Two races: a trail ½ marathon Saturday morning, then a full
trail marathon Sunday morning. I’ve never done “long” races on back to back
days like this before, so there was the specter of the great unknown that had
me far more concerned than I really needed to be. As usual.
I’ve done the full marathon before on its own so I was
familiar with the course. The full has an elevation gain/loss of 2550, so it’s
like going to to the top of the Empire State Building and back to the bottom,
twice, while covering 26.2 miles on your feet. It sounds way more impressive that
way, but really it was just hilly trails.
Conditions both days were very conducive with starting temps
in the upper 30’s, finishing temps near 50, mix of sun & clouds, and no
mud. During pre-start pacing I made it a point to meet Chuck Cova and Katie
Zopf, a couple of fellow insane running maniacs that do crazy-long races and
live nearby. One can never know enough trail runners in this world.
Everyone lined up and just after 7:59 we started going in
waves. Since I knew I’d be doing a full the next day I specifically tried to go
out “slow” and treat this as a soft little practice/training run as much as
possible. However I also didn’t want to go so slow that it would take all
morning. Further into the race I found that I was maintaining a remarkably
consistent 12 minute pace. So, I ended up deciding to try and stick with that
through the remainder of the race and finished with an average pace of 12:02.
(46th place out of 51 guys in my age group? Really? I didn’t think I
was going THAT slow.)
The outside of my right ankle started bothering me about
half way through, just under the knob that sticks out, and continued to bother
me all the way to the end. Some kind of a tendon or ligament. This was a
concern, because even though it felt better later in the day, I knew I’d have
to run a full marathon on it the next morning. Sometimes you need to trust that
you know the difference between a minor pain and a minor injury; this was
clearly the former so I didn’t let it derail the weekend. Just something to
watch.
Saturday afternoon I didn’t want to take a nap and then not
be able to sleep the night before Sunday’s full, so I made a cup of extra-potent
coffee and went to hit a bucket of range balls. I was feeling a bit loopy after
I had dinner and a few of cocktails while watching the Red Wings win a playoff
game, but still I was on track to go to bed early so that I’d be well-rested
for the full. The cocktails would help me sleep, right? Right.
So, I went to bed about 10, woke up and looked over at my
clock—it said 3:45. Knowing I needed to get up at 5, I tried to go back to
sleep for that last hour…but then I started thinking, well, shoot, I’m wide
awake right now, maybe I should just get up now. So I got up. Picked up my phone,
which said 2:50, and started to wonder. Went downstairs to double-check the
other clocks, they said 2:52 and 2:53, so once I finally got my act together I
determined that my normal bedside clock has it’s own internal clock that
determines on it’s own when to make adjustments for Daylight Savings time. It
must’ve perhaps been built based on an old algorithm.
Anyway, here I was at 3:00am, extra wide awake now, knowing
if I tried to go back to sleep I’d wake up exhausted, so I decided to just stay
up and deal with it. Of course, right before I was planning to leave for the
race (6am) I started becoming insanely tired. Still I had to go so off I went,
I-69 West to 23 South. That 4th cocktail I had right before bed
must’ve been lingering in my system. I felt extremely loopy driving, probably
would’ve blown a .2 if I’d gotten pulled over, but I managed to get there and
started prepping. Deciding what to wear when temps start in the low 30’s and go
up to the 50’s can be tricky, but I came up with a good combo. When I was about
90% ready I heard the early notes of the national anthem and realized oh yeah,
we start at 7:30 today, not 8, so I had to scramble a little to get the rest of
my act together and get down there in time to start.
Again there were wave starts and I started in the last or
second to last wave. Off we went and I tried to treat the opening 13.1 mile
loop like the start of an ultra—start easy, then ease back. That right ankle
was becoming iffy again, but I quickly figured out that running uphills made it
worse, so from that point I made it a point to walk every uphill, no matter how
gradual. It got better and despite my woozy, sleep-deprived, still-half-drunk
disposition, things were going fairly well from a pain standpoint. My only
issue was my weariness, which turned into sloppiness a couple of times,
especially when I turned my left ankle 90 degrees inward at about mile 11. Wow,
two bad ankles? Fortunately I didn’t hear/feel anything snap crackle pop so I
slowed down and just kept running (but more slowly/gingerly), which is what
you’re supposed to do when this happens. Within another 5 minutes it was pretty
much 100%.
My other problem now was my stomach. Maybe it was the booze
from last night, or the Honey Stingers I had about 6 miles in, or the Gatorade,
but things were not going good. I felt barf-y. Then I had a scoop of trail mix
at the halfway point, but there were too many raisins and M & M’s. No
problem with water all day, but I was clearly over-sugared at the 13.2 mile
mark.
So I didn’t eat anything the rest of the way, figuring the
exercise would help me burn through whatever foul nastiness was in my stomach
and I’d be ok by the end. Starting that second loop, I was still weary, sore in
spots, and not looking particularly forward to running for another 13 miles.
But then a funny thing happened: at about mile 14, I got this weird, mysterious
second wind. Something was telling me to start flying. Coincidentally, around
this time some guy passed me pretty quickly and when I mentioned he was making
this look easy, he responded saying he’d gotten a second wind and needed to
take advantage of it. About 15 minutes later I had passed him for the very same
reason.
That last 12 miles were some the greatest miles I’ll ever
run. I was bombing the flats and the downhills, even running most of the
uphills. The harder I ran, the less my ankles hurt. I was passing a lot of
people at this point. For a while I’d had thoughts of trying to break 5:20
(which would mean a PR for this course) but because I’d started so
conservatively on the first loop it would prove to be just out of reach. Still
it felt so good to run full-blast over those last couple hours and I was
reminded once again why trail running is the greatest thing that’s ever
happened to me. I finished in 5:24 (3rd from last?? You know what, screw
these 45-49 year old Men with their faster, less-drunk legs), euphoric at the
end and wanted to keep going, got my swag (Turns out my coveted No Wimps Challenge
t-shirt was a Women’s XL, oops, working to rectify that), soaked my legs in the
agonizingly cold water of Silver Lake, and then headed home.
One note of reflection: Not 100% sure, but I’m seriously
thinking my low-carb diet is going to work for me. It was my first ever race of
marathon distance or above where I did not hit any sort of a wall. We’ll see
how well that holds up over 50k, 50m,
100k or beyond, but so far so good.
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