CRUEL JEWEL 50 | Most Brutal 50 Miler in the East

No, the title is no clickbait, "I just calls it as I sees it". All kidding aside, I am fully aware that the difficulty of an ultramarathon is very subjective and in the eye of the beholder, ehem, runner. However, I do try to take as many factors as possible into consideration when "judging" the difficulty of a race. There is temperature (hot vs cold), there is humidity, there is technical terrain (rocky, rooty, mud), there is altitude, there is steep terrain with lots of vertical gain and loss, and on and on. Finally, it is all personal perspective. Any runner has different strengths and weaknesses affecting their perseption of "hard". With all that said, I have yet to meet a Cruel Jewel runner that suggested that this race was easier than expected. The Cruel Jewel 50 miler is actually 58+ miles (I recorded 60) with approximately 16,000 feet of vertical gain. It utilizes some of the toughest trails in the southeast along the Duncan Ridge and Benton McKaye Trails. Neither one of these trails has a single switchback. Instead, they go either straight up or straight down. This section of the course is lovingly referred to as the Dragon's Spine. If you look at the elevation profile, you will understand why. The Cruel Jewel is a hometown race for me, even though I love more than 3 hours away. I've run the various distances of this race a total of 4 times now. Coming here is similar to coming to run the Mountain Mist 50K in my actual hometown. Camp Morganton just outside Blue Ridge, Georgia is the location of the start/finish of the 100 miler and the finish of the point to point 50 miler. It is the perfect location for an ultra. Runners are able to camp or sleep in one of the bunks in the main building of the camp, which also functions as race HQ. About 160 runners toed the starting line of the CJ50 at 8 AM Saturday morning at a small farm just outside Vogel State Park. By the time we took off, the 100 milers had already been running for 20 hours. Thunder and lightning stopped just before the start of the 50, but all that rain had done a number of the first half of the course. In addition, it had made already stifling levels of humidity even worse. It was a fun weekend with my trail family. At every single aid station I spotted at least 2 familiar faces among the volunteers. Out on the trails, I ran with friends and continued to come up on too many friends to count, one had@$$ 100 mile runner after another, Kevin, Anne, Simon, Richard, Naji, Becca, Zac, Michael, and many more. I almost felt guilty only running the 50 milers as they were out there slaying the full dragon. but only almost:-) When it was all said and done, I finished the race in one piece. I got everything I came for and more. Not sure if I am ready to do this again next year, but I'm sure I'll be back as soon as my brain forgets the reason this race is called the "Cruel Jewel".