Redemption at The Limberlost Challenge

It's weird to talk about redemption after taking over 8h 35min to run 56 km, but what can I say? This was my best run ever. It wasn't my best RACE ever because quite frankly, racing is not exactly what I did on Saturday, but before TLC, I cannot remember running with such "effortlessness". Even after running 56km, I still had that feeling that you have at around 15k when you feel like you could run forever.

I didn't get much sleep on Friday night. My 16 year old daughter had picked that night to go to a party and after some negotiations, we agreed that if I woke up after midnight and there wasn't a text message on my phone that she was in a taxi and on her way, I would shame her by going to that party, actually go inside and take her home, spelling the end of her social life. I set my alarm clock for 3:50AM, went to bed at 11:30, got woken up by said daughter at 12:30, started thinking about the race, finally fell asleep and then woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. After my morning ritual, I jumped in the car and picked up Kim and Chris out in the West end. My Garmin GPS took us for a 20 minute detour in some small roads somewhere near Limberlost. I have NO idea what that was all about, but we lost 20 minutes driving aimlessly around, following directions. Weird.

We got there with plenty of time, setup base camp, covered myself with bug repellent, got my bib and proceeded to shoot the shit with the usual suspects. This race made me nervous. This season has not been kind to me. I feel like I'm in a bit of a funk. All my races have hit me pretty hard, even when I tried to go easy like at Seaton and PYP. Even going at what should have been a fairly easy pace, I finished those races exhausted. Sulphur was a mental disaster and Creemore was a physical one. Things felt like they were falling apart, getting worse instead of better, making me wonder if going for 100 miles at Haliburton was realistic.
I decided to run from the back and hook up with Adie and Steve, who often use that strategy. Steve is a stronger runner than me and Adie usually has a pace similar to mine although she kicked my butt at Creemore. At around 9am, someone started talking in a microphone and eventually the race started. There were a lot of people there, with the 14k, 28k and 56k runners all starting together. We started toward the back and the first few km were more walking than running. There were a few traffic jams to go over small bridges or single file uphills. Eventually though, people spread out and we settled into an easy pace.

The course was beautiful, probably the nicest course of any race I've done. You run near lakes, the trail has a soft feel under your feet (especially when sinking up to your knee in mud!), it's challenging, what can I say? It was just great. The weather wasn't hot yet but it was quite humid. The course was well marked, with markers every km, which was nice because the course was curiously slow and covering a km took way longer than one expected. The course has no ridiculous climbs or difficulty, but there's always a little somethin'-somethin' to prevent you from keeping a steady pace. The aid stations were well placed at 3.9 and 8.8 km, extremely well stocked (they still had ice even in the 4th loop) serving the usual ultra fare. They even had Nature Valley bars, a personal favorite.

We finished the first loop about 2h 4min, which is an unbelievably long time but we never got passed, at least not while running. One of my goal during that race was to test other hydration systems. I have a feeling that I don't drink enough using my hydration vest because it's difficult to estimate how much is left. For the first loop, I had decided to try my brand-new never-used Camelback "Delaney Race" waist bottle holder. It has a nice pouch in the front where I can stash my Advils and Salt pills and two flask holders for gel bottles. Once it settled on my waist, it was fantastic. The water stayed nice and cool and I barely felt it. After the first loop I decided to stick with it. Once we all refilled our bottles and ate a bit, we took off for the second loop.
I was feeling fantastic. I was drinking more than usual and eating regularly. It was on the warm side, but the trails were well covered and the sun rarely reached us. I had decided to run without a cap on that loop and immediately regretted it when the sweat started to pour into my eyes. Damn. We settled into our pace, taking turn at the front pulling the group forward. At some point we stopped at a small beach and washed the salt off our face in the lake water. Bliss. Running in a pack like this gives you a weird sense of power, especially once you start overtaking people which we started doing late on the second loop. To be frank, that's also when we got lapped by the two leaders. I'm not sure if they were running the 28k or the 56k, but they were ripping it. We finished the second loop in about the same time at about 2h 10min.
For the 3rd loop, I decided to switch to two handheld bottles, even though I still thought that hte belt was the cat's meow. I wanted to try other options, so it was time to switch. I put my hat back on, put one of my gel flasks into a small belt, grabbed the two 20oz handhelds and took off with what was now "the Mod Squad".We walked a bit going up the road, polishing off our melon and Nature Vally bars. Eventually, Steve said something like "are we going to run?" and we broke into what was now our group pace.

I was still feeling extremely good after 30km. I had been monitoring how I felt for a while, remembering how the wheels had fallen off suddenly at around 25km at Creemore. No sign of weakness. I had a big decision to make. Adie was very happy with the pace and Steve was racing with her. Should I push on or stick with "the Mod Squad"? What did "Redemption" mean to me? Why was I there? What did I need? Why did I decide to come, after telling everyone that I wouldn't do this race? I decided that what I needed was a race where after putting a solid effort, I still felt strong. Speed had no meaning, here. We were picking off other runners regularly, noone was passing us. The pack feeling was a bit intoxicating, if to be honest. We would see movement up ahead. The leader would tell the other two and you could feel the pace just pick up a bit. Sometimes it would take 30 minutes to reel someone in. They would hear us come from behind and some would try to pick it up but we never saw anyone we didn't catch up to. So I decided to stick with "the Squad". The 3rd loop was the slowest one, I'm not quite sure why and I'm not quite sure by how much, probably something like 2:15.

Back at home base (aka my chair), I dumped the hand held and went back to the belt. I found that the water got warm too fast and I wasn't used to running with them. I heard Steve yelling my name and I went back out. Even after 3 loops and more than 6 hours of running, I was feeling great. I had a huge smile across my face and when people told me "only one loop to go", I didn't want to punch them in the face.

After a couple of km, Adie told us she was having a bit of a hard time. Steve told me to ignore her. We lined up behind her to make sure we weren't going faster than she was comfortable and kept going. We we going to finish together. We still passed a couple of people. All of a sudden, about 5km into the loop (can't be sure exactly), a girl comes from behind and passes us! When she passes Adie, she says something about smelling the finish line. You would have thought that she had spit in Adie's face. Not 300 meters later, we're passing her back and we never saw her again. Adie had picked up the pace quite a bit and it's not going down. We're passing people we know were well ahead of us and it's a good feeling. With only a few km to go, I'm still feeling great. I'm drining, I'm eating, I'm taking in some salt. The humidity has come down a bit and my clothes aren't as wet as in the second loop. The wind is really nice. We pass one last girl and shortly after that we get to the road for the final stretch. We finish in something like 8h 35min, which seems like an unbelievably long time for 56km but even though we weren't going really fast, we weren't going that slow either. The thing is, I felt like I could go for another loop.

After the finish, we immediately jumped in the lake and it was the perfect end to a great race.

I probably could have run this race significantly faster. Probably. But I would have missed out on something that up until now I had only experienced during Susitna: the feeling that I could run forever. I needed to experience that feeling again before Haliburton. Thank you Adie and Steve for letting me run with you and helping me remember what it feels like to run forever.

Signed up for TLC

Before Creemore, I had pretty much decided against running the Limberlost Challenge, way up in Huntsville. I’m not a friend of the bugs, although THEY like (love?) me just fine. I prefer my forests covered with snow and free of mosquitoes and deer flies.

Well, it is summer and as the week progressed my need for redemption kept growing. Finally, I Google-mapped the directions and found out that it’s “only” a 3 hour drive. With a 9am start, it’s an easy morning drive so I decided to sign up; after all as the “grand prize” winner, I get a free entry! This will be a lot more fun than running a double long run all by myself on boring city trails.

Training went ok last week, although it was damn hot. I’ve been looking at sweat rates, nutrition, electrolytes and all things related to running in ridiculously hot weather. I now have even more questions and fewer answers.

Only two months until Haliburton. That’s 8 weeks and a bit. If you take out a 3 week taper, this leaves only 5 actual weeks of training which can positively affect the race. In the last 3 weeks, you can only screw it up.

Creemore Vertical Challenge 2010

I’ve had a couple of days to ponder Creemore. I shook my Eightball and it says: Signs Point to Nutrition. It’s probably right, but I feel like I was doing pretty good until the wheels fell off. I can deny, cry and whine but the fact remains: I have been judged and found wanting.

I read my SportsTrack entry for CVS (Creemore Vertical Challenge) last year (2009) and it said: “My best ultra race ever.” Same with my blog entry: “Most intelligent trail race yet”. Wow, what a difference a few degrees make.

I drove up to Creemore with Chris and Kim. They got a Zip car, picked me up at 5:30am and we got there with time to spare. The weather was already warm. I wasn’t worried. I had a plan, I knew the course and finally, it was only 50k: how bad could it get? Right...

There’s nothing to say about the first loop. It was warm but not horrible. I ran with my pal Steve and we had a conservative pace. Toward the end he took off to catch up to someone he knows but that was fine. I stuck to the plan: easy pace, eat and drink every 30 minutes. The one thing that did happen is that I got a side stitch on the right side after going down a long, steep hill. We went down fairly fast, but what can you do? It was steep. The stitch faded but never completely. I didn’t know it at the time but my fate was sealed.

I finished my first loop in exactly 3 hours and I was really happy with that. I replaced my nearly empty gel bottle (5 gels) with a new one, refilled my bladder and got going. I still felt good although I did feel like I was going a bit slower. Then, someone passed me. Then I heard voices behind me and got passed again. And then again. Every time I tried to increase the pace, my stitch would come back. In the never ending uphill section, I was still in good spirit but I was starting to get worried about that stitch. WTF? I never get stitches at a slow pace.

It was hot. It was damn hot. The was little or no shade. At the 35k mark I saw Chris coming the other way, looking like someone wondering what the hell he’s doing there. It actually made me feel a bit better. I though he would be much further ahead. Misery likes company. I was craving ice cold beverages. then, with the next aid station in view, a thought popped into my head: “why don’t I just ask for a ride”? What’s the point of finishing this pain-fest? Then, as I was finishing a cup of water and ice, I saw Kinga coming into the aid station. I figure I’ll try running with her to the next aid station around 40k and see what happens.

I became Kinga’s project. I’ll never know if I would have quit. I don’t think I would have but that’s beside the point. Every time I talked about it, Kinga would freak out. Personally, I don’t have a big issue with dnf’s, given the right reasons. I was trying to discuss those conditions with Kinga, but basically, for her, there is no such thing outside of a broken limb below the belly button. And even then, I remember her telling me about her thoughts on duct taping a broken ankle, at last Winter’s training run in Creemore. This should give you an idea of what I was dealing with.

I was starting to feel bad for her, because truth be told, if I decided that I should quit, then I would and I was starting to worry that she would be mad at me. The point is, if I was going to quit, 35k was the place to do it because after that you only have 10k to go so what’s the point of even quitting? They’d probably ask me to walk back anyway.

So we walked the uphills, some of the flats. By then it wasn’t just the stitch. I had been out there for longer than expected. I was experiencing an honest to god bonk. I was still forcing myself to eat and drink, but probably less than I should. I was worried that I wasn’t drinking enough to digest my salt pills, which I had been taking fairly regularly although probably not enough.

Did I mention the heat? I was just unbelievable. There was no shade to speak of. here and there, you could catch 10 seconds of shade but that was it. There was some wind in some places but mostly, it was just damn hot. Running in the tall grass, with rising humidity from the ground and no air was oppressive.

After the last aid station, I started to feel quite nauseous after hard efforts. There are two extremely steep ditches where you actually have to pull yourself out using a rope and at the top of both of them I thought that was it. But then, you start hearing the people at the finish line and you know it’s over. We jogged to the bridge and then the finish and it was all over.

Laying down in that river a few minutes later was just pure bliss. It was just unbelievable. Someone mentioned that that race had the best “after-race” setup and it’s so true. Talking to other runners, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one who had a tough time.

I’ve had hard races. My 50 miler at Haliburton last year was extremely hard for me but I eventually recovered somewhat in the last 10k. This race was harder. The stitch, the bonk and the heat together made this close to the limit of what I’m willing to endure for “fun”. One thing Kinga said made sense: “the reason we run ultras it to experience extremes. Well, experience it!”. In other words, be careful what you wish for.

After all this, it’s funny to think that I’ll be there next year asking for more.

Quick Update : Creemore Vertical Challenge

Just a quick update about CVS yesterday.

I won't write a full race report because I'm still not sure what happened yesterday. Well, I know what happened: after a near perfect first loop, a side stitch got progressively worse, then I totally bonked and never recovered. Most of the second loop was a death march under the near-ever present sun, in oppressive heat, with Kinga Miklos cheering me on and providing constant entertainment.

This was my personal Waterloo. On that day, for me, it was the hardest race I've ever ran. I added almost 1h30 to last year's time. I ate, I drank, I walked the hills, I took my salt tablets. What did I miss?

I'm still struggling with some things: what happened?; should I have called it quits and dnf'd at 35k?; did finishing that race make me stronger or made me question my mental toughness?

As you can see, much happened under the Creemore punishing sun and I'll let you know when I sort it all out. It's still too raw.

Much Ado About Nothin'

Nothing much to report. Training is proceeding as planned. I've slowed down my easy run a lot and I'm starting to see positive results, with my hr being noticeably lower during my easy runs. I'm no big fan of hr monitors except that I find that they keep me honest on slow runs. For faster runs, I prefer to use a pace-based approach because hr is a bit of a crap shoot that goes up and down at the slightest hill, according to the weather or what time you went to bed the previous evening. For slow runs I don't care since they are supposed to be slow. Of course, I have to suffer the humiliation of being passed by basically everybody and their sister, but such is the life of the ultra distance runner.

Creemore Elevation Profile from my Garmin (2 loops)

Can you believe it, Creemore is next weekend! The biggest challenge for me in that race is the length of the hills. They just keep going. I had a pretty good race last year. I actually ran negative splits (2h54 and 2h51 for a 5h45) despite equipment failure (my Nathan bladder split open) and increasing heat. I'm going to try the same strategy again, maybe going even slower on the first loop and then I'll try to run some of the hills on the second loop. We'll see what happens. Should be a fun race.

Like I said, not much to report. That's all she wrote.

Dude, Where's My First Gear?

I know it's customary to dismiss technology. Well, I'm a nerd and although I agree that running without electronics can feel more natural than running with a quarter pound GPS watch and a HR monitor strap collecting more data than NASA does on a space shuttle flight, it's always interesting to be able to look back and compare numbers.

Cause my friends, it's easy to lie to yourself. When that happens, the main symptom of self-delusion is running too fast in your easy runs. Now I don't want to generalize, but looking at people huffin' and puffin' out there on Sunday mornings, it's a pretty common mistake.

I'm not sure how it happened to me. I think that the big problem is that running faster feels good. My stride feels more natural, the hormones start flowing, your whole body feels good. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Problem is, instead of running in zone 1, I end up running in zone 2 or 3, which can also be sustained for quite a long time.

So what's the problem, you ask? Well, after a few runs collecting data and comparing with the exact same routes last year, I have to face the facts, running at my "50 miles on road ultra pace", my hr has increased by nearly 10 bpm over the last year. I believe that my ability to use fat as fuel has decreased instead of improved over that time. Of course, other factors probably come into play: I gained about 8 pounds, my mileage is not as high and my life is more stressful.

So here's my plan: run a lot and run a lot slower. Running fast feels good, but it doesn't cause the right physiological adaptations for running a 100 miler.The only fuel source that is available to your body after the first few hours is fat. The glycogen is all gone. You burn close to 1000 calories every hours, yet you can't eat much more than 200 without puking. You do the math. Those calories have to come from somewhere. The speed you can sustain is basically dictated by how fast you can run on a 20% glycogen/fat ratio. Some people can run ridiculously fast under those conditions. Most of us mere mortal can barely run. But we can train to improve what pathetic speed we can achieve under those conditions.

Running slow brings about the adaptations that are needed to run on fat. It's boring. But I often use the quote "the will to race starts with the will to train". Haliburton is my A race, so even though my so-called racing doesn't mean much, it means I will try my best, so I need to train the right way.

The problem with running slow is that it's not very good training. There's a reason that hard training sessions are called "quality" sessions. Quality sessions pack a lot more punch per hour than slow running. Way more. But you can only do a limited amount of hard running every week before your body starts getting behind on repairs and ultimately gets injured. So a balance is needed. The point is, you do your quality sessions hard, and your easy runs slow. There's very little place for medium runs, which I have done a lot in the past few months, pretending they were "real" easy runs. They weren't easy, they just felt good.

So that's my plan: run slower, do one or two solid quality sessions per week, increase my mileage and hopefully that will take care of my extra few pounds. That, my friends, will bring me to Haliburton in tip top shape and leave me with no choice but to run the race of my life.

Post Race Rambling

This post is more of a personal journal entry. Before a race, I like re-reading those entries. They are a bit narcissistic, but hey!, this is blogging and you don't have to read it. This post explores how my mental game has changed, now that this shiny new toy called ultra running is not so new and shiny anymore. I've never DNF'd, but my ultra "career" hasn't been that long and I've run only 4 races with distances of 50 miles or more (three 50 milers and one 100 miler). I can't speak for other runners, but those are the distances that truly get under my skin. My prepared answer to myself for those moments where I wonder if I should quit is: "Am I doing any long term damage?". Up until now the answer has been no, so I've kept running.

Up until now though, I didn't quite realize that running those distances for the first time, I was drawing strength from a deeper well, what I shall call "the newbie well": I had to know whether I could do it. In my first races, it was an easy to understand, black and white battle. I either finished or I didn't.

Now that I have run those distances successfully, in a weird, counter-intuitive way the temptation to quit during a race seems to have increased. In the immortal words of Jean Chretien: "A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." Well, I've proven it: I can run 50 miles. I can even run 100.
Last weekend, many things happened: I started too fast, it was hot, and finally, I had nothing to prove. Oh, I did have goals, but speed goals are a shady concept easily dismissed when sufficient excuses are available and I had plenty of those. As I got closer to 60k, my body started to tell me that I had made a huge mistake. Then it started. "JD, we know we can run 50 miles. This is too hot. You screwed up. You're going to have to walk. Actually, you're walking now! Really, what's the point? Look at you. What is it that you think you're doing? You call this running?". I knew I could finish, now the question was, should I? Where was that mental strength that I thought I had when I was sitting on the couch eating bon-bons? Out there in the "real" world, I was quickly crumbling under pressure.

There were two key moments where I thought about quitting: when I first felt (at 55km) and then knew (67km) that my race goals were slipping away from me.
As far as I can remember, here are the reasons why I kept going:

• The absurdity of quitting. How could I quit, 70km into a 80km race?
• Fear of regrets. I trained for this. What am I going to think tomorrow when the pain is only a vague memory?
• Respect for other runners. As I kept whining about whether all that (mostly mental) pain was worth it to finish with a crappy 10:15, I realized how stupid I was. Plenty of people were behind me. Plenty of people were suffering. Even though I was slowing down, very few people were passing me. Hell, I even past one or two. Who the fuck do I think I am, that 10:15 isn't good enough for me?

At some point though, I realized that this was EXACTLY what I wanted, why I was there. A mental challenge disguised as a physical one. Finishing although I can't think of a SINGLE REASON WHY I SHOULD. Those 3 reasons I mentioned above are really flawed logic. You have to have gone down the (ultra) rabbit hole before any of them make sense. You have to accept that it should be done at all. Most people would beg to differ.

That being said, we don't really care what those outsiders do think. For all of us who somehow ended up down here in Wonderland, wanting to do it is enough. We all run for reasons we probably don't fully understand and that seems to be ok with us. It's just fun to think about it.