#13 is finally the lucky one

I was feeling a little bit nervous, as it's been a couple of years since my last long ultra, and I feel like I've been on a bad streak for the past few months with slow performances and DNFs.
Arrived at the race with 5 minutes to spare, but did not trip on my shoelaces and face plant, which already made the race better than my previous other 50 mile in 2016. Someday I'll make to to Sulphur race start without having to rush around like a crazy person!  The race started off in really good weather, cool and cloudy. Soon after, the skies opened up, huge thunderclaps and I fully expected to see someone or something smitten by lightning. The parts of the course that are always muddy were muddy, and parts that usually aren't (G. Donald) were muddy as well. Finished loop 1 in just over 3 hours - a normal day on tapered legs should have been around 2:45-2:50 but oh well. Lost a couple minutes because of the route change after the Martin Rd. AS, we have always turned left after the AS to access the lollipop, and even though there were marshals there, they were busy chatting, and I had to ask them where to go. Dudes, #youhadonejob!

Loved these witty signs, distracted from the pain of climbing the Three Bitches!
(pics with me in them were taken by Agnes)

I was surprised by how quickly loop 2 went by. It seemed like barely a few minutes before I was already 5 hours and 30K+ in. I saw a guy scoop up some muddy water with his hands, I was almost frozen with horror expecting him to drink it, but it turned out he was transporting a salamander to safety. I kept going back and forth with this 100 miler guy, when The Crew (Greg, Matt, Spenny, Beth J) found me on the lollipop descent, and Greg started talking to the 100 miler. Turns out he was SIL#2's high school boyfriend - small world!

After 40K Greg helped me change socks and shoes and we headed out for the first half of loop 3 together. It was warm and sunny at this point. In the frenzy of changing, I realized I forgot my watch charger and I sent Greg back early to get it, he met me at the Martin Rd. AS before the lollipop and I recharged while doing the lollipop.  Saw Steve on the way to do his final lollipop and he was behind, he was going to pace me for my final loop but was way behind pace. It was ok though, I had backup plans. Finished 60K in under 10 hours, considering MOTG (65K) took me 12+ hours..I was 🔥🔥🔥!!

Nurse Spenny making sure his Fake Mom was doing fine.
📷Agnes

I have always said that figuring out the blister game would be the key to Sulphur success. I started with the shoes and socks that got me through 40 miles at MOTG with zero issues, but I felt a small hot spot on my toe and taped that up after loop three with another sock change. In hindsight I should have brought one more pair of shoes, but even just a sock change felt good.

I had my rockstar pacing team of Agnes and Lindsay for the final loop. The weather went very quickly downhill and we experienced some of the scariest weather ever on Monarch, the winds and rain were practically hurricane force, and a large tree branch crashed down between us!

Hard to believe we were in the downpour minutes after this.

The G. Donald loop was horrendous, Lindsay was brave enough to mud surf down the hills but Agnes and I could only pick our way down inch by inch. I'll still say Palmer's Pond was worse in terms of how muddy the course was, but this was by far the worst conditions I have ever seen on the Sulphur loop in the 5 years that I have been running there.

So much fucking mud!
📷 Agnes

I felt a small twinge of cramping in one calf before the final lollipop, but a pickle from the AS made it go away. Lindsay and Agnes kept me moving, and although I can't say the last 20K went by in a flash, it was tolerable with their company.

The Orange Teletubby (Agnes) and Miss Mud Ass.
📷 Charlotte Varsarhelyi 

In the final stretch, Lindsay reminded me of one of my favourite Ann Trason quotes, "It hurts up to a point, and then it doesn't get any worse." That gave me the strength to run the best part, the downhill lollipop. Greg met us at the bottom of Martin Road, I ran the final stretch strongly, and met my goal of sub 15 hours in Patty-watch time. I'm super happy with my performance considering how completely shitty the conditions were.

Rugged Raccoon 25K

My first Happy Trails race of 2019 was Rugged Raccoon 25K. I thought it was on new to me trails, but upon looking at the map, realized I ran there in 2015 during the Avon thru run.

Agnes and I signed up for the early start, a) because we are slow and did not want to be stressed to hit the cutoff and b) wanted to be home before the wee hours.  So this was technically a night race but for us, only the last 90 minutes or so were in complete darkness.

I was kind of relieved to see quite a few others opting for the early start, the first kilometer or so was on road, through the campground. The trails were very very runnable, punctuated by the occasional muddy section. I heard people saying "OMG SO MUDDY!!" but compared to Palmer's Pond and Round the Cape, it was absolutely nothing.

Déjà vu.

I saw a side trail named Field of Burrs on the map, and was careful not to step off trail there, since burrs (and unleashed dogs and mosquitoes) are my nemesis.

After being overcast for most of the day, the skies started clearing, making for a beautiful sunset.

Wildwood Lake: The Golden Hour.

Magical pine forest at dusk. Photo by Agnes.

I can't say enough about how gorgeous this trail was. Lots of magical pine forest (my favourite)! and I loved how the course was just one big loop, so the scenery was always new.

Cleaner shoes, for a moment.

I had checked to make sure my headlamp was working, but what I failed to notice was that the light was quite dim, due to old batteries. What can I say, I was sitting at my desk, it was hard to tell. Thankfully, Agnes had a spare headlamp, and combined with my headlamp worn around my wrist, was quite adequate.

We had stayed ahead of the last pack of early starters, but Agnes said "look! someone is catching up!" and that kept me motivated to stay ahead. The course was very well marked, but we missed one marker at a road crossing, and the person behind made the same mistake, it was Ryan, the leader of the regular start. Fortunately we only were off course by a couple hundred metres but still lost a few minutes there.

Agnes took off with less than 5K to go, I was getting lapped by a lot of the faster regular starters. I was still running a lot, despite my fear of tripping in the dark. The final kilometer was on the park road again, I really turned it on and finished strong. Due to a new request by Happy Trails that everyone stick around for 10 minutes after finishing to cheer on fellow runners, there were a LOT of people at the finish, and I heard people yelling my name but could not see who they were, it was appreciated anyways!

My finishing time was quite slow despite running most of the race at a hard effort, walking through the muddy sections really slowed things down.

Next Sunday I run my first road 5K in many years...then Sulphur 50 mile!

The Pace of Futility

I was looking for a spring 50K to lead up to Sulphur 50 mile, and none of the local races sounded appealing. I saw that coach Heather had signed up for Palmer's Pond, I commented on her FB post, she said I should come, and the RD also commented, saying there were only 2 spots left. Couldn't beat the price (FREE!) so I signed up too.

Heather said she'd drive to the race. Since she is so much faster than me, I was concerned about her having to wait ages for me, but she said she didn't mind.

The course directions in the pre-race email was super confusing, but made a lot more sense in person. There were 2 "5ish" mile loops in a figure 8 formation that we'd run 3 times, once in each direction, and the final loop was runner's choice, with the start/finish/AS at the centre junction. We were warned that the course was muddy. Shrug. It's early spring, it would be stranger to have no mud.

You want mud? YOU GOT MUD!!!!

The vast majority of the loop was deep mud and water and the small parts I considered runnable were somewhat rooty, although the course was NOT technical by any means. 

Magical pine forest, in the morning fog.

The first loop, although muddy, was actually the easiest, but I didn't realize this until having done both loops in both directions. We were told that during the second loop we'd pass through a section marked Trail Closed, but that we had permission to pass through the land, just follow the round yellow markers.

"Just follow the yellow markers", he said.

 The closed section started out on marshy grass which was sort of nice, because at least it wasn't mud, but then there was no trail. And where there is no trail, THERE ARE BRAMBLES.

It would be generous to say that I was running 10% of the time, but most other people weren't doing much better. Everyone I saw, with the exception of the leaders (including Heather) was walking.

I saw Heather for the final time when she was on her 5th loop (I was on my 3rd). The cutoff was 10 hours to start the 5th loop, which I could easily achieve, but would mean that Heather would be waiting several hours for me. I could not do that to her. I was so totally over the mud slogging and I did ask if she would consider pacing me for the 5th loop, she thought about it for about 2 seconds and said "I don't think so." Surprisingly, my pace, although ridiculously slow was fairly even and above what I consider my ultimate pace of futility, the 25K in 6 hours in Nova Scotia.

It is tradition to yank on the PP's.

I still got in 35.9K, the longest run of 2019 so far, both by distance and time on feet. I could not bring myself to get an even 36K. Still on track for Sulphur 50 mile though!

2018: the 40th year

Almost all cold weather shots, I wonder why?

Last year, this was my #1 goal:

I am happy to report that with 9 days and 7 runs remaining in 2018, I will top 3200K for the year, a new yearly record and reach my stretch goal of 3247.7K/2018 miles. Unlike in 2017, I kept a close eye on my mileage all year as to be certain to reach my goal. I think I'm in for #runtheyear2019, as the medal is really sweet!

Events: 1ish road race (the Canada Beer Run wasn't much of a race), 3 ultras (1 DNF), 1 PB (25K), 3 non-ultra trail races.

Highlights: 19.78K birthday run, 40 mile birthday race, many trail adventures with friends.

In 2019, I will be running only trail races. Hanging up the pace bunny ears. My long term goal is to run a 100 miler in the next 5 years, and my medium term goal is to get more experience at 60-100K distances. I just signed up for Tally in the Valley 12 hour day and also plan to do Sulphur 50 mile again in the spring. In the fall, I snagged one of the coveted spots at Falling Water and am undecided as to which other ultra(s) to run in the fall.

Someday I will head back to Nova Scotia for some Cape Chignecto redemption. Surely 36 hours is enough time to finish 50K?

Patty and the Beav

I never intended to run The Beav, but I won a free entry to Sticks n' Stones at last year's Burly Christmas party and transfered to The Beav because SnS was the same day as Round the Cape. Then it became the hottest ticket in town and I was glad to be going.

I bought a new skirt for the race and debated whether or not to wear tights underneath. Finally, a friend told me she ran through the night in 8F weather in shorts and didn't regret the choice. I told her if I got frostbite that I would blame her.

The only time I regretted the bare legs was before the race. It was very windy and everyone was hiding out in cars instead of socializing as usual. Jeff, the RD made the announcement that due to the weather, anyone registered in the 50K could stop after 1 loop and be considered as a 25K finisher, instead of a DNF.

And we were off. I have run the trails at Hilton Falls many, many times, but never in that particular order (the time I thought I did 25K of the race loop was not exactly close to the official loop) and I never was in the mood to voluntarily do the technical sections more than once. So it was much harder on race day, having to do the technical bits 4 times. I was running with Bogdan and K, taking it easy on the rocks and running the double track at a decent pace. Our main goal was to finish before sunset. Saw Matt at the AS at the top of the orange loop and Steve & Tucker out by 4th Line.

Early stages. 📷 K.

Nothing really eventful happened until 20K, when I slipped on a rock and rolled my left ankle - the same ankle I'd rolled already twice in the past 2 weeks. Normally, I would sit until the pain passed completely, but I limped my way to the AS which was thankfully less than 1K away and Cynthia found an extra strength Advil which pretty much saved my ass, as it got me to the end of the loop and my ankle brace in my drop box. 

We walked a lot more on the 2nd loop, but the running pace remained constant. I didn't want to push it too hard on the running and put myself in the pain cave. My legs actually felt great, there was none of the dragging fatigue that usually plagues me, maybe the cold had numbed my legs?

Game plan during ultras. Art by Jez Kemp.

I knew there were still people behind us in loop 1, but Bogdan reasoned that they would have taken more than 4.5 hours for the first loop, and did not go out for the second. We saw a porcupine in a tree - Agnes and I once saw a porcupine in pretty much the same area, and Bogdan was so delighted that he shared the news with everyone we saw for the next hour. 

Home stretch after the final time through the rocks and we saw Jeff driving the trails in the Happy Trails-mobile. He told us that we were way ahead of where he expected to find us and that we would have no trouble finishing before the cutoff. David met us by the stile in the final kilometre and ran us in, Jeff and Heather made a human arch for Bogdan and I to run through, a very thoughtful touch.

Plenty of daylight left! 📷by David Varty

Atlantic Adventures at Advocate Harbour

My first ultra of the 2018 fall season was a "baby" ultra, 48K in Nova Scotia. We were staying over an hour's drive away, so we had to make two trips out to Cape Chignecto, once on Saturday for Greg's 6K and the kid's 1K and again on Sunday for the ultra.

Greg on the Red Rocks.

For once, I got up early enough to eat and coffee properly, and we were off.  The race started at 6:30, the first hour would be in the dark.  Suddenly I saw:

I own 30 running skirts and someone shows up wearing the same one? WTF?!

A runner saw me trying to pull my feet 

out of this muck, laughed his ass off, pulled out 

his phone, and took my picture.

Eric, the RD, announced that the course would be out and back instead of the posted loop due to some trail wash out, and also the cutoff times for various checkpoints.  I was not worried - 12 hours for 48K? Although the course was twice as hilly as Sulphur 50K, I had done a technical 25K hike in 6 hours in this training cycle. But I had also focused on speed and less hills, and there are NO hills like these in southern Ontario! The race began with a long but not too steep hill, then some relatively runnable singletrack. I met up with Don from Alberta, whose son B totally hit it off with on Saturday.  He had poles that helped him get up some hills where I had to use my hands. There was a downhill so long and steep that I had to mince down and I thought about having to go up that hill late in the race on the way back and got slightly ill thinking about it. I heard from a park employee later that particular hill is 1.5K long and a 40% incline. We had 2 hours to get to the first checkpoint at 8K. I got there in 1:53.  I was dreading having to run 40K more if the rest of the course was like the beginning and to be honest, if I hadn't travelled so far for this race, I would almost have been glad to miss the cutoff already.  I exited the AS with Don and ran the next few kms with him, which was the most runnable part of the course. There was 4 hours to get to the AS at halfway. Then it got muddy. REALLY muddy. Many puddles that were calf deep or more. I wondered aloud to Don where the leaders were - I wasn't looking forward to constantly having to step aside to let them pass. Turns out, everyone was really spread out, and this section was full of deep mud puddles, hills and technical rocks and roots, so even the race leaders weren't running. 

and clean(er).

Don and I caught up with a couple.  The girl was strangely clean, she was wearing black tights with no mud splatters, and you could still tell what colour her shoes were. We passed them as the guy chose to break thick tree branches to avoid a puddle, and Don went ahead when I stopped to take a quick picture. At about 21K, I ran out of water.  I asked runners on the back stretch if the AS was fairly accurately at 24K, and everyone said yes. One very kind runner emptied one of his bottles into my pack. At this point there was still 30-40 min to the halfway cutoff. At 23K, I asked if the AS was just around the corner. "Oh, about 20 min away." FUCK. I ran as fast as I could but the terrain just did NOT let me go very fast. Past 24K on my watch with 3 minutes left to cutoff, I saw Don, "keep going, the AS is about 400 m away!" Well I can run 400 m in 2 minutes on the track, not through a muddy forest.  My watch showed exactly 25K when I finally found the AS, and I was about 2 minutes over the cutoff. "Game over?" I greeted the volunteers. "Game over." they replied. 

I am not terribly upset with the DNF. I felt like my head really wasn't in it, chasing cutoffs right from the get go meant that it would catch up with me sooner or later and my training this summer (more speedwork, less hills) did not adequately prepare me for this race.  Time to regroup for The Beav 50K in 4 weeks.

Many on the Genny - 40 miles for my 40th birthday

I signed up for this race almost a year ago because it was too perfect - a 40 mile race, fairly close to home, a week after my 40th birthday?!

I've been hashtagging #seeyaatthedam for months. 
Finally at the dam.

Race morning started with a jolt, as I had set my alarm for 3:15, but due to the blasting a/c in the hotel room, didn't hear it until 3:25.  Then I took too long in the bathroom.  There is a shuttle from the finish to the start.  In the pre-race emails we were warned that the shuttle would leave at 5 am SHARP and they were not joking, as I arrived to the finish at 5:00:30 to see the buses pulling out of the parking lot.  So I had no choice but to follow the buses to the start, which was only 2.5K straight uphill from my hotel but about 8K from the finish. I definitely wasn't the only one who missed the bus as there were quite a few cars there.

Tip #1: get to the shuttle early!

The race started promptly at 6, running back downhill. There were a few familiar faces, Jeff and Heather from Happy Trails and Lizzy. I saw a LOT of people with poles.  I don't own poles and I'd probably like them but I would like to try them out first before buying. After a couple of minutes, I looked behind me and thought, "shit I am already last?!" 

I think this was the first quick pass
 through the start area, less than 5K in.

I was going back and forth with a guy from Michigan, and another guy in an orange shirt, who had done the race last year.  I was chatting with MI dude when Orange Shirt whistled at us, we missed a turn and were off course by maybe 100 m.  Fortunately, that was the only time I went off course all day.

Tip #2 - wear quick drying clothing!

We were told by the RD in the pre-race briefing that there was a water crossing at 7 miles.  He didn't mention it was really deep.  The water went up to my waist. My skirt didn't dry very quickly and I was still wringing water out several hours later.

You can see how deep the water was from Orange Shirt.

Directly on the other side of the water crossing.  

My watch specs say that the battery lasts 10 hours in "best" GPS mode and I knew I'd be over that, so I put the GPS mode to "good". After a couple of hours, I started to see some funny stuff, like my pace being 1:30/km when hiking a hill, but the splits were still reasonable numbers, so I didn't worry too much until I asked Orange Shirt what distance he had. "13 or 14 miles?" My watch was showing over 25K.

The aid station at the halfway point was a highlight of the race.  The theme was auto racing/pit stop and the volunteers got my drop box, handed me a freezie and refilled my hydration pack, so that I could focus on stuffing food in my face.  I was wearing my Altra Lone Peaks and felt pretty good so I did not change shoes or socks.  I was told that the next aid station was in 7 miles.

The scenery at the halfway point was also the most beautiful.  I can't remember now if I heard about the race first, or saw pictures of the waterfalls at Letchworth, but it was a huge reason why I signed up.

Lower Falls.  Just awful scenery.

So terrible.

Nothing to see here.

I thought only Orange Shirt was behind me, but I came across two girls, one of whom greeted me with, "I love your Dona Jo skirt!" to which I replied, "I love it when people know where my clothes are from, instead of asking what brand it is."  I'll be honest, I tried to drop these two girls several times, taking off when they were taking pictures and running hard on easy sections, but they caught me every time.  Kudos to them!

The distance showing on my watch was totally bonkers by now, so I said to the girls, "hasn't it been awhile since the last aid station? they said 7 miles and it's been 2 and a half hours!" Nope, we had only gone about 10K.  It was raining off and on, and there were many muddy streams gullies with a steep step down, and then a climb back up.  It reminded me of The Bad Thing.

Tip #3 - don't rely on the aid stations

There were only 4 aid stations (plus one self serve water station) for the 40 miles.  They were at least 7-9 miles apart.  I was carrying enough food for about 30K and I usually grab fruit or pop at the AS.  One minute, I felt fine and the next I was very dizzy, I sat down on a log and the two girls finally passed me.  A third lady turned out to be right behind them and asked how long it had been since I had eaten.  Oh shit...at the last aid station, well over an hour ago.  I pulled out an e-beet, took one bite, and it happened, I blew chunks everywhere.  A first for me, I have definitely dry heaved after 5Ks, but never, ever have I puked during a race.  I got down the rest of the bar and it stayed down, surprisingly after a few minutes I felt much better and got up to continue.  The lady, Torrie, stayed with me.  It was her first ultra but she got me going again like a veteran! Another lady, Jen from Long Island was also with us. This part was really, really slow, but I kept referring back to my mantras, 'relentless forward motion' which is on the bracelet that I wear always, and my arm tat, 'sometimes, the moments that challenge us the most, define us."

Turns out that one of the two girls was Torrie's SIL, and she kept calling Torrie to see how I was doing and when they had reached the next aid station, they alerted them to the fact that I had been sick.  This last station was manned by jokers.  It was located 4 miles from the finish and 8 miles from the previous station.  I had started using my old Garmin 210 at exactly 30 miles (according to Torrie's SIL's watch) so we were startled to see a sign at 35 miles saying "1 mile to aid!" but then right after that, around a bend, another sign that said, "haha 0.25 to the station!" Way to fuck with the minds of ultrarunners!

The volunteers at the last aid station took great care of me.  I sat down for a few minutes, ate watermelon, oranges, Coke, a dill pickle and a handful of swedish fish - in that order, OMG! Torrie went ahead and the volunteers assured me that it was 4.5 miles to the finish and net downhill.  I could still run pretty well on clear trail and I ran the last km or so hard to the finish.

There was a local delicacy, the garbage plate, at the finish and I couldn't bring myself to have any.  But I did have my beer! and Long Island Jen was kind enough to drive me back to my car at the start.

I can't say enough amazing things about this race.  Challenging distance, gorgeous scenery..fantastic volunteers and fellow runners!  Definitely made my first week of being 40 memorable.