Race Report from LPTRunner Steve Poulter...
Two years after setting out to complete my first 50K at
Ice Age in 2010, I feel like I am just beginning to wrap my mind around
completing these runs. Since then
I have completed six 50K’s and with this year’s Ice Age, two 50 milers. In between I had a huge fail at Glacial
50 mile last year, my first and only DNF to date.
After that DNF at Glacial I decided I needed to reset and
learn from my experiences. So I
set the Ice Age 50 mile as my target Spring running goal, and started
planning. To keep me running in
the winter, I signed up for the Gold Medal Challenge at the Pettit in
January. A marathon and half
marathon weekend would be a great back/back weekend training. That went well but the track lit up my
left IT band like a fire. I
finished and took a week off and healed up fine.
I threw in the MS RUN FA 50K to keep things exciting in
March. That went well until mile
20, when my left quad cried for mercy and from what I can tell, pulled. I was determined to overcome that Glacial
DNF, it was now a mental exercise, so I gutted it out and hiked the remaining
13 miles to finish the full event.
Another week of healing did me good, and the accomplishment was very
satisfying.
Then Chippewa came for my 2nd year as the
final build up run for Ice Age.
That was a blast and all went well. No injuries, just fun with a large LPTR crowd.
There are two big things I have discovered about running
these events. One is that I most
comfortably get them done, for the most part out there alone. I can run hit or miss with a group, or
chat for a while. But I run in
waves of feeling good and bad and just go with that feeling. Normally it means those who finish at
my pace see me leap frogging the whole race. Two, my stomach is my enemy. Eating is a necessity for energy that I haven’t fully
figured out. It’s something I keep
working on and Ice Age showed some successes but much of the same old thing.
So race day came and I hit Nordic feeling very
relaxed. Drop bags dropped, geared
up simple due to awesome weather, found some of the LPTR crowd at my pace
(Troy, Cobbie and gang) and we set off at a super easy pace. My goal was to walk 0.2 miles, then run
the rest of the mile. Repeat. This is what I do in a lot of my
training runs to conserve energy for the end. It worked great though the Blue Loop, while staying close enough
to Deb, Jim, Cobbie, Craig, Mary, Jamie and others to chat and have some fun.
Then out to the Rice Lake turn. I found that my legs and feet were feeling great, and did up
until mile 40 which is awesome for me, but I just could not shake the overwhelming
sense of fatigue. I was eating,
taking gels, Scaps, and drinking well.
Started adding M&M’s and Coke to get energy. I found the food hit my stomach,
complained for a while, then the energy hit and I ran for a while. BONK. Repeat. It was
around there I caught the LPTR train, being led by Cobbie and gang, and hung
off the back to keep a moving pace.
Out into the grasslands heading into HWY 12 and I got another burst of
energy and Craig and I move ahead at a steady pace. It was good to chat with Craig about the course and the
changes over the years. Grabbed an
Ensure from the drop bag and took it with me, sipping as I hiked. First time I tried that, which is a bad
idea in a 50. But the calories
were great and I had no problems.
I made it to Rice Lake and jammed my foot into a rock at
the road crossing. My whole body
jarred and my left heel lit up in pain.
I rarely fall, but keeping upright causes some pain everywhere
else. I made the turn and chatted
with Deb, whose advice was to just go with the fall, it might be easier. I laughed but thought about it for a
while. I know there were a lot of
spills that day, but there are spots I would not want to go down. I am going to have to practice my trip
and roll.
Heading back North it was starting to warm up. Just kept moving and eating. I was super glad to hit the pine forest
and get up to Young Road. I really
felt it was doable from there.
Into Horseriders I saw some of the fallout happening, Brad was there
with camera and big grin. Knowing
it was only 5K to the Emma turn was huge.
I headed out, caught my stride again and made up some time. Going into Emma, I saw Sam and Julie
heading South, up near the aid station Cathy, Joe, and Troy were just making
the turn. I must have made up some
ground as I had fallen behind them long ago.
Not feeling like eating any more at 40 miles is a
dilemma. I had gels and knew I
could get back to Horseriders where another Ensure waited for me. I caught up to Troy and we kept
challenging each other to keep moving.
Good conversation and motivation, and someone to complain to about how
tired I felt. Deb caught up to us
heading up and over Bald mountain (my name for it) and she chicked us big time through
Young Road. We tried to hang on
but she pulled ahead. The two
Cokes I chugged at Young hit me for the last mile and I got energy and ran it
in with Troy and Melinda who caught up to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment