25 November 07: Adventures in Ultrarunning

I’m not very good at proper “vacations.” Sometimes I hear triathletes wish out loud, “If only I could take a vacation without my bike…” I don’t understand it. Over the past couple years, I have had the pleasure of exploring countless locales all over the globe by foot or by bike. Now I don’t feel as if I fully experience the feel of a place without traversing it by my own physical exertion.         

So when I planned my off-season east coast visit to see my sister and my cousins, I set about finding a way to ensure that I really gave it to myself during my trip. The JFK 50-mile ultramarathon seemed abrilliant choice. There is nothing I love more than a long run, and I’ve long been fascinated with endurance runners and ultramarathons; I read everything about the sport that I can get my hands on (I’ve just finished Pam Reed’s The Extra Mile—very interesting.).         

The JFK run is the oldest ultra in the U.S.: 2007 was its 45th running!While most ultras seem to have 60-100 participants, JFK fills to capacity months in advance, and this year had over 1400 starters. I’d been hearing about it for years, and figured it would provide the perfect setting for a big workout that could expedite the get-back-in-shape process.         

The point-to-point race starts in a small town in Maryland, about 70 miles outside of Washington, D.C.–so as you can imagine, mid-November in this area was bloody freezing to me! I wore two layers, including tights and long sleeves, all day. My friend Doug enjoyed pointing out that this would have been more clothes than I’ve worn in the last two years combined. Ha…        

The race started with two miles straight uphill on the road that took us to the historic Appalachian Trail. I was really looking forward to the Appalachian Trail because of its famous scenery. Unfortunately, that sentiment in itself reveals how unprepared I was for this bit of the race: these 13.5 miles were so rocky and treacherous that I didn’t dare look anywhere other than a couple of feet ahead of me on the single-track trail. In fact, the minute my mind strayed away from exactly what I was doing at that moment, I would trip or roll an ankle.         

Surprisingly, I managed to stay upright on this trail, but I attribute that mostly to my extreme caution, which seemed to have everyone and his brother flying past me–especially on the downhills. There was very little flat running during this stretch; instead, I was essentially just jumping from rock to rock on very steep uphills or downhills for 13.5 miles. Some of these proper ultrarunner folks made it look so easy; the way they flew down these hills, I’d have thought they were running on a road. Much of the group did the energy-conservation thing and walked the steepest hills, but I wasn’t about to change my ironman no-walking rule just because I wasn’t in an ironman!:) So I would make some headway on the uphill bits, only to lose twice as much on the next descent.        

I knew we exited the Appalachian Trail at about mile 15.5. Although I wouldn’t allow myself to “break the seal”–meaning, look at my watch–before then, there came a point at which it seemed like I had been running for so long that I should have passed mile 15 long ago…Finally, we came upon a volunteer on the trail, who said, “Bottom of the trail, 1 mile down.” I tried to see where this might be, but all I could distinguish were a couple of switchbacks stacked very closely on top of each other, which appeared to lead me down the edge of a cliff. The good news was that I might not fall hundreds of meters if I tripped, because I’d be impaled by a branch first. Sweet.         

Somehow, I emerged unscathed (just wait–this won’t last long) and briefly felt the tension in my muscles dissipate as we ran into a field of cheering spectators. At this point, I allowed myself to check my watch, and discovered that 15.5 miles had taken me…two hours and fourty-four minutes! No wonder I felt like I should’ve passed 15 miles long ago… This was followed by another disturbing revelation: these first 15 miles had done a number on my quads. I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to them, and I had 35 miles to go?!        

Well, that was the state of affairs, and dwelling on the reality of it certainly wasn’t going to get me through the next 35 miles any more quickly!  I pushed that thought out of my head straightaway and replaced it by focusing on what I needed to do to help myself along: eat! Mile 16 was, I think, the second aid station–just wanted to clarify for all of the triathletes, since we are accustomed to full-service aid-stations every mile. The aid stations came mostly every 3 -4 miles over the rest of the course. Thus, nearly everyone carries a bottle, and at each aid station, one must stop to refill the bottle and to grab whatever one wants to eat. The hardcore folks all seemed to have support crews to give them their special bottles and food where needed, but I was there solo, and then again wasn’t in a battle down to the minute, either . . . Back to the race: I grabbed as much as I could carry, and shoved down a banana and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as I ran.         

The next stretch of this race was 26 miles on a flat, hardpacked dirt  path along the C&O Canal. For me, one of the highlights of this race  was all of the beautiful multicolored leaves covering the trees on the course–we don’t get those in Arizona or California! The only problem is that inches of these leaves covered the path on which we were running; thus we never actually saw this dirt path, or where our foot would land in our next step. So while this 26-mile stretch was hardly rocky like the Appalachian Trail section, of course I and my low-to-the-ground ironman shuffle managed to make contact with an obscured rock at an inopportune moment. Yes, at about mile 20, I tripped on a rock and went flying. The problem with hitting the ground after 3+ hours of treacherous running was that every muscle in my body seemed to seize up to the extent that I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to get up out of the leaves.        

Luckily for me, I had just run a couple of miles with my friend Frank, a veteran of this race, and he had only recently told me to go ahead. So he came upon me on the ground in time to drag me up and carry my water bottle for a bit while I limped along. He was also kind enough to pick leaves off of my now-bloody clothing.        

Unfortunately, Frank and I had parted ways again by the next time I had a close encounter with the foliage at mile 30. And the guys I had recently picked off seemed all too happy to run right past me as I dealt with muscles that had grown increasingly disobedient over the past 10 miles; getting up off the ground was very challenging.         

I must’ve been in a bad way when I hit the mile 34 aid station, though, because I remember just grabbing whatever calories I could get my hands on while a volunteer helped refill my bottle…then forgetting about the bottle and running off, while thinking I was eating the cookies I had just picked up, but instead actually eating my last gel–which I meant to save for a gap between aid stations. I also couldn’t be bothered to differentiate between the gel and the leaves that were stuck to my hand thanks to fall #2 and the remains of a previous gel…        

Nevertheless, once I did eventually eat those cookies, I must’ve found a sugar high. I was suddenly able to fast-forward in my mind to mile 38 and thought, “Only 12 more miles!” Up until this point, I had chosen to ignore as much as possible all mile markers, instead thinking, “You are lucky enough to be able to do one of your favorite activities–running–all day. And you WILL be running all day.” Suddenly, it seemed as if I was almost done, and I began to feel exceptionally perky. Miles 35-42 were the highlight of my day. I’m not sure if I actually felt great or if I just felt a lot better than I thought I should after 35+ miles of running…        

At mile 42, however, this race transitions to the road for eight final hilly miles–just for some bonus pounding right when I needed it most. Until mile 45, the pounding was made tolerable by thoughts that the end was near. At that point, however, I came to the depressing realization that the end was not coming quickly enough!         

The last 3-mile countdown seemed longer than the last 3 miles of any of my recent ironmans. I noted the irony in the perspective shift: 12 remaining miles in an ironman marathon seems like a big chunk, whereas in this race it had seemed like nothing; yet 3 remaining miles in an ironman is the homestretch, and today the last 3 of 50 were interminable! My muscles were d-o-n-e; I felt like I was just throwing one leg in front of the other, one step at a time. I knew I’d get there eventually…        

And I did. Eight hours and fourteen minutes after I started, I completed 50 miles of running (about #111 out of 1400+ people). I finished to find that I seemed to have grown an extra right thigh; I had a huge, bruised, swollen mass on the side of my leg, which explained why I’d felt as if someone was stabbing me there with every step I took!         

Between this injury and the impact of 8+ hours of running on my legs,the pain did not subside upon crossing the JFK finish line–far from it,in fact. I had not been this sore since my first Ironman–and I’m noteven sure that was this bad! For two days following the race, I could only hobble, and had to make use of all sorts of rails, ramps, andanything else to keep me upright. While I was traveling, random people inthe airports were offering me assistance with my bags and airline personnel wondered if I was one of the passengers in need of a wheelchair….I told these nice folks that I was really fine: “Don’t feel sorry for me–I did this to myself!” And I’d do it all again…. 

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