The Raven 24 Hour race was held Saturday, February 17th at the Town Hall Track in Mt Pleasant, SC. The race is by invite only. If you hit the following times:
Well, if you come close and one of your friends (Chris Varnadoe) makes a phone call, you can get in. I received the invite on December 27, 45 minutes after I re-injured (tore a little more of) my peroneal tendon in my right foot. I had to get a cortisone shot to be able to run again. The problem was; I couldn’t get the shot until Friday, January 5th and I needed 30 more miles to get to 3,000 for the year. So I taped my foot and painfully limped 30 miles in 4 days, just because the guys I train with got 3,000.
After my cortisone shot,
I had to “rest 48 hours before easing back to running”. I waited 45 hours until I ran 20 at 8:30 pace. You can’t miss two Sunday runs in a row! I had four more weeks of training and then two weeks (12 days of taper) before the race on Saturday, February 17. So I did what any normal ultra runner would do… 4 straight 100 mile weeks. Everything was going well until two weeks before the race, my IT band on my right leg was causing issues on the outside of the right knee. My last training run was supposed to be a 35 miler on Sunday the 4th, I decided to skip it and just do 5 miles easy with the redhead. I ran 4.5 miles (in almost 45 minutes) and walked the last half mile home, spirits were high (sarcasm). Two weeks before a race, I usually run about 45-50 miles, I ran 36 with knee pain at least half of those miles. Race week is usually 22 miles, I ran 7, with four days off.
The day before the race, I took a day off of work to relax and get to my sorry ass up to Mt. Pleasant. I arrived at packet pickup and Riley Moss (race director) asked me if I was going for any records or US team standards. I replied that I was not 100% fitness or health wise, but if everything were to go perfect, I might have a shot at the 100 mile age group record and that I was stopping at 100, (you have to say that if there’s even a slight chance that you could be close to a record or standard). After packet pick up, I drove to the track for a 3 mile “shakeout run”. During my quick stretch, I met Owayne Owens, a 5 time All-American in the triple jump for UVA, he was changing into spikes after his warm up. Also on the track was Tai Dinger, a graduate of Stanford, where he was an All-American. Tai was in lane 1, running 800s (at about 2:15, if I were to guess). I settled into the second lane and just ran 3 miles at just over 8:00 pace. Owayne was using the front stretch lane 3. Sometime during my run, Tai flew by me on the left at the same time Owayne blasted by on my right. Expletives were heard. My confidence was nowhere to be found.
After my run, I was in no mood to talk to anyone, so I found a Harris Teeter grocery store and bought a pound of gnocchi and a jar of sauce. Went to a secluded, empty parking lot and cooked my pasta with a camp stove that I use to heat food for my races.
Ate dinner, checked into the hotel, set my alarm for 6:00 am (3 hours before the start) and was asleep by 8:30. The uncertainty of my legs/feet holding up was keeping me from sleeping. At 3:16 am, I was up for the morning watching every television channel (for about two minutes at a time) several times. Finally, at 7:30, I left the hotel for the track. The 0.4 mile trek took about two minutes. I was the first runner at the facility. The Raven provides a tent, table and chair for the runners, so all I had to bring was my shoe/clothes tote, my food tote and the camp stove. I was set up in 10 minutes, now I only had one hour and 15 minutes to kill. Finally Melissa, Alex Campbell and Beckett Jones (my crew) showed up and I could talk and joke with them. Apparently, there was a pre-race meeting which I caught the tail end off as I was coming out of the port-a-john.
Finally at exactly 9:00 am, the race started. After the first lap, I was running with Michael Quesnell, a 31 year old from Madison, WI. We decided that we would alternate taking the pace (lead) each mile because there was a headwind on the front stretch. Our strategy was working well as we continuously clipped off 8:00-8:05 miles. 40 laps (just under 10 miles) in 80:04. Both of us were feeling fine and said that the pace seemed easy with relatively little effort, we felt slowing down would have been counter productive. 80 laps in 2:40:23. Everything was going as well as could be expected, as I tried not to think about my knee and/or foot tendon or the fact that I wasn’t as fit as I would have like to have been. On lap #114, Michael had to stop to tend to his hamstring. I kept going, now I was running by myself. This is where I started thinking about my time, so I asked Alex to check with the USATF officials what the 55-59 age group US record was for 50 miles and 100 kilometers. They gave him the website to look it up. 50 kilometers (31 miles) in 4:12:20. While he was doing that, he got a call from his work and did not answer me until just about 33 miles. “6:55 for 50 and 9:01 for 100k”. I quickly responded with, “Are you sure?” He gave me the shut up and run look, so I knew his times were correct. The next lap, I alerted the officials that I was going for the 50 mile age group record. So they had to measure 67 yards past the finish line. 50 miles is 201 laps and 67 yards.
Just after 50 kilometers, I saw Jacob Moss a few seconds in front of me, and he seemed to be running the same pace that I was. So I spent the next two laps slowly catching up to him. We ran together for 35 minutes until he had to stop for his achilles tendon/ankle. Everything was going well and I was running laps between 1:59 and 2:06…until lap #191 when my IT band started causing pain in my right knee. 2:00 laps quickly became 2:20 laps. I had to run 10 laps and average just over 10:20 pace (2:35 per lap). As I limped around looking at each lap time, my confidence was growing, 2:21, there’s an extra 14 seconds. 2:22, 2:19, 2:18, 2:21…
Finally 201 complete, 67 yards to go. The mind is incredible, I kept telling myself, get to 50 miles then see how you feel. Well, it got me to 50 miles, I crossed that line (actually a tape mark on the inside of lane one) in 6:53:19. A NEW AMERICAN 55-59 AGE GROUP RECORD. The existing mark stood for over 44 years.
I walked the 300 plus meters around back to the tent, got some food and drink and started to walk a few laps, but I kept stopping and talking to people. Those laps were over 10 minutes each. Then I decided to try to run, but had to stride without putting strain on my IT band, just under 4:00 per lap. I called it a day with a record, but no buckle.
N of 1 Running 