Tecumseh: here we go again!

   

 

 Tecumseh. My A-race for the winter. I did it last year and it was awesome! Now here it is 4 days before the race this year and I am nervous. What if it doesn't live up to the amazement of last year? What if it ends up being a bad run for me for some reason? What if I have built it up in my mind to be this all-supreme thing that if it isn't the be-all, end-all I will be disappointed in myself or feel I have had a set-back in my training and fitness.
  One: have to remember I have been doing a lot of big races in the last few months and have kept up good, consistent mileage all year. I have not had an injury this year, even through the difficulty of Flatrock YEAH it hurt and I was sore but no injury. So I have to keep that in mind. I have been cross-training a lot more too this fall. I started working out at 9round gym and have changed up my weights routine at my gym and increased some more core work. I think my balance is better than it used to be and I can dodge roots and such with some more speed and agility.
  Two: Every race is not going to be the same. I have not had this problem much before but now that I am on round 3 of my race calendar I will have to realize that what happened last year was LAST YEAR and that it is impossible for it to happen that way again. That was then. This is now. I found that out running the Eagle Creek Trail Marathon the second time around. It was different, but awesome. I know that this year's Tecumseh will be different.........but I am looking forward to seeing what will come.
  Three: I have the woods. I have the cathedral of boughs above me. I have the carpet of leaves below. I have the birds to guide me, the rustle of leaves in the wind, the shouts and scurries of the small and simple creatures all around me. I have the quiet of my mind, the stillness of my heart and the joy of new things. And in the end, I have the arms of my friends. Those are the most important things.

   

  

Tecumseh here we come ready or not!

 

Indianpolis Marathon

     I signed up for the Indianapolis Marathon around the same time as I left for Flatrock. I thought it would be interesting to see how a road marathon went. Only doing marathons on trails I am used to things being a certain way and wanted to see how a city marathon felt different. BOY did it feel different! One: it hurt more. Two: lots and lots of water stops with friendly volunteers and plenty of bathrooms along the route. Three: I didn't have to carry water (water pack or water belt) which felt so much lighter and was nice to not have to worry about that.
    I had been watching the weather reports and was a little unhappy about the forecast: Rainy and cold. Brrr. My friends and I left very early for the race so we got there very early which was okay with me because I am the kind of person would rather be early than rushing to a race. That is a stressful way to start! I had packed probably everything I owned as the weather was going to be so bad I had two pairs of shows plus my vibrams, dry socks, sweatshirt, sweatpants, jacket, stuff I needed for the race, a throwaway pair of sweatpants and a throwaway long sleeved shirt and lots more. A backpack plus a gym bag. But I knew at the end I would want warm stuff on. I always get chilled at the end of races.
  We went to the packet pickup, got our bibs, saw a skunk on the way back. He was moving too! So we got ready and headed to the starting line. As promised it was raining so I had a lovely, fashionable white garbage bag to wear over my clothes. Kept me dryer and a bit warmer though except I was making a mess of it. The course was beautiful: led all through Fort Harrison state park. The leaves were in fall glory and even though it was rainy it was still so pretty. I started out pretty well...pretty consistently 10 minute miles. I kept trying to do the math but I suck at math so it was actually more dispiriting for me because I kept coming up with these astronomical numbers. "Well if I keep going at this pace and then there are this many miles....around 7 hours. No that can't be right. I need a calculator!" So I just started watching the little clocks and I figured if there were about 10 minutes between clocks I was okay. Got to the half marathon point at 2:25 something so that was good. I had gotten rid of my gloves but then found some gloves along the course so put them on for awhile and then took them back off. I found a timex watch along the route and wore it to the finish line and left it there. Bad runner karma I thought to keep someone else's watch.
   After mile 16 things started to bother me. First it was something rubbing inside my shoe, then my left hamstring started to cramp a bit. But boy my calves hurt! I think it was the cold plus I tend to have very tight calves anyway. I kept stopping and doing calf stretches. I went through sometimes it cramping and then sometimes it feeling better. It never went to total charley horse so I kept going and was really happy at mile 17 to see a couple of my friends! Then at mile 18 I saw another friend! Really a pick-me-up. I was having a great time with my 68 song Marathon playlist on my I-pod too. I started to just concentrate on my music and how pretty the course was and try to ignore my calf pain. The volunteers were great: cadets from the local military academy I guess. They were very polite and kept saying things like "Great job Ma'am!". Lots and lots of "ma'ams" One kid said I was his hero. Nice.
   At the last mile I ran into a woman who was about to complete her first marathon. She was so emotional! I talked to her as we ran the last mile and she was almost crying! So great for her! We ran into the photographer and I said "smile for the camera! Make it look easy". We ran down the finish line together and did  a little sprint at the end. So great to be there for her big moment even though I never even found out her name. I got through, changed into warm clothes, had some food and then cheered my friends into the finish line. We saw another friend we cheered in as well.

I loved my medal and the shirts! I am happy to have finished in sub-5 hours. Marathon number 4 in the bag!

Paynetown "non-race" awesome all day run

     Thanks to the government shutdown we were not able to have the race we were all looking forward to: 8 Hours of Payne. Made me mad to hear of it. I know Bill Bartley and all at Indiana Running Company had spent a lot of time and money on this race and it was a major bummer at first that it was cancelled. But then we got out there and it was a great group run. We ran loops of Paynetown, drank some ultra-fine beer courtesy of Upland Brewery and generally had  a great time! I personally met a new friend, Marcy, who had run the Indiana Trail 100!!! She ran one loop with me and is trying to convince met to run the IT 50 mile next April. She even said she would crew for me although she has  a title to defend. She got third overall female in the 100 mile. Wow!
   Salomon shoes were there and I tried a pair on...very comfy! I may invest in a pair eventually. Bill Bartley was his happy self and made it fun for everyone and I was very proud of my friends: Erin for 2 loops, Chris for 5 loops, Christy for 5 loops and I did 3!

Way fun!!!

Flatrock 50K

I don't know where to begin with my report of the Flatrock 50K. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.It tested me physically, mentally, emotionally. On every level I was pushed to my extreme and think it was just a sheer act of will and foolish stubbornness that helped me finish.

I had my race outfit all picked out. I was going to wear my black BARA shirt and my red shorts. I woke up at 5am because I wanted to have coffee, eat and then wait a half hour and take my Vespa packet because after I took that I was not supposed to eat again until later in the race. I walked down to the staging area from our campsite which took about 15 minutes to find they had not made coffee yet. Since we had to be back ready to go for the 7 am briefing I decided to forgo the coffee, head back to camp and get my stuff ready. 

             We had to jog first about 1/2 mile down the road to get to the start line. It was supposed to rain and storm but the rain hadn't started yet although we saw some big, scary lightning strikes which were calming and all...haha....but when we were at the start line right before the gun went off the rain started.

               I had my red DINO hat on but pulled my Buff on over it so it would cover my ears and the back of my neck. The rain was driving and the wind didn't help. It pelted us as we ran down the road, across some grass and into the trail. 

             The trail....how do I describe this trail adequately? I don't have words really. It was almost unearthly how beautiful and brutal it was. Right away we were climbing up and down these huge stone formations. The rain had made the rocks slick so I had to be completely focused the entire time. There were very few runnable parts. It felt more like rock climbing than running. In fact I really didn't run most of the race. I slogged, climbed, stumbled down these rocky embankements, crawled under and over trees and slip sliding all over with the wet mud. And I was so stressed from the very start about making the 10 hour cutoff or even the 4 1/2 hour cutoff at the 15.5 mile mark. From the very first aid station I asked them..."how is my time?" They assured me it was fine although I knew it wasn't. My miles were taking 20 minutes or more. Every aid station I asked them....they were so nice! I didn't really know the mileage because I only have a heart rate monitor and not a Garmin so it doesn't tell mileage. I would pause it every now and then to check how much time had passed since the start. So stressed!

(SOME PICTURES OF THE TRAIL)

Finally after ages and ages (around 4) I started to get closer to the turn around. By now I was booking it over the rocks, trees, sliding through the mud and giving myself constant pep talks to keep me going. 

        I thought many times about quitting at the 25K mark. It was THAT hard. People started coming back since it was an out and back and they all said the same thing: "Eric has extended the race cutoff an extra hour! You can make it but you have to book it" I was booking it as fast as I could without taking a tumble on the slick rocks or falling in the mud. I was glad for my core work. I think that was the only thing that kept me upright. That and dumb luck. I was getting very chilled now as i had to walk so much and couldn't get any speed going to warm up so I was hugging myself while I went. The rain went on and on. I ran into other runners who said "It's only 2 miles!"...."It's 1 1/2 miles to the turn around"...."It's getting close. Eric extended the time."  I thanked them and kept slogging ahead.

       I finally reached the turn around and really thought about quitting. I was chilled to the bone, already sore and pretty much DONE with that trail. 

      But I thought of how much I had worked for this. I thought of how many saturdays I had given up to long runs, how many things I had to give up to make sure I got my training in. I thought of all those dark mornings when I didn't want to run but I thought. "I am going to run an Ultra". Then I thought of my clients, those wonderful young people who look up to me. I am a role model for them. I had told them all about this. How could I go back and tell them "It got hard so I quit?" I don't want them to take that route. They have years of trials ahead of them and I want them to remember me as someone who kept on even when I wanted so badly to stop. I wanted them to think of me as someone who had met my goal.

        At the turn-around they helped me take off my muddy socks and shoes and got out my dry shirt and I stripped off my wet one. My fingers were so numb I couldn't tie my other pair of shoes so they did that for me. They took my bib off the other shirt and put it on my new shirt and helped me swap out my hydration pack for my belt. I also got to take my next Vespa and grab fresh gels and fruit rollups to eat. I was so happy for the help I hugged the aid station lady! And I hugged Christy and off I went. 

     As soon as I hit the trail of course it was slop and my new shoes were soaked and muddy right off the bat. The Concordias are nice shoes  but they are kind of heavy and the mud had started to dry so it became that mucky stuff like glue. Every time I hit the mud which was most of the way I would add on more mud to my shoes which felt like 10 lbs. per foot. So I would stop, grab a rock and scrape the mud off to lessen the weight. Then I would continue on, the mud would get on them again and the whole thing would start all over again. It had stopped raining which was nice. I was glad I changed my shirt and was feeling better that I had an extra hour to meet the cutoff because I knew I would need it!

            This trail race really challenged me emotionally. I am not afraid to admit I burst into tears a couple of times because of sheer frustration and exhaustion. But I just went on crying for awhile, admitting and allowing those feelings and then i would stop and feel a bit more cleansed. I passed the 20 mile mark and the aid station people there were happy to see me back. "You made it!" they said. I asked the lady how I was doing and she said you have 3 1/2 hours to go 10 miles. Okay!  Here I got that OMG moment. 10 more miles! Wow! Okay. I thought of all the reasons I had to continue and just kept going. After awhile a man and dog came up behind me. He was the sweeper for the course because I was the last one and they were sweeping the course to check for any problems. His name was Fernando and his dog's name was Miles who was a pretty black lab. He helped a lot. He talked to me about my family and things...asked me about my work and what I did for fun. He told me I was doing fine, making good time, keeping walking to a minimum. That really was needed for me as I got more and more tired. Then about 4 miles until the finish line I came up to a guy who was struggling. It turned out his name was Ryan. I decided to pass Ryan so I wouldn't be last. Then I came to the last aid station and there were 3 people there! I passed them too! Then there was another guy (who later I found out was named Bill and he had done this race 7 times in a row!) And I passed Bill too! So wow! I had made 5 "kills" in the last few miles. I kept on going, passed two more guys and then came up to a rocky part where I ended up getting a bit off course which made me panic as I knew the time was running down. Tick Tock! Fernando and Miles suddenly appeared and helped guide me back. Of course the people I had passed had gone the right way so then it was me and the sweeper again. But he was the sweetest guy! He just kept up a constant stream of encouragement saying I was doing great, I was inspirational, think of those kids, you can do this heather, you are doing fine.

            Now we hit the road!! Oh my god was I glad to get out of those woods! I saw the road down to the finish line. Two cars passed me honking and one guy leaned out a window giving me a thumbs up yelling "Finish strong!" I kept on going, hurting, proud, so much a mixture of feelings. Then I saw someone and heard Christy yelling "Is that Heather?" I waved back and was so glad to see my friend!! They were yelling at me "One minute to cutoff! You have 1 minute!" So I don't know where I got it from but I wanted to qualify. I had worked too hard to be off by one minute. So I sprinted, passed Ryan and came in at 53 seconds before the 11 hour cutoff. Oh My God!!! I was an ultrarunner! I had done it! 

           Christy came up crying and I was crying and all I could do for a bit was sit there and cry with exhaustion and emotional exertion and disbelief I had been ablet to do that! Fernando came up and gave me a hug and I thanked him. A bunch of people came up and congratulated me and the Eric Steele came over personally and said Congratulations and gave me the prettiest belt buckle. Christy was so sweet too! She said "What do you need? I will take care of you." Which made me feel teary all over again. That night Christy and I sat and she made a big fire and I was happy. One of the veterans said of all the 50k's he had done this was the hardest. He said "If you can do this you can do any 50K."

I am ultrarunner.

Severely muddy trail shoes.. One for the out and one for the back

My first ultra: time to level up!!

  
    The day is finally here! All year it seems like I have been waiting, training and, yes, sometimes stressing, about my first ultramarathon. I can't believe how far I have come since I started running is 2011. It is almost like I was made for this. As I have been training my legs have gotten stronger, my ability to deal with distance has increased (to the point now where it is not so much the distance that gets me as if I have time in my day to do the distance I want!) 
    When my friend Christy asked almost a year ago about doing Flatrock I had just finished my first full trail marathon and LOVED IT! I had trained on trails and felt ready to handle a longer distance. Since then there have been a few kinks here and there that sometimes got me thinking I couldn't do it after all. I had some trouble with my knees that knocked me out for a couple of months then I had heel pain that knocked me out for another month or so. I started at that point to feel kind of resigned to either coming down to the 25K or crewing my friend Christy as she ran it which would have been fun but I am so glad I got over these problems and managed to get in enough training to feel ready to tackle it, enjoy the day and, barring some sudden problem, finish my first ultra. Mostly it is due to heart rate training as my knees and other body parts are better with long, slow distance than pounding speed workouts.

   I wanted to do this from the perspective of a video game but since I have not played video games past the 90's I will do this as a mario brothers game. (sorry gamers!)  You know in mario brothers when you have gotten past all the mushrooms, turtles, ghosts, whatever and then you get to that part where you have to face off against the big turtle guy with all the spikes and that floor that tries to tip you into hot lava?  But if you kill the big turtle you get to level up. Jump up the flagpole and run into that little house and save the princess!!

Flatrock is my big turtle. It is all big and spiky and there may or may not be hot lava involved. But then when I get done I get to level up!! My life wont' be the same post-ultra as it was pre-ultra just like it is not the same post-marathon(s) as it was pre-. I get to camp out, see new places and go back to Kansas where I did live for 7 years or more so it is like a homecoming but not quite as i lived in Kansas City and this is a new part of kansas but still.....it's kansas. I am sure I will bore you all later with a long and involved post-race report so I will leave it at this:  Can't wait to return home as an ultrarunner.

Go bib number 77! And bib number 76! (Christy) 

My adventures at Deam Wilderness

 

 

  My run at Deam today had a little of everything. It had zen moments of clarity, internal dialogue, external confusion, a little reality tilting, a couple of anxious horses to deal with and some heartstopping moments of spiderweb ninja moves.

 

   I started out getting up at 4:45am so I could get on the road by 5:30am so I could get to Deam by 6'ish to start running. I had it all planned out. Park at the Horseman's Camp, hit Grubb Ridge (11miles) return to Horseman's Camp to the car, eat some PB-J sandwiches, get more water, freshen a bit and then head out and run Cope Hollow trail (10 miles) thereby getting in my scheduled 22 mile run for the weekend.

   First: I got lost getting out to Deam. It was early, dark and I missed the sign on the way out. Finally wized up when I read "Lawrence county line" OH OH! I turned around and almost missed it again! Just barely saw the sign. So I breathed a sigh of relief, turned in and headed to the camp. I parked, got all my gear together and then...couldn't find the trail head.....doh! I had only been to Deam once that I could remember with Christy and Erin LAST YEAR. So...okay...I walked around the camp a bit, ran down the gravel road, looked at the map, went back to the camp, looked at the map again and finally found the trailhead. By now it was after 7am and I had 22 miles to do before I had to return the car around 1pm. I was cutting it close running a new set of trails with a lunch stop. So I headed off a bit anxious.

    Immediately my anxiety started to dissipate as I took in the quiet, green woods. It was so quiet, so still and so majestic seeming around me. I started to practice my Chi Running which I have been studying a bit. I used a mindfulness skill I once learned where when I quieted my mind down and envisioned a conveyer belt which had bins at the end labeled "music", "sad thoughts", "worries", "funny thoughts", etc...Then whenever my inner attention was distracted from the quiet beauty around me I would put the thought on the conveyer belt and have it taken away and deposited into one of the bins to be thought about later. You can also use moving clouds or any number of things to do this. I am a very visual learner and this kind of thing always helps me more than a mantra or repeating things to myself like "return to breath" so I did that and just enjoyed it.

   I felt like I was following the signs well. I was checking my map frequently at the intersections. The signs I saw were very vague however. Most of them just said "trail" with no designation. I found one that said "545 Trail" and then "Grubb Ridge" pointing either left or right. I chose right and up I ran up a big technical hill. I felt like I was making progress although the vaguery of the signs was getting to me. "TRAIL"???  what trail? where? huh???  Then I found myself after an hour staring back at the "545 Trail" and "Grubb Ridge Trail" sign. I had gone in a big loop!! AUUGH! Here my zen started to break down into frustration. I felt I had wasted an hour of my precious trail time going around in some circle and now had no idea what to do. Oh well. I started out again now changing my tactics to the other way.

   Then as I was running more I started to see familiar landmarks only the other direction. So I had come around but knew by how much time had passed there was no way I had gone the complete 11 mile trail. I was not putting THAT much pedal to the metal although I was making some very good time on some of the run-able spots. I was feeling good physically so that was terrific. And the trails were all so pretty. I found the horseman's camp again and decided to take my lunch stop and then try to make it up by hitting the Cope Hollow trail. I was wishing so hard I had GPS so I could know how many miles I went but my watch only did Heart Rate and Time so I had to go by the time: 2:12. I had been running in circles for two hours! ACK! Okay so I would do what I had heard on a Trail Runner Nation podcast about the long run and do it by Time on The Trail. I had put in two good hours of steady, nicely paced running. So..okay. I changed my attitude, checked my perfectionism and ate my sandwich, had a bathroom break and started out again.

    Now here it gets really sketchy: I found some little trail off to the side of the Grubb Ridge Trail. It was this little windy thing...really technical but I thought according to my map it COULD Be Cope Hollow trail by the direction. Maybe it just started out little and got better a little later. So down I went this little trail full of rocks and these windy dry creekbeds and WAY too many spiderwebs I kept running into which led to a fresh bit of Ninja behavior trying to desperately rid myself of any spider hitchhikers. I found none so YAY! That would have been a royal bummer!

   So I follow this trail and little by little realize this is a LITTLE trail. Even horses weren't allowed on it because of that. It wound down and down and disappeared after another creek crossing. Couldn't find it anymore. So now I had to walk back UP the tech trail. It was pretty steep elevation. Like the walking-with-hands-on-thighs kind of steep. So Up I go again and now have wasted another half hour. I find Grubb Ridge and go again. By now I am just going to do an out and back as I was worried about getting my friend's car back in time for her. Then I found out I didn't have my phone. Oh JEEZ! So I decided to just go back to get my phone and that is when I ran into the horses. A man and woman on horseback. I had scared the horses appearing suddenly from behind running. The people said wait and let them turn around and see you! So the horses turned around and I have this kind of awkward wave at them like Hey horses...just a little old trail runner. No worries! They got the horses positioned kind of awkwardly and I scurried past the back ends of horses. Don't like going behind anxious horses! So after that I finally chucked the rest of the run, headed back to camp and decided to call it a day. My watch said I had been running for 3:58:11 so I rounded it up to 4 hours of consistent running as I had paused the watch while I ate lunch and bathroomed.

   So I had a nice run in the pretty woods, thought some thoughts, had some adventures, got a nice picture or two and OH ran around with some cool rocks stuffed into my hydration pack. 4 hours, possibly 12 to 13 min. pace? So...doing the maths...maybe 16 miles? Not the full amount but a pretty good run after all.

The brilliant agony of distance running

    There is something I didn't know before I started running...specifically long distance running:

  Feeling like hell can actually be liberating. Before anyone says it I don't mean the "running through injury pain" hell but once I am in the in the middle of a long run, a sucky run, a too-hot, not enough hydration, calf cramping, tired legs run I think "Hey here is probably the worst I am going to feel and I only have 8 miles left to go!" See what I mean? Liberating!
  Heading into the final few weeks to my first Ultra I am reminded of this. There was a saying I read long ago from an ultrarunner that said "It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse." I laughed at that but really it is the basis for extreme running. Fighting through the body's defense mechanisms that says "HEY STOP!...UM...HEY STOP!......." 
  No matter how disciplined you are in your training, diet, emotional/mental/physical readiness at the starting line if you have done this enough times you know there will come a point where you don't want to do this anymore and that is when you need to toughen up inside. Anyone, no matter how highly trained is going to get tired and a little cranky after running more than 20 miles. Things are going to ache, things are going to feel tired, you are going to get bored, you are going to curse the day you started running, you are going to wish that a couch would magically appear in the middle of the trail or road and you can just lie down for a "little bit", you may be prone to some jealousy of the bystanders but inside if you are made for this you will have that spark...that fire of amazement and joy that you are doing this! You are fighting through, digging deep, finding strength that could lift mountains and that overrides all the other things.
   And that....is when the magic happens. People who don't run this kind of extreme distance do not get this but we embrace the difficulties. It is part of our sport! And it makes us instead of breaks us. This is the best thing I have ever started doing. I will take all the achy, tired, worn down runs because so many more of them are epic, amazing, satisfying, transcending runs. They are early morning runs seeing the sunrise; they are muddy trails; they are quiet runs, noisy runs, solo runs with your thoughts or group runs with your friends. They are all these things and so much more.........
   And after a long, long run you are forever changed. You run by the usual places and think " I just ran 20 miles! This all feels different. I AM different. I have done what most don't do."

             "...but I, I walked the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference."  

Be original. Be bold. Be yourself. Do what makes you happy. Everything else will fall into place.