The Workout:
17.8 miles of running/hiking
5,000 cumulative vft of climbing
2,000 cumulative vft of descending
3 mile hike to Pisgah summit and back w/ 30lbs of kid, water, food and clothing in backpack.
800 vft each way
Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day with bluebird skies and temps in the 60s. The autumn leaves are absolutely amazing right now. At the bottom, most of the leaves were still on the trees, but at the top, most had already fallen providing long range views. I woke up totally in Zen mode and calmly went through my pre-race routine. The last thing I did before leaving the house was brush my teeth and for some reason, looking in the mirror gave me a brief spell of pre-race butterflies. That quickly subsided and we rounded up the family and headed to the NC Arboretum for the pre-race meeting.
After having a rough week and 3 days home looking after Ellie without much sleep, I had setup a couple of different objectives so that no matter the outcome, I would end up with a personal best of some sort. The first objective was to PR. If I made it to the halfway mark in under an hour and a half, the plan was to push it and go for the kill. If I was slower than that, I would fall back to objective 2, which was to run a medium pace and get to the top feeling good enough to toss Ellie in the babybackpack and hike up to the summit of the mountain with Dad and Bethany from the finish line. (The race actually finishes in the Mt. Pisgah trail head parking lot which is 1.5 miles one way and ~800 vertical feet up to the summit)
Dad (who is in town this week) met Bethany and I at the Arboretum to help juggle Ellie and help with my water/food stops. At 10AM the gun fired and we were off. The first 2 miles or so are pretty chill rolling hills. I “ran into” quite a few people I know and I mostly listened as they spouted off race gossip about the front runners. I was wearing a heart rate monitor and noticed my rate was up over 170. I have learned to use this as my power output meter to keep me from going out too fast in the first part of a race. My shut-in game plan is to keep my heart rate down under 165 bpm during the first half (except for the steep hills that send me through the roof).
I tried a few things including changing my posture, really optimizing my form, and then finally slowing down for about a minute on one easy section. I think of a HRM as being synonymous with the Windows Task manager that shows % CPU output. Through trial and error, I have a good idea how hard my CPU should be working during certain common tasks. Just like a computer, if the CPU is working harder than your benchmarks, you know some other process is using valuable CPU cycles from the rest of the system. No matter what I did short of stopping and doing some situps, my bpm stayed in the 170s. I felt pretty good so I just settled into a nice even medium pace and cruised along. I figured the most likely candidate was my immune system process mobilizing to fend off some stupid Ellie bug. Not much to do about that.
I stayed on pace and passed quite a few people on the hills. I knew it would be close as I clipped on in to the halfway mark at Bent Creek gap and made it there in 1:29:05 with 55 seconds to spare. Dad told me I was in 39th place. I was happy because a lot of people go out too fast during the first half and end up literally crawling hands and feet up the last mile long, ridiculously steep and sustained hill. I was also slightly bummed because my HRM was still not telling me good things. Whatever, I was feeling positive and rolled on.
By the 12th mile marker, I started cramping up slightly in both Quads… during a relatively easy flat section no less. Sh*t. Most running books will tell you this is most likely the result of running out of something. Dehydration and low electrolytes top the list. I immediately dumped both flasks of water/Gatorade from my belt down the hatch and slowed down. Within a half mile, I felt like I had two giant apples imbedded in my Quads right above the knee and was forced to stop, stretch and then walk a bit. It was very weird because my breathing was fine and I felt fine other than feeling like a young Forrest Gump wearing rusty metal braces impeding my mobility. At the next two aid stations I drank a lot, ate a banana and a PowerBar. Dad and Bethany just looked a mixture of sad and concerned as they watched me lope in to each aid station. I just smiled real big and said I was cool and that I just blew up and was in survival mode. I repeatedly told them not to worry. I would get there eventually.
With 3 miles to go, I began recovering and loosening up but people were still passing me left and right. I heartily encouraged them all on their way and kept putting one foot in front of the other, sometimes jogging and sometimes walking. One friend I’ve destroyed the last two years came steadily along and then what seemed like a whole slew of old fogies and women of the non-badass variety came on through. Haha. I laughed out loud when I thought how similar to getting the slow Go-Kart at an amusement park this felt like. I felt great driving and had no lack of competitive spirit but my wheels just sucked. By the time I made it to the last 2 mile section, I had for the most part recovered from cramping. Few people passed me and I passed quite a few. (most of which were moaning and groaning “When will this hill ever end! while intermittently crawling). My co-worker came with in 30 yards of me at one point but I fended off the 0.5 mi/hr attack by keeping my walking pace even with his. As I hit the last crest and prepared to roll downhill the final ¾ miles to the parking lot, I was in unbelievably good spirits. I passed around 5 people, all who were just dying. 20 yds short of the finish, still obscured by the trees I did something strange. I stopped and let one dude who beat me to the high point pass back by and finish ahead of me, saying “You earned it man, Good job”. That felt good. I wasn’t in position to PR but was a couple of minutes faster than the first year I ran it.
My finish time for the 17.8 miles was 3 hrs 20 minutes and a few milliseconds. I looked this morning and was surprised to find that I finished in 50th place. It sure felt like more people passed me than that after the half way point but who am I to complain :o)
I have never finished a Shut-In Race feeling better, physically and mentally. Both Dad and Bethany noticed me jovially walking around and congratulating those people I knew and made comments that I must not have run hard enough if I felt so good. I still don’t think they understand. I would love to bust into the awards and have and will work my butt off to do it. I still can’t feel bad about just enjoying the hello out of the run. Soooo….after a bit of negotiation and me offering to carry food, water and Ellie, I convinced Bethany and Dad to hike up to the summit with me. The view was spectacular for 360o. Dad got all sentimental as he could see his old flying romping grounds. Bethany had a great time and enjoyed taking lots of pictures. Ellie just chilled out and enjoyed the walk.
All in all, it was as good an experience as I could have asked for.
I still felt awesome for another two hours, like I could to go home and repaint the house or tile the living room entry way. After a delicious lunch at a local Greek shop, we finally went home. Once there, exhaustion hit with me like a ton of bricks. I took a light 4 hour nap, woke up for dinner and went back to sleep for the night. Sunday I slept in until 11am (including the time change) and then lay around all day on the couch feeling sore from head to toe. Not muscular sore, but the kind of feverish soreness that feels like every hair follicle on your body has been ripped out of its socket and inserted somewhere else. Whatever my body had been fighting had taken the upper hand and I fell into a 103o fever that didn’t break until early this morning. I’m at work now but wearing a big jacket in a room full of honkies in t-shirts. I still say it was worth every second :o)
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