This report will be much easier to write than the Farmdale one, always easier to discuss something with a happy ending. I have a lot to say, this will take a while to write. And to read!
Friday Pre-race: I didn't have to go into work on Friday morning, but I had a work phone call that took a little over an hour. It was a little hard to focus, it started going long and I needed to get going. So some stress there. Drop the dog, then head out. It was a 5hr-ish drive to KS. About 2 hrs into the drive, I noticed that my right ankle/shin was feeling some stress from pressing on the accelerator. Was this the cause of the pain like I had at Farmdale? I had lots of driving ahead of that race too. I don't typically use the cruise control, but I tried it here to take as much stress off the foot as I could.
I was trying to stay hydrated and fueled in the drive, but just kept buying little Bit O Honey candies and tootsie rolls, I discovered that you can buy these individually at a QT station. Not satisfying, no that good either.
At one point in the drive I noted the strong cross-wind. At a stop I check the weather and sure enough this was forecasted for Saturday afternoon too, possibly 18-20 mph winds from the S and SSW. Oh goody. Soon after I saw a large bird over the highway, just hanging there, wings outstretched and floating on the wind. Effortlessly. The bird was enjoying the wind, it seemed. I captured that mental image for the race.
Once in Ottawa, I picked up my race packet and dropped off my drop bags. Even now I was last minute planning and changing. Some back and forth moving my potato dinner from the bag back to the cooler (I could repack them tomorrow morning) and adding bandaids to my bags after seeing them in another runner's box and realized I might need them.
Off to the hotel, calm and cool. No stress, again to my surprise. Ate a small dinner, colored in my new coloring book from TH, off to bed.
Saturday Pre-race: Up early for brekkie, a light rice-based munch of a new 'cookie' recipe I tried. The worked, but I won't make them again. Happily everything went smoothly, from 'business', getting dressed, and getting out the door. I didn't reserve the room for Saturday night so everything had to go out. Anything to save some money, I guess. Even better, I was able to leave the truck in the hotel lot, so I walked to the race start. I figured that it'd be safer to walk in pain back to the hotel instead of trying to drive. The drop bags were supposed to be available until 5:30am but at 5:20 they were already being packed. I wasn't able to put my potato dinner bags in the drop bag at Colony so instead I put them in Richmond with the plan of carrying them between those stations. Otherwise, a short pre-race meeting, met a few runners (one who recognized me from Farmdale), tried to stretch and move without moving too much, it was so quiet and calm. There were only 18 runners in the 100-miler.
Weather: Perfect, I'm guessing at the temps here. At race start it was mid-60's, no wind. Around mid day it climbed to low 80's with a strong headwind. Overnight it cooled to high 50's that was made worse with another headwind. Thanks wind. Dry the whole race, sunshine all Saturday and cloudy all Sunday.
Moon: I like to keep track of what the moon is doing, even when I'm not hanging out on a dark trail overnight, it's just one of my things. Sadly there won't be a moon to illuminate my night run, as it will be a New Moon Sunday. Right after my race, I like little coincidences like that!
Course: FLAT. Really flat. It was a rails-to-trails path of crushed limestone. Anywhere from 5-10 feet wide, a few bridges, lots of gravel road crossings, a few small towns with paved path sections. More than expected tree cover to keep the wind off us, but that also meant tree debris, walnuts, leaves to hide debris and rocks. We went 1-2 miles north, turned around, passed the start and continued south to the aid stations: Princeton, Richmond, Garnett, Welda, Colony, Iola. Turn around in Iola, then back north to the finish.
Gear: Camelbak, hat, t-shirt (in November!), Craft shorts, ProCompression socks, Brooks Adrenaline 14 Hawaiians, and my brand new butterfly gaiters. Later on the Garmin, yellow windshell, capris, headband to cover my ears.
The Plan: Keep the pace EASY. No hurry. No rush. No elevated heart rate. Start off with run 1 mile, walk 1 minute. Run if you want to, walk if you want to. During the walk breaks stretch the upper body and shoulders, change the stride by doing a high-knee march, walk backwards, grapevine. Prepare a to-do list before each aid station to be sure all needs are addressed, like grabbing food, refilling the water, changing gear, fix problems. I'd packed special foods into each of my bags, as recommended by other runners, to break up the run and have something to look forward too.
0-25 miles: Start to Garnett. The start was in the dark, so quiet and calm and like many other ultras it felt like a group run. The first few miles were paved, then we had to navigate along the side of a highway (don't take the on-ramp, suggested the race director), then we hit the actual trail. The turns and twists here confused me a bit and with the dark I couldn't gather much about what this area looked like. This will come into play later.
Walking was hard to do early but other runners were following a similar strategy so that helped. The mile markers along the trail were hard to see at first so I didn't catch the mileage number were we started. This will also come into play later.
Sunrise was shortly after 7am, full sun by 7:45. I knew within the first miles that my left compression sock would irritate the goosefoot tendon like it did at Farmdale, so I rolled it down halfway to fix that. The first aid station was Princeton around 10 miles (I just ran from Ottawa to Princeton, haha!) and I joked about having to bend over to enter the "tent-pee" at mile 93 on the return trip. I called their tents a "tent-pee" -- tent material but shaped like a tee-pee. In, out, bathroom, go. Six more miles to Richmond and my first drop bag. This bag just had my Tootsie Roll pops (one every 10 miles), my Powerbars, rice crackers with butter, and extra mint candies. Put on sunscreen, grabbed my potato dinners to cart them to Colony. Doing great, but felt like I was going faster than expected.
The Garnett aid station was spoilage for an ultra runner, a train depot with real bathrooms, benches, lights. Nice break from the pit toilets I'd been using, and I could finally wash my hands and face. Great break at the nearly halfway outbound point of 25 miles.
25-41 miles: Garnett to Colony: This next section seemed long mostly because I didn't put a drop bag in Welda at 33 miles. I couldn't remember how many miles to Welda, another runner filled me in. There were unmanned water-only stations between the main stations, so roughly every 5 miles I had at least water, good thing because I was emptying the Bak on a good schedule. Every time I thought of TH I took a drink.
The mile markers along the trail didn't align with race mileage, they were counting up in the 80's, 90's, up and up and this was confusing. I was saving my Garmin for the overnight section and I didn't really need mileage info this early. Another runner said the marker post in Iola should be 109 miles. This helped me kinda to chart progress. I was happily high-fiving the markers as they came by, they were a sign for a walk break. I also reached out to touch trees and grasses as a way to keep my upper body stretched out and moving.
The trail was wonderfully pretty, which let my mind wander. I tried to do math, failed as usual. I had a song stuck in my head from this morning in the hotel room -- the theme song for this race. It was stuck in my head all day Saturday, almost annoyingly so. And my iPhone was acting squirrely, I was saving it to use in the overnight but the battery indicator was jumping everywhere -- high, low, normal -- and I was worried having any battery left at all. Trouble shooting things like this kept me occupied. It's funny how much work I put into preventing problems that would be a mental distraction (like needing to trim a fingernail, you wouldn't believe how annoying that can get in a race) but then home much I was looking for mental distractions.
At trail marker 98 there was a thorn bush, when I went over for the high-five a thorn hit my thigh and stuck in it. OUCH! And blood! Came into the Colony aid station feeling great, assured the volunteer that the blood on my leg was minor. I was passing other runners and this had me worried I was going too fast and not pacing this properly. Otherwise I wanted to walk a lot more and my right ankle/leg was really hurting. Really hurting.
41-61 miles: Colony to Iola to Colony: I was looking forward to the Colony station because in my mental mapping it was only 10 more miles to the 50 mile point. Unpacked the potato dinner I was carrying, I picked up more crackers, a coffee blast chocolate, more pops, and the Bee skirt for the turn-around. Although I was slowing down, I'm still feeling good, but needed some mental stimulation. Happily I met up with Wyatt in Colony, he was disappointed that he was missing his "sub 20 hour" goal for this race. He thought he was going too slow, I thought I was going too fast. We paired up nicely.
He was hurting, and it turns out for good reason. Just 4 weeks ago he finished 105 miles of the 153 mile Spartathlon Ultra in Greece. The Greeks are way more serious than we are (no skirts or they mock you), it has a mountain crossing, checkpoints every 2 miles, sounds like a wonderfully different experience that I'm just happy to hear about. No urge to run it. Wyatt used to live in StL, now living in TX, and might be moving back to StL for his job. As we sorta kinda worked in the biomedical field and we both had doctorates, we were able to talk graduate degree training, business opportunities in the field, some science. This really helped me out to have an in-depth conversation instead of the surface-skimmers I'd been having all day.
We'd had a headwind all day but in this section it was the worst, we didn't have as many trees to blunt it. So backwards with the hat, and talking louder to Wyatt so we could hear each other. Through here and for the last many miles of wind, I'd stretch my arms out like the bird I saw yesterday. Imagined I was floating on the wind, effortless, enjoying it.
Iola is 50 miles!!! Finally!!! At this point we were mostly walking. Wyatt's feet hurt to run and his back hurt to walk. I didn't feel like I had much to complain about, as my Farmdale doesn't compare to his Spartathlon. We did a 4 min run/1 min walk into the aid station, anxiously watching his Garmin count up the tenths of the miles. His wife was waiting for him, and although she sounded like a get-your-ass-back-on-the-course crewer, Wyatt dropped out as did another runner we came in with. I learned 3 drops at that aid station so far, mostly due to wind and heat.
Bee skirt time!!!! YAY! Wyatt said wearing that in Greece might be other Missouri runners banned, LOL! No drop bag here. Just grabbed some Nutella in a cup and took off. Now back to Colony for the 100K mark. I took some time walking to eat the Nutella and digest it, then back to running. I was able to run, but wasn't as motivated. I did the "just run to the tree, run to the shade, run to the road" mental game. This worked great to get me to Colony. By the time I got there, the sun had set.
61-75 miles: Colony to Garnett: I moved slowly through the Colony aid station, it seemed like my drop bag gear just exploded everywhere. I had my checklist in mind: shake rocks out of shoes, grab foods, refill water, grab windshell and layers for cooler temps, try BioFreeze on the right leg, grab pain meds, get extra lights, turn on the Garmin to help with my nutrition reminders, put some preventative chamois butter "down there" before my shorts chafed me. (And of course as soon as I do that the headlines of a nearby car come on, illumination my non-ladylike moment-haha!). Met RM's friends from Cape Girardeau here. Grabbed my potato dinner and moved out.
Lots of walking now. But I rationalized this easily without guilt. I'd covered 62 miles faster than expected and had plenty of time before the race cutoff. I couldn't see the trail debris clearly so I was stumbling over little things like walnuts and rocks. I needed to eat and that's hard to do running. And mostly, my leg was killing me, really killing me.
The BioFreeze didn't touch the pain so I moved up to prescription Ibuprofen. That didn't do much either. So I focused on other things. The sky was perfectly clear, I could see every star and often looked up to enjoy it. As time passed it was fun to see the constellations slowly spin overhead. We ran for a few miles along a gravel road, when a car roared by it clogged up my view in a cloud of dust that irritated my lungs. I had a TJM podcast to listen to, I kept an eye on the phone battery to see how this worked for me.
At Farmdale I was starting to mentally zone out around 8-9pm, I could feel the fuzz coming on. But I had my caffeine gels and coffee blasts. I was pretty fuzzed for 2-3 hours? I think? I wonder if the podcast made things worse because I kept getting "trail stare", where I just stare blankly at the path in front of me. Mostly walking here, and I was OK with that.
Quick stop at the Welda tent-pee at 70 miles, I was eager to keep going. And I was finally able to correlate the trail markers with the race mileage. I guessed that I should finish up around mile marker 60. Next stop in Garnett at the nice train station!
78-87 miles: Garnett to Richmond: My Garnett drop bag had chocolate covered coffee beans and caffeinated gels, I was happy to get these. I spent a lot of time at this stop, talking and thinking and enjoying the mental stimulation. I washed my hands and face, went through my aid station routine, grabbed more steamed potatoes and nutella, and even more happily realized I would have someone to walk with from here. Fellow runner Wendy and her pacer came in behind me and told a story about 2 drunk men near Welda who decided to put on Halloween masks and scare runners on the trail. A trail ranger came into the depot, took names and numbers of witnesses and told a story of tackling the guys, throwing them to the ground, handcuffing, throwing into the car, and pressing charges. It seemed to me he really enjoyed doing this. I also another runner Tammy curled up on one of the benches, she was wearing only a race bra and shorts so she had to be cold. Like Wendy I'd seen her off and on though the race. The three of us decided to stick together for a few miles, given that we were all walking, concerned about being on the trail alone in the dark, and all needing some company.
Well that worked a few meters. Wendy and her pacer quickly took off running, leaving me and Tammy to walk. She was nauseated and wanted to vomit. Like Wyatt she was disappointed in her race that wasn't going to be the "sub 20 hour" that she wanted. Someone had given her a long sleeved t-shirt, and she was having an over all bad day. Turns out she didn't sleep at all Friday night due to arriving in Ottawa at 3:30am, so like with Wyatt I had little to complain about as I had a nice bed last night. Tammy is an experienced racer from AK and had run many other races, so again plenty to talk about. Like me, was having injuries and a recent DNF.
She was generally unhappy, but fun to talk to and I appreciated the company. But when she said she was feeling better and wanted to run (she was motivated to finish by a warm shower and sleep) I encouraged her to go. Wasn't my goal to hold her up, and I was happy to know she was bouncing back. She left me shortly before Richmond. Her headlight disappeared so fast, and was soon a small speck of light ahead of me. Wow, she's making progress, could I run and do the same? Nope. Too wobbly and I was stumbling over leaves.
87-93 miles: Richmond to Princeton: I had a drop bag in Richmond with more coffee beans and my rice breakfast cookies. These cookies were better now than they were Saturday morning for breakfast, but even though they worked for race fuel they weren't that good. I talked to the volunteer at Richmond but didn't want to linger as they had a space heater in the tent-pee. To my surprise I was able to remember all of my checklist, so my head seemed to be doing pretty good at this point.
I put on more layers here as the temps were cooling down -- capris, windshell, headband. This turned out to be a great idea because when I stepped back out from the tent-pee it was as if the weather changed in those few minutes-- now it was much colder and we again had a headwind. Where did that come from?! And NUTS clouds were moving in, blocking my view of the stars. But only a half marathon to the finish.
I had no idea of the time of day, I was getting so confused with the time. I had my GPS Garmin time that started at mile 61. I had my Timex time that I started Saturday morning, at some point I switched from chronometer to time of day, but I couldn't keep them all straight. All I focused on was my 45 minute eating schedule that was easy to calculate the 3 hour blocks with a 6 am start: 6, 645, 730, 815, 9. Then from 9am, then noon, then 3pm, then 6pm, etc. At least this math I could keep track of. Without the Garmin I wouldn't have remembered to eat, I wasn't motivated to eat but I knew this was a downfall at Farmdale. And I didn't want TH to admonish me again for not eating enough.
This seemed like such a long section, but it was only 6 miles. The night just drug on and on. Was the sun coming up by the time I reached this tent-pee? I can't remember. When I first came through here yesterday morning I planned to take a picture of the "Princeton Aid Station 93 miles" sign and text it to family with the joke "now I only gotta run to Ottawa!!" but I wasn't in the right humor for that at this point. I wanted DONE.
93-100 miles: Princeton to Ottawa: I was joking about the distance being only 7 miles between Princeton and Ottawa, which was only funny because back home in Illinois it's closer to 40 miles. Well, this last section felt like 40 miles. Oh. My. God. This took so long. That song was still stuck in my head, by now it was embedded and I chanted it, it's an Oasis song titled "I Hope, I Think, I Know":
They're trying hard to put me in my place
And that is why I gotta keep running
By now I was colder but not quite shivering. I wasn't hungry but low on fuel. I was fuzzy but more awake than just a few hours ago. My right leg was beyond pain at this point, I'd need another word to describe it. It felt like an open wound was there, as if I'd flayed the skin open and cleaned it with acid. It burned in a hot sizzly pain from mid-calf to ankle.
But I never stopped. I only paused to stretch muscles and change up the left-right-left-right march I'd been doing the last 20 miles. The pain wasn't really getting worse (Ibuprophen didn't touch it at this point) but as my frustration amplified and my fatigue built I was less able to ignore it. But I never stopped. I don't think much could have stopped me know, maybe if my leg fell off or something.
Sitting here a week later I can't say exactly where that motivation to finish came from. What was it that drove this race, and many other races like this? What drives us through the pain to keep moving? And where was this drive at Farmdale? Because I'm 90% convinced that my dropping out at that race had a huge mental component to it.
The future is mine and it's no disgrace
Cos in the end the past means nothing
But Farmdale doesn't matter now. All that mattered here was the path in front of me, and it seemed to stretch out in front of me to no end. I'd run this section in the dark yesterday morning so it was new, but damn there was nothing to see except more path, more trees, repeat, repeat, repeat. The few times there was small hill or a turn I'd hope to see some sign of the sequence of turns to go along the highway but no - just more path and more trees. I passed a runner and his pacer in this section, he was looking pretty pained. I didn't realize until the finish line that it was RM's friends. I would have stopped to talk, but I wanted DONE.
More path, more trees. At least the sun was up. I was having to pause every few minutes to stretch my leg muscles, it wasn't helping me any but it was an urge I couldn't resist. More path, more trees. I knew I needed to send a text to update my friends and family but the only words I could come up with were "Oh My F^CKING God" and I didn't think that was a nice text to send. And I resisted the urge to pull out the phone to look at a map to see just where the hell I was from the finish.
Finally, I saw the turns to the path along the highway. Almost done!!!! Wait, no. F^CK there's more path! No trees here, this was the paved path into Ottawa. Running it yesterday seemed so fast, today it was forever. Where was the turn to the finish!? I felt like someone added miles to this path in the last 24 hours.
As we beg and steal and borrow
Life is hit an miss and this
I hope, I think, I know
Finally, orange cones marking the turn and some crewers cheering me in. In Wisconsin last year TV encouraged me to run to across the finish line and I'd hoped to do the same here. Nope. I walked, in pain with a feeling of misery reflected in my finish line photos. I wasn't able to sum of even a little bit of jog to speed up my finish. I couldn't even raise my arms in celebration. That picture about sums it up. I was handed my highly coveted belt buckle and a "100" sticker.
I ran 100 miles and all I got was this belt buckle. Yes, it was worth it.
The finish line crew asked if I'd seen Tammy. No, I said, she was ahead of me. But she hadn't crossed the finish yet! Turns out Tammy got off path and lost, later found by a police officer. She was huddled and cold on a front porch. Hoo boy, guess I turned out OK here.
Off to the post race food line, a spread of lettuce (lettuce?!), spaghetti, coffee, and cheap cupcakes. I ran through the ultra runners diagnostic* for what to eat and chose the frosting off the cupcakes. Buttercream was oddly very good at the moment, but I didn't need to be sick for eating it.
*Imagine you have the choice of a hamburger, a piece of cake, or a beer. If you crave the hamburger you're craving salt, the cupcake then you want sugar, the beer then you need to drink.
I gathered up my drop bags and started for the door, and a super-kind volunteer offered to drive me to the hotel. I took her up on the offer, even though the hotel was a quarter mile away. Seriously, a quarter mile and I didn't even want to walk it. I wonder too how bad I looked limping around to prompt her to make the offer? Once there, my room wasn't ready yet, it was after all only 10 or 11 am, so I let the desk know I'd be at the truck. I unpacked as best I could, organizing bags and throwing out the uneaten food. Wasn't that much in the end. Realizing that the food I had wasn't appealing right now, and that I needed more real food for later tonight, I headed to a close-by grocery and limped my way around -- greek yogurt, dozen eggs, baby food rice cereal, and some salad bar items. Back to hotel.
In this period of time, the New Moon hit 100%. I took a moment to reflect on that.
Ooooh finally I get to get out of these race clothes and get a HOT shower. I peeled off my compression socks and found my right leg was not only horribly swollen, but rock to touch and looking like it had a patchy sunburn. It looks like the swelling hit the gaiter, can see a line a few inches up from the ankle. I'd checked the gaiters a few times in the race and they didn't seem tight, I even tugged them down to my ankles to see if that helped. Hoo boy, this doesn't look good. The bruising had an odd pattern: up on the outer calf by the knee, then what is visible in the picture at the inner ankle. (Later on it made sense -- I'm pretty sure I inflamed the tibialis anterior tendon sheath which crosses from inside ankle over the calf bones to the other calf under the knee. My bruising reflected that anatomy).
Amazingly enough, that was about the extent of the damages. I think I'll have 1-2 black toenails. My wrists didn't swell up like at Farmdale. No chafing or blisters. No GI upset of vomiting, bloating, diarrhea like I always used to get. Even my hip flexors that ended my Farmdale race didn't hurt all that bad. Or they didn't hurt much relative to the right leg. I was able to eat small amounts of food and drank a lot of hot tea. I was doing pretty damned good.
For the rest of the day I stayed as mobily-immobile as possible. Minimized any weight bearing movement but focused on moving while sitting on the bed. I ended up trying to watch TV (for the first time since....March??) as I couldn't focus on the pages of a book. A Law & Order marathon was on, aren't they always on? The most annoying things were leaving something like a pen or book on the other side of the huge king size bed and having to get up to pee. Surprisingly, I didn't sleep. I didn't sleep after Wisconsin either, so this might be just me. Many runners can't stay awake after a race like this.
Overnight the right leg tightened up to the point I couldn't walk on it until after a few minutes of stretching. Happily the desk chair had wheels so pulled it up along the bed and scooted around. But as morning came around I got worried about the drive back -- my legs would naturally swell as I sat driving, what would this do to the injury? I looked around Dr Google for awhile and came across anterior compartment syndrome. This was worrisome, yet not a perfect fit of symptoms. I texted EC for ideas, she also mentioned a deep vein thrombosis. Also worrisome.
So that plan was to leave early and text Mom, Sis, and TH every 45-60 mins. Stop, put feel up in truck, nap if needed, and ice with some instant ice packs. I left at 9am, stopped I don't know how many times, napped twice, and didn't get back to STL until after 5pm! A 4.5 hour drive extended to 8. Get some groceries, get the dog, get home, dang it was good to be home. With my belt buckle! YAYAYAYAYAYA!!!!!!
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