Time flies when walking up the Summit
I guess I’ve really set the bar pretty low when the most excitement I experienced in the 34th Mount Summit Challenge was when I saw where the race would finish.
Yes, I did say where, not how or when.
The past couple years the finish of the 3.5-mile race from Hopwood to the Summit Inn concluded in the parking lot below the front entrance. One last bit of torturous upgrade after a whole course of it.
But, as I passed the lookout and glanced to the finish 880 yards away, I saw crowds gathered outside the lower drive below the pool.
Yes!!!
Unbeknownst to me, Uniontown football coach John Fortugna was charging hard over the final half-mile and passed me on the aforementioned downgrade finish, one second ahead of me to drop me to 26th place in the field of 362 walkers.
At that point it really didn’t matter, but 25th has a much nicer ringer than 26th place. Kudos to John for powering through the finish.
As I was approaching the 3-mile mark, a man was cajoling his son to keep moving. I pulled out a gem I used with the nephews and niece.
“See that pine tree up there?,” I said to the young fella, amazed I had the breath to do so. “That’s the finish line. When the tree gets bigger, you know what that means? That means the finish line is getting closer.”
That evoked a smile from the dad, but I think I did that almost as much for me as the young guy.
The Summit is unique in many ways, but for me, a non-hill guy, the legs go long before the lungs. In most 5Ks, especially ones I run, the lungs start sucking air long before the legs quit.
My mind actually wanted “to go” a couple times, pick up my lackluster pace, but the body said, “Uh-huh.” I’m getting close to the point where “you better get going speeches” to myself are being met with obstinance and disdain.
I have a feeling the “Shut up old man” can’t be far away.
While I was plodding up the Summit for the 21st time, my nephew, he of considerably younger and longer legs, was chewing up Route 40 (and the competition) to win his first Challenge in 40:06.
Of course, being the wonderful uncle I am, I had to give him a shot or two about winning the walk despite the fact he is the co-captain of the WCCC cross country team. Jason did graciously allow me an uncle-nephew selfie after the race.
It doesn’t seem that long ago I was “pulling” Jason up the hill, getting him to walk “cone to cone” to complete the race.
Jamie Brooks, the person who talked me into this madness, er, I mean noble pursuit, walked with her son Dylan, “helping” him up the Summit as I had Jason years ago.
The young Brooks easily broke his mother’s anticipated time of 1:10:00 by over eight minutes.
Hats off to Chris Dell. Dell, chief of the Elizabeth Township Area EMS, ran/walked/survived the 3.5-mile test in full fireman gear in support of a co-worker in the Air Force.
I’ve taken the one attempt at the Summit on race day for years now, but long-time friend and 1978 classmate Charlie Wortman believed his Clydesdale crown was the result of a recent workout. The Clydesdale has no age limit, just that runners are 200 pounds or over.
“I’m doing this against guys who are younger than me. And, I’m running against Father Time,” said Wortman, who has been on the Seven Springs Ski Patrol into his fourth decade now.
Anyone who has run down the Summit can attest just how hard that task can be. Since Wortman took his practice run solo, he had to find an alternate source of transportation for the trip back to his car.
“I parked my bike up here and locked it up, and rode it back down the Summit,” said Wortman, who picked up his bike lock chain after the race. “It was dangerous. The wind was blowing up the hill and I was afraid it was going to blow my tire to the side.”
“I don’t know how fast I was going, but I don’t think any cars passed me,” a grinning Wortman said.
There were probably 1,000 stories after the assault on the Summit, but women’s run champion Brynn Cunningham’s was touching.
Cunningham, who held the Uniontown girls’ 400-meter run record from 2001 until Mylaysia Ellis broke it this year, interrupted the interview with a story she just had to tell.
Cunningham said last year’s Summit was after her father passed away and, as fate would have it, she was issued the bib number 52, the age of her father at his passing.
She finished second in 2015, so when she was issued her bib for the 2016 race — 152 — it seemed her fate was sealed.
Cunningham won the women’s run.
Just one happy memory, of many, on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning.