FFigawi
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Go Kenn! I imagine he'll be finishing in a few hours or so.
The Running Thread -- 2022
- Thread starter Herding_Cats
- Start date
Go Kenn! I imagine he'll be finishing in a few hours or so.
camaker
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
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Thank you for remembering! Unfortunately, things did not go as well as planned. I had to pull myself from the course at the Mile 75 aid station around midnight last night.
I'll do a full race report in the next day or so, but the bottom line is that while the temperatures were pretty good (mid-50s all day), we were dealing with a constant sustained wind of 15-20 mph with gusts well into the 30s from the starting gun to the end (my end, at least) and it was getting worse as the night wore on.
Ultimately, the fatigue of being on course for 19 hrs along with fighting the wind caught up to me and I lost the ability to control my body temperature. I was fine entering the aid station and had a plan to get through the last 25, but as I left it I started having uncontrollable chills and shaking. Nothing we could think to try on the spot could remedy the situation, so I had to make the gut-wrenching call to turn in my bib.
This is my first DNF and I'm having a hard time with it right now. I probably won't try this distance again for reasons I'll detail later, so that makes it sting all the more. Anyway, thanks for reading my pity party here and I'll be back with more info when I can tell a more balanced story.
garneska
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@camaker am Sorry to hear about the DNF but dang 75 miles is impressive. Still many props to you for getting out there. winds were pretty brutal yesterday along the east coast. I started the day in NE Ohio with wind and snow. Flew back to Atl in the evening, no snow but still pretty windy.
looking forward to the race report. also decompress for a few days before you make any decisions. Still giving you mad props!
looking forward to the race report. also decompress for a few days before you make any decisions. Still giving you mad props!
gosalyn_mallard
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Guidman
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Had a small, local half yesterday. Finished in 1:28:20. Like many in the NE, mother nature threw the kitchen sink at us out there: rain, snow (a whiteout 10 minutes before the start), a ton of wind, the sun peeked out slightly. This was a good gauge/tuneup for the Pittsburgh half in five weeks.
Disney at Heart
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gosalyn_mallard
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Have you done the Pittsburgh half before? I have family in Pittsburgh and would love to do the half one year. Running across the bridges would amazing. Pittsburgh is such a distinctive city. Hope you have a great race!
GreatLakes
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It is hard to do in the moment, and no one likes to miss a goal, but try to concentrate on the 75 you did instead of the 25 you didn't.
Guidman
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Thanks. I live here in Pittsburgh, I've done the full only once but the half seven times. It's a pretty good course, they flattened out a portion of the course a few years ago, removing crossing over two bridges. There's still a large bridge at mile 11 that is all at an incline. That's the toughest portion.
camaker
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
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Race Report - Blackbeard’s Revenge 100 Miler
First off, I'd like to say thank you to everyone for the kind words and well wishes in the immediate aftermath of my disappointing performance this weekend. As promised, here is the race report detailing the highlights (lowlights?) of the weekend.
Blackbeard’s Revenge 100m & 100k is run along the NC outer banks with the 100m starting at the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla and ending at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras. I love running on the outer banks because they’re flat and nostalgic. I grew up fishing for and gigging flounder in the salt marshes with my father and being out there brings back great memories.
Conditions for the race were forecast to be partly to mostly cloudy with temperatures in the 50s all day on Saturday, dropping into the 40s overnight into Sunday. The wind was forecast to be constant 15-20 mph with gusts well over 30 mph.
We started off the race at 5:00am and I immediately settled into a rhythm of walking the first minute of each mile and running the rest. The entirety of the route was on the shoulder of open roads, mostly highway, and the first half of the race was uneventful, with alternating stretches of seclusion and small town like Duck, Kitty Hawk and Nags Head. I was clipping along at an easy 12:00-12.30 overall pace and my nutrition and hydration were good. The only problem was the wind, which simultaneously kept things cool, but also tended to blow me off balance at times when the gusts got high.
Still, I was running in an easy rhythm, clicking off the miles. DW was crewing for me, scouting aid stations and refilling my consumables when needed. A pre-planned change of shoes and socks at the 30 mile aid station did a lot to ease some knee pain that tried to creep in. Around 40 miles in, I started to feel the fatigue in my legs and mind and probably let my nutrition slip a little from miles 35-50 or so. I started playing mental games with my race strategy to refocus. I would vary my run/walk interval and focus on running the new strategy for 5 miles to address the fatigue in my legs and keep my mind in the present and not what lay ahead.
By the time I got to mile 65, though, I was really feeling the onset of fatigue in my legs, was having difficulty switching back to running from my walk intervals, and was starting to question some life choices that had brought me to this point. I walked the next 5 mile stretch to try and give my running muscles a rest and recharge on the fly. It was an incredibly dark and desolate stretch of course with no lights except for the stars and oncoming headlights. It felt interminable. At 70 miles I decided to break out my headphones to see if the mental lift the music brings would kickstart my race. At this point, I was alternating running and walking 1/4 mile at a time. It worked to an extent, lifting my spirits and getting me moving more readily. Unfortunately, part of my difficulty transitioning from walking to running was my left ankle and Achilles starting to ache and get weak. I had planned for this possibility and was had an ankle sleeve to put on at the next aid station for support. It wasn't to be, though, as I started developing (or at least feeling) blisters on the bottom of both feet during that stretch. There was no way I could put the compression sleeve on over them. System failures were starting to cascade on me.
Regardless, I still felt like I was going to be able to finish at that point. A member of the race staff stopped and ran with me for a few hundred yards to gauge my physical and mental state for safety purposes and told me they'd be back to do that periodically throughout the night. My focus beyond that stretch was on 3 roughly 5-mile blocks of course between upcoming aid station, after which it would be a 12 mile countdown to the finish. The sun was fully down at this point and after a brief respite where the wind lay down right at sunset, it came roaring back worse than ever and the temps started to fall. I had changed into my warm gear and wasn't really feeling the cold too much, though.
At the mile 75 aid station, I checked in and refilled my hydration and nutrition supplies. It was a brief stop and I was on my way in 3-4 minutes. As I left the aid station, though, I started shivering and shaking uncontrollably. It was too strong to push through and I had to turn around and go back to the car to try and warm up to shake the feeling. After spending 15-20 minutes brainstorming and trying to get out of the car it was apparent that it wasn't going to pass. I gave some thought to trying an extended rest break to see if that would help, but it was a catch-22. Even if it got me past the chills, my muscles and joints, which were already on their last legs, pardon the pun, were going to stiffen and tighten up too much to restart. I needed to keep my momentum moving forward to keep them going. So just like that, it was over. I turned in my bib and took my first DNF. I had been on course for around 19 hours when I called it.
At this point, my best estimate of the cause of the DNF was threefold. I ran the first half of the race at a nice, easy, comfortable pace. I think, though, that I needed more frequent or longer walk breaks in there to keep my legs fresher and conserve energy for later in the race. Second, while the wind helped keep things cool throughout, constantly having to adjust for its impact was exhausting just because it was so strong. Finally, know I was undertrained for the race. I didn't really have a way to conceptualize the difference in magnitude between the 100k and 100m distance and put together my own training plan, mostly by adding significant daily walks on top of the running to the plan I used for the 100k. Obviously, it wasn't enough. In retrospect, if I could've adjusted any of these 3 factors I might've been able to finish. Taken as a whole across the 75-76 miles I completed, I think they just accumulated to the point that I pushed my body past its limit to the breaking point of fatigue.
I'm not sure what typical ultra DNF rates are, but I think the rates from this race may bear out the impact of the wind conditions. The race had DNF rates right around 40% for the 100 miles and 33% for the 100k. Those seem pretty high to me, and the wind conditions were the biggest wild card this weekend. In retrospect, I would've rather had the storms that closed the course for 90-135 minutes last year over the constant onslaught we got from the wind this year.
When I said in my earlier posting that this was an especially difficult decision to DNF because it was going to be my only attempt at the distance, it wasn't a reaction to the race. I'd already pretty much decided that this was one and done because the training that I did, insufficient though it was, was exhausting. I felt like I haven't been able to do anything since Dopey but run and walk, run and walk. The training has eaten my life and I don't really want to do that to myself or my wife, again. Maybe that will change with time, maybe not. It's not all negative, either. I've learned a lot about myself and the 100 mile distance along the way. I set a new distance PR by 13 miles with the 75.96 that I did complete!
Thanks for sticking with me through a long race recap. A lot happened over those 76 miles and these were just the biggest “highlights”. It was an adventure and I don't regret the attempt at all. The race was extremely well run and organized. I’d recommend it to anyone without reservation.
First off, I'd like to say thank you to everyone for the kind words and well wishes in the immediate aftermath of my disappointing performance this weekend. As promised, here is the race report detailing the highlights (lowlights?) of the weekend.
Blackbeard’s Revenge 100m & 100k is run along the NC outer banks with the 100m starting at the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla and ending at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras. I love running on the outer banks because they’re flat and nostalgic. I grew up fishing for and gigging flounder in the salt marshes with my father and being out there brings back great memories.
Conditions for the race were forecast to be partly to mostly cloudy with temperatures in the 50s all day on Saturday, dropping into the 40s overnight into Sunday. The wind was forecast to be constant 15-20 mph with gusts well over 30 mph.
We started off the race at 5:00am and I immediately settled into a rhythm of walking the first minute of each mile and running the rest. The entirety of the route was on the shoulder of open roads, mostly highway, and the first half of the race was uneventful, with alternating stretches of seclusion and small town like Duck, Kitty Hawk and Nags Head. I was clipping along at an easy 12:00-12.30 overall pace and my nutrition and hydration were good. The only problem was the wind, which simultaneously kept things cool, but also tended to blow me off balance at times when the gusts got high.
Still, I was running in an easy rhythm, clicking off the miles. DW was crewing for me, scouting aid stations and refilling my consumables when needed. A pre-planned change of shoes and socks at the 30 mile aid station did a lot to ease some knee pain that tried to creep in. Around 40 miles in, I started to feel the fatigue in my legs and mind and probably let my nutrition slip a little from miles 35-50 or so. I started playing mental games with my race strategy to refocus. I would vary my run/walk interval and focus on running the new strategy for 5 miles to address the fatigue in my legs and keep my mind in the present and not what lay ahead.
By the time I got to mile 65, though, I was really feeling the onset of fatigue in my legs, was having difficulty switching back to running from my walk intervals, and was starting to question some life choices that had brought me to this point. I walked the next 5 mile stretch to try and give my running muscles a rest and recharge on the fly. It was an incredibly dark and desolate stretch of course with no lights except for the stars and oncoming headlights. It felt interminable. At 70 miles I decided to break out my headphones to see if the mental lift the music brings would kickstart my race. At this point, I was alternating running and walking 1/4 mile at a time. It worked to an extent, lifting my spirits and getting me moving more readily. Unfortunately, part of my difficulty transitioning from walking to running was my left ankle and Achilles starting to ache and get weak. I had planned for this possibility and was had an ankle sleeve to put on at the next aid station for support. It wasn't to be, though, as I started developing (or at least feeling) blisters on the bottom of both feet during that stretch. There was no way I could put the compression sleeve on over them. System failures were starting to cascade on me.
Regardless, I still felt like I was going to be able to finish at that point. A member of the race staff stopped and ran with me for a few hundred yards to gauge my physical and mental state for safety purposes and told me they'd be back to do that periodically throughout the night. My focus beyond that stretch was on 3 roughly 5-mile blocks of course between upcoming aid station, after which it would be a 12 mile countdown to the finish. The sun was fully down at this point and after a brief respite where the wind lay down right at sunset, it came roaring back worse than ever and the temps started to fall. I had changed into my warm gear and wasn't really feeling the cold too much, though.
At the mile 75 aid station, I checked in and refilled my hydration and nutrition supplies. It was a brief stop and I was on my way in 3-4 minutes. As I left the aid station, though, I started shivering and shaking uncontrollably. It was too strong to push through and I had to turn around and go back to the car to try and warm up to shake the feeling. After spending 15-20 minutes brainstorming and trying to get out of the car it was apparent that it wasn't going to pass. I gave some thought to trying an extended rest break to see if that would help, but it was a catch-22. Even if it got me past the chills, my muscles and joints, which were already on their last legs, pardon the pun, were going to stiffen and tighten up too much to restart. I needed to keep my momentum moving forward to keep them going. So just like that, it was over. I turned in my bib and took my first DNF. I had been on course for around 19 hours when I called it.
At this point, my best estimate of the cause of the DNF was threefold. I ran the first half of the race at a nice, easy, comfortable pace. I think, though, that I needed more frequent or longer walk breaks in there to keep my legs fresher and conserve energy for later in the race. Second, while the wind helped keep things cool throughout, constantly having to adjust for its impact was exhausting just because it was so strong. Finally, know I was undertrained for the race. I didn't really have a way to conceptualize the difference in magnitude between the 100k and 100m distance and put together my own training plan, mostly by adding significant daily walks on top of the running to the plan I used for the 100k. Obviously, it wasn't enough. In retrospect, if I could've adjusted any of these 3 factors I might've been able to finish. Taken as a whole across the 75-76 miles I completed, I think they just accumulated to the point that I pushed my body past its limit to the breaking point of fatigue.
I'm not sure what typical ultra DNF rates are, but I think the rates from this race may bear out the impact of the wind conditions. The race had DNF rates right around 40% for the 100 miles and 33% for the 100k. Those seem pretty high to me, and the wind conditions were the biggest wild card this weekend. In retrospect, I would've rather had the storms that closed the course for 90-135 minutes last year over the constant onslaught we got from the wind this year.
When I said in my earlier posting that this was an especially difficult decision to DNF because it was going to be my only attempt at the distance, it wasn't a reaction to the race. I'd already pretty much decided that this was one and done because the training that I did, insufficient though it was, was exhausting. I felt like I haven't been able to do anything since Dopey but run and walk, run and walk. The training has eaten my life and I don't really want to do that to myself or my wife, again. Maybe that will change with time, maybe not. It's not all negative, either. I've learned a lot about myself and the 100 mile distance along the way. I set a new distance PR by 13 miles with the 75.96 that I did complete!
Thanks for sticking with me through a long race recap. A lot happened over those 76 miles and these were just the biggest “highlights”. It was an adventure and I don't regret the attempt at all. The race was extremely well run and organized. I’d recommend it to anyone without reservation.
garneska
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2003
- Messages
- 4,614
@camaker i am sorry you DNF but what a great report. I hear you on the training time suck. I mean that is part of it if you were already training all the time (run, walk, walk, run, etc) and you felt like you need more than it does take away from everything else. You have to be honest about the time commitment.
I did have a question for you though. I know you thought it was 3 things, maybe not enough walking in the beginning, the wind, and then you needed more training, but you made it 19 hours. You started at 5 am so you were on the course till midnight. Do you think sleep fatigue was also an issue? that is one of the hardest things for me to over come. I think i could maybe run for 12 hours but i think at 9 pm i would want to sleep.
Great job!! i will see you for MW weekend.
I did have a question for you though. I know you thought it was 3 things, maybe not enough walking in the beginning, the wind, and then you needed more training, but you made it 19 hours. You started at 5 am so you were on the course till midnight. Do you think sleep fatigue was also an issue? that is one of the hardest things for me to over come. I think i could maybe run for 12 hours but i think at 9 pm i would want to sleep.
Great job!! i will see you for MW weekend.
camaker
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
- Joined
- May 8, 2015
- Messages
- 4,999
Looking forward to seeing you at Marathon Weekend, too!
I don't think sleep fatigue was really an issue for me in the race. I could definitely tell I was getting mentally "fuzzy" a couple of times during the race, but I attribute that more to my fueling than anything else. The mental "fuzz" correlated pretty well to the periods where I had gotten a little behind the curve on my calorie intake and cleared up about the time I got the energy back into my legs after getting more food in me. It could be a coincidence there, but I'm inclined to believe the correlation, especially as I was on a mental high note/upswing with the music when the hammer dropped at the end.
I was tired, certainly, but I've had experience running relay legs through the night from completing the Tuna Run a couple of times. Those experiences served me well from a standpoint of knowing what to expect when running at night or after a long day of discontinuous running. Also, race day adrenaline and planning/adapting my racing strategy on the fly help keep the mind engaged and too much sleep fatigue from creeping in.
If you're interested in dipping your toe into the water rather than jumping into the deep end, I'd suggest coming up next year and we could run the 100k together. It's a much more civilized race, starting at 9:30am and it'll probably take 12-14 hours to run, so you'd get a feel for how you felt pushing past that 9pm mark.
OldSlowGoofyGuy
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michigandergirl
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LSUlakes
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- Jun 24, 2015
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For the first time in… nah I’m not gonna keep that going lol. Two things that haven’t happened in a long time happened today. Week 3 day 2 of c25k got me to a total distance of 3 miles. The other thing, I got rained on during the run, my dog Bella had to stop to shake more often than I would have imagined. Overall it was fun and went well, just don’t trust the weather channel’s future radar.
Since this was the last run for the month, my total is somewhere in the 20.75 range. The baby steps continue.
Since this was the last run for the month, my total is somewhere in the 20.75 range. The baby steps continue.
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