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Coach JP's Training and Racing

Coach JP knows how to motivate, drive and inspire! Following along with Coach JP as he trains and races achieving new feats, while assisting his athletes to reach and exceed their goals!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

So not long ago, my friends tell me about a unique Ultra Running race in North Kettle Morain, WI on the Ice Age Trail in the middle of January. They also inform me, it’s a race that apparently only 1 person has been able to finish the whole course, in it’s three years of existence. Oh and he lost 3 toes doing it!

There’s two versions of this unique running race; the full: 64 miles and the half: 32 miles. The time cutoffs are 24 hours to complete the full and 12 hours to complete the half. Since my longest run was only 15 miles since the marathon in October and that was a month ago on Dec 15th, I felt I’d be conservative and sign up for the half. Good decision since I had to coach 4 hockey games the day after the race and would have to leave by 11 p.m. anyway. So I make the 2.5 hour journey up to WI from Chicago to take on this challenging race, having no idea what to expect, just the way I like it!

So I get to the starting line with all my gear and ready to go. Now, unlike most Ultras, we had to carry all of our own water and food along with other required gear. The required gear included the following; a full change of clothes, a shelter to keep you warm, lighter, fire starters, first aid kit, headlamps with extra batteries and an emergency blanket. Add to that a compass, hand warmers and some trekking poles and the pack starts to get a bit heavy.

At 5 minutes to race start, the weather was perfect at 32 degrees and very little wind. At this point, I begin to size up my competition. I quickly noticed that I’m one of only a few guys wearing trail shoes and most people were laced up in hiking boots. Now, I knew the trail wasn’t groomed but remember thinking, hiking boots? Well, I have my trail shoes on with gaitors and my Yak Trax. I don’t even own hiking boots, so whatever, this will have to work, I thought. This is one of the main reasons why I don’t like having lots of gear, go minimal and don’t over think things.

The race director gave us the countdown and on go, I took off. Literally I took off on a sprint to be the first to the trail head. I went for about 15 minutes before I took a look behind and saw that there was only one guy behind me, no one else in sight. Given the terrain, with all the hills and trees someone may have been there, but I couldn’t tell. So, it was at this time that I decided to run pretty much as hard as I could for the next hour, up hill, down hill, flat, whatever and see what kind of space I could get. After an hour, I stopped to grab a Cliff Bar and good news, there was no one in sight, I was on my own. After an hour and 38 minutes, I got to the first checkpoint approximately 7.25 miles out. I was there for 2 minutes, and I was off again. After about another hour, I ate another bar. Unfortunately, they were getting kind of hard to eat as they were starting to freeze but fortunately, I was now half way to the turn around. At this point I started walking the uphills and tried to just run the flats and downhills, but that too was getting hard as the footing wasn’t always the best. Due to the terrain, it felt like I was like running in soft sand.

At 3 hours and 54 minutes into the race, I arrived at the turnaround feeling great! I’ll be honest with you, I was surprised I was feeling this good at this point, but what the heck lets keep going, right? So I gobbled down a slice of pizza, yes I brought my own, and a cup of hot chocolate, they provided that, and I was off again. I stayed at the turnaround for only about 10 minutes, but it was a little longer than I liked. It’s amazing how fast time goes in the TA’s!!

About 2 minutes out of the turn around I came upon the guy in 2nd place! This was the motivation that I needed and cranked up the pace again. I decided if he was going to beat me, he better be faster than me because he wasn’t going to out work me. About 1 mile out, I came across a few more people and over the next 4 miles I passed the rest of the racers (or I should say walkers), as pretty much everyone was walking at this point. I used this as motivation and made sure I ran by all of them. It felt good to hear their expressions of wonder when people asked if I was coming back already!

Interestingly, as I was flying by all the other racers on the way back to the finish, I forgot to do one very important thing. Remember, it’s 32 degrees and starting to get colder. The race began at 11 a.m. and it’s going on 4 p.m. now. I had a bladder in my backpack with the hose coming out the top and strapped to my shoulder strap. I would take a sip every 10 minutes or so but during my haste to put some time between me and the 2nd place guy, I forgot to blow the water out of the hose and back into the bladder. So needless to say the water in the hose froze! Now, I’m left with only 1 bottle of gatorade to get me through the final 15 miles, eek not good. I quickly thought about being able to poor some water out of the bladder and into the water bottle. Since I’m not keen on stopping right now, I knew I would use this as a last resort. I didn’t know how far the guy was behind me, so instead I focused on pushing forward and right into the dark.

At night fall, I stopped briefly to get my headlamp out and if running in the snow wasn’t hard enough, now add the dark!! At times I felt like I was on some evil snow treadmill, I didn’t feel like I was moving forward and I started to get very discouraged. I grew tired, hungry and thirsty, but thankfully I wasn’t very cold as I was still working very hard.

Fortunately, I finally come across the final checkpoint, the same one I hit on the way out. I refilled my bladder, grabbed a muffin from my pack, changed my hat and took off for the final 7.5 miles. No one knews how far anyone is behind me, so again I continued to push hard. Now I feared that I’m going to look back and see headlamps coming. Fortunately that never happened and I was able to preserve my lead from start to finish. I was pretty happy to see the lights at the finish line! Thank God! No more running! After 8 hours and 25 minutes, I covered 32 miles through the woods and snow, up and over hills, all in 32 degree weather.

Only thing left to do now was get changed and grab some food! I gladly ate a couple of burgers, two hot dogs a bag of chips and drank 3 cokes, yummy! It was time to say goodbye to the Race Organizers who did a great job. I had to get home so I could get some sleep for my busy Sunday to come. It was at this time that I finally realized that no else on the 32 mile course had come in yet! Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me that I had an 1 hour plus lead and I almost killed myself pushing to the finish? As it turns out I didn’t have an 1 hour lead, I had a full 1 hour and 30 minute lead! The guy in 2nd place spent a full hour at the turnaround. While I thought he would be coming right out after me, he didn’t. He actually stayed there to try and warm up for a while. Oh well, at least I have the course record right?