I
am not an elite ultrarunner (I think by definition, ALL ultrarunners are elite runners).
I've been at races where I was privileged to see Mike Morton and Karl
Metzler compete. I know what super elite
looks like and I don't belong in that conversation. I have running friends who I consider elites;
Sung Ho-Choi, Brad Lombardi, Amy Costa, and others. I am not in that picture either. But I just won my fourth ultra and am feeling
pretty damn good about it. The first 2 wins were at 50 milers several
years ago and under less clear circumstances.
When I won Ancient Oaks last December, I was elated, knowing that was
likely the one, only, and last real victory of my running career. To do it again less than 6 months later has
me on Cloud 9.
3
weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending a long weekend with Justin Radley running
(and not finishing) the Cruel Jewel 100M.
Justin has an enormous wealth of running information, and one of the
dozens of topics he mentioned was he was running the upcoming Lake to Ocean
(L2O) 100K that runs on the eponymous trail from the eastern shore of Lake
Okeechobee to the Atlantic Ocean at Hobe Sound. Everything I've done this year has been
geared towards toeing the line in Squaw Valley June 28 and being prepared to
post a good Western States finish. Part
of that preparation has been heat training to be ready for the canyons out
there. Once per a week, I have been
going out at mid-day dressed in multiple layers of long sleeve shirts, jackets
and knit hats for a 1-hour run in the full sun.
Sheer misery. I thought L2O would
be a nice test of my heat training, and a good last, long training run before
the WS taper begins. I emailed the race
director Jeff Stephens and was fortunate someone else had just dropped out.
This
race was special before it ever even started.
This is the inaugural year for the race, which always increases both the
novelty and adventure factor as the RD figures out what works and what
doesn't. It was contained to a very
small field of 24 runners, over half of whom I know fairly well. We had a big group dinner in Indiantown the
night before the race where the excellent camaraderie of the Florida Ultra
Runners was self-evident to the other unfortunates dining around us. Although several runners were upset when Andy
Mathews predicted only 5-8 runners would finish the race. Saturday morning, it was pretty cool to stand
for Jeff's pre-race briefing and know nearly every face around the circle.
We
started off at 6:30 AM and tried to set a reasonable pace from the
beginning. It was already in the high
70s with 97% humidity, my shirt was soaked 2 miles into the race. Andy (A1), Renee Tavokoli, and I ran together
from the beginning; and chatted with a new ultrarunner, Mark Cudak who ran with
us for a few miles. He told us this was
his first ultra ever. I wished him luck
even as I privately chuckled that he had picked an awfully difficult race to
cut his teeth on. The course was challenging
to follow, we had to pay extreme care to stay on track. The course is well marked, but being fairly
new and little used, there wasn't a starkly defined single track of bare ground
to follow for much of the race. I felt
like I was having a good day staying focused on the markings, A1 & Renee
let me lead most of this section.
We
came into the first aid station 14 miles in, already a little washed out from
the heat & humidity. Because of the
length of the leg, I had started the race with a 100 oz Camelbak which I was
happy to shed in favor of a cooler Nathan belt for the shorter legs
forthcoming. A1 was a little slow
through the aid station and I rushed him out by departing into the woods with
Renee. But after a couple minutes, I
held up and waited for him, knowing we wanted to run much if not all of the
race together. I also knew A1 would be a
good governor for me, he would not let me over-extend myself just 3 weeks out
from WS. When he caught me, it was clear
he was already suffering in the heat. I
suggested salt or sugar, and he broke back down to a walk to eat and
drink. I decided to catch back up to
Renee thinking A1 would catch us easy if he was feeling good.
I
had my only 2 falls of the race on this next stretch. It was really getting hot (still only 10AM in
the morning) and my head was beginning to swim.
I didn't see a big root, hooked it and went down hard. I broke the fall with my right hand on the ground,
but managed to hit a spiky piece of wood that cut my palm open. I broke back into a trot, examining my palm
for the extent of the injury (minor) and immediately went down again. Idiot.
I worked hard the next few miles to keep myself in focus. Renee
and I passed Chris Knight somewhere in here (still gassed from Wickham) and trotted
into the Grade Road aid station at mile 20.8 with only Christian Stewart and
the new guy, Mark ahead of us. Christian
was already having trouble with the heat and took an extended break to cool off
(Christian was eventually admitted to the hospital overnight as a precaution,
last I heard, he will be fine).
Renee
and I started leg 3 together. I noted to
her we were running second & third in the race and we needed to keep it
that way. By now we were deep into JW
Corbett Park and sloshing our way through the swamps. We trudged through water that varied from
ankle-deep to mid thigh. I never saw any
alligators, but heard from others later they did. This part of the park was
beautiful with bromeliads growing profusely from the trunks of trees with wildflowers
colored lavender and white growing in the more open areas. Renee vacillated between being between 3
steps and 30 yards behind me. Somewhere
around mile 24 I looked back and she was gone.
I ran the race alone from there.
I
came into the third aid station around mile 30 feeling ragged again. Here there was a 1 mile lollipop loop to be
run which led back to the aid station, so I elected to do it first before
refueling. I dropped the belt and ran
with a single hand-held feeling much cooler.
Mark Cudak took an extended break here to cool off before his lollipop
loop so I was briefly in the lead. I
came back to the aid station and hunkered down for food, fluids, and a shoe
change before proceeding.
Jeff
set this race up as crewed-only, no aid station support would be provided. Joining the race late, I did not have a lot
of crew options, and was enormously lucky that Susan Anger agreed to crew A1
and I both, in the presumption we would be together or near each other most of
the race. Susan leaves nothing to chance
whether coordinating aid stations or crewing individual runners. Despite us telling her we would bring what
we needed, she came prepared with gatorade, water, ice towels, chairs (with an
umbrella or something over it), towels, wraps (turkey, avocado & cheese),
everything. Over the course of the race,
I used all of it. She laid ice towels
over my shoulders, neck & head as I performed a full sock & shoe change
to get the accumulated mud off my feet.
I
saw Mark head out on the next leg as I finished up, he was back in the
lead. But I knew I was leaving the aid
station just a few minutes behind him. I
was in full race mode now and badly wanted to catch him. But every straightaway I came to, he was not
in sight. Which meant he had more than a
couple minutes lead on me. I wanted to
press hard, but the heat was really beating me up. By now the temperature was in the 90s, there
were very few clouds, and the trail was wide open. I was over-cooking like an overdone pot
roast. I finally came out of the woods
and headed down the Beeline Highway towards the 4th aid station at roughly mile
37.
As
I approached, I could just make out Mark departing on his next leg. I was crushed. I knew this meant he had a solid 10 minutes
on me, he had actually widened the gap. Susan's car was not there. I knew with A1 lagging back, we had all
agreed pre-race she would always wait for the slower runner, the lead runner would
have to wait at the next aid station until she got there. I plopped down on the ground next to the
highway in front of Mario's car. I tore
off my race shirt. Screw it, A1 told me
I shouldn't push too hard today. I'll
just wait here until Susan arrives. The
next leg is 11 miles long in the hottest part of the afternoon, I can't go on
without my Camelbak anyway. 37 miles and almost 7 hours into it, I was
ready to cede the race until fate intervened.
Mario
called Susan to see her whereabouts. As
I sat there, defeated, another runner began talking to me. I had
never met him before, he was Rich White from Tacoma, Washington. He started the race amongst the leaders but
made a wrong turn in the first section.
He wound up back at the start line after 28 miles, dehydrated and
done. But rather than pack it in, he
stayed to watch the rest of the race. He
asked me what I needed, to which I initially said "Nothing", I was
just going to wait for Susan. But his
wife and son filled my water bottles and he opened up his entire running kit
for me. It was like having a running
store suddenly appear next to the highway. By this time Mario had determined A1 had dropped
out of the race and Susan was no her way, but 15 minutes out. Rich's encouragement had been enough to start
my engine again. No way was I waiting 15 minutes, I was only 10 minutes back. I
took some gel blocks from him and trudged out.
For
a few miles I felt fairly foolhardy. I
was attempting to nurse 70 oz of fluid through 2 1/2 hours of running on a day
my sweat rate was extraordinarily high. But
I told myself that Mark and the other runners were all experiencing the same
conditions. If they can do it, I can do
it. I managed to run 4-8 minutes at a
stretch with only 60-90 second walk breaks to cool down just a little. There were times I literally felt like I was
cooking, and that is when I would walk. I
had been taking Endurolytes every 30 minutes from the start, I accelerated that
to 20-25 here. I rationed water to
myself hoping to make it 11 miles without running out. And then fate intervened
in my favor again.
A
wicked looking south Florida thunderstorm began to move in. I heard the lightning strikes approaching and
actually picked up speed knowing the cooling rain was coming. I didn't skip a beat when lightning struck
100 yards or so to my left. Two minutes
later, I felt a buzz in the air, and BAM, I watched lightning strike the ground
not 100 feet to my right. I was
thrilled, rain was coming. It started as
a drizzle, then steady rain, and then a heavy downpour. I love running in the rain. We may not have the thrill of running in the
mountains in Florida, but there is a special joy in flying through puddles with
lightning striking around you during a summer thunderstorm. It
rained for nearly an hour and I only stopped to walk twice, long enough to grab
a salt pill and get it down. Running
through the Loxahatchee Slough was the best I felt the entire race.
Just
as the rain ended, I came out of the woods and up onto a levee. I looked ahead, and thought I could just make
out Mark in the distance as the trail paralleled a canal. As the rain stopped and the sun returned, it
was suddenly like running in a steam room, it got real hot. I tried to temper
my newfound enthusiasm enough to not overheat prematurely. I soon passed the spot where I had seen Mark,
checked my watch, and calculated that I
had closed the gap to 7 minutes. I used
the energy from that knowledge to plow through Riverbend Park, through the
underpass on Route 706 and over a couple ladders to the next aid station.
Susan
and A1 were there waiting on me, as were others, including Rich and his family. So was Mark.
He was seated in a chair, shoes off with his crew treating blisters. He looked tired and worn out from the heat,
but probably no worse than me. With 15 miles
left in the race, I acted better than I felt.
I sat in a chain the shade and chatted with everyone as A1 & Susan
shuttled supplies from the nearby car and Rich handed them over. I had multiple ice towels wrapped around my
shoulders, neck & head. I drank a
coconut water and a Starbuck's espresso double-shot (I took in at least 2 small
bottles of fluid at every aid station that day). A1 gave me updates on other runners and
basically told me to go finish strong. I
gobbled some more wraps from Susan, put on my Camelbak filled with 100 oz of
water and carried another 25 oz of gatorade in a handheld bottle. The next leg was almost 13 miles and I would need
as much as I could carry.
The
last long leg of the race goes under I-95 and then through Jonathan Dickinson
State Park. Growing up father north, I
think of a park as a nice place with lots of trees. Not so much in southern Florida. It was mile after mile of open fields, darting
around and over palmetto roots; all the while with the late afternoon sun
blazing me from the left. Every time I
thought the trail approached the woods and shade, it would veer back into the
open. It was awesomely cruel. I ran this section in a really weird state of
mind. On one hand, I knew I was in the
lead, I could win the race if I stayed steady, and I kept telling giving myself
a pep talk, saying I was a bad ass for getting this far, this fast. On the
other hand, I had seen Mark run earlier, he was much faster than me. If he even caught sight of me, he would be
able to pass me. Maybe other runners had gotten a second wind
and were closing the gap. Previous
failures, not just in running started to creep into my head. I spent those 3 hours in an odd state of
panic; redlining my legs and my head with everything I had left.
Before
the race, Jeff had given everyone a laminated half-sheet of paper with detailed
instructions on how to navigate certain sections and turns. I had read it and re-read it throughout the
race. It was an invaluable tool for me,
I was never in serious jeopardy of going far off course on a trail had never
seen before. It said at mile 56.5
"You will cross over South Florida's largest ancient sand dunes." Well
that sounded nice. I've run across sand
dunes before. Running in deep sand is
not much fun, it makes your legs work that much harder. But sand dunes are 50-100 feet across, rarely
longer, no big deal. I hope I don't miss
them not paying enough attention. No
such chance.
It
was 2.5 miles of sand dunes with climbs and descents of 20-30 feet each. Jeff told me later there were 14 hills. I cursed the course on every climb and then
pounded down the far side as fast as my feet would move. At that moment, I hated those dunes with every
ounce of my soul and I was not going to let them slow me down. I wanted to get to the beach before
dark. At the very end, I plowed through some brush
and out onto Route 1. Looking down, I
had burrs not just on my socks & shoes, but stuck directly into my leg. As I crossed Route 1, much to the delight of
A1, Susan, and others at the last aid station, I was treated to a drive-by yell
of "Get-out of the road mother-f****". With great joy, I dropped the camelbak for
the last time. A1 picked the burrs off
my legs and Susan gave me a fresh hand-held bottle of ice-water. I learned from them no one was close behind. I could walk the last 2.5 mile section and
win. But I heard Susan bragging to a
passing driver what was going on and I felt compelled to run.
Once
I started running, the pavement felt shockingly good. I took a couple real short walk breaks but
made great time. Not much can match the
sense of elation I felt coming over the drawbridge over the Intercoastal and
seeing the beach pavilion came into sight. Success!
I had envisioned for hours the plunge into the ocean. I was worried though about sharks in the
water at dusk. I've never been afraid of
swimming in the ocean day or night, but wouldn't it be something to get bit
after surviving 62 miles and 13+ hours of hell on land that day? I dropped my water bottle and watch as I
approached the beach and headed down the sand as fast as I could still manage.
I scanned the beach and saw at least a dozen fishermen setting up to do a little
night shark fishing. With that knowledge
I took 3 steps into the water and dove head first before it was 2 feet deep.
Jeff,
Rich, Susan & A1 were right there to tell me. Jeff told me I had finished
in 13:36, new course-record (a gratuitous bonus of winning the inaugural race). Mark finished in second in 14:50 a really
impressive effort for anyone, much less a first time ultrarunner. Renee was third overall and
first-place female in 15:43, she is scary tough out there. Only 7 of
the 24 starters finished the race under the cutoff of 18 hours (3 more finished
after the cutoff). The post-race beer at
the finish was fabulous, and took the last bit of energy I had left.
