The CrusherEX 50 Run. "Do hard things." This is the mantra of the 906 adven...OMG, there's a moose on the trail!
Doug, "Get my picture with the moose!"
Feeling cute, might delete later (terrible timing on the moose pic for this one, it's the black dot in the middle of the pic):
Starting Line - Forestville Trailhead:
Pic for go time:
Checkpoint #1 - Hogback:
Damn the bikers were having a tough time on hogback. Trail shoes, no bike, running/hiking Hogback mountain was easy.
Not surprisingly, the trail was quite dark and foggy descending hogback. Lights were needed for spotting the reflectors on the trees and identifying where the trail was going. The darkness was short lived. By mile 4, we were out of the swampy area and darkness.
Checkpoint #2 - Forestville Chimney:
Again, to no surprise, climbing the trail at top of the world without a bike went really smooth. A half mile after that, we got our pics with the glorious forestville chimney.
Mile 6 - Mile 40 (not checkpoints):
The section from mile 7 to 8 contains some railroad tracks and single track. After running the railroad track section, riding a bike down it seems even that much more insane. Shortly after this, Rod took a spill on the single track. We accessed the situation, and the trail seemed to be ok after taking the hit, so we continued on.
At mile 11, Rod and I expected to meet up with the SAG...they weren't there. Not really an issue though, we both had plenty of water and kept moving forward. We may have been there a little faster than expected at 2:20 into the event including getting through the Hogback summit. Just before mile 15, our SAG was waiting in a parking lot right before the next gravel turn off. At this point, we were roughly 3 hours and 15 miles into the run.
Also, our SAG was late due to helping bikers up Hogback and then proceeded to get lost going back to Forestville trailhead 😂.
The next ten miles went by in a flash. The roads were gravel or two track paths, with a couple water crossings, but the miles flew by getting to our next SAG point. When we arrived, Doug and Stacy were grilling burgers for the crushers going by, it's a real shame I don't have a pic. We made this a quick stop for snacks and immediately headed out as the next SAG point was only 2.5 miles up road.
Arrival at SAG point mile 27, close to 5:15 into the run:
At this point, the run was tough. My legs were absolutely on fire. Since this is crusher, I packed Advil. Here is my crusher math at this point of the run:
- 2 Advil usually always works
- 3 Advil would definitely do the job
- Take 4 to be certain
Todd rolled up on our stop:
From here, there would be another 5 miles until we could reach SAG again after the climb on mile 32. The next 5 miles went a lot better. When we reached the mile long climb from 31 to 32, Rod and I passed several bikers...though the bikers passed us back very quickly. At this point, we were rolling. We've covered 32 miles of the event in exactly 6 hours. The next eight miles looked easy on paper, smooth gravel roads with no steep climbs. Plus, our SAG was stopping every two miles, awesome. Stacy got a pic before heading out:
I was wrong, this eight miles was treacherous. I've ran 32 miles 3 times in my life. I knew I was entering unknown territory but this was terrible. This eight miles took 1:45 to cover. For me, the Advil was wearing off and the difficulty of the run was back. Rod was the moderator at this point. He would call the walking points on the uphills so we wouldn't bury ourselves into the pain cave and not be able to recover.
I can't complain too much though. We did reach a small goal of the run, to start trail 14 eight hours into the run.
Checkpoint #3 - Chunky Summit:
Mile 40 was our last SAG stop with a vehicle, but Doug jumped on his MTB to provide SAG to the finish, which was awesome.
Around 7:50 into the run, we headed up chunky summit. I made it about 1.5 miles into the trail where I proceeding to kick a rock, hit the dirt, and complete a full somersault. Other than looking really dumb, I was back on my feet quickly and we continued on.
Shortly after this, we had our moose photo shoot:
After about 10 minutes of waiting, the moose moved off the trail and out of sight. We proceeded up the trail. Rod points out, how does an animal that gigantic just disappear into the woods without making a noise. At that point, we realized it was about 10 feet off the north side of the trail directly beside us. We were back to pure silence for the next 100 feet.
The chucky summit sign 😒
After doing all three rides, how do two runners and a mountain biker miss the chunky summit sign? OBV, too much moose talk. In any case, we descended trail 14 to the large mud hole, realized we missed the sign, climbed back up the trail about a half mile and got the pics. Pics around mile 46, 9:35 into the run:
The rest of the run was pretty uneventful. Nvm, this is crusher. More water crossings, totally soaked my shoes for the final 4 miles...Rod was very smart for taking his shoes off rather than attempting to find the high walking spots. More hills to walk, more cussing, more energy foods, more water, etc.
The Finish Line - Forestville Trailhead:
Total time: 10:39:29
Total distance: 51.73 miles
Total elevation: 4,154 feet
Strava: The CrusherEX 50 Run
No way Rod and I could run the crusherEX at that time without the SAG support. Doug and Stacy giving up their weekend to follow us on a run was as unselfish as it gets. I owe them both some huge favors at some point.
Outro:
That was it, the last part Rod and I needed to complete to get the crusher fist. What a journey:
- Three trips to the U.P.
- 56:01:05 time spent crushing
- Biked 411 miles
- Ran 52 miles
- 27,618 feet climbed
- Unbearable amount of clif and infinit products consumed
- One or two swear words
- Flipping off Todd twice
- Teammates completing the crusher fist ✊
Next up on Rod and I's to do list, completing Marji Gesick. Time to start training.
