Peter Kozlowski completes the Oil Creek 100 mile Ultra Trail Run
Here is Peter's Description of the Run in his words ...It is with much relief and happiness that I am happy to report that I have completed my first official 100 mile run. This momentous event took place on October 10-11, 2009 in Oil Creek State Park in western Pennsylvania at the inaugural running of the Oil Creek 100 mile, 50 mile, and 50k trail races.
Before I get into the details of the race I'd like to take a minute and thank everyone who has helped me achieve this amazing goal. First of all, I'd like to thank my wife, Jennifer, for giving me the time to train for this. Jenny, I promise I'll do anything you want done around the house from now on, whenever you want it done. I'd also like to thank Matt Ferry for being my crew man, his amazing attention to detail allowed me to relax a bit at the aid stations while he took care of filling my hydration pack and getting me things to eat. I'd also like to thank Eric Ripper for running the 3^rd and final 50k loop with me though the dark, cold and foggy night. Finally, I'd like to thank my parents for inspiring me to run in the first place.
It was the fall of 2005 when my parents walked their first marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC. That next spring I bought myself my first official pair of running shoes and started doing some miles during my lunch hour at work. Well, little by little I managed to get more and more fit. By late May I started toying with the idea of doing the MCM, and decided that if my parents could walk it, then why couldn't I run it? Well, I found out there was no reason why I could not run it. So I did, you know, and what a learning experience. That event taught me what “The Wall” felt like, and that there is no easy way to cover 26.2 miles. Well, after that event I was hooked on running, then I somehow got into Ultras. Before my first 100 I completed several 50k's, two 50 milers, and a 70 miler on the Laurel Highlands Hiking trail.
The Oil Creek 100 took place on the rolling hills of Oil Creek state park. The course consisted of three 50k loops followed by a 7.75 mile quitting time loop. The website boasted nearly 18,000 feet of elevation gain, but after getting home and plotting the course with my TOPO program I only came up with ~13,000 feet. None the less, there were some definite hills on the course. The trails were fairly runnable for the most part, but the two days of rain before the race and overall wet fall did lead to a significant amount of mud on the course. Overall the views along the course were as picturesque as one could imagine. Running through the woods of Pennsylvania in the fall gives one the impression that you are running through a Bob Ross painting wonderland. Very Enjoyable!
Another interesting note about the course was the historical elements of the worlds first Oil Boom. There were several oil derelicts and relics left in the woods along the course, seeing them brought about memories of what those pioneers must have dealt with when mining petroleum in the 1860's. A highlight of the trail to me was seeing Drake's Well being lit up with lights during the night.
The 100 mile race started in the dark with the horn sounding at 5am. At that point the 84 runners headed off out of the Titusville Middle School down a paved bike trail to start of the first of the three 50k loops. The bike path led to a trail going up into the woods and past the Boughton Acid Works, or at least the remnants of the Boughton Acid works. The only thing that could be made out was the foundation of some building and the smell of motor oil. It was right after this point that my first mistake was made.
The trail was marked with purple stripped flags and signs. After passing the acid works I saw a sign pointing to the left, but after going down towards my left I did not see any more flags. However, a group of other runners behind me saw flags to my right going uphill. I immediately changed course and followed this other group of runners up and to the right, what a mistake this would prove itself to me. Myself and this group of runners kept running, but I soon thought something may be a bit awry. For, although I had not run the course I spoke with people who had. From their comments they warned that the trail would be cambered to the left the entire way because we were running a loop around the crest of the oil creek valley. Well, I realized the the trail was cambered to the right and this worried me a bit. Well, my worry was realized when the trail we had be running on for ~ 40 minutes ended up back on the bike path that we had initially ran up. It took a while to realize what had happened, but I eventually figured out that I should have stayed to the left back by the acid works and that I had ran the trail sections that would begin the second, third, and fourth, loops. Overall, this mistake ended up costing me about one hour of time and probably close to an extra three miles of running.
Once I figured out my mistake it was hard to keep it from ruining my race. I had planned and figured out my times and paces for running each section of the course. Now, for no apparent reason, I was an hour behind this pace. It was difficult to tell myself to relax and not worry about it. Part of me wanted to run hard to make up the time, but the other part knew that if I did that I could blow out my legs and be unable to finish the race. Another difficult part of this section was that I was running alone, and I was unable to vent my frustration out about the mistake that I made. I eventually made it to Aid Station #2 where I had access to my drop bag, I picked some E-gels and was off in a few short minutes.
There were 9.7 miles between AS#2 and AS#3, this was the longest section of trail without manned aid stations. Although the trail was relatively wide and runnable, it was still a long amount of time to go without seeing other people. My luck did begin to turn during this section though. I ran into another one of the runners that made the wrong turn in the beginning, we started talking about how our run was going and we were able to vent to each other about how disappointed we were with the mistake we made. We entered Aid Station #3 together and both took a couple of minutes to get more fluids and I found a can of easy cheeze. I had not had “Easy Cheeze” since the days of high school, but man if I did not think that I had died and woke up in cheeze heaven. I probably had 5-6 double crackers filled with easy cheeze before heading back onto the trail.
John Nichols, as I later learned, was a veteran ultra runner boasting over 30 finishes of 100 mile events. It felt good to run with him and listen to stories of his other100 mile runs. We discussed the Mohican 100, Massanutten 100, and several other duration events (12 hours, 24 hours, etc.) events. Together we made it back to the Titusville Middle School / Aid Station #4 / Start&Finish in 8 hours and 20 minutes. After filling my crew in on my mistake, changing my socks, and eating some cheezey crackers I was back out and running. Although I was 1 hour and 5 minutes behind my goal pace, I still felt strong and John was still running along with me.
Back on the trail we ran that first section of trail in the proper direction and I was amazed by how muddy, rocky and just nasty it was by seeing it in the light. We continued on and eventually passed another ultra veteran by the name of Fred Davis. I had remembered hearing legends of this guy who ran ultras and never trained, well, somehow I managed to end up running a mile or two next to him. John did most of the talking, but I was able to hear how Fred had just competed in the North Coast Endurance 24 Race the previous weekend (October 3 - 106.5 miles), and the 100 in the Hood (September 26-27 – 100 miles), and was still out and running at Oil Creek. This simply blew my mind. Then, he later goes onto to explain that he hasn't trained at all in the past 7 years, and that he has ran only twice since 2002 except for running ultras. Overall I think he said he has completed something around 230 ultra events in his life, and oh yeah, did I mention that he is 61 years young? The accomplishments of this one man were truly amazing, and this did much to lift my spirits and give me confidence that my nine months of training and measly 29 years of life had prepared me to finish this one simply hundred mile race.
Eventually, Fred fell behind us and John and I were on our way to AS #1. The trail leading into AS #1 was adorned with several nicely carved pumpkins. It was great seeing them lite up during the 3^rd loop, also I thought the aid at this station was the best on the course. During this trip through I was treated to a grilled cheeze and cup of ramen noodles. Man I love grilled cheeze. After leaving AS#1 the trail goes up a series of switchbacks, then down a bit, then back up. Overall this was one of the longer and steeper climbs of the entire course. John and I stayed together through the hills but once it leveled off, I began running ahead and John decided to stay back at his own pace. I was happy to be feeling good and moving along, but a bit disappointed that I left my ipod in my drop bag at AS#4. That meant that I'd be finishing up this loop without any tunes.
I continued to progress down from the mountain and passed the oil derelicts of the historic Drake Well. From there I crossed over a road and eventually made it to AS#2 at about 5pm. This meant it took me 12 hours and 3 minutes to cover 44.7 miles of trail (well 47.7 if you count the wrong turn loop). At this point I thought I felt some blisters forming on the balls of my feet. I knew I had to take care of them, but first I started munching down the flat bread sub that Matt had brought for me. I continued to take turns eating the sub and fixing my feet. I applied two small spots of tincture of benzoin to the balls of my feet, then applied small second skin patches over the tincture. The theory was that the benzoin would hold the second skin in place well enough that it would protect the area from blistering any further. Overall this patch job proved to be successful, for although the patches had moved a bit during the subsequent 55 miles, no new blisters formed on my feet. I finished woofing down the sub and was back on the course for the next 9.7 miles of lonely running.
The next section went fairly smoothly, I eventually ended up running into Phillip Westlake just after the sun had set. I met Phil out of the blue down at the Bull Run Run in April, and ran several miles with him at Laurel as well. It was nice to have someone to run with at this point, for even though it is lonely running in the woods alone, it is lonely and scary to run in the woods at night. We ended up running into AS#3 together where I got some more cheezy crackers and water. We had a good time going up the hill out of AS#3 but could feel the night getting cooler and cooler. It was great to get back down off the mountain and back to the Middle School by 10 pm. I knew I wanted to get inside for a minute before heading out for loop 3, and I thought that was where Phil was headed as well. But after I ate another flat bread sub, talked to my parents on Matt's cellphone, put my lucky yellow tights on, and kissed my wife I looked around but could not find Phil. (Phil, if you are reading this, where did you go and sorry I left you behind). None the less, Eric Ripper was waiting for me to begin our journey together through the dreaded loop #3.
At this point I was traveling at about 15:30 minutes per mile pace, which if I could have kept up would have had me finishing up in just under 25 hours. Well starting back up the bike path for loop three I could tell that my legs were pretty much shot. I told Eric that we would probably be walking a good potion of the trail on this loop, which he gladly agreed with. I pretty much mentally moved myself away from hitting any sort of time goal and changed my focus to simply finishing the race. We walked all the uphills and I did the ultra-runner power walk sorta shuffle boogie on the downhills and flats. Eric ran behind my during this time, but I seem to remember sometimes looking back while I was running and seeing Eric simply walking and easily keeping up with me. I guess I need to determine which would be more effective at this point. Between the darkness of the night and the tired in my legs, I just could not seem to find a good way to make steady time through the woods. But as all things eventually go, we ended up getting into AS#1 in time for another smörgåsbord of grilled cheeze, soup, and mountain dew.
Heading up the switch backs out of AS#1 we ran into Brain Ottinger. Brian was another runner that I had saw at Laurel but I had only met him the previous week at the Bald Eagle Mountain Megatransect. Brian said he was getting tired and his legs were feeling shot. I gave him some chocolate covered espresso beans that I was carrying, and eventually Eric and I were on our way forward. Not too long after that we crossed paths with Eric Grol, another runner who I had ran with at Laurel but had only actually met the morning of the race start. He too was starting to feel the drain of around 70 miles on the legs and we ended up playing some frogger with him all the way into AS #2. During this section my headlight was getting dim. At first I could not tell if it was something with my eyes, or if my batteries were actually going dead. At one point I ended up doing a knee dive onto a rock due to some sort of slippery spot that I could not see with my barely visible speck of a headlight. Not too long after that Eric and I stopped by a vista with a bench for me to change the batteries of my headlight. The difference of the batteries was literally like night and day, no seriously, almost just like totally night and day.
Anyways, I digress. We end up at AS#2 in 21 hours and 16 minutes, this is 2:16 AM in the real world. However in the Peter world it was time for me to down some Mt. Dew, eat two grilled cheeze sandwiches and more ramen noodles. At this point I'm going say that all of the aid stations were top notch fantastic in my humble opinion. I took a Starbuck's double shot with me in my pack and headed back out into the night.
Eric and I kept bumping into Eric Grol, he would pass us, then we'd pass him until eventually we passed him and I did not see him again until I was heading back out for my final quiting time loop. None the less, the night was cold and there was fog sitting in the valley. At one point I heard something rustling in the woods, I thought this may be a hallucination but Eric confirmed that it was real. Although we may never know what it was, I'm hoping it was not a bear. After what seemed like an eternity, which was actually ~3 hours we were back into AS#3 for the final time.
They had a huge fire going and chairs sitting around it. I could not resist the chair as an aid station volunteer took my bag to fill with water as another volunteer handed me a cup of soup. I sat by the chair and talked with another runner who looked like he had been there for at least a minute. I started talking with him and a volunteer about how nice it felt to sit in a chair by a bonfire, but how I had to return to the cold and dark trail in order to finish teh last 15 miles of the race. I can't remember the runners name, but he started up the hill out of AS#3 with us.
We had a pretty nice gait going up the hill and the discussion was amusing. I think I told him about EFNAR because I was wondering if it may occur when the sun came back up. (Now if you don't know what EFNAR is then just ignore this part.) Somehow my mighty 20 minute per mile pace kept dusting people on the trail to the point where Eric and I were again alone. It was with much relief that I was soon turning off my headlamp to greet the morning sun. As we finished up the final loop I noted the time at which we passed the intersection with the quitting time loop so that I would know what I had left when I got back to this point with my lovely wife. Running back into AS#4 Danielle Ripper asked if I was ok, for she thought that I was running crooked. Maybe it was just my cat subconsciously communicating with me.
Jenny, my lovely wife and hater of all things muddy and dirty, was waiting for me at AS#4 to run the final 7.7 mile quiting time loop. After little delay, and a bit of Mt. Dew we were off and waddling back down the bike path towards the trail. It was really great to be running with Jenny and to be seeing the sun come up. Between hearing her stories of her class and the hotel, it let me forget that I was out running mile 97 of 103. We made it to the trail head where I made her agree that she would not stop if the mud got too gooey and nasty (I may have also agreed to buy her new shoes). After going up, then back down we made it to the Boughton suspension bridge. It was quite fun going across this reconstruction of the old suspension bridge. I can say is that it rocked, literally. Past the bridge we climbed some switchbacks until we finally made it to the point I noted with Eric. From this point I knew I had less than one hour to go. On our way down the hill we passed a family of hikers with two young boys leading the way. They immediately stepped to the side of the road and gave me a look like I was running straight out of the asylum.
Getting back onto the bike path was when the enormity of the event hit me. I remember thinking to myself, "I just ran 100 miles." I asked my wife if she wanted to run the rest of the way in, she agreed and started off down the trail. At first I thought there would be no way for my tired legs to catch her, but low and behold my dead legs magically came to life and I was running right next to her. I asked her if she wanted to go faster, and before I knew it she was having trouble keeping up to me. I looked down at my Garmin to see that by some sort of grace of God I was running at a 9 minute per mile pace. I was able to keep this up all the way to the finish line, but unfortunately Jenny was not. I crossed the line in the official time of 29 hours 9 minutes and 25 seconds. This put me at 26^th place out of the 48 finishers out of the 84 starters.
Overall, what can I say, a truly amazing and memorable experience. I would like to thank everyone that has supported, both by training, guidance and advise as well as the metaphysical support (prayer). This was a truly great experience. One day later I am able to waddle around the house without too much discomfort, but think that it may take a couple of weeks to recover from the mental aspects of the run. I don't know if I would do this again, but all I can say is that I wonder what would have happened had I not done the wrong turn loop. I guess only time will tell the answer to this one.
Take care all and may God bless you!
Peter Kozlowski