Babcock Grinder Report or we cannot live without weather.
4/14/2007

The time that most of us spent trying to stay warm—or warm up in the 40 degree mists of Saturday morning (the same glop that the entire east coast received this weekend), Ashley and Mike Dolin spent focused on a twisted coat-hanger.  By race-time, 10am, their meditations had questionable results.  Mike was soaked through, his wind pants plastered to his legs, but Ashley looked ready to run.  When the gun went off and we headed down into the mists their running kits were dry and clean, but still locked in their car.

At its simplest, the Babcock course is a “W” topographically speaking.  Runners head downhill from the high point start/finish, climb an intermediate hill, then descend to the low point in order to grunt it out back to the top.   From the start, a quick paved descent and rocky loop around the pond lead us to the Grist Mill and the two-mile mark.  Another paved descent past some rental cabins and we were to the substance of the race, a rocky and rolling, technical uphill.  The switchbacks don’t stop once you reach the ridgeline. They just have bigger consequences.  The trail makes several kamikaze feints towards the cliff before resigning itself to the more subdued topography leading up to the aid station at mile 5.  Nothing tastes better than a cup of icy cold water in the 40-degree rain.  Ahh.

At this point I was getting a bit anxious to see how the race was shaping up, so I hurried back to the finish area.

After Mile 5, the racers endure a pounding blacktop downhill to a gentle rail-grade downhill that leads to the bottom of the hill.  I can only imagine that Dave and Michael Bee were running along together down the entire thing chatting about getting in shape for Highlands Sky.  When they reached the Indiana Jones double whoop-dee-doo bridge that signified the end of the downhills Michael turned to Dave and said, “Well, we been running long enough.  Let’s finish this thing off,” and headed up the hill, Dave losing a bit of ground.

By the time I got back (1:22:30), into dry clothes, and had a cup of hot chocolate, Michael Bee came into view pushing up the pavement (1:29:51).  Dave Bee strolled in shortly thereafter (1:32:00).  Father Bee just missed the two hour mark with a solid 60 year-old performance (2:02:52).

Dan Lehmann, our fearless leader, actually ran hard (1:50:12) to finish 13^th overall, just ahead of the Women’s Overall winner, Robin Weiner (1:50:41), a new WVMTR club member.  Ashley “locked-out” Dolan ran as well as any gal in her wedding shoes (2:11:38) to finish second for the women, but her husband, Mike (1:40:23), emerged from the gloom looking like a ragged panhandler ambulating into sixth place.  Lorraine Moore (2:13:54) finished just a couple minutes after Ashley, good enough for third female.

The race didn’t have any nail-biting lead changes or gutsy finish sprints.  Those are the stuff of big events.  But in my opinion, it was as it should be: alone, in the woods, good hard running.

Those of you who couldn’t make it [Young, Potts, Mongold, Casseday, Aerni, Chaney] missed out on a good time.  The prize mugs from Studio B in Fayetteville were beautiful as always.