FANS 12…er 24 Hour race report

(The fans race course)

The skinny: at 11:44 I was at 45.2 miles but my stomach was upset; I didn’t digest a couple of slices of watermelon. At mile 42.8, I had been feeling “on top of the world”, thinking “wow, I’ve got it today”. How quickly things can change.

It took me 1:55 to cover the lap that took me from 45.2 to 47.6 miles, and so I tried to nap. No avail; I was nauseated when I woke up and so I retired.

The good news: the 45.2 miles (in heat and humidity) in 11:44 represents a major improvement over where I had been recently; in fact my marathon split was about 6:33, or 17 minutes slower than two weeks ago (under similar conditions).

The bad news: my stomach has lost the ability to go much beyond 12 hours; my guess is that I am simply too heavy to last much longer than that. When I did my 100s (including one sub 24 hour walk), I was about 10 pounds lighter.

Race results: they will be up at the race site, But the top two 24 hour walkers were John Greene who gutted out 100.8 miles, and Barb Curnow who overcame a touchy stomach and blisters to make 67 miles (a good performance on a tough day).

My race report follows:

1. Social: I just love the people that I met up again: John and Betty Greene, Barb Kurnow and her husband, Ray Sharp (world cup racewalker), Julie Berg, Bob Metzger, Bruce Leisure and many others.

2. My race: basically I started moderately and was at 3:17 at 13.78 miles. However I knew that it was getting hot and muggy and so I deliberately slowed down and drank plenty of sugar free Powerade zero which kept me in it. I ate a small meal and it took a nice long time to digest the food.

During this stretch I walked some with Barb (I should have walked more with her) and at 25.9 miles I was at 6:29. I was then able to pick it up a bit and reach 30.8 miles (about 50km) at 7:44.

The next bit went fairly well, even though it included a 15 minute pit stop to relube some hot spots on my foot. I hit 33.2 miles in 8:22 (over 1 hour faster than last year’s much cooler Farmdale race) and 10:26 at 40.3 miles, then 11:05 at 42.8 miles.

But during my last food stop, I was only able to eat two slices of bread; my stomach was a bit touchy. Then I tried to eat a couple of small slices of watermelon; that made me sick. So though Bruce walked a lap with me and I got to 45.2 miles in 11:44, I was all but finished.

I went from “top of the world” to “splut” in 2.4 miles.

I tried rest, walk, rest, walk and it took me 1:55 to do the next 2.4 miles, and so I tried a 2 hour nap. When I got up, I felt nauseated still and so I called it a day.

On the drive back to the motel I kept a bad I could spit in, and then I threw up in the parking lot, thereby making myself feel much better.

Ironically, if I didn’t have a room for the night, I would have stayed at the race course and done that which would have enabled me to get in a few more miles, but that is “would have, could have, should have” at this point.

Scattered comments
1. I talked to Jeff Hagen who wrote an excellent article about the 24 hour track race; he has a slew of 100 mile wins and 24 hour wins under his belt. I noticed that his recovery walking speed is faster than my normal walking! As we crossed one concrete bridge (going against the wind, he noted to me that several runners were burning energy unnecessarily by running that stretch.

2. Barb Curnow yelled at me for going to fast early; she was right! She said: “next time, walk some with the old lady”. I might actually listen to her.

3. There were tons of attractive women of all ages out there; that took some of the pain away.

4. Ray Sharp retired after 25 miles; he was just blistering along at about 9 minutes per mile. But due to his recent racing, he was unwilling to pay the price. I suppose racing at such a high level for so long burns one out.

5. John Green gave a gut wrenching performance to become a new Centurion. He would have been way over 100 miles on a cooler day.

6. I used an ice bag to keep ice on my head (under my cap); that really helped during the very hot stretches.

7. Julie Berg looked so strong during this race; she wore a pink top and pink “dirty girl” gaiters and finished with 104 miles. She smiles, even in the final miles!

But the good news is that I got enough sleep to make it to breakfast (where I sat with John, his family and friends) and then got to see Minnehaha falls up close.

Later, I hope to visit the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul.

For the record: (first lap is 1.66 miles, the rest are 2.42 miles)

26:07
34:42
34:41
34:41
33:52
33:39
35:20
39:04
37:54 (eat)
40:37 (digest)
38:50 (hot!)
37:49
37:30
37:18
51:34 (lube job pit stop, eat)
35:47
36:41
38:49
39:33 (started to feel sick)
1:55 (couldn’t go any faster, stopped 2-3 times)

Ok, where do I go from here? This is my last long ultra for a long, long time. I hope to recover a bit this week (swim) and then start working toward being able to race a 5K run.

My training weeks should look something like this: 3-4 swims, 3-4 runs, 3-4 walks (some, if not most on running days), 2 days of weights (including lower body weights), 3-4 yoga sessions, 1-3 bike sessions. Obviously, some of these will be on the same day.

I need to regain some standard of fitness; my body is, well, soft and weak. Long ultras will have to wait until I am fit again.

I might power walk the Quad Cities Marathon and maybe the Chicago Ultra (50K). But mostly, my racing will be those stupid little 5Ks with maybe, say, the 8 miler at Farmdale.