Last year when I
finished the Umstead 100, one of my motivations was to never have to do that again. But, I never said I
wouldn't. Just that I didn't
have to. I felt I left a lot on the table, walking the last 30 miles (partly out of necessity), and could do better. I decided I wanted to do one under a day (24 hours). After some research,
Tunnel Hill in Vienna, IL, fit the bill well. Flat, non-technical rail trail, with plenty of access to crew and/or drop bags, and a good chance of decent weather.
After a rough start with posterior tibial tendonitis in the spring, training went very well. Once I got rolling, I was generally hitting 60-80 miles/week, peaking at 109, with a lot of time logged on rail trails similar to the course. This included two 50K "training races" at New River Trail and High Bridge Ultra. I stayed injury free...almost...
Sometime in the final weeks, I developed a heel pain. I couldn't even isolate it to the back or bottom, as the pain seemed to move. Maybe it was the lower achilles, or maybe it was PF, or maybe something else entirely. I'm not sure exactly when it started, but 2 weeks out I backed down even more than a normal taper, and shut down for the final week. The good news is that it seemed to mostly hurt only after runs or in the morning before I got moving. Sleeping in a Strassburg sock for the last week seemed to help. I hoped that it wouldn't hurt while running during the race, but I knew the aftermath would be bad. It's common for niggles appear late in training and then disappear on race day, but deep down I knew this was more than a niggle.
I made a pre-race shoe adjustment. Rather than the zero drop Altra Olympus I had planned to run in, I went with my old reliable Mizuno Wave Precisions, figuring they would cause less strain on the back of my foot. These are road shoes I've worn since my first marathon in 2001 and most marathons since then, and have logged many hundreds of rail trail miles in them. They aren't even made anymore, but I had hoarded something like 8 pair when I found out they went out of production. This was not a high risk change.
I drove most of the way to the race 2 days early, on my 55th birthday, so I could relax the day before the race. Slept well, and finished the drive and checked out some of the course. Vienna only has a flea bag motel, so I stayed a half hour away in Marion, where I again slept well the night before the race. The weather shaped up nicely. High 30s at the start, high of 58, and overnight low of 30. Clear and not much wind (especially for the plains), and just a bit of damp chill at night. And just a day before the super moon!
My crew and pacer meet me in Marion. My nephew Kyle started the weekend as the family record holder for 100 miles, but he'll have to try to take it back at Rocky Raccoon in a couple months, which he's very capable of doing. We've now actually each held the mark twice. He's crewed the current Badwater record holder and two time champ, plus I always enjoy running with him, so he was ideal to be my crew chief and pacer. My older brother Jim also came out. Growing up I had an advantage over just about every other kid around because of all the time Jim spent with me on all sports. He doesn't really run too much, so mostly he was there as secondary support and to help Kyle with the drive back to Nebraska. I was in great hands, and I relied heavily on them because I mostly use my own food and drink rather than from the aid stations.
Tunnel Hill is a pretty big race for ultras, with 475 starters between the 100 and 50. 209 started the 100, but 99 dropped to the 50 at some point during the race, and 9 DNF, so less than a 50% finish rate for the 100. While it's nice to get credit for a finish even if you can't do the full 100, personally I feel if 100 is your goal, you need to treat it as all or nothing. 50 as a safety net shouldn't be considered. But for those pushing time limits or unable to get in the needed training, it's nice to be able to give 100 a shot and still have a nice consolation prize. Needless to say, getting a 50 mile finish wasn't at all on my mind.
The course goes ~13 miles in one direction and back to Vienna, and ~12 the other way and back, for 50 miles. Repeat for 100. Crews can help at the s/f midpoint, and at aid stations about 10 miles out on each spur, and again at the same place after the turnaround. 11 points in all during the race. I can't tell the exact mileage of the legs because distances and aid station mileage just didn't add up right. A couple other runners I talked too the day before the race said the same thing, and we all laughed that we didn't want to be "that guy" who asked about exact mileage. But really it was annoying that you'd see different mileages listed in different places on their website and docs. The only difference between the first and second times was a 1/4 mile
loop around the parking lot to spread out the field at the start, and I
think the RD just fudged some numbers to try to make it come out or at least show as
50+50. Just for example, one section was listed as 4 miles the first time, and the exact same section was 4.6 the second time. Impossible. Garmin/Strava came out to 50.3/50 for me.
My race plan was to run for 8 minutes and walk for 2, repeating as long as possible. The max slope was 2% on either side of the tunnel we went through, and mostly it was dead flat. Since there was nothing about the course to dictate walking, and I knew I couldn't run the whole 100 miles, I figured I was better off with a run/walk from the start. From my training, 22 hours seemed doable. If everything went great, I could do better, and if not, I had 2 hours of buffer to still break 24. Beyond that, I wanted to break Kyle's mark of 25:08, then my PR of 26:23, and finally to beat the 30 hour race cutoff. I planned for 5 hours on the first 26, same for the next 24, than 6 for each the second time around, but that was a target, not a goal. Sub-24 hours was the #1 goal.
OK, finally the race itself. I was relieved at the start to have no pain at all in my heel. With the big crowd, my 8/2 run/walk meant I was getting passed by some people while walking and then having to pass them back when running. It was only annoying with one or two clumps of people who were taking up the width of the trail, but after a couple miles I just extended my run a bit to stay ahead of them until the packs unclumped. Things seemed great. I was more on a 20 hour pace than 22, and felt very comfortable.
Somewhere around mile 4 or 5, the heel pain came back. Every time my left foot landed, I felt it, and it gradually got worse. It also hurt while walking, and no matter what pace I ran, so I pretty much kept the same pace. I tried to blank it out, but couldn't. Music didn't help. My gait must've changed a bit, as my hips and back started to ache. I saw my crew just before mile 11, and when they asked how it was going I gave a very non-committal "OK". I felt worse when I saw them at mile 16 after the first turnaround, and had Kyle walk with me a bit after the aid station to fill him in. I really didn't want to start on the Advil so early but we decided it was needed.
The next 10 miles were black. The pain got worse, and made me nauseous. I'm a terrible eater during ultras and knew I'd probably stop eating solid food at some point, but this early was ridiculous. I was basically going into survival mode by mile 18. I had to go with my alternate nutrition plan of a gel every 30 minutes, Perpeteum sports drink, and bananas, which I can always handle. It felt like something was tearing in my foot. I was getting worried I was causing real damage. My quads were also aching now, and my knees seemed eager to join in. My pace was falling off a bit. I started to think about dropping. I hated it, but the prospect of 95 miles of pain just to get a finish, and possibly ending my running career, was not appealing. But I didn't want to give up without trying more stuff. I still had the Altra shoes to try, and see if an Aleve plus rubbing on Biofreeze at mile 26 would take the edge off. I decided I would go 50 before making a decision. I had a plan, but I was still in a bad place. I felt like I was at the tail end of the race rather than in the first quarter. I really didn't think the Altras had much of a chance of working, but I committed to trying.
I got to the start/finish at around mile 26.6 at 5 hours and 3 seconds, right on my 22 hour pace target. I told my crew that things were bad, and it was 50/50 that I would finish. I actually thought it was more like 25/75 but didn't want to admit it. This was supposed to be a quick in and out, but I had to sit to swap shoes, and while I had them off I switched socks and lubed up, and tried to eat a bit. It cost me about 10 minutes but as Kyle walked out with me we agreed it was time well spent. Certainly continuing on with no changes would not have been viable. I told Kyle to set up after the finish line the next time I came through here, so I could at least get a 50 mile time and then sit and we'd evaluate what else to try and whether to go on. I didn't like the safety net, but since it was there I might as well use it, and it was actually a motivation to not drop even earlier.
Things got a bit worse as I had stiffened up from sitting. I walked for a few extra minutes, then started jogging. No real change. This was going to be a long freaking 24 miles. I tried not to fall into a pity party, and just plodded along. I couldn't help but contrast this with Umstead, where I felt really good for about the first 65 miles. My consolation is that I wouldn't have to continue into the night. We could go back to Marion and get a room, grab beers and dinner, and watch the Husker game. Not what I trained for all summer and fall, but not a bad weekend. After a couple miles I realized at least it wasn't getting worse. It still wasn't fun, but I had stalled the death spiral. I wasn't even thinking about pace at this point.
As slowly as things had gotten worse, they started getting better. By the time I reached the tunnel at mile 36 before seeing crew again, it was tolerable. At some point I remember thinking, "Damn it, now I'm going to have to run all night!" The tunnel itself was surreal to run through. It's straight and 543 feet long so you can see the other end, but in the middle it is pretty dark and disorienting to run through. But I was in a better place and got a kick out of it. Kyle met me before the aid station, and I told him things weren't great, but they were better. After going out to the turnaround and back, I knew I was on a comeback and let them know I was back on the tracks. I had to switch watches earlier than planned as my Garmin 220 with 10 hour battery life gave me a low battery warning at just over 7 hours.
All the pains disappeared between mile 40 and 50, except for the quads. Incredible. It all had taken its toll on my energy and nothing was going easy, but I definitely wasn't struggling anymore. The second watch didn't have the run/walk alarm so I used the mile beep to signal time for a 2 minute walk. I started to stretch that to 3, but still ran most of every mile. I came into mile 50 at 10:17, which is actually a 50 mile PR for me, albeit a very soft one. 17 minutes off my 22 hour target pace, but 10 minutes of that were at the last turnaround so I was still moving at under 24 hour pace. There was no evaluation discussion. The only talk was what I needed for the night.
Temps had plunged as the sun went down. After my hypothermia experience at Umstead, it was drilled into me that 100 mile pace requires more clothes in the cold than what I'd normally wear for runs. We ducked inside the depot we were right next to so I could put on an UnderArmour base layer and tights. Swapped to another pair of Olympus shoes and socks since my shoes were off anyway. I chewed up around 25 minutes of buffer here for various reasons. It was helpful to have a lot of "just in case" gear, but it meant more time finding everything. Still, I was now set for the night and this is the kind of thing the 2 hour buffer was for. I had one concern here, I noticed my vision in my left eye was partially foggy. I worried about "Hellgate eye", a temporary blindness some face in the cold of that December 100K, but figured I'd deal with it if it got worse, and maybe it was just somehow due to being inside since it was still well above freezing. The other eye was fine. I set a goal of 6.5 hours for the next 26 miles, or 15 min/mile, and set off.
The second 50 was actually pretty dull and uneventful. I ran and walked. Just the normal aches for later in a 100 miler, and I didn't notice anything really off with my eyes. My walk breaks extended to 3 and 4 minutes, but I was keeping ahead of pace outbound, giving some back on the return. I cheered when I got past my Umstead meltdown point at mile 68, but took nothing for granted. My brother told me later that he was amazed that I looked stronger every time he saw me after the mile 26 debacle. I'm not sure I was stronger, but I was more determined and focused. I got back to mile 76 at 17:08 race time, slightly under 6:30 for the section. Kyle was ready to join me and I got in and out quickly, with a bottle swap, bananas, switching headlamps, swapping back to my recharged Garmin 220, and adding a medium weight ski jacket to stay ahead of the cold.
More math. 6:50 in roughly 24 miles to make 24 hours. I calculated that to be 17 min/mile pace. It's handy to be able to do math in your head and trust it. I switched my watch to do a 4/2 run/walk, knowing I would probably reverse it to 2 run/4 walk before the end. The first mile was stiff and slow, but then I started putting a minute plus in the bank every mile. My pace slowed at the trail rose gently toward Tunnel Hill. I skipped a run once and saw it barely affected my mile split since my run was slow and my walk was still pretty brisk. I wanted to walk the rest of the way to the tunnel, but Kyle suggested mixing in some short runs, otherwise I might stiffen up and not be able to get a run back at all on the declines. So I ran 100 steps 1-3 times every mile. It worked, because after the tunnel I went back to the 4/2 and ran the downhill pretty well, though I had to walk most of the way back up.
Just under 10 miles left now, and a tick over 3 hours to cover it. 18 min/mile pace would get me in with a few minutes to spare. I shuffled my 100 step run whenever I could for a few miles, but blisters started forming on the bottoms of both feet and it was a lot worse while running. I knew I had 24 hours in the bag as long as nothing bad happened, so walking it in seemed safer.
Oh, the Super Moon! There were a lot of people running without headlamps. I kept mine on because I needed to see my watch to know when to take gels, but it was cool to see and helped light the way. Late in the night it was low and put a really cool reflection on a fog covered pond that we could see for a few hundred yards. We took a pic but it didn't turn out well.
The sun started to come up, and I noticed that my left eye vision was still partially foggy, though no worse. I was wearing a ski balaclava mask as a cap, so I adjusted it to cover my face around my eyes and try to keep it warm. Good news came as we passed under the I-45 bridge at 22.5 miles into the section, and I had remembered it being nearly exactly 1 mile from the finish. This gave me more buffer since I had less distance left to cover. My walk quickened, and before long the final footbridge into the park came into view and Kyle congratulated me. I managed a shuffle for the final yards to the end.
The stats: 23:36:21 finish time. 29th male and 43rd overall out of 101 finishers and probably about 200 starters. 3rd of 7 in the 55-59 group. There was some leapfrogging, but no one who started behind me at mile 50 finished ahead of me, and I passed 7 who were on their second 50. Still holding at zero hallucinations.
Post race, I went back into the depot to warm up and asked for medical help to look at my eye. Dean Hart, who crewed on and provided med support for
Pete Kostelnick's record breaking cross country run was there, and he said it wasn't too uncommon with LASIK eyes and should clear in time, as I also expected. As I sat there, I bonked. Just totally shut down, hunched over, head down, hoping not to spew. Not sure if it was for 5 minutes or 30 or longer. Someone suggested I needed sugar, and after awhile I took a Pepsi. 3 sips in and I had perked up. So I had 2 silver bullets this weekend: Altra Olympus shoes at mile 26, and Pepsi post-race. By the time I finished the can I was back to normal other than sore feet with blisters, and aching quads. My vision was clearing too.
The shame is that the bonk kind of took away from celebrating. I was also a bit down on myself for walking so much at the end. I think there's always a feeling you can run a 100 faster, but for most of us things will always go wrong, so it's foolish to expect a perfect race. Jim and Kyle waited as long as they could but had to get back to Lincoln once I was on my feet, so they got my car all packed up and we went our separate ways. It wasn't until later in the day before it fully dawned on me that I did exactly what I set out to do. I broke 24 hours even after a very rough start, by hanging in there, solving problems, and managing my race well.
I could've finished this on my own, but wouldn't have broken 24 without Jim and Kyle. When I was moving well, they got me right in and out of aid stations. The 11 times they helped me had to have saved me more than 24 minutes of getting my own bag and sorting through it for my stuff, especially since I was doing my own food and drinks. Kyle's suggestions all race, and encouragement while pacing me, certainly helped me as well. I thank them both for driving out and giving up their weekend to help me out.
Lessons learned? "It doesn't always keep getting worse!" Keep trying to fix problems, and if you don't know how, try something, anything! Remember to enjoy your victories! Finally, I should've got my heel checked out before the race so I might have known whether it was safe to run through pain or not.
Some might remark that I toughed this one out, but that's not really true. More accurately, I figured it out, and it got better before I couldn't take it any longer.
What's next? My New Year's resolution will be to eat gels, because I sure as hell won't even look at another one the rest of this year. I'll do the Boston Marathon in April for sure. Thinking about The Light at the End of the Tunnel Marathon in Washington state in June. It's a fast downhill marathon, and apparently I like races with tunnels--New River had one too. Another 100? Doubtful. That's a topic for another post. I had plenty of time on the two day meander back home to think about that.
Lastly, please give me a moment to mourn the loss of an old friend, the Mizuno Precision Wave. I don't know why they suddenly caused such a problem, but it seems our ways must part.
