Day 4,476—Fastest Run this Month and The Vero Beach Octopus 100 Part VIII: 20 Miles without Water—

 

Start time: 7:32 a.m.

Weather: High 60s, wind 4.9 mi/h, Humidity 83%

       I got up a little before 6:30 today. I wasn’t planning on getting up super early, but I missed having enough time to run more in the morning. Yesterday, I felt like running some of the more difficult small trails and rolling hills, but today I wanted the simple 6-mile loop that I had done many times before. It was getting slightly better because they were almost done with the sidewalks down Watson, so the worst part of the run was getting easier, and today I did a modified version because while the sidewalk is complete on the right side of the road, they’re still working on the left. I want to get at least 25 miles in on weekdays, so that’s at least 5 miles a day on average. Today puts me back on track. I have almost completed the first draft of the Vero Beach Video!

        I still cannot believe how much better my leg feels. Is it possible that my pain got scared out of me? I wasn’t trying to go super fast this run, but I found that when someone passed me, I could keep up with them and then start gaining on them, and my leg wasn’t bothering me at all. Even sitting is getting less painful. My shoulder still has problems, but I have so much more of a range of movement now. Does being scared really have positive medical benefits? 

The Vero Beach Octopus 100 Part VIII: 20 Miles without Water

Arm 7: Elm Street

Time of Day: 1:09 a.m.

Arm Distance: 20.2 Miles

Terrain: sidewalk

        When I made it back to the Octobase, my bib was held onto my shorts by just one safety pin. One of the first things I said when I passed under the banner was, “I need more safety pins.”

        I then launched into the whole story about what happened to me, and one of the first things he asked me was my watch time. I was about 74 miles on my watch, which was 2 miles over the expected distance, which meant I was almost exactly at the distance I was supposed to be. He said that people would normally be disqualified only if they were trying to cheat. I was clearly not trying to cheat. He said the cops had shown up and told another runner he couldn't be back there by the hotel, so they had to make a last-minute course correction. So the route changed, and I would have been better off following the signs. In the end, we were supposed to go down and turn around, so what was once a scary, dangerous loop became a relatively tame out-and-back with a short loop.

        The photographer I talked to more when I got back was super nice. He told me that I had gotten the full “Octopus” experience by seeing the hotel. They kept calling it a hotel, but when I looked it up later, I found out the history of the complex was a little more complex. It went back and forth between a hotel and an apartment complex, with locals trying to prevent its construction, which led to delays and its becoming the abandoned project it is today. One of the interesting things I found out was that there was an ordinance that prevented any structure from being taller than three stories, so that’s why it didn’t look like a hotel but a series of parking garages. I sat for a while and got more safety pins. In the end, I felt like I had bonded more with people from the race, even though I was mad that they hadn't communicated better about the route change. They were just a couple of guys who loved running and were doing their best. They were good guys. Not perfect, but they had tried to communicate the change the best they could by changing the signs. I also noticed when I was working on the video that the RD said to follow the signs over the gpx file. This still seems like counterintuitive advice, but now I understand why he was saying that.

        If I were going to need to call for help with water, it would be during this arm. The RD confirmed I just had two more arms to go, and I said yes, filled up, drank as much liquid as my stomach could hold, and then headed out for the 20-mile arm.

        Just think 20 miles is just six miles short of a marathon. It was 1:30 a.m., and I was going out to run 20 miles while carrying over 3 liters of water. You would think this was a daunting prospect, but I was still angry/energized/amped. I was yelling at cars as I left. I waved at one car that was swerving into the bike lane, and they just waved back at me. If I were closer to where they swerved, they would have hit me, but to this Florida driver, my concern for personal safety was just funny.

        I was now in the boring part, and I began to see and pass a couple of other groups of runners as I continued. There were also more than a few people that passed me going the other way. I was only going 11-12 minute miles, but compared to most people at this point in the race, that was very fast. I remember I made it out over 80 miles, and I asked a guy how far to the turnaround, and he said he wasn’t going to lie to me. He said that it was about a mile and a half past the bridge, and the bridge wasn’t for a bit. I was taking a drink of water every half mile, and later I would drink every quarter mile. My goal was not to drink any from my hand flask until I was within 5 miles of the Octobase; that would mean I would drink roughly 2 liters over the first 15 miles and then 1 liter after that. It wasn’t a ton of water, but it was a decent amount, and even though I was going fast, there was finally a breeze, and the sun wasn’t bearing down at me.

        As I got closer to the turnaround, I started hearing people yelling curses at me and some of the other runners. It was these oversized trucks going 100 miles an hour, screaming insults at people running. If they had slowed down and gotten out of their trucks, there would have been little stopping me from getting into a physical altercation. I was so enraged! What is wrong with people!? You’re out at 3 in the morning hurling insults at people doing a 100-mile foot race?! I imagined that they were overweight guys with short haircuts and Ray-Ban sunglasses who had spent the whole night drinking and doing drugs and now were still awake and looking for something else to do.

        “You want to just get in our trucks and drive real fast and yell insults at people?”

        “Dude, that’s exactly what I was thinking!”

        When I caught up to another runner who was pacing some of the other runners, he was from Florida and told me how much he disliked the drivers in the area. He said he had been dealing with the same thing and that he used to ride a bike but had to stop because the drivers were so dangerous. Besides the dangerous drivers, the other thing that struck me as dangerous was the lack of public access to water, a bathroom, or the beach. We were right next to beachfront property, but you would never know it because private clubs blocked the view. There must be enough private clubs in this area for every millionaire in this country to have at least one spot reserved just in case they were in the mood to spend a weekend on the beach.

        While all this sudden anger might appear irrational, I find that a lot of times during a race, it is right around this point that I get super angry and am not really sure whether it is more me or the world that has changed. Once I was within five miles, I was just happy that I wasn’t out of water yet. I actually had to speed up drinking water, or I wasn’t going to finish all my water by the time I made it back. I kept looking at my watch and at the sun. I realized I'd miscalculated because I hadn’t brought my extra headlamp battery, and my light was already starting to dim. Still, I just kept thinking the sun was going to be up soon and I wanted to be back to Octobase with only 8 miles left to go when that happened, and I was going to do it!

        I was crossing the bridge around 5:40, and I crossed the start/finish section just a few minutes before the 24-hour mark. I wasn’t going to be able to finish under 25 hours, but I could still finish around 26 hours, which will mean I will miss the hottest parts of the day! I didn’t rest long before I headed back out. One of the RDs asked me how I managed the 20 miles without stopping, and I just chuckled and tried to come up with the word “carefully.”  

Total Distance: 92.4

Lap Pace: 14 minutes and 24 seconds 

Race Pace: 15 minutes and 35 seconds 

Lap Time: 4:51:00 

Total Time: 24 hours