Highland Sky 40 mile race

Results

Canaan Valley, WV

June 14, 2014

‘Aaron, my stomach hurts.’

It was 2am, a week and 4 hours before Highland Sky, and Aaron was still half-asleep.  ‘Maybe it will pass,’ he offered.

I’ll spare further details, but the next 48 hours my bathroom was a pyrotechnics of gastric fluids.  The different colored Gatorade and Pedialite tinged my gastric fluids with a remarkable array of fluorescent pigments.  I’ve had Southeast Asian stomach ails, I’ve had African stomach ails, and nothing has approached the intensity of that Macomb St stomach bug.  I’m not sure what bug was in my belly (I suspect it was from a burger I ate at a restaurant Thursday night that was undercooked), but my body was so determined to expel it using all orifices, including through my nose, and with such force, that my back ached for days.  The first time I tried to drink something, I took a couple sips of ginger ale, was so proud of myself, and then blurted out Aaron, I think I need a bucket……before heaving all over the hardwood floor on my way to the bathroom.

‘Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes!’  It was Monday morning and hadn’t eaten for days.

‘I’m not making any pancakes,’ Aaron explained, ‘until you prove first that you can eat some jello.’

Fair enough.  If I lay perfectly horizontally I could eat, because as soon as I tried to lift my head I got queasy.  So Aaron had to spoon feed me like a baby bird.  I got down a couple spoonfuls of red jello with effort.

‘So, like, exactly how much jello do I have to eat before I get my pancakes?’

Aaron laughed, and whipped up some big pancakes, which I devoured (well, 1.5 pancakes, but that was more than I’d eaten in days).  The pancakes were a turning point in my recovery, and soon I was getting down crackers and bits of cheese and later some applesauce.  When I was finally rehydrated and peeing normally, I weighed myself: 111 pounds.  I’ve been struggling keeping my weight up all spring.  I like to be at least 120, but I’ve had all kinds of abdominal issues all spring that have kept me in and out of doctors’ offices, and I’d slumped down to 116-ish.  I looked too skinny in my Delaware Marathon photos a couple weeks ago.  Ironically, the fatty hamburger and fries I had eaten at Burger 21 was as part of Operation Fatty Marmot was the likely culprit of whatever bug had emptied my insides.

Our fridge was spilling over with food, because one moment I would be able to eat a certain food, and then for the next days I wouldn’t touch it.  After my great initial pancake breakthrough, I think it’ll be another couple of weeks before I can eat a pancake again.  Fortunately, there is an amazing pizza place just down the street from us (Vace) and I was living off of their slices.  By Tuesday my cat could sleep on my belly without me writhing in pain, by Wednesday I was walking, and by Thursday I was back at work.  My poops remained extremely pale, which Google told me was the result of having barfed out so much of my bile.  I remained extremely tired, and opted out of the Thursday morning swim.  But when Thursday evening rolled around, I tossed my running stuff into the Jeep.  My creed has always been that if I can walk, I can run.

~                                 ~                            ~

Well, dagger legs are better than barfing, I suppose.   I was fifteen miles into Highland Sky.  I had decided to run non-competitively, slowly, and see how far I could get, on the basis that my appetite had been restored, at least in part (I couldn’t yet do Sheetz, but I could do pizza).  But I had underestimated how tight my legs had gotten during those days of lying on the couch, and how weak they had become during their inactivity and malnourishment.

Even still, I had enjoyed myself for the first half of the race, running with some kind folks who chatted with me.  Highland Sky is one of my favorite races, on my home turf in Canaan, and it was nice to just be out there.  Rick Gray gamely tolerated my company during my favorite stretch of the race between AS #2 at the end of big first climb and AS #4 at the start of the dreaded road section.  Running with Rick made that section particularly delightful, as Rick was exactly the kind of guy I like to run with — someone who exudes a comfortable knowledge of what he’s doing out there.  But the ensuing Road Across the Sky was not kind on my IT bands, and by the time I got to the Sodds I was very uncomfortable running down hill.

Hey, you should stop running.  You’re too skinny!   There was a group of about twenty riders on horses in the Sodds, and one of the guys thought he was very funny.  ‘I’ll tell you why I’m skin and bones!‘ I wanted to retort.  ‘Because I puked out five pounds along with my Shigella or maybe E. coli or maybe Salmonella.  I *know* I shouldn’t be out here on these wobbly little stick legs.  So maybe YOU should get your fat ass down here and run, and I can ride that pretty horse of yours back to Canaan.‘  But I was way too tired for any sass.  I just stared ahead and willed my wobbly legs up the hill to AS#7.

At AS#7, I made myself at home on a rock and sat eating watermelon and swigging ginger ales, taking in the beautiful view up there.  I was hurting and hadn’t much desire to gut out the rest of the course.  But I had dropped at this very aid station back in 2011, and I knew I couldn’t drop there again.  Furthermore, I was still holding 5th place for Last Shwag.  And, god, all I could think about was how Aaron had sufferfested through the race last year with his Lyme disease, and how lame it would be to drop.  So I ushered myself off the rock and limped along.

The rest of my race was my own version of Sufferfest.  Getting down the ‘butt slide’ was so painful on my IT I almost hyperventilated.  Several other runners showed deep concern, but I assured everyone I was going to make it to the finish.  On the last stretch of road my IT screamed even to walk, and it occurred to me that I might not get to choose whether I finished or not.  My thoughts flickered back to Brian Greeley and how two years ago he’d made me look back like 50 times on that road to make sure no 6th man was coming so he could hold onto his 5th place Last Shwag.  I hurt so bad, I didn’t even care if I got passed at this point.  I just did my sad walk.  But shortly after passing the ‘1-mile left to go’ sign I noticed another woman approaching behind me.

No, no f-in way.  I am not getting passed in the last mile.  I hadn’t been running the race competitively at all up to that point, stepping aside the whole race to let people pass more easily — men and women alike.  But I had hurt so bad for so long, I had been through so much — from the days of puking to this screaming IT band — my competitive flair kicked in.  With a new surge of adrenaline, I ran the last mile in.  Fortunately there were no downhills.  Well, until the very last 50 meters to the finish, a steep downhill that I managed by turning sideways and pony-galloping down the hill.

Aaron was waiting at the finish line, having had a bit of a Sufferfest himself with nasty heel pain.  I was awarded with a fatty Patagonia jacket (Last Shwag), which I absolutely cherish (so warm!).  It turned out Boots was the woman in 6th, and she came in a minute later for a stellar performance of her own.  Priya came in, and Tom and Kirstin also found their way to the finish line (albeit via a self-designed course).

My friend Kathy was reported ‘missing’ at one point, but emerged as the last runner to make it under the cut-off (a point of great pride).  I think the tougher the race, the more camaraderie everyone feels at the end, and between the bright sun and the fact that none of us had to run anymore, there were high spirits all around.  In the delirium of his post-run high, Luke invited me and Aaron down to Richmond to ride his ponies.  Luke, we will be taking you up on this offer.

Aaron and I enjoy hosting all the Wussies at the Chophouse.  We particularly liked the post-race bird watching activity with Tom and Kirstin on Sunday morning.  We didn’t see any woodpeckers, but there were bobolinks and cedar waxwings and beautiful yellow warblers.  All the hues are brighter in Canaan than in DC.  I think we should start a Wussies for Warblers sub-club.

 

 

When not skiing in Italy or France, Aaron and I stash pb&j  sandwiches in our pockets.  The aim of our ski morning then becomes to not fall and squish the guts out of our sandwiches into our pockets.  The joy of the pb&j is that if you happen to come across a beautiful spot on the mountain, and it happens to be lunch-ish-time, you can plop yourself down then and there to munch.  Of course, this option is only realistic when the wind isn’t blistering your face, and the overlap between the time period when the wind isn’t blistering your face + the time period when there is sufficient snow to ski = the last two weeks of May.

Arapahoe Basin is the last ski resort in Colorado to close down for summer, due to its high elevation and pride.  The conditions aren’t great for ‘real’ skiing, so it’s kind of just a party — plenty of chicks in bikinis, one guy wore a banana suit, a bunch of dudes spent the day practicing their backflips off a jump.

Aaron, Boots, and I signed up for the Lurray International Distance Triathlon on August 16, 2014.  This will be my first triathlon.  Which apparently means that between now and August I need to learn to ride a bike.

I was exceedingly pleased with the bike I rented from Rebel Sports in Frisco, Colorado.  The sales dude referred to it as a ‘comfort’ bike.  Thirty-four miles later, after we had biked from Frisco to Breckenridge (sandwich break #1), back to Frisco and around the lake to Dillon (sandwich break #2), my ass was very grateful for the extra padding.

 

 

Road running is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  There’s nothing particularly thrilling or unexpected.  But it’s a comfort food, and sometimes it just hits the spot.

Lately I’ve been stretching myself athletically in ways I haven’t since way back when I was a kid.  It’s been exciting, learning new sports like swimming and mountain biking, getting back into skiing, running my first 50 miler at Bull Run.

But it’s all been a very humbling experience.  I’ve had to learn how to get passed.  How to half-drown and gasp in the pool as I try to thrash across 25 meters.  How to miserably watch all the perky ponytails go by as I sit barfy and queasy in a chair mid-Bull Run.  Aaron likes to mention how I’m the only person he’s ever seen get off a bike to go down a hill.

Ultra running has kind of bludgeoned a part of my self-image.  Since I moved to DC in 2008 I’ve raced the road marathon distance seven times, each time within a mere four-minute window, between 2:55 – 2:59, always managing to slip under the three hour barrier.  I’ve run injured, I’ve run sick, I’ve had stomach problems, I’ve pooped in the woods midway, I’ve been overtrained, undertrained – but I can always churn it out over those short distances.  I’m similarly consistent at the 5k (all under 18min), 8k (under 30min) and 10k (under 38min) distances.

I remember chatting with Ragan after one of the Women’s Half Marathons, and she admitted she was hoping I’d blow up in the second half.  I recall being somewhat stunned.  Me?  Blow up?  I’m 4-for-4 at the Women’s Half Marathon from 2009-2013.   And then I realized that Ragan knew me not from road racing, but from the ultra races.  Of course she figured I’d blow.

Because when I venture past the 26 mile mark, my race turns into a game of roulette.  At one end, I could have smooth sailing like at Highland Sky last year.  But problems that I can tough out over short distances take a much larger compounding toll over longer distances, and at the other end I could have Holiday Lake, Willis River, and Bull Run.

It’s eaten at my heart that I can’t be a rock-hard competitor at the ultra distances, that I can’t count on giving an expected showing.  Maybe others learned this a long time ago (I think Aaron’s way ahead of me on this one), but I’m just beginning to settle on the idea that it’s somewhat pointless to compete with intention at all at ultra distances — you just have to accept however the roulette happens to spin that day.  It’s not in my nature, I *love* competitive sports, and turning down that nozzle is hard.  But I’m beginning to accept that you can’t approach an ultra the same way you can approach a shorter race, with expectations.  You can’t will performance.  At least not at my low level of ultra experience.

So after a six month road running drought, there was something cathartic about getting to churn out a good old fashioned road marathon, to know exactly what’s gonna hit me and how to take the punches, to win and take the prize.  And even if it’s roasting hot, and even if my foot hurts, and even if my stomach sours and I have to scratch some leaves in the middle, I know exactly how to gut it out.

~                                  ~                                 ~                                        ~

‘So, are you planning to run the Boston Marathon next year?’ Aaron asked as we bumped along in our Jeep through eastern West Virginia.

‘Yeah, I gotta.  That’s 2015.’  (I’m on a three-year Boston plan: 2006, 2009, 2012….)

‘So, what are you going to run as a qualifier?’

‘Oh, crap!’  I responded, and nodded off again.  I had woken up at 4am that day, flown from Managua, Nicaragua, to Houston to DCA, gotten home that evening for just long enough to throw all my dirty clothes in a trash bag, and headed off to Canaan, WV with our cat Leda.

The problem with Boston registration occurring in September is that there are basically no marathons in the DC area in the months leading up to it to run as a qualifier (except an indoor marathon that’s like 200+ laps in Arlington in July).  If you haven’t run a fall or spring marathon, you’re pretty much screwed.  But we had run the Delaware Marathon last year (the last time I needed a last-minute BQ — although I later changed my mind and opted for Bull Run instead), and it was a pretty nice and convenient little race.  The $500 purse I won for 2nd place last year didn’t hurt either.

But we had big plans for the weekend in Canaan, so no way were we going to sacrifice those to taper. After a Saturday running through the Sodds, we upped the ante on Sunday and hopped onto some rented mountain bikes and headed into the Canaan wilds.  Now, a year ago you would never have found me on a bike or in a pool.  I had long declared a bicycle to be the Vehicle of Death.  In a pool I behaved much like a drowning cat in water.  Have you seen those Youtubes of them dropping the lion cubs in the moat for their ‘swim test’?  Yeah, that would be me.  I considered triathletes to be a separate species.  But Aaron is a sneeeeeaky bear, and he has been chipping away at these steadfast positions.  He got a big boost last fall when my fibroma was diagnosed and I had to find other ways to stay off my feet.

It was only my third time biking as an adult.  Aaron had told me that we were going to be biking on a ‘gravel road’.  I reminded him of that description when I found myself (a) biking hub-deep through lake-puddles, (b) getting flung over my handlebars when my bike sunk hub-deep into mud, (c) navigating steep rock chutes, and (d) biking up 1800 ft over a 4-mile climb.  But I LOVED it.  My butt bits were in a pretty sorry state after three hours of hard bouncing.  But my fibroma has sadly impaired my ability to run rocks, so it was a thrill to get to go mad-adventuring again.  In some ways, mountain biking reminds me of horse riding — well, a bit more like bronco riding, but I’ll take what I can get.

On Saturday we kept up tradition by running the Race for the Cure with my mom and Aaron’s mom.  R4C is my mom’s one big race of the year, and she rocked it once again in 41 minutes.  Aaron’s mom won her age group in ~29 minutes.  After Mother’s Day brunch with the moms at Old Ebbitt Grill, we skeetered off to Wilmington.  After our bulletproof-glass-registration-desk-nestled-between-two-strip-clubs disaster of a hotel last year, we treated ourselves to the Westin this year.  Best decision ever.

My foot was still hurting (I’ve now developed a second fibroma, about a cm towards the heel from the first one on the same foot), so there was a lot of uncertainty about how my race would go.  I opted to wear my Montrails to try to give the fibroma maximum protection from the pavement.  Aaron wasn’t sure how he was going to run either. I was still feeling the effects of our marathon bike adventure body wide.   So we just ran together, and let two other women go a ways ahead at the start.

I’ve come to really appreciate the charms of the mid-sized marathon.  There were about 500 people who finished the marathon, and about 3,000 total participants in the marathon-relay, half marathon, and marathon combined.  The logistics are beautifully easy.  It’s also fun to be able to compete for the prize purse, which at Delaware is pretty healthy given the relative strength of the competition.

I’ve also come to enjoy the mellowness of the small-city marathons.  When it’s not wall-to-wall fans, it’s easier to focus on the few energetic folks — the guy strumming Bare Naked Ladies on his guitar on the King St hill, the band near mile 16, the kid with the realistic sign ‘Go Stranger, Go’.  The course had good variety, starting along the river and winding up into the neighborhoods.  And, critically for any marathon held in mid-May, a good part of the course was covered by the shade of trees.  Despite Delaware’s reputation for ultimate flatness, the Delaware Marathon does have a significant 1-mile hill (for a road marathon) that they make us run twice (the course is two loops).

The woman in second place had dropped off the pace and I passed her on the first big hill (mile 6ish).  The stretch after the hill was a long straight boulevard and I could see the first place woman up ahead.  Aaron noticed that I was starting to reel her in way too quickly, and reminded me to cool it, illustrating reason #1 why it’s so much better running with Aaron.

After I took two gels my stomach turned and I desperately had to poop.  I was able to hang on for a while.  But when we hit the big down hill, I started to scope out escape plans.  There were some poop-friendly woods off to our right that looked awfully inviting.  But they were rife with poison ivy.  I had to poop, but I didn’t have to poop bad enough to plunge into a grove of poison ivy.  Finally I saw a little dirt trail that skeetered into the woods and I made the quick call.  I’m terribly proud of how efficiently I was able to drop trou and eliminate.  I really think I set a PPR (personal poop record).  Definitely a time to draw on one’s trail skills.

The major trade-off of the local marathon compared to enterprises like Boston is the small hiccups in race organization.  Overall, the Delaware Marathon was extremely well organized.  There were mainly just minor omissions — gels weren’t delivered at the aid stations they were expected at, it was a challenge to figure out which cups were water versus Gatorade at the aid stations, etc.  I started to get dizzy when the promised mile 14 gel hand-out didn’t materialize.  But Aaron handed me one of his own (reason #2 why it’s so much better running with Aaron).

But there was one major snafu: the volunteer who was supposed to direct runners at a key traffic circle around the halfway point was missing, and runners were mistaking the circle for the turnaround and doubling back too early.  Aaron of course knew the course and kept me headed in the right direction (reason #3 why it’s so much better running with Aaron).

At the turnaround around mile ~15 there was a chance to see where the lead women stacked up.  I was about 3 minuted behind the lead woman, and about 3 minutes ahead of the 3rd place woman.  An amazing Kenyan guy was running away with the men’s race.  We steered as many confused runners the correct way around the traffic circle and towards the real turnaround.  But some guys had turned early and the RD ended up re-calculating their times to make up for the lost 0.7 miles.

Around mile 16 you pass by the start/finish/relay transition area by the river that is teeming with people and you can’t help but pick up your pace amid all the cheers.  But you turn the corner and suddenly it goes blank quiet, you’re running under a grimy underpass with potholes everywhere, and it dawns on you that you have an entire second loop to go.  It’s around mile 16.5, and you can’t help but start to fantasize about quitting running for the rest of your life.

‘Did you see that?’  Aaron asked me.

I was too busy wallowing in my lowliness to see much beyond my feet.  ‘See what?’

‘The lead woman was sitting on the curb.’

I lifted my chin up.  ‘Seriously??’

‘Yeah, she was there with the pace bike.’

‘Sweet!’  (reason #4 why it’s so much better running with Aaron)

At that point, the race was only mine to loose, and we ran a spirited but conservative second loop.  The day was heating up, I wasn’t sure whether I was well-trained or not, and the woman was unlikely to catch me unless I blew up.  I still was having some stomach issues, especially after consuming any gels, so I decided just to run smart and controlled.  In the end was pretty darn nice to be able to finish a marathon not feeling absolutely miserable.

As Aaron and I were entering our final mile of the 2014 Delaware Marathon, it occurred to him that they better have a tape waiting for me to break at the finish line.  Aaron has been listening to me grumble for a while about how with all the races I’ve won over my 20 years of competitive running, including a couple marathons, I have never had that little thrill of breaking the tape at the finish line.  I know it’s trivial, but I’ve had it on my bucket list for a while.

We crept in just under 3 hours in 2:59.  I’ve run my last six marathons within a four minute window of 2:55-2:59.  It’s nice that my natural pace seems to be just under the critical 3-hour threshold– just pure lucky I suppose, as if the race was a mile longer I’d be over.

 

I chatted with the RD and a news reporter after the race, who ended up writing a nice little bit that included Aaron’s role keeping my race in check.  The interview got cut short by my desperate need to poop, and for about an hour or so my stomach was pretty sick.  But it was so much better being sick at the Westin compared to last year’s grungy little hotel where the maids were practically peeling me off the floor at check-out time.  I don’t take Immodium during races, but maybe I should(?)  My stomach always spasms.

As the first-place female marathon winner I won $1,000 in prize money, as well as a lifetime free entry to the event.  I decided to put the winnings into the Martha Health Fund towards massages and medical care for my foot.  I’ve made an appointment to see a new foot specialist in Baltimore in June, as I’m really disappointed that the problem seems to be proliferating.  But if my running career gets cut short, at least I had my little moment of breaking the tape.