Day 4,208—The Day After the Race and Part I of the OT 100!—

 

      I had time to take a bath yesterday, so I felt fine running this morning. I am sure if I had gotten up earlier, it would have been a struggle, but all things considered, it was fun to do a quick run on pavement and not have to worry about rocks and roots to hop over! This race might be the best story of my 100-mile races this year! Not a great time, but a great story, which is the main reason I keep coming back to do more races.

Day 4,206-7—I Started Running Ultras to See if I Could Do It: I Came Back for the Stories—

Before the Race

        I was packing until the last minute, still feeling like I had left something behind. The drive went by quickly. The only thing I remember is my daughter asking me if we were almost there. We had been driving for five minutes. I promised to update her on our status when we were close. We saw the sign for Bass River Resort. It had a fish saying, “Hi,” and pointing us in the right direction. It was the nicest-looking camping place I have ever seen. There were majestic cabins in the front, lining the side. I dropped off my bags, picked up my packet, and got my key for the cabin quickly. It took me a moment to open the cabin door, but it was beautifully quaint inside with more than enough room for the four of us. I read through the packet in the car, and it said I needed my headlamp at the start. I couldn’t help but think it was never that dark at 6 a.m. in previous races, so maybe it wouldn’t matter, but figured I should bring one just in case. 

        I couldn’t find my headlamp, so I realized that must have been what I was thinking I left by accident before we left. I remembered I had packed three headlamps in my drop bags, so I could get one of them. I drove my wife’s car down to the lodge for the pre-race meeting. The hall was packed, and people were finishing eating dinner. It was pasta and salad. I never considered that it might be vegan-friendly, so I didn’t ask. Also, I was excited about eating tacos, which was the plan for tonight once I got back to our cabin.

        The pre-race meeting went over mostly the stuff that the guy talked about in the race packet. We also got to hear from some of the people who made the race possible. Including a woman who had been working to preserve the Ozark Trail for over a decade. I didn’t know that he had a 430-mile trail in Missouri! I am surprised that I haven't heard more about people hiking it.

        It took me a while rooting through the drop bag area to find the one, I could use for the morning, but it could have been worse. All the bags were in huge black trash bags, so I was worried I would have to dump some of them out to find the right one.

       When I opened the cabin door, it looked like my family and my wife’s parents were nearing the end of dinner. I quickly ate as much as I could, knowing 2:30 a.m. was going to get here soon, so I hoped I could go to bed early. I hadn’t slept that much on Thursday, maybe 5 hours, so I was counting on Friday night to get some deep sleep in. I was in bed staring at the ceiling at 9 p.m. Sarah came to bed around 10. I was still half awake. I slept for a couple of hours and then heard a thud, which must have been my toddler falling off the bed in the other room. I woke up a little later with my son’s feet in my face. I moved him and slept for half an hour, and then I started feeling wetness all around me.

        I remember saying, “Felix is spitting everywhere?!”

He wasn’t spitting; he was throwing up. It is incredibly rare for either of my children to throw up. My daughter has been sick like that, three times total, so this was so odd considering how happy and active Felix had been all evening. As my wife was driving me to the lodge to get on the bus at 3:10 a.m., I was worried about Felix. Sarah said he had been sick almost all night. Also, worried about how little sleep I got before I was planning to stay up all night on Saturday. 

        I got on the bus and sat in the front and talked to a guy who I had met at previous races. He is a Principal at a special needs school, just the nicest guy, and someone I have a lot in common with. I talked with him almost the whole drive. My only regret was not resting more during the 90-minute drive to the start.

        The bathrooms at the start were tents with buckets, so a new experience for me, but in some ways better than a Porta Potty. As we started lining up, no one was in the front, so I pushed through with a handful of other guys. I saw Chris Roberts there. Chris is the most successful ultra runner in St. Louis. Someone else could be more accomplished, and I just have never heard of them, but Chris is someone I consider in another league than me. He has won the Shippey twice with times significantly faster than mine, and he just completed a 24-hour race where he ran over 150 miles to qualify for some elite team.

The First 14 Miles 

        The first section we had to run up less than a mile and turn around and run back. I wondered out loud, “Isn’t this race at least a mile over 100? Why are we adding this random amount?”

        Chris told me to stop complaining and said he did one race that was 110 miles. I told him my point was about being specific as opposed to being upset about the extra distance. I just don’t like false advertising. If you’re doing a race named after a distance, shouldn’t it be that distance? I talked to Chris for the first 4.6 miles. He told me he couldn’t imagine pictures or smells. It was interesting to me because I have only recently learned how oddly visual, I am, which is why reading was hard for me initially. When I see words, I immediately translate them into pictures. I don’t hear the words, nor do I visually see the letters.

        The positive is that it makes reading an incredibly visceral experience for me, but the downside is that I often skip words when I write and talk because, for me, the suggestion of the idea is enough to get the picture, and the individual words aren’t as important if I am looking at the picture in my mind. I lost Chris when I stopped to fill up my water bottles at the first aid station.

        It was still dark, which shocked me knowing it was after 7 a.m., yet I was still using my headlamp. I noticed that my toe was peeking out of my right shoe, which annoyed me because I had layered Shoe Goo over the small hole several times recently. I decided I would try to cover the small hole with duct tape at the next aid station, which was at mile 14. Only a few miles later, I realized my left foot was falling out of my shoes. I would step down, and my foot started to slide out. I started tightening my shoes every ten minutes to help keep both my feet inside my shoes. Although I didn’t look at my shoes closely, I expected that there were more holes.

        Once at the aid station at mile 14, a guy gave me a roll of duct tape, so I took it to the bathroom to change and tape my shoes. I looked at my left shoe and saw that the right side had blown out, so my foot was literally sliding out of my shoe as I ran. I didn’t know what else to do but tape it up. I was just glad I was able to borrow someone’s tape. I ended up with two shoes fully covered around my toe area. I put a decent amount of tape around my shoe, wrapping the tape multiple times. I thought I had probably overdone it and was optimistic about the next section. For the past 10 miles, I had to slow down and be extra careful not to make the hole worse, so I was hoping I would be able to make up some time now. Immediately after leaving the aid station, the tape on my left foot came off. With that, I realized keeping my shoes together might be more difficult than I thought. 

Tomorrow, Part II: The Tape Keeps Falling Off, but I keep Moving Forward