Medoc Spring Races Has Possum

Well, we have heard back from the Umstead Conclave regarding our demands.
We had offered to return their Mile 8 in exchange for a 2017 possum mascot.

This was their response:

"We refuse to negotiate with marsupials."

So be it. They will regret this blatant possum aggression!

This is because yesterday the revolution scored a huge victory:

The rebellion has spread to the Medoc Spring Races!

This is a call to all possum revolutionaries to immediately sign up for this handicapped head start, 7.4 mile, single track trail race.

On May 7th, the legions of fighters will take to the trails flying the possum flag on our shirts!

We will never return the Umstead Marathon Mile 8. Instead we will deploy it to the battlefield at the Medoc Spring Races!

The 7.4 Mile Medoc Spring Races will now have a mile 8!

Missing Mile 8?

Attention Umstead Marathon Conclave:

We are the the Revolutionary Umstead Mascot Possum Society.
Mile 8 of the Umstead Marathon is in our possession.
It sure would be a shame if something happened to it...
because you really can't have a marathon without Mile 8.

If you finally do the right thing and make a possum the mascot for 2017, then we will see to it that Mile 8 is returned to you unharmed.

Otherwise, start planning The Umstead 25.2 Miler.

- RUMPS
¡Viva la revolución zarigüeya!

¡Viva la Revolución!

Although the 2015 Umstead Marathon has been canceled, the mascot speculation continues, as we still do not know what the critter is for this year's defunct race.

It is tradition among Umstead runners to try to guess what the mascot will be. But on this blog we also argue for what the mascot should be.

Unfortunately the Umstead Conclave is a very secretive group and actively avoids choosing mascots that are obvious, or ones the public is clamoring for. While this does provide surprise mascots such as the "horned devil caterpillar" of 2014, it also discriminates against such worthy candidates such as the common black rat snake or the coyote.

Last year, this horrible mascot injustice sparked the great Possum Revolution.
Our short-lived, but successful coup managed to install the Possum as a co-mascot for 2014 race.

Our small band of rebels then formed our own secret society, the:

Revolutionary Umstead Mascot Possum Society (R.U.M.P.S.)

— Leading the Crusade to end Umstead Mascot Injustice

With RUMPS, the revolution lives on, and we will continue our struggle to bring the people their mascots. So let us consider just some of the worthwhile candidates, considering  both questions: Will it be? Should it be?.

There were many suggestions such as: javelina, mountain beaver, whales, Bigfoot, etc. But we will just stick with things that are in Umstead. Everybody knows that bigfoot is in Uwharrie.

Candidate: Beaver Suggested By: Shannon Chance it will be: 5% Why it should be: Every time you were out running, and saw someone wearing the shirt, you could call out: "NICE BEAVER" RUMPS score: 55

Candidate: Running Cedar Suggested By: Jeff Wald, Steph Jefferies Chance it will be: 1% Why it should be: Has "Running" right in the name, it is everywhere in the park. A plant is due! RUMPS score: 65

Candidate: Crayfish Suggested By: Bill Harris Chance it will be: 1% Why it should be: Crustacean long overdue. Unique, and damn scary looking. RUMPS score: 70

Candidate: Black Snake Suggested By: Jay Spadie Chance it will be: 2% Why it should be: Most common snake in the park. IT IS NOT A COPPERHEAD. Would look awesome on a shirt and pint glass. RUMPS score: 45

While these are all worthy candidates, there is one that is long overdue, and yet perfect for this year's dead race... to be revealed Saturday...

Candidate:  2015 RUMPS Mascot Suggested By: The Revolution Chance it will be: 100% Why it will be: We already have the shirts printed... RUMPS score: 100

2015 Umstead Mascotolgy Part 2 - Mascot Race

Mascots from the first eleven Umstead Marathons line up to race

(Note: not an actual photo)

Damn Damp Damper
As I write this, freezing rain is coming down on top of the 6 inches of snow left over from last week, which covered the 3 inches of ice we got days before that. The forecast is for more rain all week.

By Saturday, Umstead will be a giant mud pit, and there is talk of canceling the race. That puts a huge damper on things. Umstead Marathon is our favorite race, anytime, anywhere. I would rather have all the other races this year canceled than miss Umstead. And this year, we have celebrity runners traveling 2620 miles just to run these 26.2.

Let's cross our fingers and hope things work out.


The Great Mascot Race
The critters in Umstead don't mind a little snow, ice, rain, and mud. Well, maybe they do, but they don't require dry parking lots. So their race will go ahead as planned.

In past years, our Mascotology analysis focussed on scientific taxonomy, Park Presence, Running Relevance, Silhouettability, Logotimidation, Inevitability, etc. This year we will look at the mascots ability to run a marathon.

So we are lining up all eleven mascots from the previous years and seeing who comes out on top.
Because of the weather, we will not have aid stations at this race. To compensate, we have extended the cutoff time to 48 hours.

The fish decided not to run. His Achilles Tendonitis has been acting up lately,
and he hasn't been able to get in any decent training.

START!
As expected the rabbit, who always has trouble pacing himself, takes off like... a rabbit.
The fly and the turkey vulture follow close behind. The possum, the horned devil, and the turtle lumber after them.

The bat and the squirrel, who have been up partying all night, fall asleep in the lodge.

Duck and Frog
The duck, who was too nervous to eat breakfast and spent the whole morning in the porto-potty, is really hungry. Before they can even make it out of Camp Lapihio he tries to eat the frog.

An artists rendition of the struggle.
Imagine that's a duck.
Hey! This could be a good motivational poster for a marathon.

The frog had trained really hard for this, and is not about to give up. So he starts choking the duck.
He ends up stuck in the ducks throat, and they are both carted off by the EMTs to be separated.
DNF for both frog and duck.

Shannon was upset that the frog and the duck were fighting.
So I have to add here that the frog and duck end up as best friends and have a book written about them.

Front of the Pack

Disqualified for leaving the course...
and also for murder.

On Reedy Creek around mile 10, the fly is feeling a little hungry. Some poor human just jogging in the park passes in the opposite direction, and she cannot resist making a meal out of him. So she turns around and follows him, joined by hundreds more flies who swarm around him. The poor jogger, screaming and swatting himself in the face and neck, gets halfway to Cary before he drops dead from blood loss. The fly is disqualified.

Jogger in Umstead Park Eaten Alive by Flies

The Turkey Vulture smells the dying runner from miles away. There is the odor of weakness and death, but also just a hint of Fruity Pebbles. The vulture cannot resist and circles back to for a taste .

The turkey vulture drops out to spend the day feasting on a rotting engineer

Back at the first aid station the Horned Devil is pulled from the course and disqualified.
Turns out he was a not an official mascot, and was running with a fake copy of the possum's bib.

Meanwhile back at the cabin, the flying squirrel the wakes up, drinks some coffee and heads out. Leaping from tree to tree, he quickly catches up and passes the turtle, the possum, and Heiko.

Wait! What is Heiko doing here? Well it's not surprising, he's at at every race.
He could have won this thing, but unfortunately he gets distracted by an old hashing trail
and gets lost looking for a beer break.

Poor rabbit has to drop

Rabbit Fever
The rabbit, who is in the lead, starts to feel really ill and drops out at mile 20. He is taken to the hospital where is given a battery of tests.

"Turns out you have tularemia," says the doctor.
"Tularemia? What the hell is that?", asks the rabbit.
"Rabbit Fever.", replies the doctor, "you haven't been bitten by any ticks lately have you?"
"No, I don't think... OH NO"

The tick latches onto the rabbit at the start of the race hoping to ride him to the finish, 
but ends up putting them both in the hospital.

Slow and steady wins the race?
Nope. This is no fable, buddy. 
The turtle does set a PR though, with 34:12:39

Wheels fall off at the bottom of Cedar Ridge.

The flying squirrel is doing really well until he hits Cedar Ridge, where he bonks really bad. He shouldn't feel bad, though, this happens to almost everyone. 

Around mile 22, the possum waddles past the squirrel, "Good job!", she says, feeling a little bad for him, and then powers up the hill.

Her secret?

She had her pouch filled with 8 packs of Espresso Love Gu!

The possum passes the Squirrel on Cedar Ridge

Around 7 pm the bat wakes up, and flies the course in 1:49.
But Umstead is old school, there is no chip timing.
So she comes in 3rd place.

Possum Wins in 11:05:29!
(But are you really surprised?)

2015 Umstead Mascot Race Results*

Place	Year	Name	Gender	Clock Time
1	2014	Possum	F	11:05:29
2	2005	Flying squirrel	M	11:34:55
3	2012	Bat	F	11:49:02
4	2006	Turtle	F	34:12:39
DNF- Mile 20	2010	Hare	M
DNF- Mile 20	2011	Tick	F
DNF- Mile 15	2008	Turkey vulture	M
DNF- Mile 1	2012	Duck	M
DNF- Mile 1	2009	Frog	M
DNS	2007	Fish	M
DQ - Murder	2004	Horse Fly	F
DQ - Bandit	2014	Horned Devil	F

*All participants were awarded plaques. Except the possum, who got a stuffed animal.

NEXT- Evaluating the picks for the 2015 Mascot

(... and hoping there is a race in 2015)

2015 Umstead Mascotology Part 1

Volunteers like Susie make the Umstead Marathon the best party of the year

The 12th Umstead Marathon is only a week away!

Which means it is time for our annual Mascotology post.

Since Mascotology is the only reason anyone ever reads this blog, I plan to milk it for all it's worth.

I am stretching it out into an epic five-part series:

1. Today -        Intro
2. Sunday -      Past mascot analysis
3. Tuesday -     Handicapping the peoples' picks
4. Wednesday- R.U.M.P.S.
5. Thursday-    The 2015 mascot revealed! (That's right, a day early!)

Beginners Guide
For those unfamiliar with the race, every year there is a different animal "mascot".
The mascot adorns the website, the shirts, and the finishers pint glasses for that year's race.
Also, the top 15 male and female finishers receive a handmade wooden plaque in the shape of that animal. The mascot is chosen by a bizarre and shadowy ritual known as the Umstead Conclave. (See here for details).
The choice is kept in absolute secrecy until Friday, the day before race. But we here at Running-Down are Umstead Mascotology experts and read the tell-tale signs to accurately predict what the mascot will be.

From the Umstead Website
 Pint glasses displaying the mascot for each year

Review
If you have not been following along (where have you been?) here is brief synopsis of past Mascotology:

Year	Mascot Should have been	Prediction	Actual	Prognosticator
2010	Deer	Opossum (see post)	Hare	?
2011	Possum	Deer (see post)	Tick	Josh
2012	Possum	Bat (see post)	Bat	Running-Down!
2013	Possum	Possum (see post)	Duck	?
2014	Possum	Possum (see post)	Horned Devil Possum	The Possum Revolution!

To submit your own picks for this years' mascot, please visit the Running Down Facebook Page or for you non-facebookers, leave a comment below.

NEXT: The Great Mascot Race

2014 Umstead Marathon

Viva La Revolucion Opossum!
Photo by Harold "Galoot" Hill 

'Possum For The People
And thus began the Opossum Revolution.
With Umstead Conclave's endless regime of opossum oppression, we took matters into our own hands and set out to put the critter in it's rightful place. We had our own shirts made for the race.

The revolution was carefully orchestrated, with cells simultaneously  rising up on Saturday morning
 from the east coast all the way to the west coast in Port Angeles WA. With Barefoot Josh and Iris Sutcliffe. 

Friday afternoon at packet pickup we learned what we were up against.
This leaked document here details the inner working of The Conclave's process for selecting the Hickory Horned Devil for the this years "official" mascot. It is no coincidence that the gigantic and disgusting beast is the complete opposite of a cuddly opossum.

A photo of the gigantic "hickory horned devil" about to consume
another victim in Umstead Park.
Photo by Chas Willmon.

Fly Trap
But we were ready, because we had been planning for weeks in advance.
Since our numbers were few, we had to resort to guerilla tactics (wait... what about a gorilla for a mascot?).

Sabotage! We stole the fly from the official 2014 shirt

We infiltrated the company that prints the Umstead Marathon shirts with a mole (wait... maybe a mole for a mascot?) . This conspirator secretly sabotaged the official shirts by leaving the iconic symbol of the Umstead Marathon, the horse fly, off the shoulder. Instead he put it on our rebellious opossum shirts.  We had captured the Umstead flag!

To make ours the legitimate Umstead Marathon shirts of 2014,
we liberated the official fly from the Conclave shirts.

The only thing left to do was to actually run the marathon, which suddenly shook my resolve in the revolution.

Despite trying many times, I had not run continuously farther than 18 miles in the last 3 years (since the Umstead marathon 2011 coincidently). My last 4 marathon and 3 ultra attempts have ended with suffering. Either DNF or painfully walking and shuffling the last miles. There was no reason to think this time would be any different.

"No, don't think of it as pain," the very wise running guru Harold "Gallot" Hill said to me before the race, "it is just different levels of love and enjoyment. Embrace it!"

Photos by Conclave member and plaque carver Dennis Geiser

Running With The Devil (Hickory)
He was so right! Even though I expected to be reduced to a painful walk at mile 18, I would still be in my favorite place and time: The Umstead Marathon. It only comes once a year, enjoy it!

Common sense suggested that if I wanted this marathon to be different than my last four, then I should start very slow and easy. Shannon didn't agree with common sense and told me to just "go for it".

So I left the heart rate monitor at home and just went out fast with the pack, planning to enjoy it while it lasted.

I saw Lorraine coming back at mile 17,  leading the race with three guys struggling behind her. 

Lorraine Young led the way, blasting out of the start at an insane pace. Only 3 very fast guys could keep up with her, and that small lead pack was out of sight quickly.

I found myself in the second pack with a guys like Ronnie Weed, David Nash, and Mark Manz. These guys ALWAYS finish way in front of me in races, so clearly I was going too fast. But I was following Harold's advice to enjoy the race, and for me that meant to run the single track recklessly. 

The Conclave was on the lookout for conspirators,
trying to pull them from the course. In a moment of cowardice, I tried to hide my uniform.

( Dennis Geiser)

One of my favorite things to do is to come out and try to run Company Mill and Sycamore as fast as I can (which isn't that fast). But I have probably run the "Figure8" route maybe 50 times, and I know every rock, every root and every turn. So I just let out a "whoop" and plunged down Company Mill and had fun.

The switchbacks on "power-line" hill on Sycamore.

Swearing Spouse
Behind me, Shannon and Monique were trying to "take it easy" on single track. Despite this, Shannon tripped on a root and fell while walking up Sycamore around mile 5.

She earned a bit of trail love and bruise on her shin. First she screamed every single obscenity in her vocabulary as loud as she could. Then she proceeded to apologize to the long stream of runners behind her.

Don't feel bad for her though. After she limped along for a while, she picked up the pace and ran the second half faster, getting wood for the 8th time.

Scott represents the revolution among the volunteers.

Running With The Devil (Hickory)
When I came out of the single track around mile 8, I felt surprisingly OK. But by mile 10 my legs were getting sore and assumed they wouldn't last past 16 as usual. I walked up the "Big Mother F'er" hills on North Turkey creek, and then got "lei'd" at the tropical themed aid station. This gave me a huge boost.

I had been counting the men coming back, and when I got to the turn-around at 15, I realized that I was was in 10th place! I couldn't believe it. If I could just stay in the top-15, I would get "Devil Wood"! However there were many guys not far behind me, and my legs could blow up at any moment.

The finish line welcoming committee awaits the first place finisher with "Devil Wood"
( Dennis Geiser) 

Mile after mile ticked by, and amazingly my legs were still working. What was different this time? Was it the 600 calories of gu? Was it that I didn't try to "train" for this? Because I was better rested? Or maybe I was being driven by the spirit of revolution!

Umstead Marathon is a party in the park

Seize The Day
As everyone who runs this race knows, the real test of Umstead awaits at the bottom of Cedar Ridge around mile 23. And just like the sign says, my wheels almost came off. I had turned to walk back up the hill when my hip, hamstring, and calf all simultaneously began to seize up.

ARRGGHH! I had to immediately switched back to running with tiny little steps to hold off the cramps. I had to tiptoe the last 3 miles like I was balancing a huge stack of dishes. If I stopped running or made any sudden movements it will all come crashing down.

Photo by Dennis Geiser
Hearts by Google.

Co-opting The Revolution
I crossed the finish line so completely exhausted, it took me a moment to grasp what was happening.

Someone was handing me a Hickory Horned Devil plaque. After three down years, I didn't think I would be "Getting Wood" ever again, and I was deliriously happy. The day had gone perfectly, it simply could not get any better.

And then it got better. 

Conclave member Denise then handed me a stuffed opossum. 

It was the Carolina Godiva President and all around wonderful person Brandy Burns who had the idea many months ago. Instead of trying to oppress the opossum, the Conclave had been secretly planning to give me exactly what I wanted. I was stunned. 

The dream realized.
2014, The Year of The Opossum!

If you think there is a better race somewhere else, then you are wrong.

It Just Keeps Getting Better
The lesson here is that you cannot fight The Conclave. They will kill you with kindness.

There are many posts on Facebook and marathon.com reviews saying that "Umstead Marathon is THE best race anywhere, period"
And this is not an exaggeration. The organizers and volunteers owe no allegiance to an outside cause or shoe store. They are motivated by one simple thing: they genuinely enjoy seeing runners happy, and at this they succeed prodigiously.

Behind the scenes, the Conclave makes it happen
( Dennis Geiser)

The Umstead Marathon is absolutely perfect in every way, and I would not change a thing.

Well, except that one thing...

Long live the Opossum Revolution!

NOOOO! DUDLEY! THAT'S NOT A TOY!