My "Ultra" World: CFE-Based Training, Competing, and Always Learning: G2G 2014 Race Report/Reflections (Part 4 - Tuesday-Wednesday September 23-24, 2014

Right on cue: at 6 am sharp, the music was again blaring! This time, however, knowing that I would not be running until 10 am, I was a little slower to crawl out of my sleeping bag, as were Ken and Garth. But as Nick, Andy, and Brian began moving around, we were inevitably awake. As such, I decided to get up and eat because I was feeling hungry. By this point in the week, I was about tired of oatmeal and really wanted something salty. Fortunately, I had accurately estimated that this would happen, and I planned accordingly. My breakfast for this morning would be chicken flavored Ramen that I had added some hot salt to while preparing my meals. What an awesome choice, as I was absolutely craving it. I drank down every last drop of liquid in the Ziplock freezer bag (Side note: For anyone who might ever consider one of these events, it’s worth noting that non-generic Freezer Ziplocks are a great choice for carrying meals in these events because they are lighter than the freeze-dried food’s original packaging and they hold up to boiling water just fine. Plus, all the air can be pushed out of them for more compact storage in a backpack).

After finishing my meal, I changed into my now two-days-of-sweated-in running garb and packed up my bag in anticipation of the possibility that if I got everything together early, I could just chill in the tent for a couple hours after the 8 am runners were off. Disappointingly, however, at about 7:45 am, we were informed that even the 10 am starters needed to be packed up and out of the tents as soon as possible so the camp crew could take them down. The 15 of us were going to have to hang out in the open air cyber tent for 2 hours. After much groaning, we all made our way out the tents, gear in hand. And by this time, it was already close to 8 am, so everyone gathered around the starting line for the daily course briefing. Those of us staying behind wished the 8 am starters good luck, and before we knew it, they were off. Now the waiting began!

Those two hours seemed to just drag on. There was absolutely nothing to do other than chat with each other. However, in the course of this chatting, we all just realized how ready we were to start running. Once one person brought up that they were starting to get hungry again, it was like a chain reaction of everyone started to feel hungry. Moreover, we could already feel it starting to heat up outside. And looking back, from a temperature standpoint that day, the jump that the 8 am starters had was surely beneficial given the terrain we would be crossing at certain times during the day. Nevertheless, we waited! And waited! And waited!

I will say that because today (and potentially tomorrow) was going to be the first day(s) we would encounter a significant amount of sand on the course, including the sand dunes section, as we waited around for those 2 hours, it was interesting to watch some peoples’ last minute efforts to keep sand out of their shoes. Some people, including Ken, were taking duct tape and placing it over the mesh of their shoes (along the toe and top of the mid-foot) in an attempt to keep out as much sand as possible. I honestly had no idea how much sand would enter through the mesh of my shoes, but I figured I would take my chances because I at least had my standard trail gaiters which would keep the sand from entering my shoe from the ankle. The gaiters didn’t cover my whole shoe like some peoples’ did (i.e., I still had the mesh of the shoe from about mid-foot to the toe exposed), but I had stitched Velcro to both the bottom edge of my gaiter and to the shoe in an effort to hold the gaiter in place. I was hopeful this would be enough to make the sand manageable. While I did for at least a second consider also taping my shoes, I ultimately decided against it.

Finally, at about 10 minutes to 10 am, we started lining up near the start line, and before we knew it, we were off. The first stretch of running (~6.5 miles), all the way through CP 1, was exclusively dirt road in a wide-open landscape. It was fast, I felt good, and I was ready to run, so I went out at a fairly good pace thinking the more miles I could get behind me before it got really hot, the better. I ran the ups, the downs, and everything in between. After CP1, we headed on to a single-track trail towards the mountain, and then the first climbing of the day began…

This first climb (only about an hour into the day) was really something else and might be best described as someone’s sadistic idea of how to use the landscape you have to design one of the most difficult 50 mile courses ever, especially when you add a 12-15 pound backpack to the equation. We basically turned straight towards the mountain and went up! At certain points there was actually some scrambling, and even climbing on all fours, involved. On top of this, it was really starting to warm up. But despite my heavy breathing, I pushed on and didn’t stop.

Through most of this section, I found myself again with Joe. We were only about 7-8 miles into the day, and we had already started over-taking the tail-end of the runners that started at 8 am. In fact, the climb devastated many people, and some even decided to call it a day and pull out of the race (I am not sure if this was just pure fatigue or in fact injury related). So some of the people we were passing were simply heading back to CP1 to withdraw. Also during this climb, we caught up to Laurence (the 3-time MDS winner), who had gone out a little faster than us in the 10 am start, but who was now breathing very heavy and looked to be in pretty bad shape. She had slowed to the point of taking only a couple steps at a time, which I think really says something about the difficulty of this climb at such an early stage in a 50 miler. I think it’s worth noting that while I do not in any way think this was one of the toughest climbs I’ve faced in an ultra, I do think the combination of factors (i.e., 3^rd day of running in a row, carrying a pack, the heat, the dry air, long distance between checkpoints, etc.) made it feel like one of the toughest climbs. And I think that having such a climb so early on in a 53 mile stage can be really demoralizing, which is why I sympathize with the people that felt crushed, probably questioned whether they could take another step, let alone finish the day, and ultimately made the decision to pull out.

As Joe and I passed her and finally neared the top of the mountain, we experienced the short relief of some downhill and flat running to stretch out our legs. This was short lived, however, as we again turned up to climb the next (smaller) mountain. Eventually, we peaked out at the top, but then the sand began. At the same time, however, there was a massive downhill. As I quickly learned, running downhill on sand is one of the most pleasant running experiences there is. You can absolutely fly as you basically start leaping in the air and letting the sand absorb your fall. And over the course of the next several miles, Joe and I would take turns running ahead over ups and downs until we finally reached CP2.

As I was flying down the first hill after reaching the top, I started passing several 8 am starters. In particular, I came up on Phelim, Andy, Nick, and a couple others that had stopped to take a quick rest in the shade. I passed them right at the bottom of a major decline that turned right up into another climb. As I passed, I hear someone (I think Phelim) yell out “don’t slow down! Keep pushing it up that hill!” Knowing this would be a ridiculous strategy so early on in a 50 mile run, I simply looked back and responded with a friendly “F you! Keep it up guys, and see you at the finish!”

The other thing that happened during this stretch was that I got really close running out of water, as it was starting to get really hot, it was taking much longer than anticipated to complete (because I underestimated the climbs), and I probably took less water than I should have at CP1. Luckily, I was able to ration enough to just barely get me to CP2. But my mouth was really starting to get dry.

As I came in to CP2, to my surprise, the volunteers told me that I was only the second person to come through from the 10 am group. I figured this had to be a mistake since I didn’t remember passing some of the people that went out faster than me. But whatever, I felt I was in a good spot either way. As I later found out, Ken and a couple others, who I was sure were ahead of me, had actually taken a wrong turn, and I was, in fact, running in second.

As I filled my bottles, because it was getting so hot, I decided it would be a good idea to fill my water bladder in addition to my bottles. I also drank an additional chug of water and slapped some sunscreen onto my legs and arms. I then quickly departed the CP. Apparently Joe, who had been running with me until this point, was starting to not feel very well and was not ready to go. So I departed without him and was on my own. Unfortunately, I later found out that Joe was in a really bad place, as he was feeling extremely sick and would ultimately pull out of the race because he couldn’t keep anything down.

To be honest, very little happened between CP2-CP3-CP4. There was a lot of sand, some really long steep down hills that were great for bombing down, I passed a lot more 8 am starters, it was really hot, and at some point I ate a Hammer Bar and a Stinger Waffle. Still, most of this stretch I ran alone, as I just made myself keep moving. The only other thing that started happening in this stretch was my leap frogging with Carl, which would continue for the rest of the day. For much of the remainder of the day, Carl would catch up to me, then he would stop to dump sand out of his shoes, then he would catch up, then stop and dump sand. This was a regular occurrence throughout the day. For some reason, unlike others, I was having no issue with the sand. I felt some sand getting into the mesh of my shoe (near the toe), but it wasn’t bothersome, and I felt like the sand that had worked its way in was now keeping more sand from coming in. So I just let it be and saved the time I would have otherwise spent stopping to just keep moving. This turned out to be just fine, as I experienced no foot problems outside the norm.

Just before CP4, I passed Brian and his new Canadian friends that he had been running with through the week. Brian yelled for me to keep pushing as I passed. I then immediately came up on CP4 where Vanessa was cheering and Mo immediately came to assist me in filling up my bottles. I again filled my bladder and quickly drank an Endurox recovery drink. Mo also asked if I wanted to wet my buff to stay cool, and when I said yes, we ran it under the water jug. Obviously, Mo wasn’t clear on the water rules, as Vanessa yelled at me for using the drinking water. I paid little attention, however, as I was done and on my way out of the CP.

As I departed, Mo told me to save my energy on the very steep long climb at the beginning of the upcoming section, and then I would be good to go. He wasn’t kidding that it was a long climb. It was on a road so it wasn’t bad, but it did seem to go on forever. At one point, about a half mile up, there was bus pulled over on the side of the road and a bunch of older people had set up lawn chairs on the side of the road to cheer us on. This was pretty motivational as they cheered when I passed. However, the real treat was about 1.5 miles up, when a woman and her son were offering to drench me with ice water using a giant sponge and a massive cooler of ice water. I gladly took them up on the offer. While it nearly took my breath away as they squeezed it over my head and it spread down my back/chest, it felt amazing in the heat.

As I reached the top of the climb, things leveled out I felt re-invigorated to run again. After a decent down, the remainder of the section was relatively flat. Nevertheless, if offered some spectacular views as we ran between some really awesome sandstone formations that rose up on both sides of us. We also passed a house that had a sign out front saying “Free water and ice for runners.” As we got closer, there was a large cooler full of bottled water and bags of ice. There was also a running hose next to the cooler. When I got there, call was basically taking a bath using the hose: what a wonderful idea. I didn’t want to waste a lot of time, however, so I just drenched my head and grabbed some ice to fill my water bottle. After drinking warmish water all day, the ice water tasted great. We continued on for a couple more miles until Carl, Roberto, and I all reached CP5 together. Almost 32 miles done!

After downing a Hyper Skratch, I was off for CP6. Unfortunately, this stretch of trail reminded me of the last half of yesterday. It was open road and very boring. Still, I had to push on if I was going to reach my goal of getting to CP6 before dark (i.e., 8 pm). About half way to CP6 there was a water drop where I filled the one water bottle I drank, and after departing, I ate another Stinger Waffle, some jerky, and some dried mangos, as I was starting to feel pretty hungry. And shortly after the water drop, I was joined by Garth, who informed me that he had spent the last 4 hours trying to catch up with me. By the time he caught up, I was again motivated to get going again. So we spent the next 30 minutes or so motivating each other into CP6, which we reached just before dark (~7:45 pm). 39 miles done, just 14 miles to go!

Garth sat down to quickly eat a snack as I took my pack off to pull out my headlamp and turn on my red flashing light. I also drank another Endurox Recovery. My stop at CP6 was probably the longest of the day. But I also knew that in about 1.5 miles I would be climbing sand dunes, so I wanted to make sure I was ready to go. Since it was also now dark, I thought it would better to head out with Garth to make sure I didn’t get lost unnecessarily. Two head lamps are definitely better than one in the pitch dark of the desert. While it seemed longer, we headed out of CP6 after about 4-5 minutes, and with that we were headed for the dreaded sand dunes.

Leading up to the dunes, we actually got an opportunity to run on a nice paved road for about a mile, but that quickly ended when we headed off the road on to a trail leading to the dunes. The sandy trail was initially tough to run in, but still, it was manageable and much like running on the beach (i.e., a couple of inches of sand). After entering this trail, we were surprised to hear someone come running up behind us: it was Ken! After all this time (~10.5 hours) of running in different positions, but essentially the same pace, Garth, Ken, and I found each other ready to tackle the dunes (it was actually a really awesome feeling to have the three of us (tent-mates) ready stick together to finish the last 9 miles. Not to mention that we were doing really well (i.e., we were running in, I think, the 4/5/6 positions at that point).

As the trail turned further South, the sand began to get deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Finally, it was no longer like walking/running on a beach. The sand was more like 6-8 inches deep and every step felt like an effort. Then, out of nowhere, what looked like a 75-foot wall appeared in our headlamps in front of us. As we got closer to this first sand dune, while it obviously wasn't even close to vertical, it sure looked like it went straight up. And, in fact, it was just as hard to climb as it looked. As I peaked at the top, I dropped my hands on my knees and gasped for air, as I tried to recover (Ken and Garth appeared to be feeling the same way, as they also gasped for air). It felt like I had just done a 1 minute AMRAP of wallballs or KB swings after having already done Manion or some other long, intense workout. I quickly recovered, but that was just the beginning of the 5km stretch to come.

For the next 1.5 hours, we would hobble our way down 1 dune and scrambled up the next, sometimes on all fours. At some point, I got really angry at the never ending dunes and just started sprinting to top of each. Later, Garth would say that I lead Ken and him “on a death march through the dunes” because we pushed on with no rest every time we reached the top of a dune. I have no idea how many dunes we actually climbed (maybe ~20), but it seemed to go on forever. Finally, we turned back north and headed out of that non-sense. By now, however, our shoes were completely filled with sand, and the pressure on my toes was actually getting uncomfortable. Still, we agreed to all take it slow to CP7, which was not too far off, and then we would stop and dump our shoes. Luckily, after exiting the dunes, we did a short climb and were at CP7 before we knew it (~45 miles).

Upon arrival, we all sat down and dumped our shoes. I think I dumped about a ½ pound of sand out of each shoe. At this CP, we also ran into Chantal (the overall women’s leader) who was feeling really sick and out of it. She eventually departed the CP before us, but she had to resort to a walk the last 8 miles because she was feeling so sick; so within a few minutes of our departure, we went running past her and Mike (the leading 8am starter and a Kanab local who committed to walking with Chantal for the remainder of the stage). In fact, fast walking on this section was something that Ken, Garth, and I actually also did quite a bit of because there was heavy brush that was difficult to navigate in the dark. We ran when we could, but choosing a good line from one flag to the next was actually not too easy. I will say that with 3 headlamps, it was much easier; I couldn’t imagine going through that section alone at night. As it had been dark for quite a while now, it was also starting to cool off a bit. At one point, I got the chills. But as we kept moving, I would soon feel hot again. Thus, there was no need to stop and waste time pulling out my jacket.

As we made our way through the brush, we took turns leading the way, and Garth insisted that we take it somewhat easy to avoid any unnecessary injuries (e.g., falling into sharp plants, sticks, etc, or rolling an ankle on the uneven terrain) this late in the game. Ken and I agreed. Nonetheless, shortly after passing Chantal and Mike, we came across Roberto, who was an Italian runner that was in Garth’s age group and was only a cumulative of about 15 minutes behind Garth. As such, Garth’s attitude changed a bit as he tried pushing us a bit more to open the gap between us and Roberto. The problem was that Roberto made it his mission to keep up with us at all costs. So really it just became the four of us heading for CP8 together.

As we did approach CP8, Vanessa was just as lively as usual: swinging glow sticks on a string and yelling. We filled our bottles, Vanessa quickly snapped a picture of the three of us tent mates, and again we were off, only about 3.75 miles to the finish. At this point, we accepted the fact that Roberto was going to just push himself at whatever pace we chose. So we eventually agreed that the four of us would just cross the finish line together. And because this section consisted of lots of sand, was all uphill, and there was no way we were going to make it in before midnight (i.e., under 14 hours), we picked a reasonable pace to just get across the finish in good shape: we hiked fairly briskly.

As we approached the finish, I couldn’t wait to get my backpack off. My upper back was really starting to ache after 14 hours. We ultimately crossed the line in 4/5/6/7 place in a time of ~14 hours 21 minutes (it was 12:21 am), which was well within our original goal of under 15 hours we had discussed during our long waiting period that morning. Tess, Colin, and some others were waiting to greet us with hugs, and we were all glad to be done. It was a brutal stage, but with it out of the way we now got a full night and day to rest before Stage 5.

I was beat down, dirty, hungry, and even a bit dehydrated (I had actually only gone to the bathroom twice over the course of the previous 14.5 hours). So after getting in, I headed straight to the camp fire to sit down and grab a quick meal before trying to clean some of the sand off me and climb into my sleeping bag. I also ended up having a tea to try and settle my stomach. I also got a chance to try the infamous ‘Expedition Foods: Custard with Berries’ that Garth had been raving about looking forward to during the last 5 miles on the course. I can now attest that as he suggested, it was delicious, as it tasted like it had a stick of butter added to it.

As we sat there for about an hour and a half, some others made their way to the finish, and Tess greeted them with hugs and cheers. Eventually, we made our tent, but we soon learned that the path to our tent required some special navigating, especially in the dark. In particular, our tent was surrounded by cacti, which were marked off, but still required us to be careful in our tired state. Somehow, I made it.

As I opened the tent, I noticed someone sleeping inside, and my stomach dropped a bit. This was not a good sign, as I knew Ken, Garth and I were the first to finish from our tent. Upon further inspection, it was Andy! As it turned out, Andy encountered a real bad spell after CP2 and he missed the cutoff time for CP3 by 10 minutes. Unfortunately, he was out! He was also out of it because he had taken a sleeping pill. So we would have to get the details tomorrow morning after some rest.

Initially, before putting my pants on, I had tried using some of my wet-wipes to get some of the sand off of me, but I soon learned that this was a futile exercise because it was everywhere, and I was going to be extremely dirty no matter what I did. And the dark didn’t make it any easier. Therefore, I just threw on my compression pants and jumped into my sleeping bag to try and get some rest.

As if we hadn’t already been through enough that day, I soon learned that they had constructed our tent in maybe the worst location possible. In fact, we were on such a bad slope that one side of the tent was on ground that was about 2.5 feet higher than the other side. Consequently, it was pretty uncomfortable and resulted in a lot of shifting through the night. But at least I was lying down and resting.

----------Wednesday: Rest Day----------

I woke up at about 7 am. It was now Wednesday, and I could officially enjoy a full rest day. As I lay in my sleeping bag contemplating whether I was hurting after yesterday’s debacle, I noticed that Brian had also made his way in at some point during the night. So our only tent mate still on the course was Nick.

Surprisingly, as I pulled myself up, I was feeling pretty good under the circumstances. It would have actually been interesting to see how I would have handled another day of running without the rest day, as I think I would have actually been pretty well off compared to some others. Still, as I tried to walk across our uneven tent for the door, I felt like I was drunk. As I walked, I stumbled across the hill that our tent had been constructed on top of. My stumbling apparently woke up Ken and Garth and soon we were all outside in the early morning sun making our breakfast/coffees/teas and sitting around the camp fire. Even though it would soon start to warm up, it was still pretty cool out, so the fire was nice.

Andy also made his way out of the tent and shared his unfortunate story about having to exit the race. In short, he had run out of water on his way to CP3, and from there, things just went downhill for him. He did his best to make it to CP3, but being destroyed at that point, he missed the cut-off by 10 minutes. As a result, he would now be catching a ride back to Kanab, and ultimately, to Vegas, where he would be waiting for us to arrive at the end of the week. His promise: to find the best burger joint in Vegas for us to hit up when we got back on Saturday. I was pretty disappointed to see Andy leave, as I was really hoping he would finish the race with me. But as he left, he assured me that we would finish a race together one of these days. I look forward to that next race, Andy!!

While we sat around eating and chatting, competitors continued to stumble across the finish line; in fact, I think the very last competitor would end up finishing this stage around 4 pm, which equated to about 29 hours on the course. Arriving so late also meant that you didn’t really get a rest day because you would have to be up and ready to go again the tomorrow. Many of these competitors looked just totally destroyed as they fell to their knees. However, every time someone would cross, other competitors would run over to cheer them on and help them remove their packs, etc. At some point during the afternoon, Nick made his way in, and our tent made our way to the finish to greet him. So we still had 5 from our tent that were still alive and would go on to face Stage 5.

It’s also worth noting that because Vanessa was working CP8, it meant that she would also officially be out on the course for about 29 hours because she had to sweep (collect the flags) behind the very last competitor. So even though she was actually running the course, props to Vanessa for being the person that was actually on the course the longest!

To summarize the entirety of that day, we basically spent it eating and trying to stay out of the sun because it was hot. It also got pretty windy that day, so we opened one side of our tent to get a nice breeze coming through, which was nice during my intermittent naps (with my feet elevated on a chair) throughout the day. Even so, the ground was RIDICULOUSLY uneven in our tent, which made the uncomfortable naps short. The other thing we quickly discovered that day was that our tent was constructed on top of what appeared to be an ant’s nest. Thus, until action was taken to spray the perimeter of our tent with Raid, we spent an unnecessary amount of time trying to keep ants out of our tent. This was very annoying.

As the day wound down, Vanessa finally made her way to Camp 4, and we actually had some time to hang out. Also, to Vanessa’s surprise, she learned that for the remainder of the week, she would be switched from the CP4 team to the finish-line team because of her mad Excel skills. Apparently, there were issues with the spreadsheet that was being used for timing, and she offered to help recreate it. As a result, she would be at the finish line of Stages 4-6 to cheer me, and others, on.

Moreover, that evening, while a local musician performed for the camp to close out the day, and to everyone’s surprise, we were all given one Coke/Sprite as a treat. Unfortunately for me, while it was a nice gesture by the organizers, as a non-soda drinker, I wasn’t craving a soda (like many were), even under those circumstances. Not to mention, I wasn’t really looking for a caffeine fix at 7 pm. As such, I donated my Coke to Phelim, who experienced the joy of drinking two!

Shortly after the music ended, we all made our way to the tent for some sleep before the start of Stage 5. Little did I know, it would be one of the worst nights of sleep in history. Specifically, after about an hour, Brian and I both woke up with our feet practically numb. What happened was that the extreme slope we were sleeping on had our feet about a foot and a half below our heads. Knowing that this was not going to work, we both re-situated. As it turned out, the only even partially comfortable and feasible place to sleep was on the other side of the tent. We couldn’t just turn sideways because we would just role down the hill, and putting our feet above our heads was just as uncomfortable. Thus, we ended up moving to the complete other side of the tent. So while we should have had sufficient room for the five of us to spread out, we all basically were sleeping next to each other in a small section of the tent. If we still would have had 7, or even 8, people in our tent, I am really not sure what we would have done. It was really bad!

As I was in and out of sleep, also vaguely remember Nick getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. In the process, he also got to experience the difficulty of walking in the dark around 4 other sleeping people and across the severely uneven ground. The next morning, Nick would note that from the section of the tent, there was a remarkably good overhead view of the rest of the tent, as he stood 3 feet above everyone else.

As uncomfortable as it was, I somehow found a way to get some sleep that night!

-Still to come: A good day to run, a rope climb, another shitty and painful camp site, slot canyons, a rolled ankle, a bad storm, and an angry me as the final stage was shortened-

The awful climb at after CP1: