Rarely do I feel the need to give a blow-by-blow account of a race but this one was different for two reasons. First, I want to keep a record of the race for future training/planning and second, in retrospect, White River was the best race (single day ultra) that I have done both in racing and in terms of the race organization and course.
That said, DNF’ing and writing about it is like reading a mystery novel with the last chapter ripped out. You never get to see how it ends…
First a few disclaimers.
One, 50 miles is a distance I have done in the past with much less training. Last year I ran STORMY in 9 hours. The first half of White River is tougher but the second half of both races I would say is equal.
Second, my quads/legs were fine. In fact, I ran yesterday and my legs overall were sore but overall felt great. Legs weren’t an issue but my stomach was. I still feel sick as I write this.
Third, my ego is at play here but I didn’t enter the race to come in over 9 hours or to just finish the race. *see my earlier post. I’ve done that before. My goal was 8 hours 15 minutes. I think when we start running ultras we go with the goal of “just finishing…”, then when you are confident and have some experience that you can do the distance you want to see how fast you can run it, then later in your life you go back to “just finishing…”
Here’s the story.
Saturday morning came quick as I was having a tough time going to sleep the night before. We (M and the girls and M’s parents) had met at Crystal Mountain after an epic trip from Auburn. I didn’t realize how far the mountain was from civilization! My father-in-law and I went up first on Friday night and got settled in and the girls met us later in the evening. It was hard for all of us to settle and I remember looking at the alarm clock at 11:45 before looking again at 4:45am.
Waking up I felt OK, not fantastic but OK. Two cups of coffee and I was out the door driving down to the Buck Creek campground – the start of the race. Arriving at Buck Creek was awesome and a bit intimidating. You always know you are at an ultra when you look around and everyone is in amazing shape. It took a while for me to get settled, arrange my bottles, etc. Overall, mentally I was feeling confident and strong. For me, it’s always a bit of a rush getting ready. Then it seems like you just turn around and you get the “five minutes to the start People!…”
In the front of the pack I was able to spot Brian Morrison, Greg Crowther and a few other elites all primed and tense. The gun went and we roared down the airport runway. For the first 7km I was running about 30-35th just going easy and stretching my legs talking myself down with “it’s a long way to go, go easy…” At the 7km mark I was having some tummy trouble so I took a bathroom break. It wasn’t pretty and I had a few of the ‘uh-oh’ thoughts but chalked it up to stress. It was an indication of what was to come at 50km.
I got back in line and the first climb started. The only thing that came to mind was “I can’t believe this is so runnable…” To be honest, I was a bit giddy. The next 6 miles up are a gradual incline and I just plugged along hanging in with a group of 5 runners who looked like they were seasoned vets. I tucked in behind them and tried not to yell out “this is so runnable!” I had trained for steep running and had to hold myself back. The views and course are amazing and we just kept moving up and up.
*At this point I wasn’t eating anything solid and didn’t have anything until 60k – this was my first mistake.
Heading into CP 3 (Corral Pass – 2:48 at 27km), I was a bit shocked to see the leaders coming back past me. I thought that I wouldn’t get to see the front runners but we were only about 3 miles apart. I panicked a bit (slow down, you are going too fast, etc) but kept moving. My parents-in-law had driven up to CP3 to provide crewing – this was awesome as they had to navigate some trecherous switchbacks to get to the station. Joan filled my bottles and John took photos, then I was off. I managed to see Mike Suminski, Torben Lind and Rob Smith on the way down and they were all looking good.
The next section was downhill running (6 miles). I was told that this was the section that would blow my quads up. It was tough but not overwhelming and I was able to hammer down sections of the course and make up some time. A few passed by me (I still can’t believe how fast people can run downhill and I passed a few who were struggling just keeping a steady pace more than anything else. Still I was thinking that I needed to not use it all up before the next massive climb to Sun-Top (59.2 km).
CP #5 (4:30 at 44km) was back at Buck Creek and the fam was waiting there. I came in to what seemed like a huge crowd of people. It’s inspiring because they announce your name and your hometown. I checked my watch and I was 4 hours 30 minutes. I was feeling a bit sour but took the approach that I was doing the typical ultra ‘cycle’ of feeling good, then bad, then good again.
Heading out of CP#5 I came up to the base of Sun-Top and Brian Morrison was walking down. I was a bit confused (I thought he was already coming down!) and asked him what was up and he said he was done. Turning another corner I caught 3 people (2 that I had been going back and forth with but I thought they were long gone and another guy who was running his first 50 miler).
*I made the decision here to take an over the counter energy drink. Stupid. I hadn’t eaten anything since 6am…
30 to 40 minutes later I had a wicked wave of nausea come over me. I was slowing and feeling sick. Then I started to puke. Not much came up but over the next 60 minutes I kept stopping hunched over, feeling sick, then walking. I limped in to CP 6 a bit disoriented but knowing enough to ask for ice cold water. This usually stops the feeling. I was able to fill up on it and start drinking – too fast. 20 minutes later I was back to puking. The next 5 miles up were a combination of puking, walking, sudden bursts of energy and running.
I made it to CP #7 (7:02 at 59.2km) at 1:32pm (check out the hurting here). The medical staff came over right away with questions like, “when did you last eat? when did you last pee?”, etc I was a bit pissed off because the 8:15 time was out of reach (I had lost 45 minutes coming up) but managed to sit down and eat some watermelon and drink Coke. I was ravenous and couldn’t stop eating all the while knowing that I was eating/drinking way too fast. I sat for a few minutes then got up to run down the hill and started off. Only 1km later I was puking again – everything came up.
This was really the turning point. I sat down on a boulder beside the road and contemplated the next 20k. 9 hours was looking like it was evaporating and I had to make a decision. My choices were to grind it out to the finish (done that before!), hang in to see if this would pass or call it a day. I chose the last option and I don’t think I would have been any happier with the other decisions. Call it an ego decision but I really had my sights set on the 8:15, had trained properly for it and I wasn’t prepared to ‘just finish’ the race.
I am kicking myself for the rookie mistakes right now. (even though I hate to admit that I’m still somewhat of a rookie). 3 years ago Dom Repta gave me the advice that I chose to forget, “eat early or you’ll be hurting later…” For White River, I chose wrongly.
