Run Woodstock 100k--RR

When I showed up for this year’s Run Woodstock race in Pinckney, MI and started feeling the vibe and getting into the experience of the race, I almost immediately felt a twinge of disappointment because I was ‘only’ doing the 100k and not the 100 mile. Now, don’t get me wrong, 62 miles is a no little baby joggie; it’s a plenty long ways. But for an event like this, it’s a 100 miler, and everything is geared towards those 100 milers, as it should be. They’re the main attraction, and I lamented not being a part of that main event like I was last year. Fortunately it was still an ‘ultra’, and had all the ingredients necessary for a good ultra experience—humor, danger, religiosity and hallucinations.

11 days prior, I registered for the race. One day later I looked at the 10 day forecast on the Weather Channel website; it called for upper 80’s and thunderstorms on race day. So I checked back pretty much each day until race day and it continued to say the same thing, day after day, culminating in a high of 90 (hottest day of the year) and pretty much a 100% chance of storms, rain, etc. Clearly things would start ugly and stay ugly out there.

I did this race a few years ago when they got the epic monsoons that literally flooded certain parts of the trail in as much as a foot or more of water. That year I was attempting my first 100 Miler; the rain broke my spirit and I ended up dropping to the 50 mile. The difference this year was that I would “only” be doing the 100k, so I could endure any storms and finish.

The morning of the event (which would start later in the afternoon at 4pm and goes all night, mostly in the dark) I bought a rain jacket and a newer headlamp, both of which proved to be poor purchases. The jacket was really just annoying, and the headlamp wasn’t nearly bright enough. 18 lumens is nowhere near adequate for trail running. I recall seeing a 90 lumens option at the store, which would’ve been much more effective.

So we had our pre-race meeting at 3:00pm, then starting at 3:05 we all had to sit there and fidget, worry, wonder, look at the radar on our phones, take selfies, prepare and wait around to start. They should have their pre-race meeting at 3:45. Just a thought.

 

Finally we lined up, started at 4:00 and I just started roasting. 90 degrees with a heat index of 98 is too hot for running, period. Unless it’s the Badwater 135, which is a small field of mostly elite runners that have rolling crews available to help runners in trouble during any part of the race and has since been banned from existence for being far too dangerous to human health because of the heat…but that’s off-topic. So I was dehydrated an hour into the race, cooking like pork tenderloin and despite otherwise well stocked aid stations, for the first three hours I couldn’t get any ice. If a race is going to be held on a 90 degree day, every aid station needs to have ice. Just another thought.

Because I was literally baking on my feet, the first loop was unusually unenjoyable, even though it was my fastest loop by far. It was appropriate that I was wearing an orange hat, orange shirt and orange calf sleeves (a.k.a. “calf panties”) because I literally felt like I was a 170 pound campfire chugging through the forest. Barbecued Ultrarunner. Alright I’ll stop with the descriptions. Eventually I did get some ice, in my hat and in my hydration pack. There is nothing on this earth better than ice cold water when you’re on the verge of heatstroke. It saved my race, and maybe my life.

As I was reaching the end of that first loop, the cold front came through. Winds of up to 70 miles an hour swirled, trees were falling, dust was flying, branches were dropping, I may have seen a small partial tornado, it was a wild environment. A tree branch about an inch in diameter bashed me hard square in the mouth (I actually caught the branch with my hand after it hit me in the face, that’s how I know how big it’s diameter was). It didn’t break the skin or give me a fat lip, which strangely almost disappoints me. What a badge of honor that would’ve been, coming into the home camp with blood all over my face, right?

Between loops 1 & 2 at the base camp, with enormous wind gusts bringing down campers’ tents and furiously flapping the tarp walls of our drop bag area, I chugged Powerade and Ensure like there was no tomorrow because I was desperately…lacking, in electrolytes and nutrition and fluids. Overall I don’t think I’ve ever drank more at a race than this one. I was also hitting the Gatorade at almost every aid station. Another check of the radar on my phone revealed that the storm didn’t look too terribly bad for us in the immediate future, but it didn’t look good for later. Afterwards the newspapers would claim it was the 10^th most “impactful” storm in the past 111 years because of those winds and the power outages in created all over the state. Nice.

Darkness didn’t take long to settle in after the start of the second loop. The rain never came in a deluge, but it came. Basically it rained on & off for the next 8-9 hours or so. I was already drenched from sweat so I’m not sure why I was trying to keep myself dry with a raincoat. More than dryness, I was expecting the temperature to plunge so I thought I’d need it for warmth. You always try to plan for possibilities; this was one thing I kind of got wrong. I should’ve just run in my shirt the whole time.

I’ve always run these long races with music. However, something was different this time for some reason. What I found was that I simply didn’t want to listen to anything on my iWalkman thing. Plus I wanted to listen for thunder in case the skies were about to open up, but mainly I just found that music blaring into my ears was strangely upsetting and unsettling. So I started running this loop with no music, and whether it was a result of this or not, I settled into a wonderful, blissful running “flow”. Fellow runners who’ve been there will know why I say it’s hard to describe, but basically it was a zen-like purity, like I was running for God or something. Of course the old familiar “ultra-ache” was still there, I acknowledged it, worked within it’s confines and just ran. There was a profound yet understated magic to it. All of my problems, my anxieties, my job, my failures, any and every thing about my entire life faded and dissolved into nothing. I was left with nothing but my body, the moment, the rhythmic steps, the trail and surrounding environment, and breathing. It was beautiful beyond words, but the beauty of it wasn’t the point. I was completely living in the moment, but I also was transcending the moments and the reality of the situation. See? It’s hard to describe. All I know is, at one stretch I did an hour that felt like 5 minutes, and then another 2 hours that felt like 5 minutes. This was despite the nagging, incessant rain which, at the time, did not matter at all to me. Even the mud wasn’t a problem. I felt like a shaman, or the Dali Lama. I was Buddha wearing Brooks Adrenaline GTS running shoes. Granted I’ve “only” been running for about 7 years, and they’ve been productive years resulting in 4 marathons, 13 ultras and countless shorter races and runs. But never, in all of that time, have I felt this ‘flow’ in quite this way.

One lesson that I learned from my completed 100 miler last year was: MIND YOUR FEET. When I packed my stuff for this race, it seemed like overkill but without really thinking I packed three pairs of running shoes and like 5-6 pairs of socks; this ended up being the smartest thing I did.  Since I don’t run with gaiters, I always get sand gathering between my socks and feet. Combining sand with heat and moisture and friction from running is a recipe for disaster. So between loop 2 & 3 I cleaned up my feet, switched socks and switched shoes. Went through a lot of shoes but so what. This was huge.

 

Loop 3 was not particularly good for me, but it was also maybe the most interesting, or at least eventful. When your lighting is bad, and you’re running through the forest from midnight to 4am, your eyes can play fun little tricks on you. At one point I saw a catfish which, upon closer inspection, had a striking resemblance to a curved rock embedded in the trail. I also saw a nice trout swimming downstream/downtrail. Perhaps the fish sightings were a side effect of having spent the past several hours running in rain, puddles and mud. But then I also saw a cat (plastic bag), a mini statue of Frankenstein and a goat (tree trunks) so maybe not.

If you run ultras long enough, you’ll see someone throw-up. Just past one of the aid stations, this poor girl didn’t just retch a little dry heave; it was projectile, a massive purge. I was hoping it would help her be able to start fresh (a good barf can do wonders for your race) but when I passed her again a few hours later she did not sound good at all. That was during loop 2; on loop 3, in almost the exact same spot, I saw a guy doing a standing/squatting dump next to the trail. This is a very Human sport, and being human is not always pretty. I heard numerous farts, probably because I was running without music. My excessively “human” trait is that I belch, loudly and often. If any of my fellow competitors end up reading this, I hope it didn’t bother you too much.

My Flow on loop 3 wasn’t nearly as religious or nirvanic but I was still able to run fairly well and made decent progress. Normally I have no issues with my stomach but on loop 3 my belly was not feeling good at all. Nothing looked appealing; salty, sugary, gels, any kind of drink, all of it was gross to me. Fortunately I got down enough to keep me in the game, but it was a definite concern at this point.

A stretch of the course is on dirt road. Because it was wet already and with the help of many hours of rain, the consistency of the road became something like diarrhea on top of firm dirt. The sound of running was a high-pitched splat splat splat splat. In comparison I definitely preferred the trails. At least the road only looked like fecal matter and didn’t smell like it, right?

Because of the many hours of rain, there was significant deterioration of trail conditions as well. If the trail was sand-based, it was fine; if it was clay-based, it was like the roads, almost an oily wet poo consistency and especially since it was dark those areas became very difficult to navigate. I never completely biffed but came close several times. I also stubbed my toes on roots about two dozen times. That always gets old.

When I got back to camp between loops 3 and 4 I changed shoes/socks again, chugged more Ensure, had some soup and wondered how I was going to get through that last loop because I was feeling extremely weary. But I didn’t have to wonder for long, since almost immediately upon starting loop 4 I got a second wind and suddenly felt invincible. The “Flow” was still there but now it was also combined with a new-found strength. I was churning up some of the uphills, running for long stretches, completely reborn at 4:30am. I tried to be conscious of how I was feeling, keep in mind that this was 62 friggin’ miles and not get too reckless, keep eating/drinking (my nausea was now gone) and hopefully not blow my race with this new confidence, but damn it was hard because I literally felt amazing.

Once daylight finally emerged it became much easier to run because I could now see all the nuances of the trails, the mud, the branches and roots, and navigate them much more effectively. It also stopped raining, the temperature was cool with a nice little breeze, conditions were perfect. It’s genuinely surprising how much you can run, and run Hard, on exhausted, beat-up, tired, sore, pulverized legs. My feet and hips were in pain at this point, but it was a very manageable pain and they weren’t getting any worse from the hard running. Again, the between-loop shoe/sock changes were just critical in keeping my feet from having the hotspots develop into full-blown Blister Hell.

For each distance in these races there is a uniquely colored bib. For the 100k, it was a light yellow. So as I was in the second half of my final loop, I started looking out for 100k bibs, seeing if any guys in the 40-44 age range were around and looking strong. I did see one. The Competitive Gene kicked in at this point and it was game on; there was no way I could let him beat me. Ridiculous, I know, but I couldn’t help it. So I started pressing a bit more, which was ok because I still felt great. Despite my increased efforts, he never really fell back. Maybe he was 51, or 36, didn’t matter. He was hanging tough. But so was I.

I drank a little more, ate a little more, kept running all of the runnable trail and hiked fast on the uphills. When I’m running like this I feel like my potential is way beyond the level I typically run at. Normally I always run easy because I don’t want to get hurt. But this day, I felt almost immune from injury. So on I pressed, felt great, fast, invincible, fantastic, my pursuer was getting further behind and I knew I had him beat. Unofficial time was in the 16:22-16:24 range, 1^st place age group (out of like 3-4 people). I know I shouldn’t, but now I’m wondering and playing the what-if game: what if I went on and did the full 100 miles? As good as I felt, I’m sure I could’ve done it, and probably much faster than I did it the year prior. Or, I could’ve crashed & burned, especially since I ran out of running shoes. I don’t know. What I do know is, I need a nap. Maybe I’ll find the answer there.