Da Bears... A.K.A. The end of night running on the Shut-In Trail

The Workout:
Ride from Pisgah Inn to Big Ridge Overlook (BR Parkway) - 5.5 miles
Run back to Inn

I hit the trail around 9 PM last night. The fog was dense and the laurel tunnels tight. While working around the crown of a downed tree I met a black bear coming through from the other side. We were both equally surprised to see one another. After a brief negotiation (I yelled some gibberish while backpedaling, he growled while taking a few bounds up the hill) I conceded to not run on his trail between the hours of 9 PM and 7 AM and he agreed not to whip me for startling him. I booked it back down the way I’d come, to Mills River Valley Overlook, and proceeded up to the intersection of Hwy 151 via the Parkway. The last 2 miles of Shut-In contain far and away the steepest an most sustained climbs of the trail. I worked up this section trying to establish a baseline for how long it might take on race day. I hiked a lot and ran when it made sense. The breakdown looked like this:


0 minutes - 7.5 minutes = Hiking
7.5 minutes - 11.5 minutes = Running
11.5 minutes - 14.5 minutes = Hiking
14.5 minutes - 17 minutes = Running
17 minutes - 28.25 minutes = Hiking (tough!)
28.25 minutes - 30.5 minutes = Running
30.5 minutes - 36 minutes = Scrambling/Running down technical trail

So 36 minutes is the longest it should take me to finish that section of trail. If I am to run my goal of sub 3:30, then I need to get to HWY 151 in under 2 hours and 50 minutes to be safe.

At the top I ran about an 8 min/mile pace back to the Pisgah Inn and my truck. I should note that I will likely go faster on race day since I had an extra 8 lbs of pack w/ rain gear and an extra headlamp.