Race Report: Dave's Challenge at the Lhotse 200

The Dave’s Challenge. On Labor Day weekend of 2018. Nope, I am not going to post a play-by-play of a 72-hour race. That would be a terrible thing to do to anyone who cares enough about me or about running to read my blog. There wouldn’t be much to say, anyway. This was a small race…6 of us in the 72-hour, 3 in the 200-mile, 5 in the 100-mile, 3 in the 50-mile, and 1 in the 48-hour. That’s 18 runners total. Nope, this should be a short race report. I walked with few people, saw no interesting scenery, and encountered no interesting problems. The race was marked by its uneventfulness.

Big takeaway: It is absolutely mind-boggling what even an untrained human body can do. Dave used to tell me, “training is overrated.” I now concur. I started out the race having absolutely no idea whether I could do it or not. Well, scratch that… I started out the race knowing I had zero chance to finish it, because I had sabotaged my own race before it started, through lack of sleep and driving all night. But back in June, when I signed up for the Dave’s Challenge, I really had no idea whether I was capable of finishing it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. If I am going to write a race report about the Dave’s Challenge, I need to tell people what it is. The Dave’s Challenge is a special sub-race within the Lhotse 200, a 72-hour race in Owasso, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa. To complete Dave’s Challenge, you must run 50 miles per day for three days, for a total of… yea, 150 miles.

And who is Dave? Dave is my brother. Dave fought cancer with everything he had for four years. He tolerated pain from the cancer, and pain from the treatment, and awful side effects for far longer than should have been possible, because he refused to abandon his wife and son. Before he got cancer and while he was fighting it, Dave ran ultramarathons. Apparently he made a pretty big impact on his fellow ultrarunners, by keeping a positive attitude and putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how slow he was or how much he hurt. I’m sure there are a few runners who remember feeling sorry for themselves, because of blisters or sore knees or whatever, and then they ran into Dave and for some reason their blisters didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

Anyway, one of Dave’s biggest fans happens to be Wyatt Hockmeyer, race director for a fairly new race series, the Lhotse races in Owasso, Oklahoma. Prior to this Labor Day weekend, there had been three Lhotse races, and Dave had run all three of them. I did two out of the three, the two 24-hour track races in March 2017 and 2018. Here’s my 2017 race report from the track race. The report from the March 2018 is still in draft stage, where it is likely to stay. Hmm, it was my last race with Dave. It’s a little late, but maybe I should still write it up.

So, after Dave’s battle with cancer ended on June 6, 2018 (fittingly, on National Running Day), Wyatt decided to honor Dave with the Dave’s Challenge. Fifty miles a day for three days, because 50 miles was Dave’s modal distance (that means the most frequent distance, for my few non-nerd readers). I won’t say Dave’s favorite distance, because he seemed to like them all. If he’d had just a little longer before the cancer hit, or maybe even different timing of the treatments, he would have gotten that 100-mile buckle. So, of course I had to try the Dave’s Challenge. How could I not?

A couple years ago, covering 150 miles on my feet was beyond comprehension. But, thanks to Dave, I have now done 100 miles twice, both at the Snowdrop 55. (Here’s my Snowdrop 2016 race report.) Those 100-milers took me 53.5 and then 50 hours, and afterwards I was incapable of going another 50 miles, or even 10 (hmmm…maybe I could have done another 10…it didn’t seem so at the time, but after this weekend I am questioning). So to do 150 in 72 hours, I would need to step it up, both my speed and my distance. One advantage of racing in September is that it was likely to be warm, rather than cold. Between Snowdrop and the 2018 track race, I have learned that I do not cope well at all with cold weather. I’ve been so looking forward to doing a long warm-weather race. When I signed up in June, I was pretty sure I would be able to do 100 miles, but that last 50 was highly questionable. It became even more questionable when I had trouble finding the time and energy to run in July, and my fantasy training plan remained a fantasy. Then, three weeks before Lhotse, on one of my few August runs, I tripped over a pristine stretch of sidewalk in South Carolina, and bloodied both my knees. The left one had a pretty deep gash, much worse than last summer's incident , which had taken 3-4 weeks to heal. My left knee was still wrapped in Tegaderm at race time.

So yes, back in June, I thought I had a chance to complete the Dave’s Challenge, if all the variables went my way. The morning of the race, I knew it was hopeless. It had taken way longer than I thought to pack the car and to drive 9+ hours to Tulsa. After driving all night, we arrived at 4:30 a.m., only 3 hours before packet pickup for the 8:00 race. (The race started Friday morning of Labor Day weekend). I did nearly all the driving, because Crew had to teach his classes Thursday and so he had way less sleep than me. Plus, I spent the drive listening to The Silmarillion, one of the best books ever. The drive was very enjoyable until I got to the end and realized (surprise!) there was no time to sleep.

After a short (and hysterical, on my end) argument, we decided it was worth paying $63.33/hour to sleep an hour and a half in the motel room. I showed up at the race course at 8:40, forty minutes after the race started. I grabbed my timing chip and started walking, while Crew set up our canopy and other paraphernalia. Centennial Park was a beautiful venue for a race. The very first lap, I walked with a friendly local and his beautiful and well-behaved Australian Shepherd, Gracie. The path was well-marked and flat, mostly asphalt with a lot of tree roots and cracks. It was laid out in a figure 8, with the aid station and timing mats in the middle. The first loop went through a big field and then a short shaded area. The second loop was smaller than the first, around a small lake with lots of ducks and geese and no shade.

Isn't this a pretty park?

Crew walked the course with his Garmin,
 to take pictures and grab this map. 

I’m told that last year, Dave grabbed a mop and a bucket and started cleaning up the goose poop so that his friend Heather could take a nap on the pavement (she and Wyatt did 200 miles last year). I met Heather on Day 2, when she came out to the park to cheer us on.

The first few hours of Day 1 were pleasant enough. I got my wish: warm weather!! The first day’s high was 96ºF, bright sun and not a cloud in the sky. Day 2 was similar, sunny with high 95ºF; Day 3 was a little cooler, at only 91ºF with occasional clouds. On Day 1, some runners were complaining about the heat and humidity, but the weather seemed great to me. I was just so happy to be in a race without being freezing cold. The shaded areas were quite cool and pleasant, though they were few and far between.

My happy spirits lasted maybe 10 hours or so. Then I started feeling sorry for myself. I was so tired, and moving so slow, and the whole thing was hopeless. Once the sun went down, the temperature was just perfect—not too hot, not too cold. That didn’t seem to help my sluggish legs. I had made a pre-race decision to do nothing but walking on Day 1. I figured the surest way to derail my race would be to do a bunch of running in the first 50 miles. Whatever pain you cause yourself the first day, you have to tolerate it for all of Days 2 and 3. No, I wanted to get through the first 50 with no damage, and 100% walking seemed the best strategy. Unfortunately, my walk was really slow, even slower than usual. My legs felt so heavy, like I was wading through mud. After the halfway point, I pulled out my headphones and listened to my Shuffle music for a while. That helped some, but the miles still felt dreary. So, I borrowed my mom’s old iPod Nano, which she’d loaded up with books just for me. I listened to almost all of Watership Down, which turned out to be a great story. I expected it to be about a sinking submarine but was really about a bunch of rabbits.

About 8:30 on the evening of Day 1, I took a break from the rabbit story to walk with a dear friend from college, who lives in Tulsa. I walked several laps with Michelle, and my legs felt so tired and slow I struggled to keep up with her. We had a great time catching up, and she really helped get me through a tough stretch. Mish took off about 11:30 pm (which is crazy late for her; she is not a night owl and stayed up just for me…thank you so much, Mish!) At some point, she tried to encourage me, “only 14 more laps, you’re almost done!” I was not feeling very encourageable at the time, so I just had to point out “that’s 16 miles!!” So, I went back to the rabbits to finish out my first 50. I plodded the night away, and finally finished my 44 laps at about 5:40 a.m. (The track was about 1.14 miles long, so we had to do 44 laps/day for the Dave Challenge.)

After the first 50 miles, I was babbling and crying and incoherent. I was so slow, I would only get an hour or two of sleep (after less than two hours sleep the day before), and there was simply no way I would be able to do 50 miles again on the second day. I was mean and ungrateful and said things to Crew that Dave would never have said to anyone giving up their weekend to help him in a race. But Crew seemed unfazed; he hoisted me into the car and we went to the motel. After showering off all the sweat and grime and sunscreen and bug spray, I crawled into my Cuddl Duds and slept for two hours. Crew sat up in the armchair, so that he’d be awake to make sure I woke up on time. We both agreed that it was quite hopeless, but if I were to have any chance at all, I needed to get up and start walking in the morning, and just see how far I could go.

Day 2 was a pleasant surprise. I started late, at about 10 a.m. It was amazing how that shower and 2 hours of sleep revived me. I felt a zillion times better!! I was walking faster, and I decided to try some running, only in the shade. It took only two steps to realize that running in the sun, for me, was counterproductive. So, for the daylight hours of Day 2, I ran almost all of the shaded areas (probably just 10–20% of the course). I was so thankful for the warm weather, but it was starting to affect me. On Day 1, I had gotten a weird rash on the exposed parts of my legs, and it got worse on Day 2. I had slathered myself in sunscreen; I thought enough to prevent a burn, but maybe not. Instead of being flat and red like a typical sunburn, this was a bunch of raised red blisters, some of them rather large. My calves felt hot as I walked, a very unpleasant feeling. The day started out really well, but by early evening I started to fade somewhat (though I still felt tons better than Day 1).

Another fun part about Day 2…I had more company! My mom drove in from Arkansas and stayed almost the whole weekend; she helped with the aid station but that wasn’t a full-time job, so she also became my Crew II. Mom walked several laps with me on Day 1, and several more on Day 2. Also Dave’s wife Cristina came for most of Day 2. She brought sandwiches and pickles and other goodies for the aid station. Someone mentioned that the other runners (not me) made quick work of two giant jars of pickles and pickle juice. I had no idea that pickles are a thing among ultrarunners—apparently they are loaded with electrolytes. Cristina walked several laps with me, which was great fun. She and Mom both walk fast; I had to work to keep up with them, which helped my progress.

Discovery I made this weekend: In a long race, it can be really great to walk or run with someone else for a while, even if you’re an introvert who usually prefers solo running. Especially in the early or middle parts of the race, when you’re bored and tired but not really suffering yet. This was the closest I’d ever come to having a pacer in a race, doing those laps with Mish and Cristina and Mom. My “pacers” only walked with me for a small portion of the race, maybe 15 laps total, but that made for a nice change. By the time I got to the third day, I didn’t want to walk with anyone who wasn’t also a runner in the race and who wasn’t feeling as tired and miserable as I was.

Mom and Crew did a little research on my rash (Mom quizzed other runners; Crew googled). We decided it was likely heat rash and that it might help to pour some cool water over my legs. (I made them cover my socks and shoes with a towel—the last thing I needed was to soak my socks and end up with blisters.) Come evening, I had a new lease on life. I’m not sure if it was because of the cool water on the legs, or the Ibuprofen I finally took, or the wild cherry Cliff Blocks, or the sun going down, or likely some combination. All I know is they all happened about the same time and within the hour I started to feel better. So, once the sun went down, I set my Ironman watch to do run-walk intervals. I started out with 30 seconds running. That felt a tad too long, like it might become unsustainable after a while. So I changed to 20 seconds running, 3 minutes walking. Three minutes walking seemed too long…I was ready to run sooner than that. So, I settled on 20 seconds running, 2 minutes walking. That turned out to be just right—I was able to keep it up nearly all night. And, wonder of wonders….I did not touch my headphones at all on Day 2. I did 50 miles with no music or audiobook or anything. Now that’s an accomplishment!

One more great thing about Day 2: it made me a floppy hat convert! On Day 1, I showed up to the race in my Rush Running baseball cap. I almost always run in a baseball cap. It keeps the sun out of my eyes and also serves as a hair control device. When I got my timing chip, I also got a Dave’s Challenge hat. Dave always wore a floppy hat when he ran, so Wyatt ordered special floppy hats for all of us Dave Challenge runners. They say “Dave’s Challenge, Lhotse 50x3”. I stashed mine in the car for safekeeping, and stuck with my baseball cap for Day 1. On Day 2, I gave the floppy hat a try. Dave wouldn’t have put a special hat away in the car…if it was truly special, it was meant to be used. But still, Oklahoma was windy and I didn’t want to lose my new Dave hat in the lake. So I took a couple of safety pins and pinned the chin strap to my shirt, like a mom pins her baby’s pacifier, so it won’t get lost when it falls. The floppy hat worked way better than I expected. When the wind blew, instead of blowing the hat off my head, it would blow through the vents and lift the hat just slightly off the top of my head. It was like having an air conditioner for my scalp! Toward the end of Day 1, the wind picked up and the hat finally blew off my head a couple times, fortunately getting saved by the chin strap. I didn’t want to lose the Dave hat, so I traded it for the floppy hat I’d purchased back in July for the Dave Renfro Community Run. I did the shirt-pin trick on this one too, even though I really wasn’t concerned about losing it. If this hat flew into the lake, I could just go to REI and buy another one. I wore the REI floppy hat all of Day 3 and loved it. A baseball hat can get caught by the wind too, and sometimes I have to tighten it so much it hurts my head. Not the floppy hat! Thanks to the chin strap and the floppy brim, it stayed on in the wind without giving me a headache. At night, it was also way better than the baseball hat, because it played better with my headlamp.

At first on Day 2, I was nervous about running, especially at night. I was sure I would trip over one of the many cracks and tree roots, and bust open my knees again. My left knee was functioning well and giving me no problems, save that the sunscreen and bug spray stung when it ran down inside the Tegaderm patch. But I knew the knee wouldn’t react well to a fall. Still, I was only running 20 seconds—surely I could concentrate well enough for 20 seconds to avoid tripping. The knee was another reason I had opted not to run the first day. If I had fallen early, finishing the race would have been hopeless. But once I got 40 hours under my belt, I started to think I could suck it up and finish no matter what happened. I had two close calls where I almost tripped and went down, but both of these occurred while I was walking, not running.

At the end of Day 1, I gave myself zero chance of finishing. About halfway through Day 2, I started to believe I could finish the 150 miles. Another big takeaway from this experience is realizing that one’s body doesn’t follow a linear function, gradually disintegrating from the best possible condition at the beginning of the race to a horrible death plod at the end. That’s not how it works. If you feel horrible at some given moment, there is a pretty decent probability that you will feel better at some moment in the future, if you don’t give up. It’s weird. This is now my fifth race of over 50 miles (how unbelievable is that?). The first 50 in this race was by far worse than the first 50 of any of the other four races. The only one that comes close is that first Snowdrop, when the first 50 was so cold and miserable, and I revived somewhat on the second day. But this first 50 felt worse, and without the excuse of sucky weather. I really think the primary reason Day 1 was so awful was that I drove all night and got no sleep. Driving 8 hours, especially at night, will stiffen anybody up, so of course it affected my race.

I finished the second 50 miles at about 6 a.m., I think. I went faster the second day, but I also started later, so I still had very little wiggle room on the time (Each day began and ended at 8:00 a.m.). After Day 2, I slept about 2.5 hours in the motel, a slight improvement over the previous two “nights”. At least on Day 2 and 3 we got our money’s worth from the hotel, because Crew used our room to snooze for 3 or 4 hours each day.

On Day 3, I got back on the course about 10:30 a.m., more or less. That gave me about 21.5 hours to do the last 50 miles. Several people had mentioned that the weather forecast was for overcast and cooler, but it sure didn’t feel that way at first. Still sunny! But indeed a few degrees cooler (high of 91ºF, according to Weather Underground). The “overcast” never really materialized, although one of the occasional wisps of clouds sprinkled us with raindrops once (only for about 4 minutes, nice while it lasted!). I was SO glad it didn’t rain. Even a light drizzle would have sucked, likely making me slower and more discouraged, plus giving me blisters. With so little wiggle room before the cutoff, even a minor setback would have nixed any chance I had of finishing.

Much of Day 3 was quite pleasant. But my untrained, unfit body, especially my feet, finally started to really complain. “We’ve already carried you over 110 miles this weekend, and now you want more? What do you expect from us? When is this going to end?” Weirdly enough, I really didn’t have any physical problems. No injuries, no signs of damage, just footsore and weary. If I’d been fast enough to get 4 or 5 hours of sleep, I’m sure that would have helped a lot. The miles just dragged and dragged, especially once the sun went down. Whenever I would stop, even if only for a minute or two, my legs would stiffen up and it was oh so hard to get going again. After each stop, my first thirty yards or so were awful, stiff and ungainly and really funny looking. And then my legs would gradually loosen up and start walking correctly. Amazingly, in spite of being so tired and having such sore feet, I really was still walking correctly and relatively briskly, except for a short distance after each stop.

The afternoon of Day 3, a guy in the park asked me about the race. “Is this a 5K?” I explained about the 72 hours and how some people had done 200 miles and I was trying for 150. He said, “oh, so it’s a little longer than a 5K then.” I think he must never have seen a 5K. The few “runners” who remained were all strung out over the park, and we were all plodding along at a slow walk looking miserable. It’s been several years since I’ve done a 5K, but I sure don’t think it looked like this.

One mistake I made was not making notes about time milestones. I should have written down when I got to the 25%, 50%, and 75% marks each day, so that I would know whether I was on schedule to make the cutoff. I thought I could remember but I couldn’t. The only marker I remembered was that on Day 2, I had reached the halfway point (25 miles = 22 laps) at almost exactly 9:00 pm. In early evening of Day 3, I started walking some laps with a new friend, Glenda, who was also trying for 150 miles. She was having some major problems with her feet and ankles, among other things. We both needed some company and some encouragement, so we paired up. I tracked our lap times on my Ironman, and we mostly managed 25-minute laps, which was faster than I’d done most of the first day, but slower than when I was run-walking on Day 2. 25-minute laps made the math pretty easy…about two laps per hour, allowing for the occasional stop. I figured out that I was behind schedule to make 25 miles (22 laps) by 9:00 pm. So I needed to catch up to that for sure. I asked Crew to work out the math for me and write down how many laps needed to be complete at each clock hour. He made two copies, and taped one to the pole of our canopy and one to our cooler. It didn’t take long to figure out that stopping at the cooler to look at the schedule was a bad idea. The temptation to rest, and the stiff legs, were just too much to handle. So, I pinned the time schedule to my bib. Upside down, so I could pull my shirt up and shine my headlamp on the schedule. It worked really well. If I could get to 22 laps by 9 pm, then two laps/hour would finish it at exactly 8 a.m. I was 3 or 4 laps behind schedule, so I left Glenda and went back to my run-walk for a while. I imagined my heartbreak at missing the cutoff by 15 minutes… that put a kick into my legs, and I really didn’t have much trouble doing the needed running to catch up. When Crew went to the hotel for his nap, I was behind schedule. When he returned, he was so glad to see I had made up the lost time and was slightly ahead of where I needed to be.

I walked with Glenda for most of the last 25 miles. She even did some run-walk for a while. I don’t know how she did it as bad with her feet, knees and ankles hurting so much, but she did. Glenda is tough as nails. At first, we talked about our background and hobbies and other sensible things, but by the middle of the night, we disintegrated into nonsense. We babbled about favorite colors and weird shadows and all sorts of gibberish. The night before, there had been a cool shadow on the path near the lake, cast by some weeds/reeds next to the path. It looked exactly like a goose, in fact like the goose who had pecked my leg the day before. I tried and tried to find that goose shadow to show her, but I couldn’t. Someone must have trampled the goose-shadow weed, and it made me so sad. I remember saying, “wow, we only have to do this another 8 and a half hours and we’ll be done.” That was both mind-boggling and also very discouraging, so I tried not to say anything of the sort again. Glenda is an engineer and I am a math professor, and we were both reduced to counting laps on our fingers. And still making mistakes. Let’s see. We’re on Lap 37 and we need to get to 44. That’s 37…38…39… etc. We would both do the finger-counting independently and get different answers. Then we’d have to do it again. If I hadn’t had my time schedule attached to my shirt, I would have had no idea whether we were on track. Glenda was actually a couple laps ahead of me. So, when she got down to single-hand laps (5 laps, one for each finger), I tricked myself into also being in single-hand laps. Yes, Glenda and I would finish the race together, and then I would do a couple bonus laps by myself. I wasn’t the least bit worried about those bonus laps. I knew I would be fine once I was that close to the end, as long as I wasn’t in danger of missing the cutoff.

Weirdly enough, we started getting slightly faster as the night wore on. So I gradually banked some wiggle room before the 8 a.m. cutoff, which was a huge relief. Finally, we were down to Glenda’s last two laps (and mine also, not counting the bonus laps). We started saying goodbye to all the track landmarks. The trash can at the far end of the loop, the race signs, the little tiny treacherous downhill (maybe 4 feet of elevation change) with the rough asphalt, where I was always so afraid of tripping. The path around the lake with all the goose poop. We said our almost-goodbyes on the second-to-last lap. “Just think, Glenda, you only have to go over this little bridge one more time!” Then it was the last lap. “Bye little spider in the web on the bridge….we will see you next year!” “Goodbye ducks and geese, no more having to dodge you on this little path! Poop all you want, we don’t care!” Then Glenda ran across the starting mat for the last time. Or so we thought. Nope, apparently that lap was just a smidge shy of 150 miles, so she had to turn around and walk around Goose Lake again. (About a third of a lap, I think.) I knew I had plenty of time for my bonus laps, so I plopped myself in my chair, put my feet up, switched into my Dave’s Challenge hat, and waited for her to finish. Yay, she did it!! Before she collapsed, I gave her a big hug and then took off for my bonus laps. They were fun. I was almost sad to say goodbye to the park. It had started to feel like home. I did the second-to-last lap at a brisk walk. After I crossed the mat, I waved at Glenda, but she was out cold, asleep in the antigravity chair. Then on the last lap, I started running. I thought I might be able to run the whole lap, but I fizzled out pretty quick. That was just fine. I enjoyed the walk too. The sun had started to come up during the second-to-last lap, and so I ditched my headlamp for the last lap. Perfect! I got to see the sunrise. I even talked to a couple early-bird locals, out to walk with their dogs at first light. They asked me how far I’d run, and it was so cool to say “as soon as this lap is done, 150 miles!!”

To make the last lap even more perfect, just as I was coming around Goose Lake for the last time, I saw Abe Nutt walking in from the parking lot. Abe was a dear friend of Dave’s, and he had finished the Dave Challenge just before midnight. I have known Abe only a short time, but it has been long enough to know that he is one of the nicest and most kind people in the whole world. Another one is Trevor, who finished his first 200-miler this weekend at Lhotse. I only got to walk with Trevor a short time, but that was enough to appreciate him. Congratulations, Trevor!

Anyway, after getting a good night’s sleep at his motel, Abe realized he’d forgotten to return his timing chip. So he came back to the course just in time to run with me during my last lap around Goose Lake. I didn’t have to do the partial lap that Glenda did, because I was doing 44 laps/day for the Dave Challenge. That worked out to about 50.377 miles/day, or about 1.1449 miles/lap for 132 laps. I know I could have done the partial lap and been considered a finisher, but it would have bugged me (occasionally I can be a tad obsessive and over-analytical).

I ran across the timing mat for the last time and just couldn’t believe it. Yea, I just finished 150 miles in 3 days. Incredible. I actually completed the Dave Challenge. Only about an hour before the cutoff, which was just fine. I’m glad I wasn’t faster. It was so nice to finish right at sunrise. It seemed fitting that the sun would rise right then, like joy finally bubbling up after a summer that felt so dark and sad.

All four of us who tried the Dave Challenge finished it. How cool is that? Wyatt, the race director and Dave’s good friend. Abe. Me. And Annabel from Australia. Annabel didn’t know Dave, but Wyatt told her his story and she wanted to do the challenge. Thank you so much, Wyatt, for thinking of the Dave Challenge. What an amazing tribute to him.

This one’s for you, Dave. I know this was nothing compared to the race you ran these last four years, but I know you are celebrating and proud of me.

The four Dave's Challenge finishers, in our Dave hats:
Me, Abe, Annabel, and Wyatt

P.S. A couple other tidbits/takeaways that surprised me in this race, that don’t seem to fit anywhere else:

1) Apparently I am incapable of writing a brisk and concise race report, even about a really boring race in which nothing eventful happened.

2) I knew I could function semi-decently on a less-than ideal amount of sleep, but it shocked me that I could go 93 hours with only 6 hours of sleep. Nope, not kidding. From 11:00 a.m. Thursday until the race ended at 8 a.m. on Monday. Really it was closer to 6 hours sleep in 96 hours, by the time we said goodbye to everyone at the course, packed the car, drove to the hotel, and maneuvered my stiff and sore body into the shower and then bed.

3) Not a single blister. No foot/skin problems other than being tired and sore. That’s good, because I’ve only finished Chapter 9 (out of 30 chapters) of my last Christmas present from Dave: his own copy of the 5th edition of Fixing Your Feet (by John Vonhoff, published by Rodale). I didn’t know Christmas 2017 would be the last one, but I guess Dave did.

Here are the official race results:
http://m1.onlineraceresults.com/event/view_event.php?event_id=21285

If you want to get better acquainted with Dave, here are some links you might like:

April 2016 Epic Ultras Featured Runner of the Month writeup, about Dave.

Wyatt Hockmeyer and Heather Blake’s Podcast from March 2018. Most of the podcast is an interview with Dave.
Heather and Wyatt's Episode #13

Wyatt and Heather’s Podcast from June 2018. They start talking about Dave near the end, at about the 48:40 mark.
Heather and Wyatt's Episode #22

Here are some more pictures. (Thanks, Crew!! I had no time or energy for photography.)

Some geese. A tiny fraction of the total geese.
There were usually lots of ducks too. 

The start/finish line.

Our setup. We could not be more pleased with the Eurmax canopy.
What a fantastic purchase!

The aid station and finish line. I could see our bright
blue canopy from almost the far end of the course!

Goose Lake. Trevor's huge crew tent is in the background on the left. 

Walking around Goose Lake on Day 3.

The timing mats, and a nice view of the REI floppy hat.

My roadmap to success!!

Me and Glenda, after it was done. The only way we could stand
was if she leaned on the chair and I leaned on her. 

Finishing my last lap.
I was running so fast I was just a blur!

God bless Texas. And Tegaderm. Can we call it Texaderm?

Sure, I like figuring out my own solutions to problems. I know it is good for me to stretch myself and exercise my creativity, instead of defaulting to standard solutions put forth by others. If I always look up the “best” way to do things, I won’t build my imagination or experience the satisfaction of my own ingenuity. Or, if ingenuity fails to materialize, collecting and analyzing data also produces satisfaction. The trial-and-error approach has my utmost respect. (“I can’t be clever, but I can be systematic”…words to live by, heard recently from a friend/colleague, who is more clever than he thinks he is.)

But sometimes you don’t have time to be systematic. And some problems are unrealistic or undesirable to repeat over-and-over in search of the optimal solution. In these instances, it’s best to find someone with expertise. Who will have expertise? People who regularly encounter extreme versions of your problem.

So, if you fall while running and skin your knees, don’t look up how to treat skinned knees. The standard medical sites will give you stock suggestions about washing your hands, cleaning it up, putting on some ointment, and covering with gauze. And not picking the scab, and calling the doctor if it needs stitches or gets infected (duh). And of course, when you select a bandage, you should read the instructions on the package to make sure you’re applying the bandage properly.

Nope, this is bad advice. Or at least incomplete advice. What’s the extreme version of skinning your knees on a pristine suburban sidewalk? Flying off your bicycle on a gravel road, wearing nothing but Spandex. So, if you want to know how to treat badly skinned knees, consult biker blogs. (Here, “biker”=”bicyclist”, not “motorcyclist”.) When it comes to road rash, bikers are the experts.

Last Monday night when I tore the skin off my knees while running, we triaged it with materials on hand, which turned out to be identical to the standard ointment/gauze advice. After a really long sleep, a scouring of biker blogs, and a trip to the neighborhood pharmacy, it was time to change the gauze. I had a feeling that process would be unpleasant, and yowee, I was right. But that’s okay, because this gauze-ripping experience would be my last.

Next round: Tegaderm dressings. These are officially awesome. They don’t stick, so you don’t screech in pain every time your skin moves. They stay on in the shower. And supposedly the bathtub, though I haven’t tested that myself. They last for up to 7 days (biker blogs say more like 3-5 days, due to ooze from the road rash causing the adhesive to fail).

And, best of all, they’re transparent. If I hadn’t used Tegaderm, I would have had no idea that my right knee was skinned in the shape of Texas. Is that amazing or what? Too bad the Tegaderm prevents scars. It would be pretty cool to have a permanent Texas on my knee!

This was after the 2.5 mile walk back to the car. 

Driving 10 miles home caused it to drip sideways. Gravity!

After installing Tegaderm #1.

Need a little more land north of Dallas, and a little less north of El Paso. But otherwise a pretty darn good fit!

After removing Tegaderm #1 (after 4 days it was no longer stuck at the bottom). Panhandle already healing, still a gouge around San Antonio. Tegaderm #2 is now installed!

The Lhotse 24-Hour Endurance Challenge: My First Track Meet!

Saturday, March 18 may have been the first time I have set foot on an actual running track. It had numbers and lanes just like in the Olympics!

Why would anyone want to do a 24-hour track race? Because it’s fun? Because most people in the world haven’t done one? Sometimes I catch myself feeling smug about being part of some small group, just because most people aren’t in it (FaceBook abstainers, for example). It’s elitism, and it’s silly, but it’s hard to turn off. Of all the people who run races for fitness or fun, only a small slice of that group has ever run a 24-hour race. Even fewer have run a 24-hour race on a quarter-mile track. Those who have run a 24-hour track race in Owasso, Oklahoma? Even fewer…there may be only 10 of us in the whole world!

Most people who run races choose the fixed-distance variety (everyone covers the same distance, fastest time wins). I’ve done these, but now I am hooked on fixed-time races (everyone runs the same number of hours; longest distance wins). I wonder, are there fixed-time sprint races? To see who can run the furthest in 20 seconds or so? If so, I have zero interest in those. But the 24-hour race concept (or longer) appeals to me. Getting myself fit enough to run slowly for a really long time seems pretty doable, compared to running faster for a shorter time. I don’t much like pain and I don’t have the mental fortitude for speed, but I can plod. Plus, I have been nocturnal for most of my life, and I seem to have an above-average ability to stay awake into the wee hours of the morning.

I’d like to say I thought all this through in advance, reasoned out that 24-hour races represented my best opportunity to achieve modest success at some physical activity for the first time ever, selected a 24-hour race, and then trained for it. But nope, that’s not what happened. I signed up for the Lhotse 24-Hour Endurance Challenge because my brother Dave signed up for it. At first I cringed at the thought of a track race. I would have much preferred a nicely manicured jogging path in a park, maybe a mile-long loop. But the more I thought about it, considering all the alternative races Dave might have picked, the quarter-mile track sounded better and better. Sure, going round and round in circles for 24 hours might be mentally draining, but there are plenty of pluses. No steep drop-offs, no danger of getting lost, no mud, no need for drop bags. All my creature comforts near at hand, along with an escape hatch in the form of my car.

(After a traumatic run-in with a large bug on the trails at a local park, I swore off trail running for over a year. Most of my running is on suburban sidewalks and bike paths.)

I won’t say I “trained” for this, but at least I got in a couple of consecutive 50-mile workouts back on New Year’s Eve weekend. That should help, right?

Dave and I met up the night before the race, at the pre-race pizza meal in the Owasso High School Field House. (Please remind me, next time I sign up for a 24-hour race, to NOT stuff myself with pizza the night before, okay? It’s just not a good idea.) I was super-excited to finally get to run an ultra with Dave. He was supposed to do the Snowdrop 55 (my first-ever ultra) with me, but he flaked out. (Darn cancer!).

Later on, at the home of a college friend who graciously invited us to stay, Dave mentioned the 16-hour time limit for the 50-mile race. You should have seen the look on my face. Total shock. There was a time limit?

I consulted the website: “Time limits for the distance races are 24-hours for the 100-mile race and 16-hours for the 50-mile race.”

That seems pretty clear. Why didn’t I notice it before? Well, maybe I noticed it, but I didn’t put the pieces together. Dave and I both did the dual registration, which registered us simultaneously for the 50-mile race and the 24-hour race. I guess I had it in my head as a 24-hour race, so I glossed over the 50-mile race info.

I processed the new (well, newly comprehended) information. It made perfect sense. The 24-hour dual registration earns you the privilege of staying out there 24 hours, which ought to be long enough for even me to do 50 miles. But the dual registration doesn’t nullify the 16-hour time limit for the 50. If I got to 50 after the cutoff time, I would have a DNF (did not finish) in the 50-mile race. (The 50 miles would still count toward my official 24-hour distance.)

I worked it out. At Snowdrop, I walked 50 miles in about 22.5 hours, slept 7 hours or so, then walked another 50 miles in 23.5 hours. So I would have to improve my 50-mile PR by over 6 hours! That seemed a pretty tall order. Dang, I had really been looking forward to that belt buckle!

Was it even possible? I would need to do 19-minute miles for 16 hours. My actual pace would need to be under 18 minutes/mile, considering breaks, plus I would be on the outside of the track so as not to impede the speedsters on the rail. So, not totally out of the question, but a big reach for me. Anyway, even though I was much less optimistic about the belt buckle, I was very glad Dave told about the time limit the night before, instead of 30 miles into the race.

I looked pretty crestfallen when Dave told me about that time limit. But the more I thought about it, the more I was glad. It would be good to have a goal to shoot for. The prospect of missing out on my belt buckle should motivate me, right? I already knew (from Snowdrop) that I could walk 50 miles in 24 hours, so there didn’t seem much point in doing that again. It was time to raise the bar.

Race day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky. It was unseasonably warm for Oklahoma, which was just fine with me. At the high school, the first person I met was Mark, who parked next to me. He insisted on loading my big cooler and chairs into his truck, and taking them to the other end of the track where everyone was setting up.

The second person I met was Carolyn. We bumped into each other in the now-deserted field house. She was wondering where we got our timing chips. I remembered the organizers said they would be at the start line, so we headed that way. When Carolyn introduced herself, she came across as a perfectly normal human being out for a fun run…petite, pleasant and cheerful. There was no indication that she was a freak of nature, or that she could run for almost 24 hours straight without a walk break, or that she was the most awe-inspiring athlete I have ever had the privilege of meeting. She didn’t mention that she had flown all the way from Canada for this race, or that she was trying to qualify for the Canadian national 24-hour team.

I walked the first mile (1 mile = 4 laps), so that I would know my walking pace (18:59). Dave ran the first mile, to see if he could do it (he could!). After that, I ran half of each lap and walked the other half. I had no idea how long I could keep that up, but I knew it was my only chance for the belt buckle.

Pretty early on, I figured out I was not properly equipped for a 24-hour race. I knew better than to depend on my Garmin for 24 hours, so I had brought my Timex Marathon sports watch. Nope, that’s the wrong watch for this race. The Marathon is cheap for a reason—it doesn’t have the Timex Ironman’s 50-lap memory. Dave had the Ironman, so he always knew exactly how many laps he had done, and how long each lap took. I lost track of my laps at about lap 7. My watch could only record one lap; then I had to clear it and start over. I finally figured out a decent system. I hit the lap button every 4 laps, to see my mile pace. If most of my miles were under 18:00, with no long breaks, I should get the belt buckle. This system required me to count to 4 reliably, which was surprisingly difficult. If I didn’t take breaks, I could usually look at my watch’s lap time and figure out if I was on Lap 1, 2, 3, or 4 for the mile. If I took a break, I would lose track.

I was super-impressed with the race timing company, Tatur Racing, and its head honcho Race Timer Dude. I love seeing people who are continually optimizing what they do. The initial system was for a printout of the laps for the top 10 people in each race to be taped to a stand near the start line. This happened every few miles, so the printouts quickly became obsolete. With only ten 24-hour race participants, I made the cut, but still—this is a bad system. Slow people care about knowing their current lap too! I think Race Timer Dude knew this, because he supplemented the printouts by occasionally going to the start line and telling us all what mile we were on. He even checked with me once to see if he had missed a lap—he noticed a 15-minute lap, when all the others had been about 4 minutes. (I had stopped to change my shoes.) I guess RTD figured out that shouting out all our laps wasn’t feasible for 24 hours, so he set up a computer monitor right next to the track. Perfect! Now we could always see what lap we were on, and work out the miles. But no, that wasn’t good enough for Race Timer Dude. About 12 hours in, he made it even better. We no longer had to divide the laps by 4 to get the miles…the miles were on the computer monitor. Yep, right about when my brain was losing its ability to do simple arithmetic, RTD did it for me. (I eventually learned his name was Brian, but he’ll always be Race Timer Dude to me.)

My strategy of running half of every lap felt pretty easy for the first 11 hours or so. That’s remarkable, actually. The longest run/walk I’d ever done in training was about 5.5 hours. I got pretty tired of it after 35 miles, but nothing hurt and I didn’t yet dread the running portions. We changed directions every 4 hours, and with every direction change, I gave myself a treat: New shoes, new socks, and the baby powder treatment for my tired feet! Boy, did I look forward to those turnarounds. I think my shoe-switching strategy worked pretty well. I ended up with one very large blister, but I was blissfully unaware of it throughout the race, my shower, and my first sleep session after the race. I didn’t even notice it until I was back in Texas, so it couldn’t have been too bad.

After running the first mile, Dave settled into a run-walking pattern also. Pretty early on, he had to let go of his A goal, hitting 50 miles in 16 hours for the belt buckle. But he cranked out 5-minute laps for quite a while, and was pleased with his pace. Then around 20 miles or so, his cells rebelled. “Hey, we’ve been fighting like crazy against this cancer…do you know how much energy that takes? And now you expect us to carry you 50 miles round and round a track? No way! We’re going on strike!” They got him to slow down so much you could barely tell he was moving. He kept taking 10 minute breaks to negotiate with those cells, but it wasn’t working very well. He’d get back up and get slowly moving again, but before he made much progress, they insisted on another break. The battle was quite painful to watch; I can’t imagine how it felt for him! At mile 33, about 13 hours into the race, he sat down for a really long time. I thought he might be done. But after about 45 minutes of sitting, his cells got back to work. Turns out he and his cells had worked out an agreement, where they would keep carrying him, in exchange for an occasional long vacation. Part of the deal was that they could no longer work at tortoise pace; they had to carry him at a decent walk. And sure enough, Dave started walking 5-6 minute laps again. He was celebrating, “look, I’m ambulatory!” and he was going fast enough to walk and talk with people. By this time in the race, pretty much everyone knew each other (yet another awesome feature of lap races), and everyone was really glad to see Dave back on the track.

I didn’t have time to walk with Dave. I had to keep running half a lap and walking briskly the other half, or I wasn’t going to make the 16-hour cutoff. After I hit 40 miles, about 12 hours in, it started to really suck. Walking was tolerable, but gosh it was hard to make my body start running. It is hard to describe how it felt. I want to say my whole body hurt, but I remembered analyzing all my body parts and observing that no part was experiencing actual pain. Certainly not the “stop!” sort of pain that warns you of impending damage. My feet ached, that’s for sure. But they ached when I was walking too, so why did they not want to run? All I know is that I felt miserable and I really wanted to take a few laps off from running. Could I? I worked out the splits in my head. At one point, I calculated that I should easily make the cutoff, even if I walked it all. Then I realized I had divided 24 by 4 and obtained 8. Not good. I remembered Dave kept a little calculator in his water belt. Didn’t sound so silly now. I reworked the calculation and came up with less than a mile of wiggle room. According to my watch, nearly all my miles were still in the 17:00’s. I needed to stay close to that if I was going to make it. So, no walking laps for me. Every lap, I had to remind my body that nothing was broken or torn, and there was no physical reason it couldn’t run. Press the ON button and go.

One of the volunteers, Beth, befriended me. She had run some marathons and wondered it she was ready to tackle a longer race, maybe a 12-hour race. She ran/walked several laps with me, at my pace. I alternated between whining about how much it sucked to keep running but I had to do it anyway, and trying to convince her she was plenty fit for a 24-hour race, and she should even consider coming to Houston for next year’s 55-hour Snowdrop. Because these long races were so much fun. Yea. Those laps with Beth were a highlight of the race for me…she really helped me get through a tough stretch. She walked with Dave some too, and with any other runners who looked like they could use some encouragement.

Beth was great, but it was Dave who told me what I needed to hear. An hour or two before the 16-hour cutoff, I walked a few steps with Dave, and was about to cry because I had to run again. Nope, he didn’t try to encourage me. He told me he would be really pissed if I didn’t get that belt buckle. Dang, why’d he have to say that?

(Later on, chatting with a volunteer, I mentioned that Dave said he would be ticked off if I didn’t get the belt buckle. Dave emphatically corrected me: “I didn’t say I’d be ticked off, I said I’d be pissed.” Hmm…he’s right, there’s a difference. And now he’s pissed that I misquoted him. I don’t rightly know what the difference is, but I know that Dave being “mad” or “ticked off” about the lost belt buckle wouldn’t have been as effective. So much for my family-friendly blog language!)

So, after that zinger from Dave, I didn’t have much choice except to keep running. Half of each lap, more if possible. It really, really, sucked but I did it. I remembered a snippet of conversation I’d heard by the aid station. Someone said that ultras were mostly a mental game; nearly everyone could physically complete an ultra, but most people gave in to a wrong mindset, and quit while their bodies were still capable of continuing. I sure as heck didn’t want to be one of those people. I kept it up, even as each lap felt harder than the one before. The miles went by oh so slowly, but I made it to 48 miles at about 15:02. Whew, I was going to make it! I could even stop running….all I had to do was walk two 29:00-minute miles, and the belt buckle was mine. But I didn’t. It would be infinitely more satisfying if I could run half of every lap for 50 miles. Nope, no regrets for me. I fired up my running legs eight more times.

When I was finishing the second-to-last lap, Race Timer Dude hollered at me and confirmed my mileage. I told him how glad I was, and how I’d been pushing myself so hard and so miserably, because I knew I had to break 16 hours to get the belt buckle (and, more importantly, avoid the DNF). He said, “don’t worry, I don’t think they’re enforcing that!” W..h..a..a…t..t??? What did you say? They’re not enforcing the time limit? I was utterly deflated. I had been pushing myself this hard for no reason? All those laps fighting back tears and worrying about Dave being pissed, and it turns out I could have just walked and got the belt buckle? Really? It was like Lucy pulling away the football when Charlie Brown was about to kick it….no, that’s not quite right. It was like someone moved the goalposts….toward me. No, that metaphor doesn’t quite work either. What the heck, I may be a little annoyed, but I am going to run that last half-lap anyway, just to prove I can.

I got my 50 miles in about 15:39 and change. Yea! That felt good. Even if they decided not to enforce the time limit, I was really glad I pushed myself to make it. My annoyance gave way to acceptance. Hey, now maybe Dave can get his belt buckle after all! That would be cool. As a matter of policy, I think it’s probably not a great idea to announce a time limit and then not enforce it—some runners may look at the time limit and opt out of the race because they’re not fast enough. Still, these race organizers put on an awesome race, and I’m okay with their decision. If they thought the website was not sufficiently clear, due to the dual registration option, waiving the time limit was the right thing to do. I’m glad they didn’t tell me in advance, because there’s no way I would have pushed myself that hard without a time limit. And now I have seen that I am capable of more than I thought possible. If I ever decide to train properly, imagine how my 50-mile PR will drop!

I think Dave stayed on the track until the 16:00 mark (midnight) just to make sure I earned that belt buckle. He knew if he stopped, I’d be distracted and worried about him, instead of focused on finishing my 50. A lap or so after that, he sat down for a good long while, a couple hours I think. He obviously felt awful. I was now 100% walking, and no longer in a hurry, so I sat down a few minutes too. I told him what RTD said about the time limit for the buckle; that seemed to perk him up a little. But his cells weren’t budging.

I started walking again, slowly. After a lap or two, I got cold and rather sleepy. Fortunately, I had my Snowdrop sweatpants, which were so big I could pull them on over my shoes and pants. Perfect! One of the food-cooking volunteers, Jason I think, made me a custom quesadilla. An hour or two later, seeing me walking in slow motion with a zoned-out look on my face, he suggested coffee. It took me two laps to process the suggestion and decide whether I wanted some. When I finally decided, I couldn’t find Jason, and I was despondent. But he turned up a couple laps later, and made me the most delicious coffee I have tasted in my life. I don’t know what he put in it, I think some vanilla creamer, maybe something else, but wow it was good. He refilled my cup three or four laps in a row; I just couldn’t get enough of that coffee.

The coffee was just the ticket. I sure as heck wasn’t running, but I was walking decently and feeling much more alive. My feet felt revived too. At the 16-hour turnaround, a lap or two past 50 mile, I changed into my Altra One 2.5’s. These are closest-to-minimalist shoes I own. I picked them up for $50 at the Houston Marathon Expo after Snowdrop, in hopes that walking in less-cushioned shoes would toughen my tender feet. I love them for walking, but haven’t run much in them yet. Watching Carolyn run, one of the first things I noticed was that she was wearing my shoes! Yep, she ran 24 hours in Altra Ones, just like mine except for the color. So when she ran by, I showed them to her, and hollered, “guess what, I changed into my Carolyn shoes! They’re magic shoes, and I’ll soon be flying around the track with you!”

Carolyn was truly amazing. She had a beautiful floating stride, which didn’t seem to change the whole race. She took hardly any breaks and wasted no time. I once saw her crewmate follow her to the portapotty with his clipboard and papers. He talked to her through the vents, about splits and strategy I’m sure, and then she ran back out to the track and kept on going. During the latter part of the race, she would occasionally switch to a super-fast walk. She held her arms high, and pumped them like she was swimming, still super-smooth and efficient. Dave tried it. When she went by he said, “Hey, I’m doing the Carolyn Arm Pump…this is great! I’ve been on this earth 46 years and just now learned to walk properly!” She flew by and laughed, ”yes, it really works, doesn’t it?” As focused as she was, and as hard as she must have been pushing herself, she was always ready to smile or laugh or say something encouraging. If one of us slowpokes cheered her on as she ran by, she’d always respond with a “thanks, you look amazing yourself, keep it up!” or some such.

After I got revived by the coffee, I stopped to check on Dave. He had been sitting there a couple hours I think. He showed me a giant blister that he needed to drain. I didn’t stay around for that. Next lap, I saw him talking on his phone, and wondered if he was done. Next thing I knew, he was out on the track again. He said he’d just posted a video of his blister-draining technique, and now he was ready to try for his E goal, 50 miles. (He’d let go of his A, B, C, and D goals long before.) And sure enough, he stayed out there the rest of the race, with no more extended breaks. He wasn’t walking fast, but by golly he was moving.

After I made the 50 miles, my next goal was to get to 100K. According to RTD, that would be 62.25 miles. From 50 miles to 62.25 was just a long boring slog. No pressure, nothing hurt, just really tired. I was already super-pleased with my race; any extra miles were icing on the cake. One of the volunteers fetched me a giant vanilla cappuccino from the convenience store. Awesome. I can’t say enough about the wonderful volunteers. They kept looking out for us, however tired they must have been themselves.

Dave made his 50 miles at about 23:10. Totally amazing that he was able to do that, with all his body is going through. Dave is tough as nails. I got my 100K about 20 minutes later. RTD asked if I wanted to turn in my timing chip. Nope, I paid for 24 hours, and I’m going to get my money’s worth. I kept walking, with a tired silly grin plastered on my face. The sun was dawning, and it was a beautiful morning. And, yet another reason to smile…at the very end of the race, after Carolyn met her mileage goals, she put her hair up, relaxed, and walked out the clock chatting with the few of us still out there. (Just a nice slowpoke walk this time, no more Carolyn Arm Pump.) Turns out Carolyn got over 116 miles. Mind-boggling.

RTD counted down the last five minutes on his bullhorn. Hmm...should I? Sure, might as well give it a go. I waved goodbye to Carolyn and the others, and took off running. I ran almost two laps before time ran out. I ended up with 255 laps, 63.38 miles. (Dave’s family record of 66.2 miles in 24 hours is still safe, at least until next year.)

After the Snowdrop 55-hour and now my first 24-hour race, I think I have found my running niche. I have been slow at pretty much any activity I have tried in my life…running, writing, solving math problems, whatever. The only activities I have ever gotten fast at are throwing newspapers and reading. I’ve generally made up for my slowness by staying up late and plugging away for a really long time. After years of staying up late, my body is awake and asleep at all the wrong times. Now, finally, my night-owl tendencies can become an asset rather than a detriment. I should be able to become decent at 24-hour races just by not going to sleep. Sure hope they do this race again, and keep it on the high school track. That gives me and my Carolyn shoes almost a year to train. We’ll be ready!

Dave and I with our well-earned belt buckles. I was too tired to even unwrap mine. 

Candy Cane the Writing Hamster kept watch on the Gatorade. 

My shoe rotation:
Hours 1-4: Altra Torin 2.5
Hours 5-8: Skechers Houston Marathon Special
Hours 9-12: Altra Paradigm
Hours 13-16: Hoka One One Bondi
Hours 17-20: Altra Ones (my Carolyn shoes!)
Hours 21-24: Skechers Houston Marathon Special, again 

My Altra Ones! Super-comfortable for walking, not for driving. After driving 4 hours in them, my Achilles was sore. That’s okay, I’ll save them for running, so I can be like Carolyn. From now on, my Ones will always be my Carolyn Shoes!

Me and Carolyn after the race. Too bad I wasn’t wearing the Carolyn shoes!

Snowdrop 55 Ultra: An exhausting, exhilarating, epic slog

…A simple bell. Purple. Made of metal, on a stand, maybe chest high for most people. Nothing special about it, or so it seemed. I walked by it many times without noticing it. Once I finally realized it was there, I walked by it many more times, never really looking at it. Until finally…I rang the bell. I took a deep breath and pulled. Hard. Back and forth I shook the clapper. Instantly the air was filled with joyful, laughing, triumphant music. Could it be? Could there be magic in that bell? My arm tingled, and at the same moment my leaden legs and feet came to life. They took off running, totally of their own accord, after plodding along at a slow walk for over two days. Yippee!!! Yes, I really was floating…how can you call it running if your feet aren’t touching the ground?

The longest race I’d ever done was a half-marathon (13.1 miles). The last time I ran a half-marathon was in 2012. (Well, I completed an additional half-marathon with friends in 2014, but I don’t count that. I was so out of shape I could barely jog a mile; I struggled to stay ahead of the sweeper truck on a rainy, cold, and miserable day, and I vowed never again to do a race without being reasonably fit.)

I signed up for the Snowdrop 55-Hour Ultramarathon because my brother Dave decided to run it. Dave started running a year or so after I did, in 2010 I think. I joined him for his first half-marathon, the 2011 Winslow Run. We both had a blast. Then Dave started running ultramarathons (races longer than 26.2 miles). I always figured I would run an ultra with him. Someday.

Then, at age 44, Dave got cancer. Specifically, Stage IV papillary renal cell cancer. Dave still runs ultras. But now he has to choose races with especially generous time limits. (In 2016, he finished the Prairie Spirit 50 and the Pumpkin Holler 50K, and was the Epic Ultras Featured Runner for April.) So, when Dave chose the Snowdrop 55 for his fall race, I had to sign up. If I were ever to attempt an ultramarathon, this was the perfect race to try. It would be in Sugar Land, Texas, about an hour from my house. It supports a great cause, helping kids with pediatric cancer, through research and college scholarships. And, instead of a fixed-distance race on a trail, this was a fixed-time race, round and round a 0.74668-mile jogging trail at a park. No danger of getting lost. No danger of getting stranded on a mountain in the middle of the night in a rainstorm, miles from the next aid station. When I inevitably flaked out, I would be right in the middle of civilization. Wal-mart and Denny’s were right down the road, all my stuff would be immediately at hand. I could take a break, even go home, whenever I liked. And, one last plus: the race would begin on December 30, Dave’s birthday. It was perfect!

Escape hatch: Click here if you want to bypass this ridiculously long race report and jump right to the results and the lessons learned. (A bit like cutting the course in a race…let your conscience guide you.)

I had no intentions of showing up for Snowdrop completely untrained. When we registered back in April, I figured I had plenty of time to lose my dissertation weight and regain my ability to slowly run 15 miles or so. But life and work intervened, and the training plan never materialized. Summer running was decent, but this fall I ran once or twice most weeks, some weeks not at all. Snowdrop did motivate me to get in a few longish runs that otherwise wouldn’t have happened, including a 20-miler in early December. (Dave said that if I could run 20, I could run 50…I couldn’t prove him wrong unless I ran the 20. After my 20-miler, he said, “okay, now you're trained!”) Dave also says that training is overrated. Guess there’s one way to find out!

So, the last weekend in December was to be my Someday to run an ultra with Dave. What did it matter if I was trained? But Dave couldn’t come to Snowdrop. Because of the cancer. Or the cancer treatment. I knew Dave would give almost anything to be able to do this, so I might as well give it a go. I knew I would regret skipping it more than I would regret trying it.

So, off to Snowdrop I went. The first step was packet pickup on Thursday afternoon, at the park where the race would be held. The goodie bag was awesome—shirt, hat, waterproof bag, blister cream, KT tape, headlamp, hat, gloves, blanket, and more—tons of fun stuff, all packed in a high-quality duffel bag. I had paid for a tent cubicle with the race registration. We were supposed to check into the tent cubicles at the packet pickup, but the race organizers said it was too windy to set them up—the Boy Scouts would set up the tents in the morning. That was fine, it would give my crew member (hubby Scott) something to do while I was running.

Dave kindly sent pre-race encouragement: “I hope you get enough breaks from the rain to get your easy 50 without too much splashing.” And, “Your feet might get macerated but keep going. Even huge blisters only hurt while running and maybe one day after. Drain them before they get big.” He even gave detailed instructions: “Take a pin from your bib and clean it. Then stick it into the thick part of the blister and right back out an eighth of an inch away. Then twist till the skin rips. That will make a big enough hole to drain it completely. Draining a blister half way is useless. No need to get all pretty with it; the skin will dry up and fall off anyway.”

Armed with that helpful wisdom, I packed my stuff for Snowdrop. I gathered all the warm clothes that I could possibly think of. When I ran my 20-miler, it was dark and about 50 degrees Fahrenheit and I didn't even need my jacket, so I felt well-prepared for the temperatures that were predicted. The pre-race meeting was scheduled for 6 o'clock Friday morning. It was dark and chilly, but the race director was super peppy and it was rather fun. She gave us our instructions and announced there would be something very moving at the start of the race. I was looking forward to that. In the meantime, I enjoyed listening to everyone’s excited chit-chat. I didn’t know anybody, but there were plenty of friendly faces and I felt right at home. So much to take in—my first ultra…I still can’t believe I got myself into this. Oh, what a fun surprise….Dave had told me his friend Karen would be here, and sure enough, she managed to find me and introduce herself! We had fun visiting and took a picture together to send to Dave.

Finally, start time arrived. I knew I would be slow, so of course I lined up near the back. The Snowdrop was a fantastically run race, almost nothing to criticize. But if I could make one suggestion, it’s that I wish races would put a big speaker near the back of the pack at the start line. It happens at pretty much every race. Everyone is talking, which is fine when nothing is going on yet, but because of the talking no one can hear the announcement that it’s time for the Star-Spangled Banner and any speeches or introductions. So the back of the pack always misses everything. By the time the national anthem was halfway done, everyone stopped talking and we could hear, but we totally missed all the stuff before that, including the part the race director said would be really moving. I think the race organizers probably test their public address system when no one is there, and they can hear it just fine from way behind the starting line. But you can’t hear a thing when people are talking. We back-of-the packers are just as respectful and patriotic as the fast people—we would never intentionally talk through the announcements or the national anthem.

I learned later, while walking with someone who knew, that there was an inspiring story about a runner who’d been hit by a car. There was also an explanation about an Eagle Scout’s project that would be constructed during the race. The Eagle Scout had figured out how many children typically die of pediatric cancer during a 55-hour period. He made a large white cross to represent each one of those children. He started with one line of crosses, and then every hour, all through both nights, he would come out and install another line of crosses. So the field of crosses just grew and grew. Instead of placing them on a grid, he laid them out in graceful arcs. It was beautiful and haunting, especially at night. (I forgot to count the crosses, and figuring it out from the photos was difficult…I came up with 300+ crosses, but there may be many more.)

We heard over half of the national anthem, and many of us sang along (very quietly, because we wanted to hear the wonderful singer). And then we were off! Every other race I’ve done, a bunch of people took off fast—that didn’t seem to be the case this time, I wonder why?

The race got off to a fun start for me, because the first person I talked with turned out to be a faculty member at a community college on the other side of town from mine. (Veroon, rhymes with maroon, he said—that helped, hopefully I got close on his name.) We walked the first few laps together and had a great visit—it is always fun to swap stories with other community college faculty, and find out how our institutions are and aren’t the same. He was doing the relay so he stopped after a few laps. I hoped to see him again that evening or the next day, but I never did.

The most awesome part of this race was all the neat people I got to talk to. If I’m going to spend 55 hours doing a race, I’d much rather it be round-and-round instead of point-to-point…you can walk laps with lots of different people, instead of them just passing you once and never seeing them again (not that I’ve ever done a point-to-point ultra, of course….shudder).

When I signed up for the race, I thought of it as a 55-hour race and assumed everyone would be competing to get as far as possible before time ran out. As I walked and talked during the race, I learned that almost all the participants thought of it as a 100-mile race with a 55-hour time limit. In other words, “finishing” meant 100 miles for most people, although some of them intended to do some bonus miles after they finished.

By the way, I’ve discovered that it’s way more difficult to write a decent race report for a 55-hour race than for a run-of-the-mill road race. It’s almost a microcosm of the dissertation-writing process—the thing you’re trying to write up is ridiculously big, so you have to somehow include enough detail to convey the flavor, without sucking the life out of it. The only option is to try to distill it into highlights, which means throwing chronological order out the window. (I can’t remember the chronological order anyway—too many hours of cold and exhaustion, plus notetaking was rather difficult.) It’s pretty much doomed to not make any sense.

After Veroon, I walked and talked with several other people. Eventually, I started interspersing a little running—I tried to run half of every other lap. I wasn't very well trained and I’d never done a long race, so I had absolutely no idea how many miles were realistic for me. I was pretty sure I could get to 30; when I did the 20-miler, I was very tired and ready to be done, but nothing really hurt. If I’d had a good enough reason, I could have walked another 10.

But a secret part of me wanted to get to 100 and get that belt buckle. I had no idea if that was possible, and I almost didn't want to admit that I was thinking of 100—it would be crazy to think I could go a hundred miles. I still remember the humiliation of the 600-yard run in the Presidential Physical Fitness Tests in elementary school. It was awful. I was always the last kid done, by far, and everyone would just be standing around waiting for me when I finally finished. I dreaded Presidential Fitness days, especially the 600-yard run. What bureaucrat thought this was a good idea? That public torment would make kids want to exercise more? Really? That 600-yard run always seemed to take forever, and I was miserable for almost all of it. Six hundred yards works out to be about…one-third of a mile. Yea. But I am pretty sure our school’s 600-yard course was at least a mile. How would they have measured it? Did the gym teacher walk around it with a measuring wheel? There wasn’t any GPS or GoogleMaps, and you couldn’t drive around it with a car odometer. They probably just guessed. (By the way, I was actually quite good at the flexed-arm hang portion of the Presidential Fitness Test—I wasn’t fit and I didn’t work out, but for some unknown reason, hanging from a bar was easy for me. But the joy of looking down at my classmates from the bar didn’t make up for the trauma of the rest of it. I still hated the Presidential Fitness Test.)

After a few laps, I stopped to chat with hubby Scott. He wore his official Crew badge with pride and seemed to be enjoying himself. He had checked into my tent, and got all my stuff moved inside. Instead of a cubicle in the “bunkhouse”, I had my very own tent! Apparently one of the two tent bunkhouses had got damaged, and the race organizers made a late-night trip to Walmart to buy a bunch of small tents to replace it. A big “thank you” to the unseen but greatly appreciated Boy Scouts who set up the tents for us. Mine worked great! Scott used the power inverter in the car to blow up my new air mattress. We were very glad we didn't borrow an air mattress from the friend who offered it, because it would have ended up getting muddy. Better to have our own.

I kept moving all day. Everything blurred together. I had no idea how long it would take me to get to the halfway point. If possible, I wanted to get more than halfway (to 100 miles) the first day—I was still entertaining hopes of getting that belt buckle. But I was already cold, and the temperature kept dropping. (A couple people told me how glad they were to have such fantastic weather, way warmer than last year! Yea, I felt like a wuss.) It was supposed to be cold and rainy all weekend. I wanted to get as far as possible before the expected rainstorm arrived. I kept walking, and running off and on, pretty much all day and night. They gave us lunch around noon, and dinner around 6 or so. The pasta and salad we got for lunch was delicious. The fajitas for dinner were okay, but mostly I was glad to take a break in the warm food tent. There weren’t enough places to sit, and my feet were sore. I was so grateful when I spot at a table opened up. It felt wonderful to rest my feet and get warm!! I took my time, and visited with another new friend over fajitas.

I especially enjoyed walking with people who had been actively involved with the Snowdrop Foundation for a long time. I heard over and over what a fantastic charity it was—low overhead, almost all the money going to the kids. Truly a labor of love. Scattered along the track were photos and names of some of the kids fighting pediatric cancers. Nice. Near the beginning, I walked with Debbie, who described how she had picked up some miniature chandelier ornaments for $1 each at an estate sale. Two of the Snowdrop volunteers got into a bidding war for them (apparently they resembled the chandelier in one of their houses). They each bought one for $250, and they decided that whoever ran the most miles at the Snowdrop 55 would get the rest. The little chandeliers were hanging outside of a couple of tents; Debbie pointed them out to me. So, those $1 ornaments turned into a bunch of money for the Snowdrop Foundation. Cool. Later, I walked with Frank, who told me more about Snowdrop’s various fundraising efforts, how they reached out to individual kids with cancer, and different ways I could get involved. No one seemed bothered by the fact that I had not gotten around to doing any fundraising, they just wanted to share Snowdrop’s vision and mission. My primary motivation in registering was to run a cool race with my brother—I was glad our registration fees supported a good cause, but the cause wasn’t the reason I did it. Now that I know more about Snowdrop, I would like to do more than just contribute a race fee. If I do this next year, I’ll give the fundraising a go. And I’ll keep my eyes open for opportunities to support Snowdrop in other ways.

(Here is my Snowdrop fundraising page, which I finally set up after writing this race report.)

So, I enjoyed walking with lots of interesting people. But it kept getting colder and colder. I discovered things that I should have already figured out. Such as: run/walking 20 miles when it’s 50°F degrees is completely different from walking (with no running) 48 miles when it’s 50°F. Even a very small amount of running generates a lot of body heat. Walking doesn’t. Plus being out there so long just gets you colder and colder. It seems to go on forever. Especially at night when it’s dark, and most people have gone to sleep, and there’s no conversation to distract you from how cold you are. I wore what I thought were warm pants but they weren't working, and I was freezing. Fortunately, I had a crew member! I stopped at the tent and asked Scott to find me a hoodie. I had only brought my thin running jackets, nothing as warm as I needed. So he went to Academy to look for a hoodie. He texted me about sizes—I thought an XL would be too big, so he brought me an L. Not big enough to fit comfortably over all the layers I was wearing, so back to Academy he went. He was a very good sport about it. I ended up with this awesome XL blue Nike hoodie. Extra-long arms with thumbholes!! Three weeks after the race, I still love it—it is SO comfortable. During the race, it was heavenly. Wow, what a difference that hoodie made. Along with the hoodie, I wore two pairs of gloves, arm warmers, a long-sleeved shirt, and a running jacket. I also had my baseball hat and my ear warmer headband. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that you could raise the hood on the hoodie, and that makes you a lot warmer. Yea, three college degrees, including one in engineering, and it didn’t occur to me to raise the hood on the hoodie. Sad.

As I trudged along, I admired the people who were still running. (In this paragraph, running = actual running, not walking. Elsewhere, running = propelling oneself forward via legs.) Some of these runners were amazingly fit. I had no idea it was possible for a human to run so long without a break. The first half of the day I noticed a guy (Jered, it turns out) who was wearing nothing but shoes and running shorts when most everyone else was bundled up. He was fast, and kept it up for a long time. I learned that he was a pediatric cancer survivor and had covered 175 miles at last year’s Snowdrop. Another guy I noticed, not because he looked fast, but because he just kept going round and round, same steady pace for hours, hardly any breaks. And actually he was pretty darn fast considering how long he’d been at it. I learned later that his name was Joe and he was the first American to run 600 miles in 6 days. He ran 250 miles in last year’s Snowdrop. Mind-boggling. And I never saw him with a pacer. There was a gal who didn’t seem as obviously impressive at first but then I noticed she kept running round and round and round also, at a pretty decent clip with hardly a break. Later, someone told me that she had been the national Ultrarunner of the Year a couple years back. Her name was Connie. I was totally blown away at how anyone could keep running so long. They hardly ever stopped, they just keep running and running. Round and round they went. Wow.

It got dark and I felt colder and colder. I was wearing long pants that had been sufficient for every running expedition I’d ever done in Houston, but they weren’t enough tonight. So, Scott went to Walmart and bought me a big pair of cheap men's sweatpants. They were a lifesaver—I pulled them over the top of my running pants and I felt immediately so much better. We discovered at this point how much I actually needed a crew member. I had no idea someone as slow as me would be so high-maintenance. It was such a hassle to get in and out of the tent and find things, and it was just really helpful to have Scott there. But he would need to sleep sometime. After he got me the sweatpants, I knew I would be okay for a while, so he went home to sleep a few hours and walk the dog. He realized I was going to need him tomorrow, so he got on the phone to work on dog-walking arrangements.

After Scott left (late Friday night), I mostly walked, but still occasionally would run a half-lap or so, mostly just to get warm. I didn't really feel like running, and I didn't want to go too fast because I knew too much running would kill any chance I had for the belt buckle. I really wanted to get to 50 miles the first day. The first 50 are bound to be easier than the last 50, right? I was likely to slow down the second day, so my only hope was to get past 50 the first day. Especially considering it was expected to rain all Saturday morning.

Each lap was 0.74668 mile. I had to do 134 laps to get to 100 miles, so 67 laps was halfway. Getting to 67 seemed to take forever. The laps crept by so slowly. How could I only be at 58 laps? I was at 52 several hours ago, right? Could the computer have missed a lap? (Once it did—my name didn’t scroll by on the little screen like it was supposed to. I mentioned it to the friendly timekeepers, who found the missing lap on the backup computer and adjusted my total.) Somehow, around 5 a.m., I finally made it to 67 laps. Although my feet were super-sore, I really wanted to do one more, so that I’d be closer to 100 miles than to 0 miles. But the rain had just started blowing in—only a light mist so far, but it would start pouring very soon. When the storm started, it would be really stupid to be caught way out on the other side of the track and go into my tent soaking wet, when I could have gone into my tent dry. No, I would be smart instead of greedy. Lap 68 would have to wait. As soon as I crawled into my tent and snuggled into my sleeping bag, the rain started. I texted Scott that I was okay and he should sleep a while longer. I was so exhausted I went right to sleep. I set my alarm for around 10 a.m. or so, and I think I semi-awoke, but it was still raining and I went back to sleep. I finally got up around 11:30, and did my Saturday writing session on my phone in the tent while it was raining. I still don’t have the willpower to break the stupid writing streak. (I wisely did my Friday writing at home, before heading to the race site.)

Gist of my incoherent Saturday writing session: “This sucks. Way harder than I expected. And it’s pouring rain. I am scared I have damaged my knees and it will probably be the knees that stop me, not the clock. They hurt. The belt buckle is not worth surgery. I have 26 hours left and it took almost 24 to get the first 50 miles done, so 100 miles seems quite hopeless. I slept way longer than I intended. Scott should have got me up earlier…but no, I should have calculated my splits and told him when to get me up. If I open this tent everything will be soaked. Can’t believe I slept 6 hours in my running clothes, how gross. There’s no way I will get to 100 miles, why on earth did I think I could? I am way too wimpy to walk 24 hours in a freezing rain. Okay, time to get up and get moving…if there’s even a tiny chance of finishing, I need to walk a while and see how I get on.”

I left the tent just after the rain stopped, around half past noon. Of course, I had missed breakfast, so I grabbed a granola bar and started walking. I didn't even try to run the second day. I just walked and walked. I worked out the time and knew my only hope was to walk nonstop until Sunday afternoon. I was only halfway to my 134 laps at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. The first 50 miles took me over 22 hours, and that included some running. I knew I would not be able to run much the second half, so it would take longer. I would have to walk all day, then walk all night until sunrise, and then keep walking until it was over. If I slept at all, I would run out of time and miss out on my belt buckle. Saturday was lonelier than Friday…lots of people disappeared during the night. The track was soaking wet. I splashed through lots of puddles and my wet feet were freezing. But after a while, the weather actually warmed up a little, which was really helpful.

After my feet got soaked a couple of times, I took off my wet shoes, dried my feet, dusted them with baby powder, and put on new shoes and socks. I think this was Pair of Shoes #3. My dry feet felt so awesome, I wanted to keep them that way as long as possible. I started taking care not to walk directly in the puddles—I tiptoed through on the semi-dry places, or picked my way through the grass. That helped tons—my feet were damp instead of soaked, which kept them warmer. I kept walking, walking, walking.

The warmer weather felt so good. Eventually, long after everyone else shed their warm clothes, I finally ditched the sweatpants. I think I got so chilled from wearing the wrong clothes for so long Friday night, that it fouled up my thermostat. It made sense that the fast people didn’t need heavy layers, but even the slow walkers were wearing much less clothing than me. I just couldn’t get warm until well into Saturday afternoon. (I looked up the Friday night/Saturday morning temperatures…around the low- to mid-50s…that makes no sense—it felt like 35°F.)

I kept looking forward to the dinner signal, not so much because I was hungry but because dinner time was another milestone along the way. When it finally came, I didn't stop. I was afraid I didn’t have time to stop, so I just ate a granola bar. Scott checked out the dinner menu and told me he didn’t see anything I would like (hmmm….I believed him at the time, but maybe he only said that to keep me walking.) He went to Subway twice for me. The second time, he brought me two foot-long sandwiches. He got Subway to cut them into thirds, so I could have a manageable piece whenever I wanted. I put them right inside the tent door, and they kept me going all through the night (while Scott slept in the car).

It wasn’t long before the sun went down. It was warmer than the first night and there was no more rain. As it turned out, I had slept at the optimal time—I slept the entire time it was raining, and started walking immediately after the rain stopped. Beginner’s luck, maybe? Throughout Saturday afternoon and evening, the track gradually got better and better. I started to figure out where to walk. It was a porous surface, so the standing water started to drain, plus some of the dirty water went home on people's clothes. A few places were a little slick but I was so slow it didn’t matter.

I kept walking past sundown and into the evening. I don't even remember all the people I walked with, and I sure as heck don’t remember the times or the order. One of the most interesting was Don. He has run ultras in 17 countries (more or less, he couldn’t quite remember them all) and he holds at least one age group record for running certain distances. It seems he's run ultras forever—he is up to 14000 official race miles and that only counts races at least 50 miles long. Marathons don’t count. He finished the TransAmerica race across the U.S., the final time it was held. Don told me all sorts of stories. Pretty much every Don story would take at least two laps, so he was a great person to walk with. Feral cat stories might last four laps each. It was Don who pointed out Joe and Connie and told me about their awards/records. A week or so after Snowdrop, I got a cool surprise …I picked up my September 2016 issue of Texas Runner and Triathlete, which had been laying around unread, and guess what?...a feature story, an interview, with Don Winkley, Unknown Texas Ultrarunner and “the best Texas ultrarunner you’ve never heard of.” I am so glad I didn’t read it in September when it came, as it wouldn’t have meant anything to me then. It was so much more fun to flip it open in January and see Don’s picture and exclaim, “wow, I walked with that guy!” I learned from the magazine that Don started running at age 38, when he decided running was a better midlife crisis option than a mistress or a Jaguar. That makes all he’s done even more amazing.

I also enjoyed walking with Bill. He was trying to finish his hundred miles by Saturday night, because he was running a marathon in Kingwood on Sunday. He was a veteran and a kidney cancer survivor and seemed an all-around awesome guy. He was a fast walker too, so I made up some time when I walked with him. I missed seeing his 100-mile finish, but I heard it announced over the loudspeaker. I didn’t know Bill’s last name, but all the stuff the announcer said about him matched what Bill told me, so it must have been him. I looked for him in the food tent next lap, but didn’t see him. That’s okay; he was a pro at this and didn’t need any congratulations from me.

Here’s another out-of-order story, one of the highlights of the weekend: Don the Photographer. I met Don when he was taking pictures all around the infield the first day. He was wonderful, he had just the kindest face and demeanor. He noticed my bib number was 143, and he told me that 143 was a very special number and there was a riddle in it. He said it stood for three words and the first one was “I”. Every lap he would ask me what the riddle was. But I couldn’t figure it out. I kept trying “..one-four-three…. eye...for...three…. .I..forthright…” I kept trying to make sentences out of 143. I was completely baffled. He said that if I was still walking at 4 a.m., he would give me another hint. But long before we got to 4 a.m., he suggested I should just text someone. He said the longer the race went on the more difficult it would seem. So I should try to figure it out quickly. I think he really wanted to be there to see my face when I finally got it. So he couldn’t help giving me hints, even though it wasn’t 4 a.m. yet. He said that if I was married or had kids, it was very profound, probably the most profound thing of the whole weekend. Nope, that didn’t help. I was still completely stuck. During one of my breaks, I introduced Scott to Don, and I told him that Don had given me this riddle, and that my 143 bib number was supposed to be a very special number, but I couldn’t figure out why, and Don wouldn’t give me another hint until 4 a.m., which was still several hours away. And I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to figure it out even then. And Scott started laughing right away because he immediately got it. The riddle was extremely obvious to Scott. It wasn't obvious at all to me, but I was glad I finally know the answer. (Do you???) It had been really bothering me that I couldn't figure it out. Even after the riddle mystery was solved, I always looked forward to seeing Don. He is one of the kindest and most encouraging people I have ever met. (Don the photographer and Don the ultrarunner couldn’t have been more different, but I enjoyed them both.)

I walked with bunches of different people. I walked a while with my brother's friend Karen. Dave and Karen had met in a race and they had become instant friends, and I could see why. Karen was great. She had made the 100 miles last year, but she’d had some recent medical problems and wasn’t supposed to get her heart rate up. Sometime Saturday, she realized she wasn’t going to make the 100, so she aimed for walking her age instead. She ended up going a bit further than her age, I think she got 71 miles or so. Pretty good for a “B” goal! Dave had told me I should choose a B goal also—he suggested I should try to surpass 66.2 miles, so I could claim the family distance record (he got to 66.2 in a 24-hour race and said he will always regret the 5-hour nap he took—without that nap, he thinks he could have made 80 miles). I made 66.2 miles sometime Saturday evening. I knew Dave would be cheering for me when he saw me reach his distance mark. (Don’t worry Dave, it took me about 13 hours longer than you to get to 66.2 miles, so you’re still ahead.)

I also walked with Cathy. Scott and I saw her sitting at the picnic table when I went to change shoes and she was near tears. She said this is the point in the race where she always broke down, because this is where her husband would always tell her good luck, and he wasn’t there anymore. Apparently he headed out to run a 5K race a couple months ago, and he never came home. His heart. So hard. But Cathy is filled with grace and strength. And she got her hundred miles. I had finished a lap just before she got to her hundred and I saw her coming. Scott had been keeping an eye on her the whole time and checking on her, and so he told me when she was on her second to last lap. He wasn't going to go home until we saw her finish. So I took a break and watched Cathy finish, and gave her a big hug. I was so glad we met her. Cathy, hang in there…you’re so special.

Saturday night was New Year’s Eve. Scott was originally planning to spend the evening at our fellowship group’s New Year’s Eve gathering, but he decided to stay at the race with me instead. Neither of us had realized how much I would need a crew member. He asked some to walk our dog on their way home from the New Year’s party. My mom volunteered to dog-walk Sunday morning, and also to grab the lawn chairs from the house and bring them to the race. It had never occurred to us that we might want to sit on something during a 55-hour race. On one of his Scott’s Walmart expeditions, he bought a little folding stepstool for me. That was a huge improvement inside the tent. If there’s nothing to sit on, you have to crawl on the floor, which is rather difficult when your knees are stiff and sore from walking 50 miles.

I finished a lap at about 11:55 p.m. on Saturday, perfect timing for New Year's Eve. Everyone was pouring sparkling cider in the food tent. I opted to toast the new year with hot chocolate instead. Everyone was bubbly and smiling…it was fun. But I had no time to spare, so I started walking as soon as I finished my hot chocolate.

Scott spent most of New Year’s Eve night sleeping in the car. While he was getting some Z’s, he charged our little battery packs, so that I could keep my phone and iPod shuffling for 55 hours. The battery died while he slept, but fortunately we had brought jumper cables and a spare car, so it worked out fine. He said quite a few people were sleeping in their cars.

After the celebratory break at midnight, I kept walking and walking and just more walking. The night seemed so long. I have never walked that long in my life, not even close. The track was pretty empty most of Saturday night. The few people on it looked tired (except for Joe and Connie of course—I believe they rested part of the night, but when they were out there, they continued running strong). I made myself keep walking…staring at the sky hoping to see pink wisps of sunrise. It seemed to take forever, but eventually, the night gave way to grayish-pink streaks, and with them…FOG! How beautiful! I love fog. And this was a great place to experience it. No buildings, so you could see the foggy billows roll in. And not just see the fog, I could feel it. My sore feet couldn’t keep me from beaming with silly delight. When I watched the sun come up through that Sunday morning fog, there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

I walked all the way through, no stopping for breakfast. I got really excited when I got to 100 laps because that meant there were only 34 left. I have no idea what time that was. Somewhere in the night, my sense of time had completely abandoned me. I just knew I had to keep walking no matter what. Every so often I would go and change socks and baby-powder my feet. Scott had left me a giant back of clean socks. My feet had really ached a lot the first night too, but after I woke up they felt fine. Scott told me I looked much brighter and cheerier the second day, after I had slept through the rain, compared to how I looked Friday evening. That seemed odd to me, because I was really tired. But I really did feel like I got a fresh start on Saturday morning (well, afternoon actually….I started walking about 12:30), and I was able to walk quite a long time before I got tired and my feet started aching again. It was pretty motivating to be on the downhill side, and to actually see myself getting closer and closer to 100 miles.

While I walked, I kept working out the calculations to see if I really could get to 100 miles before the cutoff, and if so how much wiggle room I had. It seemed I had enough time to do it, but I didn’t trust myself. The evening before, we had calculated that I had about 5 hours to spare. But I had slowed down since then, and now I figured I had less than two hours of wiggle room, and I wasn’t even very confident in that. I had no choice but to keep walking. I didn't stop for breakfast or even a snack. They had bacon and eggs, which would have been just awesome, but I didn’t want to risk taking the time. I kept walking, the sun finally came up, and I gradually warmed up. After Scott woke up and took care of the car battery, I asked him to check my math, and figure out whether I could make it to 100 miles at my current pace. He said I could, and he promised to keep up with my splits the whole time, and to tell me if I slowed down too much.

It seemed I would never actually get to 134 laps. I was actually feeling fairly peppy, but my feet really ached. For the first time, I started to feel a little bored—I’d been walking such a long time. When I finally got to 120 laps, I got pretty excited…only 14 laps to go! That sounded great but gosh those laps were a slog. When I had about 10 left I was just miserable. I kept taking breaks every two/three laps to change socks and/or shoes. I have hardly worn my Sauconys or my Nikes since Dave converted me to Altras, but I was glad I had those Sauconys today. They hurt my feet in different places than the Altras, so it was nice to switch back and forth. The baby powder treatment always made my feet feel better, if only for a short time. (And, I must have done something right….not a single blister!!)

On Sunday morning, some people we were walking really strangely. It was obvious they were hurting and having an awful time. Some of those who looked the most miserable were the people who had been running really well early on. Some were getting worked on at the medical tent every couple laps; some were half-carried by other people; some were all crooked and scrunched up as they walked. It actually worked out to my advantage to be completely unfit and untrained. Because I was so unfit, I was very cautious and scared to run too much. Because I was so conservative at the beginning, I still felt pretty good for nearly all the last half.

After the sun rose on Sunday morning, it started to get festive. People were finishing, and all the people who had gone home or to their tents to sleep had come back to watch the end of the race. It turns out that there's a bell that everyone got to ring right before their last lap before 100 miles. Maybe they explained this at the beginning, but if so I missed it. I kept thinking if I can just get to the bell, I would be super-excited. I could hear people ring the bell and I could hear everyone celebrating at the finish line, but I felt pretty miserable. I kept slogging along, trying to ignore my aching feet.

Oh and here’s one of the coolest parts of the race. Becca. Ever since that (temporarily) lost lap on Friday night, I had been careful to look at the little TV screen to see my name scroll by and check my lap total. It was hard to see your name because it was on the far left, but you could see the hometown right next to the lap total. My hometown was Tomball and there weren’t too many Tomballs, so that worked out okay for me. I could see Tomball 120 laps, 121 laps and so I kept looking for that. But my brain was getting tired along with my body, and every lap it got harder to see Tomball’s progress.

Fortunately for me, there was this sweet gal at the finish line. I later learned her name was Becca. I don't know if she was with the race organizers, or with another runner, or just there to watch, but she took an interest in me. Every time she saw me coming, she jumped out of her lawn chair and blanket, ran over to the TV screen, and told me my laps. The timing booth people got to know me too, and they would holler, “good job Jennifer, you’ve got X laps.”

All this time, those two running machines Joe and Connie just kept running all night long. Just going and going. Jered too. Joe never had a pacer, he just ran by himself, round and round, splashing through the water and never seeming to mind. He seemed to be going the same speed he was at the beginning. I hardly ever saw him walk. Don, the guy who had run across the U.S. and who told me all the cat stories, said that Joe had decided to only do 200 miles this year (he did 250 last year), because he was obscenely unfit and overweight. (Joe’s words, I expect.) Someone walking with us disputed that assessment, but Don said Joe really was unfit and overweight, compared to when he ran the 600 miles in 6 days. Don said the 600 miles went to Joe’s head and he started eating too much.

As I kept walking, I got closer and closer to the end, but I was feeling tired and miserable and sorry for myself. I knew I was just being a wuss, because when I objectively evaluated my body parts, the only part of me that hurt were my feet. And the feet were really just a dull ache, no real pain and no sign of injury. My knees had given me twinges of pain starting around mile 40, which concerned me at first, but they didn’t get worse and actually improved as I walked more. The knees seemed pretty much fine once I got past 100 laps.

Karen (Dave’s friend, and now my friend too) had stopped at 71 miles, but she kept her timing chip on in case I needed her to pace me. She kept asking, “Jennifer, do you need me to go out and do a lap with you?” I felt miserable but I kept telling her, “not yet, maybe next lap.” It turned out I never needed her, and I just did my own thing. When I had five or six laps left, I whined to Karen, “my feet hurt” and I was just about in tears. I switched shoes and they still hurt but I kept walking. About four laps from the end I switched shoes for the last time. I kept thinking, “I can do this….three laps to the bell, four laps to the buckle”. Every time I went by the start line, my friend Becca was there to check my laps.

Here's one more cool thing about Becca, and this is out of order. When I was maybe about Lap 124 or so, I and I had passed the start line and was down at the far corner of the track, I saw Becca running toward me and calling my name. She ran all the way across the infield, through the mud, to tell me that if I kept doing 27 minute laps I would run out of time and miss out on my belt buckle. After I passed the start line, she had seen my 27-minute lap time and worked out the math. I reassured her that the last lap was so slow only because I had taken a bathroom break and switched my shoes….most of my other laps had been quicker. But wow… Who runs all the way across a muddy field to tell a total stranger that she needs to speed up if she’s going to make it? I was so tired and grateful I started crying…I didn’t even know her and she was so kind to me.

Don the Photographer and Becca were my ministering angels all weekend. What special people. (Even their names are special…my parents = Don and Rebecca.)

So finally, I came up on my bell lap, Lap 133. When I got there, I double-checked with the timekeeper, “you guys have it right, you’re not going to change your mind, are you?” and they promised me that no, they wouldn’t….there really was just one lap between me and 100 miles. So I ran over to that bell and rang it as hard as I could. Then I took off running. I hadn’t run a step since around mile 47, right before I went to bed in the tent. I ran all the way around the three-quarter mile track. My last lap was my fastest lap of the whole race. I ran past some walkers and yelled, “there's magic in that bell! …just keep going!” Don the photographer high-fived me about fifty yards from the end, and then he got out of my way so I could run in. And then….the most amazing surprise: two people (one was Becca) were holding up a finish line tape for me to run through. How cool is that? Yea, I got to break a finish line tape. Definitely a first for me.

Pretty soon after, they had a little ceremony for me and a couple others who recently finished. They had me stand in front of a big Snowdrop Foundation banner, and the race director presented the belt buckle. I can’t remember if she opened the container or if I did, but it contained a surprise: a 100 sticker for my car!! I just waved it around…I was so excited. I was still wearing my finish line tape (they let me keep it). Finishing was the funnest thing and I had an absolute blast. I was so thrilled. I couldn’t believe I was able to run the last lap after walking so far. I hoped the people I ran past didn’t think I was showing them up—some of them weren’t walking very well. I hope they knew that I didn’t mean to be unsportsmanlike or disrespectful; I was just so excited I couldn't contain myself.

Anyway, I had a really great time at the finish line. We took pictures, and then it was done. I plopped myself into one of the lawn chairs my mom brought. That made my feet very happy! I watched a few more people finish and get their buckles. I watched Connie and Jered finish; they ran fast laps right until the clock ran out. Exciting. (Joe and Connie both got 202 miles, and Jered got 179.) It finally started to sink in that I am a 100-mile race finisher. Unbelievable. What an incredible experience.

I looked again at the big Snowdrop Wall of Fame banner I’d seen at the race meeting. It listed the belt buckle winners from last year’s race. There was Joe with 250 miles and Connie with 200, and a couple other people at 200 or just under. And then there was a list of all the 100-milers, including my new friend Karen. And so next year, if they do the wall of fame again, I’ll be on it. Pretty cool. Anyway, that was my race report. If you managed to slog through the whole report, I’m sure you’re almost as glad to reach the end as I was to reach the end of my race.

All in all, a marvelous experience. I am so glad I did it. Next year will be even better. Dave, you’re coming, right?

My official results: 100.06 miles in 53:11:11, 90th place (out of 101 finishers of 100+ miles)

It took me just over 22 hours for the first 50 miles, then about a 7-hour break, then I walked almost 23 hours to finish.

Small lessons from my Snowdrop:

• Bring a hard chair for the runner to sit on, one that is easy to get in and out of without bending legs. Or a box or a cooler. Anything. Also a small box or stepstool to sit on in the tent. No one wants to kneel or sit on the tent floor after running or walking 24+ hours.
  
  
• Bring a chair for the crew member to sit on. How could anyone not think of this?
  
  
• If you use your car for extensive phone charging, run the engine.
  
  
• Clothes that work for run/walking 20 miles in the cold are not sufficient for walking 24+ hours at the same temperature.
  
  
• If the runner has to bail early, she may be glad that she drove a separate car to the race. But if the runner actually continues to the end, she will not be in any shape to drive home. And the car has to get home somehow. (And if the freeway happens to be closed for a wreck on the way home, the exhausted runner may end up staggering embarrassed through a drugstore in search of fuel to wake her up.)
  
  
• Plastic bags, with LABELS. Don’t put like stuff together. Put stuff that is needed at the same time together. For example, the baby powder goes with the socks, not with the toothpaste.
  
  
• Even if you own several pairs of running shoes, buy more. Preferably different models and different brands. Make sure some of them have extreme cushioning.

Big take-away lessons from my Snowdrop:

• Try something hard. Something you have no idea whether you can do. Something with a high probability of failure.
  
  
• Just keep plodding. Even if you are severely lacking in speed or competence, you can accomplish a lot if you just don’t stop.
  
  
• The best parts of a hard journey are the unexpected friends you meet along the way.
  
  
• None of us knows what tomorrow holds. If there’s something you want to do Someday, do it now.