Of course, the soundness of a strategy greatly depends on the circumstances. In December, I fell on a trail and badly damaged my shin. Three weeks later, it felt OK, so I ran Little Woods. My shin didn't bother me at all during that event but the following week it became obvious that this was not a superficial injury. Even walking was a problem. I decided to stop running altogether during the four weeks remaining before Rocky and hope for the best when I got to Texas.
St. Louis being what it is, I don't have to take the time completely off. As the injury is only aggravated by impact rather than effort, I am able to take advantage of some mild days and get in some bike riding. I also do a few workouts on the elliptical trainer. But, basically, it's a major layoff. I've never tried running an ultra coming directly off an injury but, as Kate and I board the plane for Texas, I feel like I'm sufficiently heeled to make this a somewhat less than insane endeavor. Still, I don't kid myself that this will be a confidence builder; it will be tough.
Some of the trails are still completely impassible, so the organizers have re-routed the course. Rather than five 20-mile loops, we'll be doing four 25-mile "loops". It's not really a loop, more of a badly mangled "T" with the start/finish at the base and then out-and-backs to each end of the T and finally back to the base. I generally don't like out-and-backs on trail because passing can be an issue. However, the trails here are a bit wider than true singletrack and passing shouldn't be a problem.
Map of course
I arrive race morning at 4:45AM and stress about where to leave my main drop "bag" (it's actually the Brown's cooler, filled with food, drink, lights, clothing, and spare shoes). The start/finish is the easy answer, but I wonder if the Nature Center aid station, four miles in and before the top of the "T", might be a better spot. It would give me access 8 times during the race rather than 4. The downside is that if I drop my stuff here, I can't make any changes. I finally decide that the safe bet is the start/finish. That way I can change my mind about gear right before the start if I want.
It's still completely dark as we take the start at 6AM. Within the first few hundred meters it's obvious that going with the little headlamp instead of the high-power handheld light was a mistake. I can see where I'm going, but making out the individual roots is difficult. I'm not the only one having trouble with it; a runner just in front of me goes down not once, but twice in the first two miles. He's in for a really long day at that rate. Since the trail is slightly wider than singletrack, I adopt a strategy of running just off the shoulder of whatever nearby runner has the best light. I also switch to my "technical" stride which I use when blasting through short sections of really rough trail or when I'm running straight through the woods in orienteering meets. This stride has me up on my toes and it's pretty effective at avoiding trips. The drawback is that, as a devout heel striker, it puts the strain on muscles that don't get as much endurance training; I can only do it for an hour or so.
Indulge me a brief diversion which I promise has a point. I often get a lot of comments on these race reports about how detailed they are. Some folks wonder how I can remember all that. Well, I'm sure I can't and I get details wrong all the time. But, as for what I do remember, I keep it in my head by writing the race report during the race. This only works in ultras where the pace doesn't demand concentration right from the start and I often change it quite a bit once I know how the story ends, but composing a first draft is a nice way to pass the early, easy miles when my brain is still looking for something to do.
The point of this is that I "wrote" those words about switching to my technical stride, including the bit about only being able to do it for an hour at the time I was doing it. You might ask why I thought I could get away with a 1-hour effort in a race that lasts twenty times that long. Yeah, you might ask that.
After about an hour on the trails, we hit the dirt road for the short part of the "T". This is just a little over a mile out and back to the Gate aid station. Even though the road is easy running, I take a walk break to give my legs a rest from prancing over the roots. The sky brightens shortly before reaching the aid station. Given that making it to 57 miles before dark was a pretty sure thing, this would have been a great place to drop the big light had I started with it. Oh, well, if that's the biggest mistake I make all day, it's been a good race. (Again, I wrote those words at the time knowing full well I had just trashed my legs).
Leaving the station, a light rain begins to fall. This, I'm actually prepared for. It's not particularly cold (high 40's), but I don't want to be wearing a soaked jersey all day. I pull out my rain shell, an act I will repeat a dozen more times as spotty showers continue for the rest of the race.
Just after passing the junction onto the long part of the "T", we again get back on trail. The roots aren't quite as bad here (or, maybe, they are just a lot easier to navigate in the daylight). At any rate, this 3-mile section between the Gate and Damnation aid stations is pretty easy. That changes after Damnation. The out and back to the Far Side turnaround is the most technical part of the course. I don't make any attempt to run it fast, dropping into an easy rhythm just fast enough to keep my stride from becoming sloppy.
I strike up a conversation with a fellow name Jack. He's very erudite and engaging. He's eager to both share his own thoughts on running and to hear mine. He properly uses terms like meta-cognitive and experiential disassociation. I'm very much a hard sciences guy, but I always enjoy wandering over to the social sciences building to strike up conversations just because the folks there are so good at framing vague but important ideas. We don't talk backgrounds, just running, but I conclude he's got at least one degree in Psychology. Maybe several.
Alas, Jack is less inclined to walk breaks than I and, given my pre-dawn indiscretion, I can't be skipping those. So, after we pass back through Damnation, I have to let him go. I strike up another conversation with a guy name Brian who is also quite interesting, though for a much different reason. Whereas Jack was all about why we like to run, Brian talks about what it's like to run. He's from Houston, so he's particularly well informed about local ultra scene. We stay together all the way back to the start/finish while he describes in detail the unique perils of running ultras in Southern Texas. Basically, it comes down to the footing sucks and it can be really hot. I'm not even to marathon distance in my first Lone Star State ultra and I've already figured that out, but it's fun to hear the anecdotes he offers to back up the claim.
I finish the lap at 10:24AM. That's about the lap time I was expecting; in line with a finish of around 20 hours, but it's come at a cost. The feeling in my quads and hamstrings is similar to the tightness I felt at a same point in Potawatomi. While the second half of that race was three hours longer than the first, I generally regard it as one of my best races because it was such a good save of a race that threatened to go very badly. So, I try the same strategy that worked there: rather than push through the sections that are trashing my legs, I'll use them as my walk breaks, even though they are objectively fast sections of trail. This means I'll probably run a lot more of the uphills, but the biggest hill here is only around 100 feet vertical and none of the terrain is steep.
Implementing that strategy is not as straightforward as one might think. Between each aid station, there is one significant section of contiguous runnable trail (or dirt road). That leaves about 75% of the distance littered with roots, some presenting bigger hazards than others. Determining when to walk and when to run is not always obvious. I err on the conservative side, resulting in a lap that's a full hour slower than the first. On the upside, my quads don't feel any worse than they did at the start of the lap, I haven't fallen even once, and my injured leg is doing fine.
I stop just long enough to grab my big light and a bunch more food. I'll definitely be needing both. Even though I haven't been running hard, the cold, wet conditions require the body to burn more just to stay warm. I press just a bit for the first six miles, hoping to make it to the dirt road to Gate before needing my light. The rain stops for a while and the clouds get a bit thinner resulting in just a bit more twilight. I end up getting through Gate and halfway to Damnation before switching on the lamp. I then take an extended walk break the rest of the way to to the aid station.
One of the fun things about out and back courses is that you get to see what the leaders are up to. On lap courses, you might get to see them come by in the same direction as well. I've managed to avoid that in previous 100's by staying on the lead lap. Not today. Ronnie Delzer comes by still looking pretty spry for a guy with 85 miles in his legs. This isn't really a surprise, I knew the winning time would be under 15 hours and I was pretty sure that 20 was a lower bound on my own finish. I had hoped to at least be on my way back from the Far Side turn when it happened, though.
Shortly before getting to the turn, I'm passed again. This time it's Sabrina Little and, if anything, she seems to be in better form than Ronnie (though she's too far behind to catch him). This is also not much of a surprise. The advantages of testosterone are increased muscle mass and quicker recovery from hard efforts. Neither of those count for much in a 100, so the top women are often in the mix for the overall win. I manage to finish the lap before the third runner catches me.
Things are not going well, however. My legs are still OK, but I'm really starting to feel bad inside. I'm still eating, but I can feel my blood sugar crashing. This usually happens around the 100K mark. Tonight, probably because I backed off so much, it's hitting closer to 70 miles, but it's still hitting pretty hard. I walk the entire four miles from the Nature Center aid station back to the finish. I try a caffeine pill. A gel. Nothing seems to help. My mind has checked out and my body just wants to stop.
Objectively, I've DNF'd three running races in my life. All of them 100's and each time, it happened in the third quarter (which is the toughest part of any race in my opinion). One was due to a legitimate injury. Another was missing the time cut at Leadville last summer. I don't really count those two as DNF's because continuing wasn't really an option. The one that gets me is the completely voluntary withdrawal at Mark Twain while leading the race. Ok, technically, I had dropped to third by the time I actually made it to the next aid station and quit, but I was winning when I decided that I simply couldn't go on. Granted, I had just emptied my insides on the trail, was too dizzy to walk straight, and the remaining miles would have been a nightmare given that I had clearly overcooked it to stay on the lead, but, still, dude: you quit while leading? Who does that?
My decision making gets pretty fuzzy around the 10th hour of activity. From then on, I really operate off of habit. So, after that decision to quit, I made a conscious effort to squash that thought any and every time it occurs to me. I can't say that I've been entirely successful in that but, for the most part, the internal discussion of whether to continue gets cut very short. Fighting it back today, when what was supposed to be an "easy hundred" is turning into an epic requires more than habit. I need some hook to hang this thought on and I find a familiar one: vanity.
Do I really want to go back to the Brown's and meet a bunch of people I don't know at their Super Bowl party and introduce myself as a guy who just failed at an activity they already think is crazy? No, that would be much worse than grinding this thing out. I carry on.
At the start/finish, the med staff is concerned. Apparently I look even worse than I feel. The lap time was a whopping seven hours, so even a sub-24 is pretty unlikely. Therefore, I don't make a fuss when they suggest I step into the medical tent for a bit and try to get myself composed.
I'm not sure what the actual credentials of the med staff are, but they certainly seem to know what they are doing. Across from me, another runner is getting some very good care for some awkwardly placed foot blisters. Another is getting a massage to relieve some cramps. All I need is rest, food, and drink, so I'm a low-priority case, but they eagerly bring me what I need. I'm very cognizant of the perils of sitting down for too long, especially at the start/finish where I could simply walk the 100 meters to my car and be done with the whole thing. Still, I'm really sleepy, so I ask them to wake me in 20 minutes and nod off.
I awake with a jolt. Something inside me registers that I'm not supposed to be sleeping right now. Maybe it's the memory of the time I literally fell asleep on trail at Kettle Moraine (fortunately while walking, so the ensuing fall was more humorous than injurious). The aid stations workers get a laugh from my startled expression and tell me I still had two minutes left. Alert again, I take my time getting back on my feet and moving. The EMT who's been paying the most attention to me is worried that I might break down on the trail and be susceptible to hypothermia. I note that the first part of the course is never more than half a mile from a road, so I have a few miles to sort things out. I promise that if I'm not moving OK by the Nature Center, I'll at least take another break. I head out shortly after midnight. Walking. Slowly.
By the Nature Center aid station, I'm feeling like I could try easy running again, but I might trip. So, I continue walking until I hit the dirt road to Gate. I run that both ways and then walk the rest of the way to Damnation. There, I take another short break. Partly because I could use it, but also because I'm not entirely sure my light can make it all the way to sunrise. I was expecting to be done by now so I figured I could get by on the 3-cell and 6-cell batteries I own. When new, they easily combined for around 15 hours of light, but they're getting old and may have faded. I have the backup light I used this morning, but I already know how useless that is on this terrain.
I walk most of the Far Side section, taking another short break at the turnaround. The sky brightens shortly before I get back to Damnation. A competitive finish vanished long ago and, with only seven miles to go, I'm in no danger of missing the time cutoffs. So, there's no particular rush. Several runners come scrambling through the other direction knowing they have to be on their way to Far Side before 7:30AM or they will be pulled. I hang at the aid station for a while offering encouragement while enjoying some pancakes. Shortly after they close the trail to Far Side, I'm on my way back to the finish.
I'm through my troubles now and, with the last shower passing and sky clearing, I feel like running again. I run the rest of the way in and finish a few minutes after 9AM. It's my slowest 100 by over four hours (though I was obviously on a slower pace when I missed the cut at Leadville). I don't really feel bad about that. The point of this one was not to break any records, but simply to get in a finish after getting yanked at Leadville. The med staff seems particularly happy to see me return. Obviously, their priority is treating the people who are too jacked up to continue, but I'm sure they get more joy in seeing their care result in a finish that otherwise might not have happened.
Then, I take my shoes off. I knew the wet conditions and extended walking were giving me blisters, but I am pretty surprised by just how bad they are. A shoe change (or two) was probably in order between laps. Ah, well, I wasn't planning on running for the next week or so anyway. Those who are squeamish might not want to look at the final photo below.
It's always dangerous to make future plans in the weeks immediately following an event like this. On the one hand, one seeks redemption. This really isn't a particularly difficult course, even with the cold rain and hurricane damage. I think I could run well here if I was a bit smarter about the early miles and brought some better fitness. Then again, there are so many good races out there. I don't want to do a bunch of repeats. Finally, there's the reality that 100 miles is just not a good distance for me. I'm much better at 50's.
So, I don't know if I'll ever come back, but my gut feel is probably not. I came up short, but I didn't quit. The question has been answered in the affirmative. Getting back on the horse is no guarantee that you won't get thrown again. It's just what you do.
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