Saturday morning found me huddled at the start of my 3rd 100 mile start line. Sunday morning saw me crossing under my 2nd 100 mile finish arch. 30 hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds of running, walking, shuffling. Unfortunately an official finish, to receive a buckle and WS100 lottery entry, had to be under 30 hours. While in that respect my time was a little disappointing, I'm not letting it diminish the fact that I covered 100 miles on my own 2 feet. It was also 2.5 hours faster than my Zion 100 time, so I set a huge PR. So many things went right on this course, but I was hampered by skin issues and once again the crazy blistering on my feet. The blisters themselves were worse than San Diego, and I toughed it out, forcing myself to run on them. I could give you some gory details, but I'll spare you... Frustratingly all the reasons I thought the blisters were bad at San Diego did not apply at RDL, so back to the drawing board there. One thing that may have contributed is the fact that I lubed my feet while getting dressed, something I did when I first started running but don't usually do in training. I feel like I may have done the same thing at SD100 but don't remember. Maybe adding too much moisture? I have a great foot book than I will be ransacking for ideas.
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| Sunrise #1 |
This race I'm proud of my pacing, and nutrition. I didn't quite stay on nutrition plan, fairly early in the race my gag reflex decided swallowing solid food wasn't an option. I could, however, still suck down gels, so that's what I stuck with, along with soda at the aid stations. I was well hydrated all day. I had a little stomach upset in the early miles, where the key word seemed to be "Evacuate" and that is all I'll say on the matter. A chunk of ginger seemed to help settle everything down (and burned the crap out of my mouth, this may be where my excellent hydration came from). It was so hard to watch the race leave early in the morning, but it paid off later in the day. My big big mistake came at Auburn Lake Trails aid station. I cruised in with my awesome pacer Julie, volunteers took care of refilling my pack with water and the gels I asked for while I got what I needed from my drop bag and drank a cup of broth. We moved through the aid station efficiently, and got back on trail refreshed but having not wasted any time. About 5 minutes later, my food alarm went off, and we agreed I should go ahead and stick to my nutrition plan even though I had just had some broth. Now I know. DO NOT MIX GELS WITH BROTH!!!! I didn't actually throw up, but I was very nauseous for a few hours and couldn't take anything in. Julie saved my race by making sure that I kept a Jolly Rancher hard candy in my mouth at all times, swapping occasionally for a ginger candy. This kept a steady trickle of sugar in my system and staved off the worst of the bonk. She also had me run periodically whenever we hit good footing, even if it was just 5 strides at a time. This kept me moving, kept me warm, and made sure I didn't fall into too much of a death march. I was reappling lube every ten minutes or so, trying to ease my discomfort enough to only have to block out the pain of my feet. Walking wasn't so bad, but running created an intense burning sensation that, on top of my shredded feet, was incredibly difficult to ignore. I think without even one of these problems, I might have made the official finish time. I kept telling Julie that I just needed to make it to Overlook (the last major climb of the course, and a huge mental obstacle to get over). I made it!
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| Feeling good on Meat Grinder Pass1 (not so much coming back...) |
Ordinarily I would be delighted by a long non-technical downhill section at this point in a race, but downhill was harder than up due to the impact on my feet, and this stretch was a mixture of paved and gravel road that sent searing pain through my feet. My pacer was Elicia for this section, and she employed the same tactic she used at SD100 - my feet will go numb soon. We both know this isn't true, but it made me laugh, which at 3:30 am and nearly 80 miles, whatever works! We kept moving but it was slow, and suddenly I was scarily close to the mile 83 cutoff. Elicia had recently checked her phone to be sure she knew the cutoff times. I rolled into the aid station at 6:09 with the intention of recording my number and getting right back out, with or without pacer #3 Bob - he could catch me up if he wasn't ready. By the time I found someone, he called me back and said it was too late, the station closed at 6:06. Elicia pulled the aid station chart on her phone to show the guy it said 6:10 and told me to leave, that she would take care of it. Soon after, Bob and Elicia were behind me swapping gear. I realised I had no choice but to go as fast as I could possibly make myself. It took all my strength to ignore the pain from my blisters and chafe, but I ran as hard as I could, and power hiked anywhere else. It wasn't far to the next aid station. We passed through there quickly, and kept moving. I was all too aware that I still had to make it through the meat grinder. In the 10 miles after leaving Rattlesnake aid, I passed about 10 people. I was so close to making it, until the stretch coming into Granite Beach. If I never run into a Granite Beach aid station ever again, I'll be happy. It took forever. We got really close to the beach and then we looped away away again. I nearly cried. I cursed a bunch. I slowly saw my finish slipping away from me. When we finally made it at 29 hours, I knew it would take me more than an hour to get to the finish line. I asked the aid station workers if there was a cutoff I had missed, or if I was good to continue. I may not be making an official finish, but there was no way in hell I was quitting at mile 95!!!
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| Waterfall on the way to No Hands |
I made it about 5 minutes out of the aid station when it occurred to me I could slow my blistering pace (Ha!) - if I wasn't making an official finish it didn't matter if I came in at 30:02 or 30:30. This was another big mistake. Without having a time goal to fight for, I allowed myself to feel how much pain I was in, to realise that I couldn't possibly swallow another gel, and oh dear god I was exhausted. I fell into having to tell myself that, no matter how bad I felt, I could take just one more step. It worked, but we were reduced to tiny baby steps, barely lifting my foot off the ground. I also started commenting on runners passing us (not racers, people just out for their Sunday run). "Oh look at me running up the hill, I'm such a showoff, neener neener". We made a game out of guessing how far they were going based on speed and how much water they were carrying. Some supportive mountain bikers told me I was nearly there (which in the grand scheme of things, I was, but not really). Most of them got comments along the line of "arsehole" or "liar" and fortunately those that heard me took it with a giggle, at least understanding why I was a miserable cow. One guy stopped in the middle of the trail in front of us and was apologizing for getting so close to us and he was really sorry and it wasn't ok for him to do that, to which I growled that I didn't have time for this shit and to get out of my way. I think Bob maybe explained, but I didn't even remember the guy passing us and he was pretty distinctive so I think he was talking about someone else. I knew if I stopped, I wasn't going anywhere again. We were nearly at the levee when we saw Elicia coming toward us, worried that I'd dropped and nobody had told her, or that something had happened to us on the trail. She said it had taken her 20 minutes to get to where she met us, so maybe 30 minutes for me to get back. It was reassuring to know I was so close, and I tried picking up my hiking pace (still barely above a crawl, but it was an effort). Getting onto the levee was amazing, I could hear the music and see the finish line, and even hear people cheering. As we got to the final path leading to the arch I was able to break into a shuffle, where a bunch of volunteers made a human arch for me across the finish line. I had finally made it!
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| It was a beautiful course, I could have taken many more pictures |
Recovery has been surprisingly quick - except the blisters and chafe. They are still painful 3 days later. Other than that, I even feel like I could go for an easy run. I'm also exceptionally tired quite often - yesterday I accidentally took a 3 hour nap and it didn't affect my night time sleep. I feel like I ran a well-executed race. Time to go research blisters and NOT browse UltraSignup after a few beers...
