”, which means “a meadow in the valley”. This is interesting because our house was not in a valley at all but on the top of Greenfield Hill in Fairfield, Connecticut. Mr. George Brett built Denemede around 1900 and had it moved to its current site sometime later. It was “the house that Jack built”, my mother always said, because Mr. Brett was the founder of MacMillian, which published Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. The Brett’s owned farm land with apple orchards, cattle, horses and a variety of crops. Ole George moved Denemede to the top of the hill in the 1920’s so he could look out his bedroom window and enjoy the sun sparkling on the waves of Long Island Sound 5 miles away. 

By the time my parents bought Denemede in the early 60’s, most of the Brett estate had been sold and new houses were built, tucked in the woods down long driveways. Green lawns and wild forests took the place of onion fields and apple orchards. My family treasured the black and white photos of our house being rolled on logs pulled by horses onto an open field. Forty years later after Denemede had been moved, my young self would step outside the controlled world of my home, beyond the yard and enter a thick, tangled forest that had a natural order of its own. Nearby ponds were strung together by streams like a freshwater pearl necklace. My siblings and I would follow those streams and explore pond after pond. The forest was our playground and we relished our time to get lost in the simplicity of nature.

The pond closest to Denemede was our favorite, large enough for ice hockey in the winter but small enough to get around the entire water’s edge in search of pollywogs in spring and bullfrogs in summer. On the downstream side of the pond there was a stone wall that lined the water’s edge and formed a dam. The dam created a waterfall that fell into a deep, dark well from which “children never returned.” So we took great care on those damp stones, where, hedging our bets, we joined together fear with practicality and would carefully put on skates or cast a fishing line. The other ponds were not on our property, per se, but who really knew where the boundaries lay? The forest was ours. The local Unquowa tribe called it their home long before us and we pretended to be like them and “walk softly on the earth.” We were happy, feral children surviving alone in the forest, free from the demands of the adult world. 

One winter day, my sister, brother and I were caught skating on one of “our” ponds by Mr. Fields who came out of nowhere to shoo us away, yelling with cupped hands that the ice was dangerously thin. Huddled out on that precarious sheet of ice, three children stood stock still in shock! How was Mr. Fields to know such things? We were the keepers of the forest and we knew best. But Mr. Fields had momentarily shaken our confidence, so we dutifully scurried away, throwing our skates over our shoulders. After the episode with Mr. Fields, we took a more cautious approach to testing our frozen ponds. We kept our rubber boots on and scuffed our way inch by inch, very, very slowly across the ice, pulling our hats above our ears to listen for any underwater cracks or groans, before putting on our skates. Eventually, when the light would grow dim and our stomachs would begin their own rumblings, we’d head home. Finding our way back was easy, even at dusk. We only needed to follow the streams which safely guided us back to Denemede.

I would often try to get lost in the Audubon. The entrance to the Connecticut Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary was at the end of our street, and our playground extended to another 150 acres of forest. I knew these trails so well that I had to use my imagination to get lost. One time I invited a friend to follow me into the Audubon. Once we were deep in the sanctuary, I used my best panic-stricken look and confessed that we may be lost forever and why didn’t we think to bring food, extra clothing and matches for a fire and on and on I went, keeping up the masquerade until I couldn’t hold in my laughter any longer. 

Back to the present, I find this information on the Umstead100 website:

"The course is rolling hills with a total of 8,000 feet of climb over the 100 miles (I,000 feet pet lap). The entire course is runnable for front-runners with nicely spaced hills. Getting lost, even for a short time, will be difficult (but not impossible). The course is well marked with Umstead 100 Logo direction signs. At night the course is marked with glow sticks."

I spent my childhood trying to get lost, so therefore I often do. But my childhood experiences have taught me something. When I’m out on a training run by myself on a bright sunny day, I try to read the shadows of the trees for a sense of orientation, like finding a stream that leads to a pond that brings me home. At night, I’ll plan to buddy up to share lights and stories. As for the 100-mile race, I’ll follow the signs during the day, glow sticks at night, and otherwise allow my mind to wander.

Painting credits,"My Big Sister" Acrylic, 8.5 x 11" Anne M-L 2023