Starting to write this blog is making me almost as anxious as starting this race, knowing I won't be able to capture all of the feelings (yes, I preface every blog post with this but for this one especially!).
The Kettle Moraine 100-Mile is a trail-race out in eastern Wisconsin starting in La Grange. Most of the race is on the Ice Age Trail which spans across Wisconsin and is the same trail (further East) that I ran the Chippewa 50k at the end of April. Decided to sign up for this race in April, not too long after finishing the Zumbro Midnight 50-mile.
Not really being able to put in perspective how long a 100-mile race was, I knew that it would require more running than I had been doing in the past. Decided to use other races as middle-effort long runs to help with the build up. My relatively long taper consisted of doing the Zumbro 50-miler, followed by the Chippewa 50k two weeks later, followed by the Eau Claire Marathon the next week. Keeping these at relatively low intensities, I was able to "recover" from them and continue to run throughout the week and to work. I was trying to run/walk to work as much as possible to get extra time on my feet. I would be pretty beat at the end of a day from run/walk commuting to work 8 cumulative miles along w/ standing for 10+ hour although I kept telling myself it was preparation to be able to "run" for 24+ hours.
The week prior to the 100, just went on one easy short run and the legs were not feeling the best. I was trying to convince myself they were taper pains rather than nagging overuse injuries or anything of that sort. However, this taper felt much different than a lead up for a typical marathon. Didn't have much of a spring to the step and the leg muscles felt pretty sore. Taper pains..right?!
During the Eau Claire Marathon, I met and ran 13 miles with John Taylor who is a very accomplished ultra-runner. He told me that he was going out to Kettle as well and let me carpool with him and Allan Holtz (another very accomplished ultra-runner).
It was a real treat to hear them telling such wild stories. Everything from John chasing a bear up switchbacks during a race, to Allan talking about his 4
attempts, I could have listened for years. Thankfully, being w/ two guys that epitomize ultra-running it gave me a distraction from what was going to happen the next day.
We listened to Alanis Morissette Pandora the whole way out and stopped at an Olive Garden in Madison, Wis. Ate 5 breadsticks, 3 salads, 3 bowls of soup, and finished up the Chicken Alfredo entree that was mistakenly brought out for regular Alfredo I ordered (mainly vegetarian but when presented with this, I couldn't resist). Nearly being needed to be rolled out of the restaurant, we headed out to La Grange for the packet picket. We arrived at the Nordic Start/Finish of the race to pick up our race bibs and chat with some other runners. John introduced me to Logan Polfuss who not even in his senior year of high school was picking up his race bib for his 4th (?) 100. Crazy! We chatted with the race director Timo and he kindly wished me luck and assured me he was confident I could finish (despite not even knowing him, he sounded so sincere and was sure I could {sometimes it helps to have someone else believe in you before you believe in yourself!}).
Couldn't believe it but I was finally running! It had been such a freeing feeling after not running much the weeks leading up, and with this race one of the only things on my mind that last few months, it was nice to finally be in progress of it. Started out about as slow as I could and found myself around John Taylor and Bill Pomerenke. Knowing that John finishes all the races he is in, I was tempted to stick with him but figured I needed to run my own race. Decided to not wear a GPS since the battery would only catch 1/5 of the race. Was kind of nice to just rock the chrono watch like old times though. Bill who had a GPS said that we were running too quickly and suggested that we need to be hitting around 13min/miles and needed to conserve more. Conciously tried to slow down as much as possible but my body kept telling me otherwise. However the fear of what the legs would feel like at mile 60/70/80/90 miles was a good governor and kept my pace relatively conservative and slow.
For the first few aid-stations all I grabbed was HammerGels and occasionally fruit. Didn't want the stomach to get sloshy yet and wanted to try and keep the amount of nutrition I was putting in consistent. Started off taking a HammerGel every 45 minutes but quickly changed to every 30 minutes. I remember reaching the Emma Carlin aid-station which has the first drop bag and just left my extra pair of socks. I believe prior to this aid-station I had linked up with another guy from Minnesota, Steve English. He is a teacher from Saint-Paul and we were clicking pretty well on the trail together. It's funny how easy it is to feel so close to someone when you are doing an event like this. It's easy to be "friends" with someone for years and not really know them on the type of level as when you are on a 100-mile survival run together. We began to run as a team and were planning on running the majority of the race together. Once in a while we would get a little separated from taking bathroom breaks or one of us leaving early from an aid-station early but generally we kept close. It was nice to have another companion to run w/ and chatting w/ someone else diverts your attention away from any fatigue (at this stage).
Not long after Emma Carlin we ran through a 7-mile or so section of open trail that didn't have any tree cover. It was impossible to not get the feet wet at this point and just kind of accepted it and knew I would be able to change socks and any of the bag drop locations. Another thing that many people thought was tough about this section was that it had no tree cover and was exposed to the sun. Thankfully it was mostly cloudy as we ran through this section however occasionally the sun would slip through the clouds.
Ran some sections of the trail with Logan and ended up getting lost for a few minutes, until realizing we had veered off the Ice-Age Trail. Thankfully once a group of about 8 of us found ourselves standing at the Scuppernog parking lot, we headed back and got on the trail we needed to be on. With how much distance and time we would have been out on the trail, it would have been silly to get roused up from the 10 minutes or so we lost.
Around mile 20 or so I remember asking Steve how his legs were doing and he replied with an "Eh", and I felt the same way. At this point it was not realistic to think of the entire distance we would be needing to do but we just would focus on getting to the next aid-station and boy was that starting to get more and more exciting. I started to eat some potato chips at the aid-stations and I began to really look forward to them during. Attempted to save the other foods such as PB&Js until later but near the turn-around at mile 30, I was eating just about everything.
The exciting part was that we had 1/2 way completed with the first 100k section of the race. Mentally, I broke the race down into different segments. On the grossest (no pun intended) scale, it is a hundred mile race. For this specific race I broke it down into two smaller sections, the first 100k lollipop, and the remaining 38 miles. From there it can be further broken down into aid stations and it seemed as the race went on, I continued to break it up into smaller parts (sometimes just getting through the current negative state of mind was as far ahead as I could see).
Now Steve and I were on our way back towards the Start/Finish and my motivation was getting to be able to run w/ Jeremy who would be waiting for me at the 100k mark. The scenery had been spectacular and it was such a pleasure to be able to do what we were doing. Sometimes as Steve and I were running, I would just start laughing at both how enjoyable it was what we were doing, and also the magnitude of the distance we would be running. Somewhere between mile 30-45 (sad how big of a range this is..) Steve and I were separated and I was running some sections of the trail alone. I believe Bill Pomerenke was right in front of me during our return sections in the meadows and remember the sun was beating down on us. Ended up getting quite a bit of sun during the day and didn't realize I became a little sunburnt until a later event..
Around mile 45, I was began to get a bit discouraged as I was not running w/ Steve anymore, the legs were pretty dang tired, it was beginning to get dark, and I forgot what aid-station I was at but it started to pour. Only wearing a pair of spandex shorts I was exposed to the rain and after a day in the sun, it was instantly refreshing but also made me worried how cold I would be once leaving the aid-station. A volunteer asked if I had a jacket or anything and I replied I didn't and asked if I could wear a garbage bag. After putting the bag around my head and having multiple volunteers cutting holes in it simultaneslouly for my arms/head, I began to leave the aid-station. I remember a young girl huddled under the aid-station tent watching this whole situation take place and as I ran past her to get back onto the trail, she seemed to have a concerned or worried look on her face (like is this for realz?! look) and I just burst out laughing thinking to myself, yes this is for realz and I'm loving it. I definitely think that biking to work at 4:45am in blizzard conditions and biking to work in pouring rain without splashguards or rain-gear really prepared me to embrace this situation. As it was raining, I was graciously thanking myself that I didn't need to arrive at work in soaking wet clothes. This time, my job was to just keep running and finish up 60 more miles. Surprisingly, the garbage bag was doing a marvelous job at keeping me warm. During races in the past, I've never used garbage bags or the space blankets they pass out after just because for whatever reason I thought it was dorky but this garbage was saving my rear end from miles of running frigid on the trails in the rain. As I was alone on some long stretches of trail by myself I was loudly singing songs. As people would pass coming the other way, I would progressively quiet my singing to make it seem like I wasn't screaming female songs in falsetto by myself but that was more for their sake than mine.
It was beginning to get dark and I was starting to get worried that I would not reach Nordic (Start/Finish, 100k, 62miles) before sundown. The rain stopped after a while and after running with the garbage bag for some time, realized the reason I was sweating and becoming quite warm was because of the garbage bag I was still wearing (seems like a simple deduction right now, but for some reason it took me a while to figure this out at that point..) My feet were feeling pretty tender at this point I was just trying my best to get to the 100k to be able to meet Jeremy. Even though I knew this was a dangerous mindset, I was telling myself all I needed to do was get to the 100k mark. Knowingly that a number of people running the 100mile, do decide to drop at the 100k I kept in the back of my mind the remaining 38 miles that needed to be done after even arriving at the 100k mark (however, very far in the back of my mind). Right now I just needed, so needed to get to the 100k mark and everything would be fine, or so I thought.
Finally arriving at Nordic, it felt like I had finished up a race. There was many people celebrating their finish of 100k, and many 100milers taking an extended break at this point. Here I kept a drop bin with an additional pair of road shoes and extra clothing. After not having anything besides socks at any of the other drop bags, it felt like I had the world at my fingertips having my drop bin with a few items in it. Grabbed my headlamp, long-sleeve, new pair of socks, and the road shoes and sat down at a picnic table to start changing the shoes. Never realized how much effort it took to change a pair of shoes until this point in my life. I was afraid to take off my current pair of shoes and socks because how tender my feet were and for what it would feel like to put socks and shoes on again after. Thankfully, Vicky B was there to assist me in this process. She so so SO graciously washed my feet after I was able to slip off the shoes and socks and Jeremy put vaseline on my hotspots and I put my socks back on. Hesitated a bit before putting the shoes on again. After taking a deep breath and putting the shoes on, it felt spectacular how dry and clean they were after being in the same shoes the previous 62 miles and many hours, but my feet felt so constricted in the shoes. I was attributing this pain to the swelling that might have taken place during the time I had my shoes off so decided to just deal with it and hope it would get better as we started running. While looking in my drop bin if I needed anything else (didn't really have much left in my drop bin besides dirty shoes/socks and some protein bars for after the race, I bumped into Steve. It was relieving to see he was still in the race and we hugged and exchanged words of encouragement. He seemed pretty tired and I assured him that his pacer would be able to get him to the finish. After getting more food and waiting until Jeremy was done taping Logan's ankle, we headed back out onto the trail.
 |
| Jeremy and I at mile 62. 38 to go! |
It was very slow at first after taking such a relatively long break from running but it felt nice to have Jeremy with me. Within a couple minutes we caught up to Steve and his pacer who headed out of the aid-station before us. After running together for a couple minutes, Steve quickly retired himself to a comfy looking downed tree to take a seat and have a break. I remember thinking well why can't we do that, but realized why it would not be the best idea to do so. Unfortunately, this was the last time I saw Steve during the race even after looking for him during out and back sections of trail. Despite having my feet all cleaned up and switching shoes, they were hurting more than before I had even switched. Continued to believe this was because of the swelling, but getting further and further into the trail, I realized they must just be way too tight. I told Jeremy that at the next aid-station that I needed to loosen the shoes and for a good portion of this 5-mile stint to the next aid-station I remember complaining about my feet. Thankfully, Jeremy was patient with me and put up with all the complaints. Once arriving at the aid-station I loosened up the shoes and realized that I had left them at the tightness of when I don't wear my orthotics (however I was now wearing them which made the shoe super tight). It felt worlds better after loosening them and I was in good spirits at the moment.
To the next aid-sation it was only 2.5 miles away and I was excited for how quickly we would be able to knock that aid-station out of our way of the remaining 10 or so we had to go through to reach the finish. Although it was only 2.5 miles I remember after a half hour or so thinking how long we had been on the trail and there was no sign of the aid-station yet. No longer was 2.5 miles a quick 18 or so minutes (on road) but now it was challenge to just do a couple miles. This worried me quite a bit because some of the aid-stations close to 5 miles apart and some of them only had water at. At this time of night, any energy was helping me just get through the trail. Jeremy had been talking a bit and asking me questions but I found myself not wanting to respond because it was taking energy just to answer. A simple question such as "How's the job at the Running Room?" would lead to to almost saying "How the hell do you think it's going man, just fine!", however I would respond with quick answers and felt bad for not elaborating more. We continued to run (need to put a disclaimer out that when I say run at this point, it is pretty dang close to a walking speed) we could and there was starting to be more and more walking points. Now, I was no longer just walking the hills but would find myself seeking relief in slowing down to a walk and finding negative things to say. Thankfully Jeremy was always there to put a positive spin on things and tell me to shut-up when I needed it. Found myself getting more and more negative out on the trail at night and Jeremy sure put up with a lot and remained patient with me. It was nice having him tell me when to start eating/drinking because it was helpful to give less cognitive energy towards things. I did get a little upset because he was giving me endurolytes every half-hour or so and I had not been taking them at all during the day. I wasn't cramping yet and found no need to take them however, Jeremy was stern on giving them to me and I knew if I fought this, he might not continue telling me when to eat so I succumbed and began pill popping whenever I was handed them.
The aid-stations began to feel further and further apart and I was starting to lose ability to concentrate on getting to the next aid-station. Just getting up small climbs became big obstacles of their own (note my pessimistic attitude seeing them obstacles rather than achievements).
The week prior to the race, I abstained from caffeinated coffee beginning Wednesday in attempt to have a a strong caffeine effect when I reintroduced it to my body around midnight during the race. After getting through the caffeine withdrawal headache on Thursday and the mental fatigue and brain fog Friday, I was believing that having caffeine included coffee during the race would be a fix-me-all solution. After finally getting some coffee at an aid-station I was convinced I would start feeling much better, be able to run faster, and overall feel just better. Despite my high hopes, the only effect I was feeling from the coffee was more awake and aware of how tired I was.
From this point I don't remember a ton until getting closer to mile 90. I do remember lots of struggling and wondering if at some points I would be able to run anymore of the race. Many times I would try to do the math in my head to see if I could just walk to the finish and finish in time. I was walking many sections of the trail and was very discouraged with myself. I'm supposed to be doing this 100 "run" and I'm complaining even as I walk sections of it. I thought that after starting so slow and taking it so easy that it wouldn't be this hard to continue running, but boy was I wrong. I was having pretty low lows that were matched by high highs after. One moment I was slugging through walking a section of the trail muttering complaints to myself as Jeremy had became sick of hearing them, and the next I was running and telling Jeremy stories like a school-girl. I began to realize these lows/highs were getting more extreme and would be worried when I started to feel good because I knew the low that was about to accompany it. Each time I was able to run, was followed with a walking phase that was lasting longer and longer and becoming harder and harder to get going again. On some of the sections I was able to run, it was starting to become difficult to distinguish between if it was an uphill. It was nice to be able to follow Jeremy at points, but with my energy and mood, being all over the place, it began to get too hard to even follow him. Jeremy at one point was running in front of me and I asked him to slow down a little bit and he said I can't run any slower than this. Haha. Sometimes it helped to have the Iron Fist out there with me.
I began peeing every 5-10 minutes partly thinking it was because of just wanting a break and partly because of all the electrolyte pills I had taken. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to take a few steps continuing on the trail as I went to the bathroom, but if anything this just lost me more time, and made me look pretty foolish.
Over and over again, I was thinking how excited I was to take some time off running when I finish this race (if I finished!). Was thinking 1 week.., 2 weeks, heck maybe even a month or longer. Around mile 80, finishing seemed too far away to even consider and was curious how Jeremy was so sure that we would even finish at all. I kept asking him questions like "Do you think I can even finish this?" and "What time do you think we will finish?". He kept assuring me the time didn't matter and we just needed to keep going. He would sternly answer "Yes, we will finish" and I would 1/2 laugh and 1/2 sigh at how easy he made it sound. As we approached aid-stations from the woods, there were some that had glowsticks beginning about 100 meters away from it. This was nice to know when the aid-stations were but unfortunately road crossing were also marked with the same fashion and it was deflating to believe I was arriving at an aid-station several times to only have to cross a road and get back on the trail again.
Around mile 92 or so was when I knew finishing was possible. At this point the sun had began to rise and we were able to shed the headlamps which felt so good. I was getting a new feeling of energy I had not felt since before the race even started. Holy smokes, I'm actually going to finish this thing, I thought. Early in the AM we began to come up on another woman on the trail and as we approached her she turned around vivaciously and told us she was doing the 19-mile relay. It was amazing how much energy she had and how peppy and positive she was. I leached onto this and stuck with her as we made small talk. She had so much spring to her step that it was starting to make my legs move faster. She was power hiking the hills and running the flats and I found myself obliged to do so as well. I remember at one point my spirits being so high and enjoying her company so much that I looked back at Jeremy and we both laughed to each other and appreciated this God send. I was so used to being with my military drill sergeant Jeremy, that it was such a change of pace to have this valley girl (from Cali) talking with more energy than I've ever seen anybody have (not only because of how tired I was, but this girl really had some energy). We began passing people who looked like they were barely moving. My legs were starting to come back and I was running faster than at any point during the race. My feet were still super tender but just tried my best to stick w/ the girl. We ran several miles together and at the aid station I filled up my water bottle quick and headed out and told them to catch up. About 5 minutes later Jeremy caught up and I knew the girl would have a tougher time to catching up as our pace was continually increasing. She slowly made progress on catching us on a big climb that we had but we ended up dropping her. Jeremy and I were still passing people and I was wondering where all of the energy came from. Where was this energy when I was down in the dumps for several hours during the night? Everything was tired on me but nothing like the fatigue during the night. Around 95 miles or so I began to get pretty tired again and wished I had conserved a little bit as we still had 5 miles to go. We slowed our pace and decided to save the energy for the final 3 miles or so. We cruised through the last aid-station and all I had been thinking about was the finish line for the past few miles. Jeremy had turned his watch GPS watch on with about 13 miles left so it was nice to continually be able to ask about how much mileage or what pace we were hitting. With several miles to the finish, the trail wrinkles all around so we could hear the finish line with around 3 miles left. This was tough because at that moment, we did not know how much until the finish but could here it so close from us. The last couple miles we were hitting a pretty quick pace (around 8min miles) and were crushing the hills we came up on. One guy heard us coming from behind and turned and asked if we were doing the Fun-run (38-miles) and I proudly said "if you call 100 miles fun" and think he was surprised to see how fast we were going. With probably 2 miles to go we noticed it would be a close call to finish under 26 hours so we really began to hammer. Kept wondering when there was just 1 mile left and when Jeremy said there was we started to really kill it. Unforunately, after a few minutes of thinking there was only 1 mile left, we came upon a sign that said 1 mile and it was right before this that I thought I lost a toenail. My right pinky toe was searing in hot pain by the nail and I had to change my running gait to prevent it from hurting too much. At this point I thought there was no way to reach the finish in under 26 because there was like 6 to 7 minutes left. I kept telling Jeremy my foot was hurting as he set a heavy pace. His reply was "Well run faster then!". Gosh I love him. This was the first part in the race it felt like we were actually racing and wow did it feel good. Jeremy said we were hitting a 6:50 pace it seemed like it was going to be a super close call to finish under 26. Ended up sprinting to the finish to try and make it under 26 and saw the sign just under 26 as I finished.
The first thing I did after crossing and was immediately take my right shoe off to see if my toenail was somewhere in my shoe. Thankfully, it was just a blister that popped on top of my toe so all my nails were sparred. There was so much adrenaline going on the I didn't even realize what was going on. Hugged Jeremy and was given the copper kettle by someone. The race director Timo came over and congratulated me and told me he knew I could do it. It was cool to see him after all of the support the day before the race, during the race, and then now after finishing. Oh my gosh did it feel good to be done. Despite it being pretty chilly I stayed in just my spandex for a while as I cooled off from our last kick. I was still confused how we were able to keep the pace we did at the end there and was wondering why I wasn't able to give more energy during the night. All I knew, was it felt so nice to be done. My feet were so raw that it hurt to take the shoes off and I could barely put them in sandals after the race.
 |
| Jeremy and I after the finish |
Tried to clean the feet up as much as possible. Would have paid lots of money to go in a ice bath at this point but was almost just as content with sitting and not having to run anymore. Watched several people finish and started to get a bit chilly. Had some warm chili soup and other foods at the finish line and continued to watch others finish. Went inside the cabin thingy near the finish line and laid down on a cot. Jeremy said you're gonna fall asleep and I assured him I was just resting. He said you'll be out in less than two minutes and I shut my eyes and to prove him wrong I started counting. Before getting to 30 seconds I was asleep and woke up an hour later feeling like I had just blinked my eyes. I was pretty tired but wanted to see John Taylor finish so went back outside.
Within the hour, I quickly turned into a 99 year old and walking anywhere became a chore. Ate some more soup and other snacks and watched people finish for a bit again. Jeremy said he was heading back to the cities and with me needing to get back to the cities trying to make it to my grandpas birthday party, I decided to ride back with Jeremy. We stopped at the local general store and had a couple sandwiches. Jeremy had to go to the bathroom so I laid down outside on a bench and when I sat up I realized my back was all sticky. Thought it was gum or something so went to the bathroom to check out the back of my sweatshirt. Took off the sweatshirt and saw it there some some sticky stuff on the lower back part and realized that it was the HammerGel from inside the back pocket of my spandex. I looked at my lower back and it was covered in the gel so began wiping it away. Proceded to find HammerGel where noone should ever have it.. and after taking a bit of time to "freshen up" in the bathroom, rushed to the car where Jeremy was waiting. We began driving home and stopped again for food at the Mcdonalds not too far away from La Grange. Boy was that good. Fell asleep in the car for an hour or so and woke up to "Just Give Me a Reason" being played on the radio and Jeremy and I duoed it up.
Arrived at home and realized noone was there (or were any cars) so I wasn't able to make it to my grandpa's bday party :(
Ate again at home, showered and hoped into bed because I had work the next morning at 5:30am. grr
Looking back on it, it feels like I didn't have much time to reflect on the race. Maybe that's why I decide to write Race blogs so I can formally remember the races. Happy I decided to write a blog on this race and wish I could have remembered every detail. It's amazing reading other people's blog and seeing how much they remember during 100milers.
I remember after my friend Jeremy had got behind on blogging two of his 100s and after me pestering him to get them done, he told me he hated doing them and would rather just run another 100. I thought he was nuts to say this but after giving several attempts to write down what I can remember, I'm almost ready to sign up for another.. And probably will not be writing as long as a blog post as this one, however I'm grateful to have taken the time to write down what I did.
After a week of binge eating Mcdonalds, Chinese Food, Taco bell, Little Caesar's (one of the days I had all of these) and running zero miles, I am pretty excited to start running again. Plan on doing the free week of CorePower Yoga with John the week after this and looking forward to the Hot Yoga. Not quite sure when my next 100 will be but I know there will be much more training going on next time around.
 |
| last 15 miles (last few miles not very accurate) |
With the last mile or so, the calves were
starting to get dangerously close to cramping, making me take quicker strides
and consciously try to run from the quads more. It was a fun finish with some
spectators near the finish line. 
