Week in Review: 26 February - 3 March, and Seneca Greenway 50K Race Report

Miles:

26 February: Club Challenge 10-Mile Run, plus 2 miles warmup, 2 miles warmdown (14 miles, 95 minutes)

27 Feburary: 10-mile lunch run at APG, solo (70 minutes)

28 February: 15 miles (105 minutes) in Allen/Plano, Texas, including trespassing near transformers (the power-converting kind, and not the vehicle-morphing kind . . . that I could tell . . .)

29 February: 5 miles in the morning (35 minutes) in Allen/Plano, Texas, and another 10 miles (70 minutes) in the same darn place in the evening (so bored with strip mall running)

1 March: 15 miles in the evening in Baltimore (105 minutes), stubbornly refusing to wear a shirt in spite of the dropping temperature

2 March: 7 miles at lunch at APG (50 minutes), felt like death :(

3 March: Seneca Greenway 50K, 4 hours, 39 minutes, second place overall, 34-ish miles

Total minutes: 810
Total miles: 110

And now, the important part: The race report.

The Seneca Greenway 50K, along with the National Marathon and the Boston Marathon, have become rites of spring for me. And usually, this race turns out pretty well, even if it hurts like hell (which it usually does). So you can understand my trepidation when, the day before the race, I woke up with a very sick stomach, and bailed out of my intended 10-mile shakeout run at lunch at 7 miles because the stomach pain was no longer bearable. I considered not running this race.

But I also considered the people I would be letting down if I didn't give it the old college try, so I went the other way with this, and made plans with Meg Harnett (who was using the race as part of a 40-mile training run for her first 50-mile race, at my suggestion a few weeks ago) to drive her back from the race, and posted a Facebook status about doing the race, so now I REALLY couldn't back out.

Then I proceeded to have a friend over and "help" (in the loosest sense of the word) her bake vegan cakes for a party the next day, which mostly consisted of me eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream straight out of the tub, and occasionally making precision cuts on parchment paper while "Semi-Pro" played in the background. After lots of laughter about nothing, and other similarly whimsical activity, we eventually went to sleep around midnight, which, with a 5 a.m. wakeup time, was maybe pushing it.

But in retrospect, maybe not the worst decision, since I woke up in a good mood as a result of our general mirth-making. I picked up and put on clothes from my neat piles, and, after minimal foot-dragging, I was out the door at around 5:30 a.m., which was kind of a late start for a 6:45 bus from the finish line to the start, but I made it there exactly at 6:45, only to find that they had underestimated demand by one bus, and I would have to wait for one to come back.

So I had plenty of time to sit in my car and think about not running the race (especially since, at this point, it was cold and rainy). But they knew I was here, so I couldn't not do it. Eventually, after about half an hour, the bus showed up, and it was off to the start, which they were delaying for our "short-bus's" arrival.

This worked perfectly, as I got off the bus, handed in my entry form and fee, pinned my bib on, filled my water bottle, and scavenged a Hammer Gel from one of the tables for breakfast (fortunately, it was Montana Huckleberry, one of the better flavors). It had stopped raining, and, also in the category of pleasant surprises, it was not horribly cold, as it usually is at the start of this race.

Meg found me right away, and we walked over to the start together - apparently, her six miles before the race (to bring her to 40 for the day) went well. I saw Mosi just before the race started, and when I mentioned that I hadn't had breakfast, he gave me two Hammer Gels, which was really awesome of him. And then, with absolutely no fanfare whatsoever (a trademark of this race), we were off.

I went out pretty fast, and since I had been hanging out in the back before the start, talking to my friends, that meant that I had to pass a lot of people. Fortunately, the first half-mile or so is a wide paved path, which made passing easy. Normally, I don't go out that way, but after Club Challenge this past Sunday, I decided not to be "slow" in races, ever, whatever that means. (I think it means to be aggressive and push yourself, maybe.) Remarkably, I felt okay, in spite of how I had been feeling for the past 24 hours, and how little I had eaten.

Then, things got uneventful (albeit muddily uneventful - about 50 percent of the course was slick mud, and required constant care, so as to avoid face-planting). Up to the lake section (where "50K" runners split off and run a loop on the trail around Clopper Lake before returning to follow the "marathon" course), a few people were ahead of me, but only one person, a guy in a red jacket, had passed me. He didn't pass me too hard, and he was in sight most of the time. I couldn't quite catch him, lost contact, and then sort of forgot about him.

Adding to the non-descript confusion, because people who are running both the "marathon" and the "50K" are on the same course, it's hard to tell who's actually ahead of you, except when you get to the lake, which only the 50K runners run. During the lake loop, when I could see across the lake, I could see one person ahead of me, and one person who appeared to be not that far behind me.

I had gone out to race, and so at this point, I started drawing on the training I had been doing this past week, where, in just about every run, I had been throwing in random pick-ups, mostly to convince myself that I could always run faster, probably. (Incidentally, the lingering soreness from this might have contributed to my less-than-ideal physical state on Friday.) As I reached the end of the lake section, I saw the guy who I had seen ahead of me walking - apparently, he had burned himself out. I didn't see the guy behind me anymore, so I must have dropped him.

I continued my "aid station roulette" routine (having no nutrition plan in particular coming in, other than my water bottle and some Endurolytes, I tried to take in about 200 calories at each aid station, mostly in bananas, orange slices, and Nutter Butter cookies, washed down with Coke, Mountain Dew, or Gatorade), and headed down the trail for what is typically the "worst" section of the race. That is, if you're feeling bad as you leave the lake loop (the end of the loop is around the 20-mile mark), this section will make it worse, because the trail descends quite a bit for about half a mile, then immediately climbs just as much in as much distance. I was still feeling strong and pushing, and now I was passing people, but, at this point, there was no telling which race they were in.

Still, passing people is passing people, and since I had no watch to mark progress, this kept me mentally occupied for the remainder of the race. And the remainder of the race was similarly uneventful - I just kept pushing and staying in the moment as much as possible. Before I knew it, I was at the last aid station, and Jon was there, as photographer, and got really excited when he saw me. "What are you doing? You're killing it!" he shouted as he took dozens of photos of me. I would have loved to stay and chat, but I had the nasty little business of the last 3-ish miles of the race, beginning with a creek crossing and a steep climb.


Eyeing up that last hill, while Jon gets trigger-happy on the camera.

It was somewhere on the steep climb, when I could feel everything just clicking, and all the hard work from the past months coming together, that I suddenly felt all of the emotional distress and weight of the past couple of weeks just flood out of me. Yes, that sounds kind of stupid, but pushing my body over that terrain in the way that I was pushing it was perfectly cathartic.

And I wish I could say that I ended the race that way, but as I hit the pavement for the last mile or so, a man walking by said to me "number 5," and that took the wind right out of my sails. It seems as though 5th is my permanent 50K finishing place, and it seemed like for all of the focus and effort I had put into this race today, in spite of the circumstances coming in, 5th wasn't right.

That didn't slow me down, though - I pushed all the way through the appropriately unceremonious finish line, to learn that I was the second 50K finisher - the guy on the road had been counting total runners. The guy in the red jacket had apparently finished just a couple of minutes ahead of me, and was standing behind the finish line picking at the food on the table.

I was happy beyond happy at this point, even though my finishing time was slower than last year's (4 hours, 39 minutes this year, compared to 4 hours, 19 minutes last year). Considering that the course was about three miles longer this year, and the mud had made parts of it less than runnable, I consider this year's effort far stronger.

I went over to red jacket guy to congratulate him on his race. We talked for a bit, and then I realized I hadn't asked him his name, so I did, and he answered "Glen Redpath." Oops. I was immedately really apologetic about it, but he said not to worry, he tends to fly under the radar.

Glen started walking back down the road towards the picnic, and I ran after him (surprisingly, this didn't hurt a bit). We chatted some more, and he made a comment about how not wearing a shirt was a good way to get hypothermia (although I was really enjoying the feel of the sun on my back, and, more importantly, not freezing to death, as I usually am at the end of this race). Then I mentioned that I was waiting for my friend Meg to come in, since I had her change of clothes in the trunk of my car. I said that I would probably hang out with him a bit at the picnic, then go back out to my car and get her clothes . . .

And just as I was saying that, who comes down the road, looking not at all like she's nearing 40 total miles for the day? (Meg, obviously.) So with my water bottle, hat, and shirt in hand, I excused myself, turned around, and ran in with her to the finish, telling her that she was second woman in the 50K, which she apparently already knew, since people were telling her for most of the race that she wasn't far behind the first woman. She even managed a little sprint when the finish line came into sight, which I gladly went along with - a little "second-place finishers" sprint. 4 hours, 58 minutes, AFTER a six-mile "warmup," in a "training run" - as I've said in other media, totally baller.

Then Meg and I hung out at the finish line and waited for the rest of our crew to finish: Mike, in a little over 5 hours, Mosi, mid-5, and Jackie, who may be the only runner in the history of this race to state on the entry form that she would be running the "marathon," then elect to do the "50K" at the split-off (which is why she was "late" to the party). Some rough days, but this course, although fast if run right, tends to wear on you with its relentless ups and downs, and the extra distance and the mud this year added to that effect. (And, for what it's worth, Jackie's perfectly-painted "eye black" stripes made out of mud were totally winning, regardless of anything else.)

We all hung out at the picnic for probably too long afterwards, congratulating other finishers as they came in, and talking and laughing about nothing in particular. Eventually, it was time for me to drive Meg back to her car at the start, and then back home for whatever it is that I do at home (mostly cat-care and write race reports, apparently).

All in all, an awesome day in lots of ways. Not just my performance, but also the way I felt like my friends helped me to do what I did - after all, if I hadn't felt like I was out there for somebody other than myself, I might not have run the race.

And in particular, a special thanks to Meg D, whose performance at the Club Challenge 10-Mile Run last week (1:02 high, a PR for her by over 2 minutes, on a difficult 10-mile course), which I had the opportunity to watch from behind for most of the race, inspired my race. Watching her RACE that hard gave me a new perspective on my running - lately, as I've mentioned in recent posts here, I've felt like I've been "running" more than "racing" in races. Seeing the way she ran helped me to carry her brand of calculated, yet gutsy and fearless, running into my training this past week, and into this race, and if I hadn't run the race that way, it was unlikely that I would have finished as well as I did.

So, once again, I am thankful for all of the great people (race volunteers and staff definitely included) that made this experience possible. Here's to another week of awesome!


A few of the people who dragged me through this, post-race. (Not pictured: Meg Harnett, who, at the risk of TMI, was off TCB in the woods. :P)

2010 Grindstone 100 - Failure Report

Because people are going to ask, and because I'd rather not repeat the story dozens of times (it's far too complicated for that), and because I have an awful lot of thoughts to organize, here's the story of my spectacular failure at the 2010 Grindstone 100. If you pay attention, you might also learn something about the course and effective race strategy, should you be interested in attempting this race in the future.

First, a little background: There were four key factors that, prior to the race, doomed this effort to failure. First, mentally and emotionally, I came in drained, due to circumstances in my work, school, and personal life that are beyond the scope of this post. Second, I decided not to buy a lower-back pack for my water bottles - I thought that it might have helped, but in the past, I've carried two bottles in my hands in similar races, and survived, so I thought that it might have smacked of "trying too hard." Third, I decided not to buy a brighter headlamp, for the same reason why I didn't buy the pack for my water bottles. Fourth, I decided to forego sleep the night before the race, reasoning that it would be better to nap in the afternoon for a few hours, and then wake up about an hour before the race.

With that out of the way, I was excited for Grindstone. Although my last two races had been failures (The Ring, because I got lost and wandered 15 miles off-course, and the North Coast 24, where my arches fell, and the pain became too much to bear), I was confident that (except for the four things that I mentioned above) I had addressed all of the issues that stood in my way of a strong performance. Unfortunately, my plan began to unravel before the race even began. My attempt to sleep prior to the race was a failure - I was too excited to sleep, and wound up tossing and turning, getting maybe 15 minutes of sleep, and starting the race sleep-deprived. As I chatted with friends prior to the race (it seemed as though EVERYBODY I was even remotely friends with was doing this race, only adding to the excitement), I could tell that my mind was hazy, and the thoughts weren't forming clearly. This was a bad sign.

We took off from Camp Shenandoah after a prayer from David Horton, and a group performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and for the first mile, I felt fairly good. My legs felt strong, my breathing felt steady, and in spite of my sleep-deprived state, I thought that maybe my physical strength would carry me through. Then, somewhere in the second mile, the first mini-disaster struck. I was "leaning forward and letting go" on a downhill, as I've discovered is the most efficient way to take these, and I caught my foot on a rock (the first of many) and fell, twisting my ankle and knee. I clumsily struggled to my feet, to find that although the injury was not serious, it was bad enough that I had to walk about 50 feet before things fell back into place, and the pain subsided enough to run again. But the psychological damage was already done - as if I hadn't had a drought of confidence enough from the results of my previous two races, I now could not be confident that I was mentally together enough to attack the downhills.

This fear was substantiated when I ran off course at the first opportunity, having to backtrack up a hill to the turn that I missed. I had only wandered about a quarter-mile away, but it was enough for a number of people to catch up with and pass me (another mental blow). Still, it was early in the race, and there would be time to make it up later, so I continued to push on the downhills, looking out as best I could for the random stray rocks on the otherwise clear path that could spell my doom, and power-walking the steep uphills. For a while, I thought things might come back together.

Then it got dark.

I turned on my headlamp and my flashlight, to find that, in this environment, while my flashlight was passable, my headlamp was useless. I would have to rely on my flashlight, which, as I mentioned, I have in many other races, but now, the flashlight had a nasty tendency to shut off when jolted hard (as is the intermittent case when running over rocky, uneven terrain). Further, the flashlight was strapped to my water bottle. Again, nothing new, but in my foggy, sleep-deprived state (which only worsened as the night wore on), the moving light spot in front of me, further confounded by the water bottles flitting in and out of my peripheral vision as I ran, all complicated by the seemingly random occurence of rocky, technical sections, would pose a challenge that would exceed what little mental and emotional energy I came into the race with.

My last "good" section of the race was the climb up the gravel slope to Elliot Knob. I power-walked to the top, putting distance on the people behind me, and gaining on the people in front of me. It was just a little bit brilliant to stand at the top of the dark, desolate, wind-swept summit, putting my foot up on a chain-link fence so that I could "punch" my bib to prove that I had been there. But of course, on the descent, I was cautious, since I hadn't seen the turn-off on the ascent, and in spite of my caution (which always hurts on a downhill), I still missed the turn, and wound up walking back up about a quarter-mile with another runner, who, fortunately for me, but unfortunately for her, had also missed the turn (otherwise, I might have gone much further down before I decided that I had missed the turn). As it turned out, her temporary companionship would end up being one of the first nails in the coffin, since what little confidence I had at that point was shattered when it became obvious that she was picking her way through the flat, rocky section of trail much better than I was, and I had to let her pass . . . and then another runner, and then another, and then another . . .

I made it to the second aid station, and leaving the aid station, the climb was fairly non-rocky, and I still had some legs, but now the mental strain of the circumstances was becoming overwhelming. It was getting colder (probably in the low 40s), and my feet were wet from earlier stream crossings, and the combination of all of this made a normally climbable hill a nearly impossible obstacle. It was at this point that I began periodically stopping by the side of the trail, questioning why I was even here in the first place. Runners passed, asking if I needed help, and I wished that there was anything they could do to help me, but at this point, what could I ask for? Warmer clothes? Dry shoes? A brighter headlamp? Something to put my water bottles in so that I wasn't so off-balance on the precipitous descents? The truth is, while any one of these things might have helped, I doubt that having one, or two, or even all of these things at this point would have been enough to turn this race around. The 15ish dark, miserable miles that I had struggled through had drained what little I had mentally and emotionally, and short of a friendly face, or a good night's sleep, having even the slightest material improvement would not have made a difference.

With all that thrown together, the half-track downhill (yes, the course might claim to have single-track trail, but, in truth, most of this trail is barely wider than a person's foot, especially when you have feet as grotesquely wide as mine) broke me. I could barely see where I was going, I had no confidence in my ability to descend without tripping and falling, and EVERYBODY was passing me. Regis and Mosi had passed me a long time ago, but when Snipes passed me, and I couldn't keep up, I knew that I was done. I tried my best, but already not being able to see, and then being on a trail crowded with people who were clearly navigating the terrain much better than I was, was too much. I couldn't plan my next step without feeling a vague sense of panic, and I couldn't break into a run without feeling a wave of entire-body discomfort that made a convincing argument that there was no way on earth that I could run more than a few feet, even though aside from my sore ankle and knee, I was perfectly nourished and hydrated, and not the least bit sore. The little bits of the course that I did attempt to run were short, because I was nearly tripping every 50 feet or so over even the smallest rocks on the trail. And on and on it went, this failure spiral, or whatever you want to call it, until I was reduced to an idiot in shorts and a t-shirt in the woods, on a remote trail in the middle of nowhere, wearing a "5" on my shorts that I clearly was not going to live up to, wanting nothing more than decent food, warmth, and shelter.

From the second aid station to the third aid station, I spent nearly 3 hours, from about 9 p.m. to midnight, struggling, shivering, and wondering when on earth I would reach the third aid station, and first crew access point, so I could drop out and go home. After what felt like an eternity, especially since a substantial section of the course was "flat, but leaf-covered, with random rocks that you will no doubt twist an ankle on" that was especially demoralizing to walk, when, given my physical condition alone, I should have been able to run, I finally struggled up a short, slippery dirt hill to the aid station, one hour before the cut-off time, and somewhere in the vicinity of tenth-to-last. My crew of one wasn't here (a work emergency, coupled with bad D.C. traffic, prevented him from getting to the area until around 1 a.m.), but fortunately, another runner was dropping, and a woman who was going back to the start kindly volunteered to drive us back. As I walked the quarter-mile to her car, shivering violently, all I could think about was getting into a heated car, covering myself with a blanket, and sleeping. Which I did, for a short time, until we reached the camp, and I was thrust out into the cold again. I struggled to collect my things and drive my car to a place where I had cell service, so I could call and tell people that I wasn't dead, just temporarily defeated, and that I would return in near-perfect physical condition. My crew finally showed up, and I thanked him for his effort, apologized for my poor effort, and he left to take some pictures of the night sky. At this point, any more driving seemed unbearable, so I slept in the back seat of my car, wrapped in a sleeping bag, parked in front of a CVS and Big Lots. The parking lot was well-lit. I was exhausted. It didn't matter.

I woke up around 7:30, after having slept soundly, feeling less bad (but still too awful to think about being on the course), and felt very little regret about dropping. I had no idea what to do with myself, and briefly entertained the option of going out on the course, but everybody looked fantastic when they were passing me, so I doubted that anybody needed my help (although, in spite of any supporting evidence, it would be reasonable to assume that at least some of these people were now not doing so well), and even if they did, I didn't feel as though I was "together" enough to help them. So I drove home, and now I'm here, and that's my life story.

The moral of this is, Horton courses -2, David - 0. In case anybody was wondering what it takes to finish one of his races, you need to be physically and mentally at the top of your game, because the courses are designed to tax you by switching things up constantly. The downhills are steep and not very rocky, except for the few rocks that are right in your way at the most inopportune times. The uphills aren't very rocky, but are so steep that walking is a challenge. The flats are as rocky as possible, to make running them as difficult as possible. All of this is varied to the maximum possible extent, so that when you are in a good place physically and mentally, and up for the challenge, completing the course is very satisfying. When you're in a bad place, the variation is unbearable, since there's no way to get into a mindless rhythm, and sooner or later, you're ruined. My sincere congratulations to everybody who finished Grindstone (which, as far as I could tell when I quit, 22 miles into the race, was EVERYBODY, except of course the guy that dropped when I did).

All that said, I'm not sure what I'll do about Oil Creek. Physically, I can get my body and my gear together to do it two weeks from now. Mentally and emotionally - only time will tell. Life is improving, but who knows if I'll feel as though I have enough energy to take on another 100-mile race two weeks from now. In the meantime, though, I plan to do everything I can to get my running and my life back together in the next two weeks, while enjoying both as much as possible (and really, the latter implies the former). Maybe not at Oil Creek, but at some point, I am determined to be on top again.