Loop 2: I was on my own now, but figured Terry would catch up with me later, so I took off promising to slow myself down on this loop. NAILED IT, 2:30 with another stop for supplies and a change of shoes/socks at the tent. Much better, and feeling great. On the down side, the temperatures were beginning to rise, and I'm not the best in warm weather.
Loop 3: I had plenty of time in the bank after that first loop, so I decided to try to reign it in even more. I texted Terry and Adam (our pacer who would be coming down in the evening) to check in, and it seemed Terry was making up time on me, he was right on 2:30/loop pace. I figured if I slowed enough, Terry would catch me, and he did, and we finished the second half of the third loop together. Felt good to have company again. Finished this loop in 2:46, so basically I was back on my goal to finish the first three loops at around 2:30/loop. Quick change of socks, and we were back out there.
Loop 4: Terry and I would do the next few loops together. Heat of the day was not very much fun, but we settled into a pretty good pace of running the easy downs and a little bit of the flats, hiking the ups, and trying to keep a quick hiking pace when we were not running. We both decided to take our trekking poles on this loop. This is my first use of them in a race, and I really enjoyed having them for the relentless up and down hills on this course. Since I wasn't running that much, it was not that big of a deal to carry them when not needed. We also just left them at the Heaven's Gate AS where there was a just under 2 mile loop that was mostly downhill or flat, so we got a break from having them for a little while. 3:17 for this loop. We had hoped to keep our loops under 3:00, but with taking 10-15 minutes each loop to dry our feet, this wasn't bad at all.
Loop 5: More of the same on this loop, lots of hiking and moving forward at a pretty good pace with sporadic running here and there. Up until this point my feet were doing great considering that they were wet for 7 of the 10 miles each loop. I decided to switch to my Altra Olympus (had been using two different pair of Altra Lone Peak up until now) figuring the extra cushioning would be nice. While the soft ride was nice, turned out this pair slipped on my heel once it got wet. I was developing a hot spot on my left heel, but luckily that's all it was. Got the hot spot taped when I finished that loop, and that seemed to take care of it. Figured I'd stick with the two pair of Lone Peaks for the rest of the run.
Loop 6: Terry and I picked up Adam on this loop. I forgot what a boost it is to get a fresh runner, it's like changing the music on the radio. The dry socks for the first three miles of each loop sure felt good, but the 1600 feet of gain on these hills were starting to take their toll. Nightfall was a pleasant change from the warmth and sun. This was a pretty uneventful loop, 3:20 so just about the same as the last.
Loop 7: After another sit and drying of the feet, and the best chicken and rice soup I've ever had, we were back at it. I started to drift ahead of Terry and Adam, but Terry is a much faster hiker than I am, so I figured they would catch me. By the time I got to the Totem Pole AS, about 2.5 miles in, I had lost sight of Terry and Adam, but the pace was essentially the same as the previous loop. I just kept on moving along. After leaving Heavens Gate AS for the loop, I ran into Terry as I was heading back. He said he left Adam at the AS, he was hurting and wasn't sure he was going to keep going (he ended up dropping at the end of loop 7). It was nice to have Adam again, and we got through the rest of loop 7 in 3:23, feeling pretty good.
Loop 8: The wheels really started to come of. The climbs really began to take their toll on me, and I couldn't really run the down hills anymore. This is where I mentally broke down. I allowed the negative thoughts to get into my head, started doing the "Big Picture" math on how much longer it was going to take me to finish, both big mistakes. By the time I struggled through the last mile back to the Start/Finish line, I had made up my mind I was done. Richard, one of the RD's tried his best to not let me drop, as did Adam, and two other running friends, Tony and Julie who were heading out to hike a loop.
Drop: My fatigued brain and tired body had just made up it's mind to quit, and I'm truly disappointed. This DNF was purely a mental one. Sure I was tired, my ass was chaffed up, my feet were sore, my legs were tired, but I had enough in me to finish 2 more loops. I had finished this loop just under 4 hours (3:55) and had over 9 hours to finish 2 more, more than enough time to finish.
Lessons Learned: I did a great job of managing my feet, zero blisters on a course where I was running in wet feet for 90% of the time is pretty darn good. Trekking poles are a great tool to have in my ultra bag. I did pretty good eating my way through the course, even when I didn't want to. this one boils down to the mental side of ultra marathons. I thought I was prepared to push through the point where every cell in my body wants me to stop, but I was not.
Top Three Things to remember:
1) Start slower (at least it was only one loop this year), which is a lesson I never seem to learn
1) Make sure to have fresh pacers for miles 70-100
3) Figure out how to stop doing the "big math" and break up the run into AS to AS, mentally
managable chunks
I really enjoyed this weekend even though the race itself was a failure. I had so much fun hanging out with all my ultra running friends, seeing them on the trails, and watching so many of them smash their goals with strong finishes. I'm glad I've stumbled into this crazy family of Ultra Runners, and can't wait to get back on the trails and test myself again.
