Let’s start with the step ladders, shall we?
I had heard terrible stories about the roots at Rocky Raccoon 100. I mean some really, REALLY bad stories at Rocky Raccoon (RR). I’m hear to tell you, they’re true!
I was told that at nighttime, the roots would be reaching up and grabbing at my ankles and that I would have to be high stepping to get past them. I had also been told they were pretty much only in the first 5 miles of the 20 mile loop. *That last little bit of info? Yea, that wasn’t true. They’re pretty much everywhere.*
Being vertically challenged (4’11”), I was worried about the roots. It’s a challenge to have to deal with things like that when you have short legs. I had my head ready to deal with them but had been having some pretty awful #racedreams about them.
*actual pic of the roots from the course.
The worst dream was of running the full 100 miles carrying an extension ladder. I would stop at each root, set up the ladder to climb over the root. Then I would pick the ladder back up and run to the next root and repeat the process.
I will be honest and say that a few of those roots? I could have used a ladder! LOL!!! #ShortPersonProblems
In all honesty, Rocky Raccoon is a beautiful course! Thoroughly enjoyed running it…as far as I got. At RR, I earned my first ever DNF (Did Not Finish). To say I’m a Sad Panda would be a huge understatement.
My training had gone remarkably well! My 50M at Brazos Bend had been tons of fun and about as “easy” as 50 miles could be. I was ready for great things at RR!!!
Strange things happened yesterday at Rocky Raccoon and I’ll try to fill you in on the behind the scenes details. I think(?) I know what happened? Let me know what you think.
Some of this is kind of TMI:
I take some medication every evening. Some evenings, it doesn’t affect me at all. Other evenings it turns me into a complete doorstop. I can’t walk a straight line and sometimes I can’t even talk. It’s pretty wild the evenings that happens!
If that happened at the race, well, that would spell disaster! Back last May, my Doc and I chatted about how to deal with this. When I saw him again in November, he had decided on having me taper off the medication gradually over two weeks and then as soon as I crossed the finish line, I would immediately take it again.
If I accidentally skip a dose of this stuff, I have some pretty weird side effects and lose motor control so I couldn’t just skip it on race day. I was in a pickle and he thought we could do the taper and be okay.
I wrote down the directions for the taper while we were chatting and two weeks before race day, I started the taper.
4 days before race day, I took my last dose of that medication. All through the taper, I had insomnia, so leading up to the race, I had one night’s sleep, the night before the race. I was dead on my feet.
This is just to tell you what was going on during the final weeks leading up to race day, that’s all.
Race day arrived. YAY!!!
We had met up with others from my racing team, Renegade Endurance. We all headed over to packet pickup and then to dinner before crashing for the night.
The four of us had run the 50M together at Brazos Bend as a training run for Rocky Raccoon. We had tons of fun at Brazos Bend!
I had set out my gear for the race the night before.
I rolled out of bed race day morning and MFH and I drove over to the park for the race.
It was “Go Time!”
It was dark and we all had our headlamp on. It was kind of fun running with so many people at dark o’clock! I do lots of dark o’clock training runs during the summer but they’re usually solo runs. The company was nice!
*I have to say here how much I love my new headlamp! Wow~this thing is amazing!!!
Within the first mile, I went down. Just all of a sudden, there I was~kissing the dirt. Rats. Luckily, I bounced up pretty quick and kept on going.
Daylight arrived and one by one, we were shutting off our headlamps. Visibility was good.
Now, while my headlamp was on, I had noticed a “shadow” around my right eye. Shadow is a weird explanation but I really don’t know how else to explain what I was seeing in the dark.
As the sky grew lighter, the shadow wasn’t so…shadowish? I kind of forgot about it but I kept on falling! I fell 10 times in that first 20 mile loop.
It began to get more difficult to get back up. I was getting sore waaayy too early in the race for this kind of nonsense. My time/pace was good and I finished the first loop right where I wanted to be for time. I was a happy girl! I was worried but happy. MFH caught this pic of me coming in the the start/finish at the end of that first 20 mile loop.
MFH and the rest of my Renegade Endurance teammates were right there at the team tent crewing and got me back on the trail in just two minutes! Huge KUDOS for a great crew!!!
I zoomed out of the team tent for loop #2. This is where things started getting really wonky. My heart rate started that racing thing again. I walked a bit to get it to go down but it took a solid mile to go down. I would check my pace and I was only doing a 30 minute mile pace. That’s practically crawling!
Determined, I kept pushing.
Reaching the first aid station at mile 4, I looked at my Garmin. I had been “running” again but was appalled to see that I had only covered 4 miles in two hours! Holy Cow!!!
Now, I’m not the best at #RunnersMath but I can add well enough to know that I would not make a 30 hour, 100M running 2MPH. Nope! At that pace, it was going to take me a full 10 hours to run that second loop. That, and I was still falling.
*a few of my bruises starting to show up from all the falls at Rocky Raccoon.
This was not good.
This was also about the time I realized that shadow I had been seeing while wearing my headlamp? That was because I had lost vision in my right eye. It wasn’t dark, it was more like a fogged over mirror after a very hot shower.
Quite frankly, I didn’t know what to do. So, I sat back and took a practical look at my 2017 racing schedule.
In April, I’m running the London Marathon.
There was No. Way. I was going to put that race in jeopardy! I’m also running the Chicago Marathon in October and I’m registered to return to Brazos Bend in December…this time for the 100M.
It was time to call Rocky Raccoon done. I knew if I kept pushing, I would get injured. If I got injured then London wouldn’t happen. As I pulled into the mile 4 aid station, I DNF’d.
This is my first ever DNF. I’ll be honest, if doesn’t set well with me. In my head I know it’s the smart thing to do. In my heart, it’s killing me. Then I remind myself…LONDON!!!
What happened to make all of this happen? I think it was from tapering off that medication! I was fine and dandy until I started that silly taper. I’ll be chatting with that Doc when I get home this next week. There’s got to be a better way to go about this and we’ll get it ironed out.
I know so many of you were cheering and wishing me well for this race. I’m so sorry I let you down! Then again, we’re giving this another shot in December. Aiden NEEDS a buckle and I intend to earn one for him! This kid is my hero!!!
#IRun4Aiden
#ZensahAthlete
#AbbottWMM
#AltraRunning #embracethespace #zerolimits
#ChafeX *I had NO chafing or blisters during this race! Awesome stuff, ChafeX!!!
#IRun4Ultra
