Feral Mountain 100 #92 Ellijay GA, April 26, 2025

I'm months behind on writing my race reports, frankly it's been a bit exhausting trying to work, train, travel and just stay on top of life and anytime I think I can sit down and write, I end up taking a nap! Currently as of August 12, 2025, I'm preparing to run my # 96th hundred miler in Chamonix, France, at UTMB, sort of the Olympics of ultrarunning! My laptop died, so before I go run # 96 I'll do an attempt of at least catching up on a summary of the last few races before I head to Europe.

Feral Mountain 100 was an inaugural 100 in the Georgia Mountains near Ellijay Georgia. I drove down after work to camp at the start line which was very non descript, up a remote dirt road in the rural mountains of North Georgia, I found a clearing in the woods with nothing there except for some porta potties. I was all alone in the woods, a little spooked. I got the RD on the phone who assured me I was in the right place. I slept in my car during a very heavy thunderstorm but woke up to beautiful cool weather & a 6 am start. There were quite a few runners with 50 milers starting with the 100s. Not many running the 100. The trail started out runnable and fun and I was calm and relaxed finding my happy place at a comfortable pace on an easy trail. That didn't last as we soon hit the most difficult part of the course, I was very grateful it was daylight because we had countless river crossings in a 5-8 mile stretch, many which were swift and mid thigh deep. So many river crossings, I lost count at a dozen. That section of trail also had dozens and dozens of blown down trees to crawl over, under and through. I met a guy through there running his first 100. We stayed together for awhile and had a conversation about suicide and mens mental health. He sadly fell behind me and I later learned that he'd ended up vomiting terribly and had to go to the hospital. The wet feet and river crossings seemed to last for hours so I was relieved to hit a long steep climb finally getting us out of that section.

The day warmed up and with water & sweat my feet stayed wet. The Georgia mountains are beautiful in spring and it was green and flowering. We looped back to the start/finish once around 50k if I recall correctly. The aid stations were well done with great volunteers and good food. Most of the 100 mile runners were within an hour of each other on the course so there was a lot of passing going on. Sometimes in the middle of the night I passed several runners including the 1st place female whose feet were wrecked from the river crossings. When I knew that I was several miles ahead of her, I took the warning regarding trashed feet and took off my soaked socks, slathered them with ointment and put on ziplock baggies as socks as I had no spares. They only held up for an hour or so but it was long enough to do some repair. The weather was cool but I didn't need my mittens so I turned them into replacement socks for the second half of the race.

I wasn't mentally prepared for all the climbing in this race and we went well over 100 miles. After 70 miles I swear I climbed a stretch that lasted for hours! The mittens were giving me blisters. I had a guy hike out from the aid station who met me at the hardest part of the climb and got me to the aid station where his kids were helping to crew. His 15 yr old son gave me his socks to wear! The guy had lost his wife and raised 5 kids or something like that on his own. We had a really nice conversation about love and grief. It was a good distraction and meaningful time.

Back at Froggy Mountain Kevin had finished writing his first album, so I got to run that on my playlist for long time. I saw many opossums through the night so that was pretty cool. Moved to sad tears at times because in the remote overnight I felt overwhelming aloneness, but I had some moments of presence and clarity to help me know my Marines were close and proud of me. It gave me power to push forward relentlessly.

I managed my hydration pretty well, Sunday was hot and I had to cool off in creeks and rivers but I didn't ever throw up. I ran into my friend Thompson around mile 80 maybe, who had ice cold chocolate milk for me and ginger beer to settle my heartburn. The weather was sunny and hot on the bridges, cool in the deep green forest, and purple flowers blooming made me think of my mom.

I was very excited to finish feeling strong and win 1st place female and second place overall in this race. I'd do the course again, rugged, difficult, remote, fantastic RD and volunteers, cool buckle, very happy to have done so well. It was the perfect buildup for my next finish at Cruel Jewel 100 in May 2025, slowly building up vert for Froggy Mountain 100, Ouray 100 and finally UTMB. Some cool things that also happened in April was that I won the regional Humanitarian award from my workplace, and we held the Froggy Mountain Sweet Sixteen 50k at home which was a wonderful experience with some excellent athletes!

For some reason I can't figure out photos on this phone app so please excuse my photo explosion lol.