OPSF 50 50--Race Report

Prologue.
I entered with the intention of doing my first 50 miler, but failed miserably/spectacularly, and only finished the 50k. It's fitting how I spent much of my time typing this ode to 'failure' while, across the room on my TV, Matthew Stafford was in the process of throwing 5 interceptions in order to will the Detroit Lions towards a loss to the 2-5 Seattle Seahawks.

Taper.
I sent in my money & order form for the OPSF 50 50 in early October. About 3 days later, which was 3 weeks prior to the race, I did my final long run in preparation for it--an epic 28 miles of trails during peak fall colors time in Michigan, maybe the best run I've ever done, felt like a million bucks, sun shining, nothing hurt, magic. I'd been reading about how the 'braking' action of going down hills was the thing that really trashed quads, so I practiced doing a sort of super-rapid-turnover shuffling down the hills (to minimize the braking action) and that seemed to really help...but I also felt like I was going too fast on a lot of those downhills, kinda reckless & out of control, but that was ok because I wasn't trashing the quads anymore. The morning following this epic run I had a little problem with the outside of my left foot, a twinge or niggle as the vernacular goes, curiously in the same spot where I had a broken foot as a teenager some 22 years prior. No problems the day prior while running, almost seemed to show up overnight. Didn't go away after 3, 4, 5 days. Big uh-oh. The next weekend on Saturday I tried a run for a few light, easy miles but the foot was still nagging me (not a sharp pain, but felt like it was one good tweak away from Castville). So Sunday I just did a hike on a set of horse-trails (foreshadowing), with short little jogs here & there, merely to try to keep some level of fitness. Beautiful area, but the foot was still bothering me just enough to matter. Then the weekend before the race I did nothing but stationary bike, 5 miles Saturday, 10 Sunday. So my total running mileage in the three weeks leading up to this big race was about 7 miles. The good news was, in that last pre-race week my foot really started to feel a lot better, pretty much 100%. I was a pill-popper those last two weeks taking Calcium & Vitamin D twice a day, and I like to think it might've helped (doctors, nutritionists & the like may collectively roll your eyes at this point).

Trip.
On the trip down from Michigan to Spencer, IN I noticed that the northern half of Indiana was nice & flat...but south of Indianapolis it started getting hilly in a hurry. Uh oh. I stopped in a Denny's for lunch (lots of salt on everything), and afterwards when I was about 10 miles down the road it hit me that I forgot to tip my waitress! Bad Karma? I sure hoped not, and I vowed to catch her on the way back. Gotta remember exit 34. I got to Spencer, checked into my hotel, left & got my packet (heard about 3 inches of rain in past week or so, muddy course, hard course, hilly course, about 1/2 the 50 milers would drop to the 50k, and the comment "there are some runnable parts" stood out somewhat), grabbed a spaghetti dinner from a locally-owned italian restaurant & threw 2 dollars in the tip jar (start getting my karma turned around), returned to my hotel room & got to bed by 8ish.

Race.
Up by 4am, made a couple of Chia mini-bagels for when I'd be passing by the bag drop area, headed out & got to the course by 6:15, made final preparations and dropped my bag at the start (left the chia bagels in the car in the parking lot 150 yards down the road). The course would be a 5 mile 'powerline' loop, then two 13.2 mile horse trail loops for the 50k; tack on a third 13.2 loop and another 5 mile loop for the 50 mile. The race director gave a short intro, talking about how muddy the course was and mentioned how there were several river crossings and one part was basically a butt-slide (I didn't sign up for this?! No mention on the website?!), and then off we went. 300 yards into the race I was running at 9:40 pace and was in last friggin' place! During the beginning 5 mile "powerline" loop I saw a kodak moment of a runner at the top of a hill framed as a silhouette against the myriad colors of a sunrise sky, thinking how lucky we are to get to see stuff like that. The course wasn't too bad at first but then we got to that butt-slide spot, which was a steep downhill with the consistency of refried beans...shoes were instantly muddied, all bets were off, game on, etc. The good news was, my problem foot was holding up nicely. Maybe I had a chance.
Struck up a couple of great conversations with some folks early on (one guy claimed he would be doing like six ultras, one every other weekend, just during November & December; I still don't believe him), but soon I found myself settling into my own little race. After the 5 mile loop we began the longer horse trail loop, which started out hilly and then got worse. There was a layer of leaves about 3-5 inches deep on the trails, which did a fantastic job of hiding rocks, roots, tree branches, and muddy spots. Pretty much every step along the entire course was anybody's guess; when you're running/hiking/shuffling/slogging for hours & hours on end, apparently you quit worrying about what you'll hit with each step & just hope for the best. Still, when you're first figuring this out it's a little unsettling.
For something to do I should've counted exactly how many muddy/swamp areas there were on that 13.2 loop, but I didn't, so to the best of my recollection there were about 30-40. And I'd end up navigating every one of them twice. Whenever I reached one I cautiously tiptoed around on the right or left (hardcore purists may now collectively roll your eyes, & I know I probably should've just bombed right through them), still got muddier/muddyish at many, and they always kept slowing me down, just enough to aggravate a little each time. I also stubbed my toe a couple times and took three spectacular, full-out yard-sale tumbles. I'd only ever fallen once during a run previously, but I fell hard 3 times during the first 13.2 loop (each time going downhill, shuffling my feet too quickly in order to not trash the quads as mentioned earlier, but it appears that falling/tumbling is the tradeoff to this running technique). Curiously, I came out of each fall invigorated & refreshed. Nothing like a fall to wake you up. Another little aggravation was, about 10 or 15 times my right heel bashed the inside of my left ankle where there's zero muscle/padding. Each time it hurt, a lot, and the area would be red & sore afterwards.
Weather was exceptional for a November Midwest race, maybe too nice--low 50's at the start, mid-sixties in early afternoon. I think the warm, dry conditions helped turn those muddy areas from muddy to, um, fudgey? Since the entire course was normally horse trails, each muddy area was basically a collection of deep hoofprints, and as the day went on it was determined that sometimes you'd sink (and get wetter feet), sometimes you could run along the more solid top edges around the hoof prints. Again, pure guesswork, and just a really weird way of traveling throughout those 7+ hours. The director was right--there were runnable parts, but they were surprisingly few & far between. Everything seemed to be up a steep hill, or down a steep hill. Trying to describe the landscape was tough--I felt like I was a flea on the back of a huge dog or porcupine; every tree trunk was like a hair follicle, all the fallen leaves made all of the ground seem uniform (like a brownish skin) and since all the leaves had fallen, there was really no shade. As long as the ground didn't heave or breathe I'd be alright. One pleasant surprise was the river crossings, which were more like creek crossings, no up-to-your-knees soakers.

Fuel.
At 18 miles I went the extra 150 yards to my car to eat a mini bagel with peanut butter & filled with about a heaping tablespoon of chia seeds...and other than fill me up, I'm certain it did me absolutely no good whatsoever. I'm not sold on chia; maybe I need more, or I'm simply immune, or it doesn't work.
For some reason, I decided to overly concern myself with salt before, during & after this race. Though I ate salty foods leading up to the race, ate salty foods at every aid station, and even took salt tablets throughout the race, I had salt residue on my forehead for the first time ever...and thought I still wound up being low on salts because my fingers were noticeably swollen at the finish line, but this might've been from swinging my arms more energetically towards the end to keep my tired, old, beat-up self going. I can't help wondering, does consuming lots of salt lead to salty-sweating and, as a result, salt depletion? This may warrant further investigation.

Quitting.
Since I fell so far behind on time (took an hour longer than I thought it would to do the first 50k...looking into whether the course was long...heard one guy mention it measured out to almost 34 miles, but this is unconfirmed), I decided to just do the 50k. In addition to this reason/excuse, my feet were significantly damaged from being confined within shoes that wound up becoming too small for the last 10 miles of running I did. When I started the day my shoes felt perfect; when I finished they were at least 1/2 size too small. I also had some weirdness on the top of my left foot, towards the inside, I think the Extensor Tendon along the top of my big toe, due to the hills I'm sure. Didn't want to make it worse, so I had that excuse too. And if I would've replaced my shoes/socks (which I did have time to do, but barely), I still would've ended up having to navigate at least 2 hours of leaf-covered muddy/rocky/rooty trail that I could barely handle with full sunlight using a mediocre headlamp, mediocre flashlight, no cellphone, no pacer, no sunlight, almost certainly insufficiently trained legs and enough hydration/electrolyte issues to make my head spin literally, if not figuratively. It's a tough irony--on the one hand I was really disappointed in failing and not being able to go the distance, but looking back I'm glad I had the sense and maturity to recognize it wasn't my day, salvage a 50k out of it, not risk more serious injury or getting lost out there overnight, and live to fight another day. I may occasionally think what if, but more importantly it was a good learning experience and a great training session. I obviously have much still to learn and many more miles to train.

P.S.
I stopped at exit 34 on my way back, found that same waitress, apologized & gave her a nice tip. Thinking karma maintenance is worth the effort & feeling good about being a decent customer, I continued north, proceeded to miss a turn on my way home and, in my half-delirious day-after-race stupor, went about a half hour out of my way, thus adding an hour to my 6 hour drive home...which nudges my attitude about karma more towards the Skeptical end of the belief spectrum.