Arkansas Traveler 100 Preparation and Training 24 month journey

Journey to the Unknown

 

How Not to Train and Run Your First 100

 

Because this journey began over a year and half ago, bear with me, the report is therapeutic for me as I hope to archive pertinent information on training, race strategy, recovery and injury assessment and rehab, along with the odd points of interest, sometimes random and totally unrelated.

 

I trained and ran my first 50 Mile race at Rocky Raccoon –Huntsville State Park February 2013. This was the most difficult race I had ever run and the fatigue level was astounding. Some time after recovery, I decided I wanted to run 100’s. Not just a one and done thing, I wanted to learn how to run them, and then run the hard ones- Western States, Badlands, technical stuff. I don’t know why, there was just something pulling me like a tractor beam from the Death Star. I was on a dual mission path… The death of a running buddy, Bob Philpot, had already been pulling me in another direction The Boston Marathon. Bob had qualified and was signed up to run Boston and during training leading up to the race, was diagnosed with cancer in the late stages fought the battle and passed November 22, 2012. Bob’s attitude, work ethic, leadership and his situation lead me to refocus my running goals. Previously I had wanted to qualify for Boston, but hadn’t really embraced going and running the race. I don’t know why, but Western States just seemed like the big goal race for me to aspire to reach. Sometime around March 2013, I decided to make a hard effort to train and qualify for Boston by running the Tulsa Marathon in November, I was going to dovetail training after that race to ramp up and run my first 100 at Huntsville in February 2014. Two totally different types of races and training, but I thought I had the help and skills to craft training plans and the discipline to execute them. My coach and running cohort, Vishal Patel had crafted an excellent marathon training plan, customized to my style and running preferences. I came up with what I thought would be a good bridge to the 100, based on all the information I’d gleaned from many sources. I trained hard & smart through the summer. The marathon conditions in Tulsa were 21 degrees and 17mph wind at the start- 23 degrees and 11 mph wind at the finish. I was never running comfortable, my legs never loosened up, I held pace and finished a little over a minute under my qualifying time of 3:40. I was happy. I was anxious to get back to training for the 100. I let my training anxiety get the best of me, and went out in horrific conditions- I ran in a freezing rain thunderstorm with flash flooding on the North Shore trail, fell twice, the second time off the cliff approaching Rockledge Park, falling down the cliff toward the lake, injuring my left shin, ankle and right knee. I quit running for about 10 – 14 days, then started back up testing on long trail runs at Huntsville. I made a weekend trip in hopes that I would be able to complete a 30ish mile run. Conditions were good, I made it about 24 miles and decided to call it quits. I was extremely fatigued and my shin was sore. I made one of the toughest running decisions to date, I decided to not start the race. I volunteered and worked the entire race at the NTTR Damnation aid station. There I got my advanced training in 100 mile races. I was able to serve, patch up, encourage and see how runners handle the different stages of the race.

 

I also paced a lady through her later miles from around 2AM, so I also got a feel for the trail during early morning after no sleep for over 18 hours. Seeing runners fatigued, GI issues, blisters, numerous chafing issues and more, made me more aware of all that can go wrong and potentially end a race. Not to mention the fact of racing out too fast and then grinding to slow march to finish. The lady I paced was running her 11^th 100 mile race: Yoshiko Jo - she was experienced, but learned the power walk can be a race saver in that it allowed her to finish a sub 24 hr when she had given up on making that time previously because she couldn’t sustain her running pace.

Contributing to a veteran runner made the weekend totally worth it, and it helped to motivate me to train smarter for my next race.

My father had developed some health issues and was in and out of hospitals from December – April and I was making weekend trips to Sugarland and running long runs on the way at Huntsville or running at Brazos Bend or where ever I could on the road. I was coaching the El Scorcho/ La Scorchita training program and got lucky and got a late entry and ran the 50K race in July where I got to run with my DRC running buds and met some new ones. I did a lot of night runs in the heat and a number of 9PM-3AM Friday/Sat & then 6AM Saturday Trail runs. I began coaching the DRC Fall Half Marathon training program in July. My training mileage peaked out around 70 miles per week. I felt good that I had determined I could run in the heat using a 10/5 run/walk strategy. Salt Sticks every 20 mins/ around 60 oz of water an hour and 350 calories of solid foods. I knew I was pushing my body to the limits of training, but I felt confident that I wasn’t overdoing it…until I went to Arkansas.

 

Race directors Stan &Chrissy Ferguson had set up a couple of training runs for the Labor Day weekend, so I modified my training plan to peak out that week. The runs were about 26 miles Saturday and 26 miles Monday. I wanted to get back Sunday, so I decided to run Saturday with the group and then unsupported Sunday. I took a ½ day off for the holiday so I could get there in time to get a good night’s rest before the 6AM Saturday run. My training run adventure began… The drive down was good- I stopped at the Arkansas Travel Center and was greeted by an older gentleman who was a whistle-talker (sounded like Jesse the usher on The Ticket AM) I grabbed park info and maps and took off. I was on schedule to get to the run location where there would be camping areas well before dark. I hadn’t reviewed the information about the run. I just loaded the location to the race start/finish into my Garmin, who I have named Rachel, after the star replicant in Blade Runner. I was on my way… headed north of Hot Springs just at rush hour, and I when I left the pavement I thought I was really close. Rachel took me over 30 miles of the most treacherous back roads in Arkansas, one being Rocky Gap, part of the actual race course and a road that I later found out wasn’t used by park rangers for fear of getting stuck with their 4WD trucks. I had to get out of the car 3 times to figure out how to navigate the rocks and crevasses, each time my car filled with insects of 3-4 varieties. It was approaching dusk, and I was fearful of getting stuck. Rachel had satellite connection, but I no longer had a cell connection. So much for getting to camp early and stress-free. I made it to Lake Sylvia right at dark. The local sheriff greeted me, I told him what I was looking for and he said he’d seen the park ranger, she should be back soon. The park ranger had no idea about a training run or any campsites being reserved, she was aware of the race and said Chrissy hadn’t reserved the pavilion yet, but she was sure they would soon.

I still had no cell signal, frustrated and confused, I headed toward Little Rock in search of cell signal, food and supplies for the runs.

 

40 minutes to West Little Rock, I found a Kroger, gave up on finding a Jason’s Deli or Subway, I washed the Mellinium Falcon and stopped at a Sonic on the way out of town. It was around 11:30PM. I repacked my stuff and the supplies I picked up, ate as I observed the teenagers doing the same crap I did 40 years ago on a Friday night before school started. For the most part, they drove better vehicles, otherwise it was somewhat of time warp… Thank God I made through those years. I looked up the training run information on the race site web page and realized it was a different lake and location from the start/finish. I copied the instructions and info so I’d have it after I left civilization and internet connectivity. I headed back toward the run site. I pulled off the road at an intersection, had another brief visit w/ the sheriff, who couldn’t help me much because he knew the roads by “the corner where Uncle Bill killed that deer” or the road over by John’s pasture… highway numbers and county road #’s were meaningless to him, and that’s about all I had. I took off following the turn by turn directions for the crew members along with Rachel’s assistance, made one wrong turn, got back on track and finally found Lake Winona, only to find a locked gate, no camping, no parking, no nothing except a drive near the ranger’s house, a tool and repair garage with equipment and a dump truck near the entrance.

It was now 1AM. Decision time… park and sleep in the car.

I parked behind the dump truck, slept in 1.5 hour hour increments, heard the park ranger open the gate around 5:15AM- runners started showing up at 5:30 – I drove down to the parking lot and changed into my running stuff, gathered up my bottles and felt like the new kid at school. The group was fairly small 12-15 maybe. I had no idea where we were running only that we were doing about a 13 mile out and then back on part of the race course. It was hot & humid and I was ready for that…what I wasn’t ready for was the long up and down hills. I abandoned my 10/5 run/walk strategy and took advantage of the down hills, I would run the down hills and walk the climbs or 10/5 the easy up hills and flats. There was one manned aid station and water jugs at the turn around. I recognized Rocky Gap- the treacherous road I had driven over. I met the race director Chrissy and some other first time 100 runners Ronnie Daniel & Melody and another guy who had run a number of AT 100s, but had a heart condition that keeps him from running over 50 miles now. I stayed within my comfortable running zone, but ran a lot of down hills. When I got back to the start/finish, I decided to run some more and sweep the course. I went back, met a number of runners coming in, and around 3 miles out came across 3 ladies who seemed to be having a bad time with the heat and hills, so I turned it around and walked and ran back to the finish with Heather Bush, Mira Evans & Andi Stracner awesome Arkansas runners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a feast of BBQ, Beans, Chips and the works courtesy Chrissy & Stan. A rain shower ensued as we loaded up to leave.

 

I packed up and headed to Harris Brake Lake near Perryville to a fishing resort with rooms & RVs sort of a No Country for Old Men kinda place if you know what I mean. It was the closest place to the start/finish and I thought it would be good to scope out for the race. I got a room- no bargain at $80, but I guess you pay for location. I unloaded my stuff, cleaned my trail shoes, showered and then made a run to the local grocery store for supplies for tomorrow’s run- I needed water, food, chigger-rid & bug spray. The bugs were vicious. I had chigger bites all over my legs, the nasty little buggers made their way through gators, thick socks and compression socks. The flying insects were relentless. If a car door was left open, they flocked to the cool and at night if any interior light was on and a door or window opened the car was immediately filled with 20 or more flying bugs of different varieties. I killed the interior lights and I would drape a towel over the dimmed instrument lights and I was fast in & out of the car.

 

 

 

 

It was too late to try and scope out where I was going to run in the morning, so I decided to eat dinner, hit the sack and just hope I could find the course and navigate it on my own. After seemed like 2 seconds of sleep… I woke up and decided I needed more sleep than getting the run in at 6AM- no one else was running, so what the heck… I slept in until about 7A- loaded everything up, checked out of my room and took off toward the run. I drove the dirt roads about 30 miles to get to the Power Line aid station area. It was a cool beautiful overcast morning about 70 degrees. I saw two of the largest wild turkeys I’ve ever seen on the way. I parked the car under the Power Lines and took off with the written course instructions in my hand. The comfort level running compared to Saturday was huge. I thought this is great. I’ll get to feel what it’s like if it turns out hot or if it turns out comfortable. I didn’t take any extra water or very much food, since I was only going about 9 miles out and back, then running the other way from the car. I could refuel and refresh my water when I returned. The run was mostly down hill and I was flying. I was only looking at heart rate, and because it so cool, I felt like I was running too fast even though I had plenty of heart rate left in aerobic mode. Again, I would run the down hills no matter how long and it was nice. About 6-7 miles into the run I felt a slight tweak in my left shin. It was nothing big, but a little concerning. I slowed the pace down a little and pressed on, I was still walking any upgrade and I stopped down at each turn to double check that I was going the correct way. At mile 8 the pain was increasing rapidly and I decided I should start run /walking. I soon was just walking. I turned around about ¾ to ½ mile short of the turnaround spot. I continued walking, wondering what had happened to my left shin. I attempted to run a few times, every time the pain level shot up within 30 seconds and I was walking again. The sun had come out and the temperature shot up. I settled in for the long walk back. Now climbing at a slow pace, the bugs were finding me easy pickings. I used a bandanna to swat like a horse tail and put another bandanna over my head- at least the bugs were limited to buzzing my face now.

 I stopped a couple of times and sat down for a few minutes in hopes that would help. I don’t think it made a difference, but it didn’t hurt anything. I never saw a single soul or vehicle on the route – all county roads until I was within ½ mile of my car on the way back. I immediately looked for ice in the cooler, but it had all melted, I put a plastic bag of cold water on it and headed toward Hot Springs after I changed and loaded up. Hot Springs was about a 50 minute drive, I stopped to get gas, Iced Tea and ice for my shin and continued on. After I got back, I started researching shin injuries, determined that I either had a stress fracture or a really bad strain. The treatment was the same- 2 weeks rest and then strengthening exercises and a return to no more than 70% activity in terms of mileage and pace. After a great deal of research, I surmised that it was the mountain elevations coupled with the peak mileage was what pushed my shin to the limit. Basically, I was bumping the limits of training for my body and went just beyond the limit. My left shin just happened to be the weakest link in my trail running instrument. I was demoralized and grasping to figure out what to do next. I was 5 weeks out from the race and potentially not able to run it. I was determined to do everything possible to get to the start line healthy enough to start the race. I quit running and the cross training I had been doing. I walked some and began swimming at the Addison Athletic Club. I found that I could only swim around 50 minutes and then my right arch began cramping. I was worried that I would lose fitness during the rest period. I ran 12 days after the injury and felt a tinge of something at 8 miles… I walked it in the last ½ mile and decided that more rest was needed, but I had no idea how much at this point. I rested and struggled with what to do about the race. I decided no matter what, if I ran, I needed to run it easy and hope to finish. I broke down the next weekend and went to a Doc for an X-ray- I needed to know if I had done bad damage last year or if I had a fresh stress fracture. X-rays showed no indications of a fracture or scar tissue resulting from a fracture. Now the worst case scenario was eliminated, the same rehab applied to the strain. I started doing exercises to strengthen my shins and ankles, toe down curls and toe up curls off a stair step or curb 30 seconds down and 30 seconds up, as many as I could do- 3X a day. I hit the pool for 50 minute sessions and decided to attempt a trail run on hills – easy pace as a test. I ran with my trail peeps about 5 miles, no pain, no strains.

 

 

I could tell that I’d lost a good bit of fitness. I was laboring like it was hot when it wasn’t. Now I’m 2 weeks away from the race and I don’t know if I’ll go 12 miles or the full 100. I called John and Debi Brosius, who had planned to crew and pace me in the race and let them know that I was very doubtful to run the entire race, and if I did it would be slow, and that I would like them to crew and pace me next year when I make a solid run at this thing. My wife Cathey would be my crew. John had researched the route and crew stations and provided extremely valuable information for me regarding where I been on the course and how we would coordinate crew stops. I was feeling guilty about calling John & Debi off, but it seemed like the most logical option at the time and  it appeared reasonable to think that I could finish the race between 28 and 30 hours if my shin held up.

 

 First time 100 tip: Make your goal to complete the race. If you’re  a one and done guy… there’s no need at all to push it hard. If you’re gonna run 100’s until you die, you really need to figure out how to train, race and recover the most efficient way in order to be able to do more races, injury free. Either way- conservative is the way to go. The most common strategic race mistake is going out to fast in the first half. If you pace properly, you should be able to “run” the entire race, by “run” I mean that you should be able to pick the pace up above a walk anytime on a flat or downhill. For most “average ultra runners” this will mean walking 20-35 miles of of your race. Better to include the walking early on your own terms than later on the laws of nature’s terms.