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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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Many (most?) ultras have a unique feature or challenge. The Laurel Valley is unusual in that the access points to the course are at the start and the finish only. This has a number of consequences:
* The race director, Claude Sinclair, wisely requires each competitor to finish a sub-13 hours 50 mile race and to act as a sweep the first [[FIRST]] time. The sweeps are the last people through the course, traveling as a group. The sweeps are an important safety measure.
* Once you start, you either have to finish or return to the beginning. This means a bad day at LV would be a very, very bad day.
* There is no aid on the course. You have to take everything you need with you. There is water from streams, but it requires purification.
[[File:615100542_QAGsL-O.jpg]]
LV is run in August in the Carolinas, so [[Running in the Heat|heat]] is obviously an issue. At the start, it was hot enough to reduce performance, making everything tougher and slower. By about 11am, the temperature was high enough to forcibly limit performance on the uphill sections. The uphil pace I could maintain was limited by the rise in my core temperature; I could feel my face begin to burn, and was forced to slow up. (If you ignore the warning signs, you can raise your core temperature too high, which can be life threatening. ) The [[Under Armor Heat Gear top Top]] really made a difference - more on that (and perhaps heat stroke) in a separate blog entry.
I had a good day at LV and I was able to push the pace hard, finishing second place in 6:38. The race requires you to be self reliant, and this builds self confidence. Having run this race inspires me to run other self supported distances in the future. The only downside has been a recurrence of the blisters I got at Massanutten. The nature of my skin is that damage creates permanent scars that are more easily damaged. My right ankle now has a large (2x1 inch) blister. I hope to be able to continue running with some cut down shoes. I will need to find different shoes (again) to see if I can find something that will not cause these problems. I am considering moving from a robust shoe (Montrail/Solomon) to something lightweight like the Nike Free Trail or the Inov8.
