Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Ultra #6 race report (100 Mile DNF, drop to 50 Mile)

INTRO
I just realized it’s been nearly a year since I ran a race of any extravagant distance. I guess time flies when you’re only running short distances. My road back started with a severely damaged left Achilles resulting from my last ultra in October 2010, almost two solid months of icing, stretching and of course no running, then tip-toeing back into SLOW jogging, a couple of local 5k’s and plenty of trepidation. For some reason I then joined a health club and started a regimen of weekend-only swimming & elliptical. That elliptical work did a great deal to strengthen my hips & legs, and I think it directly resulted in my being able to run injury-free this entire season (knock on wood!!).
I also discovered the wonders of multi-vitamins and especially Vitamin B as a miracle form of natural uppers; who needs caffeine, right? As far as equipment goes, I took a chance and hit a home run when I discovered Sorbathanes. They may not be in-tune with the new “minimalist” running craze, but I don’t care, those things are the absolute bomb. I haven’t yet ultra’d in gel inserts, but in all of the other running I’ve done, they’ve been a dream, like running on blubber. I also successfully incorporated trail gaiters into my gear-world, bought my first real pair of running shorts (jury is still out on those), discovered the magic of Ensure as an ultra food, competed in my first sprint tri, gave up my addiction to the internet, read about 30 books and got a new job sort of. And I’ve still got my dog. It’s been a good year.
So it was time to get back on the horse and take a shot at a race that would be way, way too much for my current level of training. This season all I’ve done are one 21 mile run, a few 15-18 milers, a half-dozen middle distance races from 15k up to ½ marathon and that’s it… so I signed up for a 100 miler. This was a really, really dumb idea and I started regretting it almost immediately. I pretty much planned to fail and my escape route was that it’s a 16.6 mile loop course; I could quit after 2 loops and still get a 50k, or quit after 3 loops and still get a 50 miler, etc. My thinking was, if everything was going really well and I wanted to continue (which happened on this same course last year during my 50 mile), I wanted to make sure I had the opportunity. (For those who don’t know, they never let you sign up for a shorter distance and then let you keep going if it’s your day; you have to sign up for the highest distance you think you can do, and then cut it short if it’s not happenin’. That’s how they make their money.) Considering my training level, the smart thing would’ve been for me to sign up for the 50k; that was plenty of ultra for me. Sometimes I wonder why I’ve always had so much trouble making smart decisions.
RACE REPORT
Ultramarathons are surprisingly complex endeavors, but boiled-down to the bare basics, I think there are really just four main factors that ultimately determine success or failure—equipment, what goes into your body, pace, and weather. In a 100 miler, any problem with just one of these factors can completely derail your race. Problems with all four can spell utter doom.
My doom started the day prior to the start of the race, when I was driving home and started hearing a horrible rattling in my car. Turns out I had a broken part in one of my rotors and basically ended up needing new brakes. So the morning of race day (the race started at 4pm) I dropped off my car at the local auto shop at 8am, walked the 1/3 of a mile home and waited. I was planning on resting as much as possible all morning anyway, so this wasn’t a huge setback, though the extra walking is not something I wanted to do prior to my first shot at 100. So I laid on the couch, watched the news, dozed off once or twice, time continued to tick away with no news from the auto shop, finally I called & was told there were one or two problems with getting the correct parts from a nearby supplier, so a 1 hour brake job turned into a 4.5 hour debacle. During this time I should’ve checked all my gear one last time, but I’m an idiot. Eventually I walked back up to the dealership, waited some more & finally got my car back shortly before 1pm. I would then have to take my dog to the dog-sitter (my parents), walk both their dog and mine since they would not be able to later on (more walking I didn’t want to do), then drive an hour to Pinckney MI and try to get all geared up for the race.
So yeah, instead of going through my gear one more time, I just assumed everything was in my little storage tub (since I had packed several days in advance), threw it in the car along with a chair & the dog & hit the road, arrived at the parents’ and got the dogs squared away, then got down to the race with less than an hour to spare. In the parking lot I pulled out the storage tub, pulled out the chair, started to get my gear on and discovered that the single most important part of my whole running world was left at home—my gel shoe inserts. Maybe I’m over-estimating their importance, but at the time I was completely crushed by this discovery. No chance to drive home or to a nearby running store since the clowns at the auto shop screwed up the brake parts order and killed my two hour buffer of time. Instead I had to use a paper-thin sockliner with some relatively new shoes, but I knew right then my shot at 100 miles was already shot. I figured I’d be lucky to get around the 16.6 mile loop once (let alone six times). At this point I also remembered that I forgot to stop at the local running store in town and stock up on Sport Beans. I like to switch off between gels & these electrolyte beans so that I don’t get too much of one or the other; it’s good to mix it up a little when you’re consuming thousands of calories over several hours. Ultras always have gels; they never have the Sport Beans. I also forgot my Zensah’s (calf sleeves), which it seemed half the field was wearing.
So anyway, a couple/few four letter words later, I looked off at the sky, put things into perspective and decided that I would turn my adversity into a positive and make the best of the situation. After all, I don’t have Cancer, The Plague, Dysentery or any other noticeable maladies. I’m healthy, strong, employed, handsome, and doggone it people like me. I was signed up for a trail race, had a lot of positive people around me, and decided I would give it my best effort, see what happens & go as far as I could. That’s the nice thing about this loop course; 2 loops & you get credit for a 50k, 3 loops is a 50 miler, add a shortened 4th loop to that and you’re a 100k finisher, etc.
So, I got my gear on, we got lined up & off we went. I tried to go nice & easy, lots of walk breaks, drank every 15 minutes, ate at :30 and top of the hour, took an electrolyte supplement each hour, it was a little warm & humid but otherwise things were off to a good start. At one point fairly early in the race I saw a big batch of somewhat dark/menacing cloudiness heading for us, but I figured I would be back at my storage tub where I could grab my rain jacket before anything too awful came down. Then I heard a couple rumbles of thunder and saw a flash of lightning or two, but all we ended up getting during that first loop was a couple hours of nice on again/off again light rain that cooled things down and actually made the conditions kind of pleasant.
My shoes were holding up well despite the lousy sockliner, and aside from a couple of muddy/flooded spots the trail was very runnable. My new trail-gaiters worked like a charm. It’s always surprising how quickly a group of 80 or so runners get spaced apart on the trail, and I was quickly on my own, which was fine. The trail was well-marked, everything was basically good. The only real problem I had with my first lap was, my lack of run-training was quickly becoming apparent. I’d been doing a lot of “other” training this year (swimming, elliptical and long-walking), and as a result had not been spending as much time running trails as I did last year. So my feet & legs were surprisingly fatigued by about mile 15. I partially blamed this on the sockliners, but then told myself that’s ok, keep eating/drinking, keep the pace nice & slow, walk the ups, jog the flats & bomb the downhill’s, keep plugging away. First loop was completed in about 3:40, so my goal of 4 hour loops was well in hand. I wanted to do my first loop at least a little fast, figuring I had daylight and fresh legs on my side, so I might as well use these to my advantage and bank a little time. So far so good.
Upon completing the first loop I refueled a little (Ensure, yeah buddy), grabbed my rain jacket, tied it around my waist & headed out for the second loop. Daylight soon faded, so I turned on my headlamp & got used to running by lamp. A little fog started to appear on occasion. I continued eating/drinking when I was supposed to and made my aid station stops very quick; top off the hand-bottle with water, grab two gels & go. I’m a big believer in making aid station stops short, under a minute if possible. It’s amazing how quickly those aid station stops can add 30, 45 minutes, even an hour or more to your final time. And the shorter your final time, the less time on your feet & the quicker you’re done.
The rain started getting a bit more persistent on this second loop, so I threw on the raincoat, pushed up the sleeves & plugged on. There were times when I was glad to have the raincoat, other times it seemed an unnecessary nuisance. From everything I’d seen in weather forecasts earlier, we weren’t supposed to get anything too crazy in the way of rain, so I figured this would be the last of it and then we’d be done with it. I wasn’t keeping particularly close track, but it seemed to rain for the majority of this second loop, again mainly just light to moderate rain. Parts of the trail started to get a little more muddy as a result, but not too un-runnably so.
I seemed to have made my peace with the general agony in my legs & feet that I’d started feeling around mile 15, so I started contemplating how far I thought I could go. I figured 50 miles would be tough but very possible, maybe I could even do the shortened loop and finish the 100k. I seemed to get lost in my thoughts as I went on & on, surprisingly not sleepy (I’m usually in bed by 9pm, so being this awake and alert as midnight approached was very encouraging). Around this time I came to the realization that the first half of the loop seemed to be pretty benign, while the second half had some steep climbs and the muddiest spots in the course. As it rained more & more, the extra-muddy area at the end of the loop got noticeably worse this second time around. Still I was able to navigate it fairly well and only got one of my feet significantly wet, finished the loop and got ready for loop # 3. As I refueled & got ready to head out, I heard the guy keeping track of everybody shout out to another guy keeping track that runner # XXXX was a DNF after two loops. He would get credit for a 50K and live to fight another day. (But why did they have to shout it?)
I thought the rain was for the most part done with, since it had completely stopped when I had finished my second loop. So I had to make a decision on whether to keep my raincoat tied around my waist. Maybe I thought it was more of a nuisance than it was worth, and the night seemed to continue to stay warm, so I decided to leave the coat at the base camp area and head out for my third loop, thinking an occasional sprinkle would feel nice & keep me cool.
Not even 400 yards into my third loop I heard another menacing rumble and caught another glimpse of lightning, but I figured it would be just like before and maybe sprinkle like it did during the first loop & that would be that. So on I went, and it did start raining again, a little more persistently than I would’ve liked. The agony in my legs & feet persisted a little more than I would’ve liked. The trails continued deteriorating a little more than I would’ve liked. From the waist up I felt like a million bucks, but from there down things were Solid Ache. I’ve been battling an Achilles issue for the past year, and one of my biggest concerns coming into this race was how the Achilles would hold up. For the first two loops it was mostly fine; on this third loop it was starting to get downright cranky. I stopped to stretch a couple of times, but the relief was only temporary. The rain continued to fall, I continued to eat & drink, my stomach only got iffy a couple of times but any nausea quickly went away. My only problems were ache & rain, but they were real problems and only getting worse.
Shortly after the halfway point of the third loop, it really started to rain. Constant. Steady. Relentless. The trails were turning to the consistency of fecal matter in spots. On a couple of the uphills there were rivers running down the middle of the trails. I really missed my rain jacket at this point. My Achilles got significantly worse, I think mainly because the ground was so unstable and my foot/ankle was getting tweaked in far too many different directions with each step. Between the legs/feet agony and my Achilles issues I was mainly just walking at the 40 mile point on. And it continued to pour; I was completely drenched, hat/shirt/shorts/shoes were saturated. My feet had been holding up extremely well against blisters, but since they were so wet I was getting a couple of hot spots by now. Those last two hours of waddling along in the mud, from 2am to 4am, with the inescapable rain not letting up for one second, with my legs and feet in such bad shape, it was quite frankly a horrible, miserable, awful experience. And I actually paid a lot of money for this. I was still walking fairly quickly, but only because I was so desperate to get to the base camp tent and out of the rain.
This was when I decided to drop. (Why did he have to shout it?) I wasn’t alone; 70% of the entire field of 100 mile participants had dropped. The weather was against me (it continued to pour hard well after I was done), the equipment was against me, I shouldn’t have banked time with a fast first loop (especially bombing the downhills), and in retrospect I wasn’t quite hitting my electrolyte goals (those Sport Beans definitely would’ve helped). That’s problems on 4 out of 4 key factors. Could I have gone 100 if I’d had my gel inserts & Sport Beans, it hadn’t rained a drop and I took it a little easier on the downhills? I actually think I could’ve come close, but I can’t say for sure and besides it doesn’t matter. What matters is, I completed another 50 miler, learned a lot about my ability to handle ultra distances, and didn’t damage myself so terribly that I won’t be able to do another race a month from now. (I feel like I’m taking “failure” pretty well; did I just grow up?)
I probably could’ve willed my way through the shortened loop to get my 100k, and I certainly thought about it several times, but with the trail conditions as deteriorated as they were, and the relentless rain continuing to pour in buckets as it was, I had a real concern about seriously damaging my Achilles to the point where my season (and possibly “career”?) would be done. Was the distinction between 50 mile and 100k worth the risk? And was it worth spending another 4 hours in the rain for, perhaps bringing on a bout of pneumonia? In a word, no. On thing that mildly bothers me is that I got no “credit” for my 50 miler; on the website on the Results page my name is nowhere to be found. Fortunately I don’t run ultras for internet website recognition, so it’s not that big of a deal, and it’s not the first time there’s been a problem with my info on a website.
Next up is my redemption race at the St. Pat’s 24 Hour in mid-October. Not sure how that’ll go, but I can guarantee you I won’t forget those fucking gel inserts.