The Nature of a Short Ultra

This past Sunday, the CCCC crew-- Dave, Andrew and I --were out again, meeting up with about 80 other runners in northwest Washington DC for the Potomac Heritage 50K run. Anything over the standard marathon distance is considered an ultra marathon, but this is a short ultra. The JFK, our November 18 race, is 50 MILES. A respectable distance.

We all checked in with the run coordinators at around eight AM and around fifteen minutes later, we were all on our way. I am referring to this PH 50K weekend activity as a run in order to clarify the point that runs are fun and casual; races are work. The JFK, too, is a run. Fun.

Hours later, all three of us returned to the starting point for great food, trail stories, a beer or two and some much deserved groaning and Vitamin I. I for ibuprofen, that is. Dave had really been in a hurry-- so unlike him-- and finished in about 5 hours and 40 minutes. Andrew and I were taking our time, sticking our heads in giant hollow trees, watching great blue herons, etc. and came in about an hour later.

The run course took us through a number of parks, habitats and neighborhoods. Two sharp images continue to run through my head concerning the nature of our run. While in Washington DC, as soon as we left the manicured landscapes of northwest DC and entered the open space of the city, except for the larger trees and a few shrubs, the landscape was populated with plants from somewhere else. Most astonishing were acres of the invasive porcelainberry vine. Kudzu, the poster child of invasive plant battlers everywhere, also carpeted what had once been forest and meadow but the grape-leaved vine with the stunning blue berries had it beat.

Over on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where we picked up the Potomac Heritage Trail, invasive plants dominated the first miles of the riverside woods heading out towards our turn around point. Beyond a certain point however, the landscape starts to change as the massive rock outcrops of the Potomac Gorge tower over the trail. This section of the river is one of the most impressive and diverse habitats in the entire region. Few know how accessible it is from the George Washington Parkway parking pulloffs. What had been Chinese knotweed, porcelainberry, perilla, Japanese honeysuckle and stilt grass gives way to our native flora... a ground cover of wild ginger, the withered stalks of false Soloman's seal and Indian cucumber-root and so much more and an understory of paw paw, spicebush and bladdernut.

If you finished this run, your reward was knowing you'd run the course. No fancy shirt. No awards for the top three finishers. No certificate or medallion.

I left with a much better idea of what my place, the Washington metropolitan area, offered in the way of ecological challenges-- trying to reclaim landscapes lost to vigorous invasive vines fueled perhaps by the high carbon dioxide levels of this changing climate we're producing. And I gave myself an award; four pods from an American bladdernut found somewhere along that rocky trail.

Try to find the four pods in the photo above. Like the chestnuts found weeks ago atop the Blue Ridge, I'll plant the seeds of this native shrub and have a living remembrance of this beautiful run, on a beautiful day with a couple of good running buddies.

Crazy Craig