A couple of (ultra) runners

By Laura Clark
The New Era-Progress
Published: July 21, 2008

Kelly and Wendy Golden are ultrarunners. That means they’ll race distances 20 kilometers or more, usually on trails through the woods over a few mountains and sometimes in the snow. Kelly, 41, and Wendy, 40, live in Elon with their three children. They recently shared their off-road adventures and advice.

On how they got into ultrarunning:
Wendy: I ran Holiday Lake (a 50K trail race in Appomattox) in 2000. Lesley McPhatter talked me into it, and the following year he ran it.
Kelly: She told me it was a really neat race with fudge and M&Ms, and Coke and Mountain Dew at the aid stations. I said, “That sounds neat.” So I gave it a try.
Wendy: You get dirty. It’s very different than road running. I felt sort of Rambo-ish, since I’m very in the box. It’s way out of the box for me. Even if you’re not in a race and you’re just running trails, you feel like a child.
Kelly: That’s right, running through creeks and stopping to poke at snakes.

On running and parenting:
Kelly: We take the kids out in the evenings and run up and down the road, but usually, Wendy is the morning person and then I’ll run in the evenings. We alternate days on weekends.
Wendy: He runs on Friday and Sunday. I run on Saturday.
Kelly: I think we’ve gone out running together just one or two times.
Wendy: It’s too hard with the kids. I run Blackwater Creek a lot, because I have a stroller. Next year, he’s in kindergarten so I can run trails. We can actually have a trail date on Fridays when (Kelly’s) off and everybody’s in school.

On the most challenging race:
Kelly: Mountain Masochist, a 50-miler.
Wendy: It starts at the James River Visitor Center and ends at the Montebello Fish Hatchery. It’s 54 miles.
Kelly: That’s by far the toughest run I’ve ever done.
Wendy: I didn’t finish. I only made it to mile 39.
Kelly: We both tried the first year, and I made it halfway and she made it 14 more miles beyond me. So I spent the next year getting ready because I was going to do it. That I didn’t finish it bugged me for a year.
So I made it eventually this last year. That was by far the toughest and most rewarding things I’ve ever done, is finishing that. It’s amazing.
(It’s) pavement, singletrack, fireroads, a combination. That one is 9,000 feet of elevation gain, 7,000 loss. That one’s a bear.
Wendy: It’s rolling, constant. I think it’s really a big mental thing. There’s a very narrow timeframe to finish it in (12 hours). You have to boogie.
Kelly: And I’m a plodder. I enter to finish. The winners are like sub-8.
Wendy: All these people are Boston qualifiers. They’re fast. We rode the bus out there the first year, and we were sitting right in front of the guy that set one of the records ... .
Kelly: One of the A.T. (Appalachian Trail) end-to-end speed records.
Wendy: And I said, “We are on the wrong bus. Who are these people?”

On mental toughness:
Wendy: One year (in the Holiday Lake race) I got so frustrated. I got lost and ended up running extra miles.
I was furious at myself. I said I’m not that fast of a runner. I’m obviously not an adept trail runner because I get lost, and I was running along and kind of got in a fight with myself and said I would just give up at the next aid station. Pull me off the course. But what were they going to do with me?
And I thought about it, and I was like, I hired a sitter just so I could come out here and to finish this run. And I’m going to go home and tell the babysitter that I didn’t finish the race because I gave up. And it’s just setting an example to my kids that I gave up.
When it gets really hard out there, you just think, what you’re doing is just going to make you stronger. They (the kids) know what you’re doing, if you gave up. They always ask, “Did you win? Did you win?” Well, no.
When I’m out there on the trails and nervous about every rock and root, I just think if I’m not falling I’m standing up and I’m getting stronger from it.

On fellow ultrarunners:
Wendy: The people that you run with, oh you just wouldn’t give up for them. It gets better and better because you start seeing the same people. They’re inspiring.
I’ve been passed by Santa Claus before. This guy’s in his 70s. He has a tummy and a beard and a kilt on.
Kelly: As for Mrs. Claus, honest to goodness.
Wendy: And that’s inspiring. If you get passed by somebody who’s in the AARP with a tummy out to here and a beard that’s creating wind resistance, you just know you can’t give up. It’s great.
Kelly: If you’re having trouble, most of them will stop and help you, if they can.
Wendy: They’ll offer food and drink, anything on them. I’ve been offered peppermint tums, fluid. I wiped out at Holiday Lake a few years ago. This guy stopped and helped pick me up and offered to hobble me in. Ultrarunners are just a compassionate, unique blend of people.

On the difference between road and trail running:
Kelly: It’s easier on the joints.
Wendy: And I think it’s easier on the minds. With a marathon, they’re both very mental, but with a marathon it’s just people and road, people and road. When I’m trying to convince people to do ultras I say, “Try not to think about the distance because when you’re out there it’s not mile marker after mile marker. It’s this whole set of mini-challenges. You’re up and down this rise, you’re around this corner. How am I going to cross this creek?”
That breaks it up naturally. And the scenery.
On what to take on the trail:
Kelly: The Garmin, a little GPS. It’s like a big watch. And plenty of water.
Wendy: We carry gels, hand-held water bottles. Peanut butter crackers are really good on long runs.

On running hills:
Kelly: Stay relaxed. David Horton, he’s the one that puts on most of these races that we run, he walks up the hills. This is a guy that has his name in a lot of record books. He walks up hills, and he flies down hills.
I just walk up the hills if I can. You don’t always, but we’ve got hills that go on for miles in these races. There are people that can run it, but I’m not one of them.
Wendy: Your heart rate is really up there. It’s not mall-walking by any stretch of the imagination. I get too nervous, I don’t fly downhill.

On their next challenge:
Kelly: Iron Mountain. It’s down in Damascus. It’s a 50-miler. That’s in the first part of October. Then I’ll do Masochist again in November. Then Hellgate, which is a 100K in December. But we’ll see how the first two go.
Wendy: The Richmond Marathon. Then I’ll do Holiday Lake again. I always do Promise Land.

Clark, who writes for the New Era-Progress in Amherst and The Nelson County Times, can be reached at lclark@nelsoncounty
times.com.