G2G 2014 Race Report/Reflections (Part 7 - Saturday September 267, 2014 – Stage 6: 2 Miles to Finish)

We were woken up throughout the night as the wind and rain slammed against the tent. Luckily, however, our tent withstood the storm and at about 5:30 am, we were woken up by Tess, who was going around instructing everyone that because of the bad weather, the final stage was canceled. With this announcement, we were all immediately awake for the day.

While there was a bit of initial relief that we wouldn’t have to run in the storm, I was also a bit disappointed and upset, as it seemed like an anticlimactic way to end the race, especially since I was ready to try and make up the few minutes necessary to move up a place. Still, after chatting with my tent-mates for a while and realizing we were done and could head back to Vegas for a party, my anger quickly passed.

For the next hour or so, we all sat around eating our last freeze-dried breakfast of the week. Knowing that we were now done, I also used this time to remove the tape that was preventing all my chaffing from my sides and back and throw out anything that I no longer needed.

Unfortunately, after I had done all of this, the talks then started around camp that were, in fact, not actually done; rather, we were going to have to run somewhere (just so the organizers could get their pictures of participants crossing the finish line for next year’s advertising purposes, at least that is my view of the situation). Yet, no one knew what was going to actually happen. As a result, I was once again unhappy with what was going on: either we were running, or we weren’t, but someone needed to make up their mind.  And I was pretty pissed that my actions during the prior hour were made with the assumption we were done.

Now knowing that we were going to have to do some form of running, I quickly went to the medical tent for anything they could give me to wrap my body so I couldn’t be in excruciating pain from my backpack rubbing against my open tears on my back and sides. Luckily, they had a large ace bandage that I was able to easily just wrap around my entire body (This ended up working exceptionally well, actually).

Finally, after about another hour, the announcement was made that we would run a 2 mile out and back on a dirt road. Our time would be added to our total, but it wouldn’t count for purposes of overall rankings. With the announcement of the distance we were going to be running, I was pretty happy. I knew I could go all out for 2 miles without falling apart, and no matter what, I should be done in less than about 16 minutes tops, even with a backpack on. And so we made our way to the start line.

For this quick sprint, I also decided it was a good time to listen to music, which I hadn’t really done all week. I also figured if I had to run, I might as well treat it as a workout and get something out of it. After all, in my view at least, there is really no such thing as just doing a WOD without pushing myself.  So I put on my heavy playlist (I think Korn was the first thing that came on) and got ready to go all out for 2 miles.

After the go signal, Phelim and I took off across the field to the dirt road we were going to run on for a couple miles. As we reached the road, Phelim fell back a little, and I just kept on at a steady pace. The whole way to the turnaround I felt good, going just hard enough to not burn out my legs and lungs. When I got to the turnaround, I was a bit distracted by my music, so I started to actually go out of the way a bit. After about 30 seconds, I quickly realized that I should turn around, however, and I was headed back to the finish.

As I ran back past everyone, I was slapping hands with numerous people, as we all knew we were almost done. Then about half way back to the finish, Ken and Micky practically jumped on my back, as I didn’t hear them coming. They must have gotten a quick sprint in to catch up, and from there, we decided we would all just finish together. Finally, about 200 meters from the finish, we were stopped by some of the volunteers who were there to I guess filter us into the finish so we didn’t all arrive at the same time (again for advertising picture taking purposes). As the volunteers radioed to the finish to let them know we were coming in, there was no response. And no response again, which started to get a little annoying since we were simply brought to a complete stop.

Finally, after about 2 minutes of waiting, with other runners starting to come up behind us, they let us proceed to the finish, and the three of us crossed together. After, a few hugs and getting our belt buckles, I immediately headed for the food tent to get pizza and a soda.

I don’t usually eat pizza, especially at 8 am, but I was starving. I think I ate maybe half a pizza in the next 20 minutes. Vanessa also had a $4 surprise donut that she had gotten for me at a small local bakery. Unfortunately, it was the worse donut I ever ate, and I threw out about half of it.

For about the next hour, we stood around cheering people into the finish and taking various group and individual celebratory pictures before heading to the buses back to Kanab and, ultimately, back to Vegas. It was really great to see how happy everyone was when they crossed the finish line, especially those that really struggled with injuries or whatever throughout the week. Many people also began to talk about how we should all stay in touch, etc. And as is usually the case after finishing a race like this for many of us crazy people, the talks also already started about what the next race was going to be. And how we should plan to meet-up for more races in the future (which is already actually happening for about 10-12 of us in next year).

And thus the race was over!

To summarize, looking back, it was a great race that really fun and offered a very challenging landscape. The views were exceptional and the terrain was greatly varied. With the exception of the weather conditions and higher elevation, I think this race was much tougher than the Gobi, the primary reason being that the long day was in the middle of the week and was extraordinarily difficult for a 50 mile stage or even standalone race. The amount of sand we had to run through also made the going extremely difficult. My equipment choices worked out great. And I did better than I expected. As always, I learned a lot, and there are definitely things I would alter for my next stage race. But these changes are really just minor tweaks that would improve my overall performance and how I feel throughout the race. 

In the end of the day, I’m glad I did it, and I made some great longtime friends along the way!  

Now on to the next challenge…

Final preparations before running:

My full body wrap:

And we're off:

 Phelim and I set a blistering pace:

The prize:

And we're finished:

 (We started at 8:30. So minus the 2 minute stop, we do in fact finish in under 16 minutes, as predicted)

Celebratory Pictures:

The awful donut:

 

And a pistol for the heck of it after Vanessa challenged me after having run 170 miles this week. I was successful:

G2G 2014 Race Report/Reflections (Part 6 - Friday September 26, 2014 – Stage 5: 26.2 Miles to Camp 6)

I had no problem sleeping all the way up to the 6 am music alarm this morning.  Actually, I really had to pull myself up and out of my sleeping bag. I wasn’t sore, but the lack of a comfortable sleep for several days now, in combination with the cooler morning temperatures accompanying our slowing increasing altitude, was starting to wear on me a bit. However, knowing that it was the last long day of running, I knew I could get myself going and feeling good with a little effort. So I got up, changed into my now really beginning to feel dirty shorts and shirt, and slowly made my way across the goat heads minefield towards the hot water tanks on the other side of camp.

Once I finished eating, I packed up my bag, which was now becoming noticeably emptier and light. In fact, everything was now fitting just fine in the main part of the bag, including my sleeping pad, which was previously strapped to the outside of my bag. This was good, particularly because I figured that it would be best to not have anything sticking out to my sides heading through the slot canyon, which I suspected would get narrow in places. While I was packing up, I also noticed that my cheap disposable hotel slippers were a bit heavier than when the race started due to sand making its way into the mesh and slowly accumulating. As such, I made the decision to just ditch them. There was only one more camp to hang out at that night, and in the worst case, I would just wear my running shoes around Camp 6. (This turned out to be a great decision, as Camp 6 was actually setup in a field of soft grass, which meant I could just walk around without any shoes at all).

In normal fashion, we slowly started gathering near the start line. Once lined up, Collin gave his daily briefing and then invited Tina (who usually started near the back of the pack) to come to the front for the 3…2…1…Go! Collin also asked Tess what time it was in his microphone as he prepared for the countdown, and without missing a beat, someone in the back of the crowd (I think Dan McSwiggan) yelled out really loudly, “It’s time to make the doughnuts!” Shortly thereafter, Collin said go, and we were running.

As we rounded the first turn, to my dismay, we were again immediately met with deep sand, which continued for about a mile. It was a really awful way to have to start the day; my legs were already burning. Even so, we were quickly out of the sand and descending down one of the steepest, rockiest mountains of the week. Despite sliding with every step, a few of us used this as an opportunity have some fun and separate a bit from everyone else by flying down at an obviously unsafe speed. And after about 5 minutes, we flattened out into the slot canyons, which would offer the most spectacular views of the week, in my opinion at least.

For the next 2-3 miles, running through the slot canyon was awesome for a few reasons: (1) the views were great, as amazing sandstone walls rose up both sides of me and at times had me running through openings that were only a couple feet wide; (2) the terrain was fast and nice to run on; and (3) I ran this entire section with Ken, Garth, and Michele, as we took turns running in the front of the field, peloton style. About half way through the canyon, we came to 3 ladders set up by the organizers to help get down some of the larger drops. For the first 2, the drop was only a couple of feet, so we all just jumped down into the soft sand forgoing the ladder. Upon reaching the 3^rd ladder, however, we came to an abrupt stop because there was about a 15 foot drop to the bottom. Getting down this ladder required us to descend one person at a time. The good news was that we were in the front, so the wait time was minimal for all 4 of us to get to the bottom and continue on (I am pretty sure that at some point during the day there was a major traffic jam at that ladder).

Arriving at CP1 marked the end of the slot canyon. All of us quickly filled our bottles and moved on. Very quickly, we again realized that there was more sand to run through! Still, I was able to stay pretty distracted as I ran all the way to CP2 with Ken and Garth. Roberto also joined us during this stretch, and as a result, so did his camera team, which drove slowly behind us for several miles. After a long gradual descent, the 4 of us, along with Michele, arrived at CP2 together.

The stretch from CP2 to CP3 primarily consisted of dry river bed, which meant large rocks to cross and some uneven footing. Unfortunately, about half way through this section (and half-way through the day, i.e., ~14 miles in) is where I rolled my ankle pretty bad. It was the first time it happened all week, but it painful. And consequently, this is where I separated from Ken, Garth, and Roberto. After the roll, I decided to take it a bit slower on this section to avoid any major injury. The other thing we had to do on this section was passing through a wooden cattle gate that was attached at the top by a heavy wire loop. I was alone at this point, and apparently, I had no idea how to re-close the gate (i.e., reattach the wire at the top) after passing through. In short, I struggled like crazy to push the gate close enough to reattach the wire. To be honest, given the amount of force I had to apply, I wondered how some others were going to be able to perform this task. It was like trying to push a prowler loaded with 200#. Of course, I later learned that there is a very easy trick to close the gates with ease (i.e., lift the gate slightly and the wire will slip right over the top). Sadly, however, I learned this too late, as I really strained my trap muscle driving into that gate, and it would really bother me the remainder of the day. To summarize, this section really ruined the great day I was otherwise having.

Finally, just before CP3, there was a major climb up the mountain using switchbacks. The climb wasn’t too bad after what I had just experienced, and the arrival at CP3 was welcome. What followed to CP4 and to the finish, however, was really not welcome, at least not from my perspective.

The remainder of the course consisted of about 9 miles of open road, which is great if you like that type of thing, but for me, it’s boring, and with a hurting ankle and shoulder, all I could do was think about my pain. I suppressed it the best I could and continued moving, running in intervals. Even so, every time I started running it took enormous effort to try and forget about how bad my ankle felt. Looking back, this whole section of the course was annoyingly slow for me. I am not sure I could have done much else, but given how great the first 14 miles went, and how good I was feeling, it should have ended much better. And while my time was still pretty good, it should have been better.

I passed through CP4 and continued down the road. About 1.5 miles from the finish, a truck passed me and hanging out the window was Vanessa yelling and cheering me on. While this would usually re-energize me, I really felt like hell at that point, so I could barely even crack a smile, which is usually pretty easy, even though faked, on a moment’s notice when you come across a camera/person during one of these things. I had hit the absolute peak of wanting the day to be over.

Luckily, I wasn’t far from the finish, and as I came over the upcoming hill, I could see the finish in the near distance. I mustered up the best hobbled jog I could and somehow made it across the finish. I was immediately met by Ken, Garth, and Vanessa who helped me remove my pack. Shortly thereafter, I was met by Yuri (one of the volunteers, an ultra-runner, and a massage therapist) who guided me to the medical tent to get my ankle looked at and give me an unexpected, but very welcome, massage. The massage helped me relax a bit, and despite still walking with a limp, I was moving a little bit easier overall after my visit to the medical group.

After my standard routine of changing and eating, there were actually a number of notable things that happened at camp that afternoon/evening. First, we all learned of nearby watering hole, where it was initially suggested that we could go for a dip. This idea was quickly shot down, however, as we learned it was also a watering hole for cattle and that we shouldn’t risk going in. Nonetheless, there were a couple competitors that decided to risk the possibility of disease and went for a dip anyway. No one in my tent, thank God!

Second, a few of us again got a good dowse from the water tank lady. However, it was much cooler at the higher altitude of Camp 6, and the sun quickly dipped behind clouds. So it was actually a little chilly after the cold water rinse. Third, people started ditching any remaining food/snacks they did not want/need, which meant many people were digging through boxes looking for additional snacks/food, myself included. I was lucky enough to come across some M&M’s, which I shared with my tent mates, and some energy chews, which I intended to eat before the final stage tomorrow morning. (Side note: I was really excited to find the Stinger Energy Chews because I had spent the afternoon asking around to see if anyone had an extra gel/chew/etc that they were willing to share. I was only about 3 minutes out of 6 place, and I was intent on making up the time on the final day. I figured the pure sugar, which I had avoided the entire week, would give me the extra boost I needed to go all out for 7 miles).

Finally, that night, people were hanging out later than normal because they were waiting to see what time they would be starting the final stage the next morning. Specifically, everyone knew that there was going to be 3 heats departing in the morning (i.e., 6am, 7am, and 8am), but no one knew where the cutoff would be until very late that evening. It wasn’t until about 8:30pm that they posted who was in what heat, and as a result, it created a massive crowd of people hovering around a pinned 8 ½ by 11 piece of paper in the dark for about 30 minutes. And after all the waiting, talks began around camp that they might have to shorten the final stage, and have everyone start at the same time, because of the incoming bad weather. For now, however, we all just enjoyed hanging out by the fire for a bit before heading to our tents to get some sleep. It was our last night, and everyone was excited to pretty much be done!

That night, after we did finally get to sleep, a bad storm started creeping in on us, and with it, much cooler temps followed.

- In the final installment: a bad storm, a briefly angry me, a sprint to the finish, and pizza -

Start of Stage 5:

Slot canyons:

One of the ladders we had to descend in the slot canyon:

 

V in the slot canyons:

Long climb around mile 14:

V apparently relaxing while I am running: 

Crossing the finish line:

In pain at the finish line:

My unexpected, but appreciated, painful massage:

 

Done, at Camp 6:

Incoming storm:

G2G 2014 Race Report/Reflections (Part 5 - Thursday September 25, 2014 – Stage 4: 26 Miles to Camp 5)

Even with the day off yesterday, and despite the uneven ground, I somehow found a way to sleep all the way up to the muffled music rumbled through our tent. In other words, I was woken up right at 6 am. As I sat up, I immediately realized that the ground really took a toll on my back and neck. It was the first time of the week that I was actually feeling sore, and it wasn’t even from running. As I got up and moving, and did a few air squats with my leg wrapped in the voodoo band, however, I started to feel a lot better. And the hours leading to the 8 am start pretty much proceeded as normal.

Despite being an unwelcoming place to sleep, the camp did offer some pretty amazing views, which was really noticeable that morning as the sun began to rise. We were surrounded by mesas, and in the distance, you could see the beginning of Zion National Park, which is where we were headed that day. The other thing that was noticeable that morning was that it was a bit cooler because we were starting a slightly higher altitude (Note: I assume that I didn’t notice these things during the rest day, yesterday, because I was just so beat down that I didn’t really care about the temperature and the scenery).

As we lined up at the starting line, Collin and Tess went through their usual weather forecast, terrain, scenery for the day speech. To be honest, the only thing I could think about was the voice in my head saying “Please God, no more sand, or at least not too much sand!” The speech ended, and again, we were off.

Unfortunately, to my displeasure, for a majority of the section leading up to CP1 (about 7 miles), the surface was indeed sand. Nonetheless, I was feeling pretty good, so I stayed near the front as I ran with Garth. Garth’s goal: Just keep Alberto in sight! The other thing that made today’s course attractive was that as we progressed through CPs, the distances became shorter and shorter to the next CP all the way to the finish (i.e., start to CP1 was ~7 miles, CP1 to CP2 was ~6 miles, CP2 to CP3 was ~4 miles, and so on). This made segmenting the course much easier and made it feel like I was making noticeable progress along the way.

As Garth and I ran at a pretty brisk pace, I fell behind just a bit as we repeatedly climbed and descended. While I was still maintaining a good pace, I felt it was too inefficient to run the sandy hills. So I fast-hiked the ups and ran the downs.

I was feeling good going into CP1, so I filled my one empty bottle very quickly and continued on, leaving behind a couple people that were slower transitioning through the CP. From that point all the way to just before CP4, while there were people in the distance both in front of and behind me, I was pretty much running alone. As such, there were really only a couple of worthy highlights from this portion of the course.

First, the scenery was pretty good, and the terrain was good for running. Specifically, from CP1 to CP2, the trails were wide, there were some good down hills, and there was a bit less sand. So I covered the distance pretty quickly, and I was at CP2 before I knew it. However, after departing CP2 the course turned to a gradual up, with some pretty short steep climbs, that lasted all the way up to about the final 1.5 miles of the day. In addition, after CP3, we were back in the sand. Thus, this portion of the course forced me to mix in more walking than I would have liked.

The second highlight of this section was immediately after CP3, when we passed through an awesome natural tunnel through the mountain and then scaled up about 15-20 feet using a rope for support. As an estimate, I would have to say that the tunnel was about 200 meters long, which meant that by the time I got about half way through, it got really dark, especially since I had just come out of the bright sun and my eyes were still trying to adjust. While the darkness caused me to fall a couple times, as I stumbled across large boulders, I was actually able to catch myself pretty easily because there were large rock formations on both sides of me that was weaving my way through. The tunnel also provided a nice cool break from the sun, which was really starting to bake down on me.

After passing through the tunnel, I found myself in low canyon, which I ran through for about 10 minutes before arriving at a “rope climb.” As I approached the rope from a distance, the rock I was going to scale appeared much steeper than it actually was.  Consequently, even though there were volunteers around to guide us in the right direction and ensure our safety, my initial thought was “how the hell am I going to climb that with a backpack on?” Luckily, as I got closer, I realized it wasn’t actually as straight up as it appeared from a distance. Still, I have to say that for next year, the race organizers could make it a bit more “climb” friendly if they simply bought a thicker rope. The ~1 inch diameter rope was definitely not the easiest thing to hold on to, and it probably made the climb more difficult, and strenuous on my grip/shoulders, than if I had simply climbed up the rock without it. Once the scaling was done, we were met with more sand and more up, up, up, some of which were actually pretty steep gassers.

The third highlight came just before CP4, where I was following an obviously distinct dirt road that was marked by pink flags, but the next thing I knew, the flags were gone! Nevertheless, I still saw a number of footprints continuing down the road, so I continued on for about another 100 meters until I realized I had to be going in the wrong direction. I could hear the cowbell and yelling from CP4 relatively close by, so I figured I must have missed a turnoff.  So even though some of the footprints continued on, I decided to circle back to find the last flag. On my return, I ran into 3 other competitors that had clearly also missed the turnoff, so we made our way back together. (Side note: I later found out that almost everyone at the front had missed this turnoff, and it wasn’t until we got back to it and repositioned the flags, that it became apparent that one should turn off the main road). On the way back, one of the competitors suggested turning off course and just heading towards the noise coming from the CP. I mentioned that this was probably not a good idea for a couple reasons: (1) they would probably impose a penalty for coming in from the wrong direction, and more importantly (2) we were basically on top of a mountain, and we risked ending up blocked by an impassable cliff.

Finally, we found the turnoff, which was not at all clear from the flag markings, and we turned downhill towards CP4. We bolted down the steep, sandy terrain and then climbed the other side of gully to CP4. From here, we only had about 3 miles to the finish. So I was quickly in and out, figuring I only needed 1 water bottle, at most, to get me to the finish.

The next 1.5 miles was a tediously long, gradual climb up a dirt road before we met up with what I guess would be called the “main” road (i.e., it was asphalt/dirt and was about 20 feet wide). We then had an additional short ¼ mile climb before we peaked out and gradually descended for about 1.25 miles all the way to the finish. This last stretch was actually pretty pleasant, as it involved no sand was very easy to run. During this stretch, moreover, after having met up with Chantal (the overall women’s leader) just before CP4, we chatted and ran into the finish together. As noted earlier, Vanessa had had been shifted to the finish line team the day before, so she was also there to greet us, which was nice.

Overall, it was a good day, and I finished in under my goal time of 5 hours 30 minutes for the marathon distance. I was also feeling very strong going into the finish and was already thinking tomorrow would be a good day as well.

After finishing, I was feeling especially hungry, so I quickly made my way for some food and recovery drink. On my way to the tents, however, myself, and some others, were stopped by the woman driving the giant water truck who offered to dowse us in water using the hose. We immediately took her up on the offer, and despite the initial shock of the cold water hitting my head/chest, it felt amazing. It was the first time in 5 days that I had anything remotely close to a shower, and it was extremely refreshing. And now I was really ready to eat. So I sat down in the cyber tent and pounded my food.

Everything about this fine Thursday seemed to be great! Then came the trek to my tent, which was on the exact opposite side of the Camp 5.

Now you would think that after all my complaining about Camp 4 (i.e., our outrageously slanted campsite), nothing could be worse going forward, at least that’s what I thought until I had to walk through Camp 5. To get to the point, the camp was basically constructed on top of a grove of goat heads, which are tiny, really sharp burs.  Not only did these goat heads stick all over you, they made it nearly impossible to walk around without getting stabbed and cut up. It also made walking around in my camp slippers next to impossible. If that wasn’t bad enough, our tent was on top of many of these plants, which made walking around the tent sometimes painful, and, at least initially, discouraged many of my tent mates from inflating their air pads because they were concerned about getting holes (Fortunately, not having an air sleeping pad, this was not an issue for me). And as bad as it was during the day, everyone was really dreading the nighttime trek to the bathroom in the dark. Needless to say, the trips back and forth across Camp 5 were limited as much as possible for the remainder of the stay.

The other problem with Camp 5 was that our tent was once again build next to an ant colony, and this time they were biting ants. Apparently, because we had opened the backside of our tent to create airflow, while Brian was lying down resting, he was woken up by an ant bite. Luckily, it was only one. And after complaining, the volunteers were able to get the ants under control by digging and spraying the edge of our tent, and no one seemed to be bothered for the rest of the night.

On the plus side, being that we were the last tent in the camp, we left the far side of the tent open all night, and it offered a great view of the crystal clear sky each time I woke up during the night. In addition, I was actually able to get a descent night’s sleep because the ground was flat; and fortunately, I didn’t have to make the trek across camp through the goat heads minefield to go to the bathroom. In fact, I think all five of us remaining slept pretty well that night, as the miles were really starting to pile on.

-To Be Continued-

Scenery from Camp:

Starting line of Stage 4:

Shortly after the start of Stage 4:

Amazed by the rope climb they are expecting to to have to do:

Terrain and views during Stage 4:

Done for the day -  at Camp 5: