A Tale of Two Races
The intention of this race was to serve as both training for the body as well as the mind. For the body the rough goal was to overachieve as measured by Ultrasignup’s ratings system. For that I would need to score in the mid 60% range.
Alas the first half of the race succeeded by this measurement or would have had I dropped down to the 55k distance by quitting before the 2nd out-and-back of the race.
For context, Colossal is first race of the Arizona Triple 50 which features two out-and-backs from the start finish line. The race first head south on the AZT, then back north to the start/finish.
Looking North from Start: Strava View
I set out south at a good pace South from the start despite not totally dialing in my shoe choice for the day. I am still recovering from two ankle injuries on each foot from rolling each several times in high stack unstable racing shoes. So I practiced “opposite action” and bought two large, wide heavy clauds known as the Altra 275 Olympus. It’s a great shoe for toeing off when going forward and clinically unable to run anything off camber by more than a few degrees. The lack of ground feel style midsole handled most loose rock and solid rock with ease, dulling the sharp points to barely a slight nudge on the bottoms of my feet. Up and down steeps were no problem when the trail was levelish side-to-side. Which was most of the trail. But a good 25% or so was of the crooked variety making much of the course much more technical than it should have been with a better shoe choice.
Right away I was dealing with parent/job/politics/money/everything-is-overwhelming exhaustion. I went with an A goal of staying near pace. A second problem I knew of right away was my absent minded decision to not pre-mix my hydrogels, which were my primary source of food and sugar for the run. Despite necessarily long aid-station lay-overs to fill bottles and mix gels I stayed on goal pace for the first half of the race.
A third problem I encountered was slamming into an exposure/uphill-fitness- limitation/lack of fueling?-bonk on the slight uphill back to the start/finish to begin the second out-and-back. The second out-and-back was more technical than the first with vert-y rolling hills in cold night-time weather. Visibility was as good as my flashlight was at lighting up the terrain in front of me. The stars and a rising moon made for a highlight of the race. A calm stary night sky, showcasing the outlines of 6000 vertical feet of relief in the Rincons, finishing with a view of Tucson city lights near the finish line.
My body decided to walk it in. I had none of the mental reserves to challenge it’s decision. It was simply exhausting and terrifying to encounter the finish line and refraining from the easy out to an official 55k finish. All the incentives were there to quit, with a party, food, people having a celebratory ruckus with the super-star winners of the three race distances already finished for the day. I joined a lonely few, spread out over 15 miles of finishing distance, most of which blinded me a handful of times on their way back from the turnaround.
Continuing was the hardest thing I’ve done in years in my running career. Continuing was harder than finishing my first and only 100 miles race. The decision itself was huge to me. The course itself I accomplished with relative ease. I raced today against an imposter voice berating me for my heavy weight, limiting what my hard-won fitness could accomplish.
I took some learning from this as well. My ADHD mind needs a finely manicured, detailed list of everything, where it goes, when it goes there, what it’s for etc. I need a plan for each aid station, checked off with verification of said list by other eyes like my wife, coach, and future crew. I need plans for prep and for the day of separately. I need to buy and test all nutrition ahead of time. I want to try and run sections of the course I’m going to run, practicing aid station quickness. My shoes should be dialed ahead of time. This is now two races in a row where I’ve run in new shoes. I think I’ll prefer low stack and/or very soft/stable high stack shoes. I need trainers apart from racers. I want to learn how much I still sweat in cold condition sand how much I “salt”. I want to learn to fast-hike well and consider a mix of high/run modalities to avoid half-way bonks. I need to plan low fiber diet for two weeks beforehand. This is something I usually do, but I’d taken to oatmeal and nuts for the past few weeks which resulted in 4 poops in the race. My gut was in distress before my poop-mostly-fart sessions. A lot of brain power got diverted to not sharting. 🙈 :) Also sharting followed by chaffing sucks.
THE END
Comments
Post a Comment