Find a good rut and stick with it.
-Sandi Ashley
“Thirteen miles to the finish.” I stared at the volunteer, frantically calculating, then
burst into tears. I was
ninety-plus miles in already, and I’d been running at threshold for the past
two hours, desperately trying to make up time against the possibility of
missing a thirty-hour finish.
“Someone told me it was seventeen,” I sobbed, “and I just lost my
shit”. She stared back at me with
that ‘maybe I need to pull this guy from the race’ look. Through the tears I said, “No, I’m fine. Really, I’m okay. Thank you for
being out here. It’s just so hard.” I ran away before she could tell me I
had to stop.
There were a lot of tears shed in Colorado last week. I’d planned the trip almost a year ago,
in part to race the Run Rabbit Run 100 mile, but mostly to have a chance to
spend time with my Grandmother, the last member of her generation in my
family. Instead I arrived just in
time for her memorial service. I
started my eulogy by saying that I would try to tell some stories from her
life, but that if I broke down, people might have to think of their own stories
for a while. They almost had
to. The other members of our
family kept it together better than I did. Beautiful stories were told, and beautiful music was played. One piece we didn’t sing
was “I’ll Fly Away”. As my sister
recounted, Grandma hated that song because they always played it at her
friends’ funerals.
What I didn’t say at the service, and would only slowly come
to accept, is that my Grandmother had also given me an incredible gift by her
passing. All the members of our
family came together in Colorado to celebrate her life. It gave us a chance to reconnect with each other, and it
gave us time to remember who we were and how we came to be. It meant that we were able to share our
history again and, with the travel already made, it meant we could spend a few
days together in the mountains.
For me, selfishly, it meant that my whole family would be with me when I
needed them most.
After doing what little we could to help settle affairs in
Fort Collins we drove through the mountains toward Steamboat Springs. We stayed at the little ranch cabin Dave
and Sandi and Jan had built in the 1970’s just before I was born. It sits on an open plateau of grass and
sage seventeen miles from town. It
has a huge picture window with a view all the way to the mountain. When we first arrived the mountain was
enshrouded with dark and angry-looking clouds, but the next day, as we drove to town, the storm broke. We were greeted with first a solitary rainbow, then a pair. They were
the brightest I’d ever seen, and at one point even the space between the two
seemed streaked with color. As
omens go, it was pretty hard to beat.
It seemed as if my Grandmother was giving us one last goodbye, a
beautiful, joyous farewell. It
turned the page for me, leaving me to focus on the race.
At our family pre-race meeting on Thursday night we went
over the course and the aid stations, the pace estimates and gear. We covered who would meet me at each of
the crew access points and what I might want there. And we talked about focus and motivation. Olivia took a black marker and wrote on
my left forearm ‘This is what you came for’. On my right arm ‘Not all pain is significant’, and on my
hands ‘Be Somebody’ and ‘Experience Joy’, all visible reminders of how to keep
my darkest thoughts at bay.
At the race start Friday morning, 8 AM, I started in the
back. The course contains four
thousand feet of climbing in the first four miles. I knew I’d be walking all of that, and I did. I checked my watch, keeping my heart
rate below my target of 132 bpm, ten beats below MAF. At first the clouds spit sleet and rain at us, but soon the
sun broke through, bathing the mountain in light, though not warmth. The sight was incredible, green spruce
and fir surrounding stands of aspen that had turned not just yellow and gold but
even red. Blue sky and gray rock
and the tiny stream of brightly garmented runners climbing slowly up the
face. At the top of the gondola I
met my family for the first time, exchanging quick hugs and handing off my rain
jacket before hiking along.
We soon came to the Mt. Werner aid station, well above
ten thousand feet, where the course levels and contours along the ridge. I was frustrated to find that I
couldn’t keep my heart rate down at anything above a slow jog on the flats, and that even the slightest climb or descent required walking. I began to repeat what would become my mantra for the first day,
a quote from Mark Allen: "Total Commitment plus Total Surrender equals Great
Significance." I hated watching
others, clearly less fit, run by, but I knew the fastest way to destroy my race
was to overexert my sea-level trained body at elevation. I have a plan, I thought, and that plan
will work. Total commitment to
that plan. I was probably placing
somewhere around 190th of the 211 starters, but I refused to care.
On the descent to Fish Creek Falls my body could finally
begin to move without spiking my heartbeats. I passed a few runners on the smooth early sections then
danced by the crowds that had slowed on the rocks. My East Coast technical trails were finally coming in handy. As I
skipped over the stones the song my Grandma hated filled my mind. I began to sing softly as I ran down
the trail, then more loudly – I’ll fly away, Oh Glory, I’ll
fly away in the morning, when I die Hallelujah by and by, I’ll fly away – and
I smiled as I gathered strange looks from all the hikers who must have thought
I’d lost my mind.
My brother-in-law Chad met me above the Fish Creek aid and
ran me down the road through town.
We chatted about the day and the race, and he showed me a video on his
phone of our family cheering for me.
The miles clicked by quickly until we met the whole crew at Olympian
Hall. I got fritos and coke and a calf massage, and I picked up a trucker hat full of ice. I spent too much time there, but it
felt good.
On the loop out to Cow Creek I stuck with my plan, repeating
over and over again: Total Commitment.
Chelsea from Vancouver caught up and eventually passed me, along with a
pair of Japanese runners, Kara from Steamboat, and a few others who were in no
mood to chat. It was the heat that
was slowing me now, and I thanked God and my Dad for the
trucker hat full of ice. I’d
learned my lesson at the HURL, and I wasn’t going to overheat again.
At Cow Creek I refilled on ice, gels, and hugs. I hit my first real low of the race on
the gentle road climb above the aid station. I walked along, letting my body settle, fighting off the
negative mentality. Once I hit the
single track I felt better, and soon my energy returned in full. I began to see runners ahead, and for
the first time I let my competitive impulses push my boundaries. I became the hunter, picking off
runners one by one and in groups.
I whistled songs aloud as I approached and passed, flaunting how relaxed
I was, how far I was from oxygen debt.
I road that high all the way back to Olympian Hall, making up time
against the clock.
Chad ran with me through town again, keeping with me in the
gathering dark. He asked me how I
felt about having to run through the night, sunset to sunrise, and I said I
was worried. He asked me my three
favorite things about running by headlamp. I couldn’t think of any, but I could see he was doing his
best to help me. That alone was
enough.
The night was hard regardless. I passed more runners, and began to be passed by more and
more of the elite “Hares”, who’d started four hours after we “Tortoises” were
on the course. In the dark the high
country air was icy. I felt tired, sleepy. I wanted to lay down, to cover myself with the space blanket from my pack, and
it was so hard to keep up any reasonable effort. I would check my watch after what seemed like hours only to
see that we’d moved less than a mile.
Back at Long Lake Jenn Shelton was tending to runners and
handing out shots of whiskey to anyone who was willing. Andy Reed caught me there. He was moving well, but he said his
stomach had turned badly. I
followed him out of the aid station, nauseous as well, and watched his headlamp
disappear into the dark. He was
still at Summit Lake aid when I arrived, but he said his stomach had
recovered. He showed me a note
card his wife had slipped into his drop bag: “Embrace the Pain”. We laughed about it and about my HURL
race report, about how he knew I was cooked long before I did, and we tried to
help another runner whose knees and hips were betraying him. Soon Andy disappeared down the trail again, this time for
good. I followed along slowly
until my friend Karen Holland, another elite starter, caught me, then kept time
with her for a few miles before my energy crashed completely.
I struggled into Dry Lake, where the love of my life met
me. I told her I wanted to
quit. We talked for a minute, and
then she told me I’d passed my lucidity check. She told me to quit my whining and get out of there, but she
tempered her hard side with hugs and a hot mocha. I left the aid station and within
moments, at 2:30 AM in the freezing dark, received the most incredible jolt of
energy I’ve ever felt in a race.
Her strength and warmth propelled me down the trail to the Spring Ponds
turnaround, then back up to Dry Lake with Chad in tow again. It was the most amazing feeling.
At the second pass through Dry Lake we hit our one hiccup of
the race. My faster pace and the
crowded shuttles meant my parents hadn’t arrived at the aid station, which
meant that I didn’t have the warm clothes, bottles, and headlamp batteries I
needed before I climbed back into the high country. For a moment I sat, bewildered, as Chad frantically searched
for a spot with enough cell reception to find out where everyone was. I was freezing, stuck, and my stomach
had turned sour again. I could
almost see the mental demons slithering over the frozen ground toward me, stalking me. Then, unbidden, a quote from Nickademus
Hollon’s Tour des Geants race report exploded into my brain: “I accidentally kicked a rock hard with
my right foot then. The pain opened my eyes right up and I repeated to
myself: This is the best possible thing
that could possibly happen to me right now.”[i]
This is the best thing that could possibly happen to me
right now! I stretched my fingers
out in front of me, made fists, then relaxed. I got a cup full of hot salted broth from the woman at the
aid counter, then a second. My
stomach began to settle – the best thing
that could happen right now.
Chad worked his hands over my calves, and a few of the knots began to
loosen – the best thing that could
possibly happen right now – then he moved me to a warming tent. My fingers thawed, and I stopped
shivering. The best possible thing that could possibly happen to me right now! Hollon’s statement is not true in
its essence, but it can be made to be true. My parents arrived, and the gear transition was fast and
seamless. I hugged them hard. Those hugs were the last thing I needed
before vanishing into the dark.
This is the best possible thing that could possibly happen to me right now.
I climbed back to Summit Lake as the world slowly
brightened. At altitude my energy
evaporated again. The aid station
was supposed to be eighty-two miles in.
I’ve learned over many races that even at my worst, even at altitude, I
can still walk consistent twenty-minute miles. My aspirational goal of a twenty-four hour finish was long
out of reach, but I still had my sights set on a sub-thirty hour buckle. The course was supposed to be one
hundred three miles, meaning the remaining twenty-one miles would take me at worst seven hours. It was 6:58 AM. I would just make it. To reassure myself, I asked a volunteer
how far it was to the finish. He
looked at his sheet, adding up distances from one aid to the next. “Not far now,” he said. “Twenty-five miles to go.”
In that moment I felt the world closing in. I rebelled. There’s no fucking way
I’ve worked this hard to miss a thirty-hour finish! I have to make up a fucking hour twenty over then next
twenty-five. That’s seventeen
minute pace, no, 16:48. Shit. 10,000 ft for the next 15, and the next two aids will cost you time. Damn it. I don’t
know if I can do that. Fuck. Go, go, go!
The battery of my heart rate monitor had died hours
earlier. I clearly wasn’t going to make it at 132 bpm anyway. I
gave up on my plan and started pushing, hard. I ran everything I could, and climbed as fast as I could
when I couldn’t run. My hands
started to swell, and I started to see things I knew weren’t there – a coyote that
was really a stump, a blue shirt that was really a flash of sky through the
trees, a bizarre dragon-like creature that was really a pile of rocks. I was loosing sodium balance, but I
didn’t care. Fine. I’m not drinking til the end. I can do that.
I kept it together emotionally until the return through Long
Lake, eight miles later. I’d made
up half the time I thought I needed, but it had cost me. I was hurting, badly, and I didn’t know
if I could keep it up for another seventeen miles. I checked with a volunteer again “How far until the end?”
“Thirteen miles.”
I almost fell over.
I started crying, hard, wracked by the intensity and the relief and the
knowledge that I still couldn’t rest.
I tried to pretend that all this was normal and no reason for a forced
DNF. I left as fast as I could to
make sure she wouldn’t pull me from the race.
After a while a sense of normalcy, or something resembling
normalcy, returned. I stabilized
my effort, walking the ups and running the downs. I didn’t know what I should do on the flats, but there weren’t
enough of them to worry about anyway.
Eventually I caught up with Karen again. We walked together for a moment, and she said she was
hurting. I said not to worry, we’d
just run the downhills together.
At the next pitch I skipped down the rocks and she called from behind
“Your steps are so… dainty”. It made me smile, and I needed that. Karen didn’t follow, though. She was solidly in forth place, third
far ahead and fifth far behind. No
need to risk injury or overreaching.
I carried on, up to Mount Werner, where I pretended my
swollen hands and visions were nothing of concern, then down the long cat track
toward the finish. Three miles
from the end I found my sister.
She sent a simple text message to our family, two words. “Got him.”
We ran most of those last three miles, pushing forward and
picking off a final few competitors.
They didn’t even try to follow. As I neared the finish the announcer
joked that I looked like a 5K runner, and that my tan lines matched my
shorts. I stopped just before the
line to pick up my son and my niece, then carried them across. I hugged the designated hugger,
officially completing my journey, then collapsed on the grass in the shade of a
card table. I’d finished 19th
overall in the tortoise division, and while 38 of the elite hares would have
faster times, I even picked off a few of them. Not to mention the 30 elite DNF’s.
I stood up to cheer Karen across the line, and she soon took
my place lying down in the grass.
I was so proud of her. She
had just crushed a course that had felled the likes of Michele Yates and Tim
Olson, and finished fourth among the elite women. It was an incredible performance. Later we exchanged messages about where to meet up next –
maybe the Georgia Death Race or the Cruel Jewel 100? We’re both looking for UTMB points, and who could turn down
another 108 mile “one hundred mile” race?
Post script: Execution vs. Plan
In the corporate world where I spend my days there is much
discussion of execution vs. plan.
How did earnings compare to projected earnings? Has cycle time been reduced as
expected? Have we come up with an
appropriate metric to measure our number of metrics? You get the idea.
For this race, though, I did have a very specific plan. Most of it was heart rate based. I had aspirational time goals, but the
primary point was to run as fast as I could at an effort that I could sustain
for one hundred miles. I defined
that effort in advance as an average heart rate of 132 bpm, 10 beats below my
MAF heart rate, and I added an additional cap of 142 bpm. Looking back over the data I violated
the high end cap routinely but never for long and, amazingly, my average HR
when the battery gave out at 71 miles was exactly 132. I’m sure it was much higher over the
subsequent 32 miles, but I’m okay with that. At some point in a race you have to take risks – just don’t
take them too early. That said, in
the future I’ll likely plan somewhat more aggressively regarding effort. Based on my experience here I think I
can sustain MAF – 5 for a full day, and a MAF + 5 cap is reasonable if not
violated for long.
Other key points of the plan were around temperature
control. I bought my TRN trucker
hat specifically for the purpose of keeping ice on my head during the heat of
the day. I taught myself to run
with it on, even though I hate having anything on my head while running. It worked. Granted it wasn’t 97 degrees this time around, but the
impact of the afternoon sun and heat was minor and mitigated instead of major
and goal-crushing.
The cold in the high country at night was a whole different
ballgame. For the early part of
the night I carried a wool shirt, light rain jacket, gloves, and beanie in my
UD vest, slowly putting them on as the temperature dropped. It was enough, but carrying the vest
was frustrating and likely unnecessary; I eventually dumped both bottles just
to stop hearing the sloshing.
After the second Dry lake pass I added a heavier jacket and gloves,
ditched the vest, and picked up my handheld again. The heavier jacket was nice in that the pockets allowed me
to stow hat, gloves, buff, and headlamp after morning rendered them
unnecessary, but by midday I felt like I had the Spanish Armada tied around my
waste. As a person who naturally
runs hot, I plan to carry substantially less cold gear next time around. There is some risk with that plan, but
barring disaster, fighting off cold with movement and body heat seems better
than carrying too many coats.
Post post script:
Reevaluating myself as an athlete
Coming into this race I really wanted to break 24
hours. There’s something magical
about the idea and phrase “100 miles, one day”. I raced nearly as well as I could have and ended up at 28 h
15 min – not close. Part of that
is the course in question. The Run
Rabbit Run course record (which is legit, given that Tim Olson and Rob Krar
have failed to break it!) is 17:15, as compared to 14:46 for Western States and
12:44 at Rocky Raccoon. The larger
reality, though, is that I’m not the runner I wish I were, at least not this
year. If I actually want to run
the times I’d like, I need to make major changes to diet, training consistency,
and, most importantly, reduction of life stress. Job-related stresses destroyed at least a month of key
training this year, and I’m sure I suffered more because of that. Add on an occasionally laissez faire
approach to eating, sleeping, and running, and I’m four-ish hours off of where
I want to be. Luckily, all of
those things are fixable.
