Zumbro 50: DNF

It’s 6:30AM. 

That means I’ve been running for 6 1/2 hours, give or take ten minutes. Right now, though, the term “running” has to be used loosely. I am moving along a ridge, at the edge of a field. The wind, which is blowing at 30 mph, has blown the snow into cornices across the trail, erasing the footprints of the runners ahead of me, and making the whole scene look more like Colorado in February than Minnesota in mid-April. 

At the bottom of the climb to this ridge, I had just missed being hit by a falling tree branch. 

Once I hit the ridge proper, I stepped over a downed tree that I would swear was not there the previous lap. 

I started to wonder if it was really a good idea to be out here, in southern Minnesota’s Driftless Region, running a 50 mile race in a winter storm. 

And then my left eye started to get blurry. 

So how, exactly, did I end up here?

The Build Up: A “Training Race”

I signed up for the Zumbro 50 as my first 50 miler back in January. I had run the accompanying 17 mile (1-lap) race three years ago, and remembered it as a tough, but not overly technical, course with good aid stations. 

I also remembered it being sunny and 60. 

My goals for Zumbro were primarily related to a larger goal of mine: to run the Border Route Trail in a day later this year. I thought I would use Zumbro as a test event, to dial in several items that I needed to sort out prior to attempting a 65 mile wilderness route. These goals were: 

1. Test fueling options and quantities for a longer effort. 
2. Test out at least some gear options. 
3. Test whether I can go long periods without aid. 
4. Test whether I can make sound, clear headed decisions when I am mentally and physically fatigued. 

Zumbro is an ideal course for all of these tests. At 50 miles, 1 is a necessity.  50 miles also gives ample opportunity to test out gear options. The 17 mile loop course would give me ample time to test out 3, while giving me an out, in the form of aid stations every 3-4 miles, if anything were to go south. The midnight start would force me into a state of mental fatigue. And I figured the physical fatigue was a given. 

My training in the first three months of 2018 had been very, very solid. I followed Jason Koop’s advice from “Training Essentials for Ultramarathons,” creating my own training plan from his guidelines. I had added more intensity earlier in my training than I have in the past, while at the same time slowing significantly (to about 5% per week) the rate at which I increased my weekly mileage. 

With that training under my belt, even though I had not done particularly long runs (nothing over 3 hours) in training, I felt confident heading into race week.

Pre Race: The Weather Dominates

In the weeks and days leading up to the race, the primary question, the shadow looming over the race, was the weather forecast. As race day approached, the warnings got worse: inches of rain on Friday, turning to snow sometime around the midnight start, accompanied by gale force winds and temperatures between 30 and 40 degrees. Eight or more inches of snow were forecast throughout the day Saturday.

Nevertheless, the race was still on. And so. on Friday, April 13, I drove an hour and a half southeast of the Twin Cities, to the tiny town of Theilman, MN, and reached the campground at the starting line around 2PM. The weather so far seemed surprisingly tame: 40 degrees and cloudy, with the occasional extreme wind gust. But the campground was sheltered, and the reports coming in from the 100 mile runners warned of wind, water, and mud.

I puttered around my campsite for a couple hours, set up my tent, got some firewood, met the neighbors. Around 4PM, I realized I was just wasting time, tucked myself under a sleeping bag, put a headband over my eyes to block out the light, and tried to sleep for a couple hours before dinner. 

Did I sleep? I don’t think so, though I am not sure. My light doze was punctuated by the regular arrival of 100 mile runners arriving at the end of a lap, and the announcer broadcasting their names.  Every time I heard the cheers for a runner, my mind flashed to my own race, the problems that would inevitably arise in this weather, and how I would solve those problems. 

Around 6PM, I woke up, put some pasta on my stove, made a little pre-race spaghetti, and tried to start a fire while waiting for my sister and brother-in-law to show up. With time still to kill, I made sure (for the third time since arriving) that all my gear was organized for my crew to find, and when I had done that, I wasted a good half hour trying, and failing, to start my wood stove. 

On the plus side, I learned that my new hatchet, a christmas present from my wife, works like a charm. 

Kris and Steve showed up between 7:00 and 7:30, and I gave them the brief tour and even more brief instructions. Then they settled into their car and I huddled up in my tent to try and sleep again until it was time, once again, to get up. 

My goal was to sleep until 10:00PM. I would then try to trick my body and mind into thinking it was morning by waking up two hours before the race and going about my morning routine of making oatmeal and coffee. Mother nature, as would be a pattern throughout the race, had different plans. 

Around 9PM or so the graupel started falling. An inch or more of the heavy, wet stuff fell in the next half hour, weighing down my tent until the rainfly sagged into the mesh of the inner tent, and I was forced to knock it off repeatedly. By 9:30, I had given up any attempt to sleep, and Steve and I packed up the tent before it crumpled under the weight of the wet slush covering it. By the time the tent was semi-packed back into the car — a wet, difficult process in the wind and sleet — it was time to wake up and make breakfast. 

So that’s what I did. I boiled water for oatmeal, made coffee, and took a cup to the start line with me to check in. Then it was just a matter of sitting in the car, sipping coffee and listening to a Jim Butcher book on tape, read by James Marsters (who you may remember as the vampire Spike from Buffy), and calming my nerves until it was time to head to the start. 

An aside: James Marsters reading the Dresden Files has a soothing effect on most people. I listen to the books in the background while I work. My wife, on the other hand, listens to the books when she has trouble falling asleep as a soporific. It is, in a word, excellent nerve calming noise.

The start itself was alive with runners, volunteers, and even spectators. I was astounded by the number of people who had made the trek down and shown up for the race, at midnight, in what had now changed from sleet to snow and ice; 170 people showed to attempt the 50 mile race. We stood or bounced around the start area, chatting about how “fun” this was going to be, and how crazy we all were for showing up and attempting this thing. 

And here I made what may have been my only real mistake of the race: I opted to start the race in my waterproof pants. It was wet. It was windy. It was cold. I had a larger pack than most since I was planning to run unsupported for each loop, and I figured that I could always take them off and stow them when they got too warm. 

I should have known better and been more confident in myself. Despite the conditions, it was still above freezing. I had long tights on instead of my planned capris. I knew from a winter of running that I would be plenty warm as long as I kept moving. But to be honest, I was more than a little concerned about the conditions. The RD’s pre race warning (“don’t hesitate to drop at the first aid station 3 miles in. It’s a quick walk back.”) and the reports of 100 milers taking 6-7 hours to complete single laps didn’t help. 

So, with waterproof, nonbreathable pants on, I started with the rest of the field at about 12:10AM on Saturday, April 14.

A bobbing line of headlamps headed into the woods, the winds, the snow, and the mud. 

Lap 1: Oh, the Mud. 

An aside: I am unsure how to present the race itself. Usually I can portray a race at least semi-chronologically. My memories of this race seem to be less linear, and more like impressions, general thoughts, and specific flashes of crystal clear memories than any sort of narrative. Fortunately, I took some snippets of video. So what I’m going to do is post those, and write up the impressions, thoughts, and flashes that I can remember. 

The immediate impression I got off the start line is one of mud. As we left the start/finish area, with many of the lead group missing the turn onto the first climb in the dark and snow, we hit the mud almost immediately. We, the lead group, shuffled order throughout the first climb, settling into our natural paces while attempting to avoid the, at times, calf-deep mud. 

While the first climb felt easy, and I was consciously keeping it that way, I quickly warmed up and started to overheat in my waterproof pants. With no hesitation, I stepped to the side of the trail, about halfway up the climb, and removed them, putting them in the outer mesh pocket of my pack. These would come back to haunt me throughout the race.

We hit aid station one, at mile three, in a group around 35 minutes into the race, exactly on schedule. As planned, I ran straight through, while other runners stopped to have a snack or refill their water bottles. 

The first ten miles or so were the crowded portion of the race. We were all still close enough together that we spent a lot of time within eyeshot of each other. Since it was after midnight, though, my main impressions were of headlamps through the trees, and the color of runners’ jackets.  I followed pink poncho for several miles, and swapped places with yellow jacket throughout the first ten miles of the race.

This was also the time where my sleepy mind realized that, if I wanted to hit my target goal of 200-250 calories per hour, I needed to eat not every half hour, as I’d planned, but every 35 minutes. While that might not seem like much of a difference, 35 minutes is a much harder interval to calculate on a watch than is a half hour. Instead of using the laps on my watch to calculate the time/distance between aid stations, I started clicking a lap in some multiple of 35 minutes (usually 1:45) to be sure I stayed on top of my nutrition. This proved to be a good system for me, and kept me from bonking the way I have in prior races. 

I found it a little eerie, really, running through a snowstorm in the dark.  My headlamp and flashlight, a combination I’ve used to great effect in the past, illuminated little more than a short section of trail and a cone of snowflakes swirling and blowing in the air in front of me. With the world thus constricted, climbs disappeared in front of me, and the trail was a mystery. 

This constriction was relieved only by the headlamps of other runners ahead and behind me on the course. I couldn’t always be sure how far the other headlamps were away from me, but there were few times out on the course where I could not at least glimpse a light bobbing through the trees ahead of me or behind me. 

Between Aid Stations two and three (which are actually at the same location), I started running with yellow jacket. We started chatting occasionally — you might be amazed by how much trail runners talk during a race — I introduced myself, and he told me his name was Darren. And so we ran together down the trail in the dark, two motes of light traveling through dark woods.  

I would wonder what the animals thought, seeing so many runners out on the trail at night, but most of them seemed to be smarter than us, hunkering down and riding out the storm in shelter instead of running through it. 

After Aid three, we picked up another runner, Sam, and made our way up to the ridge portion of the course. Here, off to the right you can see the start and finish area in the distance, and the glow of the aid stations through the trees. To the left, there’s an open field, invisible in the darkness. 

We didn’t spare a thought for those, though. The wind had blown the snow across the field, creating cornices that stretched across the trail. It was windy enough, and snowing enough, that the footprints of the runners in front of us were at times invisible, though we 50 milers were still clustered together. And the waffle I was eating, though kept warm in my waist belt until this point, quickly froze, forcing me to gnaw on it before swallowing. 

We post-holed our way along the ridge section, and found that the downhill portion down from the ridge, which is the only technically difficult portion of the race most years, had been mellowed out to the point that Sam didn’t even recognize it as the famed “rocky section” he had heard about from a friend. The sharp points of the rocks had been smoothed over to the point of ease. We cruised down the hill and on to the gravel road section together, and ran the full mile along the road, across the bridge, and into the aid station three abreast. 

Unfortunately I lost their company at AS4, as I continued to skip the aid stations and run unsupported. The aid station volunteers seemed a bit confused (a startled “Really?!? sounded out at one when I said I didn’t need anything and kept right on running), but I had my plan and it was working well so far. The remaining 2.7 miles to the start/finish area passed quickly and easily, if muddily, and I rolled in after a 3:20 lap at 3:30 in the morning. 

At this point, I think two things are worth noting. The first is the conditions. There were two prevailing trail surfaces: snow/ice, and mud. In places the mud was calf deep, forming a trench where you either slogged through the middle, or chances the icy conditions off-trail. Where it wasn’t muddy, it was packed snow turning to ice.  The weather wasn’t getting any better, either. The temperature was dropping, and a crust of ice was forming on top of the mud. 

The other note is my mental space. I had a card in my chest pocket listing the aid stations and the distances between them. After aid station, I took out that card, and reset my race to consist only of the distance to the next aid station. It’s a common trick for ultra-runners: breaking down the overwhelming distance into smaller, manageable chunks. 

Interlude: Aid Stop

As planned, I took aid at the start/finish area. My crew was there with my array of stuff, helping me to refill my food belt. Jamison refilled my water reservoir for me. And Austin, a runner I met last year at the Lost in the Woods 50k, was volunteering, and I grabbed some coffee from him. I also nabbed a slice of bacon, because hey, bacon!

I opted to stay in the same shoes and socks, as I thought it was just barely above freezing at this point, and the combo had worked well so far. My feet (which I had asked my sister to quiz me on) were doing well, but I wanted to adjust my socks and tightened my laces. But I had just run 17 miles through mud and standing water, and my laces were frozen into masses of ice. 

A clearer-thinking me would have realized that this meant it was below freezing outside, and I should switch to my spiked shoes. Unfortunately I didn’t think about that, so ended up first thawing out my laces in the warming tent, then readjusting my socks, tying my shoes tighter, and heading back out into the night. 

Loop 2: Cold, Wind, and Daylight. 

Loop two started off in a rough way. I realized that I had missed a fuel up timer at the start/finish aid station, and grabbed a stroopwaffle to eat from my belt. Problem was, I had to take my gloves off to open the package, and it had rapidly gotten colder. My hands, slightly wet from my up-until-then too-warm gloves, chilled rapidly, and I knew I’d have to take care of them before they became a race-ender.

I will say it now: hot-packs are the best things ever! I pulled out a package, tore it open, and put one at the end of each of my gloves. 

My fingers properly warmed, my big toes started getting cold: maybe a reaction to warming up in the tent and then cooling down so quickly on the trail. There was less that I could do about that than my fingers, but I used the one trick I knew. For the next several minutes time I picked up my foot, I actively scrunched my toes to get the circulation going again. I resolved that if this didn’t work, I would pull myself out of the race at the next aid station. A finish is not worth a toe. 

Spoiler alert: it worked. 

Though I was, as I told another runner (PJ, who was on the trail looking to team up with Sam, from lap one) “feeling more tired than I wanted to at this point in the race.” I had not been pushing at all, in lap one. Every step had felt easy.  But the mud and the weather made fatigue inevitable even at a modest pace. 

So after aid station one (mark II) I started walking more. I prefer to run the more moderate uphills, even in an ultra: it just feels better to me to run rather than hike. But at this point, I knew I needed to conserve energy if I were going to make it through the rest of the race. Already, there was a little voice in my head suggesting that I pull out at the end of the lap. 

That voice is there in every race I run. 5k or 50k, the distance doesn’t matter. At some point, if you’re truly pushing yourself the little voice in your head will pop up asking “why?” 

You’d better have a good answer. 

I had my answer: this was preparation for another challenge. I knew I could finish this lap and keep going. I’d had a pain in my left knee in the first lap, but that had gone away. I had an ache in my right quad later on, and that had gone away. I was walking more, and I knew this lap was going to take quite a bit longer than the first one, but even so I knew that I could make it. 

So I kept going. 

My headlight started to noticeably dim between AS one and two on lap two. Rated for 60 hours on high, it was only about 4 1/2 hours into its charge and was already dimming. The cold will do that. And so, at AS2, I stopped and, in a slight break of my self-supportedness, I asked a volunteer to change my batteries while I dug out some actual food (beef jerky, as the sweetness of the gels and waffles was beginning to turn my stomach) and the liner gloves I’d packed for my mittens. 

Beef jerky. Salty, chewy, filling. It was heaven. 

The change in batteries made all the difference, and I headed off for the next “race” with a mental boost from the added visibility. Adding to that mental boost, on this short (2.7 mile) section of the course, it started to get light out as, somewhere behind the clouds, the sun rose. 

I’ve heard, often, about what a difference daybreak makes when you’ve been running all night. Often, the hours between three and five in the morning are the most difficult for runners. It’s the most foreign.  Your mind shuts down just a bit even if you’re still awake. And then day breaks, and you get a fresh boost of mental energy no matter how fatigued you are. 

It was a strange combination for me. I felt the mental boost, but at the same time, this was the first time all race that I really began to feel the fact that I hadn’t slept in almost 24 hours. Even so, as you can hear in the video below, I was more than a little happy to see night give way to day, even if it was gray, cloudy, and (holy crap it was) windy. 

The daylight got me through that little section, and I once again passed directly through the next aid station without stopping. As I climbed out of the gully, towards the notorious ridge, I noticed something new, and troubling: there were a lot of branches down. In fact, they were fairly carpeting the trail and the woods. Just as I had that thought, I heard a crack above me and another branch crashed to the ground within a few feet of me. It was a small branch, fortunately, but still enough to make me jump. 

So here we are, back where we started, on the ridge. Trees are down. I’m post-holing through the fresh-blown cornices. And my vision is blurring in my left eye. 

Looking back now, I’m 90% sure it was irritation caused by the wind, blowing steadily from my left side. At the time, I was freaking out just a bit. With one eye blurry, depth perception, an issue for me at the best of times (I had surgery for it when I was 13. Before that I didn’t have any depth perception to speak of), faded quickly. 

Running an icy, technical trail, downhill, with one eye, and severe fatigue, is not something I recommend. 

I took it slowly down the technical section. It was yet more icy and slick now, and with the added difficulty of vision issues, I didn’t want to risk injury. It took longer than I would like to get down off the ridge and onto the gravel road (really? is there gravel under all that snow, mud, and ice? I don’t see any gravel!). 

With the daylight, it seemed like a new course, and maybe even a new race. The parts I traversed in both daylight and night looked so different from each other that, had I not known better, I would never have realized I was repeating the same loop. Details in the woods to either side were clear now, and I saw a crumbled stone building that I had no idea was just off the road when I passed that way four hours earlier. Off to my left, the Zumbro river emerged. While I had crossed it three times already, I hadn’t really been able to see it muddy water until now.

Across the bridge for the fourth time, and I made my call: I would run to the finish, give myself a five minute break, and decide there, with the support of my crew and the race volunteers, whether it was reasonable to go out on lap three. I threw my plan for an unsupported lap out the window, took a bathroom break at the aid station, downed a cup of broth (broth is amazing at mile 30 of a cold race) and started the 2.7 mile trek to the finish. 

Decision made (or at least plan of action made) the last section passed quickly, mostly at a run, and I made my way into the start/finish area just before 8AM. 

The start/finish at 7:30AM. That's my sister!

My crew was there, the volunteers were there. I told them the situation, and we headed into the tent to warm me up. I knew that if I was going to go out for another lap, I’d need different shoes and socks, so I took off my current pairs and dried my feet by the fire as Steve talked to the doctor. (“Oh, yeah. That can happen.” was essentially what he said. More on that later). 

I quickly realized how foolish it would be for me to take on another lap with, essentially, one eye. 

I pulled myself from the race. John (the race director) took my race number with a concerned look and told me to take care of myself. 

Post Race Assessment

I broke down crying twice on the way to the car to pack up. Not from disappointment or regret. Honestly, I break down after most long races. Long, mentally difficult races break you down and force you to put yourself back together, sometimes multiple times in a race. I don’t break down because of fatigue, or the finality of the finish or DNF, I think it’s just an emotional reset. 

We decided that my sister would drive me and my car home, caravanning with her husband. On the way out of the campground, My brother in law stopped by to check in on some friends and make sure they’d get home, and ran into the race doctor. The doctor thought he’d made it clear that I was a medical pull: I wasn’t allowed to go back out on the course. 

While that wasn’t clear from what he said to me, it did make me happy to know that my own decision was definitely the correct one.

My goals for the race, again, were: 

1. Sorting out some fueling options for a longer effort. 
2. Test out at least some gear options. 
3. Test whether I can go long periods without aid. 
4. Test whether I can make sound, clear headed decisions when I am mentally and physically fatigued. 

1. I realized that I need both real food and gels for a long effort. 225 calories per hour doesn’t quite do it for me, as my stomach still growls. I also need a combination of savory/salty and sweet, otherwise my stomach rebels. 
2. My gear worked reasonably well. I think, for a longer, warmer effort, I’ll want a pack with more, and bigger, pockets up front. I don’t want to use my old Ultimate Direction SJ vest, so I may have to make one more purchase before the BRT comes up. 
3. This was an unequivocal success. I stopped at aid stations three times. First, to use a restroom. Second, to change batteries (something I could have done on my own, but saw no reason to). And third, to stop at the restroom and have some broth when I was 95% sure my race was done. 
4. Also an unequivocal success: I pulled myself when it was no longer safe for me to continue. 

This, I already know, was a defining race for me. I started in difficult conditions, and made it 34 miles. I pulled out of the race when it was the right decision for me. I kept a good outward attitude the entire time, joking and talking with other runners when I saw them. 

And after the race, I honestly feel different. I pushed myself so far in this race that other tasks seem easier. I caught the ultra bug in a big way, to the point where I almost signed up for another ultra two weeks from the Zumbro. I opted not to, because I want to focus on the BRT for the near future. 

Even in my every day life I feel different. I don’t know how to say it other than I feel lighter. I feel less anxious in every day life. I don’t know how, and I don’t really know why, but I have actually changed based on this experience. And I feel like I’m ready to shift towards tarting my running-related ventures: coaching, and other ideas that I have not yet fully been able to articulate. 

Zumbro 2018: an epic by any standards. 

Coda: 

As I noted earlier: I had a cheat sheet in my pocket with the distances between aid stations. I didn’t realize this when I wrote it on the back of a piece of card that came from Paper Source. After the race, I looked at the back and saw this quotation on it:

“Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy, and celebration. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.” 

It seems appropriate. 

Gear: 

Shoes: Altra Superiors 3.5. 

Socks: Injinji NuWool Hikers

Tights: Old GoLites I bought in Boulder

Shirt: Under Armor Running shirt

Jacket: GoLite Rain Jacket

Gloves: Hestra all the way!

Hat: Mizuno WindStopper

Pack: Patagonia ForeRunner 10L with HydraPak Reservoir

Food: 6 each of Honeystinger Waffles and VFuel Peach Cobbler. A couple ounces of beef jerky. A cup of broth, a strip of bacon, and a cup of coffee. 

Post Race Coma

Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon: Race Recap

Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon

I went into this race with a lot of unknowns. I had never run a race this long on the roads. Heck, I had never run more than 8 miles on pavement. I haven’t run a race longer than a 5k on pavement in 10 years. With the knee I sprained in the Lost in the Woods 50k (my PT decided it was a strain or a sprain, not something more serious), I lost most of my May training period. It wasn’t until the week before that I ran a full 13 miles in training, proving that I could actually run the distance. 

When I originally signed up for this race, I thought I might be able to hit between a 6:15 and a 6:30 with a solid training block. With only two solid weeks of speed training plus a taper week leading up to this race, I gave my family split estimates ranging from 6:30 (which I figured would only be to give them enough leeway to see me), to 7:00 minute pace (what I figured I could pull off), to 7:30 (just run and finish pace). 

Pre-Race 

We made the drive to Duluth Friday afternoon. As expected, the construction on 35 led to a long delay (an hour or so?). When we did (finally) get to Duluth, there was a line down the freeway to get off at the DECC parking lot, and the Fitgers 5k was going on as well, so we opted to head to my parents’ house for dinner (chicken stir fry, pre-race meal of not-quite-front-of-the-pack runners). 

After dinner, we headed down to the DECC, wandered past the spaghetti dinner (ugh, definitely not my thing pre-race), through the expo, and picked up my race packet and bib. Then we wandered through Canal Park, to stay loose and relax a bit. In a departure from earlier pre-race traditions, we stopped by Endion Station (now one of many Rod Raymond establishments), and I had a (session) beer. 

At one time, I detoxed for three full days before races. As I got more experienced, though, I realized that it was being relaxed, rather than focussing and over-preparing, that has led to my best race experiences and my fastest times. So these days, I will occasionally have a beer the day before a race. 

Back to my parents’, and I laid out everything i would need in the morning (running kit, bread and peanut butter, and most importantly coffee makings) before heading for an early bed. The 4:15 alarm was staring me in the face, and I knew I would not sleep well. 

Sure enough, 6 hours of time and 5 hours of sleep later, the alarm went off, and for once I didn’t hit the snooze. Within half an hour I was fed, caffeinated, and wandering down the hill to the Edgewater, where the buses left from. 

Now, as you know, my last race had 25 people and started from a guy’s garage. This race had 7,300 starters and had a big production of a starting line. I have to put a word in here: this race has its routine down. The pace groups are clearly labeled in the corral (if not exactly adhered to), the bag drop is well organized, and they had plenty of port-a-potties. 

Feeling relaxed, and having put zero pressure on myself, I chatted with a number of people at the starting line. I got a lot of mileage out of my line that “this race is only about 300 times bigger than my last one.”  I also got a lot of mileage out of adding “and it should be over about four hours more quickly.”

The Race: 

I think this race can fairly be divided into three sections: Pre-Duluth (miles 1-6, roughly), London Road (miles 7-10), and Downtown. 

Pre-Duluth: 

My goal was to be conservative out of the gate, so when the flag dropped (no gun for this race) I ran the first mile with the 1:30 pace setter. This kept me from blowing the first mile too quickly, but proved a little too slow. Even though I was still blasting by runners who had started too close to the front, I was still breathing easily in a 4-3 pattern when I passed the first mile in 6:50.  I dropped the pace a little bit, and settled into the upper end of my 4-3 pattern, which at this point was about 6:35. 

The first five miles of the course follow the north shore scenic highway, and are in my opinion the most beautiful of the course. It is also somewhat discouraging, as you can see the lift bridge, near the finish, from several points on the road. Coming from trails where you’re lucky to see a hundred yards in front of you, this is quite a change. 

Even so, I took in the views of the lake and the wildlife. Around mile two or three, there were three loons taking off at the same time, paralleling our course and almost precisely pacing us, with their comically huge feet trailing behind them in the water. This is my hometown race, one I’ve meant to do since I started running, and I intended to take it in and enjoy it. 

I was surprised at how many spectators there were, given that it was still well before 7AM. Some residents had set up showers (they had clearly done this before) at the side of the road. I availed myself, as even at 60 degrees, the 90% humidity was getting to me.

Still ticking off the 6:35 miles, I drew even with another runner, and we struck up a bit of a conversation. Neither of us had trained as well as we’d liked, me coming off injury, and him coming of a collegiate track season of much shorter races (he was a 1500m specialist). I found out his name was Nate, and we ran through mile 6 together in 6:25, my fastest mile of the course. 

Around 6 miles, the course passes the Lester river, and runs right by my sister’s house. 

Apparently, I was outrunning my error bars on the running tracker app, so my sister and brother-in-law were not expecting me yet. Not to worry, for I let out a loud “seeeeeester!” followed by a “This is Nate! Cheer for Nate!” as we went by, and passed into the Duluth section of the course on London Road. 

London Road: 

This may have been the hardest portion of the race for me. Driving down London Road always seems interminable, with North Shore traffic and a 30 mph speed limit for the 3 miles between I-35 and the expressway. Running along it is not much better. 

Up until this point I had been pretty comfortable, but the race caught up to me here, and of all things it was my quads that started to hurt. My calves and hamstrings were somewhat sore before I started, so I anticipated that those might be my weak points. But I was 6 miles in, and this was not unexpected. I ratcheted my breathing up to a 3-2 in/out pattern, and the pace slipped to about 6:40, but I continued down the never-ending road. 

A left turn, and there, a full mile away, you can see the only significant hill on the course: Lemon Drop Hill (I miss the Lemon Drop, but that’s another story). I’m not sure what’s more cruel, standing at the starting line of the Pikes Peak Marathon looking up 8000’ at the mountain, or staring down a mile of flat road looking at that minor hill. 

Right at the base of the hill, though, I got an unexpected boost: somebody started blasting “Just What I Needed” by The Cars right as I got to the bottom of the hill. A woman to the right gasped “I love this song!” I said “I was just thinking the same thing.” We high-fives, leaned forward, into, and over the hill, where I knew I had a secret weapon. 

Just what I needed indeed. 

Downtown: 

The top of Lemon Drop Hill, right at 25th Avenue East, is my family’s traditional cheering spot. My parents had indicated that they’d be down there cheering for me, and sure enough they were. Not only that, I spied my their friend Clyde and his son Grant (my friend and a 1:07 half marathoner. He’s far faster than me) with them. In need of a mental boost, I ran over and high-fived my parents, and tackled Grant. 

Grant was a bit flustered, yelling at me to keep going because I was at a good pace. I don’t know if he knew my theory of happy running. 

I can see them!

Swerving over to say hi (this may be my favorite picture of me running, ever)

Zeroing in.

And the tackle!

I knew, though, that I could keep the current pace to the finish. Four miles doesn’t seem like that much when it’s through your home town, where you hear the occasional random shout of “Go Jamie!” and you’ve already finished 9 miles. I was cramping a bit, though, so took a salt tab (without water. Never, ever take a salt tab without water.)

This section is where the spectators really start to pack in, lining both sides of the road in a continuous crowd. Turning up and onto Superior Street, I cruised by Duluth Running Company, getting a high five from the owner, and a friend from forever, Clint.  

The only unpleasant experience (I mean, other than the growing pain and fatigue of racing 10 miles) on the entire course happened by Fitgers. The runner just in front of me purposefully knocked every cup of water out of the aid station workers’ hands, just as I was reaching for them. It turns out that the station was manned by his Boy Scout troop, but still: Not Cool!

(I may have called him a “douche canoe.”)

But now I was a 5k from the finish. Just over 20 minutes, at the pace I was going. 

The stretch through downtown was fun. Lake Avenue was packed with people (probably waiting to see runners, then dash down to the finish line to see them again). It was harder, now, to hold the pace, and I let it slip a bit on the ramp over I-35. Down, around the DECC, and alongside the Ervin. 

It was like running through my childhood. 

The last mile, there was a young woman ahead of me who kept having to stop, clearly with stomach issues. Rounding the last corner into the home stretch, I slowed briefly to try and encourage her, and it may have helped. She finished just a couple seconds behind me.

This is probably the first time I have ever had tunnel vision at the end of a race. All I was focused on was the finish line and getting across it. The race timer would later say that I was passed by 25 people in the last mile, but I don’t know how that could be. There simply weren’t that many people that close to me.

I crossed the line in 1:27:14, a 21 second PR. Despite only two weeks of speed work, and a May largely devoid of training of any sort, I hit all of my goals: I finished, I ran sub-1:30, and I ran a PR. 

The Aftermath: 

Initially, after the race, I didn’t feel bad at all. My dad had biked down the Lakewalk to the finish line, and I chatted with him a bit. Then I wandered down the Lakewalk to wade for a little bit and soak my calves. I had a giant blood blister on each of my little toes, which stung when I tried to get my toe socks back on. 

Then, since I had some time and no other way to get home, I ran back along the Lakewalk towards my house. 

Another shout of “Hey mate!” and I looked over my shoulder to see none other than Lee Troop, four-time Olympic marathoner and head coach of the Boulder Track Coach. He was in town pacing one of his athletes (she ran a 1:14:51 for 4th place and a chance at the Israeli national team!). Turns out he will again be in town for the Twin Cities Marathon this year. 

I stopped by the DRC to say hi to Clint on the way home, then it was back to 25th, and up the hill to home. 

The day of, I barely felt sore at a all, despite what was well over 16 miles by the end (and a “Strava” PR for my half marathon, 20k, 10 mile, 15k, and 10k). The real soreness did not hit me until Sunday, and today (Monday) I feel far more sore than I ever have after a race. 

This was a fun event, and I am glad I ran it, but in the future, I think I’ll stick to the trails. 

Roads are brutal.  

Lost in the Woods 50k: DNF

Despite being my first DNF at a race longer than 5k, I would consider this race a success. 

I went into it with the mentality of using this as a test event. I wanted to try out fuels, pacing, and strategies I might use on my hoped-for run on the Border Route Trail later this year. I also wanted to see how well my training was going. And to truly do all of that, I needed a bit of a unique event. 

This “race” is formatted much like the Barkley Marathons, though it is much less intense on the whole. It consists of three approximately 10-mile laps in Seven Mile Creek park in Mankato, Minnesota. Each lap, there are 11 books you have to find and take a page from, and one hole punch, to prove you went in the proper order. There was an aid station at the start and finish, and one in the middle of each lap. All told, a very intriguing format, and something I was very much looking forward to. 

First Campfire of the Year

I headed down to Mankato the night before, planning to stay the night in Minneopa State Park. 

I learned quickly that my idea of camping is different than many other people’s. As far as I could tell, there was exactly one other tent in the campground, the rest being approximately a third full of RVs of various stages of ridiculousness The nearest to me, unfortunately, was running a generator Nonetheless, I set my tent up for the first time this year, got a fire going, and after some ukulele in front of said campfire, turned in at around 9:45. 

The generator droned on. 

Alpine Start: Complete with red headlamp

Despite myself, I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up only twice in the night, before my alarm went off at the (you must be joking) hour of 4:15. 

With a true Alpine start, I had my coffee brewed, tent stowed, and running gear on by 4:45 and, with a quick stop by the vault toilet (the restrooms, despite what the website had claimed, were not yet open for the season) I was off and out of the campground. 

Race Start:

Being me, I was the first one to the race start. Granted, there were only 25 people in the race all told, but still. 

Scott, the local Doctor who puts the race on, met me with his wife Rita in his garage. Turns out, he has officially registered the race with the USATF in order to get insurance for the race. That made me much more comfortable with the ordeal, as it was clear he had gone about things the right way, and was not just throwing a race out of his garage (even though he technically was). 

The Bell

I got the race map, and description (insert picture below), and a written description of the course. I quickly realized that I was not likely to gain much from studying it, but would have to learn as I went. The added fact that the course was flagged (for the most part) helped that decision. 

The Start in the Garage

So, until the race started, I drank my coffee, chatted with Scott and Rita, and made friends with the other victims, or runners. Whichever you prefer. The race wasn’t slated to start until 7:00 so I had plenty of time to arrange, and rearrange, my vest and my drop bag. 

Lap 1:

The race started promptly at 7:00, and the 25 or so runners who had shown up and paid the fee took off down the road together. I found myself running with the front group rather quickly. This was fortunate, as several in the group knew the park significantly better than I did (which is to say at all). About a mile on gravel roads and trails, and then we saw the first pink flag and trekked off up the hill into the woods. 

Off the trail, to the books. 

As you might be able to see from the map above, most books were at the top of a hill, off the trail and into the woods a ways. Most were semi out-and-back sections on deer trails, though some were on marked “trails,” often little more than game trails themselves. 

I ran and trekked well within myself in these sections, trying at the same time to conserve my energy, get a mental image of the course for the remainder of the race, and talk with the runners around me. For the moment, I was more than content to just sit with a group of five men, including myself, who were rapidly separating themselves from the rest of the field. We would remain more or less together for lap one and part of lap two. 

Halfway through each lap, we hit an aid station, where we had to do a short loop down into a gully, then climb out and check back in with the folks manning the aid station. They were incredibly friendly and generous, to be sitting out there on a Saturday in their own backyard letting a bunch of, let’s face it, wackos wander through and eat food. 

First lap, I took a few cookies and some gummi bears. I had filled my reservoir, the way it would be on the BRT trip, so didn’t need to refill until after lap two. This let me jump ahead with the leader, John, and follow him on the aid station loop. 

Fortunately, the only muddy spot on the course. 

We found out quickly on loop two, at book 6, that some had missed the aid station loop and gone right back on course. I believe that was corrected on loop two, by doing two aid station loops instead of one. The remainder of loop one went well, the five of us working together, in general, to find the books as we could.

There was one small navigation error on loop two, where, having gotten split up, three of us ran right past the cutoff for book eight. 

Around book eight, I started to notice a theme to the books. Getting separated from the other leaders, I started looking at the covers of the books we were tearing pages from and noticed their titles: “Desolation,” “Black and Blue,” “Too Far to Go,” and other cheery thoughts. 

Our race director, it seemed, has a sense of humor. 

Somehow, despite the separation that occurred in this lap, we still entered the aid station at the start and finish of the race a group of four. 

Lap 2:

We left a group of four as well, along with one “fun runner,” who basically just showed up and realized what was going on and decided to tag along for a while. Lap two was run in the opposite direction, so we started with book 11 and worked our way back to book one. 

As happens, the group of four split up quickly. I stopped to answer the call of nature briefly (when we had passed all the runners still on their first loop. I have some modesty still.), and the other three quickly gapped me. I caught up to another, John, after book 9, who said the two leaders had “been shot out of a cannon” down the hill and we likely wouldn’t see them again. 

That proved half true. We caught up to Austin, a senior in college who’s off to Colorado for the summer, shortly before the aid station. TJ, the race leader, was nowhere to be seen. That was even more remarkable since he had left his map and course description at the start/finish, and was running the course from memory. Given my two small navigational errors, I was quite impressed by him. 

At the aid station, I once again needed very little, as I was still good for water. I took some more gummy bears, and decided to make a move for second place. I left the aid station alone, took off down the hill, and pushed it on a long trail section that led to the turnoff for book five. 

I must have gained time quickly here, as by the end of the loop they were a good two minutes back, and I was not pushing myself hard on the off-trail portions. I later found out from my GPS data, that I was, relatively easily, hitting sub-7 minute pace on this trail section. 

Unfortunately, I also started to notice something creeping up on me: on the off trail, off camber downhill from each book in this section, my left knee started giving me trouble. It felt like a tendon right at the tibia-fibula-femur junction was irritated. It only got more so as the loop went on, and by the aid station, I was worried enough that I grabbed my trekking poles to see if I could ease the stress on it. 

Lap 3:

Trekking poles in hand, I started off on my third loop in second place. 

I knocked off book one quickly, but on the descent, despite the poles, my knee was still bothering me. I tried book two as well, but the descent made me realize that I could not keep going. Muscle issues I can run through. Joint pains are another matter, and I chose to stop rather than risk further injury. 

Turns out, something around 50% of the participants dropped, so I can’t feel too badly about it. And the DNF allowed me to get back to my friend’s novel launch party in the Twin Cities. 

That’s it for the race. I learned a lot. But I will put that in another post. 

Times

Lap 1: 2:12:17

Break 1: 6:16

Lap 2: 2:13:07

Break 2: 6:37

Partial Lap 3: 40:46

Total time: 5:18:58

Total distance:23.5

A Surprisingly Zen Run

To be honest, when I woke up yesterday, I did not feel like running. I creaked out of bed, and found out just how tight my calves were as I walked to the bathroom. I found out how sore my hamstrings were on the way up and down the stairs of my three story one bedroom apartment. 

Sometimes I love my apartment. Sometimes not so much. 

But, I had a 15 mile run on the docket for the day, and if I want to be ready for a 50k in three weeks, this was my real shot at a longer run. I downed one cup of coffee while eating my breakfast (Ezekiel 4:9 toast with peanut butter and avocado), made another cup to drink while prepping, and changed into my running clothes that I had, for a wonder, laid out the night before. 

On the drive out, I thought about my approach for the day. For this particular run, a Twin Cities Classic out at Afton State Park, I usually have a point where I try to pick up the pace a little. Often that’s either the uphills or the flat sections, but sometimes I up the pace and effort level at the end as well. Feeling as I did this day, though, I knew that was a recipe for a slow time and even more soreness the next day. 

I decided on three rules: 

1. No looking at the pace on my watch (a bad habit I have).
2. No pushing the pace, but no letting up either. 
3. Take whatever the trail gives me. 

As I thought about it, this fit with a book I have: “Zen and the Art of Running.” I have never read it through, but there are a lot of little pieces of advice in there (such as taking what comes without judgment). 

With these three rules/goals in mind, what had promised to be a difficult, mental challenge of a run turned out to be unexpectedly enjoyable. My legs never felt great, but they never felt that bad or that tired. Despite constant temptation, I never looked at the pace (average or current) through the whole run. And taking what the trail and my body gave me turned out to be an enjoyable experience. 

There are downsides. I was so contained within myself that I didn’t take any pictures. I didn’t stop, either, so that would have been a challenge. I may have been less congenial than I often am on the trails. If you saw me, please don’t take offense, I was just inside my own head. 

But in the end, I finished the run in a surprisingly decent time (my third fastest pace for this loop), and as I write this, after a brief run on Sunday, my legs feel solid despite adding four miles to my weekly mileage this past week. 

Now I just have to contemplate the equivalent of four of those loops in a row. 

A Moment of Stillness in a Long Run

Yesterday, with my Achilles again feeling better, I went for my first long run of the year. For me, a long run is anything that lasts longer than 1.5 hours, regardless of distance traveled. This time, I headed down to the Mississippi River Gorge, in the middle of the Twin Cities, to get my dose of wildness for the weekend.

I have avoided the trails for the last two weeks. With the disturbingly warm weather, the trails have been either ice sheets or mud patches, or both. I don't trust my Achilles on ice yet, and I don't like to run in mud because it tears up the trail. So it was with great excitement that I woke to 15 degree weather and frozen dirt trails.

The promised snowpocalypse missed us entirely.

I usually run without pausing on my long runs. That is, after all, the point of the run.

Yesterday, though, I paused. I came to a spot where a small side stream joins the Mississippi, a place where I often see fresh signs that there are beavers living nearby.

Today, with the sudden temperature drop, the stream's mouth was covered in a thin layer of pancake ice.

And it was talking.

As I stopped to look, the ice made cracking, popping noises. Surprisingly, despite being in the middle of a metro area, I couldn't hear anything other than the ice, and a plane passing overhead.

Looking and listening longer, I noticed to my dismay a piece of trash under the ice. But that trash drew my attention to movement under the ice: thousands of minnows were circling in the shallows, their dark, streamlined shapes highlighted by the bright sunlight shining through the ice.

Without the trash, I would not have noticed the life under the ice.

And somehow, after a week of despair about the state of our world, I realized things might just be ok.

Run the Year 2017

A new year, a new, giant challenge for myself.

Somewhat on a whim, I decided to try to run the year: 2017 miles in 2017. Breaking that down, that's around 5.5 miles per day, every day, or 38 miles per week, every week.

Realistically, I'm not going to run every day. Nor am I going to average 38 miles every week. Heck, I hit 30 this past week, and am only hoping for 30-34 this next week. So there is going to be a little bit of long-term planning involved.

At the same time, I can't really think about the whole year, or I get completely overwhelmed. I think I can do this. It's going to take some serious mental focus and more than a little motivation, but I think it's possible.

At the same, I have some other goals for this year. Some I've had before, but I'm approaching with new vigor this year. So here are my goals for 2017:

1. Run 2017 miles. 
2. Run from Lake Superior to Eagle Mountain (I have a route now)
3. Become a certified running coach (RRCA is the plan)
4. "Run" the BRT. 

I think #1 and #4 are the "reach" goals for this year. The others are more in line with past goals and possibilities. 

It should be another good year. 

Winter Running

I think my favorite part about  running in the winter are the picture possibilities.