Horror Trail Run 6-hour - Saturday, October 26th, 2019

Some days are easy and effortless.

This was not one of those.

Though it did have its moments - this was our arrival at Camp Heidelberg

A total of 25hrs of sleep in the 5 days before a race is generally not ideal, especially when you can feel a chest cold from a week of damp, chilly camping trying to work its way through your immune defenses. I had the best of intentions to get a good night's rest on Friday, but then realised that the costume I'd decided on would probably be fine for Saturday's predicted high of 10c/50f, but less ideal for the -4c/25f they were calling for at the start. Not having anything theme-appropriate to keep me warm, I spent from 8pm (when we finally got home) until 10pm inhaling chalk dust and Sharpie fumes trying to produce something that would work.

If I had it to do over again I'd take a different approach, but I'm still pretty pleased with the result..
..even if it meant dinner wasn't ready 'til almost 11pm.

Awoke exhausted to a thick layer of frost on everything, and rather failed to account for a) time to do my makeup (which is not a thing I ever have to think about outside the few days surrounding Halloween) and b) the 50k now starting at 8am, and Tanker needing to be there to help set up the aid station before then. It's been a 9am start for the last 9 years, so my miscalculation was perhaps forgivable.

There was also the process of tape → calf sleeve → running sock → over-the-knee sock → gaiter → shoe to negotiate.
I actually got it all in the right order BOTH times, before I'd even had a cup of coffee!

Finally got myself all together, then it was off to the local T.Ho's under a spectacular morning sky for much-needed caffeination.

Almost worth leaving my nice, warm bed.
Almost.

Coffee that would wake the dead...hopefully.

We sped through the quiet morning as the sun rose and sparkled on the frost-laden fields.

Lovely but ccccooooooollllllddddd.

We managed to arrive 2mins before the 8am start of the 50k, and I immediately dispatched Tank to go start his volunteer duties while I hauled my bag and the UltraCooler™ into the Rehkopf Building to get ready. All the usual greetings and chatting with friends, race kit pickup, bib pinning for the first half hour or so; finally remembering to pick up my timing chip on my way out for a portajohn stop (as the building's washrooms have inadequate water flow to cope with hundreds of runners trying to "get down to race weight"); then my usual awkward, flaily warm-up in an attempt to make my tired, cold body get used to the idea of moving.

There was some resistance to the concept.

Regardless, at a few minutes to 9am I meandered out into the blinding sun to line up at the start, which was done away from the actual course so the 5k, 10k, 25k and 6-hour runners would not trigger the timing mat with their chips as the clock was already running for the 50k runners.

Lined up on the grass to the left of the driveway, instead of on it.

Feeling a little gutless, but willing to give it a go.

At 9am sharp we all set off down the grass, merged onto the driveway, and then back onto the grass over toward the pavilion where Tanker awaited at the aid station..

Everybody conga!

.and I dropped my phone off with him, because I didn't really want to have it with me for the first lap. 

Chubbiest skeleton ever.

Still feeling quite sluggish, I decided to push the pace on my first lap, running basically everything except the main hill in an effort to open up my legs a bit and wake up my cardiovascular system. It felt unreasonably difficult, though, and my time for my first round of the course - 17m44s - was definitely not indicative of the effort I'd put in. When I'm healthy, that's a 2+-hours-in lap time, not an opening minutes one. I knew then that I was in for a long day - sometimes you just don't have it, and there's nothing you can do but press on as best you're able.

"HEY WAIT FOR MEEEEE"
Robin in bright blue with blonde ponytail kicking arse in the 25k!

At least it was a beautiful day in the woods - the sun shone down through the multihued leaves, which fell like snow all over the course in the sub-freezing air.

Sunshine is not a thing to be taken for granted at this race.

Frost looking like snow on the wild grasses down by the pond

The fall colours were about at their peak at Camp Heidelberg

Knowing it wasn't going to be a PR day, I just tried to settle in and focus on getting solid nutrition and hydration into me to make the best of what I had to give. The hydration wasn't a problem - though I definitely found myself drinking more water than I'd have expected for such a chilly day - but getting calories became more complicated than I expected as I attempted to navigate some teething issues with a new gel flask.

The Hydrapak SoftFlask 150

It's half an hour in and I've been carrying this thing in the leg pocket of my skirt, then whip it out to try to get a slurp of EFS Liquid Shot. I ignore the fact the flexible material feels disturbingly like cold human flesh when filled with gel, and try to open the valve...which of course turns in the same direction as unscrewing the cap, which it seems is much easier to do than opening the valve. I screw it back down tight, then hold the base of the cap and open the valve with my other hand...and it barfs sticky gel all over my fingers in my gloves.

Not awesome.

I squeeze some gel out of the flask into my mouth, close the valve, then try to slurp as much as I can off my gloves...and try to forget that I don't think they've been washed since I wore them to go scrambling over mossy, leaf-strewn rocks and climbing through damp crevices at Bruce's Caves. 

I'd work out later that the best method was to hold the base of the cap and open the valve with my teeth, so it just blurped gel into my mouth.

It was also less than stellar that the now-partially-empty flask became much floppier than it had been in its full state, and kind of wanted to fall out of the pocket of my skirt. I'd manage to get it lodged in there such that it didn't fall out, but it certainly never really felt secure. Instead of my usual approach of interspersing EFS Liquid Shot with real food at half-hour intervals (gel on the 30's and solids on the top of the hour), I ran the whole first 2.5hrs on gel just to try to empty the flask as soon as possible so I could ditch it.

With this hill to contend with each lap I didn't need any additional worries.

I grabbed my phone from Tanker at the aid station for my 3rd lap, just so I could capture some photos of the frost and morning light.

Dat sunshine doe!

The trail was in amazing condition - nice and hardpacked throughout, and someone had even been through to spray fluorescent pink paint on some of the more prominent roots and rocks. It was rather frustrating that I wasn't able to take advantage of the perfect running conditions: the cool weather and ideal trail should have made for a fast day, but my body just wasn't having it. 

The race director had even raked the leaves off the trail.

That did leave me free to just enjoy the day as best I could, though, and try to help other runners if I could. I saw a fellow down on the side of the trail massaging his lower leg and asked if he was ok - he said he was, and had just rolled his ankle. I asked if he wanted a hand up and out, but he refused. Later on, I also tried to stay with another runner - a lady I've known for a few years now - as she struggled a bit in the 50k, walking with her after she stumbled and seemed in rough shape. She, too, shooed me on though...so I had Tanker check up on her when she came through the aid station, and he was able to give her some broth that got her feeling more like her badass self again. Perhaps it was the chill air that had brought her low?

With her running the 50k, it would have been even colder when she started.

The cold definitely had one thing running well though: I was one snot-nosed punk! Can we talk for just a moment about how finicky it is to wipe your schnozz or blow a snot rocket without disturbing your skully makeup? 

Definitely first world ultra dork problems there.

*sniffle*... *SNORT*

The major complaints, really, were my left hamstrings (with which I've had trouble since the spring, then did some additional damage to about a week before race day, 'cause I'm smart like that) and my right ankle - they were grouchy from the start. Apart from that, it was really just a total lack of oomph; I found myself walking sections that I have been able to run consistently in the past, and my energy was already beginning to fade by the 2-hour mark. I tried a chunk of banana and one of my homemade salted maple crisp rice squares for some extra calories on top of the gel, but to no effect.

This should have been runnable. It was not.

I did manage the run-up out of the woods a couple of times, but ONLY a couple of times.

I'd had to hit the portajohn on my 6th lap - around 1h45m in - and it seemed I had some weight to lose along with needing a wee. Perhaps the late dinner was haunting me a bit? I usually try to have my pre-race chicken fried rice 12hrs before gun time to allow the lower decks to clear (apart from the bowl of oatmeal I have 3hrs prior to the start), but my arts'n'crafts project had delayed things. I was still staying on top of hydration and electrolytes (via drinking a 600ml bottle of water about every 45mins - which was odd, as I usually go closer to an hour per bottle - and taking an S!cap every hour on the :30 starting right from a half-hour in), keeping the nutrition coming at around 200cal per hour, not experiencing any GI distress, and urinating, so it didn't seem I needed to adjust anything. Heck, I was still able to run up the long, gentle slope of the driveway each lap, so things couldn't be that bad.

Just keep on truckin'

By the halfway point, though, I was starting to wonder if I'd even make my default goal of "make it an ultra", which requires 17 laps of the 2.5km course to equal 42.5km (an ultramarathon being defined as anything longer than a marathon at 42.2km). I had managed 10 laps for 25km by 3h13m, but my split times had faded to around 20mins and I was starting to struggle. The weather had finally warmed up enough for me to take off my sweater - which required a couple of minutes to change from the short, full-finger stretchy gloves to a pair of elbow-length fingerless gloves as it wasn't quite warm enough for just a sleeveless shirt - but my legs were sore and my stride mechanics were starting to fall into that horrible, flat-footed ultra shuffle that is the mark of suffering. 

Definitely feeling a little dead.

To make matters worse, I was feeling a bit lightheaded, and my vision was a bit wonky - it felt difficult to focus, like it often does when I'm in need of an electrolyte tab. I was still taking in an S!cap per hour, though, and my fingers weren't getting sausage-y - I just felt incredibly tired. Even my right eye started to twitch on and off, which happens whenever I'm really sleep deprived, but I've never had occur during a race before. Just weird. To top it all off, I had "Radar Love" stuck in my head for hours - it's a pretty cool track, and it could have been a lot worse, but I barely knew any of the lyrics and that was irritating me. How can I sing along to my internal soundtrack when I don't know the words? I'm sure everyone on course was much happier with me staying silent, though.

Blue skies and golden leaves are much more pleasant than me caterwauling. 

It certainly was a beautiful morning, if a bit cool.

Of course after I took my sweater off, the wind picked up as it blew across the cornfields to the northeast - it was right in our faces as we came out of the upper woods in the shade of the trees, and it was certainly not warm after the morning's frost.

One very chilly shady patch

Course map - I've made an edit in red to show the actual 2-way traffic on the driveway.
I believe the original map as posted to the race's facebook page led to some 50k runners coming up the grass beside the driveway in their opening laps.

While I no longer had to deal with the annoyance of the soft flask - I'd ditched it with Tanker at the aid station after polishing off the last swig at 2.5hrs - that meant I no longer had a multiple-shot source of calories with me. I had to wander back to the aid station a few steps on at least 4 separate occasions because I'd forgotten to pull nutrition that I'd need on that lap from the UltraCooler™. I had an Endurance Tap gel at 3hrs, then a freakin' delicious chocolate chip cookie at 3.5hrs. The eye twitch and blurry vision was getting worse by 4hrs, though, so I tried adding some extra salt in the form of a single tortilla chip and a piece of back bacon, plus another chunk of banana. Knowing those wouldn't really be enough calories, I also had another Endurance Tap to keep me going.

Also some skully smooches from my sweetie.

Some new issues started to crop up as I passed the 4-hour mark - not sure if it's due to my crap stride mechanics or some weirdness that's been going on with my left glutes, but the inside of the top of my calf, passing through my knee and into my lower inner thigh got quite sore when climbing hills. Since there are one or two of those on the course, it was a bit of a bother. I was also just feeling generally beat up in a way I haven't during a 6-hour race in some years; I heard some other people were feeling a bit more battered than usual as well, and I wonder if the sub-freezing temperatures might have had a hand in that. The midsole of my shoes - which provides their cushioning - may have firmed up more than usual in the chill, which was starting to get worse again. 

Some cloud cover was moving in, too, in advance of a massive rainstorm predicted for the evening.

Passing the aid station around 4h20m in and munching back another crisp rice square, I mentioned it was cooling off and got wholehearted agreement from Tanker, Barb and Moe - knowing it wasn't just my inability to move with any sort of energy sealed the deal, and I let Tanker know I'd need my sweater again when I came back through the aid station. I stopped to put it on - which meant taking another minute to doff the elbow-length gloves again - around 4h40m (after my 14th lap, for 35km total), then needed the portajohn again...and not just for a wee. Still no GI distress, but another round of "weight loss". SO WEIRD; maybe too much fibre in the days leading up to the race? I don't know, but at least I was staying hydrated, too, partly due to Tank's amazing efforts - I'd yell his name and show my bottle when I came out of the woods, and he'd take it from me and have it filled by the time I ran up around the building, through the upper woods, and back down to the aid station. Super efficient and time-saving, that - I appreciate him so much, as well as the efforts of the other volunteers. 

Tanker, Barb and Moe at the aid station.

All the wardrobe and portajohn fussing made for my slowest lap of the day (24m5s), though, and I really wished that I'd brought more than 1 caffeinated gel with me as I felt in desperate need of a boost. I was in rough shape: my hamstrings on both legs were creaking unpleasantly, my right ankle had settled down a bit but then came back to painful life when I stepped on a rock, and even my right shoulder was killing me for some reason (despite being entirely used to carrying a bottle around for hours on end). I was feeling so mithered I actually thought to myself at one point that I could just...stop. There wasn't really any reason to continue. But, I tend to finish what I start, and it was still a fairly nice day in the woods, so the rogue thought passed fairly quickly and I pressed on.

I was still managing to run some, but not much.

At least I was more comfortable with my sweater back on, and coming through lap 15 for 37.5km in 5 hours and 2 minutes gave me a pretty comfortable cushion to get in the other 2 laps I wanted to make my default goal of 42.5km. With only an hour left I did knock back my sole sea salt chocolate caffeinated Gu Roctane gel, hoping it would keep me sharp enough to stay upright and un-damaged. I'd made it through so far with only one minor toe catch on a root (without even a stumble!), and aspired to keep it that way. 

Some people were less lucky - at least one brought down by the almost-invisible, foot-size hole in the wood here.

A 21min lap to put me at 40k, and I picked up my bag of beads coming through the start/finish with a number that would correspond to my bib number - I'd drop it wherever I was when the horn sounded to end the race, and that would give me credit for however much of a partial final lap I managed to complete. I hit the aid station one last time for a banana chunk and swallowed my last S!cap (of 6 total) around 5h25m, dropping the flip-top container I keep them in off in the UltraCooler™ so I wouldn't have to carry any excess weight.

Leaving me free to concentrate on not dying.

With 35mins to go I ended up falling in step with a nice fellow named Savvas who had been killing it out there all day, but said he was done and on his last lap. We walked a lot and chatted, only running occasionally as we had no interest in thrashing ourselves. When he told me his average lap times, though, as we were coming down the hill and moving toward the exit of the lower woods, I said I knew he had time for one more full lap as long as he didn't let me slow him down. He decided it was on, and took off running - good for him!

That's him in blue, running up the driveway while ultra legend Ron Gehl heads across the grass toward the aid station.

Coming through my 17th lap with 14mins left on the clock, I had an idea. At my very first Horror Trail 6-hour 10 years previous (called Horror Hill back then) I'd managed to run 44.1km - if I pushed in the last 14mins, I could probably make a mile to equal my 2010 total.

Of course, that meant I'd have to run.

Not to mention climb the big stinkin' hill one more time.
THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS.

I pushed myself harder than I had since the first hour, whipping myself to run up slopes and ignore the angry protest coming from just about everything south of my neck. I was passed by a lady around the 1,200m mark but had nothing with which to answer; I was already at my limit, and knew I needed to be careful about picking up my feet lest I go sprawling. The point was rather emphasized when another fellow passed me, then caught a root in his haste and went down - I made sure he was ok before pressing onward, making it to the 1,600m marker with a minute and a half to go.

Can't stop now - why not see if I can make it to the next marker?

Yep.

With 15 seconds left I passed the 1,800m sign, then dropped my bag of red beads with #23 right on top of two pink-painted rocks in the middle of the trail. I honestly couldn't remember the last time 6 hours felt so long and difficult, or beat me up so badly.

My makeup survived the race much better than the rest of me.

Official distance: 44.26km @ 8:08/km

1/2 W40-49 - 2/7 Women - 13/19 O/A

(Full official results are here)

(Garmin workout data is here)

Splits with notes - amusingly enough, my tourist lap was my fastest of the day!

So there you have it: in 10 years, I've managed to improve my distance by a whole 160 metres.

I knew there weren't very many women in the 6-hour, and based on what I'd seen I actually stood a decent chance of a podium finish. As it turned out, it was a good thing I'd kept going for that final partial lap - another lady had stopped at 42.5km as she'd never run a marathon before and was quite happy to have surpassed one. I could, however, have not dawdled quite so much along the way - when all was said and done, I missed 1st place woman overall by a grand total of 50 metres.

The lady who passed me on my final partial lap was the overall women's winner.

Please don't think I'm not grateful for a 2nd place woman overall finish, though, particularly on a day on which my body had led me to abandon all expectations. I was happy simply to finish upright and not really any worse for wear than I'd been when I started - a place on the podium was an unexpected and flattering cherry on top!

Not bad for a dead chick!

Oh, and Savvas? He beat out another guy by less than a minute for 3rd place overall - so glad I kicked his butt a little to get him running again!

The really weird part is that I was way less sore than I'd have expected in the days afterward. I mean, I had a sore spot on the inside of my left leg at about mid-thigh, my hamstrings were super tight and stiff, and both ankles were a little tender, but there was no trouble walking up and down stairs or post-race penguin waddling. The fatigue was crushing for a couple of days - who knew pushing an already-exhausted body through 6 hours of chilly activity could wear you out? - but even that has faded fairly quickly, and by Wednesday I was running again. I suspect hormones and bad timing had something to do with all this, and either the lack of soreness was due to being unable to push hard during the race itself, or maybe some increased resilience from the pounding my legs took at Falling Water the month before.

Either way, it's now officially my off-season! For a little bit, anyway - not only is the 100 runs in 100 days starting a month early this year, I've also signed up for something really stupid in early December. So, shot myself in the foot for a nice recovery month in November, but I'm still taking it easy for a bit.

And hoping to spend some fun time with this guy right here.

Now to take full advantage of that extra hour of sleep on Saturday night..