ultrarunning

Race Report: Voyageur 50 2017 (Volunteering)

This was my second year volunteering at the Forbay Lake aid station for Voyageur. It was wildly different than last year for about a zillion reasons, including:

  1. I have actually completed marathons and ultras
  2. I ran the Curnow Marathon (the companion race to Voyageur) this year instead of DNSing
  3. I volunteered with friends, instead of strangers. It just so happens that last year’s strangers are this year’s friends

I showed up at the aid station around 12:40, which was stupid, because it meant I missed the lead runners. In a Darth Vader-Obi-Wan Kenobi moment, it turned out the winner of this year’s race was coached by the runner-up. (I am incredibly jealous – the winner has only been running for 6 years, and went from a 6 hour first marathon to BQs and a 6:56 trail 50 miler. Why can’t I be him?) I didn’t miss too many runners, but I wish I’d calculated better and had arrived at the same time as last year (around 11:45, per my report). I did get to see the first woman come through, on her way to improving the course record by 10 minutes!

We had a huge group of volunteers this year. My friends are part of the Duluth/Superior chapter of Moms Run This Town/She Runs This Town (MRTT/SRTT), and the trail running bug is rampant among those ladies. Several of them were fulfilling their obligation from Curnow ($10 entry fee for Voyageur volunteers), but others were doing it for fun or to learn more about trail/ultrarunning. We had music, vuvuzelas, a Wonder Woman/red, white, and blue theme, and lots of friendly, kind, upbeat faces ready to help with whatever came along. In other words, the perfect aid station.

One of the first people to come into the aid station after I arrived was a shirtless guy with a man bun who announced he was dropping. So that was a bad sign, although he turned out to be our only drop, and he was having serious dehydration issues. Despite the encouragement of a masters runner/total badazz, he did the smart thing and stopped. Another early arrival to our aid station was Doug, 51 year old winner of Zumbro 100 and FANS 24 hour, and Defeat the Stigma superambassador.

Once the leaders came through, most of the rest of the day was spent refilling all manner of water containers (a zillion types of bottles, those horrible prophylactic-esque soft flasks, and several configurations of hydration bladders), coaxing and cajoling boiling hot runners into eating something, pushing salt (not in tablets! just eat it with a potato or watermelon! it works faster! said our resident nutritionist), helping runners dump suspicious-looking white powder from plastic baggies into water bottles, resurrecting people from the dead, reassuring runners that “the next section is easy” and trying to force them out of the aid station while a cloud covered the sun (since the first half mile or so by the river is exposed), and praying that no one throws up 1. in the ice cooler 2. on the food table or 3. all over me.

Truly a lot of the day is a blur. I encourage all ultrarunners (and marathon runners, or really any runners) to volunteer at aid stations, for multiple reasons.

  1. It provides a greater understanding for all the work that goes into the 30 seconds – 2 minutes you’re there (for those folks whose races always go well, ha). Volunteers are always, always, always doing the very best that they can do serve runners as efficiently as possible. It might not seem that way if your water bottle isn’t filled the very instant you walk in, but it’s really not taking as long as it seems. I know when you’re hot and thirsty, it might feel like forever, though. There’s just so. much. going. on.
  2. It gives an opportunity to see what other runners and crew do, or to see how other people use their gear. I learned that tying a knot in one end of a buff is a great way to make a little ice beanie.
  3. It’s a chance to pay forward the amazing treatment you’ve gotten from an aid station volunteer in the past. If anyone’s ever talked you out of dropping, cooled you down, calmed you down, anticipated needs you didn’t even know you had, taken your food garbage in their hands without question, or had to put up with the stench of your sweat while you sat in their personal lawn chair, aid station volunteering is the chance to give a fellow runner that same experience. And even if you’ve never had any of the above happen (liar!), trust me, the first time someone who has been practically catatonic for 20 minutes at your aid station gets up, heads out again, and finishes the race thanks to your ministrations, you’ll feel a sense of almost parental pride.

Lots of little things stuck out from the blur. One of the top female runners rolled into the aid station and announced to her crew, “I had an epic throw-up back there.” I backed away slowly, though she ended up being fine and seemed pretty proud of it. Why can’t I be one of those people, who just takes barfing in stride? I’d probably be a better runner.

Last year’s winner (and perpetual podium populator), Mike, came into the aid station looking fresh. I chatted him up like we were friends (we are not, but that is the price you pay for being a very talented runner, buddy), thinking he had finished the race, but in fact he dropped out 18 miles in. Oops. But he was back to crew – for his dad! What a gene pool that family has!

The son of our aid station captain was running the race again. Last year he had a rough go of it but still rallied to a finish. This year he had a rough go of it (once again, his entire family was standing around at the entrance to the aid station, pacing, wondering where he was as runner after runner who they’d seen him hang with earlier came and went), but only spent a few minutes at the aid station before his sister-in-law gave him some tough love, got him out of the chair, and spurred him on to squeak in under 10 hours for a massive time improvement.

We had two (well, at least two) major success stories of the day. One guy came in, not sweating, and sat in a chair for a long rest while we force-fed him (not really) and talked to him, until we were satisfied that he had replenished his fluids/calories and was with it enough to continue. (He was “with it” all along, I guess, so it wasn’t a major concern.) He told us “I made the mistake of telling my wife what was going on, and she texted back ‘please stop.'” Whoops, we’re enablers. Another guy came in just miserably hot and nauseated, and I managed to cool him down and revive him with water, paper towels on the back of his neck (a great trick if you don’t have cooling towels!), and a cup of ice to chew on. He finally told me to get him out of the chair in two minutes, and I timed him, then helped him get his hydration pack back on (I even offered to buckle it) and he got out there and finished. I was so proud! *Sniff* So proud I forgot his bib number, name, and general appearance.

Kevin, author of Superior, a book I’ll eventually review on here, came through the aid station hot but otherwise in good shape, and sat down with us for a bit. I told him I read his book and liked it (does that count as a review), which I imagine is a nice pick-me-up and certainly a nice change from “You look great!” or “You got this!”

One member of the MRTT/SRTT crew was running the race, and the whole day, we were communicating with her husband, getting updates on where she was, and recalculating in our minds whether or not that meant she would make the cutoffs. Several women in our group headed back up the trail to find her once they learned she’d left the previous aid station, so they could run it in with her. Once she came charging in, with authority, she received a hero’s welcome. (“I just ran a less than 10 minute mile in my flip-flops,” my friend Rita told me as she came into the aid station with the pack. Yeesh.)

One of the final runners through was a friend of mine, who I also met volunteering! She cruised through the aid station but turned the wrong way, so I ran after her to 1. give her a hug and 2. guide her in the right direction (over the dam, which has a DANGER: KEEP AWAY sign on it, ironically).

25 minutes or so past the cutoff, the race official came charging out of the woods with two water bottles in his hands, telling us we’ve got to get them filled. The last runner was coming and he was going to let her continue, but she’s not allowed to stop. We filled the bottles with the pitchers we’ve got on the table as the runner comes out of the woods. She looked good and was charging hard. As she passed by, she asked if we had any gels. Which we did, but they were packed up in the car. (Hardly anyone had wanted gels all day!) I yelled at her to keep going and we frantically pawed through the box for the gels. I grabbed three kinds and took off after her (so glad I decided against flip flops!), catching her on the dam. She grabbed two of them and took off. That was my run for the day!

I am now extremely jealous of all these runners and can’t believe I don’t have a race until the big one at the end of September – somehow Curnow seems light years ago, rather than just 2 weeks ago. Maybe someday, if I ever get significantly faster, I’ll run Voyageur. If it’s a cool day, or at least cloudy. Right now once through the power lines at Curnow is enough for me.

Birkie Trail Ultra Training: Week 4

Monday: 5 mi, road
Tuesday: 7.5 mi, road
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 8.1 mi, road
Friday: 5.1 mi, trail & treadmill
Saturday: 10 mi, road & trail (Skyline Drive)
Sunday: 16.3 mi, paved trail (Gitchigami segment)
Total: 52 mi

Monday I was an idiot. I got a late start, and knew a thunderstorm was on the horizon. I thought maybe I could outrun it, or it wouldn’t be too strong at first. I was supposed to do a nice easy recovery run. With a mile and a half to go, I could sense the storm coming. I started imagining myself in a music video for “Riders on the Storm,” because what else can one do? With a mile to go it started pouring. And there was lightning. And I was kind of exposed, out at the end of the point. Long story short, I lived, but that was not the safest choice I’ve made running.

I made another delicious meal on Tuesday, inspired by The Sea Salt. I say inspired by because 1. I roasted the vegetables instead of grilling (and also didn’t use nearly the variety she does), 2. I left the garlic and green onion out of the dressing, and 3. I didn’t want to haul out my food processor and then have to clean it, so I made a “deconstructed” version of the dressing with two avocados instead of one, that had more of a guacamole texture, as you can see from the dollop on top.

It was delicious and I have a boatload of leftovers. Also roasting vegetables is very easy, even for me. I took some guidance on this from The Kitchn.

Tuesday and Thursday I did medium-length long runs on the road. The deer carcass I encountered before is still on Arrowhead Road, although it’s mostly bones now. Still, ew. Thursday, I ran a very fluid 7.5 miles along Brighton Beach and London Road. I turned around just after Glensheen, because there was some construction.

Friday I wanted to run trails, so I drove out to Lester Park. I didn’t get out there til later in the day, and I didn’t check the forecast. I heard a rumble of thunder after only a mile (and that was after encountering a vagrant’s sleeping spot, directly off the trail – thankfully no one was there, but it was startling and I’d hate to have surprised someone), and decided I’d better head back. A few times, I thought nah, I can keep going, maybe it’ll hold off, it’s just rain, etc. I am so glad I didn’t, because the storm that kicked up a few minutes after I got into my car was intense. There was a bit of hail and a lot of water, so much that I could barely see to drive home, and would have pulled off the road if I’d felt I could do so safely. I finished the rest of my run on the treadmill, which sucked. It was so humid and I was drenched at the end of the 3.2 miles.

Saturday’s run sucked. It was cooler, in the low 70s, so I thought hey, let’s give ol’ Skyline Drive a chance. It has sucked the other times I’ve run it, but it was hot then! Well, FYI, that was a bad take. I felt like death the whole time. Possibly, I needed more food, but also it didn’t seem much cooler once I got going. The whole run was slow and miserable. At Becks Road, I turned left on the snowmobile trail, thinking I’d take that until I reached 5 miles and it would be easy. It wasn’t too bad, until I reached a bridge with no railing, made of beams that had seen better days, with small gaps between them to make me trip if I wasn’t careful. So, that was terrifying, but for some reason I crossed it anyway. Meaning I had to cross it again on the way back. Stupid. The trail linked up with the trail to Ely’s Peak, and I turned around just after the spur trail to the Becks Rd SHT parking lot (the alternate one, not the main one by the Munger Trail). I might have to give this route a rest for awhile – it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for me. I also hate running on gravel. So really, why am I running this route again? I guess for something to prove.

Oh, also, I had to run the snowmobile trail route instead of running the whole thing on Skyline because someone had dumped a bunch of garbage on the Stewart Creek bridge that smelled so foul I had to drive by with the windows up. I really hate people.

Sunday’s run was awesome. Kind of. I ran from Gooseberry Falls to Split Rock and back on the Gitchigami Trail, fulfilling one of my goals for the summer. It wasn’t a warm day but with the sun and the poor air quality, it was a bit of a tough run. It ended up being over 16 miles instead of my planned 15, because I started at the trailhead. Whoops. I will do a trail review post on it separately. I felt pretty crummy at the start of the run – had a cough and a bit of a clogged head. I am paying for that today because I could barely crawl out of bed due to this cough and head cold. I don’t feel too badly about it because the cold was coming anyway, and skipping the run wasn’t going to change anything. I can’t ward off an illness or shorten its length by resting in advance – I’ve tried it many times. I don’t know when I’ll be able to run again this coming week, but at least I got in a good week of running this past week.

I’m still having a lot of doubts about the Birkie. And this cold isn’t helping – it’s only going to set back my training further. I regret the impulse I had to sign up for the race – but I’m also being a bit cowardly about it, too. Well, 10 weeks to go, a lot can still happen.

Birkie Trail Ultra Training: Week 3

Off to the races!

Monday: 6.1 mi, road
Tuesday: 5 mi, road
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 7.2 mi, road (Park Point 5 Miler + warm up & cool down)
Friday: rest
Saturday: 26.2 mi, trail (Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon)
Sunday: rest
Total: 44.5 mi

Two races in one week: officially a Good Idea. Or at least, An Idea That Worked Out This Time.

Monday’s run was just the worst. It was so slow, my legs had no speed, and I had no desire to push them to move faster. I ran a 14:48 pace on flat ground (Minnesota Point), for crying out loud. That is not supposed to be my easy pace anymore. Well, it is what it is. I grinded it out. Tuesday’s run went better but still wasn’t easy by any means. I was starting to think I’d made a dumb choice in running the PP5M, as I had lead legs.

I rested Wednesday and that appeared to be enough. I ran a 10:01 pace for the race on Thursday and then a slow 1.5 mile cooldown. I had planned to run a longer warmup but was too late to the race to do so, and only managed about half a mile. Oh well. It wasn’t a goal race.

I rested again on Friday, running a few errands and then lounging around at home. Saturday of course was the race. There’s not much to tell that isn’t in the race report. I spent Sunday at home relaxing, doing a few chores and overall feeling zero guilt about sleeping in, doing nothing productive, and staying off my feet. I was a little bit stiff, with some pain in my hips and in my shoulders (from the hydration pack), but overall felt all right.

Now that I’ve done the marathon, I’ve got nothing on my race calendar until the Birkie. That is kind of nice! I decided not to make any major changes in my approach to training until after I finished Curnow, since I had such a light training cycle. I didn’t want to end up getting injured due to some crazy strength training, or burned out due to a ton of trail work. So I guess this means the real training starts now, since all the excuses are gone. Not that I can’t think of a few more as I go along.

Birkie Trail Ultra Training: Week 1

Last week was tough! High volume training week + unconventional “cross training.”

Monday: 6.5 mi, road
Tuesday: 5.1 mi, trail (Bagley/Hartley)
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 8.1 mi, road
Friday: 5.3 mi, road
Saturday: 8.1 mi, trail (SHT at Twin Ponds)
Sunday: 16.1 mi, road/trail (West Skyline Drive + Magney to Spirit Mtn SHT)
Total: 49.2 mi

This week of training started off strong, but ended with my confidence in the gutter. I’m trying to separate last week from the first few days of this week, as I keep thinking it’s Monday, but my training reached a fairly low point yesterday. I’ll have to save that for next week’s recap!

I like the format I’ve cooked up (I realize it’s pretty standard), with a mid-week mid-length run, and then a long run on Sunday. I used to do my long runs on Saturdays to ensure I got them in (with Sunday as a back-up day), but now that my spouse works Sundays, it works better for me to use that day to myself to get in my long run. I intended to have a longer run on Saturday (maybe 10 miles), but didn’t get up early enough in the day, didn’t run fast enough (I was really dragging), and had a hard stop due to an appointment to get my cat his summer haircut.

The Bagley/Hartley combo run is a really great way to break up the monotony of Bagley (repeated loops of a 1.7 mile trail get old) while avoiding the construction at Hartley. Since the two trails are linked by the Superior Hiking Trail, it only takes a short jog across Arrowhead road to run both trails in the same run.

I didn’t know this til recently, but Bagley used to be a downhill ski area! My dad and I were out on the pontoon boat listening to music, and he was trying to remember the year “American Pie” came out, based on a memory of skiing on Rock Hill with his friends in the early ’70s. I had no idea. UMD has a brief history of the area on their website, including a photo of the rope tow. It wasn’t Mont Blanc, but it was the only local option until Spirit Mountain opened.

Both Saturday and Sunday, I was hoping to complete my trail runs under the 17:17 minimum pace for the Birkie. Not because I was trying to race my training, but because I was hoping that wouldn’t be a tough pace to hit for shorter runs. It was disheartening to be slower than that for both runs.

Saturday I ran the SHT starting at Twin Ponds and going southwest (roughly). I run this section because Twin Ponds is the closest spot for me to jump on the trail, but I also hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate parts of this section. There’s a climb that seems endless on the way out, and it just wears me down. I think that alone will keep me from ever doing the Wild Duluth 100K, since it comes fairly early on in the race.

SHT altitude

Part of me is like, stop running this section if it’s so frustrating. But that’s the quitter in me. Really what I have to do is conquer this beast. Also I have to stop running it in full sun.

I saw lots of local runners I know out there – I guess that’s what happens when I do my trail runs in the morning instead of in the late afternoon. It was a nice treat to see friends!

Later that afternoon I did a couple rounds of knee-boarding, which I will call my strength training for the day.

Sunday I was absolutely determined to do 16 miles. This is my sole “long run” before Curnow – FANS doesn’t count. Once again, I got up early, but not as early as planned. I was stressed out/feeling guilty because running was going to cut into time spent with my nephews, but I knew I needed to get it done. I kept trying to come up with excuses to shorten it, but I managed to shut up all those voices. I did make a concession and chose to run the majority of it on the road/snowmobile trails instead of entirely on the SHT, in order to save time. It still took nearly 5 hours.

I started at the SHT trailhead near Ely’s Peak (the alternate trail head), but ran down Beck’s Rd to Skyline Drive. That was almost exactly a mile, and mostly uphill (actually the first 2 miles were mostly uphill, but it didn’t feel like mostly downhill on the way back! Very annoying.) It was a bit scary to be running along the side of a road that, while not very busy, has a fairly high speed limit.

I was making great time on the roads, but it was hot, and that started to take its toll on me, especially once I got onto the trails. This section of the SHT contains some fairly technical trail, although there are a few sections near Spirit Mountain that flatten out and are runnable. I ended up choosing to follow the access road at Spirit Mountain rather than getting back on the SHT, and then took a snowmobile trail down to where it meets up again with the SHT at Knowlton Creek. That took a big chunk of climbing off my run.

The short sections on the SHT really dragged. I hated every downhill, because it meant another uphill I’d have to maneuver. I was so sick of the steep, rocky climbs. It was hotter than I had anticipated – 80F or possibly warmer, with little cloud cover. The trail is mostly shaded, but the pockets of sun were tough. Once I got back onto the road, I had about 5 miles left, but I was pretty low on water. I hadn’t filled my pack up entirely, as I’ve never gone through a whole pack of water. That was stupid. I had to ration it the rest of the way, and that slowed me down. I walked long stretches of the road that I had expected to run. Another blow to my confidence. I know the Birkie course will not be that punishing – a cross-country ski race isn’t going to be held on a course full of rocks – but the distance itself is going to be punishing. The important part is I stuck it out, didn’t turn around early, and didn’t stop moving.

I still managed to water-ski and knee-board that afternoon, so again, I got my strength workout in!

Perception and Reality

After taking essentially 3 weeks off from running (ok there was a 29.5 mile race mixed in there), I’m back to training. After feeling down on myself for having such a poor showing at FANS, I rashly signed up for the Birkie Trail Run 100K. I can’t say that it was a bad decision, but I don’t know that I thought it through very hard. I have 14 weeks to find a way to turn it into a good idea.

My biggest concern is the cut-off, 17.5 hours. That’s a 17:17 pace (based on the stated distance of 60.7 miles, although there are two other, shorter, listed distances for the course). My 50K pace in April? 17:17. Hmmm.

The other concern I have is that hardly anyone runs it. It might be a lonely day out there. But then again, I won’t hear anyone chattering in my ear.

In order to finish this race, I’m going to have to work hard. I mean, obviously. Haven’t I been working hard all along though? I’ve run a marathon and 3 ultra-distances in the past year so I must be working hard.

Nope.

I think I work hard though. I convince myself that I am working hard, putting lots of effort into running, pushing myself. But I really don’t. There are flashes of real, honest effort – the sub-zero training runs I did over the winter, for example. I’m not going to pretend to downplay those runs – I know in those moments I was a badass.

I take the path of least resistance in most aspects of life, even when it comes to hard stuff like running an ultra (or becoming an engineer – by the way, I passed that test I was whining about). My training volume is very, very low compared to the average ultra runner, and while training is individual and what works for one person doesn’t work for another, all I know is low-volume training. So how do I know that running 60 miles/week average isn’t actually better for me than 36-37 miles/week average? I don’t. But I pretend to myself that I’m doing enough.

I can’t pretend anymore, if I want to succeed at the Birkie. I have to really work. I have to take a serious look at my nutrition and drop a bit of weight. I have to get up early on the weekends to get the miles in. I have to find the time for the miles, not find the miles for the time. I have to get serious about strength workouts beyond just some pushups and MYRTLs. I have to run uncomfortably sometimes. I have to stop giving myself permission to do less than what is required.

This is going to be interesting for me. It’s a chance to re-think what is possible for me, and to achieve something that five years ago wasn’t even on my radar, let alone within my capabilities. It’s a chance to get closer to the abstract goal of running a hundred miler someday, to turn that possibility somewhere over the horizon into a probability somewhere just down the road.

Race Report: FANS 24 Hour Race

Official Results:
Distance: 29.5 mi
Placing:
Overall: 116/147
24 Hrs: 77/84
Gender: 18/19

Watch Results:
Time: 10:24:37 (This includes about 25 minutes of time between when I finished my last lap and when I finally stopped my watch)
Pace: 19:57
Distance: 31.3
Heart Rate: N/A

Goals:
A: 100 mi
B: 90 mi
C: 75 mi

Food:
What I ate the night before: sesame chicken with brown rice, chicken satay skewers
What I ate on race morning: bagel, Clif bar
What I carried with me: n/a

Gear:
What I wore: to start – tank top, shorts, trucker hat; later changed to t-shirt, shorts, trucker hat
Gadgets: GPS watch, fitness tracker

Discussion: There’s nothing like “failure” to make me want to try again.

Also it’s really funny that 9 months ago, I’d never even run a marathon, and now I’m looking at 29.5 miles as failure. Once that thought popped into my head yesterday, I started to feel ok with the results.

I have a long history of quitting when it comes to running. I walked the mile runs in gym class because I didn’t want to put in the effort. I ended up in the duty van in college during ROTC physical training runs far too often, because I would rather quit than be so much slower than everyone else. I DNSd 2 races last year because I didn’t get enough sleep the night before. So in some ways it’s not surprising that I quit this race so early on.

My husband and I drove down to the Twin Cities on Friday afternoon, picked up my packet, and then went to my dad’s to transfer all my supplies to his truck. The plan was: I stay at my dad’s Friday night, he takes me to the race, we set up, he crews me til late afternoon; my husband stays at our hotel Friday night so he can sleep as late as possible, he arrives at the race in the late afternoon to crew me til the next morning. That part worked out pretty well, although I slept really poorly. I must have gotten an hour or two of sleep at some point, but nothing really restorative.

It was 75F at 6:30 a.m., so that was not the best omen. It took about half an hour to drive to the race start, which was really easy to find and had plenty of parking. We unloaded some of the gear, set up the tent, and then I ate a bit before heading over to the start. I should have made sure we unloaded the chairs, so that I could have sat down for a bit before the race started. Not that it really mattered in the end, but still, I was standing and moving around for an hour before the race started. I didn’t warm up, but I wasn’t planning on it.

The race started right on time, and we did a shorter out and back on the path before turning around and starting our first full loop. The trail loops around Snelling Lake and has significant sections of shade, though it also had stretches of full sun. The shaded sections were actually bearable, but when the sun blazed down on me, it sapped away my energy. By noon, the temperature had reached 90F. I know that’s nothing compared to the heat from, say, Western States or Badwater or Marathon des Sables, but I have had zero heat training.

I ran almost all of the first “long” loop (the out & back + the full loop), stopping to walk for 5 minutes so I could finish my Clif bar. I did a few intervals of Run 30/Walk 5, then went to Run 10/Walk 5, and then deteriorated into Walk Slowly/Run Occasionally. The loops all kind of blend together to me, so a traditional recap isn’t going to make a lot of sense.

During (I think?) my 9th loop, I was walking along and heard some cracking noises. I thought it was squirrels or just trees moving in the breeze. Nope. A tree came crashing down about 20 feet behind me, and maybe 15 feet behind a runner coming up to pass me. We looked at each other in shock, then I high-fived him, because what else do you do to celebrate a near miss like that?

The heat was really frustrating to me. I’m so envious of the folks who were still able to run in the heat, and who didn’t seem to have even a touch of sunburn. I was reapplying sunscreen every 1.5-2 hours, and I STILL got sunburned (though not too badly). All I could think about was making it until the sun went down. If I could just hang on, and keep moving forward at whatever slow pace I could comfortably manage, I could rally in the evening.

My friends showed up around the 6 hour mark, and one of them did loops 10-12 with me. My feet were starting to hurt, so I’d changed into my trail shoes to relieve some of the pain from the gravel. The extra support and the rock plate helped a bit, but the bases of both my heels were really hurting. After loop 10, I took my socks off to see what was up. On my left foot was a blister stretching across most of the circumference of my heel. On my right foot was a blister that had formed on top of the remnants of an old blister (from Chippewa Moraine, I think!), about the size of a walnut, puffing out about half an inch. So, no wonder. I lanced them as best as I could, bandaged them up, and started moving again. It didn’t feel amazing but it felt a little better.

I managed 2 more slow laps, talking with my friend, gimping along, and then sat down to rest again and talk with them. They decided to leave, and just as I was gearing up to leave again, my dad told me my stepbrother and sister in law and my 2 nephews were at the park getting their permit. I didn’t think they were coming since it was so hot and my younger nephew had been sick. I decided to stay until they arrived, and then talked to them for a little while, ate some of the snacks they brought me, and then headed out for what I didn’t know would be my final lap, lucky #13. The blister on the right hurt a lot, and I ended up changing my gait to try to accommodate it, which was bad news. I planned to try to tape it up better with some moleskin, and I did, but when I got up to test it out, the chafing on my inner thighs/near my shorts liner really started to sting and burn, despite changing my shorts, cleaning the salt away with wet wipes, and slathering the area with Vaniply and Vaseline.

So I quit. I chose to take the easy way out. Neither the chafing nor the blisters were the worst anyone has seen in the history of chafing and blisters, but I didn’t see any reason to continue and to make them worse. (It’s 2 days later and I’m wearing flip-flops at work, so I’m glad I didn’t in that regard.) I had sort of stopped caring about the race, and there wasn’t much to look forward to, just endless loops. I didn’t want to trudge around in a circle with a stinging crotch for 14 more hours. That was really not going to give me any guidance as to my readiness for a longer race.

It’s funny that in the end, it didn’t even matter that I was undertrained. I was plenty well trained for 29.5 miles! And while the heat really concerned me, I think I managed my hydration well (I only lost a pound at the first weigh-in, and had the same weight at the second weigh-in, probably because I wasn’t running hard), I didn’t have much nausea, and I still had the sense that I could pick it up once the sun went down.

I’m chalking this race up to a learning experience, even if it wasn’t the learning experience I was looking for. There were still a LOT of lessons for me.

  1. Having a crew makes me uncomfortable.
    My dad was so kind and gracious to sit out there in the heat for 10 hours, fill my water bottles, monitor my food, and support me. He kept offering to do other things, like spray me with sunscreen, but it just made me feel more guilty and uncomfortable. I am so used to doing everything for myself, since I usually go to races alone. I spent extra time at my tent because I felt bad that he was by himself. He did enjoy the people-watching; I think he was getting too many ideas from one of the other crews nearby – there were like 7 people crewing one guy and they were like a NASCAR pit crew! No thank you. I think if I do a long race, I won’t enlist a crew until the later stages, when I need extra gear or to get resupplied or something.
  2. Visitors are too much of a distraction.
    It was awesome to have my friends and family visit. But it kept me at the campsite longer than I should have. It was also sort of demoralizing that when I was running with my friend, he was walking. So I walked, too, when maybe I could have run here and there. And I talked, which slowed me down, too. It would have been better if we were both entrants in the race and could meet up, part ways, meet up, and so on.
  3. I brought too much stuff.
    I should have just relied on aid stations. I didn’t need like 75% of the stuff I brought, and again, it kept me in the campsite longer than I needed to be.
  4. Running a marathon doesn’t destroy me physically anymore.
    I’m not walking around much, but that’s mostly due to the blisters, since even without shoes on, they hurt. I have some general soreness in my back and my hips, but that’s it. Granted, I took several long breaks, but I still traveled 29.5 miles.
  5. I’m the slowest walker ever.
    I’m short, and I’m long-waisted. So my legs are not really built for fast walking. But it was hard to be out there, seeing people putting in a similar effort but passing me with ease, or even seeing people struggling and being unable to catch up with them.
  6. Summer is not the time to try new distances.
    I don’t do well in the heat, so I think it’s best left to the spring and fall when I’m trying something new, at least as long as I’m living in Duluth.
  7. I don’t really like timed race formats.
    I like point to point races. I like running a set distance, rather than a set amount of time. I just couldn’t shift my paradigms enough. I really should do more “run for x number of hours” training runs, to try to get into that mindset better.
  8. I will totally do this race again.
    Maybe just one more time, for “revenge.” It was such a cool atmosphere, though! I mean, I got an email from the race director yesterday with the subject line “Well, THAT Happened!” These are my people. The race rules packet was littered with funny, snarky comments. The whole attitude is so relaxed – it’s not full of aggressive, hyper-competitive runners, it’s full of people doing their own thing, whether that’s winning, taking it easy, or doing all their laps in the opposite direction. And the volunteers were so great! Especially the lap counters. My lap counter (a guy for the first 6 hours and a woman for the last 4) were SO cheerful every time I came through, calling out my name and telling me great job. This is a real benefit of a looped course: getting to know the volunteers and making a connection. So many more times to thank them, too.

Now I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m getting a massage tomorrow, and then I’m not running for awhile. At first I said two weeks, but now that I didn’t really go above and beyond in distance, I might amend that. HOWEVER, no running until my feet heal completely. Curnow is in 6 weeks, so I do need to be mindful of that and at least put in a bit of training. Maybe I’ll have a really great performance there, since I didn’t beat myself into the ground this past weekend!

FANS 24HR Race Goals

Tomorrow I’ll be running in circles for 24 hours. I’m in denial, as usual.

noidea

I have no clue what this will be like. I haven’t run longer than 50km or 10 hours. It might be hot. It might be cold. It might storm. It might be sunny. It might be all of these things, and more.

My goals are:
A Standard: 100 mi
B Standard: 90 mi
C Standard: 75 mi

I don’t know how achievable any of these are. I suppose it depends on conditions, my health, and my mental capacity.

Less quantifiable goals:
1. Relentless forward progress. No long breaks. No sleeping in the tent. No quitting early.
2. Avoid sunburn and manage heat.
3. Eat and drink well. Keep my GI system healthy.
4. Finish happy, healthy, and with my relationships with my husband and my dad intact.
5. Gain a better understanding of what else I need to do to be prepared to run a 100 mile race next year.

If I do those three things, I should be able to achieve any of the distance standards I’ve planned out.

I’ve overpacked, overplanned, and undertrained for this race. Sounds like a typical situation for me.