Tracing Steps: Pinhoti 100, Part 1

Having started this recap a couple days ago, I've had some time to come to a more enlightened perspective on the whole thing. Instead of jumping into the post and talking about what happened here or went wrong there, it has become abundantly clear to me that the most important thing that can be said is that, in total, we have raised over $12,500 for Habitat for Humanity and The Alexander Capelluto Foundation! That's an amazing $2,500 over what I thought was an already lofty goal!

Folks, this is simply incredible. Though I initially felt like having raised these funds made my failure to finish the race all the more difficult to accept, having had time to process it all, I now know that having raised these funds made my race a success no matter how I fared. Finished or not, the race was always a personal experience of little real impact to any beyond those immediately involved, whereas the effects of our fundraising drive will touch the lives of many. So a huge thanks and congratulations goes out to all of you who've helped make this effort become what it is. We've accomplished a great thing, and we deserve to be proud about it!

Now with that said, I must admit that the cynical part of me was tempted to title this post "Pinhoti 100: What Went Wrong." Though I know that that wouldn't be a fair assessment, as most of the race actually went according to plan, with the worst of the residual pain behind me, I feel that it's safe to retrace my steps and give an account of both how the race went and what I've learned from the experience.

Things began two days before the race, with the joyful occasion of picking my Dad up from the airport in Birmingham, Alabama. He had agreed to be my "crew" for the race, which entails racing around to most of the aid stations along the racecourse with all of my gear in tow, making sure that I'm set for the next leg(s) of the race. We were both very excited about the prospects of this father-son experience, and it certainly wound up being one of my favorite aspects of the whole ordeal. Little did I know how essential his presence would be in the coming days though.

Picking up the old man at the airport (haha love you, Dad).

The next day, after getting a morning and afternoon to ourselves, which allowed for some much needed catching up, as well as some gear preparation, we headed off to the registration event. This is where I got my registration number, turned in my drop bags (bags of gear that would be taken to certain aid stations that crew members couldn't access), and enjoyed a wonderful dinner that was ripe with carbohydrates. The race director and another ultrarunner, who was Pinhoti-tested, spoke about the upcoming race, offering much advice and wisdom about how to go about things. Leaving the event, I felt very at peace with where I stood with my race plan and preparation, as it had largely mirrored what had been advised that evening.

Boiled down to the basics, the plan was this: See how long I can keep a smile on. Play the long game (i.e. do whatever it takes, however slow, to get across the finish line). Be tough, but be smart.  Walk the uphills, jog the downhills, and listen to my body on the flats. Remember that this is what I signed up and paid for, and remember that I'm running for a lot more than just myself. As for speed, I intended to stay behind gray hair for the first 50 miles, treat miles 50-75 as a litmus test (46 miles was my longest run prior to the race - everything beyond that was the great beyond), and either crawl or sprint the last 25, depending on how I was feeling at that point.

Well, at 3:00 the next morning, it all began. With everything set out the night before, we ate a little breakfast, downed some coffee, put the gear in my truck, and took off to the starting line, roughly 100 miles away. Sans a single missed turn, we got to the starting line with plenty of time to spare.  (As it so happened, the wrong turn wound up being a hilarious happenstance, as I ended up climbing the major elevation gain between miles 35-40 paired up with the fellow who had been directly behind us when we incorrectly turned off. He was telling me about the truck with the California license plate that had taken the wrong turn, when I informed him that it had been me! It's a small world...) Once at the starting area, I signed myself in, but realized that I hadn't filled my water bottle for the first leg of the race. Doh! Luckily, Dad found a camper who was awake and had water, which was incredible because that ended up being the only water available at the starting area.

Right at 6:00, with all the cold runners huddled together under the Pinhoti 100 banner, the race director hollered from the bed of his truck, "Let's goooo!" and with that we were off!  Having heard that the race quickly transitioned from the campground road to a single-file trail after a couple hundred meters, I made sure to be in the first third of the pack. This proved to be a smart decision, as I heard from so many runners later in the race that they had gotten stuck in a big stand-still pileup right there, forcing them to hoof it early on to stay ahead of the cut-off times. Only a few miles in however, I realized that the group of runners I was with along the single-file trail were aiming for a finishing time of between 20-21 hours. This was much faster than the pace for which I was aiming, so I just hopped off the trail and stretched for a few minutes, waiting for a gap in the winding trail of runners where I could jump back in.

That little stop-and-go routine wound up being a consistent theme for me throughout the whole race - running with a group for a while, but then making the call to listen to my body and drop back/stretch. More often than not, the runners I had been with and the ones that would pass would ask whether I was alright. Early on, then, I developed my little response; "I'm good. Just playing the long game, baby. Keep it up!" This helped me remember my primary goal - stay cool and in the hunt for the finish line.

As the race wore on and the first few aid stations went by, mile after mile, I found myself having the time of my life. While the fall foliage and Alabama hilltop vistas were every bit as stunning as I had hoped they would be, I found myself joyfully captivated and enamored by something entirely unexpected, this being the social aspect of the race. I can only attribute this to the unique combination of the wild personalities and backgrounds of the individuals I met, the free-spirited vibes generated by the communal act of running in nature, and the interesting sort of short-term relationship that develops after everyone has put a marathon under their belt.

The scenery I had the pleasure of passing through.

First, there was Bartholomew (these aren't their real names, by the way), who was a long-time counselor for Upward Bound, and had tons of quality advice for me regarding working with serious juvenile offenders. I can't say I've met anyone else who has volunteered their time to go hiking with and mentor kids as young as 14 who have killed. It was a pretty eye-opening, though also affirming, conversation to say the least. Then there was Dolly, a sustainable farm manager who was moving to the part of N. Carolina I had just left in order to work for a new farm there. Naturally, I was in an uncanny position to advise her on agriculture in the Piedmont region, and our hours of conversation flowed from organic growing and homesteading to religious defection and everywhere in-between. There was Bart, who provided a fun hour of spirited discussion about my football team, the Oakland Raiders, and sports more generally, which was delightfully refreshing. Then I took a jaunt with Darnell for awhile when he came through. He had only participated in twelve 100 mile races this year, with this being the third time he was competing in the Pinhoti 100. He was such a boss, going line for line to Eminem's track, "Lose Yourself," at a small, staff only aid-station early on, downing a handful of candy corn, while giving me the best advice of the day: "Don't let anyone keep you from running your race. You do what you need to do." Did I mention that he was 57? (I told him about my "grey hair plan," which he found hilarious, and said was right on point.) Of course, there was Dusty, the fellow I mentioned who had watched me and my Dad take the wrong turn, and there were many others as well.

Amidst and between these conversations and relationships however, the miles were quietly adding up. At the aid station around the 27 mile mark, I decided to take a slight risk and change into a pair of shoes that Dad had brought. They were the same make and model as the ones I was currently wearing, except that they were about four years newer. Yes, I had been running in a pair of four-year-old shoes. Having spent a good deal of my life as a competitive runner, and having historically amassed a strong knowledge base on running shoes, I felt confident that these shoes had enough mileage left on them to safely handle the majority of the race. I had a pair of newish road shoes that I'd planned on using for the 20 odd miles of dirt road that I'd see, so I thought myself set for the race. By the time that first marathon had passed however, I was starting to second-guess the integrity of my trail shoes and decided to quit being stubborn, averting any potential damage by jumping into Dad's newer trail shoes. Though they hadn't seen many miles, I knew running shoes these days were basically good-to-go out of the box anyways, and since it was essentially the same shoe, I figured it wouldn't be an issue.

I'm giving you the background of the shoe story because I largely blame my feet for my "DNF" (did not finish) of the Pinhoti 100. Though I'll continue to tell my tale and not jump to mile 79, I feel very strongly that if my feet had not been the issue that they were, my body would've handled the 100 miler to the end. Anyways, between miles 35-40, I became mentally aware that my feet were feeling a new kind of sore - a sore I hadn't felt on my previous long run of 46 miles. It certainly wasn't bad, but it also certainly didn't feel very reassuring that I had something new to deal with this early on in the race. Ironically, though I was expecting all sorts of unexpecteds, I just imagined that they'd all come after mile 60 or so - in hindsight, this was truly the unexpected.



Culprit #2 - the new trail shoes. Culprit #1, the old trail shoes, faced an immediate wastebasket execution post-race.

Though I had to look at pictures to be sure, as my memory is kind of fuzzy for certain parts of the race (there are definitely some memories between mile 75-79 that my subconscious has blocked out), I decided to change back into my old trail shoes at the mile 45 aid station. At this point, it was on my mind that my feet would likely be a determining factor in the race, and because I started to feel them acting up after having put on the new shoes, it seemed my older trail shoes were the safest bet. The miles that followed this change were some of the most hopeful, exciting miles of the race for me.

Evening was approaching and I was in the zone. I had been looking forward to the falling of darkness before the race even started, and I was ready for it. All of my longest training runs had gone into the midnight hours, and as these hours had been my favorites by far, I had built up a near giddy anticipation for the strange experience that I knew was in store for me. This excitement was only the greater because I had been hearing from other racers how often the night hours are dreaded by ultrarunners, as mental strength typically falls and later rises with the sun, and I just knew that my alternative training practices had left me unusually well prepared for the challenge. Besides (as I joked with several runners), fresh out of pulling countless all-nighters for papers in college, I was in the best shape of my life, sleep-cycle-wise, for such an ordeal.

In hindsight, I think this excitement for the night helped me not think about my feet as much, which was a welcome mental relief. At that point, they were nagging (the pain was stemming from the arch, especially my left foot, though the pain quickly shot to the whole of both feet after the concrete that was to come), but I was still confident that I'd find my way across the line. By the time I saw Dad at mile 50, I informed him that the feet would basically be our main focus for the remainder of the race. Though I had mentioned them at mile 45, and we'd broken out the Ibuprofen for them, the five miles since then had been downhill and mostly on concrete, which had made things a bit worse.

This is the part of the story where I have to stop and simply state that my dad deserves a Nobel Peace Prize or something. Maybe a Purple Heart would be more fitting, because every time I saw him from mile 50 and onwards, I would give the aid station director my number and then walk directly to my truck, where I'd plop down on the tailgate, pull my feet out of my shoes, and...gulp...have my dad massage them with an analgesic ointment and Vaseline. All I can say is what a trooper that guy is. He didn't even bat an eye, probably because he knew that I wouldn't be asking for it if it wasn't absolutely necessary. As he would work one foot, I'd be loosening the other and then prepping my bag for the next leg of the race.

While I'd been able to jog the downhills up until this point, it was a couple miles past the 50 mile mark that I got the feeling that my running miles were over. I'm proud to admit that, oddly enough, I wasn't really phased at being relegated to walking for the remaining 48 miles of the race. Because I had plenty of time, I knew that finishing within the 30 hour cutoff wasn't going to be an issue; I just would need to focus on getting in and out of the aid stations more efficiently, so as to leave as much time for me to walk as slow a pace as I might have to, if it came down to that at the very end.

To be continued tomorrow...