The Georgia Death Race

I can't even believe I am writing a race recap on this. I never had the desire to attempt this race. I have only ever heard that it was incredibly hard and that the time cut off's were outrageous. So I just threw this race over in a little bucket in my head of races I won't do. There was also another big race in that bucket that I recently took out.. but more on that later. 

What is this beast?  A 74-ish mile trail race through the North Georgia mountains from Vogel State Park to Amicalola Falls State Park. The race traverses some of the most rugged terrain the state has to offer. There is over 16,000 feet of climbing and at the end of the race you must climb the 600 stairs to the top of the falls. The race starts out with a major climb up Coosa and dumps you out on the Duncan Ridge trail to play on the dragon spine. It is intense, it has super tight cut offs in the first half, the climb up to Nimblewill will suck the life from you, and only about 60% of the field will finish. Oh, did I mention you only 25 hours to do it?

 This my friends... is the Georgia Death Race.

The race starts at 5 am on Saturday. Packet pickup was Friday night from 5 to 7 at the finish (Amicalola State Park). You have to drive all the way up to the lodge to retrieve your bib, check in and pick up your 1.5 pound railroad spike that you will carry with you until the end of the race. Don't forget your ID- it's the only way you will get your bib. And don't forget to bring something to wrap up your spike with... I have heard horror stories of the spike rubbing holes in water packs, bladders and peoples skin. Of course I found it fitting that I should wrap my spike up in an ace wrap...very ER nurse-like of me. But, for the record, it worked beautifully. 

The infamous railroad spike

The view from the lodge is gorgeous. It was also very humbling to know that in a few hours, I would be climbing up and down those mountains in pursuit of a GDR finish.

Sean had an awesome photographer taking pics of the "before"

My partner in crime.. who is the reason I got into this whole mess. Next time I get a text from a friend asking me to run 74 miles through the mountains in 25 hours I'm gonna politely decline. 

My spike all wrapped up in the ACE!

I let Arabelle plan out all the details of the race for us. She is a good planner and I have been too busy to even think about it. So she booked a hotel for us near the start in Blairsville at the Best Western Milton Inn. It was only 15 minutes from the start line at Vogel State Park. The alarms went off at 3:30 am and we had oatmeal and coffee. The weather was predicted to be cold and windy. The top of Coosa boasted 45 to 50 mph winds by morning with a real feel in the teens. 

If you know me, even a little, I don't do cold. I hate to be cold. The forecast had me scared to even tow the line. I wasn't sure what to wear or how to layer. I didn't want to be too cold or too hot or to have to haul a bunch of clothes around all day in my pack. But in the end, I ended up wearing a thermal heat gear long sleeve, a fleece pullover, my Northface shell and fleece leggings. I wore toe socks with my Vibrams and leg warmers on top of those. Rich dropped us off at the starting line and there we were... ready to face the day.

I left my car at Amicalola the day before so I would have it there for the finish. The race has a shuttle available that will pick you up from Amicalola at about 2:30 am and shuttle you over to the start line at Vogel if you need it. Luckily, Arabelle and I had our own personal chauffer for the day. Rich also crewed and paced for the race as well, which was awesome! I was glad to be able to drop clothes off mid morning and pick them back up later in the day. No poles are allowed during this race, so I didn't have to worry with that. My pack was crazy heavy. I had 2 liters of water, hand/body warmers, snacks, my spike, Marmot pants for an outer shell if I needed it, battery pack with charger, meds, extra batteries for head lamp, emergency blanket and some other random things. The race does require certain mandatory gear, so you must be prepared to carry that in your pack. 

Now, back to the race... it was go time. Here we were, with so many layers of clothing, both of us far more under-trained than we had intended.. ready to tackle the race. I had a groin injury (that really turned out to be a hip displacement) that had me out for most of Feb and March, Arabelle had ruined her ankle at Forgotten Florida 100 a few weeks prior... so neither of us had trained well for this course. But it was too late for all that now, we showed up and we were determined to finish.

As you can tell from the Aid Station Chart below, the most critical part of this race is the first 21.4 miles. You have to be OUT of Skeenah Gap by 12:05 (lunch time). You need to plan for at least 10 minutes here so you can fuel on food/drink and gather yourself before you tackle the next sections. And trust me when I say this- you will arrive at Skeenah TIRED.

The biggest climbs are in the first 21 miles of this race. Look at the elevation chart below- those miles are ugly. So trying to get to Skeenah Gap in a hurry isn't easy. You don't want to blow yourself up getting there, but you also don't need to go to slow. You have to move at a very steady pace and push on to arrive on time. 

We were both sweating bullets instantly, despite the weather. We quickly took outer shells off as we climbed Coosa. I basically stayed hot the whole race. The fleece pants were overkill for sure. But.. I would always rather be too hot than too cold (not the popular opinion I know). I also had thick gloves on that had to be dumped rather quickly. I just used a set of hand warmers instead. I stopped through white oak to refill my water pack. I always drink a ton at the beginning of a race, and those 7 miles of climbing had me going through the water. Arabelle kept on and I caught up with her. I also ate a little snack. But all in all, get through that first aid at White Oak fast! Waste no time. The second aid station was at Mulky Gap, 13.5 miles in. Rich was working this station, so I dumped off the gloves and extra clothes with him to lighten my load. Once again, I ate some snacks and refilled my pack and we got out quickly. The more time you bank between the start and Skeenah, the better the chances are that you finish. 

The sunrise over the mountains, a fiery orange, and it was breathtaking!

This was pretty early on when I still had lots of layers on. We laughed about how many times we would take the hat/buff OFF, put the hat/buff ON... over and over. As we would get up a mountain the wind gusts would be chilly, but then on the other side of the mountain we would sweat. We did this all day, on/off off/on. 

Beautiful overlook

The "hot" side of the mountain. Ha!

Arabelle had made us a great pace chart. We stayed right on target for the first 50 miles. We arrived at Skeenah about 11:25 and had plenty of time to eat, drink and gather our thoughts. We were both really surprised how well things had been going and how we still felt great, despite the lack of training, and that we were still having fun!

If you make it through Skeenah, you are looking good. But that's just the first hurdle... there are still many more. Point Bravo was the next stop. There is a HUGE climb out of Skeenah, but then a good bit of down into Point Bravo. The miles kept ticking by quickly and we were feeling good. After we left Point Bravo, there was some confusion. According to the chart from the website, there was 3 miles to Swinging Bridge which has no Aid Station but crew only. The first bit of confusion came from someone's crew who said there "was aid just ahead"... however, there is NO aid at Swinging bridge. The next aid isn't until Sapling Gap. The next bit of confusion came from the chart and the distance to Sapling Gap. The math calculations are off and stat there is 4.5 miles from Swinging Bridge to Sapling Gap- however the total distance only changes by 1.5 miles. So essentially, when we left Point Bravo, we thought we only had 4.5 miles to Sapling Gap and the aid station. But taking into account the math error on the chart, there could potentially be 7.5 miles between the two. Arabelle was running very low on water, but that wasn't our biggest concern. We were worried that we would not make the 4:20 pm cut off at Sapling if we indeed had 7.5 miles before we got there. So we decided to really push hard to ensure we got there in time. We had no way of knowing if was 4.5 or 7.5 miles... so we had to prepare for the worst.  We arrived at Sapling Gap over an hour ahead of cut. The distance was about 5.5 miles and we had banked a good bit of time. Unfortunately, we had pushed a lot harder than intended here and this caused us both to get behind on calories and energy. 

Arabelle is NOT a fan of swinging bridges!

Sapling to the Long Creek aid station is about 6 miles. It was a very tough stretch with a lot of climbs. Long Creek is about mile 38 and you have to be out of this aid station by 5:50 pm. We were still way ahead of cut off and very close to pace on the chart Arabelle made us. We hit Long Creek right about 4:45 pm. 

Winding Stair was the 7th stop of the day at approx. mile 45 miles in. From Winding Stair, we had a ton of DOWN-hill to run! Rich would meet us at Jake Bull in 6 miles and he could pace us from there to the finish. 

Winding Stair offered us a lovely beer and drop bags. I chose not to use drop bags this race and things worked out just fine that way. The aid stations all pretty much offered the same fair. PBJ sandwiches, quesadillas with either ham, cheese, avocados or bacon (or some combination of that), cookies, fruit, etc. There was Gatorade and sodas at all the aid stations as well. We were out of Winding Stair about 6:35 pm. which was still over an hour ahead of cut. 

We picked up the pace on the service roads from winding to Jake Bull. It wasn't all down hill, but it did offer a nice break. This is a good section to make up some time on if you need it. It is very runnable, even if at a slower pace. Or at the very least, power hike some of the service road. Jake Bull was 6 miles from the last aid and would put us at mile 52/53. 

Sunset was just as beautiful as sunrise. 

From Jake Bull, there are several miles of old country road to run. We left out of Jake Bull with Rich and when we hit that road I was ready to run. I kept pulling ahead of my partner and at that time I decided I would go ahead and keep pushing toward the goal of sub 23 hours. If you finish GDR in less that 23 hours, you can use the race as a qualifier for entry into Western States I told Rich I was just going to move on ahead and relayed the message back to Arabelle. I really loved this stretch of road. It was out in the middle of nowhere, little mountain homes scattered about it... several four wheelers went by, some of the locals offered us water bottles as we ran up toward Nimblewill. Speaking of the Nimblewill, there is 11 miles between Jake Bull and the Nimblewill aid station. The first 5 miles move pretty quickly, but those next 6 miles are straight up and they literally sucked the life right out of my soul. Once the old pavement turns into forest service gravel things just get downright bad. I don't ever like to go more than 8 miles between aid stations- that's just my preference, and this 11 mile stretch was relentless. So let me break the 11 miles down for you... the first 5 are mostly runnable and involve some pavement, the next 4 miles are a long, slow, crawl up forest service road. ALL UP HILL. And then, when you get to the top and see the blinking lights and here the loud music, your soul will be crushed again because it is NOT the aid station after all and just a fake... you will continue on through the woods for 2 more miles before finally reaching Nimblewill. I hit this aid station about  12:45 am, still 1.25 hours ahead of cuts. 

The fake aid station that put me in terrible place mentally. 

I knew that I would have a little over 3 hours to get to the finish in time to break 23 hours. The finish line was 10 miles away according to the chart I had. The last bit consists of the Len Foote Hike Inn trail- which is about 5.5 miles down into the state park. The trail is mostly downhill, but it has been heavily used and has lots of roots and rocks. The temps had dropped into the 30's by this point and the wind was still 20 to 30 mph gusts, but I had picked back up most of my warm clothes at Jake Bull in preparation for the night, so I was comfortable.  I called myself moving "rather quickly" down this trail (but in reality I was only clocking 21 min miles). As I finished the trail and dumped out into the state park, I kept looking at my watch thinking man this is going to be close. The course traverses some TRASH rocky non-sense that isn't even a trail and slows your weary legs down to a crawl. I lost some time here- though it was a short section. Then, after a while I finally see the finish line. But... I already knew it was a false hope. This path takes you right up through the parking lot to the Top of the Falls trail and the 600 steps up. But before you can start the stairs (you know this if you have ever been to Amicalola).. you have to crawl your way up the approach trail. It was horrible. I could hardly move, hardly breathe.. I kept checking my watch and losing time. When I finally hit the stairs I lost my mind and just BLEW up them. I passed about 4 people on those stairs. I was so ready to be done!!

ALL the stairs

After the stairs were complete, we hit the road back down to the finish... I thought I really might have a chance! But just as we came down off the road we hit another trail. The trail had a million switchbacks and I lost so much time. I gave up at that point and just slogged it in the rest of the way. I finally saw the lights of the finish line. I was so happy, I was almost done! But... just like every other aspect of the race... it wasn't easy. You had to wade through the cold waters of the creek to the finish. And of course I placed my foot wrong and fell into the icy water. But it didn't matter. I did not care that it was 4 am and 30 degrees with a wind chill temp of 25. I didn't care that I had missed the Western cut-off by 9 mins... I didn't care about anything but the fact that SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY... I had pulled off a finish! I did it, I finished the Georgia Death Race! 

I humbly walked over to the coffin and dropped my old rusty spike in. I have never been so happy to hear a "clink". I was handed my engraved spike and then I crawled to the car and cranked up the heat. 

I had brought blankets/pillows and a little air mattress to be able to sleep some before I headed out. I laid down all the seats, piled on the blankets and passed out. As I was lying there in the car before I drifted off I couldn't believe that I had finished this race. I had little training before hand. I hadn't even worked a 50k in for this training cycle. My last major run had been Grindstone 100 in September. Since that I had a track race where I got 31 miles in November, a few half marathons in December and a trail marathon in January. I had several long road runs of 20 miles and gym workouts on the stair step... but that was it. I hardly ran in February or March.  I guess the fact that I have a solid baseline and usually get 25 or more miles a week was enough to get me through. Or maybe ultra running really is 80% mental and 20% physical like people say? Either way- it is done. I got the spike. And I will NEVER go back 😂

As for gear/nutrition and other random facts:

***I got a new pack and I will forever be happy about it. The Salomon Skin 12 is the best vest I have EVER worn. It held an insane amount of "junk" and was super comfortable. I am a huge fan.

***I also got a new headlamp which is WAY more lightweight than my old one. I went with the Petzl Tikka. It can use a rechargeable battery or 3 AAA's. It lasted forever, was incredibly bright and most importantly it was very light (carrying your lamp the whole race was a requirement).

*** I ate from the aid stations as usual and just like always I was sick of the quesadillas and cookies by mile 50. So the last 20 miles I survived on the usual Sour Patch Kids and water. 

*** I took a half of a caffeine pill 4 times this race. It worked so much better than trying to drink the caffeine. 

*** I wore my trail Vibrams, despite the cold temps. 

*** 41 women started this race. Only 17 of them finished. 

Now... onto the next big race... Cruel Jewel 100. Once in the bucket of No Way, but now a stark reality staring me in my face. Here's hoping training is a little better between now and May!