Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A First Anniversary Celebration (Chattooga River 50k race report)


To celebrate our 1 year anniversary this past weekend, Jordan and I ran the Chattooga 50k put on by Terri Hayes. Supposedly, this was my idea. Right now, I’m still too tired and sore to claim the inspiration, but I’ll admit to growing more and more curious about ultra marathons as I supported Jordan through her races in the last few years. The opportunity to mark the first year of our marriage with a run seemed too appropriate to pass up; I mean, we spent much of our first week together running! So yeah, I guess it was my idea…

Jordan has blogged about Terri’s races before, and this one lived up to all our expectations for scenery and challenging trails. A large portion of the race was on the Foothills Trail near Oconee State Park, an area where I spent a lot of time hiking as a Boy Scout. I remember the Foothills Trail being quite challenging; it seemed like the trail builders were never content to let the trail remain level, it always climbed up and down ever little hill and rise that they could find. Sixteen years later, the trail hasn’t changed; it is still very strenuous, even treacherous in places where trees have fallen across it or rains have washed it out. It is also just as scenic as I remember; the section of trail we ran follows the Chattooga river, which offered us secluded picturesque views to briefly distract us from what we were doing.

The race start/finish was at the Cherry Hill Recreation Area, west of Walhalla, Seneca, and Clemson. We stayed with Jordan’s parents in Greenville the night before (who fed us massive amounts of pasta), which cut down on our travel time the morning of the race. We got there just as the sun was coming up, pleasantly surprised (nay, ecstatic!) at the low humidity and low temperature. After enduring a few pre-race stomach jitters (in my experience, an upset stomach on race morning is actually a precursor to a good race), we were ready to run.

The race started right on time; Terri is quite an efficient race director. We were a little late getting ready (I’m slow in the mornings), so we missed the race briefing, but hoped we’d have people in view to follow when the trail turned. The first section was a seven mile out and back, from the start to the first aid station. We quickly discovered it consisted of one long descent that of course we would have to climb on the way back. I also discovered just how well-known Jordan is in these races. Compared to larger footraces, ultras are more like a family affair; this race was limited to 74 starters, and I’m convinced everyone knew someone else that was running. After the first aid station, we caught up with Mike Riggins, with whom Jordan had run a good portion of an ultra earlier this year. He was quite familiar with the trails we were running, and guided us onto the next section of trails, a ten mile section on the Foothills trails between aid stations.

It was this ten mile section that made up the majority of the race, and contained its most challenging parts. As I said before, the Foothills trail is never content to remain on level ground, and this section is no exception. We set an easy pace with Mike and Mark, tried to conserve water (we both carried two 21 ounce water bottles), enjoyed views of the river, and chatted as the miles passed by. At this point I was still feeling good, happy to be spending a day in the woods with my wonderful wife, our legs comfortably eating up the trail. We arrived at the second aid station at 17 miles and were greeted by Viktor, a volunteer who seemed to have been waiting just for us as he said, “You’re here! Eat something, drink something!” I discovered later that he is a good friend of Terri’s, and though only having run for a year, he is already an accomplished ultra-runner. I got some Coke and potato chips from the aid station (the Shot Bloks we took with us left me craving salt), and we started off on the next section, another out and back that took us downhill for two miles, then right back up the way we came and back to the aid station. Since I’d been rationing my two water bottles on the previous ten mile section, I made a point to drink both bottles during the next four miles to catch up on hydration. We made it down to the little bridge that was the turn-around point, and went back up the hill, passing runners and warning them not to go any farther than the bridge, lest they add to their mileage for the day.

We took a few minutes at the aid station (this time greeted with, “You’re here again!”) to stock up on water and food, as this was the last chance we had before the finish. There was a large crowd of runners there, so we slipped out on to the trail to try to stay ahead. We estimated that we would finish in about 2.5 hours (it would be closer to 3), so I set my watch timer to try and ration my water accordingly. This was the part of the race that had me the most worried, but also the most curious. The farthest I’d ever run was a marathon (Marine Corps back in ’08), and I’d only managed a broken up 24 miles during training for this race, so I didn’t know how I would react as the miles added up. We decided to walk the up-hills and run everything else, taking frequent walking breaks, stubbornly pushing forward. That worked until I landed wrong on a root and tweaked my left knee; a slight injury, but it made running downhill very painful, so now we were reduced to running the flats (rare on the Foothills trail), and walking everything else. Jordan has spoken of having ‘dark times’ during a race, and I definitely had one, arguing with the trail and with my knee with every step. I found my way out of it when we stopped to dunk our visors in the river, and Jordan gently reminded me to eat. For the rest of the race, she led me through the woods, setting intermediate goals (“let’s run to that tree, and then we’ll take a walking break”) and relentlessly pushing us forward. My water rationing plan worked almost perfectly; I think I ran out about 12 minutes from the finish. We crossed the line hand in hand, and with a kiss, to much applause from the volunteers and earlier finishers. We finished in 8:12:46, a time that Jordan says tells more about how challenging the trail was than how fast we ran.

Having crewed for a number of Jordan’s races, I thought I knew the ultra community pretty well, but it is a different experience to participate. I was surprised at how friendly and uniformly supportive everyone is; racers and volunteers alike. I also noted the variety of individual approaches concerning gear and race strategy; everyone has their tried and true method of eating, drinking, and racing. For my race, I carried two 21 ounce Nathan water bottles (yes, that is the brand name). I drank 9 of them during the race, so 189 ounces; not near enough, but that was all I could get. I ate 4 packs of Shot Bloks, a couple handfuls of potato chips, two boiled potato wedges (just for the experience; they’re a staple of ultras), a third of a banana, and one M&M (a treat!). I came away with a good bit of muscle soreness (to be expected) and 2 blisters, but feel I faired pretty well for my first ultra. I’m already being tempted by Terri’s FATS 50K that happens to fall on my 30th birthday. Running my age (plus) might just be an opportunity too appropriate to pass up.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Bethel Hill Moonlight Boogie 50 Miler Race Report

If you spend an afternoon perusing web pages for ultra races, you will find that most of them of quite friendly, welcoming, and encouraging. There are a few however, that plainly send the message: “Stay the hell away if you know what's good for you.” The Moonlight Boogie fits into this latter category. One of the two pictures on the website features as big a snake as I've ever seen outside of a zoo (and I grew up in a swamp) and the text brags about starting temps around 85 degrees with no shade and a dropout rate of 40% among veteran fifty milers.


So why was I doing this race? I needed to get a 50 miler in for training for Burning River 100, and this race was relatively local (3 ½ hour drive to Ellerbe, NC) and cheap ($30 entry fee). The race started at 6pm, requiring running through the night, and advertised “heat, hills, and humidity.” I was looking at it as worst case scenario training for Burning River and I was bracing myself for a suffer-fest.


The course was 5 laps of a ten mile course, all on road: a six mile loop plus a four mile out-and-back. After a very long race briefing accompanied by thunder rolls and heat lightning, panicked runners sprinted off to the porta potties. Then the marathoners and 50 milers lined up to start in separate directions and we were off!


Lap 1

I groaned as I started running: my legs felt stiff and tired. Doing races as training runs has really taught me to appreciate how much tapering helps when I actually do it. Weather on this lap was a blessing: everywhere we ran in had just rained, but somehow we were never in the rain itself, allowing for unexpectedly cooler temps. Don't get me wrong: I was sweating just standing around waiting for the race to start, we spent much of this lap running through steam rising of the pavement, and an oppressive wave of humidity rolled for a mile or two, but it just wasn't as miserable as I had been planning for. I was rather discouraged for much of this lap because I could see so many people ahead of me. I thought I must be at the back of the pack. I would later learn that the marathoners had only run their 0.2 miles before following behind us, and it was actually mostly them who were ahead of me. I ran much of this lap with a man named John, and finished the lap around 1:46 (the plan was to run two hour laps for a total time of ten hours.)


Lap 2

I pulled ahead of John at the start of this lap and ran alone for most of it, as I would for the majority of the race. And I'll just go ahead and admit it: I was grumpy. For the entire first 28 miles, I was annoyed that my legs felt crummy from the start and having a hard time wrapping my mind around staying up all night to run 50 miles on paved roads that all looked exactly the same (two lanes, hills, woods on either side). I had spent the first lap walking most of the uphills and a steep downhill to save my IT band, but I realized the downhills felt the worst. So I switched to a general run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute pattern, regardless of uphill vs. downhill. This worked well on the six mile loop, but was tougher on the out-and-back which was essentially two miles downhill and then turn around and run back up. There were a few patches of light rain which felt nice, and by the end time I finished the lap with a split of just under 2 hours, it was DARK.


Lap 3

I was soon convinced that this was the most monotonous race I have ever run. Yes, more so than 102 laps around a .98 mile course. With the moon hidden behind storm clouds for almost the entire race, it was far too dark for to run without my headlamp on. This meant I could only see a few feet ahead of me, and I basically spent the last 33 miles of the race with nothing to do but follow the white painted line on the road. I really wanted to quit during this lap, even though my legs were starting to feel better. I've never experienced an urge to quit before, but I was so bored and lonely. Other runners were out on the course, but to me they were just bobbing lights that would blind you if they looked at you, and without the facial recognition I felt less of a sense of community as I usually do at these races. Then it started to rain, and a man named Eric Fogleman caught up with me on the out-and-back. He was walking the whole two mile hill back up to the start, but he walked really fast (he had about six more inches to his legs than I do) so I stayed with him for this hill and chatted. He corrected my thinking that I was at the back of the pack and we talked about some mutual ultrarunning acquaintances. I felt much better after this, clocked another 2 hour loop, and took off for the last 20 miles.


Lap 4

As soon as I started the fourth lap, the rain started coming down hard. Even though I was running in a circle, the rain always seemed to be shooting directly into my eyes. We were all caught in a downpour for over an hour, and there was lots of thunder and now some bolts of lightning mixed in with the heat lightning so I was starting to get a little scared. In spite of all this, I was feeling great, both mentally, and physically. The 5:1 pattern was still working well and allowed me to run most of the uphills, which was tiring but felt better on my legs. It serves as anecdotal proof of the importance of flexibility in race strategies for ultras. The storm was moving away, but I still gave Nathan permission to pull me from the course if he thought it wasn't safe (and I promised I wouldn't get mad at him for it). It continued to rain for an hour or more longer, but without the same driving force so that it was much more manageable. I finished another lap in a little under two hours.


Lap 5

I picked up my pace a little as I started the six mile loop of this lap, or at least I thought I did. For the last two laps, I ran alone the entire time. I passed a number of people during these final laps, but I was actually lapping most of them so we didn't run together at all as I passed. As I cruised into the 43.5 mile aid station for my last water bottle fill up, I heard country music, smelt cigarette smoke, and had a man in a cowboy hat help me with the water cooler-in case I had forgotten I was in the middle of nowhere. I saw something coiled in the grass beside the road which I hope was a fat, short garden hose and not one of the area's rattlesnakes. I was able to speed up for the last 4 miles of the race and run almost the entire hill back up the finish (mapmyrun.com rates it as a category 5 climb by cycling standards) to finish in a time of 9:35:46. I have no idea where I finished place-wise.


As I hobbled from the finish back to the car, I told Nathan “I felt so much better while I was running than I do now! I should have just kept going. Remind me in the future that a finishing kick in a 50 miler is just not worth it.” Luckily after a couple hours my legs felt much better (though I'm not about to head out for a run today).


A few notes: I must give props to SmartWool socks—My shoes were filled with water for the entire last 20 miles and yet I didn't get any significant blisters.


Food: I ate 5 ½ packs of shot blocks, a PB and J sandwich, ¼ of a hamburger, ½ can of Pringles, a rice cake with PB spread on it, 2 saltines, some gatorade, and a sip of ginger ale. I was nauseous when/after eating for much of the race but it never got to to point where I had to slow down or wasn't able to eat.


Next time I promise I'll wait more than 7 hours after finishing to write a race report so I forget some details and it isn't so long. In two weeks, Nathan and I do the Chattooga River 50k together for his first ultra so he will write the race report for that one.


Thanks!


-Jordan