On July 18, I ran the third race of the Summer Camp Series. Summer Camp is a series of marathons and half marathons in central Minnesota put on by Mainly Marathons. This series was previously known as the Minnesota Brothers Trail Series.
This year, the Summer
Camp Series consisted of five races. Each
one is at a different venue. Two of the
venues were new this year. I’m not doing
the entire series, but I want to experience each race venue at least once. As it turns out, the races with new venues
happened to be on consecutive days.
Running on consecutive days doesn’t give me much time to recover between
races, but it’s convenient for traveling to the races.
I stayed at the same
hotel in St. Cloud where I’ve three or four times before. In the last three years alone, I’ve spent 31
nights in this hotel, so I’m getting to know the area pretty well.
I drove to St. Cloud
after lunch on Sunday. On my way, I made
two stops. First, I stopped in
Clearwater to familiarize myself with the park where tomorrow’s race will be
held. Then, I went to the park in Sauk
Rapids where yesterday’s race was held. Several
of the runners were still on the course, and I got a chance to say hello to a
lot of runners I know. Everyone was
talking about how hot it was.
When I got to my hotel, they
didn’t have a room ready yet. While I
waited, I went grocery shopping to pick up food for breakfasts and post-race
snacks. By the time I got back, my room
was ready. After unpacking, I went to Whitney Park, to check out the venue for today’s
race.
I had an early dinner at
House of Pizza in Sartell. They have pizzas
with interesting combinations of toppings.
I had their roasted garlic potato pizza, which is the same pizza I had
before the first day of the Running Ragged 20in20 Series, two years ago.
I got to sleep as early
as I could. I slept well for half the
night, but then I woke up and had trouble getting back to sleep. When I got up, I didn’t worry about whether I
got enough sleep. Instead, I worried
that I might have let myself get dehydrated yesterday. I was either outside or in a hot car for most
of the afternoon, but I didn’t have anything to drink until dinner. I don’t usually drink much before a race, but
this morning I made an exception. I also
reminded myself to take in plenty of fluids during the race.
Today’s race was held at Whitney
Park, which is a large athletic complex in St. Cloud. Our course was and out-and-back route that
went most of the way around the perimeter of the park.
The course was paved, and
it was extremely flat. According to my
watch, there was only 27 feet of ascent in the whole race. That’s an average of one foot per mile.
We ran clockwise around
the park for just over a mile. Then we
made a U-turn and ran counter-clockwise until we returned to the starting point. To complete a marathon, we needed to run this
route 12 times.
The race started at 6:00,
but I needed to be there early to pick up my race packet. People doing the entire series already had
their race bibs, so there were only a few of us who needed to pick up our race
packets in the morning.
Today was another hot day. When the race started, it was already 75
degrees. The forecast high was 95. It wouldn’t get that hot until late
afternoon, but it climbed into the upper 80s before I finished.
There was an aid station in
the start/finish area with water, Gatorade, and a variety of food. There was a table where we could leave our
water bottles.
Usually, these races only
have one aid station. Today, there was
also a self-service aid station on the opposite side of the park, which had
water, Coke, Sprite, and a cooler full of ice.
It was positioned where we would pass it twice on each lap. If I had known there would be two aid stations,
I would’ve brought two bottles. I only
had one bottle, so I left it at the main aid station.
I struggled at the
Firecracker Triple earlier this month, and my training has been hampered by an
inflamed tendon in my left leg. I wasn’t
really sure if I was up to racing on two
consecutive days, so I planned to pace myself very conservatively. The hot conditions gave me an extra reason to
go slow.
When we started running,
I went out of my way to start slowly. My
pace was so slow that it felt awkward at first.
Even so, there were only a few runners ahead of me in the first lap.
At each of the aid
stations, I took a one-minute walking break.
I did that to keep from overheating.
Walking for a minute gives your body a chance to cool down. For the first few miles, my pace (including
the walking) was about 11 minutes per mile.
After a few miles, my pace slowed to about 11:20.
I was sweaty, but didn’t
feel hot. The walking breaks were effective
in giving my body a chance to dissipate the excess heat.
Kevin Brosi does a lot of
these races. Kevin tells bad jokes to
anyone who will listen. Apparently,
Kevin has raised his game. Now he puts
them on signs too.
Kevin can be forgiven for
the bad jokes, because he’s there early every day to help set up. He makes sure all our ducks are in a row.
By the end of my third
lap, I had already emptied my 20 oz. bottle of Gatorade. I refilled it and headed out on my fourth
lap. I continued drinking at the same
rate for the whole race. At first, it seemed
like I was hydrating well. After five
laps, I already had to make a bathroom stop.
For the first half of the
race, I often thought I heard footsteps.
It always seemed like there was another runner right behind me. I eventually realized it was the sound of my
camera bouncing up and down within my fanny pack.
After six laps, I was on
pace to finish in the low 4:50s. I
expected to slow down in the second half, but it seemed likely that I would
break five hours. I was hesitant to make
that my goal. I had to wait and see how
I felt in the second half.
Before starting my
seventh lap, I refilled my bottle again. I also took the time to take my camera out of
my fanny pack and put it in my drop bag.
By now, the temperature had
climbed into the 80s. I felt warmer, and
I was sweating more, but the walking breaks were still doing their job. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger of
overheating.
My pace slowed down a little. In the first half of the race, it ranged
between 11:00 and 11:30. In the second
half, several of my miles were slower than 11:30.
Speed is relative. I was running at a pace that I regard as
slow. For many years, I consistently
finished marathon with times in the 3:20s.
Today, I was on pace to be an hour and a half slower than that. Most of the other runners seemed to regard me
as the fast guy. Indeed, I was the first
runner to finish six laps. By the end of
my eighth lap, I was already at least one lap ahead of everyone else.
When I did the Running Ragged
20in20 Series two years ago, I often tried to be the first one to finish. When I was only competing against other
runners who were doing the whole series, I could do that. Sometimes, a new runner would show up with
fresh legs. When that happened, I knew
better than to try to complete with them.
Today, I was the runner
with fresh legs. Most of the other
runners were already on their third consecutive day. Some of the runners did the 7-day Heartland
Series right before this one. For them,
this was the 10th day in a row. I had
some soreness in my left leg, but I’m pretty sure everyone else had more aches
and pains than I did.
Although I didn’t have a
bottle at the secondary aid station, I realized there was still a way I could
make use of it. It occurred to me that I
could stop there to put ice cubes in my hat.
Each time I went by there, I thought about it. Each time, I told myself that I could
consider doing that later, but I didn’t have any immediate need to do that.
When I finished my 9th
lap, I finished another bottle of Gatorade, but my bottle had warmed up in the
sun. The Gatorade was warm, and it wasn’t
at all appetizing. I still finished
it. Then I started to refill my
bottle. I wondered if I could put ice
cubes in it. Then I saw the volunteers
were scooping ice cream to make root beer floats. I left a little room in my bottle and asked
them to put a scoop of ice cream in it.
Then I put the cover on. A
Gatorade float may sound weird, but it was a way of chilling the Gatorade so it
wouldn’t warm up as quickly.
In my 10th lap, I started
to feel really hot. Sweat from my
forehead was dripping into my eyes. The
salt made my eyes sting. It was time to
start putting ice in my hat. I had already
run by the self-service aid station once, but I could stop there on the way back.
When I got back to the
self-service aid station, I opened the cooler and put a handful of ice in my hat. The hat I was wearing today has a large
opening in the back and half of the ice went right through it. I put more ice in my hat. This time I was more careful to keep the ice
in the front of my hat. When I put it
on, half of the ice still fell through the back. The ice that remained in my hat felt good.
This is the first time I
can recall putting ice in my hat during a marathon, but I’ve often done that
during hot-weather ultramarathons. It’s
effective in cooling you, but the cold ice on your head can hurt at first. There wasn’t actually that much ice in my
hat, so it didn’t hurt. Within a minute
or two, I could start to feel it melting on top of my head.
The ice made me feel more
comfortable, but it didn’t take long for it to melt. Early in my 11th lap, the ice cubes were
already gone. Ice water from my hat ran
down my neck and into the back of my shirt.
The cold water in my shirt helped cool my back.
When I passed the
self-service aid station again, I felt like I was OK for now, but I decided to
stop there again on the way back.
I put ice in my hat
again. This time, I got most of the ice
to stay in my hat. That was both good
news and bad news. It would eventually
cool me down, but it was painful at first.
It also seemed to make me feel sluggish.
Having so much ice on my head caused a rapid surge of blood flow to the top
of my head. When that happens, it can
briefly make you feel short of breath. I’ve
experienced that before. I didn’t
actually feel short of breath, but I had to slow down.
A few minutes later, I
could feel ice water filtering through my hair.
That felt good. I felt much
cooler now.
Near the beginning of my
last lap, I stopped again to pee. I
could’ve waited until after the race, but the port-o-potties were a distance
away from the start/finish area. I
decided to stop while I was going by anyway, so I wouldn’t have to walk there
after the race. That says something
about how I felt. I would rather lose
time during the race than have to do extra walking later.
When I was halfway
through my last lap, I looked at my watch.
It was obvious that I would break five hours, but not by as much as I previous
expected. My previous mile had taken
11:44, and I assumed I would continue to slow down. I neglected to consider that my previous mile
included a bathroom stop.
In the second half of
that lap, I was sure I was slowing down.
In retrospect, I may have been overly pessimistic. I felt awful, and the last mile seemed to
take forever, but I may not have slowed down at all. I may have actually sped up in that mile.
I finished in 4:55:40. That surprised me. I was expecting to finish in 4:57 or 4:58. I slowed down in the second half, but only by
about two and a half minutes. That’s not
bad when you consider it was much hotter in the second half.
The medals for these
races are designed to link together to form a chain. You get the top piece and the piece
indicating the year for doing at least one race of the series. For completing today’s race, I got the piece
that says, “Viking Voyage.” That was the
name of today’s race. For each additional
race in the series, you get another piece to add to the chain. Finally, if you do the entire series, there’s
an extra piece. Here’s what my chain
looks like so far.
After finishing, I was out
of breath. I had to lean on a table for
a few minutes before I could walk away.
I finished my Gatorade and sat down on a bench for a few minutes. Then I got a root beer float and sat down again
while I drank it. I needed several minutes
to recover before I could walk back to my car.
During my last lap, I
made I bathroom stop, so I wouldn’t have to walk back to the port-o-potties
after the race. That turned out to be a
bad decision. After sitting for a few
minutes, I needed to make another bathroom stop, so I had to do that extra
walking anyway.
After the race, I briefly
had a symptom that I can only assume was heat-related. My vision was slightly impaired. When I looked at the grass, I saw a combination
of white and green. It was as if the
grass was covered with cotton balls.
That eventually passed, but it was disconcerting.
When I got back to my
car, the first thing I did was to check my weather app. It was now 87 degrees. When you factor in the sun and the humidity,
the “feels like” temperature was 99 degrees.
No wonder I felt so awful. I felt
like I was doing OK for most of the race.
It was only in the last three laps that the heat took a heavy toll on
me.
When I got back to the
hotel, I switched into recovery mode. My
first priority was refueling. I drank
three glasses of chocolate milk and ate four mini-scones. I wanted to replace carbs as quickly as
possible, while also getting some protein.
I refilled my water bottle and put it in the refrigerator to get cold.
I had some symptoms of
dehydration. I had to be careful how I
moved my feet, or they would cramp up.
If I stood up too quickly, I would get light-headed. I worked on rehydrating for the rest of the
day.
After a race, I usually
take a hot bath and stretch. I took a
bath, but I was careful not to get the water too hot. Then I did some stretching.
One of the advantages of
driving to a race is being able to bring anything you need. I didn’t have to travel light. I brought a variety of gel ice packs from
home. My hotel room had a full-size
refrigerator, so I was able to freeze them overnight. After I dried off, I iced the sore spot in my
left leg.
Ideally, I wanted to ice
it and then hop in the hotel’s whirlpool.
I was worried I might easily overheat in the whirlpool, so I settled for
just icing, and then waiting for my leg to warm up on its own. Then I iced it using a different ice
pack. I had enough of them to do that
five times.
Tomorrow’s race is expected to be just as hot as today’s. Given how wiped out I felt after today’s race, I’m a bit worried about tomorrow. I may have to go much slower.
No comments:
Post a Comment