Whiteface VK: A Return to Trail “Running.”

If you told me I would “run” a vertical kilometer mountain race 4 weeks after fracturing my arm, I wouldn’t have believed you. 

I use “run” here loosley, since this discipline is about as far removed from running as you can get. A VK race has a vertical kilometer of elevation gain (1,000 meters, or 3,281 feet) on a route that is less than 5k/3.1 miles in length. Participants cover this distance with some combination of running, hiking, and scrambling as fast as they can.

I went into this without much expectation. This was my first running race in almost 4 years, during which time I have focused almost exclusively on cycling. My “training” the last 4 weeks since my fracture has been limited and fairly random, consisting of some indoor trainer riding, a handful of hard hiking efforts up some steep local hills, and machine-focused strength training. My decision to sign up for this was rather spontaneous and perhaps a little reckless. But the VK format has always intrigued me; Even in my peak trail running days I was a stronger hiker than runner, and like cycling I have always preferred going uphill than downhill. Since my injury meant I wouldn’t be able to participate in the bike event I had planned to do that same weekend, the Whiteface VK (put on by Red Newt Racing) seemed like a good opportunity to give this kind of race a go. 

I was surprised to see that I can still move uphill (and most important for this event, suffer) pretty well.

Of course doing this with one functioning arm wasn’t ideal, especially towards the top when scrambling was required. But the main limiter here, as expected, was my running efficiency on the gentler grades and short downhill section. While I managed to pass a few people in steeper sections at the end, it was not fast enough to make up for the time I lost in the runnable sections in the beginning. 

I was a little disappointed that I didn’t reach my goal of finishing in under an hour (which was probably very unrealistic in hindsight, given the heat, the absence of any run training whatsoever, driving 4+ hours that morning to get there, and only having one functioning arm). But I’m happy with the effort, and it was still good enough for 10th overall. Who knows, maybe this subset of running is something I could be decent at with some dedicated training.