Thinking about Steven Seagal makes no sense: The Greenwood Furnace Trail Challenge

I'm not sure why, but for some reason, I have been looking forward to the Greenwood Furnace Trail Challenge more than any other race I have scheduled this year. I signed up for it at the start of this crazy sign-up-for-every-race-because-you-aren't-doing-shit-that-weekend spree I went on. I don't claim to be a physiologist, but I have come to the conclusion that its takes way less muscle groups to sign up for a race than it does to run said race. Go figure. Oh well, what can you do? I mean, you could not sign up for four races in a row, but then where is the fun in that? So it was that I ran the Greenwood Furnace Trail Challenge the weekend after the Zion Half Marathon which you can read about here.

The picture is self explanatory, you don't need this caption, move along.

I will say part of the appeal may have been my brief obsession with iron furnaces in the state when I first moved here in 2009. I thought they were pretty darn gnarly and the Commander and I spent a bit of time hiking around finding them, and there are a lot of them according to this. I don't claim to be an expert, but basically the furnace was heated using charcoal made from the surrounding forest. When all moisture was driven out, iron ore and limestone (abundant in the valley and ridge of PA) were dumped into the furnace from a gangway at the top of the furnace. The rock was then smelted where carbon dioxide reduced iron oxide (usually in the form of hematite) to iron. The iron was drained off through a chute and cooled and broke into pigs. After the slag cooled it was broken out and removed and dumped as waste. Apparently these homies got paid $0.50-$1.00 per ton of ore they mined, and $2.00-$4.00 per ton of iron they produced. That sucketh. You can read more about this stuff here if you like. Again, I'm not an expert, save your hate mail for someone else.

Greenwood Furnace. Photo courtesy of the GFTC facebooks page

By now you're thinking, but Randy, I didn't come here to get a history lesson about iron furnaces, I came to read about your race experience, and I barely even care about that. Get to it son. Right. So the race. This race is sweet. The course incorporates trails in Greenwood Furnace State Park, Rothrock State Forest, and the Alan Seeger Natural Area. For some completely nonsensical reason I think of Steven Seagal every time I read Alan Seeger. If I'm honest, a few scenes from Under Siege (the first one not the squeal) played in my head on this part of the run. It makes no sense, I know.

Other than a small bit to and from the start and finish, the race is entirely on single track, consisting mainly of a figure-8 loop up to the top of Broad Mountain, down the side, around the back, up to the top again, and then back down to the furnace.

See figure-8 and some stuff, just like I said.

The race starts right at the furnace and we ran through the parking lot to the trail head behind the pavilion and ultimately the finish. In my valiant attempt to get near the front of the start, I pretty much ended up right in the back because I 'm super good at these things. This cost me some time as nearly 200 people were bottle-necked down to single track so it was a bit of standing around, then we'd run a little bit, and then stand, and then run. Eventually we broke out onto some double track, Greenwood Spur trail I believe, and I was able to make my way around much of the group and get into a position where I could run. So lesson learned there, get up front and avoid that early bottle neck. The trail gave us a little bit of a teaser climb before the first of the two main events. And oh man, were the main events a force to be reckoned with.

The first climb is 1200' over two and a half miles. That's an average grade of 9%, but don't be fooled. This hill hits 32% grade at times, with the bulk of the climb averaging a 13% grade. Pretty steep ascent. The weather was pretty nice, cloudy a bit foggy on top of the mountain. I decided to forgo the aid station and work my way down the mountain side. The descent wasn't the most gnarly descent I've even been on, we didn't need ropes or a jet pack to do it safely, but it was rocky and steep with grades often over 30% and maxing out at 45%.

Elevation profile. Yeah, I know, I thought so too

After the decent you are treated to one of the most beautiful courses I think PA has to offer (unless you are a goth kid, and life is pain, then its probably going to suck for you). The trail winds around and through rhododendron tunnels along side and over Standing Stone Creek. We had one creek crossing on elevated stones and then a number of wooden bridges. The bridges were slick with the overnight rain, and if you were quick, and nobody was watching, a guy such as myself could actually just hit the deck and slide across the bridge and down the backside like a fucking champ.

Seriously skate across one of these Seagal style. You'll look awesome, I mean probably not, but its still worth it. Photo courtesy of the internets

There was a few miles of flat running in the bottom before heading back up on another endless climb to the fire tower. This climb was at an average of 14.6% grade, climbing over 1300' feet. I remember mile eight being absolutely insane and cursing the race director, even though this course was incredible. Here you approach some of the steepest terrain I have seen climbing a 41% grade. My calf muscles were absolutely on fire coming up this hill. They still are not happy with me and we haven't been speaking much over the past few days.

Greenwood Furnace is one of the most burly races I have done/will do. Seagal approved.

I grabbed a few Swedish fish to eat at the aid station up top because I really enjoy going through the effort of chewing something just to get it stuck in my teeth and began the decent back down the mountain. There were a few rocky sections to contend with and some rock steps on the way down, but I was able to get down faster than I thought I would and I didn't eat shit so that's always a win.  At the bottom you get back on some flat-ish double track for a good while that allowed me to make up some time. I was hoping to cross the finish line in under three hours. About halfway up the first climb, I thought that was never going to happen, and by the time I started the last descent, I still wasn't sure. But that double track allowed me to make up some time. I followed the course back onto some single track and then I started hearing the commotion of the finish line off in the distance. I wanted to pound out that last bit and get there to make my time so I was running pretty hard through the parking lot. 

That's when I pulled up along side some dude that did not want to be passed and a hell of a foot race ensued. I'm all about the competition and trying to beat each other, but trying to body shove me off the course to win was a pretty dick move. We both had our bibs on our legs and apparently his crossed 0.4 seconds ahead of mine, but I broke the plane with my upper body first so I'm chalking him up to being a dick and a win for me. Actually we bro hugged afterwards so I think that means we are cool now.

Finished! Met me time goal too! Man I'm a weird looking dude. So is Steve Seagal though.

As always, I can't say enough thanks to the race director and the volunteers. The course was extremely well marked, traffic control at any road crossings, and people posted at trail junctions to keep you going the right way.  If you have a chance to run this race next year, I highly recommend it. And finally, many, many thanks to you for reading this. With this post I'll probably go over 10,000 views of the website. I never imagined there were so many people that would take the time to read this. So again, thank you. Glacier Ridge Trail 30k Saturday. I'll run and write, you read, lets keep this good thing going.

This race is part of the Rocksylvanaia half marathon series and I still look weird. That didn't change over the 30 second walk to this banner.