40-mile Mount Mitchell Challenge will be warm, and heartwarming

BLACK MOUNTAIN – It’s that most epic of weekends in Western North Carolina. A usually brutally cold and snowy Saturday in February that brings hundreds of runners to the sweet little town of Black Mountain - the 19th annual Black Mountain Marathon and 40-mile Mount Mitchell Challenge.

The extreme trail races will both start at 7 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 24 in downtown Black Mountain, with another full field of some 450 runners.

The two-part event includes 200 runners who take on the Mount Mitchell Challenge, a climb of some 4,000 feet up typically icy, treacherous trail to the highest peak in the Eastern United States, the 6,684-foot Mount Mitchell.

Another 250 hardy souls will take on the 26.2-mile Black Mountain Marathon, which starts concurrently with the Challenge, heads on trail to the Black Mountain Gap overlook on Blue Ridge Parkway – Milepost 355 - at an elevation of 5,340 feet, before heading to the finish line at Lake Tomahawk.

The bitter cold, risk for hypothermia and snow squalls, and ice-covered rock falls are usually the most anticipated parts of the races. But this year, running 40 mile might seem a little ho-hum.

RELATED: Photo gallery from 2015 Mount Mitchell Challenge

The weather forecast for Saturday is for lows in the balmy upper 50s, and highs in the 70s, usually not what ultra-marathoners look forward to.

But on the bright side, the Blue Ridge Parkway is open to motor vehicle traffic from Asheville north to Mount Mitchell State Park. So if you’re supporting a runner, you’ll have the opportunity to meet them at the parkway crossing near Black Mountain Gap and the entrance to Mount Mitchell State Park, and to go to the summit and slip them some oatmeal, or maybe they’d like an ice cold lemonade since it will be so warm.

If you haven’t seen the sheer force of physical sweat and grit in motion, check out the race and cheer on the runners.

There might be some rain Saturday, but no snow predicted, as in 2016 when storms brought 66 inches to the Mount Mitchell summit, with hurricane-force winds.

Nathan Holland, 34, of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, won last year’s 40-mile Challenge in 4 hours, 49 minutes, 22 seconds. He will be back to defend his title.

Jacqueline Merritt, 29, of Atlanta, won the female race last year in 5:31:23. She will not be back. But professional runner Francesca Conte, 44, of Charlottesville, Virginia, who placed second last year, will race on Saturday.

Perhaps the most heart-tugging race to watch, however, will be the Black Mountain Marathon. Asheville Fire Department Division Chief Joy Ponder, 46, is somehow, amazingly, going to run 26.2 miles up and down mountains not even three months after completing a year of debilitating treatments for breast cancer.

When I asked her how she has been training while undergoing chemo she said, “I’m all right. Just really tired.”

Ponder, a veteran of both the marathon and the Challenge, is doing the race to prove to herself that she can, but also to raise money for fellow firefighter Will Willis, 33, who is battling a rare form of kidney cancer. Friends and family (Will has four young children) have set up a Will Willis Go Fund Me page.

If you see Joy, hand her some water or a cookie or whatever she needs to keep going.

The race's founders, Wendell Begley, president of Black Mountain Savings Bank and also chairman of the board of the Swannanoa Valley Museum, and Trent Thomas, owner of Asheville's Black Dome Mountain Sports, describe Challenge participants as "weekend warriors" who enjoy the physical encounter with hazardous trail and often harsh weather conditions.

Begley and Trent conceived the event in the 1980s, as members of the Black Mountain/Swannanoa Valley Chamber of Commerce's economic development committee. Marathon and Challenge runners visit from as close as the Carolinas and other southern states, and as far as the West Coast, New England, the Midwest, and the Rockies. Curwen said some 40 states are represented this year, as well as runners from Australia and England

The race brings runners from across the country for the weekend, adding a boost to the Black Mountain economy in a typically tourist-dead time of year.

Entry into the Challenge, which is based on a lottery, filled up immediately when it opened, said race director Jay Curwen. The 450 runners who come to town, including their friends, family and spectators, add a nice hit to the restaurants, hotels and shops in Asheville and Black Mountain this weekend.

IF YOU GO

The 21st annual Mount Mitchell Challenge and Black Mountain Marathon both start at 7 a.m. Feb. 24, on Cherry Street in downtown Black Mountain. Both races finish at the Lake Tomahawk Clubhouse in Black Mountain.

For spectators: The first marathon finishers arrive at Lake Tomahawk about 10 a.m. and the 40-mile runners about noon. To check on Blue Ridge Parkway road conditions, visit www.nps.gov/blri.

For more on the races, visit www.blackmountainmarathon.com or find them on Facebook.