Diving Back In To My Deep End

I'm a firm believer that one of the best things you can do in life is to push yourself to new limits and live in the deep end from time to time. This past weekend, I went back to the deep end after a long time away. The way I see it, how do you know if you can still swim if you aren't jumping into the deep end from time to time? For me, going into the deep end is through ultra-running. So, this past weekend I spent 48 hours making an attempt to break 100 miles for the first time in four years.

For me, pushing myself to the edge of my physical and mental limits has always been something I've enjoyed. I have a lot of personal reasons behind it but I also believe it has tremendous professional benefits as well. Working in what many times is a high-stress role, these days in the deep end helps build a mental resiliency that is hard for me to get elsewhere. Every race I participate in like this I learn something new about myself. I come out of the other end just a little bit different, for the better. On Friday, February 17th at 9:00 am CST, I took the first step of my 100-mile journey. It wasn't easy. But we got it done. And I know I'm back in action this week a better version because I wasn't scared to dive back into the deep end.

The first day on the trail went as expected. It was sunny, in the 50s, but had steady wind and strong gusts of 30+mph. In these multi-day runs the first day is just a day where you get familiar with the course, find a groove, and just steadily chomp away at the hours. You are having fun. Making new friends. Just vibing with the scene. The course was a .75mi stretch that you would run out and back over and over and over, for 1.5mi each 'loop'. At the turnaround, there is a cone, and that cone is known as the 'Cone of Death'. This format has its pros and its cons. Pros are that you know every step you need to take and you quickly can establish a run/walk cadence based on terrain and elevation. The cons are that you have to see the same damn thing over and over again which is mentally rough.?

My strategy was to hit 40mi by 9 pm (12-hrs) and then try to push steady through the night and be at 70 miles by 9 am to start day two. I was able to nail that and be at 40 miles at the 12-hour mark, so I was feeling very confident going into the first night. Unfortunately, night one was very rough! The temps quickly dropped to sub-freezing and the wind stayed steady, but the gusts had died down drastically. For those unfamiliar with multi-day runs, the first night isn't supposed to be the hard part. Your energy is typically still high, and your spirits are in a good mood. I would sync up with a new runner and share some miles - getting to know each other, sharing race stories, and just keeping each other company while we both went through the same suck fest.?With the cold weather conditions, and my feet and left knee slowly getting tired as the miles passed by, as the sun was rising, I realized I was going to be behind pace for 70 miles by 9 am.?

On day two at 9 am, there are three other races that start: a 24-hr, 12-hr, and 6-hr. This means the course was quickly going to be filled up with people who are fresh and ready to run. Whereas I was quickly turning into a zombie who needed a break. So, I decided to take my first true break of the race around 8 am. Up to this point, I had not taken any extended breaks. Just short stops to refill my bottles, sit down for maybe 10-min at a time, and eat some solid calories throughout the day. I pushed on the course until I hit the 100k mark (62 miles) and decided to step off the course and take a long-form break while the shorter races started. I took a break from approx. 8 am until 10 am. For those two hours, I got warm, had a hot meal, and did a clothing change. This was also the first time taking off my shoes, so I was quick to realize the state that my feet were not great. So, a good chunk of my break was popping, draining, and bandaging blisters so that I could go back out for day two. I attempted to lay down and nap but the most I could get was 15-min before I started cramping. So, at 10 am I was back on the trail. 26 hours into the race. 62 miles completed. Maybe 60-min of sleep.?

When I stepped back onto the course, I had 38 miles left to hit the 100mi goal. This meant 23 hours to run 26 more loops at 1.5 mi each. I had plenty of time but unfortunately, the tendons behind my left knee had become quite swollen making it very difficult to bend and extend my knee in a running gait. I went out to do my run/walk but quickly knew that this was the start of a very long walk. I broke down the day into small micro-goals and just focused on knocking out one loop at a time. Luckily, day two's weather was beautiful. The wind was pretty much dead, the sun was shining and the cows and horses on the ranch were active. It was a great day to be on the trails.

Most of day two was spent simply walking and talking. Ensuring I was maintaining a brisk walking pace between 17-18min/mile. Nothing stands out for me specifically for day two. It was a standard day two. By the time the sun went down on day one, I was beaten. I was able to knock off 16 of the 26 loops (24 more miles complete)I had left when I started that morning. This left 10 loops, 15 miles, over 14 hours. This is where my mush brain started to try and do the math..." that's just one mile an hour, I can do that in my sleep...well shit, 15 miles, that's still 15% of the dang run…I still have 15% left to run!!!"?This is one of the biggest risks in these events for me. Trying to overthink the math behind my goals. I quickly had to check myself and get back to the ‘one loop at a time' mentality.?

I had taken a few more breaks on day two than I did on day one but nothing that included sleep. I just focused on using my massage gun to work out soreness and would elevate my feet periodically to try and help with the swelling. So, as I put on more cold weather gear to get ready for the next overnight, I seriously started contemplating calling it quits. I ran 85 miles. I hadn't trained for this race. I haven't done this in a long time. It was respectable. But this is what I call being in "the deep end". These are the exact moments that are the test for me. Do I walk away and make an excuse that it was 'good enough'? Or, do I bite down, lace up, and just go deep into the pain cave and embrace the suck? Well, you already know what I chose.?

The second night sucked. No other way to put it. All the blisters I popped now had new blisters on top of them. My toes were swollen. My feet and ankles were broken out in a rash. I was chaffed. And my left knee would not bend from the swelling. At 7 pm with 14 hours left and15-miles to go, the race had officially started for me. To me, everything up to the breaking point is just a warm-up. Reaching that breaking point, and then pushing through that barrier into the final sections of the race is where the race starts for me mentally. Physically I'm not racing anybody. But the mental race is where the real challenge lies. So, after eating a BBQ baked potato for dinner, I laced back up and hopped back into the suck fest. I had ten loops so I figured I would break it up into two loop chunks. Knocking off 3miles at a time and then taking a break. From 7 pm until approx. 2:30 am, 7.5 hours, I would walk 3 miles and then break for 20-30min. Take the time to eat some calories, use the massage gun, and elevate the feet. These last 15 miles were the ultimate suck. Its head down, feet shuffling, taking your head to some deep and dark places. By this time, the number of runners on the course is reduced drastically. Some races finished; some runners dropped. The crowd had thinned so there were long stretches of solidarity. But in the end, at 2:37 am on Sunday at the 41:37 mark of the clock, I called it quits at 67 loops, 100.5 miles. Official watch GPS mileage 102!

Recovery for these races is tough. You would think that one would be immediately crashing and ready to sleep for hours on end. Unfortunately, once you stop one of these the body tends to go into a bit of shock. Well, at least it does for me. After finishing the race, I was able to go to an RV and shower, lick my wounds, and lay down. This is when I got my first big sleep... 90 minutes. That was all the sleep I could muster from 4 am-5:30 am. The body was too sore, and the body was too beaten to get steady sleep. So, it was up and moving by 6 am. Coffee, breakfast, and then packing up the gear. I was on the road by 9:30 am, home by 12 pm, and at lunch with my family and in-laws by 1 pm. I finally took a decent nap that afternoon for a few hours but was still not 100%. My body goes through some weird recovery. It gets to the point where for the 24 hours after a race everything hurts. It feels like internal organs are even on fire from time to time. It's also inevitable that the first full night's sleep after a race is absolutely crap! It never fails that my body goes into this shocking stage where I break out in a fever and then battle night sweats all night. It's happened to me at every other 100mi race I've done, and it happened again.

I was very happy that Monday was a holiday because my brain and body were not firing on all cylinders and work would have been a disaster. We spent Monday going out to run an errand as a family. Picked up lunch and had a picnic in a park where my son practiced riding his balance bike. I was then able to nap in the afternoon, have one last dirty recovery meal with Pad Thai, and then get my first full night's sleep more than 80 hours after I started my run.?

Now, three days post-race, recovery is going well. My blisters still aren't fully healed, and the knee is still tight but I can take recovery walks and start lifting light weights. My feet can fit in my shoes again this morning which is pretty cool as well. No more grandpa slippers with socks to leave the house!!!! Writing this and reflecting on the race already gives me the itch to go back for more. This is what we call Type II fun - the fun that at the moment sucks but when you look back you are so glad you pushed through it. Seeing as I only ran a combined 91 miles of 'training' across December and January, it's reassuring to know that I can still show up and put on a half-decent performance with 102 miles. It wasn't easy but it lets me know that with a serious training camp for a race, I'm confident I can do something even bigger later this year.?

That was a fun weekend in the deep end! I recommend everyone find their own deep end and visit it a few times a year. You will not regret it!