Dances With Dirt Gnawbone 50 Mile (Part 1)

It’s now Tuesday after DWD50, and I am finally able to walk somewhat reasonably with the exception of navigating stairs and inclines due to extremely tight/sore quads.  Recovery from a well run 50 miler is definitely slower than what I have experienced in longer races like ironman, etc.

My final few weeks of build and taper in mileage are below, I hit three peak weeks of training at 80+ miles in the process and got in several longer trail runs, and two solid 30 mile efforts, with one run on tired legs from a 15 mile marathon pace run the evening before.

This certainly boosted my confidence a little going into the race, but still I was very apprehensive about going into the last 20 miles of a 50 miler on a rugged trail.

Why Dances with Dirt for my first attempt at 50 miles?

An ultra distance trail event has been gnawing at the back of my mind ever since I read some ultra marathon books a few years ago, including Dean Karnazes: Ultra Marathon Man.  Dean is somewhat self promoting in his writing but the story of his first crack at the Western States 100 got an idea in my mind that I haven’t been able to forget.  At the time I was deep into a planned cycle of two years of triathlon training, so I wanted to wait till after Ironman Wisconsin in 2009 to start thinking about getting into an ultra distance trail race.  I felt the best step to getting started racing rugged trails locally might be DWD, and of course being Brown County I have had some opportunity to train there and also ran the relay last year which was an absolute blast.  I wanted a challenging course and I think I got it.  Making my first attempt at an ultra distance race locally was a good idea as well logistically since getting to the race required no travel.

Throughout the spring, I have been slowly building mileage, lengthening my long runs, and getting out to local trails including Deam, Tecumseh, and BCSP.  I have been missing out on on some great running having always started my long runs from in town in the past.  I also have had some great (although flat) fun fighting through the briars and debris of the "unsanctioned" part of the rails to trails railroad south of where the trail ends with the "no trespassing" house.  I will break through that railroad all the way to Bedford someday, just not sure when that will happen yet.

I also have picked up a few new road favorites including heading out Lampkins Ridge road on the east side of town and coming back in the same way or going out to Mt. Gilead road.  My other road favorite I have added to heavier rotation on my schedule is running from the SRSC, up the grass field behind, down the Jordan extension, out to Lake Griffy, then from Bethel to Old 37, North Dunn, and through the Stadium back up the Jordan extension and striding out fast on the grass field down hill all the way back to the office.  This is a great and fast run that can be finished in an hour if I want to push it.

I also made some breakthroughs in nutrition, I found (thanks to my fiancé Katie's dietary leanings) that my overall energy levels and recovery were greatly improved by eating lots of whole foods, more fruit and brown rice, vegetables and far less grains.

This has also cleared up a lot of digestion issues I had faced on longer efforts.  Prior to the race, I dropped to even fewer carbohydrates and mostly the carbs I consumed were from fruit for about a week, follows by three days of lots of brown rice and fruit prior to the race.  Quality proteins and vegetables including lots of nuts, spinach, kale and avocados were also a constant throughout my nutritional "adjustment".  This has definitely been the breakthrough for me and I quickly found myself down from 149 lbs at Christmas to a race ready 135 for the first time in two years.  No doubt, I have Katie to thank for her love of veggies.

Throughout the spring I decided DWD would be a goal but I decided to keep my plan low key and not sign up till I was certain that I wouldn't break down during an aggressive build of running mileage.  I didn't even tell anyone but Katie till I was sure about my training, as I didn't want to be set on thinking I had to do it if training didn't feel quite right.  I had just come off of injury from knee tracking issues last year and winter due to an overbuild up of my outer quads from cycling.  My new strength routine I started this spring to hopefully avoid this has been several times a week hitting slightly modified leg extensions, calf raises, weighted foot (pulling up with resistance attached to toes) raises, and lots of core work.  It’s a fast routine I can knock out in 30 minutes, which is key because I’d rather be out running than in the gym.  Through all of this, I feel like my knees are solid for the first time in years.

Pre Race

I took the day off on Friday before the race, since I had some errands to run and needed to get my things together for the race.  I packed a drop bag with 4 power bars (didn’t end up using), three small plastic plastic zip lock bags of BBQ potato chips and two pairs of shoes (one extra pair of Nike Lunar Racer 2, and old standby Brooks Infinity).  I also included my trusty old Bloomington Bagel Company water bottle (not a hand bottle but the indentation in the bottle rests perfectly in your hand) in case something went awry with my new strapped on hand bottle.  Finally, (and most importantly) I had two pairs of Balega socks that have been the only clearly blister free socks I’ve run with.  Oh, and finally I threw in my old Muncie Endurathon running cap that provides a nice rescue from rain in the face (or branches in the face on the trail).

I also prepped for race start my new Nathan Hand Bottle (Thanks InRunCo!) and shoved in the pockets 12 endurolyte tablets, 3 2X caffeine GU, and a course map (all in tiny ziplock bags).

My primary supplies were on my race belt, a very minimal Nathan elastic type belt with race number clip.  Since this belt doesn’t actually hold anything but a race number I took 17 standard (half non-caffeinated, 4 2X, 4 1X) and folded them in half to make them round, and created a duct tape wrap with a small folded tab on the top to quickly “rip” them from the belt.  This was an awesome discovery because on testing this with the belt tightened well (with all 17 loaded on the belt) I could actually run shirtless with no rubbing, no feel of weight, and absolutely zero bounce.  Incredible!  The gels just slid on the end of the belt (very snugly slide, I had to push) and were easily loaded that way.  (See belt photo below.)  This was all assuming a wost case scenario I thought of an over 10 hour race, with a gel every 30 minutes, and zero aid station GU.

Finally, race wear, another pair of Lunar Racer 2 flats (the older ones as I figured they would get slimed on the horse trail pretty quickly at the race start), more Balega socks, and the forest green Brooks running shorts with the HUGE split up the sides.  I picked these since I have noticed even when completely soaked they don’t provide any unfortunate “display” to spectators.  I also wore a recently purchased InRunCo logo Brooks technical shirt.  (I thought I’d probably lose the shirt almost right away given the humidity all week but it ended up being just right).  I also finally replaced the battery in my old Timex Ironman watch, so I could stop running with either no watch or Katie’s pink version of the same watch.

My final meal of the evening was a large spinach, tomato, carrot, avocado and chopped almond salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  My theory being a super light meal keeps me from having GI issues but with a little fat in there gives my body one final nudge toward considering fat energy to be plentiful prior to the race.