The first "test" was the virtual "Race Across Durham" back in November. That was a 60k that I ran with Ted (who I would eventually sucker into signing up for GDR as well.) My ankles, Achilles, and knees held up pretty well during that - especially considering the ludicrously compressed training schedule. That's just 2 months to go from 10k to 60k...
RAD was good, but it's relatively flat by trail running standards. Test #2 came at the Uwharrie 40-mile race in February. That has 7000ft of gain over the 40 miles, so a similar ft/mile as GDR. I finished that in a respectable time of just under 10 hours (9:54:37). As a bonus, I truly felt like I could keep running at the end of it. Now, I did have some knee issues about 2/3 of the way through - but a little Tylenol took care of that - and nothing was any worse after the race than it was prior.
By this time, I had convinced Ted to register for GDR and we did our final training run March 6th. We set out to get time on our feet, moreso than covering a certain distance. I did 34 miles in about 9 hours. Ted did 36 miles. (We intended to do 12hrs, but cut it short.)
Now, during all this time, I really wanted to lose 10-15 pounds. I lost a bunch of weight in the early days of the Covid lockdowns, but put about 1/3 of it back on. I wanted to get some of that back. (Which would have had me at the same weight or lower when I ran GDR in 2018.) Instead, I gained 10 pounds through sloppy eating. So that certainly wasn't going to make it any easier.
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Anyway... enough backstory. Let's get to the race.
The start was uneventful enough. A mass start, which was a bit of a surprise (given Covid is still a thing...) Ted & I positioned ourselves maybe 1/3 from the front and started off jogging the first 1/4 mile (maybe) to the trail. This violated our strategy of not running uphill, but you don't want to get stuck too far back. The first 2 climbs are relatively narrow trails, which makes passing difficult and tedious. So you can lose a lot of time if you don't position yourself appropriately and end up getting stuck behind a bunch of people slower than you.
That went well, except Ted was a little over-hydrated and had to stop to pee. His headlamp was also a bit dim, so we tried swapping batteries. As such, we lost 3 minutes with the stop, and a bit more by getting stuck behind slower people. Not a huge deal, but minutes matter in this race, because the cutoff times are especially tight in the first half - and they're pretty strict about enforcing them.
I had created an estimated timetable of when we would be at each aid station, so our crew could track us. We also borrowed a Garmin InReach satellite tracker/messager from a friend so they could monitor our progress when we didn't have cell service.
Part of the reason for the 5AM start is so that runners have a view of the sunrise when they get to the top of the climb up Coosa Bald. It was so cloudy/foggy, we didn't get that payoff. In fact, the views for most of the morning were obscured.
We arrived at Aid Station 1 (White Oak) at 2:27:34. A couple minutes ahead of my ETA (2:30). I had to pry Ted away from the aid station buffet (😂), and we didn't leave until 2:33:54 - so the stop was about 6.5 minutes. We needed to be more efficient - especially in the beginning. But we're both feeling good and technically we're still 1 minute ahead of our schedule. The sun is up, so we're no longer running with headlamps - which was great.
The run to Aid Station 2 (Mulky Gap) was uneventful. We arrived there at 3:56:52 (about 2 min slower than the 3:55 I predicted). But we were super efficient at this stop. We got running again at 4 hours even, and were right back on schedule. (I had allocated 5 min for each aid station stop, except for the 2 stops where our crew would meet us. Those stops I had allocated 10 minutes.)
Let's talk about the weather forecast for a moment. The forecast had relatively mild temperatures, but an almost certainty for rain. What seemed like good news was that the mountain forecast (at higher elevations) had temps of 55-65 degrees. So even if we got rained on, we wouldn't be freezing. At lower elevations, I think the highs were forecast to be in the 65-72 range. A little warm, but manageable.
So now it's past 9am and starting to warm up a bit. In retrospect, Ted & I dressed warmer than we needed to (because we thought the forecast would be accurate.) We wore shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and a long-sleeved shirt over that. We could have gotten away with just the short-sleeved shirt - even at the higher elevations. We're pretty-much soaked head-to-toe with sweat and probably should have stopped to take a layer off. (Ted suggested this, but I thought we might run into colder temps, so poo-poo'd the idea.)
We're still making decent time, though. We arrived at Aid Station 3 (Skeenah Gap) at 6:13:14 (2 minutes ahead of schedule). But we needed a complete wardrobe change: shirts, shorts, underwear, socks, shoes... As such, we didn't leave until 6:37:20. A 24 minute stop! A necessary one, as chafing would have destroyed us otherwise. But that only put us 8 minutes ahead of the cutoff time - a razor-thin margin.
Still, we knew the cutoff times did get more manageable later in the race, especially after AS4. We were drinking plenty of fluids, eating well, and feeling pretty good at this point.
The climb out of Skeenah Gap is long and taxing - and now the temperature/humidity is really noticeable. (It's around noon now.) We're still moving well, though. We started picking up walking sticks to help with the climbs (and ditching them at the top). The rules of the race prohibit treking poles - but there's no rule against finding a branch in the woods and using it.
As we approached Aid Station 4 (Point Bravo), Ted mentioned he had a blister forming on his heel. Prior to Skeenah Gap, the bottoms of both of my heels felt "warm" from the unavoidable braking on some of the steeper downhills. Fortunately, when I changed shoes there was no noticeable blistering. I laced the new shoes up a bit tighter when I put them on. We would need to address Ted's foot when we got to the aid station, since that could turn into a race-ending problem otherwise.So we arrive at 8:26:16. That was 16 min behind schedule, but the actual time between the aid stations was close to what I estimated. (The stop at AS3 was 14min longer than planned.) I refilled my water while Ted got his shoe off. Then we bandaged his foot as best we could, grabbed food (Ted refilled water of course), and walked while we ate. We left at 8:33:52 - so a 7.5 minute stop. Not bad considering we needed to fix Ted's foot. We added a little more buffer with respect to cutoff times, and now had 11 minutes. Still waaaaay tighter than I was comfortable with. We literally could not afford any mistakes.
We're of course soaked again, head-to-toe. It seems like every time we start a long climb, the sun comes out and bakes us. It's waaaaay warmer than the predicted 55-65 degrees. (Probably more like 75+ and 100% humidity.) We'd get a minute of rain every now and then, but nothing more than a few sprinkles - which seemed to do nothing other than make the humidity feel like 300%.
We're slowing down a little bit, which is not entirely unexpected. The cutoffs are a bit more generous now, so we can afford to slow down a little. But we're also overheating. Neither of us are drinking or eating enough. I'm trying to force myself to drink (and remind Ted to drink), but we're in the beginning stage of the dehydration "death spiral". That is - your stomach is upset because you're dehydrated. You try to drink something, but you feel like you're going to throw up. So you stop drinking as much, which makes you more dehydrated...
Given our meager 11-minute buffer, and our current state. I'm pretty sure we're not going to finish...
So I tell Ted our goal is to make it to the Winding Stair aid station (mile 43). Our crew is there. If we miss that cutoff, we ride home with them. We're not quitting, no matter how bad we feel. We press on until we miss a cutoff (wherever that is). Even if all we can manage is walking, we keep moving.
We get to Aid Station 5 (Sapling Gap) at 10:10:46, do a very quick stop, and are out at 10:12:40. We're now 17 minutes ahead of the cutoff! It's not where I wanted us to be (I thought we'd have about 40 minutes of buffer built up by now), but at least that is going in the right direction. In retrospect, we probably should have taken some time there to force some fluids down and try to get our stomachs right. But I wanted to make damn sure we made the next cutoff so that we could continue on to Winding Stair.
We arrived at Aid Station 6 (Long Creek) at 12:13:42 - about 16 minutes ahead of the cutoff. It's now clear we'll be able to continue to Winding Stair. We take a few minutes to grab some food. I asked if they had any beer (thinking it might settle my stomach and/or reset my taste buds so sugary stuff would taste good again.) I would have preferred something like a Bud Light, but they only had microbrews. (Any other time that would be awesome, but not 12 hours into a race.) I took the lightest thing they had (a German lager of some kind) and a cup of Ramen noodles to go. So now I'm two-fisting a can of beer and a cup of Ramen... We left at 12:15:36 and walk while I'm eating & drinking. (Again - maybe we should had taken a little more time here instead of doing a death march...)
I had gotten my headlamp out at Winding Stair, knowing I would need it soon. Ted had his in his pack, so once it started getting dark, we stopped to dig it out. Somehow, when I started to move again, I tweaked my left knee. As if we needed another challenge to heap onto the pile we're dealing with! I had already take a couple doses of Tylenol, so I got out some Ibuprofen. (Side note - Ibuprofen is not recommended for endurance activities, since your kidneys are already under a lot of stress.) I apologized to my kidneys and took it anyway. Between the "Vitamin-I" and walking, the knee eventually sorted itself out and I could jog again.
Ted & I wound our way to Jake Bull. Except for the knee mishap at the beginning, it was relatively uneventful. Ted was feeling rough and having a hard time keeping up. I was feeling good enough to jog downhill, so I was getting further ahead, but I kept him within sight. (Or at least, kept his headlamp within sight.) I thought there was a chance he might not make the cutoff. I wasn't sure what I would do if I made it, but he didn't. The "sweepers" were nowhere in sight, so there was no danger of them catching us (yet).
As it turned out, we both made the cutoff. I arrived at 16:22:08, and Ted arrived a couple minutes later. We left at 16:28:28 - just a minute and a half ahead of the cutoff. So... no buffer. I grabbed a banana as we left, since nothing looked appetizing with my stomach as fubar'd as it was.
After Jake Bull, there's just one final aid station - Nimblewill. There's a few miles of very manageable single-track trail, then 5-6 miles of road, and a 1.5-mile section of forest service road. Here, my memory betrayed me because I remembered the road section being easy and the forest service road being nightmarish. During the single-track section, I nibbled on the banana and was surprised that I was able to keep it down. (Mental note: go for bananas if I'm having trouble eating in the future.) I regretted not grabbing the whole bunch of them - or at least another one or two.
I had gapped Ted again on the single-track, and exited onto the road a few minutes ahead. As I trudged up the road, the lack of eating and drinking was really catching up to me. More than that, it had caught me, run me over, backed up, and ran me over again.
But I'm still moving, and not pushing the pace because I figure we're both done at this point. Ted's not really closing the gap. I stop and pee (which is a sign things are not dangerously bad at least.) Later, some runners we passed earlier (before Jake Bull) passed me. Ted eventually caught up and we walked together for a bit. Then, he started to gap me and I struggled to keep up. Before long, he was out of sight, but at least I knew where he was.
Keep in mind, I'm still thinking the road is the easier part of the climb. Now I'm thinking there's no way I'm going to make it up the forest service road. The sweepers eventually catch up to me and my fate is all but sealed at that point. I chat with them while we're still climbing this impossibly long road and one of them says "don't worry - the hard part's almost done." I'm thinking "yeah right". At one point I had to sit down and rest for 5-6 minutes, right in the middle of the road, to try to gain a little energy for the "nightmare climb" I knew was ahead of me. While sitting, I tried to sip some water and immediately regretted it. I felt completely nauseated for the next 15 minutes.
Well, as it turns out, the sweeper was right. The forest service road, while in worse shape, was far easier than the road we were just on. We made pretty decent time up that. I finally arrived at Nimblewill at 20:38:38 - 8.5 minutes after the cutoff. My day was done.
I looked around and didn't see Ted. I sat in a chair and sipped some gingerale and asked if #33 had gone on, and they said he did. Even better, they said he arrived looking alert, cheerful, and full of energy. So Ted had managed to settle his stomach and get his "third wind". I hear he technically arrived a couple minutes after the cutoff, but they let him go anyway because he looked so fresh, and because the runners that left before him were literally still within sight.
So if not for sitting down, I might have arrived in time to continue with Ted. Would that have been smart, given that I hadn't been drinking or eating? It's hard to say. (Okay, okay - I can literally hear you screaming "no!" lol) But just hear me out for a second... 😉 I could have "left" the aid station and sat down 50 feet later. Then I could have rested a bit, drank some fluids, and tried to get my stomach under control. The sweepers might have been a little annoyed, but it wouldn't take a long time. Probably 10-15 minutes. After that, I could probably continued on safely. You have 3.5 hours to do that last 11ish miles, and a lot of it is downhill. The 700ft of stairs that you normally have to climb at the end were damaged in a storm a few days prior, so the end of the course would not include those - and be easier than usual.
It didn't matter, because I wasn't given the option. I accepted my situation, and any regret I had was lessened by knowing that Ted was pressing on and would likely finish. A volunteer gave me a ride down to the finish line, and Jaime arrived shortly afterward to drive me back to the cabin we were staying in.
We were staying near the start, which is over an hour away. That is a terrible drive on twisty roads with a sour stomach. I can't recall exactly when we got the news - I think it may have been while I was in the shower - but Ted did finish! And he made really good time from Nimblewill to the finish. Starting out with no buffer (really, negative buffer), he finished at 23:20:45 -- almost 40 minutes ahead of the cutoff! He passed at least 4 people along the way, since 4 people finished after he did. (There may have been others that didn't make the 24hr cutoff.)
LESSONS LEARNED:
#1 - I really should have lost those 10-15 pounds. Would have made climbing the hills a hell of a lot easier.
#2 - I have have have have have to figure out a way to recognize dehydration earlier and mitigate it.
#3 - If it's warm and you're sweating... take a minute and remove a layer. Don't trust the damned weather forecast. (Watch for that one to bite me in the ass in a future race...)
#4 - Running a race with another person is different than running solo. You naturally have high and low points during the race, and they're rarely going to be in-sync with the other person. Gotta figure out a strategy where you're not slowing each other down when the low points aren't in-sync.
#5 "Knowing" the course worked against me, since my memory of the climb to Nimblewill was wrong. I might have pressed on if I hadn't convinced myself how terrible the second part of the climb was going to be.
#6 Using a walking stick on the hills really makes a huge difference. I wish we had started doing that earlier. I also wish I had picked one up on the road section of the Nimblewill climb. (Ted did!) Now, is it worth carrying a stick between climbs? I'm not sure...
#7 Using any kind of GPS tracking for the benefit of your crew is not useful if the crew doesn't have cellphone/internet access where they're waiting. (So carrying the 1-pound Garmin InReach device was not as helpful as you'd think.)
#8 Optical heart rate sensors are bullshit. (At least, the one on my 2018 Garmin Fenix 5X is bullshit.) I ditched my heart rate strap at Skeenah Gap, and the heart rate data after that (from the built-in optical sensor) is total garbage.
#9 As long as you leave ahead of the cutoff times at GDR, it seems like the time to get to the next aid station is pretty reasonable. So if you're feeling beaten-up, it might be worth sitting down for a few minutes to get some food & fluids in you. Spending a few minutes earlier (before you're deep in the death spiral) can save you a ton of time later.
#10 The compression socks seemed to help. I didn't expect them to, but my legs somehow felt "fresh" after putting them on - at least for a few hours.
#11 Getting an "assist" is almost as good as getting across the finish line. And, honestly, if I had to pick only one of us to finish - I would have wanted it to be Ted. (At least this time - LOL.)
CREW TIPS:
#1 Download offline maps for your navigation app of choice. You probably won't have a cellphone signal.
#2 If your runner is using live tracking of some kind, you'll need cellphone/internet service of some kind to view the tracking page. So find someplace to wait between aid stations that has a signal.
May 29 - Veterans Memorial 150. I've DNF'd this twice. (2018 & 2019). Hopefully the third time's the charm???
