2012 Rocky Raccoon 100: Epilogue

As I write this from our hotel room Sunday evening, Stéphane is rolling around in the other bed complaining that his whole body is going into rigor mortis. His back is strained, his arms, legs and shoulders are sore and his feet are covered in huge blisters. This is what happens when you stop running for a month and then decide to run a 50-mile race.  The Superbowl half-time show is playing in the background. My first attempt at running a 100 is now behind me, prematurely ending after my 3^rd loop at 60 miles. I have so many thoughts running through my head. What a difference a day makes on my perspective of this race experience.  Last night when I made the decision to drop out, I was not only convinced that I wouldn’t be able to finish the race, but I seriously doubted the possibility that I would ever be able to finish one.  Almost 24-hours later, my feet are dry and semi-normal looking. Now wonder if I gave up too easily, and whether I could have finished if I had been more determined. It was a huge and emotional disappointment to DNF. But hopefully I can learn from it.

This is my story below. If it’s too long, read this short version:

Probably 90% of my DNF was mental and not physical, but if you told me that last night, it would have been like trying to tell someone who is sitting in a room with four walls, that it is still possible to exit. It was very difficult for me to come to this realization, that this was what actually happened. Thanks to Stéphane’s patience, listening to me endlessly go over the entire race and excruciatingly review over and over what went on in my mind for the 30 minutes between Loops 3 and 4 when I quit, I now know more about what it takes to do a 100-miler than I did before. Even though I never got to answer a lot of questions about what happens between miles 70-100, I’ve got a lot of good, new defenses for when I find myself again in a room with no doors.

If that’s too short, then read the whole thing below. I’m mostly writing this so I don’t forget what I learned.

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I slept very little the night before we flew down to Houston. I woke up in the middle of the night and read news on my phone as a distraction until around 4am, when I finally got up. We quickly ate breakfast and left to Laguardia for our 7:30am Friday flight to Houston. Walking off the plane we were surprised to be hit by the heat. Mid-70s and humid, with the smell of the ocean.  It felt more like Fort Lauderdale than Houston. Wow, I was not expecting a humid and hot race. I was still wearing my Marmot winter jacket!

"The Walls"

We drove up to Huntsville just over an hour north of Houston. Stéphane checked us into the hotel, ironically taking a 2^nd floor room in a building with no elevator.  After checking into the hotel, we made a quick stop to Walmart for recovery drinks and sunscreen. Then we drove over to take a photo of Huntsville’s main attraction - the state penitentiary - before heading out to Huntsville State Park for the race gear pick up and trail briefing.

raccoon paw prints

The park is part of the Eastern Piney Woods, which is this huge, 54 thousand-acre forest and wetlands covering several states. We drove past a sign declaring that “Alligators Exist in the Park,” and parked near the main lodge. A line of runners stretched out the door, but it moved quickly though the small space. Volunteers yelled out runner names and numbers, as bags arranged on the floor were passed up to the table and handed over. Runners exited out the back door of the lodge and collected in a large outside terrace overlooking the small Lake Raven. Four hundred people were running the 100-mile race, and 300 were doing the 50-mile. For the first time in 20 years, both races sold out.  The sky was grey, overcast and in the near distance we could see a darker band of storm clouds moving toward us.  There wasn’t a lot of talking. I scanned faces to see if I could recognize anyone. I knew a few ultra runners were coming from New York, but I didn’t know them well. I didn’t see any of them. Last month I briefly met a guy coming from Alabama to run his first 100. At one point Stéphane thought he recognized him, sitting on his own, so we walked over. “Are you Brian from Alabama?” I said. “No,” he replied. “Oh, you look a lot like him,” and I laughed at my mistake.  He laughed too and again said “No, I’m afraid not, but I wish I was. “ I guess he could have used a familiar face too.

Race briefing.

Joe Prusaitis, the 50-something race director, came out and gave the trail briefing, going over route markings, aid stations (“don’t drop out at DamNation unless you have a BONE sticking out of your leg!”), park rules, awards and past course records.  Joe ran the 135-mile Badwater ultramarathon in 2003, taking 53 hours to finish. The winner of last year’s Badwater, a Mexican named Oswaldo Lopez was running Rocky this year. Too bad I didn’t know about it until later or I would have looked for him. I did know that both 31-year old Ian Sharman, who set the course record last year (12h44), and Hal Koerner, who won the Javalina Jundred in November, were also running. I recently watched “Unbreakable,” the documentary about Hal Koerner and 3 other ultra elites facing off in the 2010 Western States 100, and I hoped I would see him on the trail tomorrow.

After the briefing, I approached Joe and introduced myself. I had joined Joe’s Tejas Trails group on Facebook and learned through the postings that his granddaughter was born January 1^st this year. I pulled out the stuffed blue elephant baby gift I bought at the Times Square Toys R Us and gave it to him. I wondered later if that was a weird thing to do, since I don’t know him or his family…Then I put my DamNation dropbag in the Uhaul truck parked outside of the lodge. This truck would transport the bags to the furthest aid station in the 20-mile loop for tomorrow.

Mushroom hands

We got back to the hotel by 5:30pm and ate our cold spaghetti dinner (takeout brought from another town, since Huntsville is scandalously bereft of an Olive Gardens). I went through my start/finish drop bag one final time, worrying about the weather and temperatures. All week I had been watching a storm front slowly move toward Huntsville. 12 hours before the race, it looked like the severe storm band would hit right when the race started. The forecast called for humid mid- to high- 60s during the storm, followed by a quick drop to low 40s after the storm passed. I added a rain jacket, an extra fleece and double bagged my clothes to make sure nothing got wet. I wasn’t worried about running in the rain, but I was a little nervous about the lightning and about staying warm in the latter part of the race. We turned in early. I was so tired I had no trouble sleeping.

Storm front that drowned the raccoon.

Race morning, I woke up at 3am to eat bread and jam, which is my usual pre-race routine.  After literally dipping my feet in Vaseline and applying sunscreen, I dressed and strapped the timing chip to my ankle with the neoprene band. Just before we were about to leave around 4:30am, I could hear it had started to rain. Stéphane opened the door and we looked outside. It was still pitch black, but you could see a white sheet of rain illuminated by the external lights of the hotel.  The storm front had arrived. Water gushed out the hotel’s downspouts and flowed into the parking lot. The sky lit up constantly with sheet lightning. It was an amazing show of nature that I would have really enjoyed watching if I wasn’t about to run 100 miles in it. It reminded me of the sudden rainstorms I saw in Southeast Asia during wet season, where it rained so hard you would be soaked down to your underwear in minutes. I said “honey badger don’t care” but felt less sure about it than I did the night before.

Start/Finish dropbag area.

We drove on the dark highway through the heavy rain and lightning, slowing down at the low points. There was a flash flood warning for the area and I was worried about hitting a standing pool of water and hydroplaning.  We entered the park and parked across from the start/finish tent and sat in the car in the dark, listening to the rain pelting down on the car roof. Every time the sky lit up for a second, you could see the outlines of the tall pines around us, and the forms of people walking about.  I got out my headlamp and decided to waterproof it with duct tape. Fifteen minutes before the 100-mile start, I took out my heavy dropbag and headed across the field to the start/finish tent. The dropbag area was a series of tarps lined up in rows and signs posted at each row with a race-number range. I found my row and set my dropbag down on the wet tarp, which had mud tracked onto it already.  I ducked under the already crowded and brightly lit start/finish tent. It was full of energy and noise and restless bodies. Stéphane joined me, to film the start of the race. He had an hour to kill before his 50-mile race. Just before 6am, the entire tent suddenly went dark and there was a collective moan from the crowd. But within a minute, the lights were back up as the generator kicked back in. I was so far back in the crowd that at 6am I heard no gun or anything. I only knew the race had started when I heard cheers and whoops.

LOOP 1 (miles 0-20, 6am-10:17am ) -The crowd slowly moved out of the tent, over the start mat and headed onto the pitch black trail.  We ran in a slow, tight line along the narrow root-covered trail. Headlamps lit up the path well, but nothing beyond it. It was like running in a tunnel until the lightning lit up the sky and you could see that we were in a beautiful forest of tall pines. But it wouldn’t have made a difference because looking up meant that you would immediately trip over a root, so my eyes were focused on the trail and nothing else. Runners in plastic ponchos and garbage bags made a rhythmic swoosh-swoosh with every step. It was difficult to see any part of the path beyond a few feet in front of me, since the wide ponchos completely blocked the view, making navigation around roots even more difficult. Occasionally the sheet lightning was replaced by a bolt, one of which erupted really close by and caused the runners (me included), to yelp. We crossed some marshes on wooden boardwalks. A lot of runners were getting impatient with the slow progress and tried to pass on the trail sides, with some tripping on the roots. Although I knew logically that this was so early in the race and I shouldn’t get anxious about the pace, it was hard not to feel caged in by the other slower runners. In fact, the slower pace was a good thing to keep me from going too fast. My goal was to stick to a slow 13:30 pace from the start and I planned to use my Garmin to make sure I stayed on pace at the beginning when I was still full of energy.

Within the first mile, the runners right in front of me unexpectedly came to a complete stop. We had arrived at the first of what turned out to be one of half a dozen or so stretches where the rain had turned the 20-mile loop into a muddy swamp. Despite the deluge of ~ 4-5 inches of rain, most of the trail was quite sandy and drained well. That is, except for these spots. I navigated slowly through these muddy patches, in some cases hopping from root to firm spot. I noticed that the lighter, sandy areas tended to be firmer so I aimed for those. In some cases, going off the trail through the bushes was the dryer option, and in other cases, barreling right through the middle as fast as possible worked best. But ultimately none of these strategies were consistently correct. Despite my efforts to keep my feet as dry as possible, both inside and outside my shoes and socks were completely wet and caked in sandy mud and remained that way the entire race. A few unlucky steps was enough so that water, sand, dirt and pine needles made their way inside the shoe and even inside the sock. I was mentally prepared to run in rain and didn’t care about getting wet, but I wasn’t mentally or logistically prepared for these mud/water patches. This was the first and significant crack in my plan.

By 7:30am the rain had mostly stopped and it got light enough that I could navigate without my headlamp.  I kept checking my Garmin to make sure I was staying on pace and skipped aid stations where I didn’t need to fill up my water bladder. I saved a lot of time, since I carried my entire loop’s worth of nutrition, so didn’t have to stop for food either. I figured that a mere 1 to 2 minutes (or more) at each of the five aid stations would cost 5-10 minutes per loop or 50 minutes to an hour for the entire course. Add that to the time I would need for foot care at the end of the later loops, and I could lose 2-3 hours pretty quickly. By avoiding the aid stations as much as possible, I had more time to cover the distance, allowing me to enjoy a slower moving pace. 

Mudpool. [photo: Shane Watwood]

For the first time in any race, I was drinking enough to actually pee, which is a good sign that I was staying well-hydrated. This would prevent blisters caused by dehydration. In fact, I peed 7 times, which was weird enough to make me wonder whether I had taken too much or not enough salt. Only days later and after a lot of research, Stéphane and I realized that this may not have been a sign of being well-hydrated after all, and was more likely a sign of cold wet feet. Following the race, dozens of runners all posted on the Tejas Trails page reporting that they were “peeing like a racehorse” and that it had never happened to them before (Q: do race horses really pee that much?). After a lengthy discussion about salt intake by each runner, Stéphane found a condition called “cold diuresis” that made the most sense. We were peeing in response to our cold wet feet. When limb extremities get cold from being wet, the body constricts the vessels and prevents blood flow from those areas, and shifts it to the body core for survival. A side effect is that the same blood volume now circulates in a smaller area of the body and causes blood pressure to rise. This rise triggers a false signal to the kidneys to down regulate the blood pressure by peeing, and can actually cause mild dehydration. The fact that so many runners shared a similar symptom of peeing frequently meant that it must be caused by an environmental factor and not an individual runners’ salt-intake. It also meant that rather than being fully hydrated, I might have actually been slightly dehydrated without knowing it, since the pee was nearly clear.

The first 20-mile loop went by quickly. The course was a mix of mostly single and double track trail with some minimally maintained dirt roads. A good portion of the trail was covered in roots. Almost all of it was in a forest of giant pine trees with brush filling in the spaces in between. One section ran along the top of a dirt dam next to the lake opposite the Lodge. We crossed a park road once (or twice?), but other than that, saw no cars or even other people. It was an incredibly beautiful setting and I reveled in the life all around me. At one point I thought that humans were meant to spend their lives here, running around in a forest and not coagulating in concrete-filled cities.

[Photo: Shane Watwood]

I spent half of the loop with a structural engineer from Massachusetts talking about egg-laying hens, solar power, turkey farms, hockey, aquaponics, mastering the skill of peeing while running, and the World Trade Center foundation. It was entertaining and random but it didn’t stop me from noticing a problem: my legs already felt like crap. They were heavy and tired and I hadn’t even done 1/5 of the distance. In my imagination, the first loop was supposed to feel light, easy and fun. It surprised me that I felt so bad already. I mentally ran through all the possibilities for why I felt this way. Maybe it was from the extra work of getting through the muddy patches? Or was it because I had trained on flat pavement and not root-filled trails that zig-zagged sideways and up and down, making it difficult to settle into any rhythm. I had immediately thrown out my 5:1 run:walk plan and instead intermittently ran when there were flats and mild downs, and walked the hills or slippery muddy sections. Maybe I was dehydrated? That couldn’t have been it, since I was peeing like crazy. Maybe not enough salt, even though I had put Nuuns in my water? The race did start off in the high 60s and it was very humid and my fingers looked more like sausages than usual. I chose the salt as the most likely cause, based on an experience in a prior long run and decided to start taking more of it on the 2^nd loop. But the early leg fatigue surprised me and this 2^nd crack in my plan permitted a teeny bit more doubt and fear to creep into my psyche.

Nature has me on speed dial.

Also about 3 hours into the first loop, I developed a GI problem that stayed with me throughout the remainder of the race. Looking back, I think it was because I followed the often-repeated advice to “eat early and often” just a little too enthusiastically. In my research before the race, I read that most runners will burn about 600 calories an hour of running, but are only physically able to absorb about 250 calories per hour. Anything beyond that causes GI distress. My best guess as to the cause of this caloric limitation is that digestion requires blood circulation to be focused on the stomach, whereas running requires the blood to circulate to the limbs. When the body is running, the stomach loses out and food cannot get properly digested and absorbed. I ignored the science and instead of eating 1000 calories a loop, I decided to shovel 1850 calories into my stomach per loop, sucking on Accel gels and drinking nutritional shakes. I managed to do the same thing on the 2^ndloop as well, fearful that when nausea set in at mile 50, as it did both times at JFK, I would be unable to eat, and I would go into calorie deficit. The consequence of my traveling sugar buffet was that for about 45 miles, when I was not drinking, eating or salting, I was studying tree width, bush density and seclusion, trying to find the perfect combination of proximity and privacy for a quick poop. I became a pooping machine. Since I routinely have GI problems, I was not worried about this and just tried to be as efficient as possible. I even made sure to have luxurious baby wipes on hand, and a ziplok “poo” trash bag so that I left no garbage behind. Coming back to the trail from a tree stop, a woman (the lead woman I think) yelled to me “I see that you’ve found my favorite porta-pottie!” I was looking forward to when the sun set so that I would be able to just turn off my light and poo on the spot.

I arrived at the start/finish, completing 20 miles or Loop 1 in 4h17, 13 minutes ahead of schedule and headed to my dropbag. It was faster than I expected, but it turned out that Garmin measured the course short and missed about a mile, making my pace look slower than it was. I had originally planned to do 40 miles before stopping to check my feet, but with the wet muddy conditions, I felt like that would be too risky not to look. Everyone told me to take care of any foot issue early. A hot spot is easy to take care of, but if left unattended, can turn into a huge torn blister.  I sat down on the muddy wet tarp, took off my socks and examined my feet. They were pruned, wrinkly, very white and tender. My left pinky toe had developed a hot spot, but you couldn't tell by looking at it, since it was so white from being wet for hours. But luckily I didn't see any blisters. Glued to the shoe insoles were these three-dimensional swirls of sand and mud. I tried wiping it with a baby wipe, but that didn’t work, so I scraped out as much as I could with my nails. My feet were similarly wet and covered in mud/sand. I wiped off the sticky dirt as much as possible and took out the grease. Every toe and especially the pinky was anointed with a generous blob of Vaseline (sprinkled with sand/mud from my fingers). I smeared more all over the bottom of my feet, then carefully put my muddy brown wet socks back on. I didn’t bring enough socks to change at every loop, so I saved the nice socks for later. I changed out my “loop bag,” texted my progress to Stéphane and took off for Loop 2. The pit stop took 16 minutes even though I worked fast.

LOOP 2 (miles 20-40, 10:33am-2:52pm) – This loop went much better over all. I ran mostly alone, which let my mind focus on my checklist of water, nutrition, salt and pace, and let me focus on relaxing my running form where the trail was smooth and flat. At one point on the course, a giant tree trunk blocked the trail. I didn't remember it from the first time around, and I climbed over it. I later learned that the storm had caused a tree to fall onto the course right in front of some runners. Apparently this also happened with smaller branches elsewhere. It was gone by the time I came around again. Occasionally I would run a short time with someone and we would invariably ask each other if this was our first 100 miler. When I said yes it was, a few people asked if I had a crew or a pacer. Each time I told them no, I felt more and more like I was the only first timer that didn’t have a pacer or crew and it got me concerned, but I decided it wouldn't be a problem. I had an ipod full of music I planned to listen to when night fell. And I loved running at night. It wouldn’t be a problem that I was alone. I preferred it. I also passed by a barefoot runner from the 50-mile race, and wondered how he managed with all the pointy pine needles and roots. My Garmin died at 31 miles.

As I planned, I increased my salt intake, swallowing an S-cap every half hour and regularly squeezed my hands to see if the swelling was going down. It seemed to work, but not completely. Based on anecdote and online research, it looks like inadequate and excessive salt both cause swelling so it’s hard to know if taking salt will make your problem better or worse. But since the second loop felt way better leg-wise than the first, with no more soreness or fatigue I decided that it was a lack of salt. I also gained some confidence knowing that I managed to solve a problem. Looking back, although I needed salt, I must have taken way too much. S-caps are very concentrated and call for only 2 per hour, maximum, and that's if you are sweating heavily. I took the max, but I also had Nuun salt tablets in my water bladder and later discovered that Accel gels and Boost also contain salt. I feared blisters and equated low-salt with blisters, so I thought more was probably better. But even now I don’t know what the physiological consequences are of excessive salt. I need to learn more about this, as it may have been part of the reason why I ended up DNF’ing.

I finished Loop 2 at 3:09pm, 9 minutes later than my schedule, but I felt really good and happy. I must have run that loop quite fast, since I made up the time from the last loop's pit stop. I realized that this was one mistake I made with my splits card: not tacking on extra time at the end of each loop for foot care, leaving me to run faster than a 13:30 pace. I change out my “loop bag” and examine my feet. My pinky has not worsened. The Vaseline is working. Victory! My confidence is growing. I slather on more Vaseline and put on a fresh pair of socks. I text Stéphane my progress and it turns out that he just finished his 2^nd loop too. He walks over to meet me as I am sorting out my supplies and fixing my feet. He looks a little beat up. He says his first 16.5-mile loop didn’t feel super but it wasn’t so bad that he didn’t want to go back out onto the course. He also had a headache the entire 33 miles (a Tylenol took care of it on the last loop). He was also peeing like crazy and wondered what was going on, going so far as to look around to make sure no runners noticed him peeing so much. In all, he figures that he must have stopped about 20 times to pee. We both agree that the Rocky Raccoon’s advertised “pancake flat” course, was in fact, not flat at all but was a root-riddled zig-zagging choppy trail with few flat surfaces. Stéphane complained, “I can’t just zone out and shuffle because of all the roots.” I agreed.

He also tells me that he started to feel that he was getting blisters on his feet during the 2^nd loop, from being so wet for so long. I looked down and noticed that he had two muddy shoes on, but one of his socks was bright white and the other was brown with mud. “Did you only change one sock?” I asked him. He looked down at his feet. “Yeah” he paused. “After I took off one and saw what the foot looked like, I figured I just didn’t want to see what the other one looked like.” He said it was such a drag to clean the blister, which had broken, because it was full of sand and mud. I told him that was ridiculous, gave him the pack of baby wipes from my bag and told him to put on a new sock after slathering his foot in Vaseline. And then I left right away. It had taken me 21 minutes to turn around. I later learned that Stéphane did in fact change the other sock, and then lingered for a long time, almost 45 minutes before heading out on his last loop.

LOOP 3 (miles 40-60, 3:13pm-8:33pm)  

Sitting still for so long at the dropbag area made me really cold and I had started to shiver strongly before I left on the loop, so I put my Boston long-sleeved shirt over my short-sleeved shirt. After a few miles I realized that the shirt was really tight and was rubbing on my belly (I need to lose weight!). I had had chafing from a too-tight shirt before and worried that this would happen now, so I took it off and decided to pick up my other bigger long-sleeve shirt at the DamNation drop bag. Hal Koerner passed by me around 7:15pm. He was puffing loudly and his gait was a little stiff and lopsided, which reminded me of Paula Radcliffe’s gait. He went on to win the 100 in 13h24. Unfortunately, after he finished, Hal discovered that his car had been towed out of the park because he parked in the wrong place. Ian Sharman, who I never saw, or at least recognized on the course, dropped out after 60 miles from a strained hip flexor. Just before the 50 mile point, I lost my appetite, as expected. Accel gels were now grossly sweet and too thick. The nutritional shakes were unappealing. Scanning an aid station, everything looked disgusting. Someone offered me mashed potatoes with butter and gravy. I gagged thinking this was the last thing I wanted. So I pulled out my Spam and cheese sandwich. Normally I crave this kind of salty junk, but after I bit off a small piece, it just sat there in my dry mouth. I couldn’t even chew it, it was so gross. I forced myself to eat it anyway dissolving it in mouthfuls of water. Over the next 5+ hours I ate half a sandwich, one shake, 1 gel, and 3 oranges slices that I picked up from an aid station, a total of 700 calories at most. I was now in calorie deficit and it worried me. Not because I felt bad at the moment, but because I was thinking about the 50 miles I still needed to run.

DamNation aid station [photo: Jacob Evans]

Conversely, I later learned that Stéphane’s appetite was unaffected and that he grazed his way through most aid stations. Since I only stopped for water at the stations, I really had no idea what was available. I asked him later what he ate. This is the list of items Stéphane consumed over the 50 miles: a pickle, gummy bears, a chocolate chip cookie, pretzels, raisins, boiled potatoes, banana walnut bread, ramen soup, dates, a cheese quesadilla, a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, lots of coke, Accel gels, s-caps, two hammer bars, quite a few bananas, some orange slices and corn chips.  

Even though the food issue worried me, when I hit the lone timing mat out at the furthest point in the course, I had just passed the half-way point of my first 100 and I felt so excited and happy to actually be doing this, running the 100 miler I trained so much for.

Over the next 10 miles two things happened that very quickly changed my emotional outlook without me realizing it: (1) It started to get dark again, and (2) I could feel rubbing and hot spots on the bottom of both of my muddy wet feet. And they were getting worse. I started power walking in the hopes that it would slow down any damage happening to my feet, and that I would make it to a fresh pair of socks and more Vaseline before that happened. My headlamp light was dim and I was really glad to have a handheld light to help navigate the roots. Someone passed me in the dark wearing a searchlight on his head. “Wow, that is an impressive lamp you have, what is it?” I asked. The guy mumbled that he thought it might be Black Diamond from REI and the searchlight moved away. No one was talking on this loop anymore. Although I could have run more of the 10 miles back to the start/finish, I decided walking would be better for my feet, only running occasionally, or when a runner in front of me started to run and I just followed. At one point I stubbed my right toe really hard on a root and nearly tripped. There was a sharp pain on the ball of my foot and my big toe. My heart sank, as I imagined that a blister on the ball of my foot had broken and the skin was dislodged by the misstep. I started recalculating my finish time. Initially I had been aiming for a 24-hour finish. I figured I would finish the 3^rd loop in under 15 hours. That left me another 15 hours to complete the last two loops. I started calculating the slowest pace I could do and still finish under 30 hours, and concluded that so long as I was walking 3mph, I should finish. “Three miles per hour is easy,” I thought, even on rooty trails. Normally I walk much faster at home. Walking into the start/finish, I imagined walking like this for another 15 hours and I felt a little better, but still worried.

I texted Stéphane my arrival time and he limped over to the dropbag area, which was now dark again. I quickly put on my rain jacket to keep from getting cold. The temperature was now in the high 40s and was dropping. Stéphane was wearing his medal and looked stunned. He was starting to shiver and stood stiffly. His last loop, he said, had been a death march, or a super hike. He limping on the course was so pronounced that someone passing him asking “blisters or knee?” He also had tripped hard on a few more roots when it got dark, making the walk even more painful.

I sat on the muddy tarp next to my bag and took off my shoes and socks and worked fast. I knew I needed to get back out onto the course quickly before I thought too much about the fact that Stéphane was leaving and would be driving back to the hotel to clean up and rest a bit.  Although I had spent the entire day alone, just knowing in the back of my mind that he would be gone from the park had a huge impact. I tried get away from these thoughts. But after cleaning up my pruned white right foot, I discovered a decent-sized blister on the ball of my foot and on the side of my heal. I couldn’t tell if I had other blisters because the skin is so white and pruned. Later I learned I had two other blisters, including one on the ball of my right foot, that I couldn’t see because of the condition of the skin. I never get blisters. Both big toenails looked swollen underneath, with the left one really tender.

Stéphane looked down at my feet. I started to cry. I was tired and getting emotional. “Can I still finish the race with blisters?” I asked him, still crying.  I wasn’t really looking for an answer, but rather a reassurance that it was not the big problem I saw it to be. I’m sure he said yes, but he was so spent from his race that there wasn’t much else he could say. About this time I got a text from Jess. It said, "Hey kid, you are gonna make it. Just keep going. One step, two steps, three steps four." I teared up again and tried to send an upbeat reply. Stéphane was still shivering so I told him it was ok for him to go to the car and get changed, that I was fine. I took out the safety pin and tried to pop both blisters, dabbing a Kleenex over the spots. The blister on the ball of the foot was deep though, and it took a long time to drain. As I did this, I was running calculations in the back of my mind about my pace with these blisters as they got worse in the wet mud and sand. I greased all my toes and other parts, carefully cutting out moleskin for the two blisters and pressing them into place. I put on a fresh pair of socks and my muddy wet shoes after scraping most of the mud/sand off the insole. I had only one fresh pair of shoes and I wanted to save them for miles 80-100.

As I switched out my Loop bag and adjusted the headlamp on my head, I looked down at my feet. It suddenly occurred to me that the moleskin I had put on would be completely wet in about 20 minutes and with all the friction and rubbing of the mud and wet sock, it would probably start to curl, and rub on the blister even more, and eventually fall off. This would leave the blistered areas without even Vaseline to prevent the sandpaper friction of the wet sock and the sandy mud. I thought about how cold I was going to get if the blisters got so bad that I was reduced to a slow crawl. I needed a fleece. I wanted the blue fleece that I had at the DamNation aid station, 10 miles away. It was thin and I wouldn’t overheat and get sweaty and cold. All I had here was a thick grey fleece that was too bulky. I realized that I would have to get to DamNation with no fleece and hope I didn’t get cold. But what if my blisters got so bad that I couldn’t walk fast? Even if I got to DamNation to pick up my blue fleece, I would still have to get back another 10 miles to the start/finish and that could take 7 hours of limping in the cold dark on wet feet. Could I really walk seven hours on blistered feet? And even if I could, there was still another 20 miles and 7 hours to go to the 100-mile finish. I didn’t know what to do about my feet. Obviously the mole skin wasn’t the solution. I didn’t have a solution. I had no solution to this problem.

DNF – 9:05pm

At about this time, Stéphane texted me from the car, where he had retreated to after he started to shiver uncontrollably. He had told me before he left that he wouldn't leave until he knew I was gone. “Do you want to rest in the car a bit?” the text said. Both the text and the fact that he waited for me had the opposite effect, sapping my will to get out of the aid station. “No, I want to get out there asap. I am really close to quitting” I replied. I started to cry again. As soon as I wrote those words, I knew that I was already giving up. It had been only 30 minutes since I arrived at the start/finish and I had gone from feeling strong to fallen apart. Less than minute later I texted Stéphane again. “actually, I’d like to quit.”  He called me and I started crying, telling him all the things I had just ran through about the blisters, the fleece, and not being able to eat. He was mostly concerned that I wasn’t eating anymore. I stiffly got up off the tarp and walked back to the brightly lit tent, looking for the timing mat. I found the race monitors and told them I needed to drop out and immediately started crying again. I felt stupid and hopeless and tired and I didn’t want them to show me any kind of empathy because it only made me cry even more. Walking back from the timing mat to the tent, two women volunteers looked confused and asked if I needed anything. “I just DNF’d” I confessed and as soon as I said it aloud again, I started crying again. Both women immediately moved in and hugged me for a long time. I didn’t want to let go.

I picked up my dropbag and walked through the dark trees toward the parking lot. Stéphane told me he would put the parking lights on so I could find my way back to the car. I loaded my things into the car and he drove out of the park saying nothing. It was then that I saw a text from Jeff. Little m was holding a sign saying "Rock the raccoon Reiko!" She had a big smile on her round face. I teared up again looking at the image. My Rocky Raccoon 100 was over. I was emotionally spent and physically exhausted.

We cleaned up and ordered pizza at the hotel as I verbalized what had happened. The trail conditions were terrible and everybody said it. I looked at the drop list online and it grew. Two of the 3 first timers that I knew in the Tejas Trails group had also dropped due to blistered feet. It was starting to look like the finish rate would be the lowest in 20 years. The finish rate was in fact 58%, and was the lowest, but not by much from the year before. The next morning on Sunday, we woke up, ate breakfast and drove back to the park to see the ceremonies. I had the urge to not go, feeling stupid that I didn’t finish and didn’t get a buckle, but I really wanted to see the awards being handed out. While waiting, we spoke to one young guy who finished his first 100 in 19h25. He was beaming. “I’m hooked man!” He had no foot problems and in fact, said that he normally ran without socks. I congratulated him and told him I was in awe, but it only made me feel worse for dropping out. The awards turned out to be short and none of the winners showed up (I guess Hal was still looking for his car…).

We drove back to the hotel. In the parking lot Stephane’s stiff gait from the car prompted a 60-something man packing his car nearby to say “I recognize a Rocky Raccoon runner!” His name was Bob Haugh and he had just finished the 100-mile less than 2 hours ago. I expressed my admiration and congratulations for his finish and admitted that I dropped out after suffering blisters and wrinkled wet feet. Bob then started to take off his shoes, but stopped. “You’ve seen ugly feet before, right?” We both nodded and I added that I was going to lose quite a few toenails, including one that hadn’t even fully grown in yet from a prior loss. I was very curious to see what his foot looked like, since I quit the race based on a projection of what my own feet would look like after another possibly 15 hours of running/walking/shuffling. He slipped off one shoe and exposed a swollen white, foot. It didn’t seem to have any blood circulating in it yet. I didn’t bend down to closely examine the foot, but each wrinkled toe had a toenail sharply outlined with the sandy mud/grime of the trail, same as ours was. His entire foot was wrinkled from being wet for so long, and there were blisters along deep sand-lined creases that ran lengthwise on the ball of his foot. That was the same place where my blisters began. We stared at Bob’s foot while he casually described chilblains and other foot immersion syndromes caused by extended exposure of the skin to cold water. Also known as trenchfoot, these injuries are similar and as potentially serious as damage caused by frostbite. His foot looked much worse than mine did when I quit.

Bob mentioned that he had run the Leadville 100 and found it to be a really tough course. After he finished that race, he said that he sat in a chair in his hotel room and had to pee, but was in so much pain that he crawled on all fours to get to the bathroom. After finishing the race today, Bob said that although he doesn’t have to crawl to the bathroom, “it rates up there.” I was surprised to hear that, but assumed it was because of the toll that the wet muddy trails took on the feet.

Before and after.

I told him about being unable to figure out what I could have done to my feet to better protect them, suggesting that maybe I should have brought 10 pairs of shoes and socks and changed them every 10 miles. Bob thought that wearing gaitors and neoprene or gortex socks with duct tape sealing the top of the sock to the ankle might have prevented the fine grit from getting inside the sock and rubbing the foot raw. But then the foot would get damp from sweat in the warm temperatures during the first half of the race and you would end up with wet feet anyway. I told him slathering my feet in Vaseline wasn’t sufficient and was gone by the time I finished a loop.  Bob said that when he ran Badwater, a mechanic friend of his suggested that he try the heavier, waxier bearing grease that stays on the foot longer and is much harder to get off. But he found that bearing grease stained his shoes, so he uses Hydropel now, which is similar to bearing grease. I later looked online and found out that Bob ran the Badwater in 2008, finishing after almost 42 and a half grueling hours, less than 6-hours shy of the cut-off time.

The trail conditions, the stories from other runners and the finish rate all provided the assurances that my DNF was justified. But after a good night’s sleep and a couple of meals, it felt less and less right. I was feeling more and more stupid. How could I have given up so easily and so early in the race? Although I felt absolutely sure on Saturday night that I had to quit and that there was no other choice given my physical state and my resources, I started picking apart what happened and it made less and less sense to me. Yes the trail conditions were tough and my feet were pruned, but my blisters were small enough that they could be managed. All of my decisions were based on a projection of what my feet would look like in 40 miles. Not what my feet looked like now. And that projection wasn’t even a certainty. The hot spot on my pinky toe never even turned into a blister despite running another 40 miles on it.

Worse, some of what I thought wasn’t even right. If moleskin wouldn’t work, I actually had another solution. I could still slather an absurd amount of Vaseline on my feet. And I didn’t have to wait until a full loop or 80 miles to re-apply. I ran with a tub of Vaseline the entire time just for this purpose and could have stopped on the trail every hour to re-apply the Vaseline if I wanted to. Also, the DamNation aid station - where my blue fleece sat - wasn’t 10 miles away. It was 6. I don’t know why I was convinced it was further. My split chart clearly gave the distances to all aid stations.  And I didn’t have to run there without warm clothing. I could have worn the grey bulky fleece for 6 miles and then switched it out with the blue one. Or I could have worn my running jacket, which I also had with me.  Also, I didn’t have to run the entire loop. The race director had said that we could drop out at any aid station along the way, but preferred we drop at the more accessible ones and not DamNation. I was thinking and calculating in 20 mile chunks when all I needed to do was think in 3-4 mile chunks. And even if I got to DamNation and gave up, I didn’t need to follow the course another 9 miles to get to the next aid station. I could just backtrack 3 miles. No one said that I can’t go backwards on the course. And who said a loop would take 7 hours? I ran most of Loop 3, so why would I think that I would now have to stop running completely on loops 4 and 5? I could probably finish the loops much faster and come in well under 30 hours. By Sunday evening, I had a million solutions to offer the “me” that sat at the dropbag area after 60 miles. What really bothered me was that the fact that the muscles in my legs felt fresher the next day than after many marathons. I felt physically really good! Putting aside imagined blisters, I was sure my legs would have finished the 100 in under 30 hours.

So what happened? It was like my problem solving abilities became so bad that I was experiencing a kind of tunnel vision, where the tunnel was dark and hopeless. My mind had essentially created an illusory room with four walls and no doors without me realizing it.

Stéphane and I spoke about what could have caused this. Fatigue from running 14 ½ hours? The darkness? Running alone? The miserable conditions? I initially thought it was the miserable conditions and my feet, combined with Stéphane leaving the park. Those all helped to weigh me down mentally, but now I don’t think any were the primary cause of my problems. The most likely answer is a lack of fuel. I got the book “Will Power” for my birthday because I really liked a New York Times article about Roy Baumeister’s findings from his research into decision-making and will power. He tested people’s ability to make decisions after running them through a series of complex thought processes. He found that will power is a real form of mental energy that, like a muscle, can become depleted in various ways. When will power is weak, people lose impulse control or self-control, are less able to withstand discomfort (like holding a hand in ice water), will suffer from decision fatigue, and will more likely go with the easiest solution instead of the best one. If I looked at my reasoning for my DNF, I can see that I was emotional, unable to make what were really simple decisions about my situation and opted to go to the car almost immediately after I realized that the mole skin wasn’t going to work.  It sounded like I had no more will power to complete the race.

But Baumeister also found that prevention of further depletion of will power and in some cases full restoration of will power would occur if the person is provided with a burst of glucose, an energy source which can be immediately used by the brain. The result of adding glucose, he found, was improved self-control and better quality of decisions. A study of parole board decisions in Israel dramatically showed the effect that blood glucose had on decision-making. A prisoner who appeared before the parole board's mid-morning snack break had only 20% chance of making parole, whereas prisoners appearing right after had a 65% chance of parole. The same results were found around the lunch time meal. This was regardless of crime, ethnicity, or length of sentence. In other words, the parole board, hungry and low on blood glucose, were unable to process the complex facts of a parole file and, instead took the easy, impulsive route, to just deny parole.  This was also shown in dieters, where a catch-22 presented itself. You need self-control to diet, but dieting will lead to low blood glucose, which leads to depleted will power to stick to your diet, so you give up, eat a chocolate and now you have enough glucose to strengthen your will power.

On Saturday night, just before I made the decision to quit, I had just finished a 20-mile loop lasting 5 hours and ate only 700 calories. Even with all the effort in the previous 40 miles to eat as much as possible, I was in a fairly serious calorie deficit and my blood sugar levels were probably quite low. In this state, I tried to work out what to do with my feet, what to do about being cold at night, my plan for the next loop, and how I was going to deal with Stéphane leaving the park, and came to the conclusion that, based on the facts, there was no other choice but to quit. It couldn’t be clearer, because I had gone over everything. Or so it seemed.  The cold, my feet, the dark, and Stéphane leaving were problems and I couldn't work out any definitive solutions in my mind. So rather than being able to process a complex list of uncertainties, the easier solution was to quit and head to the car.

And just like the parole board, I was completely unaware that, had I had a glass of Coke and waited 15 minutes, I may have seen a whole bunch of possible options and a whole bunch of different solutions. Stéphane even suggested to me at the start/finish that night, that I go into the aid station and sit down for awhile and eat something. I was convinced that it wouldn’t make any difference, and would only delay the inevitable conclusion that I needed to hand in my timing chip and go home. So I said it was pointless and went to the car instead.

Lessons Learned

Baumeister’s studies showed me that literally doing something as simple as eating sugar may have stopped me from DNF’ing. I can’t change my decision, since it is already in the past, but as Kilian Jornet said in Unbreakable, "when everything goes perfectly, you learn nothing." I have learned the following things that will give me an even better chance of completing my next 100:

1. Have a pacer or someone there to crew you. As much as I was convinced that I didn’t need anyone and I had it all figured out in my plan, I was wrong. The most valuable thing a pacer or crew can do is thought disruption. They can provide rational decision-making and problem-solving when you’ve lost your will power and are ready to quit. Stéphane couldn’t do that for me because at 50 miles, he was facing the same will power depletion as me. You need someone alert, well-fed, well-rested and understands your goals and what you need.

2. If you think there is no solution and you have no choice but to quit, then drink some coke, eat some gummy bears and wait 15 minutes before reviewing the situation again. If you still don’t have a solution, and you don’t have a pacer or crew, ask for help at an aid station. That’s what they are there for and they are prepared for you wanting to quit.

3. Bring more warm layers of clothes. I thought I was prepared for cold weather, but I needed more things to choose from

4. Get dry max socks, injinji toe socks, second skin and hydropel and experiment with these in blister prevention. Try taping your toenails to prevent them from being pulled by your sock. Bring lots and lots of fresh socks!

5. Learn more about salt and learn to recognize the symptoms of low or high salt conditions

6. Recognize that a looped course may be more difficult than a point to point and be prepared that the 4^th loop, not the 5^th loop, is the most difficult to start. I looked at the list of dropped runners and the majority quit at mile 60, just like me. The fact that almost half of the race was still left, was mentally daunting, making it easier to quit. And even with the finishers, it was loop 4, not loop 5, that often took the longest to complete.  On the other hand, a point-to-point makes the logistics of having the gear you need at the right location more difficult. Also, beware of the start/finish aid station of the course. Although people could have dropped out at any aid station along the route (except for the furthest, DamNation), the vast majority stopped at the start/finish, completing 40, 60 or 80 miles. It was very unusual for someone to stop at any other distance. My guess is that this was a convenient mental place to stop, but was not the physical limit where the runner could have stopped. Maybe you can go further if you decide not to drop at the start/finish.

7. When you are thinking of quitting, ask the right question. Your question sets up what you focus on. Don’t ask “can I finish this race?” This question may not be answerable with the information you have. It might cause you to extrapolate to worst case scenario possibilities because those are the certain outside edges of what you might experience. If the worst case scenario causes you to answer “no, I cannot finish this race if my feet are torn up and bleeding,” ask instead, “am I presently able to go to the next aid station?” The right question will give you the right answer. This might sound obvious, but it isn't when you are experiencing tunnel vision.

8. Think about arriving at least 24 hours before the race if you are flying in. This allows you to be well hydrated before the start.

9. Practice controlled goal sacrificing. This is something that Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who landed US Airways 1549 on the Hudson River a few years ago, talks about. I know Karnazes’s mantra of “run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl when you must.” But when put into a real situation, I didn't understand what that meant. If you have a time goal A of 24 hours and you won’t make it, don’t abandon all goals completely, but have instead, goal B of 30 hours and goal C, the next aid station and goal D, leave the start/finish and walk for 10 minutes. If you have no goal, you have no direction and it is easier to get lost mentally and give up.

10. Beware of unexpected negative surprises. These little “problems” infect your mind and make your mind work harder to come up with a solution on the fly and deplete your will power. Things like, “it’s more hot and humid than I expected, what do I need to do?” “The trail is wetter than I expected, what will happen? Do I have what I need?” Rather than worrying about what might happen and trying to work out various scenarios, it might be better in some cases to just acknowledge that there isn’t enough information at the current time to know what to do. So the only thing to do is to run to the next dropbag and see if you have more information. Sometimes trying to work out a problem too early will only make you fatigued from worry.

The hair of the dog.

I didn't get what I came for at Rocky Raccoon. So the only remedy for a DNF is to find another 100 and sign up. So that's what I did. 

Armed with my lessons from Rocky Raccoon, I'll be running the Buffalo Run on Antelope Island in Utah next month on March 23. Cross your fingers and toes!

2012 Rocky Raccoon 100: Prologue

NYC marathon start over Verrazano Narrows Bridge

When I moved to New York in 2000, just a year after I had given up a 15-year smoking habit, I was one of a million spectators lining the city streets that fall, cheering on the marathon runners who headed to the finish at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. I was so taken as I watched each runner on their personal journey that I turned to Stéphane and declared that we would run the marathon the next year. I remember following my six-month training schedule with excruciating deference, voraciously consuming every book, article and video about running marathons. I tried to imagine and prepare for hitting the wall and overcoming it.  I had so many questions. What would it feel like? Would it be so bad that I would give up? Did I have what it took not to give up? Just around mile 25, as we exited the park and turned right onto Central Park South, I was suddenly overcome with emotion as I realized that we were about to complete a marathon! 26.2 miles. That feeling - a simultaneous mix of wonderment, disbelief, and reality hitting you - is so great. I still remember what it felt like. I can still see myself running along Central Park South, choked up, with tears welling in my eyes. 

Hagerstown, MD

I've been chasing that feeling ever since. Accomplishing something that you have been so committed to, that you have imagined for so long, that when you finally achieve what you were chasing after, you become involuntarily stripped of your inhibitions and are able to experience unfiltered, unselfconscious joy. I felt it again after I completed my first 50-mile race at JFK. Although I ran faster at my second JFK and I was really happy with my time, it wasn’t the same.

For a couple of years I have been imagining what it would be like to run 100 miles. When I finally signed up for the Rocky Raccoon a few months ago, there was some part of me that wasn't sure I could actually do it. The longest I've run in one stretch is 50 miles and I definitely didn't feel like I would want to run another 50 when I finished. So I've spent every waking moment, including the late-night moments lying in bed in the darkness, wondering. What will it feel like? Well, I know how I would feel for the first 20-mile loop. I will feel fresh, excited, happy. The 2nd 20-mile loop and possibly the third 20-mile loop should also feel fine. 60 miles is not that much more than 50 miles, and I've done that distance. But beyond that, I have no frame of reference for the type of fatigue and pain I might experience. Will I feel fine walking? Will I have trouble thinking? Will I be sick to my stomach? Will my hands and feet swell up? Will I be so sleepy that I can't continue?

I've read race reports, articles, and books to figure out what happens in the later stages of a 100 miler. Dean Karnazes described a temporary loss of vision around mile 80 in his first Western States 100. Another guy recounted that he had fallen asleep WHILE running.  When he woke up and looked down the trail, he wasn't sure if he was looking forward, or where he came from.  So he just picked a direction and started running again. Other people describe hallucinations of non-existent aid stations, runners, and animals. These seem like extreme experiences and I am guessing they won't happen to me. But I have heard of people losing their appetite and not being able to consume enough calories in the later stages to physically keep going. I've also heard of many people describing how they were cold and, in some cases, hypothermic, during the night, despite relatively warm temperatures. Others like the author Haruki Murakami, wrote that his feet swelled up so much that he changed to a shoe a half-size larger in the latter part of the race. When I've spoken to the few friends that have run one or several 100-mile races, invariably they tell me the same thing about miles 70-100: it is all mental effort. But what does that mean? I am determined, but what is my mental limit? Can I push past any physical fatigue or pain to continue? Am I able to mentally lift myself out of any dark moment when it comes? During my long training runs around Manhattan and New Jersey, I found myself embracing any discomfort, imagining that it was something I could play with, savor and try to control in preparation for the race. Too cold? Good. GI distress? Yes please. Headache? OK. Muscles tired? Bring it. 

Apart from trying to imagine how it will feel during every stage of the race, I've also spent hours strategically planning race gear, medical and nutrition. On my long runs, I experimented with various food sources to see what caused the least amount of GI distress.  I found that very slowly and completely chewing on a spam and cheese sandwich worked. Also drinking a Boost nutritional shake in small sips seemed safe.  And energy gels taken in small aliquots and diluted with a mouthful of water also worked. In case I still experience nausea, I'll carry some crystallized ginger candy to calm my stomach.

During my long runs I also discovered every single location (there are a lot of them) where I could possibly chafe. I wrote them all down on a piece of paper so that on race morning - long after the red welts and scabs have healed during the tapering phase - I wouldn't forget to apply a dab of vaseline to every one of those spots. I also tinkered with salt and water intake during my long runs, discovering that my main issue has consistently been lack of sufficient salt, which caused dehydration, swelling, blisters and muscle lactate formation. I practiced a relaxed running form, letting my hips swivel freely, keeping my shoulders down and my arms and hands up and close to the chest. I practiced mentally letting go of all goals of distance and time, and just being in the moment of the run. I practiced drawing energy from the environment and people around me to carry me along.

Rocky Raccoon dropbags and gear.

In between runs, I prepared gear lists, printed out air, car and hotel confirmations, an itinerary, a splits chart, maps to the state park, to the nearby Walmart for last-minute items and to the ever-important pre-race Olive Garden meal (ever since my first JFK 50 with no GI distress whatsoever, it has been a ritual I can't miss). I also prepared "Loop Bags," ziplok bags containing food and other things like socks, a flashlight or a handwarmer, for each loop. They are numbered. On the back side of the split chart are detailed instructions on what I need to do at the end of each loop, in case my mental faculties fade so much that I can't make decisions for myself. 

I have imagined and re-imagined all or portions of this race hundreds of times. I've imagined every nook and cranny, from my arrival in Houston, through Huntsville State Park, all the way to the recovery day on Sunday (watching the Superbowl?). I am now at a point where I am finished imagining. There is nothing left for me to explore mentally. 

Now all that is left is for me to put on my shoes and start running after that feeling.