Mount Washington Race Report: Ben Nephew

Team Inov-8's Ben Nephew describes his experience of this year's Mount Washington race; the race to the clouds.

Mount Washington 2008

This is a little late to say the least, but it was a historic year for Mount Washington, and I had a nice back seat view to the fireworks at the front of the pack. Over the past few years, the annual Race to the Clouds has been getting very competitive whenever it was designated as a selection race for the U.S. Mountain Running Team. The entry list this year was the most impressive group of runners ever to sign up for the race, and when you combine a top field with excellent weather; you end up with a lot of people running very fast.
I wasn’t really sure what kind of shape I was in at the starting line. Some of my recent races had gone well, but none of those races were all that similar to Washington. Over the years, I’ve learned that going out with Dave Dunham is always a smart idea, so that’s what I did. I had actually been trash talking with Dave prior to the race, as he had himself beating me in his expert pre-race predictions (despite the fact that I had smoked him over the last mile during our last battle in 2006). The other factor in my race was that the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) was hoping to win the men’s team race, which had been won by my local team, Central Massachusetts Striders (CMS), for the past 17 years. When I found out that Paul Low was injured, I realized that I might score for CMS, and we all really wanted to retain the team title.
The start involved the typical mad rush of fools ruining their entire race during the first few minutes. I managed to restrain myself, and went through the mile just in front of Dave right on target to run 1:08:30, which would be a PR for me. I gave Dave a thumbs up behind my back, and he laughed. I could see a few BAA runners up ahead, but we seemed to maintaining contact with them, and I was hoping to slowly reel them in during the second half of the race. After the first mile, I began to slowly pull away from Dave with Matt Clark, another CMS teammate. On long stretches, we could see the entire field, with Shiloh right up near the front. Although I was pleased with how I was running, I was still shocked to see so many people up ahead.
Matt and I slowly passed a few slowing runners as we worked our way up to the halfway point. As we both felt pretty good and the BAA guys still had a good lead on us, we began to take turns pushing the pace. At every turn, I kept expecting the wind to pick up, but surprisingly, the air was cool and still. I knew with my halfway split and the perfect conditions I had a good time going, but all I really wanted to do was to catch up with the large pack of runners about a minute ahead of us. Although I couldn’t tell how all the CMS guys were doing, I had a feeling I needed to be in front of the BAA guys in that pack.
With about 2 miles to go, Matt started to fade, and I made one last push to move up through the field. My quads were starting to fatigue badly, and my knees almost buckled on a ridiculously steep hairpin. With about a half mile to go, I saw that there was one more straggler from the pack that I had a shot at passing. Unfortunately, I pulled alongside this runner right at the bottom of the 22% grade headwall 50 meters from the finish. I have never been able to run this section. This year, I managed to get up on my toes make one last desperate pass while actually running. At the finish, my legs were totally shot, and I went down to my knees to catch my breath before exiting what felt like a mile long finish chute. Despite running 1:07:50, a PR by 1:20, it wasn’t nearly enough to hold off the strong BAA team. Although first time runners typically don’t do well at Washington, the inexperienced BAA squad ran very smart, and there was no way we could compensate for Paul’s absence. Ironically, the race was won by Eric Blake, who formerly ran with CMS. Perhaps the most impressive statistic of the ultra-fast 2008 race was the number of runners under 70 minutes. The previous record for was 20, and this year, 32 runners ran up the mountain at just over 9 minute pace or faster. I guess 65 is the new 70……