Celebrating September 1 in Laurel Valley on September 1 34.7 Miles

Rocky Bottom, South Carolina

September 1, 2007 Trails

by Alex Morton and Mark Nowling

We ran in Laurel Valley and had a good time. When we started we said, “Go”, then we did. We were not hot, but we were sweaty. We don’t know the temperature. Sometime we got tired. Then we would just stop and eat a lot. Alex had Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. One melted, but the other one did not melt. We thought that was weird: a sign of something more to come? We were more careful after that. Mark ate Wheat Thins. One time, he hit Robert Crosby in the eye with a Wheat Thin. Good memories.

We both got bit by yellow jackets. We didn’t like that, so we yelled a lot. We saw a turtle, a hawk, and a red frog. Mark said, “Don’t touch that red frog! Its red!” so neither of us touched it. None of those animals bit us and we were glad. There were other animals there, but we didn’t see them.

We saw the new road that the nice state workers were making. They are getting help from the Cliffs Developments owners. These people sure are nice to give their money to help with fixing up the old place. In the future the new road, why… it just might help lazy people drive down there to enjoy eating in the woods.

Alex found a bottle of camp fuel. The bottle was red. It had a name tag on it. We did not know the guy. We called his name, but he didn’t answer. Mark carried the bottle. It got heavy. Mark stopped carrying it. We did not find anything else. Later on we would yell “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Macarena.” No one answered to that either.

We had lots of water, but it was warm. After a while, we quit liking it so much. We looked for signs of the lost runners from the race that happened three weeks before us. We saw scratch marks on boulders, but we just didn’t know who made them. We may have been the only runners out there today. We were glad there was not a bunch of people trying to push us off the trail and telling funny stories as they went by us…or that girl that talks ALL the time. She wasn’t there, but we talked about her anyway.

We talked about writing a new magazine. It will be called UltraWorld Trail Running Times for Runners and Joggers. It will cover running. It will be important. It will say how to “Get Legs Like These” and it will point at legs. We will promote leaf blowers to clean trails.

We both didn’t like the trail beside the river, even if it was flat. We think the sign that says “1.7 miles” is a big fat lie. We think we whined twice, but it didn’t help much. We quit whining. We were happy we did not have to run in the dark, because we might have got scared or scarred.

We got to the Whitewater overlook. A lady asked Mark if that was the Foothills Trail. Mark said, “Yes.” She asked how to get there. Mark pointed down. She asked how to get to Table Rock. Mark pointed east. She asked where Oconee was. Mark pointed west.

We wanted a t-shirt, but no one gave us one when we finished. We took 10 hours and 25 minutes to get to the place that Claude is usually sitting at, but he wasn’t there. Some other man was sitting there. He was not Claude, and he did not have a t-shirt. None of us talked to each other. We ate rice pudding and went home after that. We now know for certain the accurate distance of this run: it is 34.7 miles and involves 9863 feet of elevation. We will not divulge our sources. We really don’t have proof that we did this LV run. I wish we had talked to that man now! Maybe some of our really good friends will believe us…The End.

1. Mark Nowling, 39 10:25

Alex Morton, 58 10:25