INTRO
This would be my 19th race of marathon distance
or above. And once again, distance running found a way to be
humbling.
The race was The Hungerford Games in Big Rapids, MI. I
planned on staying at Nirvana, a “town” 30 minutes away where I have use of a
cabin on the bank of the Pere Marquette river. It’s late September so the salmon
are coming upstream to spawn, rot and die. I saw at least a couple dozen. It’s
heart-racing as a fisherman to see 10-15 pound king salmon swimming by in 1
foot of water.
My prior race was the 100k at Run Woodstock 3 weeks prior,
where I had a great race, finished strong and felt invincible. About 10 days
after that race I went for a run and proceeded to sprain my ankle. It wasn’t a
devastating sprain, but it was of the high-ankle variety and I was limping for
several days after. So, zero running, zero walking in the 8 days leading up to
this race. In fact, really just a single 3 miler in the 3 weeks leading up.
Probably not good, but apparently you only lose 1-2% of your training if you
take 3 weeks off. I’d be fine.
On my drive up I saw a semi overturned on it’s side. Part of
the payload had broken through the roof and spilled out. It was trying to pull
into a business but cut the turn too close, back wheel went in the ditch next
to the entrance and down she went. Not something you see every day.
The weather was beautiful, mid-70’s and sunny, leaves were
starting to turn, it was Pure Michigan to make Tim Allen proud. Hadn’t rained
in at least a week, so everything would be nice & dry. I went to bed
unusually early after setting the alarm on my phone, which, it turns out, was
set to PM instead of AM, so I overslept by about an hour. Fortunately I woke up
at all, got moving and got to the race with plenty of time to spare.
RACE
They bused us out to the start, about ½ a mile from the finish.
It was cute, my first school bus ride since I was a teenager. There were about
40 runners on the bus; we launched spit wads at each other, worried about the quiz
in 3rd hour biology and talked about what we would do at recess
today. I decided to do this race without music, which I ended up regretting. However
it was such a beautiful day, birds were chirping, plus I’d be able to hear cars
coming which is always nice when a race is 100% on roads.
My “A” goal was sub 5:00, B goal was sub 5:30, C goal was
just finish, but I felt good so the initial plan was the A goal. We lined up,
gun went off and off we went. A short way in we came to an uphill. This would
become a recurring theme; I figured there would be some hills, but in fact
there were WAY more hills than I thought there would be. I should’ve started
hiking the ups at the start, but I didn’t think there would be that many. Plus
this was my 19th Marathon-Or-More, I was invincible and thought I
would try to run the whole thing and be a tough guy.
The early part of the course went from pavement to dirt road
to seasonal road. It got a little rough in a couple spots where the ruts in the
seasonal 2 tracks were deep and sometimes muddy. I can’t imagine what they get
like after heavy rains. Still it was all pretty negotiable, sandy but not too
bad.
Then we came to a stretch of powerline two-track, where the
sand went from sandy to deep & mushy. This was the hardest part of the
course because it was all hills, and all mush. With footing like that you trash
your feet more than you might expect, tweaking the tendons/joints/ligaments a
little with each step. Amazingly I didn’t re-sprain my ankle. However, when I
got done with that stretch I had to reassess. No more running the whole course.
In fact I was already pretty beat-up with still 19 more miles to go.
More seasonal road followed, then a long stretch of flat
dirt road through the countryside. This was where I wished I wasn’t so beat up,
because it was very runnable and I could’ve made some nice time through here.
But I was beat up & beat down, and only just heading into the halfway point.
This is where I missed a turn, the volunteers yelled at me & got me headed
the right way, then I missed another turn about a mile later. Thankfully one of
the other runners behind me yelled to me and got me back on track. Some days it’s
just not your day, I thought to myself, and today was one of those days. I
tried to enjoy the countryside, enjoy the weather, enjoy the damn birds
chirping but it was hard to do because all I thought about was the pain. I
wanted to stop, quit, go back to the cabin and play with my phone or something.
At mile 16 I thought to myself ok, 10 more miles to
McDonalds, since there was a McDonalds on the way back to the cabin. A buddy of
mine wrote a song many years ago called “One More Mile To McDonalds”, and for
the next two hours that song was stuck in my head. Each time I passed one of
the mile markers, “8 more miles…” etc. Then I got a different song stuck in my
head: “I’ve seen better days, I’ve been the star of many plays, I’ve seen
better days” and then the Game Over riff. Over and over. It’s always a good
idea to wear headphones and have music available to listen to for this very
reason.
Leaving a seasonal road to enter a regular dirt road I saw a
pickup truck that tried to take a turn into a campground, but he cut it too
tight and had slid into a ditch a little. 7 or 8 people standing around, coming
up with a plan to get him unstuck. I thought, wow, that’s twice in two days
that I’ve seen the end result of a badly negotiated turn. ½ a mile later I saw
a third minor disaster, where a pickup pulling a horse trailer had it’s trailer
in the ditch. He tried pulling it out but he’d spun his wheels so bad it just
dug ruts in the road. Thankfully there weren’t any horses in the trailer.
Still, 3 separate 1 vehicle accidents in 24 hours.
I was starting to feel like a car wreck myself as I plodded
on past mile 20, 21, 22. Couldn’t run any of the uphills at this point, had to
walk them. My feet were on fire, my IT band was flaring up badly, my hip was
bothering me a little, it was getting hot out. I’m a little embarrassed with
myself for all of this whining and self-pity but it’s an accurate depiction and
it was all I could think about. I felt like one of those salmon, rotting and
withering away, dying a cruel and painful death as I swam/ran uphill/upstream to
seal my fate and succumb to an unceremonious death that would finally put me
out of my misery. At last, the final mile. “One more mile, to McDonalds…”, I’ve
seen better days…”. Finished in 5:25, got my awesome finisher’s medal, so glad
it was over.
When driving back to the cabin I missed my exit.
All of those 19 races were hard, but this one felt like one
of the hardest for some reason. Maybe it was the course (fear the mush!), maybe
it was the completely staying off my feet for all of that time leading up to
the race. Maybe I went out too fast. Maybe I should’ve walked some of those
early uphills. Maybe I should’ve walked more in general early in the race.
Maybe I should’ve listened to music. Maybe it was all of those things. It was a
stern reminder that these races can be very humbling, and that it is never,
ever a good idea to go into one of these events with a tough guy invincible
attitude. I’ll give myself one day to lick my wounds, reflect, watch the salmon…and
then figure out when & where the next long race will be.
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