Juliana Moves

Kerns and Bird Knob…

This weekend’s run was a big one because I had my first true night run! I DNFd the Greenbrier 50 Miler in 2022, a race that started at midnight, after 15 miles, so I have run at night and in the dark but this was my first time really making an effort to do so. It also mimicked how it’ll go during MMT since it started in the daylight and progressively got darker!

I was really worried about this. I am not a night person at all. After 9:00 pm, all I want is to start preparing for bed. I love sleeping. I had a very real fear that after 11:00 pm I would just fall apart and be dead on my feet. To my surprise, I held up shockingly well! 

I struggled with nausea most of the night and I mostly blame that on a weirdly oily fruit leather strip that I ate at the beginning. I’ve never liked those particular fruit strips but didn’t want to waste them… definitely not eating those at MMT! 

We started at 7 pm and immediately began climbing. I pride myself on being a weirdly strong climber (thank you, heavily weighted box step ups) but I was struggling on this run. It sort of felt like my legs were just really unrecovered, which was super odd and frustrating. I’ve been struggling to manage my allergies so I wouldn’t be surprised if my whole body was just in a state of chaos. Fortunately I am feeling much better!

Before the sun set completely and I turned on my headlamp, my eyes really really struggled with the low light. I have astigmatism so I already don’t do well in the dark, but the hazy dusk light made it really difficult for my eyes to focus on the trail. Once the sun went all the way down, I just had one bright beam to stare at and that helped! It was kind of funny to notice how weird my depth perception was in the dark. Patrick commented that everything seemed ‘flat’ in the dark and I agreed. We ran a good portion on a gravel fire road that had potholes in it and you could barely make out the holes in the light. So weird. But also fun!

There’s a big climb called Jawbone up to the top of Kerns Mountain and I knew it would suck given how fatigued my legs felt. I was pleasantly surprised when we made it to the top because I thought time would drag on! I just stared at the portion of the trail that my headlamp illuminated and trudged to the top!

I’ve gotten much better at actually running on Kerns and, in my opinion, it gets smoother the further south you get. I told Patrick, “don’t worry, eventually we will run a bit on here!” Spoiler: we never really ran on Kerns. It felt sooo long. Prancing over those rocks is tricky enough in the daytime. In the pitch black? Yeah right!

Once you come off Kerns, you get to enjoy 2.5 miles of smooth downhill road running until you get to Visitors Center where the aid station was. It was quite the setup! I ate fries (that were actually crispy) and Oreo thins. Patrick ate pulled pork and mac n cheese AND took a pulled pork sandwich to go! LOL. Bold, considering the next section was a big climb up to Birds Knob.

I am really proud that I pushed on after that aid station because I had floated the idea of cutting the run short. I knew I didn’t need to stop and I knew I would regret it, but man, I didn’t want to feel tired anymore. Nonetheless, we forged ahead!

The climb up to Bird Knob felt longer than usual, but we went slow and I took small steps. I kept drinking and ate a gel or two. Once we got to the top we were rewarded with a cool breeze and smooth, runnable trail. There was one more big climb on the course, which also felt extra long, but I hollered in triumph once we got to the top!

The final six miles were the longest six miles of my life – LOL. At this point it was well past midnight, I was listening to podcasts, and just trying to move as quickly as possible to get it over with. It was truly wild to see just how dark it was out there. It was really fun to see headlamps in the distance too. We were alone out there, but not really!

We finally finished at 3:30 am, quickly downed protein shakes, changed our clothes, and climbed into the car to take a nap. We both brought our sleeping pads and bags, and it was our first time trying to actually sleep in the car – something we’ve talked about since we bought it in 2020. I wouldn’t say it was the most comfortable, but it got the job done!

We woke up around 6:15 am, drove to McDonalds in Front Royal for breakfast, and headed home. 

All in all, it was such a good experience and genuine Type 2 fun. Oh, the run is called Chocolate Bunny because you finish on Easter morning and get… surprise, surprise, a chocolate bunny!

I can’t believe we are only a few short weeks away from MMT! I am so excited and can’t wait to see what happens out there.

Love,

JN