The Pinetree Incident / Cupcake's Birthday Run - Saturday, March 6th, 2021

 I had a stupid idea awhile ago.

Zero percent of you are shocked to hear that.

After my successful rematch with Mount Hope Park last November, the idea of running another short-loop "ultra" took root. You see, I live on a crescent that's about 420m 'round. Ergo, if I ran 101 laps of it, I'd have myself a little home-baked ultra. Aid station in the garage, start whenever I want, and do it whenever I feel like it's a good day to be dumb. Cue Weird Al Yankovic. 

The original plan had actually been to do this on the first Saturday in January, as a replacement for the Stride Inside 6-hour Indoor Track Race that was not happening in 2021 due to Covid. Heck, even the third Saturday in January would have been an idea, to replace my usual outing at the Frosty Trail 3-hour. However, having caught Covid in December, and tweaked something in my ankle in December, and just having the 100 runs in 100 days challenge going through February 22nd...well, I noped out.

Besides, I'd decided to combine two events. A friend of mine - a badass Slowtwitch womens - was celebrating her 40th birthday by throwing the heck down with a 40min swim, 40 mile bike, and 40km run for her own solo triathlon. Her name is Anne, but she's known as Dr. Cupcake, and I figured there was no better way I could help her fête her entry to the Masters category than to run 40 (ish) kilometers while she did so.

I'm pretty sure I completely failed to use the hashtag #IRanWithAnne, though

So the date was set for Saturday, March 6th. As I arrived at 1 week to go and was still having annoying issues with my ankle, I decided I'd be "smart" about it and take a couple of days off. I didn't run a single step from Friday, February 26th through Sunday, February 28th. Three whole days.

I went for my usual lunch run on Monday, and my ankle was the worst it's been. AGONY. I managed to figure out most of what was going on by Wednesday, and - taking another day off running, plus a couple of hours off work for an emergency chiropractic appointment (I got lucky with the office having had a cancellation) - and was disappointed that my new chiro only did an assessment, but also happy that some of the range-of-motion testing he'd done had also given me a bit of relief.

I worked out that the way I was sitting at my desk all day was exacerbating things, so came up with a solution to keep me from sitting with my foot in inversion. Not actually having said a word to Anne about my plan to run together-but-apart, I went for a little test run on Thursday afternoon to see how things felt.

Almost exactly 1/10 of what I had planned for Saturday.

It went ok; I definitely had more pain-free range of motion in my ankle, and didn't feel the sensation of torque on my tibia that had me fearing an impending stress fracture (the chiro had done the tuning fork test on the most touch-sore spot, and determined it was probably just a shin splint...which is only a precursor to a stress fracture, so IT'S FINE). Just as I finished up, I saw a bald eagle wheeling overhead - it felt like some kind of sign, so I decided I'd ask teh interwebz what seeing a bald eagle might portend.

IT'S ON, BISHES!

I took Friday off (as usual), and popped into a grocery store for some essential supplies:

a) A party without cake is just a meeting
b) how was I gonna celebrate DOCTOR freakin' CUPCAKE's birthday without cupcakes?

The weather? Well, I could have asked for a little less on the cold and windy side..

That wind was going to be in my face ALL DAY

I was pretty stoked that my Rocky Mountain Fleecewear Adventure Skirt had come in on Thursday, so I'd have something bright and soft and fuzzy to give me some extra warmz as I meandered around the block for hours!

Especially when we woke up to a dusting of totally-not-predicted snow!

We jammed down to the farmer's market - the beauty about staging your own event is that it can start whenever you heckin' please - while Anne killed her early-morning 40min swim (with a big PR!) and jumped on the bike to grind out her 40 miles (also a big PR!). She'd already been running for an hour as I slapped a load of tape on my feet and ankles in a feeble attempt to keep my crap together.

The duct tape of the running world.
Wait, sometimes we use actual duct tape. Nevermind.

I buried that mess in a pair of calf sleeves, got my tights and skirt on, and pulled together a few things to set out on the aid station table. Anne? She had everything all set to go the night before. Me? Last-minute grabbing of junk food while Tank went out and got the aid station itself set up.

Having my entire house steps away from the "course" made me a little cavalier about preparation, though I had made the tracking sheet the night before.

Of course, I also had the world's best aid station captain for support!

Just one more thing to do before I got going: 

It had sat on my shelf for just shy of 4 months still displaying 101

With everything as ready as I could make it, I finally got my butt in gear around twenty past noon.

I was going to make that cupcake wrapper as polka-dotted as I could!

As you can tell, the wind definitely showed up.

I decided - literally as I got moving on my first lap, going counter-clockwise - that I would try to employ what I thought of as the "MREAH Protocol" for this idiot business. Run 3 laps, walk 1, and change direction every 20 laps. At the same time, I had no idea whatsoever what I'd actually be able to manage: I was definitely going to get 40 laps in (a bit under 17km, by my reckoning) even if I had to walk the whole heckin' way. Then I was going to eat a cupcake, and see how far I could go on...with the caveat that I shut things down the very moment I felt any torque on my tibia.

In the meantime - onward

The one thing that would be very different from MREAH (ok, apart from having my house right there, and the weather being like 20 celsius degrees colder) was that the path around Mount Hope Park is basically flat. My street, on the other hand, has a 6.77 metre/22 foot elevation difference from one end of the loop to the other.

I was going to change direction, but it would literally be uphill both ways.

I had zero expectations that I would actually keep running the uphill portion as the day progressed, but I figured I'd at least try to get the first 20 laps in with the 3:1 run-to-walk ratio.

My toque optimistically declared I'd SLEIGH ALL DAY - 
we'd see what my legs thought about that.

Things actually went ok - I wasn't moving quickly, but without having run for more than an hour-ish at a time - or about 17km in a day with a double run - for a few months, I knew that the walking laps were going to be necessary from the very start if I was to have any hope of making it through. 

Top of the street and straight into the vicious wind

I started taking in calories around 35mins in, as that would be the other key: keep the fuel coming as steadily as possible to keep my energy up, and hope that my belly didn't go south as I haven't actually needed fuel while running for months, either. I'd done my usual pre-race stuff like chicken fried rice for dinner the night before and a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast a couple of hours before setting off, so I'd at least done something to try to set myself up for success.

The trend did not continue, as my fuel at 35mins was a packet of nearly-expired fuzzy peaches from last Halloween.

Tank had marked my 12th lap (dots for run laps, circles for walk laps) a little prematurely

The 3:1 run-to-walk was working out ok, though it certainly wasn't easy booting it up the damn slope into the wind on every lap. It was probably only a matter of time before we had to figure out how to mark a "walked uphill and ran back down" lap on the tracking sheet, especially since I have the world's most awkward running stride.

Yes, I'm aware that I run like someone who's only read about the concept in a book with no pictures.

I kept at it, while taking time to check in on Instagram to see how Anne was doing - she was KILLING IT, running sub-9-minute miles through halfway as she changed up bottles. I was just hitting 20 laps, about to switch directions, and definitely not tearing things up out there.

Dead slow but not quite dead.

So now I got a bit of a different view, and a different approach to the hill: our house is not quite at the very bottom of the street, so now I actually got to start each lap with a teenytiny downhill!

I'll take whatever I can get!

Of course, then it almost immediately starts to go up again.

At least it was lovely and sunny to offset the chill of the wind

I think this bit is actually the "steepest" portion of the street

It levels off as you round the corner and head for the top of the "U" that is Pinetree Crescent

DOWNWIND now, along Parkview Cres. (between the two ends of Pinetree)

One last right turn, then downhill all the way to the house..

..where my hero awaited me on every single lap.

Of course, he wasn't completely alone all day:

Our buddy Cal was there to keep him company, and handle phone charging duties
(his full name is Tropic Cal)

I'd always thought that running up the other side of the street was a little more difficult, but I wasn't finding it so on this day - for the running laps, I actually found it let me keep some momentum as I passed the house (rather than the uphill starting before I reached the driveway). What was a little difficult, though, was keeping track of time with my watch covered by my jacket and no clock around to let me know when I needed to eat.

Calories are important, so I shoved a whole banana in my face around 1h15m

I kept it all going pretty well in the clockwise direction, and thought I might be able to make it through 40 laps maintaining the 3:1 run/walk. I was keeping well on top of hydration by the expedient of grabbing my hand bottle and bringing it along for every walking lap, taking slurps of water in between posting ridiculous stories on Instagram.

Case in point.

It wasn't until a little more than 2hrs in that I got any more fuel into me, but it was kind of a big deal when I did - at almost half past two in the afternoon, after Anne had already finished her 40k (plus another 2k to make it a marathon, with a HUGE 30+min PR!), I dropped to a walk for the 10th time and Tank joined me for a bit of celebration.

YEAH BABY

We walked together for the 40th lap while I munched back a chocolate cupcake, scarfed a couple of S!caps because I hadn't had even a pinch of electrolytes yet (save for the potassium in the banana), then it was time for a change back to the original, counter-clockwise direction.

2h13m in, and hopefully a tiny smidge less than 40% done.

Things were not all rosy, particularly as I attempted to start running back uphill from the house. Fortunately the cupcake sat ok - one does not merely shove 340cal of food in one's face and run up a hill without the strong possibility of experiencing that cupcake again in reverse, but apparently not eating for almost an hour beforehand left my belly primed for a sugar and fat infusion. My ankle had been a little cranky, though, and other parts of me were starting to voice their objections to my decision to continue onward. Strangely, the ankle actually felt a little worse when walking than when running; something to do with the difference between my heel-striking walking gait and my forefoot-plant running stride.

I mean, if you can call that a "stride";

I look like I'm trying to uncomfortably smuggle a broomstick.

Still, I kept on pushing, despite the increasing difficulty of keeping myself running for 3 laps before permitting myself to walk one. Breaking back into a run was the toughest thing, though; everything was just so stiff as I took the first few steps, and the wind blowing in my face didn't help in the least. I hadn't applied anything to my skin, and I could already feel either sunburn or windburn building (or probably both).

There was no shade out there, and no shelter from the cold gusts.

The effort was definitely having an impact as the hours and miles piled up: I needed a tissue (no snot rockets in a pandemic, folks) so asked Tank to get me one for my next walk lap, and then got a bit snippy with him when he didn't have it ready for me. The poor lad hasn't done any crewing or aid station work in months, and while I may have been taking a ride on the struggle bus, that wasn't his fault - there is no excuse for unkind comments to someone who has given up their entire day just to help me do something dumb, and if I was suffering a bit that was solely my own fault.

I couldn't have done this without him, and I'm so grateful for his support.
I'm sorry for what I said while I was running, babe.

With great effort, I kept up the 3:1 pattern, and made it to the half marathon mark per my watch in 2h45m. I wasn't yet at lap 50, though, or even 49 - it seems my estimate of 420m for the circumference of our block was a little on the conservative side. It may partly have been an effect of not being able to apex the turns for the most efficient routing; the road is quite sharply crowned, and running on the side slope was not exactly bueno for my ankles or hips. I also had to deal with some oncoming traffic (our street is usually very quiet, but there was an unusual amount of coming-and-going), not to mention going around the occasional group of kids taking up the whole sidewalk, or giving a dog walker a wide berth.

I seriously can't even remember what lap I was on - maybe 48?

Eventually I did make it through lap 50 in a little more than 2h50m, and hoped I could stretch the 3:1 out until the next direction change at lap 60. While I had zero faith in my ability to bring this whole business in under 6hrs (which would mean I'd end up running through sunset, due to my late start), I honestly couldn't believe I'd made it this far while still trucking uphill every few minutes.

Almost 3hrs on the nose since I started!

To skip back a bit - you want to know how incredible Tank really is? On a chilly afternoon, he not only spent hours and hours outside without a break, he even heated up some delicious Scotview Orchards apple cider we'd picked up at the farmers' market for me, and filled up a soft bottle with it so I could have a nice, hot drink (and wash down a couple more S!caps) while I meandered onward just after the 3-hour mark.

MONEY

If you can believe it, the temperature had hit its high for the day over an hour beforehand - a resounding -2c/28f, with a windchill of -9c/16f - and was already on the decline again.

And the wind was NOT OK

My body was on the decline, too - while my ankle strangely seemed to improve past the halfway mark, other things were definitely complaining with increasing fervor. My lower back was cranky, and my glutes had almost gone solid; it seemed impossible to open up my stride at all, though I'd occasionally try on a downhill just to try some different muscle recruitment, as the mechanics of the ultra shuffle vs a real running stride are noticeably different. 

Well, for humans in general, anyway.

As I walked lap 60 - still workin' that 3:1, now three and a half hours deep - social media served me up one of the best laughs I've had in awhile. I pull up Instagram to post something or check how Anne's post-event elation and recovery are progressing, and this is the first thing I see:

Seriously - if you don't follow @ultrarunningmemes what are you even doing with your life?

SIXTY laps down? You know what that means:

Maybe I ought to have tried just running backwards?

However, not until I took care of some important things. First of all, I HAD TO PEE! While I definitely had facilities available (which was a damn sight better than MREAH had been), they were up. A set. Of stairs.

NOT COOL, UNIVERSE

When I got myself all sorted out, Tank had come in with sweet, liquid salvation - this was something I'd had at MREAH as well, and realised that it's freakin' AMAZING.

AWW YISS

Heading out into the cold afternoon air, it was clear that I'd stopped a little too long to deal with various fluids, as I picked up a bit of a chill as I walked.

With Tank.

For two full laps, while we each drank a cup of hot, delicious coffee.

I'm torn between this being the worst but also the best event ever.

With lap 62 down in ~3h40m, I took a deep breath, and started running uphill again. Honestly, I just wanted to warm up...but since I was now back to clockwise, I could keep the momentum going past the driveway to launch myself into the next uphill. It helped that I threw an Endurance Tap gel down my throat to get some more calories in: caffeine is great, and I put a bit of salted caramel syrup in it with my cashew milk, but I still had a long way to go..

..and I was legit back to the 3:1 run/walk lap pattern. And on it went, through 4 hours.

I'd use the excuse that I was getting goofy from the exertion, but we all know I'd be the same had I not run a step.

I'd still only walked 18 laps out of 69

..and passed a bit of a milestone.

That, however, was the end of the 3:1 walk/run. I made it to lap 70, which is a lot heckin' longer than I anticipated, but I just...couldn't anymore. My left calf and part of my right hamstrings were trying to cramp up on me, and even my neck had gotten tight. 

The sunshine remained gorgeous, but parts of me wanted to pack it in.

Now, that's not to say I stopped running up the hill. Instead, I just gave myself a little more lenience: I'd run TWO laps, then walk one. This was helped by hauling back a little more caffeine and sugar.

HIGHLY recommend!

That got me to lap 80, and the final change of direction. And you know what?

HELL YEAH

I walked and ate another cupcake - around 4h42m now - with Tank joining me for the stroll.

I was grateful to have not only his support, but also his company through the day

<3

As I walked along, I did some very basic math (definitely all I was capable of at that point), and had come to a conclusion. I handed off my bottle to Tank, and - making my final direction change, to the more difficult-feeling counter-clockwise route - set off running again.

The things I will do for a friend's birthday!

This elevation profile looks like a seriously unhealthy EKG

I had to pee AGAIN after lap 81, but managed it a little more efficiently this time, and was even able to put together 2 consecutive running laps afterward! That left me walking lap #84, but I rolled back into the 2:1 pattern again right away.

This is lap 86, and while it ain't pretty, it ain't walking either.

I somehow managed to tweak my LEFT ankle not long after this, but it wasn't too bad - not half as grouchy as other parts of me, which now included both sides of my inner pelvis. I guess it had seen a bit of strain from running the crowned road all afternoon, not to mention the pounding of pavement.

Instagram continued to amuse me greatly with its prescience

The sun was starting to get seriously low in the sky as I passed 40km, now past five and a half hours and drawing very near to the start of Anne's google hangouts birthday party call.

The sun was fading, but the wind continued to blow in my face

The photo is blurry because DAMMIT I WAS STILL RUNNING

By this time my hip flexors were giving me no end of grief just from the effort of lifting my heavy stinkin' legs with each step, my butt was like two painful cinderblocks crazy glued to my behind, and even my throat was starting to feel sore and raw from sucking in the cold, dry air all day. I whined to Tank as he walked with me about how it was hard, and he sweetly said nice things to try to make me feel better, walking with me in between my 2-lap bouts of running.

It was honestly a lovely day for a stroll!

Just living for the downhills

I'd got some rather amusing comments from neighbors throughout the day: the fellow who (at just over 2hrs in) exclaimed "Wow, you've been out running all day!" and laughed at me when I said it would likely be dark before I was done, and another who just exclaimed "You're sure getting a lot of exercise today!". The one that took the cake, though, was the lady out on her porch with an infant in her arms who asked on one lap "Aren't you getting tired?" - I said I was just getting a bit sore, really, and on the next lap she asked if I was going to the Olympics! I laughed and said no; I'm not a very good runner, I'm just stubborn.

And obviously pretty stupid

Even the sun gave up on this venture before I did!

I was also, however, still running. Multiple laps. I was nearing the finish, but needed to be sure I'd have the gas to get there, so I downed another Endurance Tap gel at 5h40m, as the clock struck 6pm.

I'd be missing the first bit of Anne's party, but I figured she'd forgive me.

I suddenly found myself at lap 96 (and about to pass the marathon distance of 42.2km), and knew I couldn't quit now: I ran 97 and 98, then took one final walk break while the sun set about lighting the sky on fire.

I briefly considered going to the end of the street for a less-obstructed view, but a single extra step right now was unthinkable.

I ran lap 100, and so help me, lap 101.

If you ever wondered if I was serious about making terrible decisions, here's your proof.

A handful of agonizing moments later, after one last downhill..

About heckin' time!

Oh hey - I'm back to where I started!

Someone grab me a chäir

All the Garmin data is here, of course.

All told I ended up recording 684m / 2,244ft of elevation gain - about 6.77m / 22.2ft per lap, or 15.4m / 50.6ft per kilometer. I walked 28 full laps, which shaves down the running elevation a bit, but I still ran up the stinkin' hill seventy three times -  494.2m, or 1,620ft up uphill slog. There was a lot of stiffness and soreness, but my ankle felt better through the second half than the first, I only had a couple of minor twinges out of the tibia, and didn't even experience any blisters, chafing, or mental fatigue. Heck, I didn't even get bored!

I am SO stoked by how consistent I was able to stay, even without any recent distance training!

I joined in on Anne's birthday celebration call afterward, while enjoying some effervescent carbohydrate recovery beverage.

DRANKS
(Oh, and another cupcake, too)

I don't drink often, but it had been a DAY

What's really crazy is that I didn't even stay particularly beat up afterward - I took Sunday off to just walk in the woods with my darling husband (after he'd so sweetly walked with me), but between the improvement in my ankle, a lack of soreness or fatigue, and some warm weather, I was back out and running again Monday afternoon!

The compression socks being my nod to "recovery"

The downside is that I'm experiencing some discomfort in my throat and lungs after any kind of exertion; kind of like a case of skier's hack (where you cough after coming inside from an effort in cold air), but it goes on for hours instead of dissipating in minutes. It may just be the combined after-effects of hours of cold air - I don't think I've ever run quite this long when it's been quite so chilly - and a bit of immune suppression from a long bout while undertrained, but I am a little worried that it may be a lingering effect of Covid. I'll have to see how it goes, as it's a bit strange; it doesn't bother me while I'm walking, running, or doing strength work - only afterward. So I'll keep on doing my thing, and hope it resolves.

No, I don't think it'll stop me from running.
(Thanks to a friend for sending me this, saying it made her think of me)

So there's a stupid thing I did. Now, what's next?

Hopefully something on TRAILS, dangit!