I've Had a Hard Time Deciding If I Should Enter the Western States Lottery

The lottery period for the Western States Endurance Run (WSER) started on November 4th.  It ends on November 11th.  For weeks, I’ve been undecided as to whether I should put my name in the lottery.

For those who don’t know, WSER is a 100 mile trail run that starts in Squaw Valley, CA and finishes in Auburn.  It’s the granddaddy of all 100 mile trail runs.  It’s also the most popular, which is why they need to use a lottery.  Every year, thousands of runners attempt to enter the race, but only about 400 will get in.

I got into this race in 2012.  I wasn’t ready.  I wasn’t sufficiently trained to handle the numerous long, steep descents.  I trashed my quads in the first 15 miles.  I made other mistakes, and they all seemed to feed into each other.  After a long, slow downward spiral, I finally dropped out at the Michigan Bluff aid station (55.7 miles).

Some of my friends tried to reassure me by telling me I would finish the next year.  They didn’t understand.  As difficult as it is to finish the race, getting into it is even harder.  After my DNF in 2012, I didn’t have a qualifying race for 2013.  I had to wait another year.  In 2013, I ran a qualifying race.  Then I put my name in the lottery for 2014.  I didn’t get in.

In 2014, I entered another qualifying race.  My plan was to keep qualifying and entering the lottery every year until I got in.  The longer you keep trying, the more tickets you get in the lottery.  With only one ticket, your odds are almost nil.  After five or six years, your chances start to get realistic.  It was a long-term project, but I was determined to earn a second chance to finish this race.

My qualifying race in 2014 was the Bighorn Trail 100.  That race is comparable in difficulty to WSER.  If I could finish it, I would not only qualify, but I would prove to myself that I was ready.  I was in good shape.  I was pacing myself well.  I had the right gear to make it through a nighttime thunderstorm.  About 44 miles into the race, I fell into a creek. The water was ice cold, and I got hypothermic.  I had to power walk for four miles just to get to an aid station where I could drop out.  That DNF was disappointing.  It also left me without a qualifier for 2015.

In 2015, I registered for the Bighorn Trail 100 again.  I wanted to finish this race as badly as I wanted to finish WSER.  About six weeks before the race, I suffered a groin injury.  I wasn’t fully healed in time for the race.  Obsessed with redeeming myself for my previous DNF, I started the race.  After 30 miles, I saw the error of my ways and dropped out.   I didn’t get a buckle, and I didn’t get a qualifier, but I made my leg worse.

By the beginning of 2016, I couldn’t run at all.  I needed to take some time off to heal.  Then I needed to do some physical therapy and get back in shape.  I didn’t run a qualifying race that year, but by the end of the year I was getting back in shape again.

One of my goals this year was to qualify for WSER, so I could once again start building up tickets in the lottery.  Another goal was to finish the Bighorn Trail 100.  This time I also scheduled another qualifying race.  In February, I ran the Rocky Raccoon 100.  I finished Rocky Raccoon, but I never made the trip to Wyoming for the Bighorn Trail 100.  At the same time the race was starting, I was in surgery to repair a herniated disc.

I’ll never know for sure what caused this injury.  It may have been the cumulative wear and tear of years of training and racing.  Alternatively, it may have been the additional strain of doing more hill training and running hillier races.  I first noticed my symptoms during a race that had a few steep descents.  Four weeks earlier, I ran a marathon that descended about 5,000 feet.  I was also doing hill training in preparation for the Bighorn Trail 100.  The impact of running downhill puts much more strain on your muscles, joints and spine.  Finally, the injury may have started with a traumatic event.  In the previous six months, I had fallen six times during races.  In one of those falls, I broke a rib.

For the first few months after surgery, I could only walk.  I took up race-walking to stay in shape, and so I could still do a few of the races I had already entered.  Since then, I’ve done a little bit of running, but I’m still mostly walking.  I expect to eventually return to running marathons, but I don’t know if I’ll even be able to do races like Bighorn or Western States.  Maybe this was a one-time injury, and I’ll eventually be good as new.  On the other hand, maybe I’ll be at high risk of another back injury if I do races that are too rugged.  I just don’t know.  That’s why I’ve been unsure about whether to enter the WSER lottery.

Let me be clear about one thing.  I don’t want to run WSER in 2018.  I know I wouldn’t be ready.  The point of entering the lottery is to start building up tickets again.  Realistically, it’s going to take several years to get in.  If I ever want to do this, I have to start getting tickets in the lottery.  The point of entering this year is to keep my options open for future years.

Before entering the lottery, I asked myself three questions.

The first question is, “What would you do if your name got drawn for 2018?”  The odds of that are pretty slim, but it’s still a possibility.  In all likelihood, I wouldn’t run the race.  In past years, that would mean forfeiting my entry fee and also wasting a coveted bib number, when thousands of other runners were trying to get in.  This year, the race organizers made a change to the entry process.  In addition to drawing enough names to fill the field, they’ll draw additional names to create a waiting list.  If an entrant notifies the race officials that they’re unable to run, somebody from the waiting list will get to run in their place.  If my name gets drawn and I notify them before May 1st that I can’t run, I’ll get a 75% refund.  I also won’t have to feel guilty about denying anyone else a chance to run.

The second question is, “Will you run a qualifying race next year?”  It’s pointless to get a ticket in the lottery next year if I’m not going to keep trying every year.  If you don’t enter, you lose all your tickets.  I don’t expect to be able to run WSER next year, and mostly of the qualifying races are also pretty rugged.  Is there a qualifying race that I think I could finish, even though I’m not currently doing much running?  Could I run it safely, or would I have too much risk of injury?  I’ve identified at least one qualifying race that I could probably finish.  It’s the Vermont 100.  The Vermont 100 is a hilly race, but the course is more dirt road than trail.  It’s challenging, but it’s not technical.  I could probably finish it with minimal injury risk by walking the downhill sections and doing run/walk everywhere else.  It’s even possible that I could power walk the whole thing and finish within the 30 hour time limit.

The last question is, “Do I really think I can finish WSER, or am I just kidding myself?”  I don’t know the answer to that one.  Right now, it’s hard to imagine.  It will probably take a year to get all the way back into running.  During that first year, I’ll stick to road races that are mostly flat.  A year from now, I’ll probably have a better idea.  Until I know for sure, I want to keep my options open.  If I don’t enter the lottery this year, I’m essentially giving up for all time.  I’m not getting any younger, and I’ll only be more prone to injuries as I enter my 60s.  If I’m ever doing to do this race, I needed to do it before I get too much older.  That means I need to start building up tickets in the lottery.

After considering all of this, I still went back or forth several times.  One week, I convinced myself to just give up on WSER.  The next week, I convinced myself to keep my options open.  Until registration opened, I didn’t have to make a final decision.  On Saturday, registration finally opened.  The clock was running, and I only had one week to make up my mind.  Today, I finally made my decision.  I put my name in the lottery.

I hope I don’t get in!

I've Rediscovered the Pursuit of PRs.

When I started running, I was motivated by personal records (PRs).  Running was the first athletic activity that I was even remotely good at.  I liked having an objective method for measuring my progress.  If I ran the same distance twice, my stopwatch told me which time was faster.

I tried to set a new PR every time I ran.  I treated each training run like it was a race.  I could that at first, but only because I had so much room for improvement.

Eventually, I discovered 5K and 10K races.  These were opportunities to test myself (and try to set a new PR).  I saw no point in doing a race if I wasn’t in good enough shape to make a serious attempt at a PR.  If I was just going to run, I could do that at home.

I viewed marathons differently.  At first, just finishing one was a challenge.  I wanted to run faster if I could, but even if I couldn’t, I felt a sense of satisfaction.  It didn’t have to be a PR.  Even after running hundreds of marathons, I still felt like it was a distance that always challenged me.  I could never take it for granted.

In 1992, the year I turned 31, I set new PRs for 5K, 8K, 10K, 7 miles, half marathon, 25K, and marathon.  The following year, I let myself get out of shape.  I also gained weight.  By the time I lost the weight and got serious about my training, I was several years older.  I still ran marathons, but I stopped doing shorter distances.  I knew my days of setting PRs were behind me.

In 1998, I ran my first ultra.  As I tackled new distances, I once again had opportunities to set PRs.  Eventually, though, I realized I was also past my peak for those distances.

The last time I set a running PR was in 2014, when I set a PR for the unusual distance of 89.3 kilometers.  That was at the Comrades Marathon in South Africa.

I have hundreds of friends who run, and I’m connected with many of them on Facebook.  When I see that one of my friends set a new PR, I’m happy for them, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to relate to that feeling.  It’s been 25 years since my marathon PR.  It’s been just as long for shorter distances.

That all changed this summer.  After my back surgery in June, I had to give up running for at least 12 weeks.  I started walking so I could still get exercise.  Then I started race-walking, so I could do marathons and finish within the time limits.  At first, race-walking marathons was an act of desperation.  Given a choice between walking a race and not doing it at all, I chose to walk.

The first time I walked a marathon, I finished in 5:47.  That was automatically a PR.  By my next one, I had improved to 5:21.  That was another new PR, although I was more thrilled to have finished within the time limit.  In the next one, I narrowly missed a new marathon PR for race-walking, but my half marathon split was a PR.

When I could, I started running occasionally, but most of my training is still walking.  I want to eventually return to running marathons, but I don’t want to risk injury by doing too much too soon.

I finished the Moose Mountain Marathon by doing a combination of running and walking.  It was my slowest marathon ever, but I finished.  Four weeks ago, I returned to race-walking for the Ely Marathon.  Why didn’t I run it?  I had two reasons.  First, I felt like I was overdue for a quality long race-walking workout.  My longest walk since the Solidarity Marathon in August was only 10.2 miles.  Having worked so hard to improve my race-walking, I wanted to keep that going.  Second, I learned the Ely Marathon had a hilly course.  I’m not ready to run hills.  Running downhill transfers too much impact to my back.

I surprised myself by setting another new race-walking PR in that race.  I finished a hilly course in 5:17 under less than ideal weather conditions.  That made me wonder how much faster I could walk the Amsterdam Marathon, which has a fairly flat course.  I went into that race gunning for another new PR.  I never considered running it.  I wanted a PR, and I could only do that by race-walking.  The result was a 14 minute improvement.

It’s been 25 years since I last set a PR for running a marathon.  Since then, I’ve run 283 marathons without setting a PR.  I’ve only walked five marathons, but I set PRs in four of them.  Even in the race where I didn’t set a new marathon PR, I set a half marathon PR.  I’m not yet ready to run a marathon without doing a substantial amount of walking.  Why run/walk a marathon and finish with a really slow time, when I can race-walk it and set a PR?

I love the thrill of setting a PR.  I’ve done some race-walking before this year, but only for shorter distances.  I’m new to race-walking marathons.  That means I once again have lots of room for improvement.  In any given race, I have to ask myself, “Can I set a PR in this one?”  I feel like I did when I was in my 20s.

I hope to eventually return to running marathons, but in the short-term, I’m more than happy to walk them.  I was planning to run the FANS 24 Hour Race next June.  Now I’m planning to walk it.  It’s one of the few races in the United States where a walker can earn a Centurion badge for walking 100 miles in 24 hours.  That’s a challenging goal, but I still have almost eight months to train, and I’m off to a good start.  In the meantime, I’ll use marathons as part of my training.  I’ll also pursue new PRs.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Labor Day weekend has come and gone, marking the unofficial end of summer.  I spent my summer vacation walking.  Like summer, my 12 week recovery period is almost over.  On Friday, I can resume normal activities, as tolerated, without restrictions.  I interpret that to mean I should start doing things a little at a time.  If I feel alright, I can do more.  If it hurts when I do that, I shouldn’t do that.

Over the next several weeks, I expect to gradually add a few running miles to my training.  Even as I ramp up my running mileage, I expect walking to be a big part of my training.

I’ve always known walking is easier on the body than running, but this summer has proven the point.  Before my back injury, I was running 60+ miles per week.  Most of my runs were 10-11 miles, with an occasional marathon.  I also took a couple of rest days each week.  I needed them.

Running seven days a week never seemed like an attainable goal for me, unless I cut back on either my mileage or my intensity.  Running more than once per day seemed unthinkable.  After one run, I was sore and stiff.

Since the beginning of July, I’ve averaged more than 70 miles a week of walking, and I never feel stiff or sore.  I think I could easily ramp my mileage much higher, although I have to devote quite a bit of time to it.  I can walk several times in one day, and I haven’t taken a day off since my surgery.  Sometime after a particularly hard workout I’ll feel drained, but I’m always surprised how quickly I can recover.

I can see myself running about every other day, but on the days in between I’ll only walk.  Even on the day when I run, I may run shorter distances and then supplement my mileage with walking.

I have several fall races on my calendar.  At first, I expect to walk most of the way, but I’ll run here and there.  With each race, I’ll do a larger proportion of walking.  Eventually, I’ll be able to run the whole way.  Even then, however, I’ll probably walk some of my races.  Now that I’ve added race-walking to my repertoire, I want to stick with it.

Looking farther into the future, I’m going to have to make some difficult choices.  I may never know for sure what caused my back injury.  Was it simply the cumulative wear and tear of running so many marathons?  Was it the pounding my body took from steep downhill races like Revel Mt. Charleston?  Did it all start with the falls I sustained last winter during trail races?  I wish I knew for sure.

I used to stick mainly to relatively flat road races, and I could glide just above the pavement with minimal impact.  When I ran ultras, they were mostly fixed time races, which were also mostly flat.  I think if I had stuck to those races, I would have been OK.

More recently, I challenged myself to go out of my comfort zone.  I took a stab at trail races with mixed results.  I did surprisingly well in my first 50 mile trail run, but I failed miserably when I attempted the Western States 100.  I also have two DNFs at the Bighorn Trail 100.

In those races, I don’t glide along gently.  I’m often awkward and off-balance, and my body has to absorb the shock.  I suck at running downhill on trails.  I’m getting pretty good at running downhill in road races, but even those races take a toll.

Common sense would suggest that I should give up on the races that are beating me up and return to what I’m good at.  It’s easy to say that, but I hate to give up on a goal.  I really want another chance to finish Western States.  Even more, I want to finish Bighorn.  If I could finish those two races, it would be much easier for me to retire from trail races.

So far, my decisions about races have been fairly easy.  Cancelling Bighorn this year was disappointing, but that decision was a no-brainer.  I was in surgery that day.  Attempting to do the race instead would have meant risking paralysis.  Next I had a series of four marathons in four days over the July 4th weekend.  That was also a pretty easy decision.  That early in my recovery, I couldn’t even fly to Portland.

My next race had no time limit, so I could walk the whole thing.  Then I had two races in Europe.  Training to be able to walk them within the time limits wasn’t easy, but I had already paid for my flights, so I had a lot of incentive to at least try.

My next race is a trail marathon.  At first, I thought I would have to skip this one.  Then I learned it had a time limit of 14 hours.  It’s a rugged trail, but I’m sure I can walk it in 14 hours.  I’m going into it with the attitude that I’m doing an all-day hike.

My first difficult choice will come in November.  That’s when registration begins for Western States.  For the first time in four years, I’ve completed a qualifying race.  I’ll only have one ticket in the lottery, so my odds of getting picked for next year’s race are vanishingly small.  I have no desire to attempt it next year, but I want to keep my options open for future years.  For each year that your name isn’t drawn, you get twice as many tickets in the lottery.  After five or six years, your chances of getting in are much better.

Unfortunately, to keep improving my odds, I need to keep entering the lottery every year.  That means I need to do qualifying races every year.  It also means I have to train for them.  That’s an awful lot of wear and tear on my body.  If I don’t enter the lottery this year, it probably means I’m giving up forever.  If I do enter the lottery this year, I need to plan on doing another qualifying race next year.  Either way, it will be a difficult choice.

Giving up the steep downhill races will be easier, except I’m already signed up for one.  I’m registered for the Hawaii Bird Conservation Marathon in December.  If this was just another race, I would skip it.  Unfortunately, it’s not.  Three years ago, I was on the verge of completing my second circuit of sub-4 hour marathons in all 50 states.  I just needed three more states, and I had already scheduled the races.  Then I had a groin injury.  I cancelled my Utah race and had a near miss in my Alaska race.  By the time I got to my Hawaii race, it was a struggle just to finish.

I eventually got my sub-4 hour marathons in Alaska and Utah, but Hawaii has proven to be elusive.  Most Hawaii races are hot and humid.  Even when I’m in good enough shape to break four hours in normal weather conditions, I struggle to do it in the heat.  I don’t have as much margin for error as I used to.

I haven’t made a decision about this race yet.  I can cancel my flight without penalty, so it’s more about the lost opportunity than the money.  If I do this one, it will probably be the last steep downhill road race I ever do.  Can my body handle one more?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I just don’t know.

I also need to start giving myself more time to recover between races.  I used to race almost every weekend, and I sometimes raced on as many as five consecutive days.  I’ve gradually cut back to roughly every other weekend, but I still sometimes do series of races on consecutive days.  I probably need to cut back on those as well.  I’m already scheduled for a series in late January.  I’ll still go through with that one, because it’s a rare opportunity to run marathons in several different countries.  I had tentative plans for other series next year.  I’ll probably back away from those.  From now on, if I’m going to do a series, I needed to have a good reason.

I’ll keep you posted on my decisions and my race results.  Wish me luck as I begin running again.