2007 “Dances With Dirt” 50 Mile Ultra Marathon
Yes, it was three years ago, but every now and then I'm left recalling the experience, and believe it is worth sharing. Here are my journal notes from that amazing point in time - September 2007...
Sunday 9/2/07 - Six days removed from a road trip to Louisville to sign up for the 2008 Louisville Ironman (Aug 31st, 2007) and six days before my initial attempt at an ultra marathon distance run (Dances With Dirt), I sit here quietly with my family busily going about the activities of their day all around me. We are enjoying a Labor Day camping weekend, but my mind continuously wanders to thoughts, ideas, questions and concerns about next weeks race. I’m almost equally distracted by thoughts of the upcoming months of training required for next years Ironman race.
Just minutes ago I finished reading “Running Through the Wall” – a compilation of short essays by ultra runners. With those stories fresh in my mind, it is easy to imagine myself floating (or struggling?) down a trail in pursuit of my first ultra marathon finish. Despite conscious effort, it is difficult to give attention to my loved ones with me now, in this moment in time. My short run through the woods this morning provided positive feedback that my taper is working. That too fuels the feelings of wishing I was already at the races’ start line!
The Dances With Dirt ultra marathon consists of a 50k (31 miles) and 50 mile adventure of trail running. It is virtually all single track trail, with sections barely traversable, let alone runnable. There are river crossings, ankle deep muck (or worse), and hills that require a crawl on all fours going up and a butt-slide coming down. When I signed up, I had every intention of completing the 50k. I still do. However, my mindset has changed such that I now consider the 50k finish as my primary goal. Dare I continue past that finish line in pursuit of 50 miles? No one knows. Not me, anyway. I certainly didn’t train to run 50 miles. This is surely a ridiculous thought. Yet…
God has a plan for each and every one of us. Seeking to understand this is inherent in our DNA. We are wired such that we naturally seek to know “the meaning of life”. Men are like waffles, women are like spaghetti (no, I didn’t coin this, it is the title of a pretty good book). Men typically compartmentalize (think of the squares on a waffle) and women integrate all of their life into a complex network (spaghetti). Regardless, we all seek meaning and gain wisdom in different ways. Physical activity is one significant square on my waffle and it is where much of my “mental processing” happens. I’ve always recognized a certain opportunity for honoring God while running through the woods, but my primary focus (if I’m being honest) was on the benefits of training. As I grow older my compulsion to be in the woods is becoming less about the physical, and more about the emotional and spiritual. Perhaps this explains the draw to run the ultra – a true test of what you are made of, a seeking to understand a bit better this creation miracle called the human body.
My waffle is one of those big restaurant style ones. I have more compartments than can be accounted for on one of those little store bought kind. My wife has an equally sizable pile of spaghetti on her plate. Life is not easy. Yet it can be simple (more on this another day ;-). This realization comes to many of us in many different ways - even traversing a river crossing, recognizing you’ll be running an untold number of additional miles in wet feet!
Life is good.
Press On!
9/7/07 Ahhh, Friday evening, the night before the race has finally arrived. While my training taper went well, nothing else this week would qualify as a good pre-race routine. Tuesday began the first day of a three day audit at work. My subsequent lack of availability meant time spent each evening answering an untold number of emails and today was packed with seven meetings. Yuck. Well, the final meeting ended shortly after three, and despite a desk suffering the ravages of a week of meetings and little time to organize, not to mention an inbox overflowing with unread emails, I closed my door and headed out – that stuff will have to wait until Monday!
Once home I assembled my small mountain of supplies I thought I might need for the race – it looks like I’m going camping for a weekend ;-) About 5 I headed out to the race site to check in. That is where it happened – I took the leap and officially put my name on the 50 mile list. While my plan was to just “see what you can do”, and out of that I had entertained the thought of pressing on past 50k, I really wanted to reach that 50 mile finish line… Better get home and get some sleep…yeah, right J
9/8/07 Race day – Up about 4, after a fitful night, I gather up my stuff and my support crew – my wife Pam, daughter Stephanie, and 6 week old grandson Jacob. We were on the road before 5 – good thing ‘cause we needed to turn around once (forgot the camera) and stop for gas & ice.
We arrived about 5:45 for the 6:15 start. There was a quiet buzz as runners milled about in the dark, doing last minute preparations. Flashlights and headlights pierced the darkness, darting here and there – many clustered in a single area…oh, that must be where the bathrooms are J
After a few words from our race director (Randy Step of Running Fit) we were off and running. With lights bouncing everywhere, a stream of 250 ultra runners (73 of which were scheduled to run the 50 miles) headed off into the darkness. We were given a 90 minute head start on the mass of relay teams that would soon be converging on this area.
The morning light crept quickly up on us (at least me). Seemed like we went from flashlights to sunlight in a moments time. The first aid station was 4.75 miles down the trail – but felt like 6. Hmmm…doesn’t bode well for me…I dumped my flashlight into a box that was to be returned and pressed on through the aid stop.
The second aid station was another 3.7 miles down another piece of nice trail. Here is where I remembered that I am supposed to check in at each aid station. Oops. They assure me it isn’t a problem that I’d missed the first one and after exchanging a greeting with my friend Kacey (volunteering at the aid station and you bet she’d be running herself if she wasn’t quite pregnant ) I head off onto the 3rd leg. By now my energy was flowing, the sun was shinning, I was having a blast, and was ready – bring it on!
My strategy was a common ultra one, to run 5 minutes and walk for 2. That was quickly abandoned, however, because of all the hills. It is also an ultra standard to walk the hills. So my plan changed to walking the up-hills and running everything else.
Most of the first 19 miles was quite runnable, though a couple of climbs on “Stripper Pole” took a serious effort, even when walking, and one required us to crawl! The “Styx, River of Death” leg brought us to the 19 mile mark, but we had to cross the river three different times and then finish with a quarter mile run upstream (yes, in the river) to get there. This marked the real beginning of the race. The legs began to feel the toll of the miles and the terrain was starting to get tough. This is what Dances with Dirt is all about.
After a change of shoes I was off again. Two more legs down and I was at the 25 mile mark. Half way! I was beginning to feel a bit toasted, but still smiling and enjoying the perfect day (mostly sunny and in the 70’s). Oh, except for the mosquito’s. They were nasty!
At the halfway point I had fallen behind my 10 hour goal pace (though I knew it wasn’t realistic due to my lack of training), but was still moving well. The next leg (“Poto”), however, took a lot out of me as it is a challenging trail of tough hills littered with rocks and roots. I fell twice (once hard), obviously the fatigue leading to me failing to pick my feet up, and by the 31 mile mark (50k finish) I was beginning to question my choice to pursue the 50 mile goal.
My wife and daughter met me at every aid station, helped me change shoes, kept me fueled, kept me smiling and shared in a gazillion or so mosquito bites. I could tell they were unsure on how to handle me at this point. I looked rough. Should they console me with the idea that 50k is a great accomplishment or should they encourage me to go on? In the end, I knew I wasn’t done yet. Take it one leg at a time, we agreed, and off I went on “Where’s the f’n bridge?!” This leg gets its name because it was the first ever river crossing on DWD some eight years ago. It is now more famous (infamous?) because of the nastiness that awaits on the other side of the river. One wrong step and – ugh – that’s the one. Suddenly I find myself up to my thighs in muck. It takes a couple of minutes to extricate myself, and it continues to be a slow go through the balance of the muck trying not to repeat that mistake. Finally, after what seems like an hour, I’m back on a real trail heading to the aid station. This aid station is at a lake and I gladly head directly into the lake to clean myself up a bit.
Another change of shoes and I’m off on the leg known as “Vertigo”. Up and down, up and down, up and down – and these are no ordinary hills. These are drag yourself up and hold on for dear life going down kind of hills. This leg is hard enough on its own, but after 37 miles, my quads were screaming for a break. I was looking forward to the next leg – “The Stupid Lake”. Surely a run in a nice cool, sandy bottom lake would cool my legs and re-energize me a bit. Well, if the lake wasn’t 90 degrees and the run in the lake like a half mile long maybe that would have been the case. Oh well, I pushed on through the lake and arrived at the next aid station. 43 down, 7 to go.
This was my longest aid stop as I was cramping really bad heading into this stop, and it got a lot worse when I tried to sit and change my shoes. My hamstrings knotted, my quads knotted, even my bicep cramped when taking a drink from my bottle! Here was a place I certainly had never been before, having been on my feet for over 10 hours. Trained only for a 5 hour 50k, I was digging deep. This level of discomfort was obvious to the relay runners sharing this aid station with me – it was an exchange point for them. A number of them were eyeing me nervously. One woman brought me a bag of ice and I spent several minutes on a chair icing my legs, trying to ease the cramping. Finally, I pulled myself up from the chair, gave my wife and daughter a kiss of gratitude for seeing me through to this point, and headed on down the trail. As I did, the relay crowd erupted into a cheer, the cries of “Way to go Ultra!” penetrated my somewhat fuzzy state of mind and caused the hair on my neck to stand. It was like a jump start. While I may not have looked like much at the time, I knew right then that I would finish no matter what it took.
By this time, I’m unable to run anything other than the flats. I’m forced to walk up or down anything that even resembles a hill. My hamstrings were cramping on the walk up, and my quads would cramp on the walk down. Left, right, left, right. Forward progress is the goal. Left, right, left, right…
The trail opened up into a field and was approaching a road crossing. While I couldn’t see the road, hearing traffic up ahead I was thinking that this would be a good excuse to stop – to allow traffic to pass. I crest the ridge only to find a car holding up traffic! Well, guess I’m obliged to accept this “gift” and continue across the road. What happens next is pretty cool. How ‘bout we let my buddy Chris tell the story…
“On race day, I was competing as part of a relay team(100K), and as we
were nearing the end of our race, we were stuck in a bit of traffic on
a dirt road where cars were stopped to allow runners to cross the road,
when who do I see crossing the road, Chuck. Seeing him at this point
meant that he was certainly past the 50K, and done with about 43 miles
of the 50 miler. I was just awestruck and immediately jumped out of
the car and started yelling to him cheering him on. Even after having
gone 43 miles, in about 10.5 hours, he was still SMILING and still
RUNNING STRONG!!!!! He later said that this encouragement was a big
boost, and I'm sure that it was no coincidence that out of about 2200
runners, that we got stuck right at that point, right at that time.
That was an act of God. It was certainly an inspirational moment for
me.”
were nearing the end of our race, we were stuck in a bit of traffic on
a dirt road where cars were stopped to allow runners to cross the road,
when who do I see crossing the road, Chuck. Seeing him at this point
meant that he was certainly past the 50K, and done with about 43 miles
of the 50 miler. I was just awestruck and immediately jumped out of
the car and started yelling to him cheering him on. Even after having
gone 43 miles, in about 10.5 hours, he was still SMILING and still
RUNNING STRONG!!!!! He later said that this encouragement was a big
boost, and I'm sure that it was no coincidence that out of about 2200
runners, that we got stuck right at that point, right at that time.
That was an act of God. It was certainly an inspirational moment for
me.”
With that encouragement, I was pretty stoked and proceeded to bound up the next hill. Chris was at the next (and final) aid station and that sure helped to ease the pain. Just someone to talk to for a minute, to get my mind off how rough I felt, helped. Don’t get me wrong, though. Physically I was more drained and sore than I had ever been – but I was absolutely enjoying every minute of this adventure. What a blessing to be able to participate in something like this! How can I say this so that it makes sense – to have my wife helping me out of nasty, mucky shoes, drying off my feet and putting warm, dry socks on for me – that is true love, folks!
The last leg, I was told, was a gentle trail of 4.1 miles – piece of cake. Well, only problem is there were few flat sections. I was forced to walk much of it. Two other runners caught me about half way through and we walked, jogged and talked our way to where the trail came out to the road across from the lake where the finish line was. I asked “you guys up to running to the finish?” We all agreed and shuffled the last quarter mile, down the big hill (with screaming pain every step ;-) to the finish line. There was big applause as we neared, I saw a number of familiar faces cheering, and my daughter and little Jacob joined me for the last 50 yards to the finish line where my wife was waiting with a kiss.
My ultra experience was everything I had hoped for and more. It was a journey of discovery. It was an introduction into the brotherhood of ultra runners. It was a test and testimony to the strength of the partnership with my wife. I hope it was a good example to my daughter of working for something and giving every last ounce of strength to obtain it. Most of all, though, it was some wonderful quiet moments in the woods, doing what I love, testing my limits and sharing it all with the deer, chipmunks, squirrels and even snakes that served as our fan club that day. This provides an amazing opportunity to praise and give thanks for all we are blessed with. On this day, I was truly rich.
(Side note - of the 73 that started, there were 35 finishers. I finished 26th in 12:21:30)
