Why We Run Ultramarathons

Why.

There are as many reasons as there are miles: Lose Weight! Feel Good! Fight addictions! Fresh Air! Connect With Nature! Get Away From The Spouse/Kids!

But really, why do we run? Especially the long, Superlong, multi-hour or multi-day distances? There has to be more to it than Exercise...and there is. After 7 years, 4 marathons, a half-dozen 50k's, couple of 50 milers, couple of 100k's and a lone 100 miler, finally, I found the answer in the unlikeliest of places--during a mere 1 hour-long, 4.5 mile non-descript jog on a moderately populated trail in a moderately populated part of the midwestern United States.

The story of why we run ultra-marathons starts at where we're coming from. We work 8am-5pm jobs, then have 5:30pm-7:30am families, live in lawn-mowed communities in the vicinity of paved cities, we shop for our wares within strip-mall settings and set advertisement-dictated goals; by that I mean we want the cars, the beer, the financial planning and the clothes that television or the Internet tells us we want. And all of it, 100% of it, is a lie.

I'm not saying your families aren't important. They are. Just bear with me.

When there is a planned ultramarathon race coming up, especially a big one (let's say a 100k), we don't just think about it fleetingly once in a great while. No, we Think About It. We obsess over it. We check the weather daily, check our gear, check our diets, check our schedules, check our poo, and suddenly everything in our lives will revolve around the fast-approaching race.

The last couple of nights before the race we obsess over how much we're sleeping. Any of the most minor little discomforts in the foot, knee, hip, leg, toe, ankle or ITB are given ridiculously careful scrutiny. Everything has to be perfect. There can be NO setbacks.

Then we get to the morning of the event. There's over a 99% chance you didn't sleep well the night before, which throws you off. As soon as you're awake on race day morning you start thinking about the race, the clothes, the weather, the gear, the food, and the hydration. Any minor imperfection throws you off. Bladder and bowels transition from unmentionables to Critically important factors which can make or break one of the biggest days ever. All of it has to be perfect.

On no other days of the year is this the case, only on race day. It's literally impossible for 100% of everything to go perfectly, so as you progress through the morning, you continue obsessing and end up at the starting line taking stock of just how far short of 100% you are for that particular race.

So you toe the line, somebody makes a somewhat-absurd attempt to yell "Go" and suddenly you're easing into a jog that will last for a long, long time. You get into a rhythm, enjoy the music you may be hearing, drink what you're supposed to be drinking, eat gels or real food or nothing, navigate the roots & rocks and/or paved turns & maybe the course markers/flags, maybe walk the uphills and run the flats & downhills.

You see other runners. Maybe you talk to them. It's a special, close-knit community. You're among your kin, your brothers & sisters, starting to feel the sweat, the oxygen, the air, the sounds, the life. You drink the water, eat whatever you eat, and start to feel that old, familiar, special, all-important "ache".

This is where we begin.

Remember that job we were talking about earlier? Me neither. After reaching about that 2-3 hour mark, all of those reports, emails, meetings and leveraged synergies suddenly have zero importance. The Neighborhood Watch, the shrubs, the lawn, the driveway, the porch furniture, the gossip, all are reduced to an importance-level of zero. Family still matters, that never goes away, but all the other less important stuff really starts to fade, little by little, mile by mile.

I'm kind of an idiot but despite this I've read some of the writings of people like Aldous Huxley, Friedrich Nietchze, Timothy Leary and Jim Morrison. Maybe none of these folks would agree with what I'm about to say, or they'd agree 100%, but as a result of their writings, during my little 4.5 mile trail run, I realized finally why Trail Ultramarathon running is such a profoundly spiritual experience.

Going back just for a moment to that typical morning in typical suburbia in whatever part of the world one lives in, when it's NOT race day, this is what we do: we wake up, put on a face that fits what we've spent our lives becoming, then we put on clothes that create a costume that fits what we've spent our lives becoming, then we head off to stores or jobs or places where we continue wearing those masks and costumes, and we play our parts in the great stage-play of life that we call everyday Reality. Society. Civilization. Get up, clean up, go do whatever it is we do, go home, go to bed, wake up the next morning and repeat.

Now back to the trail. We've run for a few hours, our clothes are now saturated with sweat, we've been drinking fluids and eating whatever we eat for some time now, the music we're listening to means less and less while the earth and sky and life around us means more and more. Little by little that mask we've crafted for ourselves starts to chip away. The costume that we wear starts to fade. The stage and props that help frame the play that is our lives all starts to disappear. Little by little, the "reality" that we've built for ourselves over the course of all of those years starts to vanish...and what remains in it's place is something far more organic, more true, more real than life itself. The entire façade of our lives becomes stripped away, replaced one mile at a time by that very thing we're running towards, which is, to be honest, Real True Actual Life.

Perhaps Alice In Wonderland was a fitting analogy. Start running an ultramarathon and see how far the rabbit hole truly goes. Once you've stripped away the mask, the costume and the stage of what has become "life", and bring to the forefront your true, actual Self, then you've finally started to really become Alive for the first time in months or years or ever.

Unfortunately, then you start to approach the final miles, then the finish line is in sight, you finish the race, hug your family, go back to you car within the paved parking lots, return to your homes within those lawn-framed communities, feel that creeping façade re-apply itself to your existence, and get back to normal. The dream of Reality is over, and you are back on that tired old stage playing the role of your "life" again.

But before that entirely happens you get this far-off look in your eye as you think back to maybe mile 29 or 43 when you had finally shed the cloak of reality for a few brief hours and became, gloriously, truly, for once in your life, Alive. Really and unquestionably Alive. That's the real reason why we run ultramarathons: so that we can leave our lives in order to truly live.

　

The Trail Marathon 50k (2014)

FOREPLAY (Training, lead-up)

Coldest, snowiest, worst winter ever, in all of human history. Most diabolical conditions imaginable for running and training for a spring marathon. Fortunately I had a secret motivator, "The Winter Running Game", an online run-tracking pseudo contest that my friend and pacer Andy Johnston created. I had to log every minute of mileage, and the worse the weather was, the more points I would get for my runs. There were three groups; I signed up for the most hardcore group and finished in the top 5 in terms of total points. It was the most I'd ever run during a winter since I started running 7 years ago. Motivation comes in many shapes and sizes, apparently.

Once the thaw started I had limited opportunities to get in my long runs. I did a couple of 15's, one 17 and that was about it. Not great training for a 50k, but my last long race was the 100 miler in the fall so how hard could a 50k really be, compared to that? Never thought I'd see the day when I thought of a 50k as a "sprint", but alas, here we are. It makes sense: back when I could only run 2-3 miles at a time, I thought a 10 mile race was impossible. All a matter of degrees. Or perspective. Whatever.

The week leading up to the Sunday race was not an ideal setup; I flew to Vegas on Monday for 3 days of company meetings, flew back and fought back jet lag, then Saturday had to spend 5 hours on my feet for an inventory. Finally got home, had some Arby's and a couple of whiskey & cokes for my carb-loading meal and slept about 5 hours.

THE DEED (a.k.a. The Race)

About mid- to upper-30's at the start. Looking at the radar it showed what I thought was a big rainstorm coming, so I tied my rain jacket to my waist. Never rained a drop. Off we went and I felt great. Ran the uphills, flats and downhills, fairly easily maintaining about a 10:30 pace, which is way too fast for me. Part of the problem was in my ears...I was listening to the first 8 Black Sabbath albums which had recently been re-released as a box set and showed up on my doorstep just a couple weeks prior. I really need to listen to quieter, mellower music when I start a race like this, so that I don't go out too fast. Elliott Smith, not Geezer Butler.

Early on I was having a weird discomfort on the outside of my left foot near the pinky toe. Not the first time I've had this. Almost feels like I need to crack a knuckle in my foot...Which I tried to do a couple of times; got temporary relief, but it persisted. Also was having left Achilles issues. I wasn't crazy about having these problems so early in the race, but with it only being a 50k sprint I felt I could get through it maybe.

Finished the first 13.1 in 2:30, which was plenty fast and put me significantly ahead of my goal (wanted to finish in 7:00). So I made a decision to take the second 13.1 much easier, particularly by walking the uphills. Almost immediately my weird discomfort and Achilles issues went away. I found that second half marathon much, much more enjoyable. Finding your sweetspot pace and maintaining it through a long trail run creates a Zen, a flow that just feels so damn right. Hills don't really matter, flats feel effortless and the runner's high is felt, and appreciated, Fully.

I was drinking plenty, probably not eating enough but I didn't need a ton of food for a race this distance. Volunteers were super nice and supportive (was that one guy at the aid station really in a penis-and-balls costume?). Course was well-marked. I was a little concerned about muddy trails but the whole trail network was in great shape the entire way.

After finishing the marathon in about 5:27 there's a 5 mile loop that starts with a pretty brutal climb...however it didn't seem as awful as I'd remembered when I did this race a couple of years ago. It was still bad, but maybe my blissful, heavy-metal-fueled trail-zen made it more tolerable. Anyway that last loop is the best part of the race for me. Just feels more remote, separate from the rest of the race and the world, a chance to cap off a wonderful morning with just a few more solo trail miles set aside just for me.

PILLOW TALK (a.k.a. Looking Back)

Finished in 6:30. Not a Personal Best or Worst, very respectable for my ability level. (This is where you should think to yourself, "I thought he was calling this a 'sprint'? A 6.5 hour sprint? 12:30 pace?? Whatev." That's what you should be thinking at this point.) Those winter miles definitely helped. There's just no substitute for mileage. I had a salty forehead so I think I went a little heavy on the Endurolytes salt pills. It was in the low 50's when we finished but I was really cold, so I didn't stand around to bask in the glow. Maybe I should have because when I got to my car to sit and rest for a bit my right leg started to cramp up pretty badly.

In the days after my legs were sore but healed pretty quickly. I put the foam roller to my legs that night which, I'm sure, helped, especially with my IT bands.

This race was another great reminder of the importance of running MY pace, all the way through. I think we all have a sweet-spot pace. God I'm almost quoting the movie The Legend of Baggar Vance when he talks about how everyone's got their own golf swing or something like that. Ugh. Maybe I'd better throw in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath or Vol. 4 for one more listen.

Hallucination 100 Mile--RR

I just had to know.

From 5k to 100k, I’ve learned about what all of the various different running distances are like and how to best prepare for them. Each has it’s own unique charm, challenges and rewards. But after 7 years of running there was one thing missing, one final unknown to discover in order to truly complete my running portfolio. And it was the biggest test of all. I had to do a “hundo”.

The course at Run Woodstock, 16.6 miles of single-track, rail-trail and dirt roads is one that I’m familiar with from previous races of 50k and 50 mile distances. So I knew what to expect…except, you never really know what to expect in a 100 mile. One surprise was how small of a factor “running” was in the grand scheme of things. Another was the seemingly large difference there was between laps 1-3, and 4-6.

Last year (2012) was a lost year due to injury, but my strategy of doing at least 90% of my running this year strictly on Trails Only had been paying nice dividends—zero injuries, good strength from the hilly terrain at Holly Rec. Area, and several solid race performances including the Dirty Burg 50k and Old Farts Marathon. I also did a Lot of 3 mile walks during my lunch hour at work which I felt had good benefits. It’s all about Specificity Of Training in this sport and I knew I’d be doing a lot of walking during this race. My weekly mileages got up into the 30-40 range with 1 or 2 weeks in the low fifties—a pretty significant amount for me, but not nearly enough for a successful 100 mile on this moderately hard trail course. As September came around I had to make the decision, and since I was feeling so good at the time, I decided this was as good a chance as I was ever going to get.

So I signed up the Friday before the race……and two days later I developed a serious back problem. It was a steady ache all through my lower back, I couldn’t sit for any period of time in my car, on a couch or on my chair at work. And sleeping became a nightmare because it was impossible to get comfortable enough to be able to get to sleep. At it’s worst I remember using 4 pillows—one for my head, one under my hip, and two between my legs. Curiously the only time this nagging back ache went away was when I was walking. So there was some hope. But still, battling a severe back ache for the first time in my entire life was clearly not the ideal way to spend the 5 days leading up to my first 100 miler.

I slept fairly well the night before, then arrived early for the race Friday early afternoon, killing time by reading about the Barkley Marathons, thinking if I read about how miserable it could be for those runners then it might lessen the blow for me. The pre-race meeting was at 3pm, followed by 45 minutes of nervous fidgeting and final preparation until 4pm finally arrived and the race began.

Everything felt great the first loop. I purposely made a concerted effort to try to run the loop at a very easy low/medium pace, one that I felt I could keep up later in the race if I had to (I’d read somewhere that this was a good pacing strategy, to run the same pace that you could run later in the race). Despite running it as softly and lightly and gently as possible I finished in about 3:40, by far my fastest loop.

 (At this point I feel I should mention, it was suggested to me that I leave out of my race report the issues I had with chafing; all I’m going to say is, I started having problems with it at the end of loop one, it continued to affect me the rest of the race, it got so bad I literally cut the liner out of my shorts at one point, and I now know there are very few things in life, if any, worse than “burning ‘junk’”. Very few. Trust me.)

For the second loop, out came the headlamp and flashlight. Still felt good, just a little fatigue as I got around the 25 mile mark, getting re-acquainted with running in darkness. I started getting more noticeably bothered by pebbles in my shoes, but whenever it was necessary I stopped, shook out my shoe(s) and continued. This loop went by pretty uneventfully in about 4:15 or so. Things looked promising.

Third loop that old familiar leg-fatigue began to settle in more in earnest, but I was still running, felt very fresh otherwise and had no issues with sleepiness. At this point I started to really believe that yes, I might actually be able to do this. However towards the end of that third loop I started to feel the effects of having run 50 miles and being up for about 20 hours. Part of the ebb & flow of ultras. Highs & lows. An ultra’s like, a roller-coaster baby baby.

I started to develop a hot spot on the ball of my right foot, enough so that I decided to do some maintenance before heading out for loop 4. When I inspected my foot I saw a Lot of caked sand in there, which clearly was causing the issue. After cleaning the area I couldn’t tell if I had a full-blown blister yet, but just in case I put a band-aid on the affected spot and then wrapped a strip of duct tape around it. This was my first experiment with running with a duct-taped foot, and as I would soon find, not a particularly good one.

Still as I started my fourth loop the foot felt pretty good, and perhaps because of some chicken soup, other various food (trail mix) and 2 glorious ibuprofens, I headed out feeling amazingly well. I think at this point I had fully decided that yes, this was the day—come hell or high water I was going to finish this race and earn that coveted belt buckle. Still I held back my pace and made a conscious effort not to push it, fully knowing I had many miles to go, but at least at that time I felt like a million bucks there at 5am.

Sure enough, half-way through that 4^th loop I hit another deep low and was reminded that this would not be easy and really all bets were off.  Plus I was getting really sick of the night running. Fortunately the dawn soon came around that time and at least I didn’t have to deal with the artificial-light-aided running anymore.

The second half of the fourth loop I started my “death-waddle”. (If your junk isn’t burning then it’s simply a “death-walk”, but if it’s burning like mine was then it’s a death-waddle, but enough about that) Complicating things were the hundreds of 50 milers, 50k’ers, marathoners and half-marathoners who started their races Saturday morning and were now sharing all or some of the same trails. It reached a point where there was a solid line of them running down the middle of the single track while the other ultra-runners & I had to walk along the berms on either side of the trail.

As an added twist, the Michigan Mountain Bikers Association decided to have some sort of Bike Challenge event, so there were areas of the course where these riders were flying down trails at 30 miles an hour while sleep-deprived 100 milers were stumbling along on the same trails. At one point, when a 50k runner nearby yelled out suggesting that they slow down because there were runners on the course, one of the riders yelled back (and this is a direct quote): “We don’t have to slow down, we’re mountain bikers”.

Anyway, Fifth loop was all death-waddle, almost no running, but I had a great conversation with another entrant doing their first 100 miler; nothing like talking to somebody to help the time go by. You get to meet some really great people in these races. It was another reminder that people who do ultra-marathons are some of the nicest people on earth. I was also very moved by the unusual support we were receiving from the competitors doing the other various distance races. It seemed that us 100 mile entrants got an extra amount of love—as you’d see people going the other way on the stretch of dirt road or trail you could see them checking your bib, seeing that you were a 100 miler and saying extra-supportive words of encouragement every time. That right there is why this is such a cool sport.  

Before starting that 5th loop I put on my gaiters (which I should’ve done before the race even started). Despite this, I soon developed a hot spot on my left foot; apparently the sand was already in there and had done its damage. Unfortunately I still had about 14 miles to go before I’d be back at the camp where I could do anything about it. There was also a very real and significant fatigue that was starting to set in at this point. I might’ve been getting a little cranky? But I made a conscious effort to stay positive, and knowing I was getting close to the point where a finish would be a very real possibility kept me moving relentlessly forward. I continued to seriously think I was actually going to see this through.

My work-buddy Andy Johnston showed up to pace me for my sixth loop. Because of a slight time-crunch I wasn’t able to do much maintenance on my feet (really wanted to tape my left foot), so after a couple more ibuprofens we set out. I was able to run during a few stretches on this loop, and more importantly when I did death-waddle, I tried to waddle Quickly when possible.  Still, this lap was brutal. My feet at this point were just hamburger, and every step hurt a lot. Plus the fatigue of having been awake for well over 30 hours straight was new to me, and minor little mini-hallucinations started appearing from time to time. (Earlier in the race I could’ve sworn I saw a dead-shark on the side of the rail-trail section, but alas it was only a damaged park bench)

For a little while I had the idea of trying to break 29 hours but I just couldn’t make my body go fast enough. Besides, pushing it too hard and destroying the whole thing with a broken ankle at mile 99.5 would’ve been a fate too horrible to bear. In that situation, you don’t get hung up over a time. Just get to the house. Get the damn belt buckle.

For the last 2 miles we were back in the dark so it was a combination of night-running, having been up for 36 hours straight, having traveled 98 miles on foot, lord knows what kinds of deficits in my hydration/nutrition/electrolyte levels, junk on fire, feet on fire, and most of the worst hills (up and down) of the whole course. Good stuff. I felt amazingly miserable, impossibly painful; my pacer Andy was getting sick of hearing me whining and groaning and bitching and cursing, but he was the perfect pacer in that regard because his almost zen-like coolness was a perfect antidote to my ordeal. And that whole mantra of Relentless Forward Progress was the perfect refrain to keep me moving. Knowing I had finally reached Hell Creek Ranch was a small, minor, but poignant ecstacy. I was able to run the last 100 yards to the finish, and now I know how it feels to go 100 miles. Time 29:15.

POST RACE REFLECTIONS:

The first half of the race was fun, light-hearted, an enjoyable little running race. The second half of the race was serious, a profound lesson in numerous ways, with perhaps the greatest lesson being one of humility. I even recall saying to somebody at one point during the start of the fourth loop, “This is where the race really begins,” not realizing just how prophetic those words were. I now have a whole new respect for in-race maintenance and the importance of training. We can read a thousand race reports and hear the advice of countless people…but you just don’t get a True understanding of 100 miles until you’ve actually been there. My eyes have been opened, to say the least.

One of the key factors I tried to implement in this race was the importance of consuming food and drink and electrolytes, early and often. This is a vague guesstimation, but I’m thinking I probably had at least 20 gels, 10 bags of sport beans, a half-pound of trail mix/nuts, 3 half-sandwiches, 6 bottles of Ensure. Oh, and 3 Tums. J But it wasn’t enough. I needed more food.

I also got a better understanding of the Great Disconnect between normal people and people who do ultramarathons—it’s not just running and running and running and walk-breaks and running, then you get your medal and go home. You must, MUST have the following:  Good training, high mileage, good luck in the form of No Injuries, you Must eat when you’re supposed to, you Must eat only what you can/should eat and have the wherewithal to adjust on the fly based on how you’re feeling, you Must drink What and When you’re supposed to, and you Must figure out the way to keep your electrolyte levels where they need to be. In regards to your feet, you Must know how to recognize the peculiar challenges of each particular course and adjust accordingly, and act when you need to act, before a minor problem becomes a Situation. This is what I mean when I say that running is just a small part; it’s all the other shit that determines whether or not you’ll be successful.

Regarding feet, when I get back to normal running again, one of the experiments I want to try is to duct-tape my entire feet (including my toes) and run just to see how it feels. When I checked my feet the morning after the race, I counted NINE blisters, two of which were the size of a quarter. And at least a couple of these were created by the fact that I didn’t tape my “taped” foot correctly; shame on me. An ounce of prevention Truly is worth a pound of cure.

One last mention I’d like to make. We all have our various different motivations and inspirations that we have for doing things like this (which, really, are just completely and totally insane). But I had three very sane inspirations that I had, and there’s a common thread.

Craig Carrick is a guy I worked with at my old job. He’s a music promoter who loves music, not just any music but REAL music. The kind played with actual instruments. Well Craig has been battling multiple-myeloma (blood cancer) for a few years now. It’s expensive, exhausting, and well frankly it’s Cancer. Still throughout this ordeal he remains one of the nicest, most genuinely cool and positive people I’ve ever known. I’d spoken with him just a few days before the race; as happens every time, he deftly deflected the conversation away from himself—he wanted to hear about how I was doing. In this sadly ego-centric age we live in, it’s so incredibly important to be reminded of the importance of selflessness. Anybody who can remain that positive and sincere and more interested in others than himself, in the face of such a lousy circumstance, has my eternal respect.

Jimmy Dowsett is a kid I used to compete against when I was a high school golfer at Grand Blanc High School. He played for Davison High School. I’ve played golf against countless dudes in various such formats, but frankly I remember almost none of them. However I did remember Jimmy. When you’re a dumb high school kid and you’ve got that “us vs. them” mentality going on that’s so prevalent in sports, you tend to see everyone from opposing teams as an enemy. Jimmy was different; he was just too nice, to everybody, on every team. I was lucky enough to re-connect with him in college when we played together at Lansing CC for one of the top CC golf teams in the country; again, just a solid person, far more genuinely interested in you than in himself. Jimmy is now battling Multiple Sclerosis; this devastating disease is so random and unforgiving, I can’t even explain how unfair it is. Yet despite this, he remains one of the most positive and genuinely wonderful people I’ve ever known. For the rest of my running life, in the long races I’ll be wearing Orange in his honor, as a way to support his organization Moving Day For MS. It’s based on the idea of pro golfers wearing orange while going big on the Saturday of a particular golf tournament, trying to shoot a great score in order to put themselves in a position to win. Well, Saturday September 7^th, 2013 was my Moving Day; I went big and moved a Lot that particular day. He was there in spirit the whole way.

My third inspiration was a young lady named Regina Stoolmaker. She was a young, fresh-faced cheerleader in high school with a world of possibilities ahead of her when she headed out one night with friends and their car got hit by a drunk driver. Take a piece of paper, crumple it up as tightly as possible, and then set it on the table in front of you—that’s exactly what the car looked like afterwards. Three of her friends in the car died, and another was in the hospital. The story made national headlines because the two surviving young ladies looked so similar, and sustained such dramatic injuries, that when they were in separate hospitals in Flint and Saginaw, their own families couldn’t tell them apart and each family was watching over the wrong offspring for the several days that they were bed-ridden.

After a little over a week she came out of her coma, the confusion over who was who became cleared up and Regina began the process of rehab, which took many years. The company I work for employs her brother Rich who is an engineer and a very strong runner himself; they let him bring her in and have her set up with a desk and a computer so that she can do stuff online and have some semblance of a normal life. Due to the damage she suffered she is confined to a wheelchair (but not paralyzed), and has trouble speaking due to the closed-head injuries she suffered. However she is still not only coherent, but she is at least right up there with Craig and Jimmy as the most genuinely positive people I’ve ever known. Her story really hit home with me when she brought her scrapbook into work just a couple of weeks prior to the race, on the 17^th anniversary of her accident. I got to see the pictures, the news stories, and got a feel for everything she’d been through. It was probably the #1 key deciding factor in my doing this 100 miler and seeing it all the way through to the finish—learning about everything this sweet innocent young lady had been through, and most importantly, how genuinely positive and selfless she still is today, 17 years later. Shoot, run/walking 100 miles was nothing compared to that.

 So special thanks go out to Regina, Jimmy, Craig, for showing me that in the face of obscene adversity, we still can and should be positive and care about others. That translates seamlessly to ultras. Also want to thank the volunteers (especially the ones at Richie’s Haven at 3:30 in the morning, full of energy & positivity), Renee Tavakoli, some other person I was talking to at like 3:30am who’s name I’ve forgotten, Andy Johnston for pacing me that last lap, and Angela Justice & Randy Step for putting on such a great race.

100 miles. Now I know. Oh and my back feels great! Just wish my damn junk felt that good.

 

 

RR--Old Farts Marathon, Lowell, MI

A couple of years ago I read an article where some “purist” running writer was whining about how the sport of Trail Running was becoming too soft. The implication was that a course made up of miles of tame, gently rolling single- or two-track, while bringing more people into the sport, somehow tainted the more hardcore grit and grind that trail running was supposedly supposed to embody. When you did a trail race, you were supposed to really feel it during & afterwards, that’s it’s not for the faint of heart or the casual runner. While I don’t agree with that assertion, the guy would be happy to know his ideal of a difficult and overly-taxing experience by way of a trail race is still alive & well.

The Old Farts Marathon in Lowell, MI, at least for 2013, was a 13.1 mile loop run twice throughout Fallasburg park and trails therein. (Apparently they change the route frequently, if not every year.) The course as best as I can recall was something like this: some paved road, then single track, slanted single track (which can be surprisingly hard to run on), more pavement, more single track, a mud pit, four ridiculously steep hills to climb, a few ridiculously steep hills to go down, some squishy sandy two track (which can also be surprisingly hard to run on), a long uphill dirt road, more pavement, some single track through an open field (which presents it’s own challenge when it’s 80 & sunny and there are no trees to shade the way), more single track through the woods, one more nasty climb, a little more single track and a last bit of pavement to the finish, with about a hundred downed trees to step over along the way, countless low-hanging branches & trees to duck under along the way, maybe a dozen creek crossings along the way. In short, a mixed bag—something for everyone! Fun for the whole family!

So off we went. I tried to start nice & easy, remembering this was a “training run” for a bigger fall race yet to be determined, and enjoy the experience. After about a mile or two I got bored with that idea and decided on a different strategy—push it and maintain at least a moderate pace early on to wear myself out a little, so that later in the race I could work on my “tired running”, which would toughen me up, make me a stronger runner, get me used to running tired, push my endocrine system, and other half-baked notions. I didn’t consider the fact that the course itself would wear me out all by itself, probably because I was running the course for the first time and didn’t know what to expect.

The “highlight” of the race was about miles 3 through 6 (and then 16 through 19) where the trees, the mud and the hills were at their worst. I’m thinking it was by design that so many of those downed trees are within this section. Every time you have to slow down to step over a log, and every time you have to duck under a low-hanging branch or slanted tree, you’re engaging your core, hips, and legs in ways that you normally wouldn’t if all you’re doing is running along without ever stopping. Multiply that by dozens and dozens of instances and you end up with a far greater workout than you’d have on open, clear, 100% runnable trails.

They sent out the full and half marathon runners together. Because of this there were numerous instances early on where people got bunched together & congested at tricky spots. (This wasn’t an issue on the second lap where I only saw 3 people the entire way) At about mile 5 or 6 during a couple of those insane hill climbs I got frustrated with the congestion and instead of climb/walking in step behind everyone else in front of me, I kind of ran-climbed and passed about two dozen people all at once. When I reached the top of especially that second climb I was in full-blown oxygen debt but at least I was ahead of that cluster and had more free & easy sailing the rest of the loop.

There were a lot of great views, including one where we were WAY high up and caught a brief view of Flat River far below and miles of countryside beyond that. That view really spoke to just how much climbing there was, seeing as how just an hour earlier we were down there right alongside that same river.

Much of the single track was a section of the North Country Trail with the familiar blue squares spray-painted on trees. The course even had a dead wild turkey carcass right smack dab in the middle of one stretch of trail, being busily picked at by scores of bugs and bees. Because after all, really, what’s a trail race without something dead along the way?

You know you’re doing a hard trail marathon when you bonk at about mile 15 (instead of 18-20 like with a ‘normal’ marathon). Despite this I continued going ‘fast’ at least too fast for me. My competitive nature was kicking in as I contemplated possibly finishing in the top 5 for the Masters division and getting an award. Another goal was to try to set a new Trail Marathon PR of under 5:20.

This would prove difficult because all of those climbs were far more difficult during the second go ‘round, as were the step-overs, the duck-unders and the jump-acrosses. But that was good, I needed a good hard ordeal to get me in shape, that’s what ‘training runs’ are all about, right?

I missed a couple of early hydration and nutrition opportunities (because I was distracted by the terrain and the desire to get past those groups of other runners) and tried to make up for it later, resulting in some upset-belly issues during that second loop. I tried diluting the yuck in my gut with water, but that wasn’t working. I discovered after the race that I had salt all over my neck so I was “salty-sweating”. Despite all of this I had pretty good energy through the whole race and was able to finish strong.

Between the too-fast pace, the trees/logs, the hills and everything else, this race just completely and totally kicked my ass. I think it kicked everyone’s ass. Finishers of the full marathon were hobbling around like crippled zombies, a visibly haunted look on their/our faces. It wasn’t just a leg fatigue but a whole body fatigue. All the twisting & contorting from navigating the branches & downed trees/logs took a significant added toll. As a cruel final twist, the river where we could do a post-race leg-soak was way down a hill, and then you had to climb back up that hill to get back to the parking lot.

I highly recommend this race to anybody interested in a tough, unapologetic trail experience that will make other courses look at least somewhat easier by comparison, even if those other courses are harder. (This last sentence does make sense, I think) The whole course was well-marked and the volunteers were fantastic, including one lady who was jumping from station to station keeping everything stocked. I just kept seeing her, thought I was having déjà vu.  

Going “fast” was all for naught as I wasn’t even close to placing in the Masters division. I did finish 19^th overall out of 60, and set a Trail Marathon PR of 5:14 on a course that was much harder and slower than the course I set my previous PR on. Despite the grind, I recovered to the point where I could run the day after. (I didn’t, but I could’ve) The body’s ability to recover is amazing. I also re-learned that running isn’t nearly as fun when I’m trying to push the pace, and that I need to meet my nutrition & hydration goals right from the start or it will come back to bite me later. All in all there were a lot of positives—a good learning experience, a good race, a good final training run before Run Woodstock September 8^th. Now I just need to make The Decision—100k, or 100M in three weeks? To be determined…

RR---Dirty Burg 50k, Cannonsburg Ski Resort, Belmont, MI

There was a while when I wasn’t sure if I would ever write one of these again. Last year (2012) was a disaster from a running standpoint—yearlong injury, couple of really disappointing “goal” races, and my inspiration for taking up running in the first place (my beloved dog Leroy) had to be put down. All in all, just a bad year. Even the Mayan Armageddon was a big fail. 2013 couldn’t start soon enough.

Thinking that my ultra-running days might be behind me, I’d spent all winter working on triathlon training. I was hoping perhaps that might be the next phase of my little “insane-training-health” game...and then that was derailed by rotator cuff issues from all of the swimming I’d been doing. In the meantime, none of the small amount of running that I was doing felt even remotely enjoyable; only 10 miles a week and not one of them was good. This was ‘shaping up’ to be another bad year for running (yes, I just went there); clearly I needed a fresh new approach.

On a whim I started doing some “power walks” on a treadmill set to maximum incline, thinking that if I ever got back into running more seriously, that might help. It’s a lot harder than it sounds and gave me some solid early-season workouts. After doing this for a few weeks, I decided just for the heck of it to start doing a few trail runs after work at Holly Recreation Area. I always enjoyed trail running, had gotten away from it a bit, and figured that maybe sticking mainly to trails would help eliminate some of the aches, pains and problems I’d been dealing with recently (especially my left Achilles, right hamstring, and weird foot problem that nagged me most of last year). These proved surprisingly enjoyable, despite some particularly voracious bugs driving me half-mad along the way. So a few trail runs turned into more, more turned into a couple of solid 10 mile trail races (one on an easy course, the other on a Hard course), and all of a sudden I started getting ambitious about maybe getting back into the Ultra game. I saw a couple of options but not many that fit the prerequisites of Proximity and Timing (and wasn’t already sold out), so I settled on signing up for the Dirty Burg 50k at the Cannonsburg Ski Resort in Belmont, MI.

The course consisted of about 5.5 miles of significantly rolling/hilly single-track mountain bike trails, followed by about a .75 mile loop that went all the way to the top, and then back down to the bottom, of the ski hill. So, a 10k course run 5 times. The idea of running up and down a ski mountain 5 times during a 50k was intimidating as hell so I tried to just not think about it in the days leading up to the race. I also noticed the times from last year looked awfully fast; I had a serious concern about a DFL (dead-friggin’ last) placing, but then maybe that was just what I needed. A good dose of humility never hurt anyone, right?

One of the numerous mistakes I made leading up to this race was, I didn’t do any long runs that were long enough. Doing an ultra without at least one 20 miler in training is just a bad idea. The best I did was a back-to-back-to-back, consisting of a 14 miler followed by a 12 followed by a 10; the first two were on easy segments of the North Country Trail near Baldwin, MI, the third on dirt roads near a cabin I was staying at. That third run trashed my Achilles (on roads; coincidence?) and I had concerns that I might’ve just destroyed my season. Fortunately it was completely better after a week off. In any event, in hindsight I’m thinking that the 2^nd and/or 3^rd of that back-to-back-to-back helped push my thyroids or endocrine system or whatever the hell it is just enough so that I’d be able to handle a long race without completely falling apart. I’d read a race report of a guy that was in this same race last year who didn’t do “long” runs either…but he’d been averaging 100 miles a week so he didn’t need long runs. I’d been up around 30-40 a week, which isn’t nearly the same but still a decent weekly mileage for me. I’m also thinking that pushing it hard on those trail races on subsequent weekends also helped, maybe, mainly from a strength standpoint, and toughening up my feet, joints, etc. Or, it was simply those numerous after-work trail runs, adding a little more each time, slowly and steadily building me up. All of the above.

In any event, this day should’ve been a train wreck. My training was insufficient to say the least; the night before I had several cocktails, then woke up at midnight and couldn’t sleep for the next two hours; then I got up at 4am, on the road by 4:15 feeling rough to say the least from sleep deprivation and being still a little drunk maybe(?);  also I had some significant lower G.I. issues that I was sure would continue to plague me during the race; I was Very dehydrated (see above regarding cocktails); it was turning out to be a warm day with lots of sun; and that ski-hill, at least from the bottom, looked really fucking high.

So I chugged a small bottle of Heed (it’s like Gatorade for those non-runners who are actually reading this and don’t know, just a different brand of electrolytes in drink form), got all of my gear together, lined up at the very back of the pack and off we went. Just keeping up with the back-of-the-packers had me going out way too fast, but I figured I could bank a little bit of time while it was still cool and be ok. Plus I knew that ski hill would slow me down, so I figured I should use some speed on the ‘flat’ part. Due to the twisty-turny nature of the trails my Garmin quickly proved to be useless for tracking distance, so I just used it for time and tried to keep track of my progress that way.

I finished my first loop in 1:08 which was way too fast (I was thinking I should go no faster than 1:15 for my fast loops), but I felt pretty good so I wasn’t too concerned. The single track was almost all hilly but those hills were generally small and more of a nuisance than a menace. My first trip up the mountain wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be; it was the trip down that I found to be more taxing because of the breaking motion that you have to use the entire way down. Anyway, so far so good.

 For my second loop I pushed it more than I should have but I was really having a blast, bombing the downhills, flying around the tight curves and just enjoying the day…remembering the sage advice of the Godfather of running Dr. George Sheehan, who always professed that running is Play and should always be approached as such. I also finished that second loop in about 1:08 so at that point I knew I had to slow it down and get more realistic. Play time was over.

Third loop I made it a point to take it easy, just glide through it, enjoy the day, remember my fueling and get through the halfway point. There were no gels at the aid stations which bothered me a little, but I tried to make up for it with plenty of Gatorade at the two aid stations and also my secret weapon of choice, Orange wedges. And of course lots of water. (see above regarding dehydration)  Unfortunately I took it a little too easy, that loop was around 1:20, but I needed to because things were just starting to come unraveled a bit.

On my fourth loop the wheels were coming off in earnest, but I just kept moving, kept my aid station visits short, walked every uphill and no longer bombed along any of the downhills or flats. Patience is an important part of any long race; you’re just not done until you’re done, so you might as well enjoy the journey and the opportunity. So I continued distracting myself with reminders of how lucky I was to be out there on this day, healthy (if hungover) and happy. I also thought about a couple of buddies of mine who both have incurable, terminal diseases, and how happy & positive they are every single time I see or talk to them. And I thought about my dog, who I had to put down 1 year ago almost to the day, and how he inspired me to get out there every day to walk him, and then to get healthier by breaking my 21 year smoking addiction, and then to get healthier still by taking up running. None of this would’ve been possible without Leroy. I may be dead by now if it wasn’t for him. God I miss that dog.

At the end of that fourth loop when I was climbing the mountain, the sun was beating down on my baseball hat and it was well up into the 80’s. I was roasting dangerously. As soon as I got down I had the aid station hook me up with some ice in my water bottle, and that ice-cold water completely turned me around. It’s amazing how unappealing warm water can be when it’s hot out and you’re literally dying of heat-exhaustion and dehydration.

I soon noticed on my fifth loop that I felt great and still had a lot left in the tank. While I originally thought I’d be in ‘Death March’ mode by then, it was genuinely surprising how good I felt, and I ran much of it (just the flats & downhills, none of the ups, but still). As a result my 5^th loop was much faster than my 4^th. When I started it I had hopes of possibly finishing in 6:30, but enjoyable running can sometimes be faster running and I finished in 6:20.

Despite all of the bad stuff happening before I took my first step, it was one of my best ultras to date and sets me up nicely for a fall biggie (100k? or 24 hour?).

Random Observations.

This was my first ultra in Hoka’s. I love those shoes, and if I had any money I would invest everything I have because those things are the future of running. Now I just need to figure out how to make gaiters work with them.

If you don’t pee even once during a 6.5 hour run, and only barely at that when you’re done, despite having consumed nearly 200 ounces of fluids during that time, you might be dehydrated.

Specificity of training (running trails in preparation for trail races) is vital.

Running almost exclusively on trails is great for avoiding injuries.

The pre-season treadmill uphill power-hiking helped strengthen my calves, hips, and cardio once I did finally start trail running in earnest. Great low-impact off-season training tool.

I’m liking Injinji toe socks more & more.

Weekly Mileage (not necessarily including overly-long distance runs) is simply a must; no shortcuts.

My Achilles started going significantly south on my by the 3^rd and especially the 4^th loop. I stopped to stretch my calf at one point, which only worked for about a minute or two…then I stopped to stretch again, which made all the difference and I didn’t have a problem the rest of the way. Sometimes a 2^nd stretch can make all the difference.

Don’t drink whiskey & cokes the night before a hot summer 50k that you’re not properly trained for.

Race Report--St. Pats "Marathon-Plus"

(...and this one took place on 10/20/2012)


Lead-Up:

This is now the second "long race" this year that I've decided to do with not anywhere near enough training. I really, really hope that I a) learned my lesson today and b) will not be making this mistake again. But since I'm such an idiot, I'll probably make this mistake again. My training consisted of about 1 month of light 15-20 mile weeks with long runs of, oh I don't know, maybe 8-10 milers? I wasn't even trained for a 5k, let alone a 6 hour trail ultra. My thinking was that all of the elliptical, light jogging and moderate swimming (especially kickboarding) I'd been doing at the health club over the past year got me in sneaky good shape so that I could make up for the light training buildup and be able to pull this thing off. Rule #1 of running training is Specificity: you need your training to mimic the event you're training for. The other Rule #1 is, don't go into a serious race like that undertrained.

The race was in St. Pats park in Northern Indiana on the Michigan / Indiana border, just a little north of Notre Dame / South Bend. The main event is a 24 hour loop race on a 3 mile trail course, and my minor little claim to fame is that I think I'm the only person to have at least started all three events in the short 3 year history of this very, very cool event. (Started, not necessarily finished) Once again the course was fantastic, the volunteers were spectacular and the aid/support was spot on. This race continues to really impress me; the directors are an absolute credit to the sport of ultra-running.

Getting There:

Lost, part 1: Since the race was taking place on the weekend of a Notre Dame home football game, every hotel in town shamelessly price-gouges the hell out of everyone who even thinks about getting a room in/around the South Bend area. It makes me sick. So to defy those scumbag hotel directors I decided that I would get a room in Benton Harbor, MI, just a short 30 miles away from the race site. So Friday afternoon I'm driving west on I-94 and come to a massive traffic jam; apparently the highway is closed ahead because of a 12 car pileup. So, I get off 94 and take a long, convoluted "emergency route" for at least 45 minutes which probably only gets me about 7 or 8 miles up the road, at which point I get back on and finally make it over to Benton Harbor. My instructions told me to get off the highway at exit 33, but it turns out the correct answer should've been exit 29. As a result I drove all through downtown Benton Harbor and all the way to St. Johns, until finally backtracking, finding the right road, driving through a long stretch of dicey area (who knew a town with a name like Benton Harbor would have a ghetto?) and finally arrived at my motel. I think I'm finally going to get one of those GPS things for my car. The motel room was a almost comically bad; no heat, no carpet(!), it smelled, but I was too tired to care anymore so I got to bed somewhat quickly, slept but woke about 3 or 4 times (as is always the case the night before a big race) and headed out the next morning with a 2 hour cushion for a 30 mile drive.

Lost, part 2: My instructions told me to hang a left on Meadowbrook Road and take it over to 31 south. So I did, and I drove, and drove, 10 miles, 20 miles, through pouring rain, until I ended up on a dirt road that led straight to hell before turning around & backtracking. I found 140 South, figured anything heading South would be good so I took it. More countryside BFE, ended up in Niles, MI, pulled over a couple times to study my road atlas, finally found a way over to 31, took that to the turnpike and then by the grace of God I got off at the correct exit. Drove north on Business 31, hung a left at Auten Rd., hung a right too early and missed the entrance, backtracked again and found the entrance, flew up the road and got there with 30 minutes to spare before Race time. No problem. I am Totally, DEFINITELY getting a GPS thing for my car. Apparently I'm even more of an idiot than I originally thought.

Race:

It was cloudy, damp and cool. Rained on & off all day the two days prior, I thought the course would be a swamp but turns out it was very runnable, only a couple of small puddles. And the scenery was absolutely beautiful; the trees were at the tail end of peak colors, with exploding yellows practically making the day brighter all by themselves. I saw several photographers throughout the park taking advantage of the scenery. Anyway, it's a 3 mile loop, so that's kind of the gauge you use to track your progress. My sole mission was to hit 9 loops which would give me 27 miles. Wanted at least a marathon. I went out too fast, ran the entire first two loops without any walk breaks, and got through them in just over an hour which banked plenty of time for later, which I would need. The other Rule #1 of ultras or just plain old marathons is never, Never go out too fast and try to bank time. It will always bite you in the ass guaranteed.

So hour 1 was pretty solid; hour 2 things started going south, namely with my left achilles, left knee, left IT band, right foot, right hamstring, and one of my hip flexors, I think my left one. I started doing a lot of Gallowalking, which helped and I was still moving pretty well. By the time I hit 3:00 on my watch I was in bad shape, doing mostly walking and not particularly enjoying that walking. Plus my stomach was at least making suggestions to my brain that maybe barfing might need to at least be part of the conversation. The good news was that my legs still seemed to have a lot of life, and I figured I'd better walk fast, which I was able to do. As I approached 4:00 on my watch my legs were downright Screaming at me; they had no more life in them, they were miserable, I was miserable, everything was miserable. I actually groaned audibly a few times, when nobody was around of course.

This race is a fund-raiser for a gal named Faye who developed ALS (Lou Gherig's disease) 10 years ago and at this point is only able to move one finger, which she uses to communicate to the outside world. Otherwise her entire body is completely unusable. Whenever my inner voice would get especially whiny & bitchy I would think about Faye and grudgingly shut that inner voice down & keep moving. Somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 on my watch I started to feel a little better; maybe my body finally switched from calorie-burn to fat-burn? I really don't know what happened, but after completing my 8th lap (24 miles) at 5:08 and not being sure if I could finish the 9th lap by the 6 hour mark (if I didn't, that last lap wouldn't even count), I decided to head out anyways because come hell or high water, I was going to get 27 miles in, even if the official results would only indicate 24. So about 1/2 a mile into that 9th lap, all the pain, agony and suffering almost magically disappeared from my legs and I was able to start doing a significant amount of running again. Still had ITB issues but was able to run a good bit. I got through my 9th lap in only 37 minutes which meant I had time to squeak out a few 1/4 mile mini-loops to fill out the full 6 hours. Final tally was 27 and 3/4 miles, good for third place in the 6 hour race. (3rd out of 4)

Hindsight:

The thing that made this a really weird race was that I literally "bonked" for at least 2 hours (which is way too long for a bonk), but then I got a second wind almost out of nowhere and was able to start running again after I thought for sure my legs were completely 100% fried. The other thing was that I hit my hydration and fueling goals pretty much right on the nose, but that didn't seem to do a bit of good--I felt great, then I felt like dog hurl, then I felt great again almost regardless of my hydration & fueling. I don't know if this day will "inspire" me to start running more & getting back into better shape & all that other stuff. Running just isn't important to me like it used to be... However I did see a lot of very positive, good things and met a lot of wonderful people, and it reminded me of why I developed such a fondness for going-long in the first place, which makes me think that I should get back into the whole running thing more seriously again. It's a really good world to be a part of. We'll see. Maybe the biggest surprise of the whole event is that I didn't get lost on the race course like I did on the way to it and ended up running into Missouri or Kentucky. I'm left with a question on my mind: is 27.75 miles a marathon, or an ultra? It's in that weird in-between dead zone...

Marathon #3 -- Carrollton

(This race took place on 11/12/11)



I was watching Family Guy on a Friday night, saw a couple of TV commercials for “Saginaw’s only marathon”, and decided to show up & toe the line two days later on a cold, sunny Sunday morning for my third marathon (and first spur-of-the-moment marathon). There was a steady but light wind that would grow throughout the day to become downright nasty. Only about 50 of us doing the full marathon, probably 70-100 doing the half marathon.
It was about an 8.8 mile loop through a rather bleak combination of industrial wasteland and heartland Midwest that we’d do three times. We went past some homes, through a wooded area, past more homes, through a warehouse district, and along some farmland, before finishing up next to more homes. The most drastic course feature was encountered when we ran under the Zilwaukee Bridge twice each loop. The course was definitely flat and being marketed as a good course to BQ on. If they wanted to make it a cool course, they would have us running ON the Zilwaukee Bridge once or twice, but then it wouldn’t be a BQ-type of course.
Anyway, off we started and after about ¼ mile I was already about 5th from last place. I thought I was going along at a decent clip (10 minute miles is a decent clip for me for the marathon distance). I seem to start out near last place in almost every race. So I settled in, trying to come up with a good goal for the race. I rationalized that any goal would be extra-conservative, since I’d done a 100k only three weeks prior and wasn’t sure how I’d hold up. When I awoke that morning, the goal was to break 5:30. When I got to the starting line, the goal was to break 5:00. A mile in I started thinking about sub-4:30, which would be close to a PR for me (which some days I think is pitiful, until I remember the whole 21-year-smoker thing in my history), but at about that same time I came up with another, even better goal—try to run the entire marathon, with no walk breaks. Every race I’ve done from marathon up to 100k has had numerous walk breaks throughout, and I remember reading in the past about how some “purists” (a.k.a. running snobs) felt that people aren’t really ‘marathoners’ unless they run the whole thing. I’ve always wanted to run an entire one just to see if I could, and this appeared to be as good an opportunity as any. The running season was drawing to a close so I wasn’t too worried about lingering effects, the weather was decent (but cold and windy), and the legs felt solid.
So, I zoned out & ran, trying to ignore the uninspired, dreary, tepid, sterile scenery and the wind that we spent a great deal of time running right into the teeth of. From about the halfway point through to the end I started passing run-walkers one at a time; my IT bands started going south around mile 23; left knee started getting real bad with a mile to go but I made it to the finish in I think 4:39 without any noticeable damage (later discovered a blister on a pinky toe, my first toe blister from running). I think I finished middle of the pack. Also had negative splits (2:20, 2:19), which was good I guess. For three days afterward I had a nagging, persistent cough that I’m blaming on the car exhaust from going under the Bridge, and/or from the exhaust of probably 3 dozen rumbling semi trucks going by at various points throughout the race. Plus there was harvesting going on in one of the fields, might’ve contributed as well. Or maybe it’s just bad air in Saginaw, made worse by those unceasing winds.
Couple of nice things about marathons—you don’t have to worry nearly as much about nutrition/hydration, you’re done and headed home in only ½ a day, and though you’re beat up from the effort you’re not completely chewed up & destroyed like run-over Spam the way you are with Ultras. Despite the wind, the landscape & the IT Bands, I really, really enjoyed this race and am thinking about doing many more marathons in the future. I found out that this race qualified me to become a Marathon Maniac (since I’d done 3 races of marathon distance or longer within a 90 day period), so of course three days after the race I joined. Perhaps this will inspire me to do more 26.2’s, maybe even work on getting my PR down to around 4:00 or below.
Biggest Drawback—got beat by a 71 year old! *@$@&%^ Maybe my goal should be to never get beaten by somebody in their 70’s/80’s ever again.