Day 4,213—Today’s 7 and Part VI of the OT 100!—

 

        I am sorry I am posting this so late, but I ended up writing and editing my video on and off all day. Every time I thought about writing my regular post, I went back to editing the video or finishing the write-up of the OT 100. The good news is that I have made a lot of progress on both. I am not ready to post the whole thing yet, but I like that I have a complete version done. It just is so easy to forget all the moments the farther I get away from the run. It already seems like such a long time ago, and even though it is a great story, I wish I had been able to rally more and go faster at the end, but you cannot win them all. I had two great times over the summer, so I should be happy with that and not be upset that with the shoes I wasn’t able to sub 24 hours, but I am disappointed. I don’t know if I will ever run it again, and it is a course I would have been happy to do well in. It is the quintessential Missouri trail 100, so I should have the most familiarity with the types of terrain, but I finished, and I did the best that I could. I am bummed that they have not posted the results yet. I am curious how I placed overall. There were so many people close to me, and I passed a guy within a mile of the finish. I just want to know what the official spread of times were.

Part VI of the OT 100

14 hours

8 p.m.

58 Miles

Weather, Low 50s, high 40s, raining

        The only thing that was bothering me now was that I hadn’t gotten to eat any real food except for the vegetable soup I had at one aid station. I also noticed my watch getting increasingly off. The official race distance was 100.9 miles, and my watch showed 102.4 miles, so a difference of 1.5 miles, which isn’t that bad. I could easily suggest that .4 of that is due to me walking around at aid stations and having to backtrack twice. For most of the race, I was about a mile off. I was predicting finishing at 102 most of the race.

        I didn’t have many miles until the 65.4-mile Hazel Creek aid station, and all I could think about was how nice it was to have shoes that weren’t held together by tape. I was constantly looking down at my feet to see if anything had changed. For a while, the tape would get caught on rocks and roots, making it easier for me to trip. I tripped many times early in the race when the tape wasn’t holding up as well, but I was doing better now. The new shoes I was wearing felt slightly big, but I might have just needed to tighten up the laces. Sure, they still weren’t my shoes, but I am not complaining. They were a million times better than what I was running on, and all I could think was that the nightmare was finally over. I was going to make it to my HOKA Mountain Goats that I barely wear, and I was going to make it to my nice headlamp. I was using my backup now, which isn’t as bright as my one in the next drop bag.

        I was struggling to go faster. I was listening to music, which gave me a boost. I started this section with two sub-12-minute miles and did the next three going significantly faster than I had been, but I was also doing the occasional 17-minute mile. I was holding out hope that once I got my Mountain Goats and drank caffeine, I would get the boost to push the pace. I hoped the rain wouldn’t continue throughout the night, and so far, it has been more annoying than anything else. It felt great to be completely caught up on hydration, but I was hungry and sleepy.

Hazel Creek

16 hours

10 p.m.

Mile 65.4

Weather, mid to low 40s, raining

        I sat down with my bag and dumped everything out. I immediately had volunteers taking off my shoes, helping me dry my feet, and putting on more socks, but I wanted to put Vaseline on my feet first. A woman who had gloves came over and said she would do it. It was nice not to have to bend over to do it myself, and the woman was kind of being funny. She told me so many times how much my feet were just like hers, meaning ugly. I know I have ugly feet, maybe even grotesque, so it was a helpful distraction. All I could think was how I didn’t have a bunch of blisters and none of my toenails were broken, so I thought my feet were looking pretty good considering, but I knew what she meant. She then realized the person she was volunteering for was there, so she went to help them, and a different person helped me put my socks on and get me back on the trail.

        Before I left, I drank three cups of Coke and was ready for the boost of energy. Even though I hadn’t slept that much all week, at least the caffeine boost should be helpful since I was so dedicated to staying off the stuff for a full week. 

I left the aid station finally wearing my shoes! They felt amazing! I also had warm socks, and I changed my shirt. It was Jake who told me to wait until changing shoes until mile 65.8. which I am glad he did. I wonder if I would have brought another pair of shoes otherwise. The only thing I wish I had considered more was just biting the bullet and buying a brand-new pair at the store the week before the race. I kept on seeing so many other runners on the course at this point, which seems odd on a trail run of this magnitude. It is normal to see more runners on a loop course and ones that have several different races at one time, but this one was only a 100 mile race no other distances and it was a point to point, yet I was running around the same pace as at least 5 other runners and some of them had pacers that were helping them through this section.

        None of them were that chatty, but that was okay. I was focusing on my own thing, but I do remember commenting to someone how, at this point in the race, each mile seemed to take seemingly forever. I would run as hard as I could for what seemed like miles, and I would only have completed roughly a quarter of a mile. I would try to laugh at this because it was also true that I knew I would barely remember this point in the race, so it somehow felt longer in the moment, but it would be completely obscured by morning.