September 25th 2010

51.4 Ultramarathon....Completed

102.8 Mile Ultramarathon....Failed

Summery

My goal was to complete the full 102.8 Mile race with the 20,000 ft of elevation that came with it (that is 2/3 of Mt. Everest). But I was not successful in it. Around mile 6, I started to feel a twang on the outside of my left knee and by mile 30, I had full blown ITBS (IT band syndrome). Any type of activity at that point which involved some shock absorption was extremely painful. The truth is though, is that I probably could have prevented this from happening and it is my fault.

The silver lining in all this is that my time for the 51.4 mile race was actually really good at a 16th/50 finish despite my early injury. Also, I have learned about a weakness and that will allow me to aggressively correct it in the future.

I will be trying a 100 mile ultra in the future at some point again.

The Event

www.virgilcrestultras.com

The race was an "Out and Back" format. For the 51.4 mile, it was one round and the 102.8 mile was two rounds. Each round had about 10,000 feet of elevation gain/loss (1/3 of everest). This works out to be about 2 miles for the 51.4 and 4 miles for the 102.8, essentially a metric shit ton. Some of the race was actually up and down black diamond ski slopes to give you an idea of what that looks like. Aid stations every 5-6 miles, weather was a comfortable 65 degrees during the day and 55 at night.

One of the most challenging parts of this race compared with the last ultra I ran was the dead leaves. Having loose rocks and roots on the trail is to be expected but when they are camouflaged with dead leaves at makes foot placement really difficult. As a result, it is hard to make good time on these parts of the course.

My Training

During my time at school in the past month, I have been doing almost all of my running on some nice park trails behind my house. Some sections are quite technical but most are not. What these trails and all of Cleveland lacks though are any good hills to work with. The result being that most of my running was on flat terrain while most of my race was not. Overall, I had a few 40 mile weeks but mostly high 30 miles. My longest run in preparation for this race was also only 18 miles.

Some mistakes were made here.

My Night before/Morning of Preperation

There were a total of 5 different aid stations and I could have a drop bag at each of them. I took advantage of this and gave myself plenty of options. For every visit to an aid station, I had available to me:

• A slice of pumpkin pie / can of chicken noodle soup / can of raviolli
• A snickers bar
• A banana
• A red bull
• 2 Bottles of gatorade
• A granola bar
• A chocolate

Nutrition was never a problem for me and I felt that I stayed on top of that pretty well. I was also very will hydrated through out the entire race.

The morning of, I taped my feet but I made two critical errors. I forgot to apply vasoline and I suffered for it by having bad chaffing by mile 20. I also forgot to trim my toe nails. I am going to be loosing at least one.

My Racing Gear

Footwear:

For shoes I was wearing a pair of Asics enduros with about 200 or 250 miles on them. These shoes have served me well in the past seeing as I have owned 6 pairs of them. Superfeet insoles were also in there. As for socks, I went with my marathon and 50.2 mile strategy: a thin running sock covered by a thick thorlo cushioned sock.

Notes for myself: I have to play around with my sock shoe combo. It is just not working out like it used to. I got blisters under the calloused pads of my feet along with the inside edges of my feet.

Backpack:

I got a camel pack for this one. Good choice on my part because I stayed hydrated seeing as I had to pee every 2-3 miles. It was pretty comfy too.

Clothing:

During the day I was wearing compression shorts, short shorts and a sleeveless top. At night, I threw a long sleeve over it. This wasn't enough, I'll put on some more next time.

The Race

0-10 Miles

This was pretty easy terrain. I found a guy wearing a "SEALFIT" t-shirt and starting talking to him. It turns out that he was also an engineering student planning on enlisting after he graduates which was pretty cool. This was also his first Ultra though and he was going out at a fast pace for the 51.4 Mile. This means that me running with him for the first part was probably a bad idea but eventually passing him was probably a worse idea. Even so, this part felt easy but I started to feel that someone was up with my knee.

10-20 Miles

The terrain, for this part, was much harder. The two biggest climbs of the race were in this section. One up a black diamond ski slope and another up a very technical trail of about the same grade. I realized at this point that I had forgot to apply vasoline.....ouch. Also, my left knee continued to be giving me problems. I talked with another runner and told him about what I was feeling and he told me about ITBS.

20-30

This part was almost all on some very technical trails. My knee has gotten as bad as it was going to get here, I had spent far too much time running on something that was clearly out of commission. After the 25 mile turn around, when I got to the first aid station on the way back, a guy noticed me limping and shuffling and offered me some iburprofen. This was awesome because I could run the flat parts of the course again pretty decently.

30-40

Here I was at the bottom of the ski slopes again with a bum leg but I climbed them in pretty decent time and shuffled down them. The iburprofen wore off quick and I was back to the same story again.

40-50

The terrain on these section was relatively easy. I was doing my best to run on the easy trails, shuffle run the downhills and walk the uphills. I made it back to the start line for a 12:24 finish time for the 50 mile. A time that would put me at 16th place for the 50 mile. I got a sweet mug for it too. I almost thought about DNFing right there because every step I took was shooting pain up my leg, but I decided to try to power walk the next 50 miles and see how if the pain would ease up if I avoided running at all. At the 50 mile mark, I took off my shoes and swapped my socks. At this point, I found that I had blisters under the balls of both of me feet and a quarter sized one on the inside of my bum leg foot (probably from running like a gimp). I put a needle in all of them and drained them and it felt a lot better. Also, every application of vasoline to was getting pretty painful because the skin was/is raw.

50-62.2

About a half hour after I left the start/finish line for a second loop, it was dark enough that I needed my head lamp. Night was here and it was erie to be in those woods like that. With only a handful of people still on the course strung out along these 50 miles, seeing other runners was quite rare. I did not linger long at the 55 mile aid station. I was trying to keep my pace to a decent level. My final 5.4 miles on the course were quiet arduous. Time had proven to me, that my leg was not going to feel any better if I did not run on it and this section was quite technical. I misplaced my footing a couple times and stumbled, having to catch myself with the bum leg. I made the decision about halfway through this section that to continue on like this for 40 more miles was going to destroy my left knee beyond any reasonable "non-surgical" ability to repair.

I ended my race here.

Decision to DNF

I know that this race was not beyond my ability to complete with just "run of the mill" injuries like blisters and chaffing. Things like that hurt pretty bad, but they are only superficial wounds. An inflamed IT band on the other hand is no joke and I am going to be spending a while rehabing this injury before I can run again. Whether or not an extra 40 miles would have made my injury much more severe, I dont know but the 10 miles that I simply walked after I finished the 50 mile proved that walking on it was making it worse. I struggled with this decision from about mile 40 onward when I realized it was getting worse as I spent longer on it. Of course, I am not pretending that my IT band excuses me from quitting as I did. It is my fault that I did not prepare and I deserve the shame of having quit on this.

From this I have learned a very important lesson. Prehabing for endurance events such as this should have been a serious consideration of mine. Despite what mental endurance you might have, despite how strong, how fit, how fast you are, ugly preventable overuse injuries can ignore all of that and bring you down. In the future, as I train for events like this and to eventually complete BUD/s, I vow to make this a primary focus of mine. I foresee much more stretching and oddball exercises in my future.

50.2 Mile PCT Ultramarathon at Mt. Hood. July 24th 2010

Mile 17 or so and I still look damn good.

Training:

This weekend I completed my first ever Ultramarathon. The race was 50.2 miles long, with a little over a mile in elevation gain throughout the race, all on mountain trails. As far as training goes, all I knew was that I needed to get the miles in and prepare myself for being on my feet for many hours. I was already running 30 miles per week in order to prepare for a marathon 2.5 months earlier so I just added an even longer run to my marathon training. My training consisted of loosely the Navy Personal Training Guide (PTG at sealswcc.com) in addition with a run of between 15 and 20 miles. I peaked at 45 miles per week, and a single day in which I covered 30 miles. I then tapered for 2 weeks prior to the race.

Preparation:

I started eating/drinking more about 2 days before the race. About +700 calories per day and well over a gallon of water per day. The morning of the race, I hadn't slept mostly because I was nervous. Also, I had brought a loaf of bread, nutella and some apples which made up my breakfast. Not that bad actually. I decided that caffeine would be important so I drank a decarbonated red bull. Didn't do much stretching, probably a mistake.

As with the marathon I ran, I used two socks, one thin and one think in addition with tape on my big toes. Also Vaseline got put on my areas likely to chaff + some tape on my nipples. Chaffed nipples was my most debilitating injury during the marathon.

Breakfast of Champions

My feet taped up at mile 30, I changed my shoes and socks then.

The course:

The course was along the Pacific Crest Trail in Mt. Hood national forest Oregon. It was 99.99% on dirt trail which was an awesome experience. I had only done one training run on a trail prior, probably could have used some more practice. It sure was fun though running downhill. On the course, there were 4 major uphill to contend with, all of them about 600-900ft. It was definitely a wise idea to walk them. The trail was covered by old growth forest, so the fact that it was 90 degree out was bearable although not comfortable. Aid stations were present about every 6 miles with water, heed and other stuff and I got to have a personal drop bag every 10 miles.

Course profile. The course was out and back twice, start point in the middle.

Race Gear:

I wanted to buy a hydration bladder for the race but I didn't get around to it. Instead, I just carried a water bottle in my hand and bottles of gatorade in my backpack. This was not ideal because I had to use time to put gatorade in the bottle when I ran out. Also the backpack was about 10lb although I didn't really notice it. I ran Asics enduro shoes with green superfeet inserts. At mile 30, I swapped my shoes and socks for the exact same pair, this didn't make much difference. My feet still hurt by then.

My Goal:

Well, because I had no idea how well I would do and nothing to compare, I thought of my marathon time of 3:30 and decided I would double it and add 2 hours for a slightly slower running pace and a good deal of walking up hills. Making my goal 9:00. This turned out to be a bad estimate because I didn't really account for that I spent probably 40-50 minutes at aid stations.

The Race:

Mile 0 to Mile 20

First of all, the entire group of runners went the wrong direction for about 75 meters right at the start so after everyone turned it around, we got to running the actual course. I knew I wanted to go out slow, and gauge where I was at but it was hard to tell when looking at a runner if he/she is going to do an 8 hour or a 12 hour time so I stuck to the back third of the pack. By mile 10, I knew I was faster than that so I started to work on catching and passing people and I hit the 10 mile station at about an 8.5 hour pace. I thought a good reward/food would be a PB&J with a Red Bull. Looking back on that, that was a pretty stupid idea. The PB&J was very dry and did not sit well at all. The red bull was alright though and the caffeine helped. Between the 4 aid station on this section, I drank about 40-60 oz of gatorade/water and had 2 GU gels. I liked the GU gels better than when I had them on the marathon which makes me think that my pain during it was due to dehydration. At the aid stations, I would always eat some candy too. I am pretty sure that I was eating almost as many calories as I was expending.

Also during this section, I fell twice and rolled my left ankle bad. The first time gave me a limp but running through it solved the problem and I didn't feel it again until the next day. Infact, it still hurts right now 3 days later but it is getting better. I have gotten this injury before and it always resolves its self in a week or so.

Mile 20-30

This is where it started to hurt mentally and physically. Mile 23-30 was a very flat section and the fact that I had just run a marathon and still had another marathon to go was nagging at me. I knew I could not quit though, the memory of quitting probably would have hurt worse than the next 20 some miles. I also caught up with a girl named April who I would see a lot of in the next 15 miles. She would pass me in every aid station until mile 40 because I would take my sweet time while I would catch up to and pass her on the course.

At the mile 30 aid station, I put a can of chicken noodle soup in my drop bag which was probably the greatest idea ever. It was delicious and stayed where it was put nicely. Also, I swapped my shoes with an old pair of Asics that I had and reVasolined my nether region. At this point, it was getting pretty hot out and I stopped having to pee. I must have been getting dehydrated despite drinking 1.4-1.9 gallons during the final parts of the race. Note to self, get that hydration bladder so I can pack more liquid with me.

Mile 30-40

I had hit the 30 mile aid station at 9:20 pace and completing the race in 9 hours was not looking good so at this point I adjusted my goal to be a finish of less than 10 hours. There were two pretty big up hill in the section which tested me, but I was far enough along that I never quit moving up them because I didn't want to finish in double digit hours. I saw quite a few runners walking down the hill who had given up with 20-15 miles to go, lucky them. By this time, some muscle between my gluts and hams but further on the inside of my leg was screaming while I was walking the hills. I guess I needed to walk some steep hills during my training. Other than that, I felt good for a person who had been putting out for 5 hours. Around mile 34, I decided that it was time to see what I had left in me and I started pushing. Despite being told 5 or 6 miles to the next aid station, it started feeling like 8ish miles between each station. The hill up to the turn around at mile 40 (right side of the course profile) was brutal and never ending. I would ask runners how far to the aid station and it seemed like it was moving away from me. I stopped eating much at this point with the end drawing close. A mistake in hindsight. The major exception was the aid station at mile 40, they had fruit popsicles which were amazing. I mixed one in a bottle with red bull and gatorade to create a slushy.

Mile 40 - 50.2

At this point, there was not much walking going on. I wanted to finish under 10 hours bad. Marching up the biggest uphill on the course, I passed about 8 people who might as well have been crawling at that point. At the bottom of that hill I knelt down at a stream and soaked myself, hoping to prevent myself from sweating for a little bit. I reached the final aid station at mile 45 with 45 minutes until 10 hours. Needless to say, I didn't stay long and started running hard. It hurt to do but I wanted it. I must have passed another 8 runners during the final leg. Being in the tree, I had no idea how much farther I had to go so when 9:54 came around on my stop watch I started thinking I would not make it. Finally, I saw a man who told me 400 meters to go and I sprinted to the finish, finishing in 9:57 and some change.

Not blisters. Win.

Legs and feet, notice the contrast from mile 30 up top.

Post Race

I placed 32 out of 128 who started. Not quite top 25% but pretty close. I am very happy with my finish at my first Ultra, I beat out quite a few guys who were experienced ultra runners who I would not have given myself a chance against at 5 am that morning. Now that I have finished this goal, I am looking forward to competing in a 100 miler, perhaps in September.