After we did Squaw Peak 50 miler in Utah a couple of weeks
ago, both Alicia and I were struggling to shake off the tiredness of that race.
I knew that Mohican 100 would be more of a challenge now. There was the usual
pre-race pasta dinner. I sat next to a guy who said he would be at the Fire
Tower aid station, and would see me four times on the course (it is a 4-loop
course this year). After eating the pre-race pasta, I looked for some water to
wash it down with. On one of the tables, I saw some cups filled with something
that looked like lemon-lime Gatorade. It tasted surprisingly good for a sports
drink. The first sip should have rung alarm bells, but it didn’t and I drank
the whole cup.
I went to sleep at 9:30. Or, rather, went to bed. Sleep did
not come about. After lots of tossing and turning, it was 3:30 AM – time to get
up and get ready for the race. At the start line, I was thinking about the
ridiculousness of things going wrong – almost Murphyeqse: my throat was on
fire, hadn’t recovered fully from Squaw Peak 50, and, to top it off, no sleep
at night. With so much silliness, I would have normally started with the
thought that I am definitely going to drop out. Strangely, I did not – for some
reason, I knew I was going to finish.
The course was 4 (almost identical) loops. The first 2
identical loops were 27 miles each, and the final two identical loops were 23
each. The short loops differed from the long loops in one section only. The
estimates of elevation gain/loss vary from +/- 13K ft to +/- 15K ft. The trails
are mostly runnable – with just a few technical sections. Overall, a
challenging, but not an overly hard course.
The cacophony of things going wrong lowered my own
expectations – I started out much slower than I would otherwise have had. I did
not try to pass anyone on the first 1.5 mile of the road section. After we got
to the singletrack, there was a bit of jam at several points. My lowered
expectations meant that I was not much bothered by ‘losing’ time. This first
section had several hills – it was important to pace oneself. It started to
thin out a bit around when we got to the first aid station (about 4.5 miles). At
that aid station, I noticed the “lemon-lime Gatorade” again. “I wonder if this
one will taste as good as the one last night?”, I thought as I took a sip. At
that moment, I saw a curious bottle of Mountain Dew sitting right next to the “Gatorade”
cups. Oops! That explains the sleepless night! I made a mental note of never
drinking any liquid unless I know of its source – especially the night before a
race.
The section to the next aid station was very runnable. I
went fairly slow on this section. For a while I was running with this woman
from Virginia who told me a story about someone at Old Dominion taking too many
salt pills (4/hour) and having to drop out after gaining 16 lbs. I thought
about invoking Tim Noakes, but decided against it. When we got to the next aid
station (Fire Tower, ~9 miles total), I saw the aid station volunteer who I had
talked to at the pasta dinner. By this time, I was in a fair bit of pain –
ankles and hamstrings. “This is trouble, so early in the race”. However,
somehow I still wasn’t thinking about dropping out. “I’ll finish this loop,
then take an ibuprofen”, I thought. In 100 milers, I avoid taking my first pain
killer till after mile 50 – but I knew that I would have to take them before
that in this race.
The next section started out quite pleasant, but became
quite technical after a while – especially running along a stream bed.
Somewhere along this section, the first two 50 mile runners passed me. On this
first loop, and also the loop after that, it is 6.2 miles from Fire Tower to
the next aid station (Covered Bridge). It took a while to finish this section.
The hardest part of the loop starts after one leaves Covered Bridge it is
mostly uphill to the next aid station (Hickory Ridge, 5.5 miles) – and quite steep
in sections. The part after that (from Hickory Ridge to start/finish) is about
6 miles, but mostly downhill, and very runnable.
I finished the first loop in about 5:45. Took my ibuprofen,
and started out on the second loop. After a while, the drugs kicked in – and I
was able to run in much less pain. I talked to a guy named John (doing the 50) on
this loop and we decided to make fun of marathoners for doing only one loop and
being such babies. The loop went okay – and it took me slightly longer (6:20)
to do this loop.
More ibuprofen at the end of the second loop, and I started on
the third loop. I was looking forward to the shortened section between Fire
Tower and Covered Bridge (2.6 miles this time). I was able to maintain approximately
the same pace on the 3rd loop as I did on the 2nd.
It got
dark soon after I left the Hickory Ridge aid station. Towards the end of this
loop, the ibuprofen was unable to subdue the pain, and I knew that an even pace
(critical for doing the race under 24 hours) will be very hard to maintain. I
know, I know, I said I had lowered my expectation, but the fact that I was able
to maintain an even pace for the 2nd and (most of) the 3rd
loop raised my expectations. I I tried to maintain that pace between
start/finish and the first aid station, but it took me 1:10, instead of 1 hour
that it took me on loops 2 and 3. The section after that, again, took 10
minutes longer. I had to readjust my expected finish time to be between 25 and
26 hours. Also, on this loop, the cumulative stomach effect of one ibuprofen
too many was becoming evident, and I was unable to eat or drink much on this
loop.
On this last loop, the lack of sleep accrued from the night
before started to take its toll. That, along with ibuprofen-cannot-deal-with-it-any-longer
pain, made for a couple of excruciating sections between Fire Tower and Hickory
Ridge. I don’t think I did much running here. After I left Hickory Ridge, I
realized that if I don’t pull myself up, I will have to adjust my finish time
upwards again. That time adjustment seemed to be too hard to take mentally, so,
I forced myself to start running most flats and all downhills again.
About 3-4 miles from the finish, I caught up with this guy
who was looking quite confused. He asked me if we were on the right trail. I
had just seen a flag a couple of minutes ago, so I replied in the affirmative.
In a short while, we passed another flag. He looked at the flag and nodded –
seemingly satisfied. Two minutes later, he again asked – “Are we on the right
trail? This does not look familiar.” This went on for 2-3 more times – we would
pass a course flag, the guy would nod, and then, two minutes later, ask if we
were on the right track. It did manage to entertain me for a bit and keep my
mind off the pain.
Now, only 2.5 miles to the finish – home free! Not so fast,
says the ankle roll. For a moment, I felt as if I was in a Shakespearean play
which seemed headed towards a happy ending until the final scene, when the ultimate
tragedy occurred. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad – the messenger, set out to inform
Romeo of Juliet’s death being fake, managed to reach Romeo in time. It was
starting to get light out, so I was better able to spot those nasty rocks on
the trail. The sprain wasn’t too much of a bother, and I managed to finish in
25:45, with the last loop taking me over 7.5 hours.
I started out with very low expectations for the finish
time, managed to raise my expectations to a sub 24 finish 3/4th of
the way in, and finished somewhere in-between. Sub-24 on this challenging
course would have been nice, but I am not too disappointed. Plus, finishing in decent
time in a challenging 100 miler two weeks after a hard 50 miler is good
training for challenges ahead, right?
