2024 Report

This was supposed to be the year of Hurricane Debby. She hit Florida at the beginning of the week, but was forecast at that time to spend several days meandering throughout the Southeast, possibly to then wreak some havoc over the mountains that host the Martha Moats Baker event around the time of the run. As the week went on, the forecast fortunately incrementally improved.

By the time MMB Saturday morning dawned, Debby had skedaddled off the coast of Nova Scotia, and left behind some very un-August-like conditions. It was a dry run day, with temps in the low 50s to mid 60s early, warming up in the sun over the afternoon, but without significant humidity.

Congratulations to everyone who toed the start line for the 2024 run! After run week drops, we were expecting 46 runners to show up for the run, and by gum all 46 of you did. That rather rocked. What also rocked is that all of you finished, except for former MMB 60k winner Dani Sevel, who got poked in the eye by an angry tree branch on the climb up Little Bald. The resultant swelling impacted her vision and she had to walk the remaining 10 miles to drop at the Reddish Knob aid station. Dani then spent the rest of her Saturday volunteering to keep score at the finish line.

So it was Dani who wrote in the 60k finishing times for 20 of the 45 remaining runners, and the 50k Party Course times for the remaining 25 finishers. Well done, runners! Kudos in particular to the overall winner, Mike Jones, who in the third year that we have been holding the 60k run now owns the event record, with his time of 6:56. Mike led from wire-to-wire, slowly expanding his lead over his nearest pursuers, Joe Saunders and Keavy Baylor, over the course of the day. This despite treating MMB as a supported training run ahead of his upcoming “A” run out west, the Run Rabbit Run 100 miler. He did this without benefit of any dropbags at the aid stations, and with two water bottles that he borrowed from Tony Taylor the night before the run (Tony just happened to be in the parking lot on Friday night for an overnight TWOT loop as part of his training for The Ring).

We mentioned Keavy Baylor as being in the small “chase pack” that trailed Mike Jones around the course. She ultimately finished 2nd overall, with the sparkling time of 7:36. This also is now the women’s event record time, breaking the previous best by nearly an hour and a half. Keavy’s time was so spritely that she actually beat the time of the first woman finisher in the 50k, Kathleen Cusick! A final “Holy Shite!” factoid about her run: Keavy finished her very first 100 miler at the Furbutt Backyard 24 Hour event two weeks earlier. How’s that for a 60k taper?

More factoids to go with a bit of podium talk: the women very much ruled the day at the 60k, taking four of the top six positions, all with times that bested the previous event record, as they were all under 9 hours. Well done, ladies, and to be more specific, in addition to Keavy, well done third place finisher overall, Sheila Martin (8:11); fifth overall finisher Kristen Kelman (8:37); and sixth place finisher Megan McCarthy (8:47). Sandwiched in between the women was the second man and four overall finisher James Magee (8:36). The final man on the 60k dudes podium was Ricky Sullivan, who was seventh overall with a time of 9:12.

We have our share of fun 50k factoids, too: first runner back to the TWOT lot on this day was Dan Fogg, in 6:07. Dan has been a strong regional runner for many years now, but after a move out of D.C. and into Northern Virginia, his ability to train was sharply curtailed, so this was his return to not just racing but longer distance trail running, after nearly a year and a half away. A very strong showing under those circumstances. The only other runner to make it back to the TWOT lot ahead of our 60k winner this year was Joe Schramka, who finished his 50k in 6:37. Being the second place Party Course runner has become a habit for Joe, as he accomplished the exact same feat in 2023.

Joe Saunders had been running in second overall all day, through the final aid station at Grooms Ridge. So the volunteers at that third aid station were rather surprised to see him return a bit over an hour later. He then went on to finish in a tie for third in the 50k with Randy Goad and Joshua Binder, all with times of 7:15. Joe made it up to the scenic “false summit” just short of halfway up the challenging Grooms Ridge climb when he got hit by the cramp monster. He drained his remaining water supply in an effort to appease the cramping, and then realized with almost 6 miles remaining on the 60k course (and a lot more climbing, to boot) that the wiser course of action was to instead take the downhill route back to the aid station and then on for his 50k+++ finish.

Joe’s challenges proved to be beneficial to a number of other runners behind him, however, as the Grooms Ridge aid station volunteers then hectored each succeeding runner who planned to head up that big climb for their 60k finish to tank up, and to be sure that all their bottles and bladders were full before leaving. Nearly all of those runners arrived at the finish dry, but grateful that they had carried the amount of liquids with them that they had.

On the women’s side of the 50k, it was noted earlier that Kathleen Cusick was the gold medalist, with a time of 7:39. This was Kathleen’s second year in a row winning the 50k. Last year’s 60k winner (and the now former course record holder), Heather Dougherty, tied the second place woman from last year’s run, Chelsea Smith, for second place at this year’s 50k (in a peloton with Caryl Brubaker, all finishing with times of 7:57). Both Chelsea and Heather are serving as member’s of the VHTRC’s Bored, so it should be noted that despite their 50k podium placements, they were second fiddles on this day to Ivory Lira, as she was the only Bored member to finish the 60k. So congratulations to Ivory, who came in just over 11 hours.

It should also be noted that, like Dani Sevel, Heather then took on an important volunteer’s role at the finish line: that of the attentive distributor of the newly minted MMB stickers to all the finishers, whether they came in from the TWOT trailhead at the end of their 60k, or from the road entrance having completed the Party Course 50k.

Our final finisher of the day, Nick Neakrase, was also the winner of the Best Blood award. Nick got it done in just over 12 hours despite taking a very hard fall rather early in the run. Hard enough that he suspected he might have broken his left forearm. The volunteers at the Grooms Ridge aid station noted the awful swelling through his long sleeves; Nick’s reply was that the swelling appeared to have gone down some(!), and then off he went up Grooms Ridge and on to the finish.

And with that note we can segue away from all this talk about the runners and on to the volunteers, whose combined efforts made this by far the best MMB 60k of the lot. They are all listed in a chart below the results below, so that their presence can be as enduring in memory as that of the runners.

Discussion of the volunteers should start at the beginning, with pre-race thanks to the wonderful creativity of Helen MacDermott and the great work of area runner Brennan Henning. Helen came forward with what run management thought was an excellent design for a run sticker, and arranged to have them printed and shipped in time to allow the first 45 stickers to be distributed at this year’s event. Thank you, Helen!

In 2023, the MMB course was not marked (other than around the first aid station at Reddish Knob). Brennan had been a participant that year, and he led through all three aid stations. He ultimately bonked on Grooms Ridge - as so many others have done over the years of all the MMB runs. He planned to return for some sweet redemption, but fate had other plans: on the back of a Hellgate qualifier, Brennan got into Western States with a single lottery ticket! Since he was still recovering from his finish out at Western a few weeks earlier, he dropped out of the MMB field, but then immediately volunteered to mark some of the critical junctions and turns on the course. The decision was made to mark with ribbons rather than flour or chalk due to those rainy Debby forecasts. There were no reports of runners getting off course this year, and several made a point of commenting on how helpful the ribbons were, so this return to light marking will continue in the future. Thank you, Brennan!

Now to jump to the end: the vaunted Party-In-The-TWOT-Lot, aka the Finish Line Cafe. Once again, run management and all the MMB participants were benefitted from the talents and the generosity of Chef Jeff Best. He is very aptly named, as he is simply The Best.

After hanging out in the cool, breezy first aid station atop the scenic Reddish Knob with Cap’n Zach Weinberger and his boys, Jeff motored back to the TWOT Lot to set up his Finish Line Cafe, which this year featured a phenomenal taco bar (chicken and shrimp options). In addition to cranking out 200+ freshly cooked tacos, Chef Jeff and his crew offered other amazing treats in the same vein, including homemade cole slaw, watermelon salad, street corn salad, and some cold cervezas.

Sadly, after spending the entire afternoon cooking those tacos, his own vehicle was cooked in a fire coming off Skyline Drive that evening, an incident that he attributed to a stuck brake caliper. We are all glad that you are okay, Jeff, and thank you so much for all you sacrificed over the course of the MMB weekend.

In between the course marking and the Finish Line Cafe, the runners were treated to three excellent aid stations. The runners’ drop bags supplied the majority of the calories, but despite more moderate weather conditions, it was still an August run day, so the liquids were kept flowing by Cap’n Zach and his crew at Reddish Knob, the perennial presence of Cap’n Guy Towler and his crew at the Wolf Ridge trailhead aid station, and the return of MMB crowd favorite Bill Gentry with his crew at the other end of Tilghman Road, at the Grooms Ridge Trailhead and MMB Decision Point. Early on it looked like a preponderance of the runners were going to go on to get their full 60k finishes, but the latter half of the field must have smelled those tacos, as they generally tended to opt for the Party Course and their 50k finish.

Thanks again to everyone for coming out and making this year’s Martha Moats Baker event a huge success! We hope to see you all back in 2025. The run date is once again the second Saturday in August, and entry will open up exactly one month earlier, on July 9, 2025. Thanks once again to the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club and its outstanding governing Bored for its support of not only this event, but somewhere close to 40 other Fat Ass events, supported training runs, and other trail shenanigans. We in the mid-Atlantic region are very fortunate to have this organization and these events to help feed and nurture our trail addictions.

The preliminary results for this past Saturday’s Martha Moats Baker 60k and 50k event can be seen below. Please contact Quatro if you see any errors. Also your report and/or your photographs on the run would be welcomed to add to this report and results page!

MMB Now Has a Sweet Ass Sticker - run report by Nick Neakrase

Run Video by Bob Pawlak

Photos

Results

Splits

Reddish Knob Aid Station: 13.4 miles
Wolf Ridge Aid Station: 22.7 miles
Grooms Ridge Aid Station: 30.2 miles

Volunteers