Another 48-hour race is in the books. Not my best, not my worst. Which, I realized, is just fine. It is what MOST races are going to be, outside of those select few magic races where everything goes your way.
This one wasn’t that.
I came into this race just 6 weeks off of a 6-day
effort. Anyone who’s done a 6-day knows
that they require much recovery. Mine
was particularly tough, as I had an almost debilitating case of PF by the end
of the 6-day that I have been vigorously rehabbing since the end of that
race. In the days and weeks prior to Jackpot, I was still
experiencing regular residual heel pain and went into the race concerned that
it could be a race killer.
Still, I ALSO came off of the 6-day race with a renewed
faith in myself as a multi-day runner.
We’ve all been through COVID Year.
And COVID Year the Sequel. Neither
one of those did anything good for my racing.
Nor had a DNF at my last 48 hour, plus a DNF at Spartathlon. Still, I
have had a few wins this past year, including Angry Owl 24 hour, and Silver
Moon 100 miler; just had a 3rd place finish at Jed Smith, and
recording my second fastest marathon ever.
So I knew I still had some good running in me.
Part of my problem mentally is the astounding success I saw
just a couple of years ago. That year,
which included a 453 mile 6-day, a 202 mile 48-hour, and a successful
Spartathlon finish, set a bar for success in my head that I really may never
achieve again, given the changes that have occurred with my body and my energy
as a 53 year old post-menopausal runner. Which means that regular solid
performances that I would have been thrilled with prior to my best year now feel
to me like failures. It is hard, when
you still have big goals, to realize that your best running days may be behind
you. It is even harder when your racing
window is so short. I didn’t even start
doing ultras until 2015, but saw success relatively quickly. It sort of feels like my racing performance
graph is like the Omicron surge bell curve.
Quick up, quick down.
It means that if I’m going to keep doing these races, I need
to re-find what drove me before the thrill of an outstanding performance.
So – Jackpot. This would
be my 3rd time running this race.
The first time got me my second best 48-hour performance and the overall
win with 190 miles. The second got me a spectacular
DNF, curled up in a fetal position on the cool cool concrete by the culvert trying
to escape a brutally hot and draining day, walking away with only 41 miles
under my belt. (I did go on a beautiful
solo hike to Red Rock Canyon the next day, so the trip was by no means a
complete loss). This time, I was HOPING
for big numbers, but in all honesty just wanted to escape the lure of the cool
culvert and stay on the course, whatever the day brought me.
Jackpot is in the Nevada desert, not far from Vegas. From a tourist perspective, it’s great, with
Vegas and Red Rock Canyon nearby. From a
runner perspective, well – it is desert running. Which means that for about 4-5 hours out of
any 24, (6 if you’re lucky), you get temps that are JUST RIGHT. Otherwise, it is either too hot, or too cold. (Conversation with myself: “God it’s hot. God it’s hot.
I wish the sun would go down.
When is the fucking sun going to go down. Ahhhh, thank God, the sun is going down. This is nice.
This is great. Shit this is
cold. Good god DAMN it’s cold. I’m fucking freezing. Maybe I need to run more to stay warm. When is the fucking sun going to come
up. Ah thank god, the sun is coming
up. OK this is nice. Shit I’m getting warm. God damn it’s hot. That sun is brutal. I can’t
even RUN it’s so hot. I am literally
melting. My castle for a milkshake. When is the fucking sun going to go down….” And so on.
The other thing about Jackpot is Elvis. And showgirls. There is plenty of fun to be had. There are several races going on at once, so
you get to cross paths with the USATF 100-mile runners as well as the 72 hour,
24 hour, and 12 hour runners.
BJ had driven into Vegas and arrived early Thursday
morning. I flew in from Santa Rosa with,
thankfully, relatively little delay, and arrived late afternoon. On the plane to Vegas, I sat next to a
gentleman who started talking to me about my trip. I had told him I was flying in for a race,
and we started talking about it. Turns
out this guy had participated in a world record attempt for playing softball
longer than anyone – 56 hours, it turned out.
He said… “it’s all about how much
you want it.”
Truer words were never said.
I saw the man one more time, heading to baggage claim in
Vegas. He leaned in and whispered “how
much do you want it?”
BJ picked me up at the airport and we checked into our
swanky hotel on the strip. We ended up staying
at the Paris hotel, as it was geographically where I wanted to be. Right across from the Bellagio light show,
and down just a few blocks from the Venetian – but not as pricey as either of
those.
I love that light show.
We went out in search of dinner shortly after our arrival,
wandering down the nicer end of the strip. We tried the Bellagio first, because I really
wanted to check out the buffet. Turns
out the buffet was only open for breakfast/brunch, and had closed at 3. We threw some money in the slots before
heading back out.
I, of course, was thinking that every single restaurant we
saw should be our next stop (I was kinda food focused), but BJ wanted to show
me the Venetian, and the really cool shopping section he remembered from a
previous trip. So, after passing by such
goodies as Giada, Gordon Ramsey’s steakhouse, and Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville,
we arrived at the Venetian and made our way up the moving bridge-like walkways
into the center of the complex. Which
was truly magnificent for anyone who is as thrilled with Disney-esque eye candy
as I was. The ceilings were painted realistically
to look like an outdoor sky, and there was a canal complete with gondoliers running
through the middle. We happened upon an
Italian place BJ remembered from his last trip and had an excellent meal with
lots of bread and homemade pasta. We turned
down the restaurant dessert in favor of nearby gelato. Heading back to the hotel, we first stopped
at “It’s Sugar” where I spent a blissful 20 minutes filling up my variety candy
bag, and then arrived back at the hotel casino where we only lost a modest
amount of cash in the slots before a good night’s sleep.
It is a rare thing that I sleep in until 8, but that is just
what I did. It was disconcerting and
wonderful.
The worst thing about staying in a Vegas strip hotel is that
none of them have coffee makers, forcing you to pull on clothes and wander
bleary-eyed down to the restaurant area where you can pay a king’s ransom for a
cup of joe. ($15 for one coffee and one
hot chocolate.) I knew that if we were going to ever get to
the Bellagio buffet, it had to be for Friday morning brunch. Dinner would be too close to my race for any
sort of respectable gorging, and there would be no time afterwards between the
race end and my flight. So off to the
Bellagio we went again. A boatload of dough down for
breakfast for 2 including tip got us the works. It is kind of impossible to
describe this buffet, but the things I remember include a carving station
complete with prime rib, an omelet station, pancakes, waffles, french toast,
sushi, oysters Rockefeller, mussels in white wine and garlic sauce, mac &
cheese, bacon, all sorts of sausages, cheeses, mushrooms, yogurt, polenta with
beef marrow, fruit of all sorts, juices of all sorts, a pizza bar, a Chinese food
buffet, shrimp, blintzes, crepes, pastries
of all sorts, mini donuts, puddings, a dessert section (cookies, mini pecan
pie, mini chocolate peanut butter tarts), and gelato. I paced myself well and ended up with a total
of 4 plates.
Next stop was Caesar’s palace, where I was told the cocktail
waitresses all had short white dresses and thick thighs just like the roman
statue babes. This I wanted to see. Alas the cocktail waitresses were in short
supply – we only saw one and her legs were really thin. However, there was some great statuary and a
circular escalator, so it was a win.
Onward to the “Bodies” exhibit at Bally’s, followed a really cool ride
called “Flyover” which was a virtual reality ride that made you feel as if you
were truly flying over Iceland. No trip
to Vegas is complete without a visit to the various chocolate and candy
shops. I had loads of fun filling up my
bag at the M&M store and “It’s sugar” (where they had a $150 gummy
snake). Oh my. And the best thing was… I knew I was about to run for 2 days, so all
of this was just fuel for the furnace.
My buddy Rachel Entrekin arrived around 6. She was a last minute add to the race and was
looking forward to surprising Jill with her arrival. We ended up at Giordano’s for deep dish pizza,
followed by a little sugar splurge at “It’s Sugar” before heading back to the
hotel to finalize race preparations.
I’ve done enough of these that I can usually sleep, but I didn’t
sleep well at all. I think I was a bit
dehydrated from all the salt in dinner, so only managed a delayed and light sleep
all night. I was groggy waking up, but
pretty much on auto-pilot with my clothes all laid out. Our departure was pretty seamless, getting us
to the race venue about 55 minutes before race start. It didn’t feel like enough time but I got my
stuff in order as quickly as I could, and, feeling not quite ready, lined up
for the start.
And off we went.
There are times where I dread the beginning of a race, but
as soon as I start running, I know why I do this and pretty quickly feel the
joy in motion.
This was not that kind of race.
I think the best thing you can say about the early hours is
that it was not TOO hot, and it was not TOO painful. Miles were consistent, in the low 11’s, which
is kind of a perfect starting out pace.
However, they felt a little less easy than I would have preferred.
(how much do you want it?)
I ran without music for a few hours, just so I could talk to
people and not be stuck in my own world.
At some point, I needed motivation, and stuck the tunes on. It helped make the time pass a little bit
faster.
The 2 times I’ve bailed from a 48 hour race were both between
40 and 50 miles, so I’d already put a plan into place to try to avoid that
scenario again. Each time, I’d get to
about 8 hours or so, and the thought would occur to me of JUST how much LONGER
I had to go. And I wanted no part of
it. As I told my brother, when I called
him up mid-bail during my last Jackpot… “This
is stupid. I don’t want to be an ultra
runner. I just want to be a regular runner”. It truly is a “What the fuck am I doing out
here” moment – I’m not having any fun, and I could be doing something else for
the next 40 hours. ANYTHING else.
To try to avoid this, I worked with my coach Shannon, who
advised me that “chunking” was really the only way to go in a long race. Which is to say… never (NEVER) focus on the
entire 48 hours in front of you. Break
it up into manageable chunks, and just focus on getting through that
chunk. Don’t even THINK about the next
chunk.
I decided my chunks were going to be 6 hours long. I also very pointedly did NOT set any mileage
goals for any of the chunks. They were
merely mental time periods to click off.
The reason I did this is that the OTHER reason I get discouraged around
hour 8 or 9 is that this is when I typically slow down. It is almost invariably sooner than I feel like
I SHOULD slow down, so it triggers thoughts like “OMG. That was a 12 (12:30, 13, 14) minute
mile! I suck! I’m never going to hit (whatever goal). “ So another part of the chunking was to just
let my mileage be what it was going to be during that chunk, recognizing that
things could improve during the next chunk.
 |
| Running for a few minutes with Bruce Choi |
Considering I was able to get through 3 chunks, or roughly 18
hours, before I started experiencing anything close to the joy I often feel in
this sport, it was a good strategy.
The ambient temperature was fortunately significantly cooler
than when I had been here last year in April, but the sun was blinding, the air
was dry and the course was dusty.
Relatively early on I shed my shirt and ran in my jog bra, using ice
bandanas to stay cool enough to keep moving.
The challenge with the ice bandana and the jog bra was that my wet pack
was rubbing against my bare stomach, so I had to do some chafe management
before that got too bad.
As almost always happens, during the speedier hot miles of day 1, I really couldn't eat much of anything. There were a couple of popsicles handed out during the race, and sometime later in the evening BJ went out and got me a large Dairy Queen milkshake that was finally something I could ingest comfortably.
During the first 24 hours, I ended up taking 2 sleep
breaks. The first was just a 20 minute power
nap probably shortly after midnight.
Probably not strictly necessary but the nerve pain in my feet and calves
was pretty uncomfortable and I just felt I needed to get off my feet. I moved pretty well after getting back on the
course, but not as quickly or strongly as I would have liked, so I decided on a
“for real” sleep of about 90 minutes.
This is a new strategy for me in a 48, having relied previously on
severe sleep deprivation. Had I really
been laser focused on a big number I probably would have foregone the longer
sleep – but I think I had already revised my goal for this race to get the
women’s win, as well as a regular Spartathlon qualifier (about 161.5 miles), so
I thought the sleep wouldn’t interfere with either of those goals.
(how much do you want it?)
From a “joy” perspective, the sleep was a good thing. It helped with the mental “chunking” and
allowed me to go out feeling relatively refreshed. The joy finally arrived
somewhere close to early morning. The
temperature was comfortable enough with the right clothing, I was moving well,
the music was good, and I had 20 hours under my belt. I hadn’t bailed at 8 hours, so I was pretty
sure I’d make it through the 48, and I was optimistic about the next day.
I hit 100 miles just 15 seconds shy of 24 hours. For perspective, when I'd hit my PR of 202, I had 113 under my belt. However, this 100 in 24 was pretty close to my split for my 190 mile Jackpot.
 |
| Hit 100 in 23:59:45 |
For anyone who's never run a multi-day, there there are things that happen that I always forget about.
Sometime many hours into running, things just start to get
weird. For example, my entire midsection
gets rock hard and painful. It is kind
of like gas bubble pain but different.
Like my entire abdomen just feels tender to the touch. I have no idea what that is, but it happens
with regularity.
I often get anxiety and some dissociation – as if I don’t
know who I am.
If the multi-day is in the sun, count on super chapped lips, followed generally by both thrush and/or a cold sore, no matter how well I treat my lips with sunscreen. 1-2 (sometimes more) post-race days of mouth pain are a given.
Nerve pain in my feet.
This one is no big surprise when you are running big miles. In this race, I managed it with regular shoe changes, going
back and forth between my zero drop Altra Torins and my 5mm drop Hoka Machs. This plus the pre-race Plantar Fasciitis tape
job I did seemed to do an astoundingly good job of not only keeping the PF
manageable during day 1, but almost eliminating it during day 2. I remembered from my last desert Jackpot race how cracked
and painful my feet were at the end of the race due to the dryness, so I made
sure to liberally lube up my feet at the 24 hour mark to prevent the cracking. I also did a good job of keeping my nails
short and lubed, so I had zero under-nail blistering, which also often happens.
And then it got hot.
And everybody… EVERYBODY… was walking.
(Except Viktoria Brown.) BJ suggested
I might take advantage of the heat by taking my nap now instead of later – but I
wasn’t even a little bit sleepy, so it felt like that would just be wasted
time. I could get daytime miles in –
they would just be 18-20 minute miles. I
was still throwing in some jogs when I could – but they were pretty
pitiful. I was just trying to get to
4:00, which I figured was the magic time when the temperature would improve enough
to start moving again.
(how much do you want it?)
4:00 eventually came, as did cloud cover and a breeze that
brought the temperature back into some semblance of runnable. Still, I was only achieving 16-17 minute
miles and I didn’t know why. It occurred
to me that I was probably dehydrated, but no matter how much I drank (and I
drank enough for a worried BJ to demand I take some salt to avoid hyponatremia),
I just didn’t seem to get any faster.
OK, well, whatever.
Night 2 was much warmer than night 1, but also much
breezier. I passed the time for hours
listening to the Cultra Trailrunning podcast, where I actually heard them
talking about my ATY race. That was kind
of a cool moment – to hear someone talking about my last race when I was smack
in the middle of my next one.
The wind continued to worsen, making it hard at times to
move forward. At this point, I had about
a 9 lap lead on the number 2 woman, which probably translated into about 20
miles, or a cushion of 5 or so hours assuming I was running nothing, and she
was moving at 15 minute miles. So, with
the discomfort of the wind, my slow pace, my general weariness of the whole
thing, and no real big mile goals at this point besides my 161.5, I went down
for another nap. I figured I could
safely be off course for an hour, and then I’d power through the rest of the
race.
(how much do you want it?)
The wind, by this time, was howling and whipping the edges
of the tent we were fortunate enough to snag as an aid station. You could hear things being blown over
nearby. I was out like a light, and woke
up easily after 45 minutes. The worst
thing about getting up from a nap at night is the instant cold when you take
the blankets off. Going out into the
night and getting moving again is just about the hardest thing there is. Still, there was the joy in knowing that I
only had 4 hours left, and that I’d get to watch the sunrise again.
I spent a bit of time with my new friend Luke – a trail
runner who was venturing into his first multi-day. His comment:
“man – I’m one and done. You guys
must really hate yourselves.”
Got that right.
Luke is a great guy.
Sunrise came, and the wind was still a force to be reckoned
with.
The best thing about the Jackpot course is the birds on the
lake. I believe the entire park is a
bird sanctuary, so there were really interesting looking black ducks with white beaks, geese and other waterfowl just
birding around, having a great time in the water. When the sun started to come up, the lake was
dappled with pink and yellow ripples, punctuated by duck and goose calls. The sunrise also highlighted a snowcapped
mountain in the distance. Everything was
soft, pink and beautiful. This is when the gratitude hits.
A couple of hours prior to the end of the race, it appeared
that 170 was in sight. I started walking
with my good friend Bala, grateful to finally have the chance to spend some
miles together. One of the best things
about multi-day races are those hours close to the end, where you have pretty
much done all you are going to do with regard to pushing, and you can relax and
enjoy the people. It is impossible to do
that if you are spending every moment chasing a goal.
(how much do you want it?)
Bala and I walked, joined shortly by Jennifer. We crossed the timing mat 64 minutes before
the end of the race, and I saw I'd just hit 167.3 miles.
At that point, our laps were probably about 45 minutes in length, as we
were doing about 20 minute miles and the course was 2.2 miles long. This meant that EITHER I’d end up with 169.5,
OR I’d have to bust ass and run faster than I’d run for the past 12 hours
during the last hour to break 170.
Michael Tatham, who assisted BJ in crewing me, let me know what the only
choice was. “Well – better get moving.”.
“I can’t do it Michael.
I can’t. That’s a 30 and a 34
minute lap.”
“Yes you can”.
“No. I can’t.”
Silence.
I turn to Bala, and said “I can’t do it!”
She said… “well… then I guess this is our victory lap.” She didn’t sound all that proud of me.
Grrr. OK. Fine.
(how much do you want it?)
I start running and tell Bala I’ll see her soon. I run steady, maybe a quarter of a mile (more continuous running mileage than I’ve put down all night), before walking. I walked only long enough to put on the music
I knew I’d need to get this done. Start
running again. Got that first mile out
of the last 4.4 in a 12:22. Kept
running. Second mile 11:37. Got the first loop done in 24 minutes,
leaving me with 40 minutes for the last lap. I realized I wasn't sure if BJ was awake yet from his well deserved nap, and I knew he'd want to see me finish, having contributed so much toward this moment, so coming through the timing mat I yelled to Michael to make sure BJ was up because I
was on my last lap. Mile 3 was an
11:55. Mile 4 was 13:01. Less than half a mile to go – came through
the timing mat with 171.7 mile total, and about 12 minutes left on the clock.
It was done.
 |
| Lap splits at the end of the race |
I finished 1st woman, and 2nd overall. As noted in the beginning, not my best, not my worst.
Nonetheless, I view this as another success in that I spent an enormous amount of time really not feeling like I wanted to be where I was - yet I persevered. I revised my goals and I'd say I achieved my C Goal. And although I said I "didn't want that kind of pain" with regard to aiming for a record, this race was not remotely without pain. I was in relatively constant pain from early on in the race, with foot nerve pain, hip pain, and some pretty special calf pain. But I worked through it and kept on keeping on.
In the end, it is about the people. The relationships with the Balas and the Karlas and the Lukes. The support from crew and loved ones and the race directors. And the awe of watching tremendous performances and records being set.
