Back to School.....
Ya know, I thought I had this running thing figured out. Manage the 4 F's (Fluids, Food, Friction and Fatigue) and all should be good. Unfortunately, 100's are about more than this. 100's are about problem solving, 100's are about convincing yourself to keep moving when every brain cell is telling you to stop. 100's are about pushing through heat, cold, nausea, pain in places you didn't know you had places, doubt, fear, frustration, etc., etc., etc.... So with that, we head to Ohio.
The Race:
The Burning River 100 winds through north central Ohio from just outside Cleveland to just outside Akron. Much of the course follows the Cuyahoga River and has parts on the Buckeye Trail. The Buckeye Trail, apparently, is a 1400 mile long trail system the winds in, around and through Ohio. Best guess is that the course was about 90 miles of trails (single track, double track) and about 10 miles of Road and Towpath. However, at no time did we run DOWN a road or towpath. Always up. The trails were more technical than I was expecting but with a few exceptions, still pretty runnable. The hills were another matter. I would have to compare most of the hills to those at Trexler Nature Preserve; short, sharp and numerous. They probably weren't quite as steep as the T-Rex trails but most were longer. This really doesn't suit my running preference. As I've gotten older and yes, heavier, I've gotten much better at the long medium gradient hills. I've also gotten worse at the short steep hills. There were a couple longer ones but not as many as I would have liked. Also, they probably had 3-4 inches of rain in the days leading up to the race and more throughout the day of the race. It pretty much made for wet feet and wet trails all day long. This certainly wouldn't help matters. Oh well, generally I like sloppy trails so it would be fine.
This was easily the best organized and supported race I've ever seen. An obscene number of volunteers all bending over backwards for hours to make sure all the runners had to do was run. There were a few hiccups (Ramen Noodle Soup should not take 15 minutes to make, just saying...), but all in all, the support was unbelievable.
The Plan:
Also with me was my Wife, Lora and my Dad. They were amazing all day....and night.....and day. We had talked about a general strategy of splitting the race into 25 mile sections with target times for each section. As for nutrition, I was going to go on feel. Eat when I was hungry, drink when I was thirsty and adjust as I felt necessary. This was easily my biggest mistake of the race. My lack of any solid nutrition plan cost me hours, not minutes, and almost cost me finishing all together.
As far as clothing went, I tried to wear as little as necessary. I ran with no shirt for most of the race, added an ice bandana for the heat of the day, and had to switch to longer sleeves in the early morning. While I brought extra socks and shoes along, I never really planned on changing them. Since I started adding barefoot activities to my exercising a couple of years ago, blisters haven't been a huge issue for me. I decided on Inov-8 F-Lite 230's for a little more cushioning than my 195's but still pretty minimal to keep my knees happy.
Here we go….
5:00 AM, Saturday July 28th:
300+ runners and their headlamps head out for a 10K loop in the woods around Squire's Castle, the starting point of the race. After that, it's a point to point race to Cuyahoga Falls. As I started, I was taking stock. How did everything feel, did I have everything I needed, why is that girl wearing a Super Woman outfit? Everyone was chatty, upbeat and generally relieved that the race had finally started. Took a little over an hour for the loop, longer than planned, but not unexpected given the sheer number of people on relatively narrow trails. A Quick stop with the crew, off with the shirt, and I'm off. Things feel great.
The next 30 miles or so were uneventful. A few rest stops, some roads, some trails, some conversation. Everything was going fine and then…CRAMP! Damn that hurts. Now, anyone who has ever run long distances with me knows I could fill a salt shaker with the dried salt on my hats. Earlier this year I had switched from Gatorade to ZYM electrolyte tabs. Since that time, I've had no cramping issues so I was not taking any extra salt tabs up to this point. One problem, this dumbass was drinking Zym. I was carrying Lime Juice with Chia Seeds for a little more energy and it just tasted better. I figured as long as I ate some banana at each aid station, it wouldn't matter. Oops. So now, even switching back to Zym isn't going to get me caught up. I started taking a couple Endurolyte capsules at each aid station to try and get caught up. Unfortunately, even though it wasn't remarkably hot, it was very humid under the canopy of trees on the trails, so I was sweating a lot. I really didn't get on top of it until mile 65 or so. Didn't matter, I was about to have other problems.
Mile 40.7: Station Road Bridge
The last 5 miles have not been good. I'm tired, my legs hurt, everything is tight. I'm running at a good clip but definitely in control so what the hell is going on. Well, if my brain would have been working a little better, I would have realized that the 200-300 calories I needed every hour during this race was really in the 150-200 range thanks to my stupid Zym decision. So, I've been becoming more and more calorie deficient as the race went on. At mile 40, I wanted to quit. I laid on the ground, had my Dad stretch me out a bit and thought more than a few time "60 more F'in miles???" Luckily, because I was there for an extended amount of time a taking in calories almost the whole time, my body got a little bit of a calorie boost. This wouldn't kick in for a few miles however and I almost turned around about 500 feet out of the aid station to DNF.
This moment right here is why many of us run ultras. You experience lows that are tough to duplicate in real life without tragedy. This was one of them. There was no way I could go another 0.6 miles, much less 60 more. But if I could, I would learn what I was made of. So I made it to the road crossing. Then down the path, then to the trail and before I knew it, I was back up and running, slowly. About 20 minutes after the aid station I got a boost of energy (second wind, if you will) and felt better, for about 5 miles. But, the sequence of events clued me in to what was going on and I devised a plan to deal with it. Even though it would cost me time, I would sit down at each aid station, down ginger ale, Endurolyte caps and calories. Instead of 25 mile sections, I reduced the race to the next aid station. That was my only goal. This got me through the next 25 miles.
Mile 65.7: Happy Days
Happy Days Aid Station is where I knew Lora would join me for the next 5.7 miles on the trail. I was really looking forward to this. The race had really thinned out around mile 20, the sun was going down and I knew it would be me and my 8 foot cocoon of light on the dark trails for the next 30 or so miles. This was also where I would down my first Red Bull. Not exactly refreshing, but I figured I would need the caffeine as I had been running for 15 hours straight and still had 8-10 to go. A slice of Pizza, some more salt caps and off we went.
Lora ran great (despite almost quitting about 100 yards into the trail when we had to go through a somewhat claustrophobic tunnel), and was actually starting to feel better. These miles flew by and after another rest and refuel, I was off into the night for the last 30 miles.
Miles 70-93: The beginning of the end
At mile 70 I was tired, my feet hurt and I was not looking forward to 8-10 hours of dark trails. However, I was still in reasonably good spirits. I got some broth and noodles in me, geared up with my light pack and headed out. I started feeling better and miles 70-85 felt pretty good. I even passed a few people and had to get a chuckle when a pacer of a runner in front of me seemed to literally trip over my light as I came up on them. He was alright and I was able to get some comic relief out of it. All was good until mile 82 or so. This was just after the covered bridge rest stop and even though I was clued in by a volunteer, I was surprised at how vicious the next 4 miles were. The three hardest climbs on the course can in these 4 miles. These would have been tough at mile 2, but mile 82, in the dark, made them even tougher. Even though I managed them pretty well, it took a lot calories, which, as it turned out, where about the last of the calories I had. Miles 85-93 got progressively worse and by the time I got the the 93 mile aid station, I knew I was in trouble. I just didn't know how much.
Miles 93-96: My "Oh Shit!" Moment
After a desperation Red Bull and eating whatever I could keep down (which wasn't much at this point), I headed out a what was supposed to be an easy 3 mile stretch on a towpath. Well, 2 out of three aint bad I guess. It was 3 miles and it was definitely a towpath. Easy? Yeah, not so much. I had already had the realization that I wasn't going to reach my goal of 24 hours, so that was a mental blow, although I figured at my current pace, I would only miss it by about 10 minutes so it didn't bother me that much. Of much more concern was my complete inability to put 1 foot in front of the other for more than 10-15 strides at a time, on a relatively flat towpath. Something was very wrong. I stopped, leaned on a rail, tried to stretch a bit, and then 15 steps later, had to stop again. While this got a bit better towards the end of the towpath, I was completely spent. That's it, I quit. I'm not having any fun, I can't move and 4.8 miles to go might as well been 480. It wasn't happening. Hey, 96 miles is a pretty good day…
Mile 96 Aid Station: Super Lora to the rescue
I sat down in the chair and almost immediately started to shake. I was freezing. My body didn't have enough calories to generate any heat and it was using everything it had left to shiver. I covered up a bit, took off the wet shirt and replaced it with a dry long sleeve shirt. Ahh, that feels good. Now which way is the truck? 10 minutes to the hotel and I can be in bed and asleep in 30 minutes. No worries. Oh that's right, I came here to finish. This is where you have to dig deep, start moving and get it done. Yeah, I don't think so.
That's when my wife came to the rescue. She offered to "pace" me the last 4.8 miles. Now, my wife loves her sleep. So, even though she had been up for 26 hours at this point and ran 6 dark trail miles with me earlier, she was ready to get this thing done. How could I possibly quit. So, I got on my feet…..
Miles 96-100.9: Trail of Tears
If I had to guess, we stopped no less than 20 times during this last stretch. I physically couldn't move. When I stopped, I fell asleep before my ass hit whatever it was I was trying to sit down on. As the sun started to come up, I thought maybe that would get my spirits up. Nope, it just let me look up ahead and see how far I had to go. I would stop, put my hands on my knees and just whimper. Why did I leave the aid station? I literally can't quit here, we're in the middle of the woods. I was trapped. But Lora would nudge, prod and cajole me to the next landmark, and the next. Trail became rail-trail, rail-trail became sidewalk, sidewalk became road. It was about this time my Dad showed up to walk the last mile with us. He had walked from the finish line and for whatever reason, when I asked him how far, he said he had walked 30 minutes to get to us. Now, my Dad is a great guy, but this is where he needed to lie to his son! "Just up the road", "a few more blocks", anything but how long I actually had to go. Hands on knees, whimper, whimper, whimper. Luckily, we had an uphill ahead of us and for whatever reason, I could still climb a bit. Flats and Downhills were impossible, but I still had some climbing legs left. So, we climbed, we walked, I bitched and moaned some more, but eventually, we saw the finish line, or, more specifically, I saw the concrete steps beyond the finish line that I would be passing out on. I crossed the finish line in 25 hours and 11 minutes, got a buckle from the RD who I'm sure had something congratulatory to say. I may have grunted, maybe whimpered again, I don't remember. What I do remember is the joy of the concrete steps. Concrete never felt so good……
Post Mortem:
I was back to the hotel (which, thankfully, was at the finish line), showered (OUCH!, where's the Gold Bond!), and in bed by 6:00. I pretty much laid in bed all day on Sunday. Around noon I had the greatest tasting pizza in the history of the universe and it was Pizza, Olympics and Naps the rest of the day. My feet were beat up, but more swollen than blistered. What blisters I did have turned out to be rather minor. Quads felt fine, Hamstrings were trashed but my calves felt like I never even ran. The Gold Bond took care of the chafing quite effectively and 3 days later as I write this, I'm planning on a light run tomorrow.
I have mixed feelings about the experience. I'm happy about finishing and getting all those wonderful lessons tough situations like this tend to teach. However, I'm disappointed in myself for the silly mistakes I made. For the most part, I should have known better. Because of this, even though I posted "Never Again" shortly after the race, I'm already working on how to do the next one better. When my electrolytes were balanced and I was fueled up, I felt fine and ran fine, even at mile 85. Unfortunately, the rest of the time was so bad that it probably cost me several hours. So, I will take some time to relax, get ready for some shorter events I have planned this year and then think about another 100 miler next year. Who knows, maybe even go back to Burning River for another shot.
