Woodstock, VA.,
Temps 64 to 90 degrees.Elevation Gain 14,000 feet
The weekend kicked off to a frustrating start at the airport. TSA required new biometrics to use the express lanes. I had applied moisturizer to my index fingers all week. It turned out that TSA required prints from the other 8 fingers. It took a couple dozen attempts to capture enough partial fingerprints. Had I known I would have worn gloves for a several days prior to keep my prints intact. I will be using the iris scan for authentication but should keep at least one finger "fingerprint ready".
I went to Avis to pick up my rental car for the drive out to Woodstock, VA. The warning lights for ABS and ESP came on. I decided to switch cars as brakes and stability control are useful features. As I exited with the 2nd car, the guard said have a nice weekend and one second later said WAIT. I heard a hissing noise; I had driven over spikes. I u-turned back to Avis Preferred with a flat tire. The gate wasn't working and provided no clue that the spikes were up. I filled out an incident report and finally drove off in a Chevy Equinox.
I was late for lunch, got tied up in Friday afternoon Memorial Day traffic but made it to the race briefing at 4:50pm, 10 minutes early. The race director from IronHorse and his wife were familiar faces. There were a good number of law enforcement and former Marines among the runners.
Sat. 5am. The course consisted of two repetitions of 50 miles -- out and back. My goal was to run a sub-24 and place in the top 10.
At mile 7.5, there is a 1,200 feet climb over 2.5 miles. I was doing a 5 minute run/1 minute walk.
The mountains were pretty -- we were out in the country - among cows and horses. There was horse poop and a dead snake on the road, Gun fire echoed in the valley. There was a nice firework display for the holiday. The runners were friendly and the volunteers were helpful. There were long stretches where there was no one around. The course was asphalt and dirt roads. Small rocks would get in my shoes. When a truck drove passed, it would kicked up a lot of dust.
I reached the 25 mile turnaround in 4:45 and hoped to finish the first 50 in 10 hours but temps were rising. I was hoping for a negative split. I tested my spray mister - it seemed to work when there was a breeze. I don't know how much actual cooling it provided and whether it was worth the extra weight. Temps stayed above 85 degrees between noon and 7pm. There was little shade or cloud cover.
It reached 90 degrees around 2:30pm. I ending up walking for a couple of hours. My legs were caked in salt; I tasted salt from my lips when I took a sip of gatorade. If there wasn't any Succeed electrolyte tablets at the aid stations, I was prepared to lick my sunscreen coated arms. I carried only one tablet for every 6 miles and had dropped some. I started taking 2 tablets in the heat.
The last 2 aid stations back to the start were 6 miles apart. I was dehydrated, had a headache, stopped urinating, and felt nauseated. I carried one water bottle but it wasn't enough. I spotted a random runner getting into her car and asked for water. She gave me an electrolyte drink called Heed. She drove by later and offered ice water from an ice bucket. I wasn't sure how clean it was but drank it anyway. It was too hot to eat solid food. I had a few chips, pretzels and chicken noodle soup twice. Still with all the gatorade I drank, I figured I was able to replace half the calories burned.
I was trying to decide if I should quit at the 50 mile mark and receive just a medal. Since I quit due to heat in the 170 miler in April, I decided to tough it out, and finish the 100 to prove that I can get through the heat. Also, I am still trying to decide if I should put in an application for the 2008 Badwater 135 miler in Death Valley.
Back at the start, I switched watches and put hydropel on a developing blister. The Garmin GPS batteries are good for about 10 hours; I had borrowed a second Garmin GPS for the last 50 miles.
As I headed back out, I asked the 100 mile runners coming in, if they were going to quit at 50. Almost all of them said there were quitting due to the heat. One guy said he had nothing to prove. I think the more seasoned ultra runners knew when to quit. The "kids" and first-timers stayed in.
I would like to run a hot race someday where I would run 50 miles, relax in a hotel for 10 hours, and finish the 100 miler and still make the 30 hour cutoff. It would probably be more enjoyable than suffering in the heat.
I was passed by at least six runners speed walking up the mountain. I am not a fast walker. Fortunately, I still had good leg speed to pass them on the downhills and flats.
Because my liver enyzmes were elevated 3 days after the 170 miler DNF -- I decided to hold off on using Advil or Tylenol or carbo-loading with wine. I waited till mile 58 before taking 1000mg Tylenol and a total of 1600 mg Advil spread over 8 hours. I also started taking caffeine as well. The last 40 miles felt effortless. I ran the last 25 mile return leg faster than the 1st 25 mile return leg. Lower temps helped.
I kept looking behind me to see if any runners were catching up to me on the hills. I knew I had to run part of the steep hills to match the speed of power walkers. I alternated a couple of seconds ofrunning with a couple seconds of running -- maintaining a 17 minute mile. There was lightning and thunder but not close by.
At mile 90, I reached the peak (1850ft) and started the descent. It was too steep to run down -- I ran with poor form, leaning back. I ended up with a heel blister and 2 damaged toenails that will pop off. It didn't help that those 2 toenails haven't fully grown back from the last 100 in Feb. I felt my shins (tibialis anterior) being torn up on the downhill. I ran faster once I got to a flat section.
Somewhere around mile 96, I noticed that my map was missing from my pocket. I wasn't worried, I thought I knew where to go. With 1.5 miles to go, I knew I had missed my turn in the city. I eventually took a right turn hoping that city streets were set up in a grid pattern and it would lead back to the Reservior Rd I-81 exit. No restaurants or gas stations were open at 3am. I was out of water, didn't carry cash or a cell phone. I heading south following the sound of Interstate 81. Eventually, I came across Reservior Rd and ended up running only an extra 0.75 miles. Although the GPS watch was already on low battery warning, it did not occur to me at the time, that I could use my watch to retrace my path back to start (:
I finished in 22 hrs 43 minutes -- my slowest 100 miler of three. I finished 7 minutes slower than Rocky Raccoon. But this race has 9000 feet more elevation gain and was 37 degrees hotter although Rocky Raccoon is on trails. So I guess I had a good race.
Before I got lost, I had thought about running an extra 12 miles but the thought left me when I finished. I think I could have done better if I did more stairclimbing on the Stepmill machine at the Y. I want to try pre-taping my feet on my next ultra.
I had planned to visit some friends for breakfast before dropping off the car at Avis. But since I only got an hour sleep in the car and given how I went through 3 Avis vehicles on Friday, I thought it would be wiser to return the car. I napped the rest of the day. On Monday I met up with some runners from the Reston group. You know you are a ultra runner when you can spend half an hour talking about feet and taking off your socks to compare blisters!!
I ended up placing 5th. There were 32 runners registered for the 100. Keith Knipling won the race. He came in 3rd in last week's Massanutten,VA 100 miler. He is planning to run the "old" Old Dominion 100 this weekend. That's 3 100 milers in 3 weekends!
Temps 64 to 90 degrees.Elevation Gain 14,000 feet
The weekend kicked off to a frustrating start at the airport. TSA required new biometrics to use the express lanes. I had applied moisturizer to my index fingers all week. It turned out that TSA required prints from the other 8 fingers. It took a couple dozen attempts to capture enough partial fingerprints. Had I known I would have worn gloves for a several days prior to keep my prints intact. I will be using the iris scan for authentication but should keep at least one finger "fingerprint ready".
I went to Avis to pick up my rental car for the drive out to Woodstock, VA. The warning lights for ABS and ESP came on. I decided to switch cars as brakes and stability control are useful features. As I exited with the 2nd car, the guard said have a nice weekend and one second later said WAIT. I heard a hissing noise; I had driven over spikes. I u-turned back to Avis Preferred with a flat tire. The gate wasn't working and provided no clue that the spikes were up. I filled out an incident report and finally drove off in a Chevy Equinox.
I was late for lunch, got tied up in Friday afternoon Memorial Day traffic but made it to the race briefing at 4:50pm, 10 minutes early. The race director from IronHorse and his wife were familiar faces. There were a good number of law enforcement and former Marines among the runners.
Sat. 5am. The course consisted of two repetitions of 50 miles -- out and back. My goal was to run a sub-24 and place in the top 10.
At mile 7.5, there is a 1,200 feet climb over 2.5 miles. I was doing a 5 minute run/1 minute walk.
The mountains were pretty -- we were out in the country - among cows and horses. There was horse poop and a dead snake on the road, Gun fire echoed in the valley. There was a nice firework display for the holiday. The runners were friendly and the volunteers were helpful. There were long stretches where there was no one around. The course was asphalt and dirt roads. Small rocks would get in my shoes. When a truck drove passed, it would kicked up a lot of dust.
I reached the 25 mile turnaround in 4:45 and hoped to finish the first 50 in 10 hours but temps were rising. I was hoping for a negative split. I tested my spray mister - it seemed to work when there was a breeze. I don't know how much actual cooling it provided and whether it was worth the extra weight. Temps stayed above 85 degrees between noon and 7pm. There was little shade or cloud cover.
It reached 90 degrees around 2:30pm. I ending up walking for a couple of hours. My legs were caked in salt; I tasted salt from my lips when I took a sip of gatorade. If there wasn't any Succeed electrolyte tablets at the aid stations, I was prepared to lick my sunscreen coated arms. I carried only one tablet for every 6 miles and had dropped some. I started taking 2 tablets in the heat.
The last 2 aid stations back to the start were 6 miles apart. I was dehydrated, had a headache, stopped urinating, and felt nauseated. I carried one water bottle but it wasn't enough. I spotted a random runner getting into her car and asked for water. She gave me an electrolyte drink called Heed. She drove by later and offered ice water from an ice bucket. I wasn't sure how clean it was but drank it anyway. It was too hot to eat solid food. I had a few chips, pretzels and chicken noodle soup twice. Still with all the gatorade I drank, I figured I was able to replace half the calories burned.
I was trying to decide if I should quit at the 50 mile mark and receive just a medal. Since I quit due to heat in the 170 miler in April, I decided to tough it out, and finish the 100 to prove that I can get through the heat. Also, I am still trying to decide if I should put in an application for the 2008 Badwater 135 miler in Death Valley.
Back at the start, I switched watches and put hydropel on a developing blister. The Garmin GPS batteries are good for about 10 hours; I had borrowed a second Garmin GPS for the last 50 miles.
As I headed back out, I asked the 100 mile runners coming in, if they were going to quit at 50. Almost all of them said there were quitting due to the heat. One guy said he had nothing to prove. I think the more seasoned ultra runners knew when to quit. The "kids" and first-timers stayed in.
I would like to run a hot race someday where I would run 50 miles, relax in a hotel for 10 hours, and finish the 100 miler and still make the 30 hour cutoff. It would probably be more enjoyable than suffering in the heat.
I was passed by at least six runners speed walking up the mountain. I am not a fast walker. Fortunately, I still had good leg speed to pass them on the downhills and flats.
Because my liver enyzmes were elevated 3 days after the 170 miler DNF -- I decided to hold off on using Advil or Tylenol or carbo-loading with wine. I waited till mile 58 before taking 1000mg Tylenol and a total of 1600 mg Advil spread over 8 hours. I also started taking caffeine as well. The last 40 miles felt effortless. I ran the last 25 mile return leg faster than the 1st 25 mile return leg. Lower temps helped.
I kept looking behind me to see if any runners were catching up to me on the hills. I knew I had to run part of the steep hills to match the speed of power walkers. I alternated a couple of seconds ofrunning with a couple seconds of running -- maintaining a 17 minute mile. There was lightning and thunder but not close by.
At mile 90, I reached the peak (1850ft) and started the descent. It was too steep to run down -- I ran with poor form, leaning back. I ended up with a heel blister and 2 damaged toenails that will pop off. It didn't help that those 2 toenails haven't fully grown back from the last 100 in Feb. I felt my shins (tibialis anterior) being torn up on the downhill. I ran faster once I got to a flat section.
Somewhere around mile 96, I noticed that my map was missing from my pocket. I wasn't worried, I thought I knew where to go. With 1.5 miles to go, I knew I had missed my turn in the city. I eventually took a right turn hoping that city streets were set up in a grid pattern and it would lead back to the Reservior Rd I-81 exit. No restaurants or gas stations were open at 3am. I was out of water, didn't carry cash or a cell phone. I heading south following the sound of Interstate 81. Eventually, I came across Reservior Rd and ended up running only an extra 0.75 miles. Although the GPS watch was already on low battery warning, it did not occur to me at the time, that I could use my watch to retrace my path back to start (:
I finished in 22 hrs 43 minutes -- my slowest 100 miler of three. I finished 7 minutes slower than Rocky Raccoon. But this race has 9000 feet more elevation gain and was 37 degrees hotter although Rocky Raccoon is on trails. So I guess I had a good race.
Before I got lost, I had thought about running an extra 12 miles but the thought left me when I finished. I think I could have done better if I did more stairclimbing on the Stepmill machine at the Y. I want to try pre-taping my feet on my next ultra.
I had planned to visit some friends for breakfast before dropping off the car at Avis. But since I only got an hour sleep in the car and given how I went through 3 Avis vehicles on Friday, I thought it would be wiser to return the car. I napped the rest of the day. On Monday I met up with some runners from the Reston group. You know you are a ultra runner when you can spend half an hour talking about feet and taking off your socks to compare blisters!!
I ended up placing 5th. There were 32 runners registered for the 100. Keith Knipling won the race. He came in 3rd in last week's Massanutten,VA 100 miler. He is planning to run the "old" Old Dominion 100 this weekend. That's 3 100 milers in 3 weekends!
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