First Ultra!
I'd mentioned last week that I was going to participate in a 24-Hour Race, I did it and posted a result of 102km (a bit over 63 miles). I did it all walking, and under conditions that were a bit tougher than expected.
I started out using fairly good racewalk form and was cranking along pretty comfortably. I crossed the marathon mark at about 11PM and the 50K mark around midnight. I'd had some shoe trouble, so had changed shoes once in the early evening, from a training shoe to a full racer, the added flexibility seemed to help. I was wearing my Injinji TetraTsoks, and they seemed to help. I often have some friction trouble between toes, and the TetrasTsoks seemed to eliminate this. They did not, however, prevent shoe rub from causing trouble. I decided that a double sock strategy was in order, and put a second pair of light socks over the TetraTsoks. This strategy worked, and aside from the blister on the inside of my left heel, which had gotten underway while in the first shoes, I had no other blister trouble.
I expected that I was going to have trouble in the middle of the night, but the trouble I had then came from a different source than I expected - COLD! By deep in the night, I was moving poorly and am told that my speech was slurred. Dave Hoch, a friend and a member of the event staff, had stepped into the role of handler. Around 2AM, he convinced me that getting warm and getting some sleep was the appropriate course of action. I ate, drank, and went to sleep. When I was awakened by him after about an hour of sleep, it took me a while to get reassembled, and after what proved to be about a two-hour total interlude, I was back on the track. Dave walked a couple of laps with me, and I pointed out to him frost on the pole vault pads. He argued that it was just dew, but went to investigate and acknowledged that it was, in fact, frost.
At a bit past 5AM, the eastern sky began to show traces of blue. Finally, in what seemed like a long while later, the sun appeared through a clump of trees. Dave had departed shortly after dawn and told me that he didn't want to hear of me posting anything less than 250 laps. A bit later, still suffering from cold, I returned to my car to nap and warm up. An hour later, I was back on the track, and was again turning fairly respectable laps. Once the sun got started on its ask of warming, it came fast and hard. One bystander commented that I was soon going to disappear, as each lap, I became smaller as clothing came off.
I adopted a strategy of trying to take breaks every 10K (25 laps), and for a while was able to hold this. I'd walk, then eat and hydrate, then getback on the track. Around noon, it became clear to the event organizers that the festival atmosphere they had created wasn't doing much for the limited group of participants remaining, and asked those of us who were still there what was important to us. The result was we were left with lap counters, a water and ade table, and nothing more - everything necessary, and all we'd asked for. They reduced costs and impositions, and we had all we needed.
I should say a few words about "we". In the course of the night, it developed that there were two of us who were legitmately trying to go long. Me, and a young man from the host school. He had long hair, was wearing a pair of big bell-bottom jeans, a tee-shirt with a sweatshirt around his waist. He'd spent a lot of the night strolling slowly, reading a book. When I asked him his lap count in the morning, he told me 227 when I was at 181. That margin of differential held through the rest of the event. Around 2:30, with about an hour and a half remaining, we started to walk together. It was great to have company. The conversation kept my mind off the little aches and pains. My companion said the same. We closed out the day both making our goals, his was to walk the entire 24 hours, mine was to break the existing event record. I wanted to have the event record, but he'd earned it. His will to make his goal really impressed me.
I completed 255 laps, while the student posted a whopping 300 laps (120 km) or roughly 74.4 miles. My feet, legs and knees were sore. I had sunburn on my neck and the back of my hands and a blister a bit smaller than a quarter on the side of my left heel.
If I could pick out some lessons I learned, they'd be "be ready for cold" (in retrospect, I think the cold stopped my leg muscles from effectively propelling me) and "try to plan companionship."
I started out using fairly good racewalk form and was cranking along pretty comfortably. I crossed the marathon mark at about 11PM and the 50K mark around midnight. I'd had some shoe trouble, so had changed shoes once in the early evening, from a training shoe to a full racer, the added flexibility seemed to help. I was wearing my Injinji TetraTsoks, and they seemed to help. I often have some friction trouble between toes, and the TetrasTsoks seemed to eliminate this. They did not, however, prevent shoe rub from causing trouble. I decided that a double sock strategy was in order, and put a second pair of light socks over the TetraTsoks. This strategy worked, and aside from the blister on the inside of my left heel, which had gotten underway while in the first shoes, I had no other blister trouble.
I expected that I was going to have trouble in the middle of the night, but the trouble I had then came from a different source than I expected - COLD! By deep in the night, I was moving poorly and am told that my speech was slurred. Dave Hoch, a friend and a member of the event staff, had stepped into the role of handler. Around 2AM, he convinced me that getting warm and getting some sleep was the appropriate course of action. I ate, drank, and went to sleep. When I was awakened by him after about an hour of sleep, it took me a while to get reassembled, and after what proved to be about a two-hour total interlude, I was back on the track. Dave walked a couple of laps with me, and I pointed out to him frost on the pole vault pads. He argued that it was just dew, but went to investigate and acknowledged that it was, in fact, frost.
At a bit past 5AM, the eastern sky began to show traces of blue. Finally, in what seemed like a long while later, the sun appeared through a clump of trees. Dave had departed shortly after dawn and told me that he didn't want to hear of me posting anything less than 250 laps. A bit later, still suffering from cold, I returned to my car to nap and warm up. An hour later, I was back on the track, and was again turning fairly respectable laps. Once the sun got started on its ask of warming, it came fast and hard. One bystander commented that I was soon going to disappear, as each lap, I became smaller as clothing came off.
I adopted a strategy of trying to take breaks every 10K (25 laps), and for a while was able to hold this. I'd walk, then eat and hydrate, then getback on the track. Around noon, it became clear to the event organizers that the festival atmosphere they had created wasn't doing much for the limited group of participants remaining, and asked those of us who were still there what was important to us. The result was we were left with lap counters, a water and ade table, and nothing more - everything necessary, and all we'd asked for. They reduced costs and impositions, and we had all we needed.
I should say a few words about "we". In the course of the night, it developed that there were two of us who were legitmately trying to go long. Me, and a young man from the host school. He had long hair, was wearing a pair of big bell-bottom jeans, a tee-shirt with a sweatshirt around his waist. He'd spent a lot of the night strolling slowly, reading a book. When I asked him his lap count in the morning, he told me 227 when I was at 181. That margin of differential held through the rest of the event. Around 2:30, with about an hour and a half remaining, we started to walk together. It was great to have company. The conversation kept my mind off the little aches and pains. My companion said the same. We closed out the day both making our goals, his was to walk the entire 24 hours, mine was to break the existing event record. I wanted to have the event record, but he'd earned it. His will to make his goal really impressed me.
I completed 255 laps, while the student posted a whopping 300 laps (120 km) or roughly 74.4 miles. My feet, legs and knees were sore. I had sunburn on my neck and the back of my hands and a blister a bit smaller than a quarter on the side of my left heel.
If I could pick out some lessons I learned, they'd be "be ready for cold" (in retrospect, I think the cold stopped my leg muscles from effectively propelling me) and "try to plan companionship."
posted by Scooter at 7:55 AM
5 Comments:
Congratulations, Scooter! Boy, what an experience! You started into hypothermia, and I'm glad you stopped it before it got worse. I'm curious about your caloric input compared to the calories burned during the walk? I'm also curious about how much liquid you consumed?
Allen,
Technically, I don't think I was near hypothermic - I was cold, but most was limb cold, not core. I probably wasn't consuming enough calories, especially early in the event. I was drinking tea with a lot of honey in it (pure calories, and very available). I'd taken 4 liters of tea, but also had liberal amounts of both water and Gatorade that the event provided. I also had chicken broth (as a salt supplement), but probably only took about 6 oz. or so. When done, I had about a liter of tea left. I'd taken a lot of dry food to the event. Peanuts (salted), turkey jerky, pretzels, some chips, muesli, etc. I thought I'd had some dried apricots in my car, but couldn't find. I find them very palatable and would have liked to have had some. I don't know amounts eaten, etc., so can't shed light on energy balance issues.
Howdy! A most impressive result, I'm so very jealous...now I want to run an ultra race too! My first ultra will have to wait until next Spring as I have a pretty full calendar this year. I'll probably do a 50k or 50 miler first. I know the monotony of walking 24hrs around the same track would drive me crazy (or in my case, crazier) it would seem like a scene from the movie, "They Shoot Horses Don't They?"
Happy trails, Bruce
Congrats, Scooter!
A job well done.
Any idea what your heart rate was at a brisk pace?
Vince,
I wasn't wearing a monitor during the event. During the first several hours, I would guess that I was around about 125 for much of it, but that's based off an effort based guesstimate, so don't assume it's very reliable.
Post a Comment
<< Home