McGrath Takes First Ultra Win on Iron Mountain
by Eric Grossman, RD
One lesson from this year’s Iron Mountain Trail Run is that experience, and dogged persistence, will eventually payoff for ultramarathoners. Lew McGrath has run this event all three times it was offered. He has always run off the lead, more concerned with chasing – and pummeling – his own demons than with winning. Tim Driscoll established an early lead and ran strongly from the front for most of the course. I last saw him at mile 37 and anticipated meeting him first at the finish. He missed a well marked turn shortly after that, however, and added a steep descent (and ascent) to an already quite difficult run. That detour took its toll. Driscoll was overtaken and McGrath proceeded to win his first ultramarathon.
Only three women completed IMTR this year. Another lesson: tough can be pretty. While the lead guy runners looked like they’d been out in the woods too long, the girls looked like sunshine. Cynthia Sanchas came back for her second IMTR and looked as good at the finish as she did at the start (and much better than after last year’s tumble down the last steep descent into Damascus!). Kathleen Cusick ran strong and steady, keeping some of our guy runners company, to finish second among the women. And breaking out to establish herself as a real contender in any venue, Robin Meagher sprang her way across these mountains to finish first among women, and fourth overall.
The third lesson is that good isn’t always good enough. When I moved to the mountains of southwest Virginia three years ago I found the best terrain for running anywhere in the country. I wanted to share. So I started the Iron Mountain 50 mile Trail Run. Damascus Virginia is the ultimate trail town and an ideal staging area for an ultramarathon. It sits at the intersection of several trails including the Appalachian and Virginia Creeper Trails. In 2006 there was space in the Fall schedule for an early October ultra in this part of the country. I expected that as runners discovered this area, and a well directed event, they would converge on this run and perhaps even force me to limit the number of entries accepted.
Since then, the number of options that Virginia area adventure seekers have for those early weeks in October has proliferated, and the number of entrants in IMTR has remained low. I therefore announced at this year’s run that this would be my final year as RD, and perhaps the final year of the event. No one has stepped up, so far, to take over responsibility for the event.
Knowing this was my last year as RD, I tried to make the 2008 IMTR something special. I convinced my chef brother to come and prepare the food for pre and post races meals. I found some cool gear for those few runners who had completed all three IMTRs. And as in the last two years, I pooled all runners together and calculated age and sex adjusted results at the awards ceremony. As compared to the normal decline in speed as runners age – the best performance of the day, by a wide margin, was posted by the indefatigable Doug Blackford. My age correction put his performance at 6:57. Final lesson: nice guys can finish first.