I have to admit that I was not looking forward to this
year’s race. Jeff and I had just returned from Oregon where I had put in a 150
mile week of mountain running just a week prior to Labor Pains and I had not
really had a single good run all week since then leading up to the race. Also
on the back of my mind was one of our tough training runs the last Friday in
Oregon, just 9 days before Labor pains. We ran around the volcano Mt Hood, an
gnarly grueling 42 miles that took us over 12 hours to complete, and I really
tanked in the very last mile of the run before realizing that I had forgotten
to eat anything and drink much for the last 3.5 hours, plus the Waldo 100K from
6 days before THAT had caught up with me a bit and my legs just felt overall
dead after that trip. Though painful at the time, the Mt Hood training run did
serve as a reminder I needed to take care of myself more out on the trails and
convinced me that I needed a bit more rest than usual this week leading up to
Labor Pains. Regardless, I was more nervous going into this year’s race than I
had been last year, feeling more unprepared, knowing I had an expectation of
myself to do just as well as I had last year when I had set the course record
being in really good shape at the time so that I could prove to myself that I
was just as ready for Grindstone now as I was last year. But really, I was
almost dreading the thought of running for 12 hours at the time.
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| Team Jackie captain reporting for 12 hours of crewing duties! |
Despite being a bit run down from Oregon training, going
into the race this year I knew my mistakes from last year, the same mistakes I
had made at Mt Hood, and the mistakes I was already determined not to make
today. I needed to take care of myself. Make sure that I was eating and
drinking all day and not getting caught up in the hype with running too fast at
the start. Really this stuff seemed like such common sense for attempting to
run any ultra and it’s almost shocking that I actually keep needing real-life
scenario reminders about it, but apparently I do!
So there we were, this time Jeff and I standing together at
the starting line of the race where we had met just one year before. The
celebration of the anniversary took a little edge off the pre race nervesJ Just like last year, a
large herd of jackrabbits took off at the start of the race, including several
women. Jeff hung back with me and we both laughed at how fast some took off,
especially since there was no relay team this year. Even though I had not run
the course since the race last year, every section on that 5 mile loop was
engrained in my mind from running around it 13 times. I had a pretty good idea
of all the hills I wanted to walk up, and when we came to the first short steep
grassy uphill in the first half mile of the race, I was the only runner in
sight who walked. Even Jeff didn’t stop and pulled ahead of me a bit, slowing
at the top to wait for me. It didn’t feel good to have people passing me like
that so early in the race, to see so many people ahead of me that I knew I
could catch, but today I was racing no one but myself. I knew exactly what I
had to do to get what I wanted and I didn’t let myself get caught up in the
race hype.
All year leading up to this year’s race I had a goal of
running 70 miles here this year. I knew that I really died last year while I
dug myself into a deeper and deeper hole of dehydration and caloric deficit and
was forced to slow down a lot in the end and I also knew that if I had finished
65 miles just 12-15 minutes earlier, then I would have had time for another 5
mile loop. We calculated that I would have to run each lap in 51:22 if I wanted
to get in 70 miles within the 12 hours. I wanted to give myself a bit of a
cushion for the end and any unanticipated stops so my plan was to run each lap
in just over 50 minutes. And no faster! So I found myself coming into the first
lap in just under 50 minutes. Well, close enough.
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| Jeff leads the final uphill grunt at the end of the first loop with me clawing at the dirt behind him. |
Jeff and I ran the first lap and most of the second lap
together (I left the aid station before him but he caught up to me when I made
a pit stop on the 2nd). It was fun to reminisce on our initial
meeting on my favorite section of the course, a slightly rocky and gradual
straight downhill section. This section was nice for a couple reasons… it’s my
favorite type of terrain and one that I can still generally run fast on even
with tired legs, it signified we were about 10 minutes out form the close of
the loop and, of course, on every lap I could think about Jeff and I meeting
then and how far we have come together in just one year.
At the start of the third lap Jeff had dropped back at the
aid station and I knew that this would likely be the start of the rest of the
day running solo, aside from my mom pacing me for whatever fractions of the
laps she could. I was ok with it. I settled into my rhythm and started feeling
really good. I could tell that I wasn’t exactly fresh, but I just put myself on
autopilot and let myself cruise. For the first 30 miles I never got hungry, but
felt like I could eat something solid, so slowly chewed down a couple Cliff
bars over a couple laps. Then the food started getting a little dicey in terms
of what I felt like would agree with me, so Gatorade, gels and ginger chews it
was for the rest of the day. Yum (except probably not so good for my teeth!)
Before I knew it, I had hit the “halfway point” of my goal distance
at 35 miles at 5:50. Perfect. This meant I had a bit of time to spare at the
end of the race for a few inevitable stops that were coming (i.e. bathroom). My
dad, mom and aunt were crewing for me at the start/finish of the lap all day
and made it easy and quick for me to get food and swap out handheld water
bottles filled with Gatorade.
If I had a hard lap all day, it was probably the next one,
from miles 35-40. It is that just over halfway point, but not close enough to
the finish yet to feel like you are going downhill into it yet ( I still had
5.5 hours to go). That JUST over halfway point has always been the interval
number during a track workout that I hate the worst. I had also been running
solo now for what felt like a long time (about 25 miles). My mom had started
the lap with me but had fallen back within the first mile and a part of me
wanted to stop and wait for her. Perhaps it was a little psychological that I
felt this lap was just a little bit harder. But I stayed steady and even with
my splits and when I hit 40 miles and
knew that I had less than a 50K to go, it was the first time all day when I had
really convinced myself I am going to do
this today! 50Ks are short and fast and I felt like I had barely run!
On top of that, it has started pouring rain, which actually felt really good in the humidity of the day. Feeling that good physically at 40 miles and having that new found confidence
in myself was really was an amazing feeling. It was really mostly downhill
after my “50K to go” milestone.
Somewhere between miles 40 and 50 I passed two runners who
warned me about an “escaped convict” on the trail. I thought they were joking,
until they reassured me that they were not kidding. Convicts had been doing
roadwork locally and one had escaped and was seen running through the woods in
an orange jumpsuit. Yikes. At the halfway point aid station, I asked the people
there about it to confirm because I had been looking around in the woods all
paranoid for a mile. No, they told me that the “convict” was actually a runner
in costume! Well good thing I asked, because I came up beind the guy running in
an orange jump suit a few minutes after the aid station and if I had not known
he was a runner, I might have ran back towards that aid station! I ran past him
to find the RD sitting with a police officer at the next road crossing. Though
puzzled at the time, apparently the guy had caused some kind of ruckus because
the firetower called him in and the police had shown up threatening to shut
down the race to find him. My aunt said afterwards that she is pretty sure they
would have had to taser me to stop me from running that race though. Glad it didn’t
happen!
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| Mom ready to pace, me gulping down more water into my very hydrated Gatorade/water belly. |
Three laps to go (mile 55) and I was getting a bit tired,
though not the kind of tired that I really feared that I was going to crash and
burn for the rest of the race. Though I kept reminding myself that for just
running 55 miles, I actually felt pretty freakin good! When I thoughts of time
kept creeping into my mind about exactly how long I had been running, I refused
to think about it anymore and quickly pushed the thoughts out of my mind. When
three more laps because too tiring of a thought, I broke it down in my mind. At
four laps to go, really I had only the rest of this lap, which was nothing, and
one more lap. The lap after that lap (the 3rd to last lap) would be
considered my victory lap (2nd to last lap). Afterall that is all I
needed to do to break my own course record and that would be a good day. Even
though I knew in my heart that there would also be one lap after that, we’ll
call it the glory lap. Of course now it seems like a ridiculous and confusing
way to tick down my miles, but the mental game was working for me so that’s how
it stayed broken down in my mind. Actually, in thinking about the race this
way, I had no idea how many miles, what lap I was on or how much time was on
the clock when random people on the course and at the middle water station
would ask me. So when asked I would usually be caught off guard and have to
resist talking in “laps to go” language and usually just said something like
“Ummm I don’t really know.”
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| Still raining out there made things a bit slick and muddy on the trails, but I was still moving pretty quickly! |
All day I really only knew how long the clock was running
when I came through the aid station at the end of each lap. Otherwise, I was
stopping and restarting my stopwatch at the beginning/end of every lap. The
only time I let myself know was the time of the lap for consistency. I would
only look at my watch at specific landmarks on the loop which let me know if I
was ahead or behind pace. All day I was hitting all landmarks within a minute
of each other. Sometimes I would fall up to a minute behind at a landmark that
had to be near mile 2 and was after a longer gradual uphill that I would run
mostly up, and I could tell towards the later laps that my uphill running was
slowing a bit. But after that landmark, I was hitting all other landmarks
(water station, last big climb, last road section…) with dead on consistency,
which was encouraging.
I came though mile 65 with 10:59 on the clock, which is 23
minutes faster than I had run it last year, and feeling 100 times better than I
had last year. There was absolutely no question in my mind (unlike what I had
been telling myself to get me to this point!) that I was going to run 70 miles
today, the absolute farthest distance in miles that I have ever run in my life.
There was something different about that last lap that made it special from all
the others. At mile into the lap, I knew I had hit mile 66, which was “officially”
the farther I have ever run and it just all felt too easy. I felt great. I felt like I could run another 30 miles
right then and there. I was determined to run this whole entire lap feeling
this way and cross the finish line feeling just the same. Dusk was just
settling in on the trail and I was alone out on the trail. The crickets were
starting to come out and a bright orange glow blazed brightly through the
trees. I enjoyed every step of the peaceful tranquility of that trail, which
was something I never thought I could say about the end of a 70 mile run. And I
did come through that finish line still feeling like I thought I could run another
30 miles. Seventy miles, 11:52 and new female course record. Also, I was
apparently only 25 minutes behind ultrarunning lengend Jimmy Blandford, and came
in 2nd place overall, which I will take any day!
It felt great to set the record, and even better knowing
that it was my own record from what I had considered to be a really good race
last year at the time. I am as ready for Grindstone now as I will ever be,
given the Labor Pains trails are not exactly “Grindstone material,” all I can
do is see what the adventure will bring. So bring on the big triple digits!
