I had grand plans for running this summer – using my long
runs as a way to explore new areas of the Colorado high country, running a new
100km in the Never Summer range of Colorado, then going back to Run Rabbit Run
50 miler. All of those had to be jettisoned as I tried to recover from a bad
case of plantar fasciitis (from what I can tell, caused by running too many
miles in 0-drop shoes too quickly after making the switch). While I still got
in some fun long runs in the mountains, a month before Javelina, I switched to
flatter trails that wouldn’t put as much strain on my foot and traded out
half of my runs for road bike rides. This helped with the foot, but meant that
I was coming into Javelina a bit compromised – I felt like my foot was at about
92% and, similarly, my training for distance was good, but sub-optimal. Not how
I wanted to approach my first 100 miler.
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| Chollas - or jumping cacti - are the bright green, fuzzy looking plants to the left. |
I flew into Phoenix Thursday night, giving me a chance to
have a relaxed day before the race. Friday morning, I headed to “Jeadquarters”
(the start/finish line for the 15 mile loop, and where they had tents set up
for those camping overnight) and went for an easy 2 mile run on the course. It
had rained the night before, and the smell of the desert was amazing. While
I’ll always be a tree-hugger, I found myself really enjoying the beauty of the
desert – the stately saguaros, the chollas and ocotillos that seemed to glow in
the sun.
I passed the rest of the day checking in, picking up some
food for lunch and dinner, and generally trying to relax. My pre-race nerves
kicked up a bit so I let myself get a beer – but I limited myself to a
Coors-light – that barely counts as beer, right?
I was in bed at 8pm, but it was another hour or so until I
finally fell asleep. I slept fitfully until about 2:45am, then got up… earlier
than I’d planned, but at least I wouldn’t be in a rush getting to the start
line. I got to the parking lot around 4:15 and got on the first shuttle that
would take us to Jeadquarters as coyotes howled in the distance.
The next 1 ½ hours went by fairly quickly, and soon enough 500+
people were lined up at the start, waiting for the count-down. At 6am we were
off, heading down the trail I’d spend the next almost-24 hours on.
Loop 1, 2:42:30
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| This had to have been taken early - I still look fresh! |
This race is run on the 15 mile Pemberton Trail at Fountain Hills
Regional Park east of Phoenix. The trail is relatively flat – only 600 feet of
elevation gain each loop – but this is also part of what makes it a hard race.
It seems pretty runnable, and people have a tendency to go out too fast and
blow up later on. I had this in my mind so positioned myself about ½ way though
the pack and tried to settle in to a nice easy trot. I walked hills that felt relatively flat, and tried to just settle in and enjoy the experience. I was
eating every 30 minutes – focusing on real food (potatoes dipped in salt, oreos
– okay, not normally defined as real food, but at least not a gel, potato chips
and avocado, peanut butter and jelly sandwich triangles). I had a cup of
ginger-ale at each aid station, and intentionally stayed away from the coke,
wanting to hold off on caffeine until the evening when I knew I’d need the
boost. These first 15 miles went by fairly fast. I was aware of my foot, but
the pain wasn’t too bad. I had a brief flare-up of pain on my inner-left ankle
(an issue I’ve had the last month or so), but was able to get that to calm
down with a bit of massage. Back at Jeadquarters, I stopped by
my drop bag and grabbed a bag of Skratch drink mix to top off my pack, took an
Aleve, grabbed some more food, then headed out on Loop 2.
Loop 2, 3 hours for
the loop, 5:42:32 cumulative
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| Cheesy trail selfie |
We ran loop 2 in the opposite
direction as loop 1. Halfway
on my way up to Jackass Junction (the aid station at the top of the hill,
1/2-way through the loop) I stopped to take a selfie – I was having fun! I was
still feeling good and consciously telling myself to slow down. The most
technical part of the trail was now on the downhill coming off of Jackass
Junction, making the downhill a little less enjoyable as I focused on staying
upright. It wasn’t too bad this early in the race, but I made a mental note to
be careful in the evening when I was more tired.
Loop 3, 3:49 for the
loop, 9:31 cumulative
Loop 3 was in the hottest part of the day for me. We were lucky this year – the high temperature was in the low/mid-80s (in previous years, it has been much hotter). It still felt warm, though, and I was careful to manage my temperature - at the aid stations, I made sure to put ice in my sports bra, under my cap, and in the bandanna around my neck. Once the bandanna dried out, I tucked it under my cap to keep the sun off my ears and neck. Over-all, I was still feeling pretty good – running well on the flats and a good slow trot/fast walk up the hills. Surprisingly, I wasn’t getting too bored with the course, and didn’t yet feel the need to pull out my music, though I did randomly start singing Janis Joplin’s greatest hits about a mile before I got to Jackass Junction. Unfortunately, this was the loop were issues that would stay with me the rest of the race popped up. I started to feel blisters building around my toenails. I thought back to Waldo 2014 and just running through the same issue – but I had many more miles to go this time, and in hindsight, wish I’d dealt with them earlier. I also started to feel mildly nauseous on this loop and it got harder and harder to stuff food down when my alarm went off. Despite the fairly enjoyable downhill trail, my mood heading to Jeadquarters from Jackass started to also head downhill. It probably would have continued that way if it weren’t for Chad Palmer who drug two coolers of frozen OtterPops onto the course. I gratefully took a stick of frozen lime yumminess and soon enough found myself back at Jeadquarters. I also heard (all in my head, of course), my friend Gabby asking me, "Leona, are you smiling?" ... which of course made me smile. Those little things helped so much.
Loop 4, 3:14 for the
loop, 12:45:55 cumulative
Loop 5, 4:49 for the
loop; 17:04:23 cumulative
This loop’s time looks horrible – but I estimate that 30
minutes of that was spent in the first aid station. I had intended to have a
quick in and out this time, not wanting to get sucked into the ability to call
it quits and still get a 100km finishers buckle. However, I knew that if I was
going to have any chance of finishing 100 miles, I had to deal with my toes. I
grabbed a fresh pair of socks from my dropbag and limped over to first aid. The
toes were about as bad as I’d thought, with two on my left foot and one on my
right (including the big toes on both feet) in bad shape. The medic drained and
taped them as I tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to eat some pizza. By the time
she was done, I was shivering from being cold, so I headed back to my dropbag
for a long-sleeve shirt, and some food to eat on the trail.
I felt miserable heading out of Jeadquarters. I turned off
airplane mode (which I’d had my phone on to preserve batteries) and called
Ross. I whined and he listened, and I felt a little better. Then I looked at
the text messages my friend Tracey had been sending me through the day, which
gave me another little boost. I texted her back, whining a bit, and she text
back some more encouraging words. I was a bit embarrassed to be using my phone
on the trail, but those communications felt like a lifeline. With that boost, I
started running again up towards Jackass.
I regretted the long-sleeve shirt almost immediately after I
started running – much too hot. Sigh.
About ½ mile after the first aid station in this direction,
I came across a man screaming in pain – he’d gotten too close to a cholla and
now had a chunk of cactus stuck in his leg. The woman he was with was about to
try to pull it out with her hand when I got there. I told her to not touch it,
but use two rocks as tongs. She tried, but was being much too gentle. I grabbed
a stick, a rock, told the guy it was going to hurt and ripped the cactus off
his leg. Unfortunately, I got a few spines in my left hand in the process. Now
it was his turn to extract the cactus from me (he had better fingernails than I
do). I declined the offer of this first aid kit from his companion and headed
up the trail. I’m pretty sure the boost of energy I now had was from the
endorphins of the cactus-encounter.
It was somewhere along this loop that I heard the coyotes howling for the first time that night. A giant orange moon had risen above the mountains a little bit earlier. I stopped, raised my head, and joined them in the chorus. Happy.
Luckily for my calorie-intake, the aid stations started
serving soup and broth in the evening hours. My new routine was a cup of soup,
a cup of ginger-ale, and a cup of coke at the aid stations. Since I was having a
hard time eating, I was also trying to drink well from my Camelback since I had
calories in there, too. While this
worked pretty well for keeping my calories up, it made for frequent stops in
the porta-potties (I wasn't about to go off-trail and risk a worse cactus encounter than I'd already had) – and I started wondering if I was going to do damage to my
kidneys or bladder (many tired hours alone made for more than enough time for obsessive worrying).
Loop 6, 3:19 for the
loop, 21:23:05 cumulative
Coming into the race, I had planned on the following goals:
A: 20 hours (which I figured was unrealistic given my level
of training coming into the race)
B: 24 hours
C: finish
I was using my foot pod to keep track of distance vs. using
the GPS on my Garmin, since I wanted to preserve the batteries longer, knowing
I’d need the reminder to keep fueling. Unfortunately, the foot pod was
overestimating the distance traveled, and so wasn’t giving me an accurate pace.
However, coming towards the end of my 5th loop, it seemed like a 24
hour finish was still possible. I tried to focus on getting through the aid
station quickly, stopping at my drop bag just long enough to change into a short-sleeve
shirt and armwarmers, grab my hand-held flashlight (knowing my headlamp
batteries wouldn’t last long enough), get some gels and shot-blocks, and take
another Aleve to help settle some knee pain.
The loop started off pretty good – I felt much better now
that I was cooler, and surprisingly, the shot blocks were tasting pretty good. It
actually felt good to run (slowly) up most of the hill to Jackass Junction. Leaving Jackass Junction, I told myself that
this was the last time I was through here – but it wasn’t enough to keep my
mood up. I just plain felt tired. I started thinking there was no way I was
going to beat 24 hours and almost slowed down … but luckily, still had enough
stubborness left to tell myself that I still had to try. The headphones went
back in, and I picked up the pace as much as possible heading downhill. I
started seeing the runners heading towards me wearing their glow-necklaces that
indicated they were on their last lap. It helped knowing that I was about to get
one, too.
Loop 7
I tried to get in and out of Jeadquarters as fast as I
could. I was so happy to get my blue glow-necklace. A few more gels from my
drop bag and I was back on the trail. I wasn’t able to eat the whole gel at
once, but took ‘sips’ off of them every 10 minutes or so. I also scaled back on
how much I was drinking out of my CamelBak as I was sick and tired of always
having to pee. I don’t know if any of this was good for me or not, but it
worked. I had turned off my music and was enjoying the peaceful quite of the evening and my mind was quieter than it had been in a long while - just focused on moving as fast as I could through these last several miles. I was able to jog up the hill to the turn-off onto the Tonto Trail, and
was looking forward to running the nice downhill back to Jeadquarters. Nope.
Legs wouldn’t have it. I could power-walk faster than I could run. So I
power-walked. I thought back more than once pacing and crewing Meghan at
Western States, and running the last 1 ½ miles from Robbie Point to the track
with her. I definitely have a new level of understanding for how she felt then.
The last mile was a bit of a blur - left turn off of the
Tonto Trail back onto Pemberton, cross the road, then enter the shoot of pop-up
tents. At first, I was a little surprised to not see many people out – but of
course they weren’t – any smart person was asleep!
...then there I was, making the final turns around the drop-bag area and crossing the timing mat, and I was done, with a finishing time of 23:38:52. I was handed my big belt buckle for finishing in 24 hours, I put my hands on my knees, and cried.
The postmortem
I definitely learned a ton - about myself (both mentally and physically), about this crazy running thing, during this experience. I am so grateful to have had the support of my friends and family - their confidence in my abilities boosted my own confidence. I am also extremely grateful for Scott and Michael at Alta Physical Therapy and Adam at Get Rolfing at helping me get through my injuries this year. ...and last, but certainly not least, my friend and coach, the Queen herself, Meghan Arbogast - I don't know if I'd have ever tried a 100 miler if it hadn't been for being a part of her crew, and her coaching and encouragement definitely helped me get across that finishing line.
What worked
·
Taking Immodium just prior to the start: I’ve
had issues with runners trots on every other race longer than 40 miles. While I
had to make a few pit stops late at night, things never got too …
uncomfortable.
· Squirrels Nut Butter: I have had really bad
chafing in the past, and expected it to be really bad during this race due to
extra salt-build up given the heat. I used Squirrel’s Nut Butter everywhere I
expected friction and reapplied under the sports bra once in the afternoon. I very
happily had very few issues with chafing – a first! Huge thanks to Chris
Thornley for turning me onto the stuff.
My new CamelBak Circuit Hydration Vest - fit like a glove, no bounce, held what I needed it to, and 50 oz. was the perfect amount of fluid to carry for each loop.
Skratch-labs drink powder. I refilled with this every time I got back to Jeadquarters, except the last when I was trying to get in/out as fast of possible. It's not too sweet, and I never got tired of it.
I felt like I managed my salt intake well ... I started taking S-caps once every hour when things started heating up, then a few more in the evening hours.
What still needs tweaking
My feet!!!! Different pair of shoes for this race (Salomon Speedcross) than I wore during Waldo in 2014 (Scott Kinabalu), but I still tore up my toes. Do I need to go up a 1/2 - 1 size? Wish it weren't so expensive to experiment with new brands/styles.
