Today I ran 16.61 miles in 3:20:00. Now you might be thinking why did it take me that long to run that far (or, why did I even run that far)? The reason is because a friend of mine from work was doing a 50 mile ultra marathon. It runs along the Pony Express trail in the west desert, starting about 20 miles west of Faust, Utah. Another person from work, actually our boss, was acting as his support crew. I already knew how my friend, Zac, was doing after about two hours. He was blazing along, having run about 16 miles. That is a very fast pace for an ultra marathon, and is actually a marathon pace. I was a little concerned that perhaps he went out a little too quickly. It is easy to do on this run because it starts near the top of a mountain and immediately goes downhill for the next 5 miles. But, I was also hoping that, perhaps, he was just having an amazing day. I was a little worried that he would be almost done when I got there (not worried for him, but I wanted to support him and run with him and was afraid I would get there and would not be able to do that). This is also the same first half of the run that we are planning to do when we run the 100 mile ultra marathon in October 2013 (the organizer does a 50 and 100 miler), so to see this course and have some experience with it is also a big plus. If you read what I write, you know I am a big proponent of knowing the course. This course is SO far removed from anything it is difficult to go out there without it taking a whole day (if you include running) as it is two hours from where I live.
By the time I arrived he had been running almost exactly six hours. An ultra marathon has little to do with speed and a lot to do with endurance. It is ALL about conditioning. I seemed to arrive just at the right time. He had been going strong, but by the looks of things and the report from his support person (again, our boss who was great to do this), he was really starting to weaken. So, if you added correctly, I found him shortly after the mile 33 marker. There is one big hill on this course, and this was the start of it. It is a very gradual 5 mile climb until it gets to within about half a mile of the summit and then becomes fairly steep (about 8% grade). When you are out running that long, not to mention being in the sun that long, you do not always think very clearly. It now became my turn to do all the strategizing for him on how we were going to finish the remaining miles. Unfortunately, he began having hamstring cramps and, later, calf cramps (his hamstring cramps got better later) that were at times severe. He was taking in salt tablets with potassium very regularly, so I thought it might be something else (which it might have been), but when we got done I was able to get a good look at him and he literally had salt caked over his whole body (temperature was about 66-68, which is about 10 degrees too warm). We got up that hill by doing 1:1 runs; that is one minute run, one minute walk. That seemed to work for him pretty well. After we got to the top of that hill he was able to run a lot of the next 6-7 miles that was downhill. But we ended up going back to the 1:1 run as it became more level and ran this way all the way in. When there was 1.5 miles left, you actually pass the finishing point, and with the new addrenaline kicking in he was able to run the remaining distance (and did a final, impressive, 8:34 mile for the very last mile). He managed to actually beat his time from last year by almost 30 minutes and I give full credit to him for a well-run race. I know he wanted to give up when I first started running with him. But he kept in there, did not complain, and just kept at it. With all the issues he had leading up to the race and the last half of the race, this is not just a good time overall, it is highly impressive.
This was a great reminder to me, and I am not blowing my own horn here, of the importance of a good support crew. This race provides zero support and so your crew is everything. Our boss who agreed to support him is a four-time Ironman. He knows what it takes to get through a race, including ordering(basically) the runner to do this or that. Then I came along with my experience to help him keep on pace. Now Zac is an experienced runner. He has been running since high school. But as I said, you are not always thinking clearly the longer you are out. More than once he thanked me for taking on the job of thinking for him. He also commented that seeing me running in front of him was like a metronome; all he had to do was keep pace with my movement. There were a number of times when we would get to the support vehicle and either Tim (our boss) or I would tell him he was not going to ingest what he asked for but would be taking in something else instead. It was actually really great to run with Zac and a privilege to support him.
As for myself, this was not a particularly hard run as far as just running goes. Most of the time my heart rate was not even into my fat burning zone. However, the hard part was being on my feet for 3:20. Being just two weeks after my marathon, this was actually a much harder run doing it in 3:20 then if I would have run it in two hours. If you ever train for a marathon you will see that the plans tell you to not run fast on your long runs. The main purpose is getting used to being on your feet that long. It is a very different conditioning than getting your legs to run fast, equally as hard and valuable.
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