With one epic, run, I am ready for Sawtooth

Yesterday I wrapped up my training for the Sawtooth 100 with an all-day run at Afton State Park; my tapering starts today. Myself and a handful of runners got together to run a few loops of the Afton Trail Run course. The idea was to put a get a lot of easy time on my feet in preparation for the task that is Sawtooth. My plan was to run up to three laps (75K, or 46.5 miles), time allowed. I ended up going 38.1 (~61K) miles in 7:25, about a 11:51/mile pace.

The run was a great success. We ran slow and easy, taking our time and walking more than I would if I was only running 50K or racing the course. After each loop, we took an extended break to eat watermelon, drink coffee, and otherwise re-fuel.

This morning, I have minimal soreness. This is a testament to two or three things: we did not push the pace or try to thrash our muscles, we adequately drank water and consumed food whilst running and during breaks, and hopefully, my level of conditioning now only three weeks out from the hardest race of my life thus far.

With that said, there are some lingering thoughts in my head as I prepare for this race.

I really don't know what to expect

There will be a distance after which I do not know what to expect from myself. In my two completed 50 milers, life got very difficult after about mile 40 or so. I distinctly remember telling my wife at mile 45.5 or so at Surph the Murph that I was dying - I meant I was fading, but you get the idea.

This weekend's run is encouraging - it demonstrated that I can run 40 miles without feeling like I want to give up. Fatigue was starting to set in, but it had occurred later than it normally would.

I don't exactly know how to run this race

This is my first 100 miler, and other than starting slow, I don't exactly know how to run this race. Give my inexperience and singular goal of finishing, my run will be about the basics:

• Eat and drink early, often and in large enough quantities to protect myself later in the race
  
• Start slow and run with an even effort
  
• Always continuing moving forward
• Never, ever, ever give up
  

During the run at Afton, one of the runners said it was also the hardest 100 miler in the Midwest - i.e. you'd have to go to Leadville or Hardrock just to get a harder race. Now, I don't have the race experience to be able to evaluate that statement, but the statement is pretty bold in itself.

My run at Afton did much for my race psyche. It told me that I can run 40 miles at a fairly easy pace and maintain that pace for a long period of time. Only when we got north of 35 miles did the stress from the distance start to set in, and by then it was minor and manageable. Our pace also set my mind to how I need to start out.

The run also was a test of running slow. We intentionally ran slower than our legs and minds permitted because we had the tremendous distance at the forefront of our thoughts. (There were times when we got over excited and ran a little too hard; these moments must be eliminated during the race.) During Sawtooth, going out too hard or trying to put time in the bank could be devastating later down the trail.

A final note

I ran the first 25K with a pair of original Luna Sandals, Barefoot Ted's sandal company. My intention is to run a portion of Sawtooth in them, if not the entire course. To my knowledge, no one has completed the race in anything but shoes i.e. no one has completed it in FiveFingers. In order for me to do that, I'll need the raw foot strength to handle the stress - in the past, I've gotten top-of-the-foot pain after about 10 or so miles. It occurred at Afton this weekend at some point during the loop, so perhaps I won't be able to rock the sandals for the race.

Unfortunately, something on the sandals failed because the suede top separated from the Vibram sole. I had gotten the sandals quite wet by running through dew-covered grass and I suspect the glue dissolved under the wetness. I have contacted Luna and asked for an return/exchange to a model without a suede top. I would like to get a pair of Leadvilles and use that at Sawtooth, for example.

The failure said, I still would recommend the sandals to people - I love running in them, and they do wonders for your efficiency because they require you to run light, smooth, and easy. Just don't get the top if you ever want to run in anything wet or during a rain - I was slipping and sliding all over the place when the sandals got wet. This did a number on the space between my toes where the strap went.

Another ultra under the belt: Voyageur 50 Miler

Voyageur is over. I finished an ultra, and once again, that was all that mattered. Voyageur is a race I am glad I have now completed and it is one that I will never run again for the reasons below.

The way out

160 people were signed up, and it looked like a huge crowd for an ultra – the biggest ultra by the number of participants I had ever run in my life.

The pace started out fast, like it always does. I ran with a group of folks who seemed to be taking it how I wanted to – quickly over the early technical section, not letting up on the flats, all while recognizing that hills should be walked. This group splintered after the first aid station at mile 3.5 because people took more or less time getting their aid on, so to say.

After the first aid station, I put on a favorite race tactic: I skipped basically every other aid stations on the way out to get a jump on people. For the most part, it worked. I put 30 seconds to a minute on them each time and I just ran and ran and ran. Most caught me eventually as I slowed to a crawl in the latter half. More on that later.

The first 25K or so went as smoothly as a jaunt through the woods can. I felt good, was pushing comfortably, and did not feel like I was stressing my systems in dealing with the single track, muddy forest roads, or the Powerlines (more on those below).

Things started to go south in the two or three miles prior to the aid station at mile 18.6. Those miles were set to a long, gradual uphill and I had a pack behind me that put fear in my steps. The incline was minimal but noticeable – too shallow to walk, but just enough to make running difficult.

When I got to the aid station at 18.6, I was a little gassed. My wife asked me how I was doing. I responded that I was winded because of the uphill, but that I felt otherwise fine. I did not feel fine. She forced me to take some salt in the form of Pringles and get moving. “Pick up those feet,” became her mantra, practically shouting it as I left each aid station she met me at.

I left that aid station with water in one hand, Pringles in the other. I ate them slowly, one at a time, as I walked up the rural, paved road. It kept going and going, turning and still making its climb. I ran what I could and walked what I couldn’t. My decline started then and there.

Eventually I left the pavement and entered into muddy forest roads. Mud enveloped small depressions and slowed running to ginger steps, lest I lose a shoe in the muck.

No sooner than I saw the next aid station in sight did I see the leader passing me going the other direction. It was getting hotter now and I skipped aid like I had with alternating stations before. It was the first major unintelligent decision of the day.

Those three or so miles down to the zoo are just that – down. The course ran along a dirt road and later turned onto maintenance roads for Spirit Mountain. Eventually, you turned down the hill onto a road and toward the zoo. Which of course means you must go up it on the way back.

I got to the turnaround in terrible shape. The temperature had clearly climbed, and being exposed on the side of a hill did not help. I had seen all of the front runners ahead of me on their way up the hill, running what I knew I would later walk. Looking back, I was clearly dehydrated and needed some sustenance. Not that I recognized that at the time, however. My wife picked up on this at the turnaround and made me eat two cookies, two slices of watermelon, a salted potato, and I drank maybe 15 oz of water just standing there. I left with a full bottle, too.

The way back and going into ultra territory

From the turnaround on out I stopped at every aid station if only to fill my 24 oz bottle, for I had consumed all or nearly all of its contents since the aid station. Some of those were only a few miles apart – no more than two. Yet the fluids were consumed and refilled. I figure I drank close to 1.5 gallons of water on the way back (~100 oz on the way out, too) and still was dehydrated upon finishing.

The remainder of the day was a battle fought in the gray matter between my ears. Something clearly had gone wrong that day – whether it being I started out too hard (always a likely culprit), was dehydrated (most likely), underfueled (less likely; I had a gel every 45 minutes or so), or all of the above and now it was taking its toll.

At some point, fatigue set in. After about mile 33, I found it hard not to walk. This was a mental goal of mine going into the race. I was to do better than I did at Superior 50K this spring and run over technical sections. For the most part, I believe I succeeded. In the latter stages of the race I could not run the technical roots and rocks, but that was based on pure exhaustion and not mental fatigue. Perhaps they are similar, but the feeling was different. When I was exhausted and confronted with a technical section, I took it easy so as to protect myself. I felt assured that I was doing the right thing. In contrast, when I walked out of mental fatigue at Superior this spring, I felt like I failed that test.

Ultras are mind games because the brain lasts longer than body, and my body had started to fatigue. My muscles were not sore, but my legs do not want to be picked up. My knees cannot rise like they once did, and I started to shuffle. With physical weakness comes mental doubt, and it s vicious, reverberating cycle. Many things crossed in my mind, but the Sawtooth 100 was chief among them. Should I run it? What was this run saying about my ability to do twice this distance? Could I even finish it?

At some point I banished those doubts. Maybe it was somewhere around mile 41, when I finished the Powerlines the second go around. That was the hardest part. But I had survived, and that was all that mattered. I would finish, the issue now was when.

Those last 8.5 miles were hard fought. I was passed by a handful of runners who were moving much more cleanly than I. But I had given up on place at that point. It was about finishing.

The last stretch is a cruel 3.5 miles. The first 2.5 or so are the most technical of the entire course. Those trails take you along a river and over and around rocks, boulders, and exposed cedar roots. The last mile or so is pavement. Painful, endless pavement with only two turns, both 90 degrees to the right.

I ran hard through the finish, and yelled as I crossed the line. My time, long since irrelevant, was 10:42:15, a full 100 minutes (2 min/mile mind you) slower than my previous 50 mile finish. Terrain and weather do matter, and today was living proof of it.

The Powerlines

The infamous Powerlines. What are they? Not what I thought – they were much, much more. I was under the sorry impression that there were two ups and downs to get to the top of a set of powerlines. Of course, this is what is depicted in the race photo. But of course, it is not the whole picture. After you get to that peak, there is a quaint jaunt through the forest until you reach a second, longer, steeper set of lines.

When I came around to the Powerlines on the way back, the dusty inclines demolished me. The sun radiated down, unfiltered by clouds or obstructions. I could do no more than be in full-on hike mode, plodding one step after the other up and down repeated hills. But I did not stop or enter into a mountain-climbing lock-step. In that, the hills were a success.

The Powerlines are one of the reasons I will never run this race again. Simply put, the Powerlines are dangerous. I fear the day it rains the night before or the morning of the race. The clay-like mud would make getting up nigh impossible. Similarly, the trail itself it too rutted and steep to descend with any safe speed other than a reserved, plodding trot.

Saying this, I will retreat slightly. There is nothing wrong with ridiculously steep hills repeated over and over or placed in succession on a course. The issue here was one of surface – potentially slippery, rutted and technical, and steep. All three made for a bad combo.

Post race and recovery

I slept that evening, something I was surprised enough about to be writing it here. After Surf the Murph, I rolled in agony that night as muscles cramped and complained from the toil I had put them through just a handful of hours before. But that was not the case with this race.

Instead, I was just sore in a few joints, my ankles mostly. There appeared to be very little muscular soreness. Most of any residual pain was gone by Tuesday or Wednesday, and I felt good enough that week to log 39 miles, including 20 miles with some steep hills just a week after the race.

The plan. Oh, the plan. The plan right now is to run those 20 milers every week for the next four or so weeks and then take two weeks of easy running. Then run 100 miles in one day. Easy, right?

The Lesson

My father asked me what I learned. What is the Lesson, he asked, like it was some sort of epiphany I was supposed to experience with each venture beyond 26.2. At the time, I told him that I didn’t know. I hadn’t had the time to digest the whole process and what I had just done. But the next day it came to me: eat and drink early and often.

When I was sucking wind at the later aid stations, food and liquid rejuvenated me. At the turn around, I spent a considerable amount of time eating watermelon, potatoes with salt, a cookie or two, and as much ice water as I could pound down in those few minutes. And I felt better. I still had a hell of a climb back up to Spirit Mountain and its respective aid station, but felt I felt better. It was the Lesson.

The Lesson echoed what John Storkamp had told me just a few weeks before Afton. In a nutshell, with the stomach goes the whole run. If you can manage the eating and drinking, and appropriate the care and feeding of yourself during a run, the rest is easy.

A final note

I did not fall during Voyageur. It is a historic occasion – it’s the first time I have finished an ultra without falling.

Running on hallowed ground

On Saturday, I will run in the 30th Voyageur Trail Ultra, a 50-mile jaunt through the woods from Carlton to Duluth. The race will be a final tune-up before the Sawtooth 100 just six weeks later. It fits neatly into my training program, too - I was set to do a back-to-back 30/20 weekend. A race is just so much more fun.

The course should be considered hallowed ground. None other than Scott Jurek holds the male and overall course record, and it is also the race where he got his start so many years ago when his buddy Dusty Olson nudged him into. He later would become the greatest ultrarunner this side of Yannis Kouros.

A few jottings and goals before the race:

• This 50-mile race has about 1K less elevation gain/loss than the 50K at Afton four weeks ago (10K v. 9K).
• Temps will be hot and humid. Joy.
• There are nine aid stations, and you hit them all twice with the exception of the one at the turn around. That's an aid station approximately every 2.5 miles or so, if you count the start and finish as aid. I'm hoping only for ice, salt tabs, and water/HEED at each. Even if they aren't well stocked I should be fine.
• Goal pace? Anywhere between 10 flat and 10:40 per mile. It puts me at about an 8:20-8:55 finish pace. My Surf the Murph 50 mile time was 9:04:00 for 50.4 miles on an easier course and with less training. My goal is to start slow, tap into my seven month base of endurance and hold solid. If I'm anywhere close to 4-4:20ish at the turnaround I'll be happy.
• Goal place? There were 162 runners signed up when I checked last night; no idea on male/female divide, but there are plenty of runners here who have beaten me or have run similar times than me. Based on past Voyageur results, a top 15 or 20 (overall or male) would be great and not unreasonable (especially if I get into the low 8:00s). In contrast, UltraSignup.com has ~53 runners (37 men/16 women) ranked higher than me percent-wise. Those percentages can be and are deceiving if you do not look at each person's results, however. That's something I won't do for this race.
  

Minnesota heat wave

I wilt in heat, but jealously wish for a precious few days so that I can run in it.

Minnesota and the entirety of the Midwest has been in a heat wave since Saturday. Temps have approached or hit 100, and dew points have been in the high 80s. Taken that combination and the heat index makes it feel like something north of 110 or 115. We've been under heat advisories and the old, young, and ill have been advised to stay home. Youth sports have been canceled, postponed, or moved earlier to the day. And it's not supposed to break until Friday.

What does this all mean? First, my glasses fog up when I walk outside. Moisture from the air condenses on the lenses because their temperature is less than the dew point. The same occurs on my windows. Second, it means heat training. Lots of heat training.

Running in hot weather puts tremendous stress on one's body because it limits our ability to dump heat via sweating and other methods. Heat builds up, and at a certain point other systems start to slow or shut down. And once your stomach stops processing calories, its all a downward spiral from there. Do too much damage and you're run into heat exhaustion and stroke. Eventually, you'll pass out and potentially die, your brain simmering in the pressure cooker that becomes your skull.

So what to do? I take is slow and easy; your training becomes more about time than miles. I ran a route yesterday that I under normal conditions would have taken by 35 or 36 minutes; I did it in just over 39 because I slowed down up to 50 seconds per mile to accommodate the temps. And you take ice water. I knew I was in for a hard run the other day when my ice was gone within 10 minutes.

How people run Badwater (held last week!) is beyond me.

Afton Trail Run 50K race report

We pulled into a gas station in Hastings at about 5:45 AM, both decked out in Mankato Multisport green. Jacci needed some breakfast, and I needed the same. A banana or two would suffice for me, a fruit bar for her.

“Are you two running a marathon or something?” the clerk asked as we placed our goodies on the counter. “Or something,” my wife responded.

We arrived at Afton Alps to find pre-race goings-on in full swing. Packet pick up swamped, and the family of one of my running friends had been there since about 5 am staffing it. My friend’s wife and daughter were volunteering throughout the day and he was running the 50K. Naturally, he was still asleep while they doled out race numbers and swag bags.

My parents were coming down from St. Cloud to crew and watch. It was the first time they had been to one of my races since my first ultra in the spring of 2009, and my wife and I needed someone there because we were both running.

Eventually, we were herded to the informal start. There was no line, just a general understanding of where we all should stand. Race Director John Storkamp stood on a ladder and explained why we were here instead of at the adjacent state park. He advised us to stick to our proper switchbacks, and to not cross over onto another of the same. Then he commented that some of the volunteers who were flagging the route could not run one loop of a course of which we were about to run four.

No one had any idea about what we were to undertake. I could see the slopes to my right and scanned the hill for flags or course markers. I saw none. It never occurred to me that I might be going up to that peak three times that day.

Without warning, Storkamp said “Go!” There was no ready, set, etc. Just go. And we took off.

I jogged slowly in the front of the scrum, trying to find my place in the pack. The first few miles of an ultra are always weird. Inevitably, someone runs too fast, and I have been known to do the same on several occasions. It’s hard to pick a pace and stick to it when you’re going to be running for the next several hours and people around you are going at a certain comfortable speed. It’s even harder when their comfortable pace is comfortable to you, at least for the time being.

I tucked in behind the eventual women’s winner and one other person who was trailing her. I knew we were moving fast, but the pace felt competitive and sustainable. I knew that she was fast, and I usually place at or near the first woman, so I stayed with her as long as I could. The first 4.25 miles of the course was generally held on single track mountain bike trails, and there was a scaled-down aid station (water, gels, and ice were its only supplies) about two miles in.

I stayed with the eventual winner of the women’s race until the first big hill. She ran fast, fast, fast up the hill and jogged what reduced me to a walk. There was nothing I could do but let her go. I went back and forth with a runner I knew from other races. “The third lap is going to be a killer.” he said. I hope he wasn’t right.

I hit the first aid station and dumped all of my water, replacing it with HEED instead and added a little ice to keep my body temp down.

The latter chunk of the lap was almost the same as the first – single track on switchbacks and through wooded areas, or running from one trail to the next through mowed swaths of grass.

But the hills! The switchbacks went up, sure, but the climbs were a less dramatic, curving run. But the slopes went up, up and up some more. There were three major climbs, all of which took place in the last three miles of the loop.

The second and third climbs demoralized runners. On the second climb, you can see runners adjacent to you but on a separate path running down to finish. When you get to the top, you run down and realize that although you are 100 yards to the finish line as the crow flies, you need to climb up to the top again so that you can run down and see racers heading up that second climb.

I came across the first lap in approximately 1:15. I knew at that point that a 5-hour finish was likely out of the question - it was simply unrealistic given how difficult the course was.

I started to put ice under my hat at the start of lap two. At the aid stations, I grabbed a chunk out of the five-gallon buckets of ice water. Into and under the hat it went, and I ended up smashing it down and distributing it around the top of my head.

I never much felt the melting ice water trickle down my head. Much of it was wicked out onto the bill of my cap and escaped off the corners in non-stop drips. But I could tell that the ice was working if only because my head felt drier and hotter when the ice ran out.

The second lap went similar to the first, but this time the 25K runners had started just about 10 minutes before I finished my first lap. It would be struggle to get around them on the single track. Most obliged my requests to pass.

I came across the second lap in approximately 1:21. I had slowed a few minutes, but I felt good. I knew I couldn’t keep that pace, but I needed to try.

My parents were waiting for me at the aid station at the start/finish, like they always had been. They had been great about making sure I was getting gels and salt tablets in me, and they asked all the right questions.

It’s funny when exhaustion starts to creep in; it can add minutes per mile to your pace. It starts slowly and is most noticeable when one starts walking hills they ran up earlier in the race. Gradually it hits you on the flats. It gets harder to pick up your knee and get a long stride. The downhills are the last to go. Normally, they are free-wheeling affairs. When exhaustion sets in, you’re just doing your best not to a) fall on your face from going too fast for lack of control; or b) you fall on your butt or thrash your quads from going to slow (usually because of the fatigue).

All of that would set in on the third lap, and I knew I was going to be in trouble. That which I ran on laps one and two I walked, and my knees had a hard time rising to appropriate heights.

Just past the second aid station on lap three, there was a long stretch of gradually inclined single track. In prior laps, I had pushed this section to gain time and this lap was no different. But it was. About three-quarters of the way through, my right calf cramped while that leg was mid-stride and in the air. The pain was immediate and searing, like nothing I had experienced before. The rest of my leg froze with the shock of what had happened. With nothing to support me, down I went when my left leg tried to leave the ground during its natural stride.

My body rolled counterclockwise as I fell and I landed flat on the outside of my right upper arm. Upon impact, I rolled a little off trail and into the woods. The woman behind me, a 25Ker, was just shocked. "Are you OK?" she asked with deep concern. I told her that I would be fine, and I rolled back onto the trail and hoisted myself out of a fetal position and into a sitting one. During this entire time, my right foot pointed from the involuntary flexion.

I reached for my calf to work out the cramp. All I could picture was the image from my old Boy Scout handbook of a scout working out a calf cramp while swimming. My calf felt like a 2x4, and I could not cause it to relax. One runner came and offered me an S! cap. I happily obliged, sanitation be damned. He left, and a second runner offered the same but this time I declined. I sat there pounding fluids.

Shortly after I took that S!cap, my calf relaxed. I stood up, waiting for the pain to return. I walked. Then hobbled. I jogged, and then went into a full-on run. I had survived the ordeal.

The calf cramp likely saved my race. A prompt yet controlled adrenaline rush coursed through me as a result of the trauma and perked up my stride. I ran the rest of the loop hard. I came in at around 1:40, a full 19 minutes slower than my second lap. My friend was right - the third lap had been a killer. Now it was on to the last lap. I had to adjust my goals, the only time I consciously thought about doing so.

When I got to the end of my third loop, I was sitting at about 4:20. I asked for and got two more salt tablets, some gels, and repeated my sponged ice bath. I dunked my hat in the bucket and pulled out ice chunks. I switched to water instead of HEED, too. On I went. I wanted to finish, and I only had one lap to do it in.

Loneliness dominated the final lap. Gone were the 25K runners whom I was passing with great frequency. The 50K runners had spread out for the most part and put several minutes between each other. I had no idea what place I was in, but I was comfortable.

On that final lap, I took note to avoid the pitfalls of my Spring Superior Trail races 50K – I needed to run what I could, and not slow to a walk to manage difficult, technical terrain. For the most part I succeeded, even though many of those sections were taken gingerly.

When the big climbs came, the race became all about not giving up. I power-hiked them with as much gusto as a person who had just run 30 miles could. On the last and steepest of the three, both calves twinged – were they going to cramp up? – but the pain subsided. Such an event likely would have put me to the ground, and then rolling down the hill.

As I was coming down the final hill, more folks had gathered at the finish than there were on my last lap. I finished strong, with the obligatory arms up and promptly laid down in the hot grass. My parents, wife, and friends rushed over to me.

For the most part I was OK. Until a second cramp assaulted my right calf. Water, HEED, and two salt tablets, STAT! Oh, and some Coca-Cola. Gradually the cramp relaxed and I was ushered to the aid station, into the shade of a canopy and given more ice-soaked sponges than I knew what to do with. A cheeseburger soon arrived in my hands, and life that day was complete.

I ultimately finished in 24th place of 97 finishers, and I was the 20th man. Overall time was 6:02:17, an 11:41 average pace (unofficial as of 7.17.11).

Of particular note were the finishing times of the top runners. Only two runners managed to go sub-5 hours – the top finisher came in at 4:30 and change and the second place runner was at 4:52. Other runners, including folks who have placed high and run very fast times on the State Park Course were approximately 50 minutes to an hour off their top Afton times.

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Overall, I was very pleased with my race. I was OK with my splits even though I tanked hard on the third lap - I think most folks did, as evidenced by the fact that I was only passed by two people on laps during the latter half of the race.

I successfully dealt with the heat, calf cramp notwithstanding. I learned a lot about what my body needed in order to successfully manage hot weather, and I managed to stomach gels with frequency.

Up next is the Voyageur Trail Ultra, a venerable 50-mile race from Carlton, Minn. to Duluth, Minn. and back. It is over some fierce, technical trail that forms the lower portion of the Superior Hiking Trail, and none other than Scott Jurek holds the course record.

I chose to run Voyageur because it is a full six weeks before the Sawtooth 100, and I am using it as a tune up for what will be my first 100-mile race. More on this later.