Sunday, November 22, 2009

Haney 2 Harrison Ultra Race Report (Part 2)




It was mile 40 about 60 kilometers with another 40 to go. My hands were cold and wet. I was so achy and I felt like I was walking way too much. My wife had been keeping a closer eye on me. I slowed to a walk again I felt dejected as I approached the van. In my heart I was ready to quit.

“You can’t quit!” She very quietly said to me.

The look, in her beautiful green eyes, was both empathetic and dogmatic. I knew she was right. It was just pain. What is it that Lance Armstrong said “Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.”

I don’t advocate the use of NSAIDs (non steroidal anti-inflammatories) for distance running. I know the pitfalls and dangers i.e. masking pain and covering up serious injury yadda, yadda, yadda. Not to mention all the talk about damaging your liver and kidneys. BUT . . . It was 40 miles into it I had another 22 miles to go. I popped a couple of Advil and two Tylenol. I changed my gloves and put my fleece vest back on. I dropped all the excess weight I was carrying: Water bottle, camera, even some food.

As I approached the end of Nicomen Island Trunk Road my steps became lighter. My gait improved. I was able to run again. I start flying by the power poles that 10 minutes ago were like Sirens from Homer’s Odyssey begging me to stop. A smile grows on my face. The checkpoint for the end of Leg 5 is about 100 meter down Athey Road. So for about 100 meters you see people in various stages of their relay either starting, finishing, or warming up. Running the gauntlet to the checkpoint it is here I see Orange. We exchange ‘fives’, he was going out I was still going into the checkpoint. I’m encouraged my spirit picks up.

Running into Deroche you cross the bridge over the slough and take a hard right across the tracks. The train tracks! The bellowing sound of the oncoming train whistle fills the air. Why do they call it a train whistle anyway? I guess some throw back from the steam era but today’s whistle is a deafening horn, more baritone than soprano. In the distance I see Orange he’s been ‘trained’ having to wait while the 200 or so railcars cross the road. I almost catch him when the guard rail goes up freeing the dozen or so cars and Orange to the road ahead.

The road out of Deroche climbs ever so slightly. I was here that I passed Orange. He had taken a break on the opposite side of the road where his support car was. I wouldn’t say I had a killer instinct or a Type A personality but after I passed Orange I kind of picked it up. Just a bit. On the stretch of road between Durieu and the Sasquatch Inn I took very few breaks.

Now the great thing about trail ultras is you can pee just about anywhere. Some people go slightly off trail and some people just drop ‘em where they are. On a road ultra you usually wait for a driveway or a bush or some sort of privacy. At this point of the race, although my pace had improved it didn’t improve enough that relay runners weren’t still passing me. It’s one of my pet peeves about Relay/Ultra combined events you always look worse than the fresh set of legs passing you. So on this particular stretch of road there was no privacy and I had to go.

As I approached the checkpoint I saw a wall of port a potty’s. I did a quick check over my shoulder and could no longer see Orange. I thought how cool and somehow perfect. I slowed down but on the other side was a huge line up of relay runners waiting to use them. “ Shit!” I murmured and with a deep sigh I headed back for the course.

“ Hey! Do you want to go first?” A young racer called to me. “We don’t mind!” another one said.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you” My gratitude was immense. I was floored by their act of goodwill. I quickly used the facility, still no Orange, went through the checkpoint and head out for ‘the Hill’.

The seventh leg of the race crosses the Harrison River passes Historic Kilby and then winds its way up Mt Woodside. It sounds more daunting than it actually is but the hill is two miles long so it is more of an energy sapper than a quad crusher. It had been raining all day long a slow steady rain never letting up and if you can believe it on the flat approaching ‘the Hill’ it actually rained harder. It rained so hard the bouncing rain from the road was reducing visibility. To my right I saw a black Volkswagen pull over, it was another support car.

“You look great, keep it up!” the guy in the car yelled.

I did a quick wave thanking him for the encouraging words and looked around to see who this car was supporting. In the blur that was now the road behind me was a fast approaching figure . . . Orange, he gave me a big wave as if to say ‘I’m still here’. I thought, as you do when you are out there for 8 hours, that this was kind of like a suspense horror movie. Just when you think it is over some hand suddenly emerges scaring the bejeezus out of you or in my case, a guy in an orange jacket. Just when I thought I wouldn’t see Orange again there he was. I waved back.

I loaded up with potatoes and gels and set off. I have to hand it to my wife, my support crew (always), it was extremely ugly weather. Getting out of the van a person would be drenched in less than a minute. And yet every twenty minutes like clock work she would be there with potatoes, Gatorade, and gels and sometimes a camera cheering me on. I know in the days prior she would tell me “you are never doing this again”. But on this day, I could see the enthusiasm despite the rain, I could hear the pride in her voice and the sincerity of her cheer. I love my wife!

As I head into the last checkpoint I saw my wife up ahead just before the turn. In another van with her was my mother-in-law who brought out my four children. It was a busy section of road so I couldn’t stop long. I could hear their muffled cheers from the backseat.

“We’ll see you at the finish!”, my support crew in an instant turned back into a mom. I had at least an hour to go and trying to occupy and keep my four kids dry for the next hour had taken top priority, both in my mind and hers.

As I came out of the last checkpoint the unthinkable happened . . .Yes, you guessed it. My shoelace came undone. On any other run on any other day kneeling down and re-tying my laces would be no problem but at kilometer 97 of a 100 kilometer run in the cold pouring rain. . . .”Houston, we have a problem!”


I crouched down as best I could and I took off my gloves and set them down in the shallowest puddle on the road. My fingers were nearly numb. My concentration was gone but I completed the task like a machine. So when they came undone and I had to do it two more times in the next 300 ft I had the routine down. As I rounded the corner on to Harrison hot Springs the black Volkswagen pulled up. I smiled and shouted “Where is he?”

“Not far behind!”

By this point I didn’t care, sort of, I couldn’t run any faster than I was going now. I was still being passed by relay runners. I started reflecting on the long journey. Not just the last 100 kilometers but the last 4 months the long sought after dream. Fruition! In the final, hundred or so meters of the race I was overwhelmed with emotion. As I crossed the little footbridge and down the last 20 feet to the finish I heard the announcer, Steve King call my name. What he said I’m not so sure. I crossed the line in 11:37, a PR for the distance (first time too). I started crying as I crossed the line. My wife was there to greet me. She was crying too. She said,” Stop crying ya big baby.”

Congratulatory handshakes were everywhere. People I hardly knew. Other ultrarunners who passed me at some point during the race. As much as I wanted to see Orange come in I was so close to hypothermia I couldn’t stick around any longer. We bundled up the kids and went home. You draw motivation from wherever you can in ultramarathons. At different times it is different things. Sometimes it was Orange creeping up on me and sometimes it was the encouraging voice of my wife and friends. Ultras are deep soul searching journeys. They rip you apart only to see what you are made of and how you are going to build yourself back up . . .if at all. It’s for this reason I love ultras there is no other experience like it.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Haney 2 Harrison Ultra Race Report (Part 1)




“Three, four, five six . . . okay good. Walk!” I slow to a lumbering walk, a death march. The rain was beating down. My thin “weather-proof” grey nylon jacket was now saturated black with the day’s rain. My fleece gloves were doing their best to keep what heat remained in my waterlogged hands. It was 12:30 and I was 65 km into a 100 km ultra. I had been running for 6 1/2 hours and by all accounts I had another 5 hours to go. I was getting colder from all the walking but I couldn’t maintain a run because my hips were hurting from being so cold. This bitter Catch 22 was sending me spiraling to my demise. I was relegated to counting power poles. I would run six and walk one, then run seven and walk one. “Okay run!” I would yell at myself hoping my body would listen. “One, two, three . . .” Five more hours?!

The day had started early enough. The alarm on my wristwatch was set for 2:15. All the planning, pre-planning and training would come to a head at 4 am, the start time for the 13th running of the Haney to Harrison Ultra Marathon. The H2H is a 100 km road ultra passing through some of the most picturesque scenery in the Fraser Valley. I had been thinking about doing this race for as long as I’d been thinking of ultramarathons. For years a route map has been tacked to my running wall. I call it my running wall because its where I hang my marathon plaques and finishers medals as well as the coat rack for all my running gear to dry out. This was my room with a door to the outside. It made a convenient point of egress for my escape to the running world. Every time I laced them up I would have to look at the route map of the Haney to Harrison Ultramarathon. Today I was going to finally run it.

At 3 am even on the best days my brain is kind of foggy. Sandy James, my early morning race crew and I set off for the start. It’s a twenty minute drive from my house so after laying out all my gear the night before you would think I would have my act together. No such luck. As we pulled up to where the start was I realized I had left the Mandatory Runner Information Waiver and Crew Information Sheet. They had extra copies of the Crew Sheet but I had to write my name on the bottom of someone else’s waiver

3:50 am- we all listened very carefully to the Race Director (RD) Ron Adams giving us the pre-race talk. By this point most of us had been standing around in the rain for the better part of a half an hour. We were cold. The wind just started to pick up but would occasionally blow away the rain so there was some relief.

The gun went off at about 4:02 on my watch. I had been so involved in filming the start scene that I had almost forgot to turn on my Garmin. I was trying to save power on my GPS because I knew it only had a battery life of 11 hours. Luckily the synching of the satellites only took a few seconds because we were off. Everyone seemed to be going so fast, I knew right away that this was not my pace. I watched as the whole field went by me right from the start. This year’s race was the national 100K championship so I also knew the field would be faster than usual. By the first set of turns the leaders were nowhere to be seen. But I wasn’t last I could hear voices behind me and the blinking red lights of the runners ahead of me were not the far in the distance.

For the first part of the race we ran around the city streets of Maple Ridge winding away through some arterial roads and eventually heading back on to Dewdney Trunk Road. The turns were well marked and there was always a volunteer. Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers! I couldn’t imagine standing out in the dark, cold and just pointing the right direction to go. Volunteers make a great race.

By the time I made it on to Dewdney Trunk Road my pace was set and I was running comfortably. The wind and rain had let up for now and I was actually overheating with the amount of clothes I had on. By the time I met Sandy James at checkpoint 1, I had to take off my fleece vest which was underneath my Hi-Vis vest and windbreaker. I rolled into the first checkpoint in 56 minutes. There was still a bunch of us fairly close together but for the next stretch of road between Garibaldi High School and Stave Falls we would most certainly stretch out. The road is very straight and a bit hilly and still with another 1 ½ hours before sunrise there wasn’t much to look at except the distant glow of red blinking lights from runners who past me.

Running into Stave Falls always brings me home. Our first house is in Stave Falls, our first and second child were born while we were living here. I volunteered at the firehall up here. Such fond memories I’ve run these streets many times. I told Sandy to meet me at the firehall which I guess all the runners behind me were doing because there was quite a few cars in the parking lot. As I approached the hall I could see Sandy standing next to someone. I thought to myself that Sandy makes friends so easily. It turned out to be Bob Gray, my old friend from Station 2. At 6 o’clock in the morning he was doing some work. Always the jovial character he gave me a big bear hug as we chatted for a few moments. Sandy re-filled my water bottles for the first time, I was carrying two and had drained the first one long ago but to save weight I refrained from refilling it ‘til now and I was off again.

The next few checkpoints and the one after went off without a hitch. By this point Sandy and I were working like a well oiled machine. We leap frogged each other though these sections of the course. We would meet up about every 15 or 20 minutes, it seemed he would be sitting there in his big black truck and ask me if I needed anything, then he would hang back for a few minutes and pass me on the road and do a double check. The cycle would repeat throughout the morning. At Hatzic Prairie right in front of Sandy’s parent’s place we would switch crews. Sandy had his daughter’s soccer game to attend and my wife Jen would be taking over at that point.

For years this course has run by the house of Dick James who lives on the prairie on Sylvester Road. And for years it would piss him off that support cars would park on his front lawn. His house is strategically located as one of the last houses before the highway and at the halfway point of the race. There’s a warning in race guide “Watch for fast moving gravel trucks” Dick James’s own a gravel truck company. Not to say that it was Dick who was driving but I think all the tire tracks left by support crews on his lawn were kind of annoying. This year would be different because this year my crew would be his son Sandy and my new crew, being my wife would be parked in his driveway. As I rounded the bend I was passed by the first relay runner and then the second. As they faded into the distance the image was replaced by smaller figures on the horizon running towards me. The rain had started to come down again and by now but the distinct voices of my children gave me an immediate boost of energy which was starting to fade. And there in the driveway was my beautiful wife, my three boys, Sandy’s wife Ilja, their daughter Julia and none other than, Dick James.

“You look terrific!” the shouts all said. The shot of adrenaline from seeing my family and neighbors had masked the reality that I was starting to fade. Off in the near distance was that imaginary 10 foot stonewall that every marathoner knows at mile 20 and every ultramarathoner sees several times. I was at the 50K mark.

As I came out of the checkpoint at Dewdney Elementary School my hips started to ache. It had been raining for the last hour. It was at that point I started to count the power poles.

ONE . . .TWO . . THREE . . . FOUR . . . FIVE . . .SIX and walk.

Then I was passed by the orange guy not a relay runner but an ultrarunner like me. As he passed, Orange guy gave me an encouraging pat on the back like Tarzan Brown and John Kelly on Heartbreak Hill. (You can see him in the background in the picture, right) I wasn’t sure if I was discouraged or encouraged by his gesture. It’s odd what you notice about what people are wearing at 55 kilometers into a 100 kilometer race. The previous two lead relay runners were wearing singlets and shorts in the cold pouring rain. Orange guy was wearing a bright orange rain jacket that had the Boston Athletic Association logo on the back. I’m guessing orange guy or Orange as I would call him had run the Boston Marathon. I’ve always wanted to run the Boston Marathon. Qualifying is the biggest challenge of course. I thought to myself now that I’m 45 the qualifying standard changes to 3:30, my PR is 3:31 . . . hmmm. Orange starts to fade in to the distance, his stride, his gait were light and effortless. I’m discouraged!

ONE . . .TWO . . THREE . . . FOUR . . . FIVE . . .SIX and walk.

Other relay runners are starting to pass me now. One group in their support car are all wearing mullet wigs. They get out of their cars and they all have these long haired wigs, some blond and some black haired like a group of Waynes and Garths from Wayne’s World. Are these guys drunk or just incredibly psyched? They cheer me on like there is no one else on the road or because there is no one else on the road. Their runner passes me and down the road they go.

ONE . . .TWO . . THREE . . . FOUR . . . FIVE . . .SIX and walk.

Friday, November 6, 2009

The Apache Prayer

I saw this prayer in a gift catalogue. It was this fridge magnet with the Apache Prayer on it. As I read it I thought of how cool it actually was and how fitting it was for ultrarunners who are out there all day and sometimes all night. I thought of those dark and empty times on those long runs when I just felt like giving in but yet something inside me or outside me renewed my strength. I saw this prayer and thought about how we as long distance runners find motivation and energy from our surroundings probably more so than any other sport I’ve ever played. I thought I’d share it with you.

May the sun
bring you new energy by day.
May the moon
softly restore you by night.
May the rain
wash away your worries.
May the breeze
blow new strength into your being.
May you walk
gently through the world and know
its beauty all the days of your life.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Worksheet

Okay I said I don’t like lists but a good spreadsheet now that is a different story. I remember making one of these for the Stormy 50 Mile Ultramarathon. I was accurate right up to about mile 16 or so and then the wheels fell off. My spreadsheet time was 10 hours I think I finished in under 12 hours. But this course is not technical, not too hilly and all pavement so it plays to my strengths. The accuracy of my pace is suspect. All of my runs including my 35 mile longest have been at 10:00 +/- 10 seconds. I even felt I held back a little. SO . . . add a little speed for race day and subtract a bunch for the distance and I am predicting somewhere

between 10 and 11 minute per mile pace.

Goals:

1) Just to finish in under the cut off 13 hours

2) Finish in 11 hours

3) Pie in the Sky goal <10 hrs

Haney to Harrison Ultra Worksheet

10

11

12

13

Leg

Elapsed Times

Km

Miles

Elapsed Time

1

Start to Garibaldi SS

9.38

5.86

1:04:48

1:11:17

1:17:45

1:24:14

2

Garibaldi SS to Stave Falls

13.51

8.44

2:29:14

2:44:10

2:59:05

3:14:00

3

Stave Falls to Municipal Hall

15.12

9.45

4:03:44

4:28:07

4:52:29

5:16:51

4

Municipal Hall to Dewdney Elementary

14.42

9.01

5:33:52

6:07:15

6:40:38

7:14:01

5

Dewdney Elementary to Athey Road

13.12

8.20

6:55:52

7:37:27

8:19:02

9:00:37

6

Athey Road to Sasquatch Inn

13.08

8.18

8:17:37

9:07:22

9:57:08

10:46:54

7

Sasquatch Inn to Cameron/McCallum

13.47

8.42

9:41:48

10:39:59

11:38:09

12:36:20

8

Cameron/McCallum to Finish

7.87

4.92

10:30:59

11:34:05

12:37:11

13:40:17

Clock Time

10

11

12

13

Leg

Km

Miles

4:00:00 AM

4:00:00 AM

4:00:00 AM

4:00:00 AM

1

Start to Garibaldi SS

9.38

5.86

5:04:48 AM

5:11:17 AM

5:17:45 AM

5:24:14 AM

2

Garibaldi SS to Stave Falls

13.51

8.44

6:29:14 AM

6:44:10 AM

6:59:05 AM

7:14:00 AM

3

Stave Falls to Municipal Hall

15.12

9.45

8:03:44 AM

8:28:07 AM

8:52:29 AM

9:16:51 AM

4

Municipal Hall to Dewdney Elementary

14.42

9.01

9:33:52 AM

10:07:15 AM

10:40:38 AM

11:14:01 AM

5

Dewdney Elementary to Athey Road

13.12

8.20

10:55:52 AM

11:37:27 AM

12:19:02 PM

1:00:37 PM

6

Athey Road to Sasquatch Inn

13.08

8.18

12:17:37 PM

1:07:22 PM

1:57:08 PM

2:46:54 PM

7

Sasquatch Inn to Cameron/McCallum

13.31

8.32

1:41:48 PM

2:39:59 PM

3:38:09 PM

4:36:20 PM

8

Cameron/McCallum to Finish

8.03

5.02

2:30:59 PM

3:34:05 PM

4:37:11 PM

5:40:17 PM