Pinhoti 100

Pinhoti 100

By: John Kilpatrick

“A Point to Point Trail run starting in Heflin AL on the unmolested Pinhoti single track trail. Runners will make their way over the highest point in Alabama while navigation over rocks, through creeks and across beautiful ridge lines of the Talladega National Forest. The course will consist of 81 miles of single track, 17 miles of jeep road and 4 miles of pavement and will finish on the rubberized track in the Sylacauga High School Football Stadium.”

Kelli and I signed up for Pinhoti some time ago. For some background, Pinhoti is a 100 mile point to point race, starting in Heflin Alabama and ending in Sylacauga, AL on the high school track. Very cool setup. It has become a well-established race, with 2017 being the 10th running. I’m not sure what the official elevation gain was, but my watch had it at about 14,000 feet of gain and similar loss.

We arrived in Sylacauga Friday afternoon at a community center, got our race bibs and saw some friends. Every time I go to one of these things I have a similar thought – everyone here looks relaxed and in fantastic shape. I every single time think I have no business being here with these folks and I’m always scared as hell! Seeing friends helps the feeling though. We stayed and ate the pasta dinner and heard some about the day to come from the RD, Todd Henderson. By the way, great job Todd, who moved there from close to our current home in South Georgia (near Albany).


Part 1. The good part

If I were to put the course pretty simply, the first third of the course is rolling with mostly runnable trails (runnable for me anyway – I pretty much suck on anything technical anyway). Very pretty with a lot of it covered in soft pine needles. Not a lot of tripping hazards. We started on the trail right away, so there was a massive conga line. This would be frustrating for a fast runner, but I didn’t really mind staying slow – the only concern for me was people packed so tight that I was worried a little about tripping over something – but it never happened amazingly the entire race. The first 30 or so miles clicked off pretty well – but it was noticeably hot and humid. Each time I passed through a creek, I tried to scoop up a hatful of water and dump it on my head. I was able to drink very well up to this point – mostly Heed offered on the course and some water. As a sidenote, I remember very well at mile 9.2 I heard some awful screaming sound in front of me. We came across a runner that had fallen down a sort of ravine and apparently disclocated his hip. He was a big guy and he obviously needed medical help. He was groaning in obvious pain but told us to get help if we could and that he was OK for now (well, not really “OK” but ok to wait). My understanding was an aid station was 2 miles ahead, so I told him I’d alert them and that help would be on the way. I was way off though and the next aid station was 4 more miles or so away. I tried to run hard to get someone – when I finally came close to the aid station, the RD was standing at a road crossing. When I told him I breathed a huge sigh of relief that he already knew about it and the runner was getting the help he needed. I felt so bad for that poor guy – hope he is OK and can come back another time with better results.


Part 2. Here we go again

I have a history of stomach issues on longer runs. I’m not unique in this, many people are. I don’t know if the heat made it worse, but I was hoping to make it to mile 70 until I started puking – later if I was lucky. I made it until about mile 33. I then realized it was going to be a long day. Sometimes, I can puke and the stomach will sort of reset and I am better – not perfect, but better. I did feel a little better – this time – and was able to drink and eat very small sips and bites, even though nothing tasted good from this point forward. Anyway, on to the middle part of the course. For roughly the middle third the course was much more technical – sort of reminding me of parts of the Pine Mountain course in Georgia. I don’t get to practice much on that terrain and I’m admittedly nervous about running on that stuff and pretty slow. From about mile 35-40 the course makes the up to Bald Rock, the highest point of the course. It was beautiful there – I stopped for a few seconds to look around. The climb there wasn’t exceptionally hard and the grade was reasonable, but my stomach was still trending downwards and without eating I was already feeling bushed. Not a good sign. Good news was at the top there was a ton of people. As an added bonus, I got to see some friends of mine. Ellen Comeaux offered me some tums, Jason Green a high 5, Chris Haislip an encouraging word, Brooke McClanahan for the smile, John Davenport with an attaboy and I’m probably missing someone. Also thanks to Bryan Barrett and David Milner for the smiles and encouragement at the aid stations they were helping with. Thank guys you made a world of difference. I was pretty down but that was a great pick me up. The aid station there (mile 41) was off the chain – every conceivable food item was there and it was a great atmosphere. From there, I really don’t remember a whole lot, but I really wanted to get to Adams Gap, mile 55. There, I was confident I’d see Amy (Kelli’s daughter) and Kirk Childs. They were there to pace Kelli, but they are two of my most favorite people in the world – I think I wanted to see them more than anything – aid stations were doing little as I was puking, but I knew they’d give a boost. When I saw them I wanted to cry (I didn’t, but wanted to!). Amy was so nice that she changed my nasty socks out – I popped a blister and had to force myself to move. I told them something like “I am finished – my stomach is ruined” or something like that. Amy smiled and said “the good news is we have a car right here!” I was sooo tempted that I had to get going. I choked down a little food at the aid station and set off. Made it about ½ mile and puked it all back up. Yuck. I have not idea how many times this repeated itself, but our bodies are stronger than we think they are sometimes and I was able to, albeit slowly, keep moving. Hike, run a little, puke, feel a tiny bit better, drink a little something, repeat. At one point, I thought a little trail “nap” might help so I literally laid down next to the trail for about 15 minutes. I hoped it would clear my stomach a little. It didn’t. I just didn’t see how I could keep going the way it was.
Mile 41. Bald Rock. I look like I was feeling great. Not so much. Those were the best walking poles that money could buy!


Kirk and Amy helping me out at mile 55.

Part 3. No man’s land

I made it to mile I think it was mile 69 – only a 50K to go. I was 90% sure that I was going to drop. Couldn’t see suffering through and I literally could not drink anything. At all. I sat down, demoralized and weighing through my options. I hadn’t eaten anything solid since mile 55, but was throwing that up too. I was hoping to see either Kirk or Amy there – if I had, I would of likely dropped. Thank goodness they weren’t! What happened next was the presence of trail angels or whatever you want to call it. Basically, a small miracle for me. John Cremers is a friend that I’ve seen at H9 before. He gave me a ride back after a DNF my first time there and is basically the nicest guy in the world. He, for whatever reason, took me under his wing at that aid station. He encouraged me to the point of even walking me down to his car, told me I had time (an hour and a half under cutoff I think) and his awesome wife even got out a blanket and let me warm up a little. I was so out of it that I’m not sure if I thanked her enough then but it helped a ton. Another small miracle was I think John brought me a cup with some ice in it. Lo and behold, I was able to chew on ice pieces and not instantly reject them. It felt good to get something in my throat and stomach. Even though, I’ll be honest, I was playing through all sorts of scenarios in my head and was thinking this can’t be safe and no way can I make it to the finish without eating or drinking anything. Next thing was one of his friends, David Carder talked to me. He is a veteran of a bunch of hundred milers and told me that exactly what I’m going through he has dealt with numerous times and told me that I CAN finish this thing, even with no nutrition and basically no water. This changed everything for me and I thought I’d give it a try – if he could do it, maybe I could to. He was honest and told me I’d probably be dry heaving and it would probably suck pretty badly, but I could do it.

So, thanks to John and David, I set out again. The next stretch should have been fun – a pretty cool but challenging climb up to a massive party at the top of Pinnacle (mile 75). As you climb, you can hear music pumping – uplifting but I’d been warned you’ll hear it for a long time before you get there. I was lucky to have other friends on the course to see and share a friendly word (Andrew, Annie, Warren, Ed, John, Chris) – we all sort of leap frogged each other and it always gave a little lift to see someone I knew. I had a hard time talking because my throat was so dry so I didn’t get to talk with new people this race as much as I’d normally like. Like David had said, I had to stop and dry heave periodically – I was so thirsty, but every time I’d take even a sip of water, I’d either feel like puking or would puke. But, now I had at least AN option, which was to get a cup of ice at every aid station and chew on the ice pieces as I would go. As they melted, I could get away with drinking a little water too. I even was able to squirt a little water into the ice and get away with drinking a quarter cup or so of it as long as it was ice cold. Great tip that I might have to use in the future. At about mile 80, we dropped down to the Bulls Gap aid station - a section that should have been runnable, but I just couldn’t without puking. This aid station was basically the opposite of Pinnacle – you could hear music pumping from a long way off, but we were going down instead of up. Made it there, refilled my mangled plastic cup that I’d been carrying for miles now with ice, sat down for a few and headed off. I thought the last 15 miles would be flat – they probably would have been if I was my normal self, but they were rolling and the rollers felt like mountains sometimes! I was so grateful to be off rocky trails though – it felt good to be able to hike/shuffle on gravel and dirt roads for a while. The real hills were behind us and only at this point did I really feel like I could finish this thing. I even ran in a few sections for a little while. It was really strange because my legs were tired but I could run on them. But my stomach would only allow this for 20-30 seconds before I’d start heaving. The worst was the times puking out maybe a tablespoon or so of thick stomach bile. Gross – enough about the puking. Anyway, out of necessity I just walked and hoped I could keep this up. I was trying to go through the math in my head with what pace I needed and could I finish in under 30 hours. I wasn’t sure, but just – keep – moving. The last aid station came and went and I knew we had about 7.5 miles to the finish. If my memory serves, I think I had something like three hours. I thought I could do it, but then again I thought I might not be able to do it. I also had the thought in my head that I really don’t want to have to come back and run this again to get that damned buckle – it would cost me 193 miles to get the 100 mile buckle if I did! We hit paved road at something like mile 96ish. I was looking forward to a nice flat stretch and the pavement felt good. Wrong – it was uphill. I was pretty loopy by then and my brain was pretty mushy – it was hot again and it felt good to squirt the water from my bottle down my back even if I couldn’t have any inside of me. I remember at one point trying to figure out in my head if I could make it 4 miles in 2 hours – and I was having a hard time processing that math! Probably only slight uphill when normal, but at this point that road seemingly went up forever! Finally, a guy came running down the hill and said there was one mile to go. My God that sounded nice. I finally got to the High School Stadium and made the way to the finish line. From there, everything is pretty blurry. But, I finished. Something like 28:44, but honestly I couldn’t of cared less at that point!
Coming into the finish. I would of cried, but I didn’t have he energy or the water

Part 4. The after

I basically passed out I think after the finish. A friend Brad Scott offered up a chair to sit on and I dumped some cold water on myself. Kelli was there to take care of me – unfortunately she timed out at mile 65. She works so hard in her training and is much better at nutrition and hydration than I am, but she gave it her all and that’s all anyone can ask. We do these things as a team anyway, so it was great to be able to share that with her!

After I sat and then laid down for a little while, Kelli helped walk me to the car. I felt like a chump limping along holding onto Kelli (my head was still pretty much mush) when I passed Karl Meltzer. I forced a smile and said congrats – you see, he finished something like 10 hours before me and looked great!!!! He was nice and said “you did it, congrats”. Sort of funny that I was wearing his signature Hoka shoe for the race – mine didn’t work as well as his did haha. It felt really good to sit in the car with the AC on high. Kelli took me to a shower at a local pool that was thankfully open to runners. There was not hot water, but an ice cold shower actually felt pretty good. If anything at all went right, it was I had not chafing whatsoever – thank 2Toms sport shield! My feet are blistered, but they’ll heal. On the way home, my thirst started coming back – I drank a couple of sodas, a yoohoo and a quart of milk I think. I was lucky Kelli was in good enough shape to drive – she stopped after an hour or so and we slept in the car for a bit.

When I made it home and showered a real shower, I weighed myself. I was down 16 pounds from when I had left. This was after I had started to rehydrate on the way home – my best guess is I was down about 18 pounds or so of water weight. I was sort of surprised it wasn’t more than that actually, but my stomach kept me from moving too fast and ice/sips of ice water really kept me going. And David was right – you really don’t need nutrition to move. Absolutely you do to move well and race, but it everything turns south, we can simply keep moving longer than I thought possible. We also can get by with little water – I wouldn’t recommend it and it doesn’t feel good, but you can at least putz along. Brain might be mushy and dry heaving does indeed suck, but it was all that I had at that point. Today, my sides hurt from all of the wretching, my feet hurt from the blisters, my legs and back are achy from the run, I’m stiff all over, but my heart is full.

Thanks to the incredible effort from Todd Henderson and all of the other volunteers out there. It was an incredibly supported race. I really do try to be cheerful and thankful during a race to everyone out there, but I’m not sure if I did a good job of it at Pinhoti – honestly I don’t remember large chunks of it. The course was marked very well and you could see the work that had been put into clearing it. Thanks so much for allowing us to experience it and for the work everyone did to pull it off!

I officially declared a retirement from hundred milers after Pinhoti.

But that was yesterday.

As a footnote, I really wasn’t going to share this, but in the interest of humor, here is my picture taken after finishing. I think pretty clearly it illustrates I may not of been firing on all cylinders at this point.
Pinhoti course profile:

Written by John. Images provided by John.