Race Report - 2014 Philadelphia in24 24-Hour Urban Ultra

First, let's be clear about what this post ISN'T about.  It's not the Badwater post that you've come to expect around this time of year for the last four years.  And yes, it does feel a little strange NOT to be writing about Badwater at too-early-o'clock on the day after the race, as has been a mid-summer tradition for me.

This post is about another tradition, one that hearkens back to 2008, and the first Back on My Feet "20in24" 24-hour race in Philadelphia.  As a total unknown, having run ultras for only about a year, I showed up at the race with Collin.  While Collin had a bad day and dropped out early, I braved 95+ degree weather and no shade to run 111+ miles, and finish second overall, to Serge Arbona (who, at the time, was a relative unknown to me).  At the time, the thrill of battling it out for 24 hours under brutal conditions, and the resulting muscle pain, sunburn, and $75 prize check were the height of "epic" when it came to ultrarunning.

Then Badwater happened, not once, but four times, and each time was incredible and memorable in its own way.  It was a difficult decision not to run Badwater this year, but with the course change, and all of the background that went along with it, in the end, it just didn't FEEL right.  And, let's face it - a lot of things about ultrarunning, if not life in general, aren't entirely logical.

Fortunately, the Back on my Feet "in24" provided an exciting opportunity to do something different this year.  I had always wanted to go back and run it again, but since it always conflicted with Badwater, it was never an option.  Finally, this year, it was.  And not only was it a chance to run a race that I had always wanted to go back to, but it was also an opportunity to re-unite the Badwater 2013 crew - Chris, Shannon, and Meredith.  And, better yet, Chris, our perennial crew-member but complete non-runner, was going to race, courtesy of a few of us pitching in to cover his entry fee.  Back on my Feet also gave me a free entry to the Midnight Madness race to give away, and my friend Traviss won my contest for the entry, so he would be out there at midnight, too.  All in all, it was shaping up to be an exciting race.

There was one major downside, though - training.

After the Boston Marathon in April, I was sick for almost a full month.  Then I attempted 3 Days at the Fair in mid-May, and crashed and burned (unsurprisingly) in my attempt at a good 24-hour race there.  At that point, I now had 8 weeks before "in24," and between significant new job responsibilities at work, at church, and managing a newly long-distance relationship (after a couple of years of being as close as those type of relationships get), the time and energy to train the way that I had wanted to just weren't there.  I averaged 50 miles per week for the 8 weeks leading up to the race.  That's not terrible, but it's certainly not the kind of volume that's ideal coming into a 24-hour race.  (Although it's still better than Chris's 5 miles of walking a day, in preparation for his first 5K, 5-mile, 10K, 10-mile, marathon, 50K, 50-mile race . . .)

In spite of my lackluster physical preparation, for a number of reasons, I was mentally in the right place coming into this race.  The idea that, in contrast to 3 Days at the Fair, I would have my friends there supporting me, made a huge difference.  Even though there were not a lot of logical reasons to believe that this race would go well, I had a good feeling about it.  For eight weeks, on every training run, I thought about the race.  I thought about the focus that I would need to have, the pain that I would need to endure, and the feeling of reaching my goal, which was mostly to compete the best that I could for first place.  Considering the physical shape that I was in, a PR in the event, although possible, seemed unlikely.  That left competing with the course, the conditions, and the other competitors . . . the same way that the event was in 2008.

Pre-race dinner with Chris, Meredith, and friends, was as light-hearted as the pre-race Badwater dinners, albeit in the suburban jungle of Chipoltle and make-your-own-froyo, as opposed to a remote desert oasis.  Having not slept too well all week leading up to the race, I finally slept soundly the night before, knowing that when I woke up in the morning, the only thing that I would be worried about for the next 24(ish) hours would be forward progress, the best that I could.

After saying goodbye to Meredith's husband and daughter (the latter of which would have me laughing about her "on stairs" joke, that I'm not going to bother explaining here, since I am the only one in the world that thinks that it's funny), we headed off to Fairmount Park, found parking, checked in, and set up our tent (strategically next to Serge Arbona's tent, and just a couple of steps off of the course, for convenient access).  We had a good laugh at Chris's outrageously high blood pressure and resting heart rate (somewhere in the neighborhood of 145 over 91, and 78, respectively), which the paramedic taking the readings just shrugged at as he handed Chris the check-in form.  Chris, of course, being cheerful Chris, was undeterred.

The weather was much cooler than expected, thanks to the "polar vortex," rearing its head once again in the middle of the summer.  This would make the race interesting, since with reasonable temperatures, anybody who was truly in shape for the event (not me) and raced smart could potentially log huge mileage.  Off we went, and I settled into what felt like a reasonable, comfortable pace for the first four hours or so, ticking off the 8.4 mile lap in somewhere between 1:15 and 1:30 per lap, employing strategic walking breaks to make the task more mentally manageable.  Serge had gone ahead, and there was nobody in particular who was running at my pace, but that was okay.  I was enjoying the freedom of finally running the event that I had planned on running months ago.  My stomach was bothering me a bit as I started settling in, but amusingly enough, when I passed Chris, he had Gas-X to give me, proving that he can crew even when he's running a race.

Nearing the end of four laps, the cloud cover was lifting, the sun was coming out, and the temperature was climbing.  This was the insidious sort of temperature increase, that you don't realize is a problem until your stomach turns and you start throwing up.  I could feel my control on the race slipping away, but then the first of a series of well-timed things happened.

About ten minutes away from the end of my fourth lap, Shannon showed up, right on time to begin pacing (pacing was allowed after four laps).  He was fresh, and throwing down a tough pace, but it was exactly the sort of challenge that I needed at that moment to push through the mental low point that I was reaching.  Shannon paced me for another two laps, and had me talking and laughing enough that I forgot about the increasing pain everywhere.

I could tell that Shannon was fatiguing, though, and at this point, not quite 9 hours into the race, there was still a ton of time left.  And then the second of a series of well-timed things happened.  Jackie and Jeff showed up just as I was finishing my sixth lap.  Although they weren't exactly "fresh," having "run" (read: scrambled over boulders) quite a bit on the Appalachian Trail earlier in the day, they were still less fatigued than I was, at just over 50 miles in.  Having their company and distracting banter for the next lap once again helped me push past what could have been a low point.  They left for a lap, which was just enough time alone with my thoughts, before Jackie jumped in for one more lap, again, just the right amount of help.

At that point, it was getting late (after 10 pm), and Jackie and Jeff needed to leave, but then the third in a series of well-timed events happened.  Traviss, who was my Midnight Madness contest winner, was standing around near the start/finish waiting for his race to start, and, as he overheard our conversation, he offered to pace me for a lap or two after he finished his race.  Left to my own devices for a lap, the Midnight Madness runners proved, again, to be the perfect distraction, as they ran towards me with their glowsticks and words of encouragement.  I smiled a lot during that lap.  Here I was, out there running for 14 hours, still 10 more hours to go, with these runners just starting out, and I was actually able to smile.  So, I may as well smile.

Near the end of the lap, I picked up Maggie as an impromptu pacer, and she pushed me through the next few miles, matching (and in some cases exceeding) my pace.  Once again, a well-timed event that carried me through to the end of the lap, where, as luck would have it, Traviss was finishing just as I was getting ready to head out again.  I set out for another lap with Traviss and Maggie in tow, and once Maggie reached Lisa, who she had promised to pace, it was just Traviss and me for the remainder of the lap.  Once more, the perfect support and distraction, especially at nearly two in the morning.

Unfortunately, Traviss needed to leave after a lap, since this was an unplanned pacing gig anyway, but he did bring me some particularly delicious fresh-squeezed orange juice before he left, which, stomach-churning effects aside (nothing that some Tums and Coke can't fix), was probably the best thing that I had tasted the entire race.  Now I would be on my own for a while, and my thoughts turned to the competition.  I had been at the start/finish a couple of laps ago when Serge lapped me, so, short of a blow-up on his part, or a miracle on his part, I was unlikely to beat him.  But Mark mentioned to me, a couple of laps ago, that the mysterious second-place runner (who I had heard was old, young, from Haverford, and probably a dozen other things) was only about 20 minutes ahead of me.

I had no idea who I was looking for.  Maybe I had already passed him.  But without the aid of pacers, I needed the motivation of trying to catch somebody who was ahead of me to prevent me from lapsing mentally.  After a little bit of iPhone-aided research, I discovered that his bib number was 61, and I would spend the next several hours looking at every person that I passed for that magical number.

Finally, heading into my 14th lap, coincidentally enough, very close to where I had stopped in 2008 when I ran 111+ miles, I jogged up behind a group of three people in their mid-20s, surrounding another person in his mid-20s.  This fit one of the vague descriptions of this "Cohen" fellow that I was chasing down.  I passed him, said a friendly hello, looked at his chest, and sure enough, partially obscured by the mandatory reflective gear that he hadn't yet taken off (I hadn't taken mine off, either) was that magical "61".  He asked how I was, and I said "just taking it one step at a time."  And with that, I knew that I had to make my move, and I took off running.

I pushed through the next lap in around 1:25, the fastest lap that I'd completed in quite some time.  I wanted to make sure that when he came around at the end of the lap, and asked how far behind he was, I would have put the maximum distance between us that I could, and that that might break him.

As I later found out, after the race, when he came over to me and shook my hand and congratulated me, he confirmed that my strategy had worked exactly as intended.  He had thought that he was further ahead of me, but was already a bit demoralized to learn that he had just a 12-minute lead.  When I passed him with authority, and got far enough ahead of him, he actually stopped after 14 laps.  Not knowing this, I had to "suffer" through an entire 15th lap, to arrive at the start/finish with 45 minutes left, to confirm that I didn't need to go any further, and that, with 126+ miles, I had secured second place, with no chance for first.

Meanwhile, amidst all of this competition, the final of the very well-timed things happened.  As I reached the last half-mile of my 14th lap, Shannon and Chris were off to the side of the course, getting ready for one last push to the finish.  Chris was going to make his 50 miles!  I slowed down to walk with them, and we walked in together.  I didn't realize it at the time, but, as we crossed the finish line, both Chris and I were victorious (him with his 50 miles, me with securing second place) at exactly the same time.

What I did realize at the time is that both Chris and I were in horrific pain, Chris moreso than I was.  But my time would come.  I could feel myself mentally breaking down at the end of my 15th lap, having left Shannon behind, who himself was tiring as a pacer for Chris, and Meredith, and me, putting in over 50 miles himself between pacing the three of us.  As I let my guard down, and the adrenaline started to wear off, the pain starting to overwhelm me. The thought of Chris dragging himself through the finish, and how he must have felt, was in the back of my mind.  Slow or fast, in these races, we all have our moments of doubt and suffering.  Soon enough, though, I would be sitting in a chair near the finish, spent, glad to be finished, and delighted with the DJ's sense of humor, as he played "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica, and then "Money" by Pink Floyd, in succession.

After a massage and perhaps lingering too long on the Lloyd Hall upstairs patio with a banana and a bottle of water, I went downstairs for the awards ceremony, to greet Serge with a fist bump, and it looked something like this:

Serge and me, 1st and 2nd place, post-race, all smiles.
(Thanks, Meredith, for capturing this moment!)

Just like in 2008, Serge had finished first, and I had finished second.  He had run just over 142 miles today, and I had run just over 126.  Just like in 2008, neither of us had had our best day, but as competitors, we gave it our all until the end.  Unlike in 2008, we both walked away with a lot more money - Serge with $2500, me with $1000.

The in24 in Philadelphia certainly isn't Badwater. Only Badwater is Badwater (and this year, even that is unclear).  But the in24 was the right midsummer race for me this year.  At the end of the day, I got exactly what I had wanted out of the race - great competition, and quality time with great friends, all of whom I cannot thank enough.  I've definitely started races in better shape, and I've definitely had better performances by the hard numbers.  But I can't think of a single race that I've run where I've had more timely and valuable support from my friends leading up to, and throughout the event.

So now this is going to sound like the end of a Badwater race report, as I offer my most sincere thank-yous to Chris, Shannon, Meredith, Jackie, Jeff, Maggie, Traviss, Meg, Tina, the mysterious "Cohen/61," Serge, Mark, Christian, the rest of Serge's crew, all of the folks at Back on my Feet and Pretzel City Sports and Stroehmann Bakeries (that make lots of gluten-filled foods that I personally can't eat, but are great for everybody else), all of the participants in the Philadelphia in24 races, the amazing, enthusiastic volunteers on the course, all of the other sponsors that made this race possible, and probably a bunch more people that I'm forgetting.  At the end of the day, this, like Badwater, was a race that was about bringing a team and resources together, and competing the best that you are able to.  And, thanks to the great friends that I have, that all came together to help me through this, the 2014 Back on my Feet "in24" 24-hour race was exactly as amazing as I had hoped it would be, and, this year, exactly the right race for me.

Badwater 2013: Spirit Walker

It's happened every year, at least to some degree. But this year, it was the worst. As I crossed over to the right side of the road, to retreat to the relative cool of the crew van, just 18 miles into my 2013 135-mile Badwater run, the first and foremost thought in my mind was: How on earth am I going to finish this race?

Not that this was entirely surprising. After 2012's Badwater left me so physically spent, it was hard to imagine coming back to Badwater in 2013, especially considering how poorly I was running in February. But I had made a promise to my little sister to run Badwater in 2013 for G-PACT, and that, above all other reasons, was why I came back to Badwater 2013. Although I trained well, got much healthier, and improved my fitness greatly in the months that followed, my race results had been a mixed bag. There was really no way for me to be confident about a strong performance, and as race day got closer, this anxiety intensified.

On the logistics side of things, though, things came together without incident. With Chris and Shannon crewing again this year, and Meredith, a veteran of Badwater as both runner (most recently, last year's last-place Badwater finisher) and crew member, replacing Jackie (who is attempting the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning this summer, which conflicts with Badwater), the assortment of gear and goods needed to run this race came together quickly, even affording us time to visit the Hoover Dam before the race. (I've wanted to visit for the past three years, but somehow, preparations always seem to take longer than expected.)

Since you've seen plenty of Death Valley pictures on my Facebook page and on my blog, here's something different: a nifty picture near the Hoover Dam. 

Race morning came, and although my own preparations were quick and efficient, loading the crew van was not. Being stuck behind slow-moving tourists who were yielding to runners from the earlier waves meant that we made it to the start with just 10 minutes to spare, missing the group photo, but in time for the national anthem, for which I wore a pair of pink-and-blue wayfarer-style glasses, with giant kisses on each lens, in the interest of being one step ahead of the trend - this year, the "Badwater Store" was selling these glasses, the kind that my entire crew wore in 2012, and Chris Kostman himself was sporting a pair, of white (our team's color) no less. 

(This year, our team's name was "The Spirit Walkers," at Shannon's suggestion, after the relatively obscure, vaguely obnoxious, oddly infectious Ween song, which pretty much sums up our approach to this event: http://youtu.be/g1_GoMgoT44. Hence, the feathers pinned to my cap and my wristwatch, although I think this will not be as trend-setting as the sunglasses.)

After the group countdown, we were off, and for a few minutes, I thought that, in consideration of what was expected to be extreme heat this year, even for Badwater, we would all run conservatively. But of course, about ten minutes in, this all went out the window as people started going off the front, stringing out the starters. I did my best to keep things under control as the heat rose, but I found myself passing the Furnace Creek time station just 10 minutes slower than my split last year, under much hotter conditions. I didn't feel too bad, so I reasoned that things would all sort themselves out . . . 

Which they did, in a less-than-desirable way. Shannon hopped out to start pacing me (pacing is allowed from the 17-mile mark at Furnace Creek to the finish), and I responded by immediately going into heat-exertion induced dry heaves. Of course, I'd been here before, as recently as last year at Badwater, but this I couldn't shake. I moved forward more slowly, but after another mile or so, I had to temporarily throw in the towel and head over to the crew van to cool down. After 15 minutes or so in the van, I went back after it, but it wasn't more than another mile before I was back in the crew van, packed with ice, hoping to feel better. The fact that Dean Karnazes had already "staked out" (gone off the course temporarily to seek assistance, medical or otherwise) was at least some reassurance that everybody was suffering.

By 3 pm, and about an hour of time-out in the van, I was back on the road to Stovepipe Wells, moving at a more controlled pace. I told my crew that hopefully now, the worst of this was over, and it would be relatively smooth sailing to the finish. 

Of course, this turned into a falsehood, as the temperature continued to rise above 120 degrees, with a hairdryer-hot crosswind making it feel even worse. Even with ice in my bandana and my hat, the heat cut right through this, and my pace slowed further as I neared Stovepipe Wells, the 42-mile mark. I reached the time station about an hour and a half slower than my 2012 split, feeling far, far worse. 

Still, I was not alone in my misery - Shannon Farar-Griefer and her gingham-dress-clad entourage were lingering there, and rumor from my crew was that Oz had blown up there as well. So I took about half an hour to eat an ice pop and try to cool down in the van before I continued. Townes Pass, with its 5000 feet of climb over 17 miles, is no joke, and I wanted to do everything in my power not to break down on the climb.

But sure enough, the blasting headwind and the continued heat meant that I continued to struggle. Just a few miles past the Stovepipe Wells time station, I got back in the van again, for another 15 minutes or so, wanting desperately to quit (although never saying it out loud, which, by Meredith's logic, doesn't count). My crew urged me back out there, but after another 15-20 minutes of trudging misery, I returned to the van. Shannon was clearly climbing stronger than I was, and I was feeling worse by the minute. Thoughts of not finishing the race and disappointing everybody who had supported me were getting louder in my mind.

So, as a last resort, similar to what I did in 2011, and with Shannon's blessing, I lay silent, by myself, in the dark crew van, for an hour. I didn't really sleep, but an hour of collecting myself made a huge difference. I returned to the course, Rhapsody-enabled iPhone in hand, and blasted Attack Attack while I, well, attacked the climb. I started moving more comfortably, as Shannon, Meredith, and even Chris took turns pacing me up the climb. I passed Shannon Farar-Griefer and her crew apparently having some sort of picnic behind their van on the side of the mountain, which made me feel even better about my progress (they laughed at our water gun system of cooling, so it all worked out for everybody).

When I finally reached the top, it was "business time," and I gained some momentum on the downhill. I could see the line of blinking crew vehicle lights ahead of me in the valley. We were now in a sort of no-man's-land, as all of my early stops had separated us from the rest of the race. But I was running a good downhill pace, and slowly but surely, I was gaining on the runners in front of me.  Meredith paced me in to Panamint, where I tried to use the restroom, but discovered that it was occupied. In the interest of never spending more time at Panamint than necessary (see previous years there), I just left. Walking away from Panamint quickly is always at least a minor victory.

It was now 5 am, which put me at about 4.5 hours slower than my 2012 split, mostly due to stoppage time, as opposed to running slower. So I knew that I had the legs to do this, if I could just hold it together for the next 63 miles. With the sunrise, I perked up a bit, and made brisk progress up the climb to the Father Crowley overlook. I was chatty with both Meredith and Shannon as they alternated pacing me, and feeling better about how this was going. 

Sure enough, in four hours, I had covered the tough 18 miles from Panamint to Darwin, the mile 90 time station, where Meredith welcomed me with a little "Darwin dance." And sure enough, I was passing plenty of people, which was a mental boost, even if some of them (like Tammy, who was fascinated by the fact that she was "ahead" of me, even though she had a 4-hour head start) were in earlier starting waves. (In Tammy's case, she tried to get her pacer to take a picture of her ahead of me, but by the time the pacer got the camera set up, I had already passed her for good.)

Holy cow, I'm running Badwater! (From more or less this section of the race; I just like this picture.)

From Darwin to Lone Pine, a 32-mile stretch, the course becomes more runnable, and, channeling some of last year, that's what I did. In spite of a 15-minute nap break, because I was falling asleep on my feet, I covered this section in 6 hours, getting stronger and stronger as I got closer to Lone Pine, fueled by Kaskade, Ke$ha, and New Order blasting on my headphones. My crew and I had finally hit on a sustainable strategy of water, soda, spraying, and ice bandanas, and everything was clicking. The crowning achievement was passing David Goggins about a mile away from the turn to Lone Pine, at a 7-minute mile pace. Who knew what place I was in at this point, but the surprised, "who the hell is THIS guy?" looks that I was getting from those in front of me, zombie-marching while I approached at a full-on run, told me that some people were going to be very surprised that I was hot on their heels . . .

At this point in the race, this was pretty much everybody's view of me.

Shannon and I blasted through Lone Pine, hollering, screaming, and fist-bumping with the sheer joy that comes with running that fast after having covered 122 miles on foot, and we jay-ran across the street (albeit inside the crosswalk) to Portal Road, where Jimmy Dean Freeman, who I chased in my first epic climb up Mount Whitney, and who always seems to be in the right place at the right time, encouraged me to "climb like you're chasing me!" I told my crew that this would not be a wobbly-legged climb this year, as it was last year, and I proceeded to put on a climbing clinic, power-hiking up the hill, head forward and headphones still blasting. I didn't speak much, lest I lose focus on the task, which was not only to power up the climb as fast as possible, but also to make sure that I didn't crap out at some point, so that, as I had promised, Meredith would get to see Mount Whitney in the daylight. (As a "slow" finisher, she always ends up climbing Mount Whitney at night, and was excited by the prospect of seeing it in the daylight.)

And then, somehow, almost impossibly, for the second year in a row, after over 100 miles of running, I had passed Dean Karnazes.  I couldn't believe how I had done it.  To this day, I'll still never understand how it happened.  But I did it!

As is the case in this part of the race, the air gets cooler and the climb gets more comfortable near the top, in contrast to the 109-degree heat near the bottom. So I sped up closer to the top, not really sure what my split was shaping up to be, but having a vague sense that I might be on track for a PR. I was pushing the edge at this point, low on calories but not wanting to eat and upset my stomach. I was feeling woozy with a little over a mile to go, but two well-timed bags of chilled fruit snacks later, I was feeling strong again, and powered through to the finish. My crew and I ran through the tape together, finishing in 32 hours, 7 minutes, and 51 seconds - a 3 hour, 12 minute split to Whitney Portal, slightly faster than my 2011 march. And of course, Jimmy Dean Freeman was there to share in my success, and offer me handfuls of peanut-heavy trail mix. Another victory. 

Victorious.

We got down the mountain as quickly as we could, in our starved, sleep-deprived state (those post-race hamburgers at Whitney Portal really hit the spot), and headed for sweet sleep at the Whitney Portal Hostel. Sweet, sweet sleep.

I finished 3.5 hours slower than last year, and 8 places lower, but ultimately, I think that I ran a smarter, better race. Last year, I had the benefit of "mild" weather, a tailwind, and plain old luck. This year, many more things were stacked against me, from my long recovery to health to the extra-hot weather. I had my share of low points and then some, but I worked through them well, and ultimately ran the last 63 miles of the race, from Panamint Springs to the finish, in 13 hours - an hour faster than my best for this section, including a new PR on the climb to Whitney Portal, and, overall, about the same as the top finishers' splits on this section of the course. So, in a way, this year's Badwater was a lot like this year's buildup to Badwater - fumbling and frustrating in the early going, but eventually smoothing out, and going on to exceed expectations. 

I am deeply thankful to all of those who supported me and my efforts this year, and the years prior - family, friends, crew, donors to G-PACT, and I'm not going to list any more right now because I'll surely miss people. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you all are the reason why I ran Badwater this year, and you all are the reason why I kept fighting to turn the race around and finish strong. And thanks to all of you, fingers crossed, I'll be back again next year, for my fifth consecutive Badwater, with the goal of making it the best yet.

Week in Review: 25-31 March, and Umstead 100 Epic Fail Report

Getting the numbers out of the way:

25 March: 15 miles, half with Jesper (see previous blog post - 120 minutes)

26 March: 7 miles at APG, some faster parts in there (down to 6:30-ish/mile - 50 minutes total)

27 March: 1 easy mile (10 minutes) - sick

28 March: 1 easy mile (10 minutes) - sick sick

29 March: 1 easy mile (10 minutes) - sick sick sick

30 March: 3 unintentional miles (30 minutes), searching for my misplaced car (which ended up getting towed right before my eyes)

31 March: 83 miles (1080 minutes), or, in more human-readable form, the first 83 miles of the Umstead 100, in 18 hours

Total time: 1310 minutes
Total distance: 111 miles

And now, what you really came here for: the race report.

My Umstead 100 failure is, even a day later, still a difficult thing to pick apart, let alone digest (especially with the knives-of-fire feeling in my stomach continuing as I type this), but, since "I always try my best" has become my mantra lately, here goes:

Coming into this race, I was not exactly feeling my best. In addition to being sick for most of the week leading up to the race (which, due to a hectic schedule at work, was improving on a very slow timeline - one day of complete rest would have totally knocked it out; instead, I had to settle for 3+ days of gradual recovery), the morning of the race, my car was towed (story for another day), and I had to get it back from the impound lot before I could even begin my drive down there.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse. As recently as Thursday night before the race, I couldn't take a full breath without chest pain, so it was a relief on Friday to finally be able to breathe fully for the first time in a week. And Serge Arbona, an ultrarunner from the Baltimore area who has won Umstead a few times, had his car break down on him on the drive down - fortunately, not too far from the race, so Mark, Johnny, and Katie were able to drive out and pick him up (and Johnny was going back to Baltimore after the race, so Serge had a ride home), but the car wasn't coming with him.

So with a "nothing is perfect, so let's just work with what I have and see what happens" attitude, I arrived at the (entirely too-long) pre-race briefing on Friday, and totally unintentionally, found myself sitting underneath the poster listing the top times on the 100-mile course (no pressure). After the briefing, I found Mark Manz (who I was staying with, whose recent training mileage and race performances have been pretty much flawless, at increasing distances, and who lives just a few miles away from the course, and trains on it all the time - again, no pressure) and company, and it was off to dinner, Target, and bed, perhaps wasting a little too much time (but having a lot of fun) in the process.

I slept pretty well on the floor in Mark's apartment (Serge apparently slept on a board in the woods, much to Christian's chagrin, so I think that sleeping in hard, uncomfortable places is pretty much as critical to being a champion ultrarunner as eating pizza and Nutella), and woke up without too much foot-dragging at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning, with everybody else. Maybe I woke up more easily than usual because I was vaguely excited about what I was about to do.

I don't think I ate much of a breakfast, but I also didn't feel very hungry. Not having to drive to the race was a luxury (Johnny did the honors). We got there in plenty of time, and baffling ordeal in the start/finish lodge aside (we were told to "just set your drop bags anywhere near the back of the room," a direction which would later become problematic), it was a very comfortable way to begin an experience that would become very uncomfortable . . .


<3 . . . minutes before the start of the race. (not an S&M club, as somebody later suggested)

The Umstead 100 is 8 laps, 12.5 miles per lap, on a "crushed gravel" surface, which is so packed down at this point that it's basically a road (think NCR Trail with hills, for Baltimore people). The gain/loss is 1000 feet per loop, or 8000 feet total, so while it's not flat, it's not unmanageable, either, as none of the gain or loss is steep enough to truly force a walk. So this is basically a very fast course, and it was my hope that I could at least run sub-16-hours here and set a new 100-mile PR.

And then here's what happened, lap-by-lap:

Lap 1: 1 hour, 36 minutes. Just a little bit fast, due to the typical "everybody goes out fast in a race, no matter what distance the race is" energy. But after Mike Morton decided to go way ahead of everybody and run 6:30/mile, I decided that it was stupid to chase that, settled in, and soon, I was consistently hitting 8 minutes per mile, right on target, even with the hills. Since I was running shirtless, the light rain kept me cool and comfortable, and the pace felt manageable. Some stomach pain was creeping in, but nothing to be terribly alarmed about (or so I thought).

Lap 2: 1 hour, 40 minutes. The most uneventful lap. Now really locked in on my pace (considering that 1 hour, 40 minutes per lap equates to a 13:20 finishing time), I was, at least temporarily, enjoying this rolling run through what turned out to be, now that daylight was in full (albeit cloudy) effect, a really pretty park. The hills were actually a welcome break, as they allowed me to switch up the pace a bit, and also helped to mentally break up the course into smaller sections. In spite of my solid lap, people who were insistent on going out stupid-fast were actually gaining on me and passing me. This was a little bit demoralizing, but considering the kind of pace I was on, I was content to just let this go, even when one runner commented about how fast Morton went out, and how nobody was going to catch him. (I responded that if Morton can run 6:30/pace for 100 miles, more power to him, but I doubt that he can, and it doesn't matter anyway, because his race has nothing to do with what we're doing here.) I was also trying to be content to let my stomach pain go, but this would prove to be a mistake . . .

Lap 3: 2 hours, 2 minutes. Here was where things started to go wrong. No longer able to ignore my mounting stomach problems (which I suspect were a result of the cold not having entirely cleared my system - I have a history of sinus residue causing my stomach to be very upset), I stopped for a bathroom break twice on this loop, costing me about 10 minutes (and Mark passed me during my first bathroom stop, just past mile 3 of this loop - another mental blow). The other 10 minutes off-pace was due to deliberate slowing to try to contain my stomach problems. Unfortunately, the problems were also getting to my legs, and I was starting to get those involuntary twitches - the ones you get when you're behind on fluids/electrolytes. Between being sick, and the continuing light rain keeping everything cool, I had apparently been losing water and salts more quickly than I thought, or than what would be typical for me under these conditions. Now the best I could do was try to drink more, take more electrolyte tablets, and hope that they would absorb in time to bring things back to where they were at the beginning of the race, when everything felt better . . . But things were clearly trending in the wrong direction. Even sort of randomly seeing Sniper and Jon at the start/finish probably wouldn't be enough to fix this . . .

Lap 4: 2 hours, 32 minutes. And, now the wheels fall off the cart. Full-on "knives-of-fire" feeling in my stomach with even the slightest exertion (random, stabbing pain), and pretty soon, those knives were stabbing my quads, too. I continued my "slow down and hope the race comes back to you" strategy, but it really wasn't working. I started walking a lot (including with Toni and friends for a bit - which was nice, because misery loves company). The thoughts of just giving up at 50 miles (since they give you credit for finishing the 50-mile race if you finish the first half of the 100-mile race) were getting louder and sounding more sensible, considering the death march that this was turning into. And then, just when I felt like my race was trashed, and I stopped to take this picture, just past the 8-mile mark:



. . . who should come flying past me, lapping me, but Superman himself: Mike Morton, and a woman who was apparently pacing him. Because it had felt like too long since I had run, and, what the heck, why not, I decided to chase him down the hill. And, surprise, I caught him fairly easily, and passed him. But then the road went uphill, and, figuring that he was going to run, I decided I would also run up the hill. To my surprise, I was actually gaining distance on him going up the hill. I overheard his pacer say something about "guy in the red shorts," and I quickly got the sense that she was not happy that I had passed him (even though he was just about a lap ahead at this point). So, with some egging on, on the next uphill, he passed me . . . only to slow to a walk once he had about 50 feet in front of me. Ridiculous. So I power-walked to close the distance a bit, then resumed running and passed him again.

This game continued for the remainder of the lap - passing him, getting passed again on a hill, at which point he would slow to a walk, and I would speed up and pass him again. On the fourth pass, I heard his pacer, exasperated, shout "oh my God!" . . . which led me to believe that his pacer was pushing him to do this, since he didn't look at me or say anything to me while this was happening. After this pass, I kept my slight lead on him all the way through to the end of the loop, at which point I arbitrarily decided not to play the game anymore - I had held off being lapped for 50 miles, a nice round number, where I was going to "quit" anyway. Mike kept going, of course, dropping his pacer and not acknowledging anybody at the start/finish.

EDIT: Mike Morton later sent me a Facebook message to clarify that his pacer was not exasperated, but instead impressed by my effort. And Mike, for his part, was just racing, as fast as he could. So no hard feelings here - just a thing that happened. :)

Lap 5: 3 hours, 25 minutes - yep, problems. Although, in retrospect, most of the time that I wasted on this lap was at the "airport loop" turnaround. About a mile and a half into the loop (during which Serge and his pacer, Christian, encouraged me to run with them, but suddenly, the knives of fire in my legs were back again, and I took two horrifically painful steps and decided that it wasn't happening, although I appreciated the thought), there was a turnaround point . . . with chairs. I sat down, at about the 52-mile mark, and just watched people come past the turnaround for the next hour. Fast, slow, running, walking, whatever - I sat there, drinking sweet tea and taking electrolyte pills and just hoping that my legs would stop twitching involuntarily. Eventually, when the twitching had somewhat subsided, I decided to get up and start walking, and for a little while, I walked with Meredith, until I stopped to go to the bathroom, they walked ahead, and then I had to run to catch them, at which point, I decided to just keep running, and wound up finishing the loop in a somewhat reasonable time . . .

Lap 6: 2 hours, 58 minutes. And then, crash again. After what seemed like a momentum gain (albeit a slower one than the one from Lap 4 into Lap 5), starting on my sixth lap, things started feeling terrible again. At this point, I was near Tony Portera during the airport loop section of the course, and we stuck together for a little while, until he ran off, looking and apparently feeling a lot better than I did at that point (he would go on to finish in 19 hours and change - awesome run for him). I walked most of the way to the far-side aid station (at mile 7), then mounted a brief charge, then crashed again, then reached the unmanned aid tent at a little over 11 miles into the loop (or about a mile and a half to go), when I crossed paths with Mark, on his way to a finish of just over 14 hours (third place, just two minutes behind second). Somehow, I managed to run in with him, and to look and feel totally fine doing it, even though we were more or less finishing-sprinting at that point (low-to-mid 7-minute-mile pace). I congratulated him, and then told him that he could leave (advice which he did not take to heart). After some confusion (which involved being offered three other headlamps), I found my headlamp, then headed out for my 7th lap, hoping the momentum would carry through . . .

Lap 7: 4 hours, 50 minutes. But unfortunately, not so. After another mile or two of running, the stabbing pain was back, reducing me to a walk again. Fortunately, sort of out of the blue, I got a text message from Meg D early in the lap, and our subsequent text banter at this critical juncture in the race kept me from giving up the ghost. And when I say "critical," I mean that this last little bit of running had sent my body into such a deep downward spiral that even walking almost the entire way to the far-end aid station, once I got there, my legs were twitching, my stomach was protesting, and my body was on the verge of near-collapse. So I went into triage mode, and ate some potato soup and whatever else would go down, and slept on a cot for a little over an hour. When I woke up and went to stand up, the pain of the first few steps was pretty close to unbearable. But after a few more steps, it became apparent that walking was a possibility; running, however, would not be. I continued my long walk to the end of the lap, just as it began to thunderstorm. Perfect.

Lap 8: 3 hours, 39 minutes. And speaking of storm, I had pretty much had it at the start of this lap. At no point did anybody ever organize the drop bags (rendering mine somewhat useless), so, in frustration, I walked into the cabin, straight to the back where my drop bag was, stumbling over dozens of walking wounded and strap-hangers otherwise, grabbed my iPod shuffle out of the bag, and walked out, ignoring everybody who was offering to "help" me. I felt bad about storming off like this, and later apologized to people, but at this point, there was nothing anybody could do. I had a little under 5 hours left to make the sub-24-hour cutoff, and while I had thought at the end of lap 6 that maybe I could rally and finish the last two laps in 4 or 5 hours, apparently, this was not going to happen, and the best I could do was to just steadily walk to the finish, so as not to risk another crash like the last one that happened on the 7th lap, and risk not finishing under 24 hours. I texted Mark and crew and told them emphatically to go home, since they had actually stayed around during my last lap (my slowest of the entire race) - I felt bad that I hadn't been more adamant about this point sooner. With my music blasting (Lady Gaga, Rage Against the Machine, and Andrew WK, mostly), I did my best power-walk-to-the finish that I could (which I knew that I could do, since this was about the distance of the climb up Mount Whitney at the end of Badwater, and I've done that twice now, both times in less-than-idea physical states). And after a few hours of walking in the dark, passing other people walking, and only being passed by one other person, in spite of the fact that I walked the ENTIRE lap, I was finally walking up the steps to the finish line . . . and I tripped a little and stubbed my left big toe on the third-to-last step, letting out a very loud expletive as I registered my only black toenail from the race . . . which pretty much summed up my experience right there.

22 hours, 46 minutes, and 12 seconds later, this catastrophe came to a close. I got my belt buckle and my split sheet:


(plus a penny that I found on the porch of the lodge as I walked in right after the race - one more for the Speedgoat 50K jar . . .)

And then I flopped down in a cot in the cabin and slept for five hours. I woke up feeling sore, but not miserably so, and I spent a few more hours socializing with Serge (who ended up dropping out at mile 85 because he was throwing up uncontrollably), Christian, and whoever else happened to be wandering by the start/finish. Eventually Mark and crew showed up, and after a brief attempt to sort out the headlamp fiasco (since the drop bags were disorganized, when I came in from my sixth lap, it took a while for somebody to find my headlamp, and, in the meantime, I was offered three other headlamps, and somehow, Johnny lost his headlamp in the process . . . we never did find it), we went our separate ways - I had lunch with Mark, Katie, and Zane, and we had a good laugh over all of this (and other things), and then I began the long drive home, stopping at the 930 Club in DC for the Andrew WK show (which was pretty awesome - party till you puke, indeed).

So none of this was very pretty. And, to be very honest, the last two laps felt really pointless to me, since it was clear that I wasn't going to meet any sort of time goal of meaning, other than sub-24, and I didn't feel as though I had anything to prove by finishing. But at the same time, with so many people pulling for me to finish, I felt as though I owed everybody my best effort, and that's what I gave. Unfortunately, that day, it wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.

And now that I have a little bit of distance on the situation, I can appreciate the positive aspects of it a little more. Since I was going slower than I typically would have, I had a lot more opportunity to socialize with the other runners when I was working through my low points, and that was something different and fun. The course is actually a lovely place for a walk, so of all the places where I could be forced to deathmarch, this was one of the least-bad places (with the MMT 100 being near the top of the "awful" scale in this regard). And I am really grateful for all of the people who supported me throughout the race, both at the race and from afar.

And in an even broader sense, considering how sick I was before the race, I made it out alive, without making myself sicker, and without injuring myself, so that I can continue to train through this. In fact (huge confession here), this was the first run of any substantial distance in about five years where I didn't have nagging knee pain afterwards. I tend to have somewhat loose joints, and my knees tend to get a little swollen and irritated from running, so in the past couple of weeks, I've made a few minor changes to my stride to correct this problem. In the long-term, the fact that I was so successful in doing this, and that it held up over a variety of speeds, from slow trudge to fast run, over 100 miles, is a huge confidence boost that I'm on the right track. But in the interim, there are muscles to re-train, and this might have been a contributing factor to that "knives of fire" feeling in my quads. (Although I still think that the lingering sickness was the main problem here.)

So once again, and now more than ever, a huge thank you to everybody who supported me during this race, and congratulations to everybody who finished. (And a special huge congratulations to Mark Manz, who ran 14 hours, 16 minutes and change in his first 100 - amazing stuff. Not to mention he let me crash at his place, and, outside of the race itself, we had a fun weekend together.) Yeah, maybe I'm sounding like a broken record with this lately, but I really do enjoy the fact that because of everybody's support, all of this "crazy" stuff that I do takes on a life and a meaning that's bigger than just a bunch of wackos running around in the woods all day. And I've got more than a few big running events planned in the months ahead, so stay tuned - this one was just a speedbump on the road to awesomeness. :)