Race Report: Jordan Lake 12-hour Challenge 2017

Well, this was originally going to be the weekend that I ran the Illinois Marathon, but that trip got canceled.  So I found a local event to do instead - the Jordan Lake 12-hour Challenge.  The idea here is you run lots of laps on a relatively short loop (1.35 miles) and whoever does the most laps in 12 hours wins.

Doing the math, I thought this might be an opportunity to do my first 50-mile run.  As a stretch goal, I thought it would be cool if I could pull off a double marathon (52.4 miles).

Once my Illinois trip got canceled, I switched back to trail running for my training.  (I had been doing my last few long runs on the road.)  My last 20-mile long trail run was pretty miserable.  But I wasn't well rested that day, so I didn't get too discouraged.

On race day, I stopped at McDonalds on the way and got my usual order of 2 sausage egg and cheese McMuffins.  The night before, I had half of a large Mellow Mushroom Mighty Meaty pizza.  Needless to say, I had plenty of calories on board.  I also loaded up on caffeine with a Diet Mt Dew that I drank on the way, as well as a 5-hour Energy shot before the start.

Side note:  I downloaded all the male racers' split times from the live tracking site that the race used.  I plotted the data in Excel to reconstruct how my position was changing during the race, and when.  Otherwise, I would not have remembered the exact lap numbers when I moved up/down a spot.  If you're interested, you can see the charts here:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3HzHd5-7-xzaFJLRWxmUnpaU1k

Anyway, I arrived about 30 minutes before the start - plenty of time to pick up my bib, fill my water bottle, and line up.  The race director went over the instructions for the race, and then we were off!

The first lap was all about getting familiar with the course.  It was fairly well-marked.  They also had volunteers out on the course directing people on the first lap, to make sure everyone knew where they were going.

In addition to the 12-hour solo race, there was a 12-hour relay race.  The relay racers were easy to spot because they had to carry a baton.  There was also a 6-hour solo and 6-hour relay race.  It wasn't possible (as far as I could tell) to determine who was in the 6-hour event versus the 12-hour event.  Except, that the really fast solo people were probably in the 6-hour event - although you never know...

So, not knowing who was who, I went out at a somewhat reasonable speed (probably a little too fast).  The course was pretty flat by "trail race" standards, and not technical at all.  In other words, it was a fast course.  I did about a 9 min/mile pace on the first lap (12:08 lap time) and when I crossed the timing strip, saw I was in first place.  Now I definitely knew I was going too fast!

It was still pretty comfortable temperature-wise.  I had on a short-sleeve cycling/skating jersey and a headband.  I settled into a moderate pace on lap 2 (12:39 lap time) and when I crossed the timing strip, saw I had dropped to 4th place.  There was a big tv near the timing strip that showed your name, # of laps, current placement, and time behind the leader.  So, that was really the only information I had during the race to know where I was relative to everyone else.  I suspect the people that had friends/crew there were getting more detailed updates since the data was posted live during the race.  But I never knew how close behind the next person was, for example - or how close I was to the person in front of me.  I only knew how far behind 1st place I was.

So lap 3 was 13:05 - getting a little more reasonable/sustainable on the pace now.  But I dropped again to 5th place.  Lap 4 I regained 4th place.  At this point, we're just over an hour into the race.  I held onto 4th place until lap 10, where I dropped back into 5th place again.  My lap times have settled into about 14 minutes per lap, or just over 10:00 min/mile.  

Another side note:  I had run into a minor problem before I left the house in the morning.  When I grabbed my GPS watch, the battery was dead!  (It was fully charged the night before.)  I'm not sure what happened, but I grabbed the charging cable and charged it in the truck on the way to the event.  It got up to 91% before I had to unplug it.  Fast forward 4 or 5, and I notice it has already dropped below 70% - it's never going to make it.  By lap 8, it was below 65% - so I ended up turning off GPS for the remainder of the race.  I wanted to make sure I had heart rate data, which was more important than GPS data since I was just running a loop.

As it turns out, disabling GPS was even less of a problem, since the watch reverted to "treadmill mode" and estimated my speed/distance according to my cadence.  It wasn't exact, but I could periodically compare it against the official distance on the timing screen and know approximately how much it was off.  By the halfway mark, it was off by about 1 mile.  At the end of the event, it was overestimating by 2 miles.  

On lap 13, I took a quick pit stop to grab some more gels, and apply some lube to my underarms that felt like they might start to get chafed.  I also ditched my jersey and went shirtless for the remainder of the race.  The sun was starting to get pretty intense.

Yet another side note:  I put some 2Toms Sport Shield on my toes before the race, and it worked great!  I highly recommend it...  This was the first time I tried it, which could have been a disaster.  But it all worked out...  I used Gold Bond Friction Defense in the chafing-prone areas (that I was aware of) and that worked pretty well too.

On lap 18, I retook 4th place.  My lap times are slowing a little more - probably 14:30 - 15:00 per lap.  At this point I'm thinking 4th place would be a pretty legit finish!  So I kept chugging along.  We're about 4 hours in at this point.  I haven't had a pee break yet, although I've had the urge for a while.  My strategy going in was to minimize my stops, even if I had to walk.  Just keep moving forward.  I figured people might linger at the aid station, and that's where I could gain some distance on them.

On lap 22, I finally took a quick pee break.  It's around noon now, and the temperature is quite warm.  The porta-john was like a sauna (worst sauna ever) but fortunately I wasn't in there very long.  The quick stop didn't cost me in terms of my placement - I was still in 4th place when I crossed the mat.

The first place guy had steadily been increasing his lead this whole time.  In fact, he was about 35 minutes ahead of me and had lapped me twice.  I had no idea where #2 and #3 were.  Looking back at the data now, though, I can see we were all pretty close to each other - within a couple minutes.

Toward the end of lap 24, I started to feel kinda crampy in my stomach/abdomen.  Felt like it was more than just gas, or an upset stomach.  I soon realized "uh oh - I have to poop".  No way I was going to suffer in the porta john.  Fortunately, there was an actual bathroom for the park maybe 100-150 feet off the course, just after the start/finish line.  So I finished my lap, refilled my bottle, and bolted for the bathroom.  That added a solid 6 minutes or so to my time for lap 25.  But, when I made my way around again, I saw I was still in 4th place, and considerably lighter.  :-)

Now we're about 6 hours in, which was nice because all the 6-hour event people are off the course and I know if I pass someone (or get passed) they're in the 12-hour event.  I'm also starting to wish I had signed up for the 6-hour event!  My legs were already pretty tired.  I also couldn't stand to drink any more gatorade, or eat anything sweet (including gels).  I did drink a can of Mt Dew, which was tough getting down - but I thought (incorrectly) the carbonation might help.  Up to this point, I was alternating between the Vanilla Gu gels I brought with me, and PB&J sandwiches and bananas that the race had.  (They had lots of other stuff too, but I figured those were safe.)  Of course I never train with that type of food, so that could have contributed to the GI distress.  I've also been running longer than I ever had previously - so I was in uncharted territory with respect to everything.

It's getting *really* hot out too, as if it wasn't difficult enough already.  But I kept moving.  Lap times are averaging about 17-18 minutes now.  I'm walking the hills - which I probably should have started doing earlier.  I'm still running the flats and downhills though.

On lap 31, I moved into 3rd place and suddenly was much closer to 1st place!  I was no longer down 2 laps - I was only 3:30 behind!  What I didn't know at the time was the guy that led pretty much the whole race had dropped.  So now 1st-3rd place were all pretty close to each other.  We're now 8 hours into the race - 2/3 done!

On lap 32, I moved into 2nd place!  This is nuts!  My GI distress had settled down somewhat, so I was able to eat again.  I was still just drinking water though.  I figure my heart rate was low enough (on average) that I was probably able to tap into some fat reserves, instead of relying solely on carbs for energy.

About this time, we finally got a break from the heat!  The sky darkened, the temperature fell, and we got about 5-10 minutes of rain.  After the rain stopped, it probably stayed cool for another 15-20 minutes.  Then, the sky cleared and it became miserably hot again.  From that point on, I started filling my water bottle with ice, and topping it off with water.  The water was pretty cold on its own, but this kept it cold.  I think it made a difference.  There was one lap where I could feel myself getting a little lightheaded.  I may have been starting to overheat.  After drinking some of the ice cold water, my head cleared a bit.

In the meantime, I slowly fell further behind 1st place.  At lap 38, I was almost 10 minutes behind.  But I still held onto 2nd place.  That definitely kept me motivated.  Although I really would have liked to know how far back 3rd place was.  For all I knew, he was only a minute behind.  (As it turned out, he was about 5 minutes behind at that point.)

Lap 39 came, and I hit my double-marathon stretch goal!  10:15:09.  So now I had 1:45 left to see how much I could add to it.

Unfortunately, this is about the time that my calf muscles decided they wanted to start cramping up.  Fortunately, it was usually if I tried running a little of the uphills, so that just forced me to keep walking the uphills.  My pace slowed a little bit, but I was still doing about 17:30-18:00 per lap.  At this point, I was thinking in terms of how many laps I could complete before time ran out - since "4 laps to go" actually sounds pretty reasonable.

Everything hurt.  My quads, as expected.  My hips were really bad.  Knees, shins.  I had taken a couple doses of ibuprofen throughout the day, but it was hard to tell if it had made a difference.  At best, it took the edge off a little bit.

I fell further behind 1st place.  At lap 42, I was about 15 minutes behind.  But I also noticed on the timing screen that 3rd place was doing sub-15:00 laps now.  Depending on how far back he was, he might catch me!  (Fortunately, he was 16 minutes behind - almost a whole lap - but I didn't know that at the time.) 

I cranked out another lap, and the leader passed me (lapped me).  Up until that point, I thought there might be a chance I could still do the same number of laps as him, since partial laps don't count.  At the rate he was going, I knew he could fit in two more laps.  I *might* be able to fit in two more laps, but that would still leave me a lap behind.  At the end of lap 43, there was just under 34 minutes left.  It would be close.  I tried to pick up the pace, but I was close to cramping the whole time.  I managed to complete lap 44 in 17:22.  The clock said there was 16:00 remaining, and I knew there was no way I could finish another lap before time expired.  So it was a relief that I didn't have to run anymore, but now I needed to worry about whether the 3rd place guy would cruise through and still have enough time to hammer out another lap.

He didn't.  He completed lap 44 with about 4 minutes to spare.  So we tied on distance, but I completed the laps quicker, so I got 2nd place.

The winner ended up doing 46 laps, so he definitively beat everyone!

Race results:  http://my.raceresult.com/71326/results

Race results (ultrasignup):  http://ultrasignup.com/results_event.aspx?did=42694#id1171850

Photos of me:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10212274491519605.1073741846.1297879624&type=1&l=0929a13d54

All event photos:  https://www.facebook.com/pg/chathamcountypartnershipforchildren/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10154726048881225

So now I guess the next step is to try a 100k event - probably one that's hillier than this.  In the meantime, I need to figure out a nutrition strategy that'll work.  The key I think will be to find something I can tolerate eating that isn't sweet - since I'll be getting more than enough 'sweet' from whatever sport drink I'm drinking.  Potato chips seemed to work okay this time - but they'd be difficult to carry without turning into crumbs.  (Maybe that's not a bad thing anyway.)

I didn't notice it during the race, but I had some pretty bad chafing when I finished.  I was walking around like a cowboy that just finished a two week cattle drive.  So perhaps more lube in the trouble spots will be in order.  It hasn't been a problem in the past, but this was more than double the duration of my previous longest run.  And it's not like you can go out and run 12 hours to find this stuff out ahead of time - you just have to be prepared to deal with things as they come up.  Improvise.  Adapt.  Overcome.

I expected to be more sore the day after.  I certainly am sore, but it's manageable.  The chafing is healing quickly.  Depending on the weather, I may go for a short run Monday or Tuesday.  (Although the current forecast calls for rain, which I'm not thrilled about running in right now.)

My next event is Grayson Highlands 50k in two weeks.  We'll see if I have enough time to recover.  If not, I may be stopping a lot to take pictures during that one.  :-)  No more ultras on the schedule after that - just a couple Tough Mudders.  I'll probably try to incorporate more skating to get ready for my fall inline races.