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Pacing at Wasatch 100

Most trail ultramarathons, 50 miles or more, allow runners to use a “pacer” to run along with them for the last half of the race.  Pacing is true service.  There are no awards for pacing, just the satisfaction that you have in some way helped a runner accomplish something pretty spectacular.  “A race is just a race, but a friend who paces you is a friend for life.” – Joseph Franko

This year, I decided instead of running Wasatch 100, that I would pace someone. I linked up with Matt Van Horn who I had run with a couple times.  He would be trying to finish his first Wasatch 100.  I’ve finished Wasatch four times and each year had some very painful low-energy sections.  I really had no strong desire to run it again for awhile.  I could run those trails any time I wished, with much less pain.   At the pre-race meeting I was asked if I felt bad not running for myself this year.  In all honesty, I was not envious at all.   I looked forward to being a pacer.

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Cascade Crest 100

Would it be possible to finish a 100-miler with only about three weeks of training in the past six months?   That is a crazy question and I knew the answer was no.   After six months of long recovery from a serious stress fracture that almost broke my tibia in half, I had only been able to start doing some sort of careful running for three weeks.   My longest run was 15 miles.   I had spent many long weeks limping around and laying on the couch for hours.

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Back running – cautiously

I continue to recover from my broken leg.  It has now been six months.  I now can run cautiously.  It is wonderful to be back on the trails somewhat.  Pain still exists, but I’m trying to be careful and thus far the activity seems to help more than hurt as I see improvement every couple days now.  It seems like most of the pain is soft tissue now, but I’m still not ready to really pound the downhills.   I’ve been able to run three 50+ mile weeks in a row and my fitness is coming back.  I’ve summitted Mount Timpanogos (a 4,500-foot climb in 7 miles) five times in the last few weeks and have progressed to a 3:59 round trip.  It seems like my fitness would allow a 3:30, but I have to back off the pace to keep the pain level down.  A 3:30 pace is fairly typical when I’m in good ultrarunning shape.  I do most of these summits in the dark, so that also limits the pace.

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First run

After 21 long weeks, today I ran my first steps pain-free.  It was a slow jog for 1/4 mile, but it was running, and I power-walked a total of 5 miles today.   After a half hour session pounding the elliptical, I went home and my wife said for the first time in five months, “OOOO, you stink.”   That was music to my ears.   I’m still a ways of from running at full speed, but I now have hope again.

Week 22.  Continued progress.   I ran three miles at 3/4th speed.  Pain is the lowest I have felt during running since Dec 30.

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You know its been awhile…

It has now been 18 weeks since I have run since stress fracturing my tibia all the way through while running (and finishing) Rocky Raccoon 100.

You know its been awhile since you ran when:

  • Your family compliments you on your toe nails, only one is black.
  • You can’t remember when you bought your last pair of shoes.
  • You wonder if your model of shoe has been discontinued.
  • You see an overweight runner going down the street and you mutter to yourself, “show-off”
  • Nerve endings in your feet are coming to life for the first time in 8 years.
  • You have gained ten pounds but have been eating half as much as usual.
  • You no longer have reoccurring dreams about showing up for races late.
  • You discover that you have three grand children
  • Your grandson can run faster than you…in his walker
  • You start referring to yourself as a former runner

On the bright side, things are progressing.  The fracture was nearly complete through the entire bone.  I now have a bone stimulator machine that seems to be helping.  I can now do short walks nearly pain free.

 

 

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Running on a busted leg

Finally after getting the runaround with doctors and tests, the verdict is in:  I have a bad stress fracture on my tibia about three inches below the knee.  The fracture seems to be about 3-4 inches long across the bone.  It was frustrating that it took so long to get a definitive diagnosis, but I also had hammered my knee very bad and it took 7 weeks for that pain to go down.  An MRI concentrated on the knee and only after I asked the doctor twice to look very close at the pictures again did he see the fracture down below.  It also lit up like a light bulb in a bone scan.

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When you can’t run (or hardly walk)

One lone trekking pole by the fireplace

I haven’t yet posted my Rocky Raccoon 100 report, but may still once the story is complete.  In short, I tried to run RR100 with some leg pain left over from Across the Years.  The hope was that the problem was minor and would calm down and go away during the race.  By mile 8, things did feel much better, but by mile 40, I knew it would be a painful finish if I continued.  I did continue and finished my 5th RR100 in my slowest time ever.  The last 20 miles took 8.5 hours and I used trekking poles like crutches.  I promised myself that I would stop if my knee swelled up.   It never did much so I continued to the finish, and later was pushed through the airport in a wheel chair.

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Dealing with Injury

For the serious runner, an injury that causes you to halt the activity that you love, can be a pretty frustrating experience.  But if you push the limits often, injuries are bound to happen, and right now I’m dealing with it.  Across The Years 48-hour run has left me with a sore knee/leg that really taking its time to heal.   I drive down the road and see happy, healthy runners going by, looking at them in envy.  But I tell myself, “rest is good, be patient.”  Nevertheless, I have nagging irrational thoughts that my competitive running days may be over. 

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Across the Years 48-hour race

To close out 2011, I again ran in Across the Years (ATY), a fixed-time race held in Glendale, Arizona.  For a fixed-time race, the objective is to run as many miles as you can within a given period of time.  The clock is always ticking.  You can take rests along the way, but the clock never stops.  At ATY, there are three different races, running concurrently, 24-hours, 48-hours, and 72-hours.   This year I again decided to enter the 48-hour race.   Last year I also ran for 48-hours and came away with a surprising 187 miles, good enough for the overall win.

This year I set my sights on running 200 miles in 48-hours.  I really thought it was within the reach of my abilities, and if I could achieve that, I would likely win the race again.  But I had experienced a rather disappointing year in my races.  Sure, I had finished nine 100-mile races without a DNF this year, but my times were all slower this year and I began to wonder if my age (53) was really finally slowing me down once and for all.   My speed during my last 100-mile race was disappointing and it seemed that being able to run 100 miles in less than 20 hours was a thing of the past for me. 

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Western Book Cliffs Trail Adventure Run – 26 miles

Usually the day after Thanksgiving, I find myself down in the Grand Canyon.  This year I decided to stay closer to home and not risk injuring my problem knee from steep pounding downhills.  For this year’s Black Friday adventure, I chose to travel two hours to Price Utah, and run up on a mesa north of the town, on the Western Book Cliff Mountain Bike trails.  These trails have been developed by the Price Area Single Track Society (PASS).

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Virgil Crest 100 – NY

After running the Bear 100 for seven straight years, I decided that it was time to try a new race.  I was drawn back to my roots, and wanted to run the Virgil Crest 100 in Upstate New York where I lived for eleven years.  The Virgil Crest Ultras (100, 50, and 50K), in their fourth year, are held above the town of Virgil, New York, and runs through the Greek Peak ski resort, where I used to ski in the 80s.  This would be my third mountain 100-mile race in the past four weeks, Cascade Crest 100, Wasatch 100, and now Virgil Crest 100.

The course is a 50-mile out-and-back course with a tough mountain loop thrown in the middle, taking you up to the top of the ski mountain, not just once but twice during the loop. In all during the entire 100 miles, there were 20 significant climbs for nearly 20,000 feet of climbing along the entire way.  You knew you were at the top because each time there was a ski lift shack greeting you.   But most of the course runs through beautiful green forest, some of it almost dark enough for a flashlight during the day.  The trails are soft and fast (if dry) with only a few short technical spots. 

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Wasatch Front 100

The slogan that Wasatch 100 uses is “100 miles of heaven and hell.”  This year I got my money’s worth and visited both places multiple times but still made it to the finish.   This would be my fourth Wasatch 100, a tough mountain race in the Wasatch Mountains from Kaysville to Midway.  Locally, the race gets over-shadowed in the minds of recreational runners by the Ragnar relay called Wasatch Back.   It’s funny to try to explain to people the huge difference between the two.  No, there would be no simple 10K runs with friends on this race, I would be faced with running 100 miles by myself climbing more than 25,000 feet along the way.  This year I would do it without pacer or crew.  I joked that I was going to do it without drop bags and aid stations this year and some people thought I was serious.

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