Notes
Let me start by saying that this was the hardest thing I believe I have ever done. I had decided to run strolling Jim in December and my running buds all told me that I was crazy. My training consisted of weeks of 65 to 92 miles and 10 runs of over 20 miles. Three times, I ran a 20+ on Saturday and 20+ the following day and 2-3 more times I ran long back-to-backs under 20 miles. I raced 3 half marathons, Cedars Frostbite in Feb (1:35), Tom King in March (1:31), and the Country Music half seven days before the Strolling Jim, finishing 198th overall in a respectable 1:33. 2 weeks before, I had run two 5K races within an hour of each other, finishing 2nd and 4th overall. Two weeks prior to that, I ran a 9 mile race on Saturday, finishing 2nd and Greenway Marathon Sunday morning in 3:29, finishing 6th. I felt like I should have run some additional long runs, especially back-to-backs, but I felt like I was pretty well ready to run Strolling Jim Ultra.
The three weeks prior to SJ, I tapered my training, running 42 miles (4/18-4/24), 50.6 miles (4/25-5/1), and only 22 miles on race week not counting the race. This was one of the hardest things for me, since I usually don't taper. I felt like I was being lazy. It did feel good to sleep in, especially Thursday and Friday before the race. I made sure to stay hydrated and eat the right foods. Terri made me an over the top pasta dish the night before for my pre-race carb load.
Since I had never run this type race before, I had no idea what to pack and picked the brain of everybody that I knew for details and suggestions. All were extremely helpful. I decided, thanks to Tom Dolan, to carry my water in a waist pack with 2 - 12 oz bottles, which also had a 7 oz gel bottle. I packed my 3 drop bags with way more than I would need and then Thursday, my lovely wife (who would be celebrating her birthday on race day) decided that she would be my race crew. I unpacked the drop bags and made myself a stash of possible needs. Fig Newtons and PNBJs for hunger pangs, a defizzed Mt Dew for the sugar and caffeine, 2 gallons of water on ice, Electrolyte tabs, a big bottle of Hammer Gel, a couple extra pair of shoes and socks in case I sweated too much into my socks, and best of all, a big jar of Cramer anti-chaffing ointment (better than Glide). I filled a little plastic box with the anti-chaff stuff and my waist pack had a little place where it fit perfectly. I had a pretty nice setup with about anything I could have needed. A couple friends also loaded some supplies with intentions of using my crew.
I had been admiring the new Saucony VizPro running clothes and especially after seeing my buddy, Scott Wietecha finish 2nd last week in the Country music marathon (2:24) in the VizPro, I decided to reward myself for a good year by getting the shorts and bright orange singlet. I felt faster wearing it, so it should make me fast, right? I was torn between wearing my Saucony Kinvaras (7.5 oz) and a more supported shoe and decided to wear the Saucony Rides, which weighed in at about 11 oz. I had everything laid out, loaded the van, and went to bed Friday night for a last night's sleep.
We Got up at 3AM, got dressed, I had a big bowl of oatmeal, checked email and Terri and I hit the road for Wartrace, which is about 70 miles away. We arrived about 1 1/2 hours before race time, picked up my race bib and watched as other runners started rolling in. Wartrace is a step back into time, with a railroad running right through the middle of town. Old time store fronts line the street and make you want to go inside and prowl around, The race headquarters was the Walking Horse Hotel and the start and finish would be directly in front of it. About half hour before the race started, the founder of the race, known as Laz, finished the race. For some unknown reason, he had started the race the day before and finished in 17 hours and change.. Laz is a legend in ultra circles, having created a monster of a race called the Barkley marathons, which is a 100 mile endurance event just north of Knoxville. 5 - 20 mile loops with about 60-70,000 feet of elevation gain. In 23 years, there have only been 8 people to finish the race (over 700 attempts). He also is the creator of another monster, The Vol State 500K, which is a 320 mile single phase race across Tennessee. Well, a guy like this don’t make sissy races, so you can imagine what to expect from Strolling Jim. (I knew all this going in). As time ticked down for the race to begin, I sprayed down with sunscreen, lubed up so I wouldn't chaff, and got my Ipod ready for 6 plus hours of racin'. I have a varied taste of music for running, most of the time I like to listen to either Mark Knopfler (formerly of Dire Straits), Selah ( a wonderful Christian group, Darrell Scott (an old hillbilly songwriter from London, Ky who has made it big as a writer and a singer), and yes, one of my most favorite bands of all time, Pink Floyd. There is something about running while listening to David Gilmour’s wailing guitar that you just can't match.
The race director called us to the start line at 6:55 and shouted that we needed to hurry because we had to cross the tracks and a train was coming. We all made it and at precisely 7:00 AM, Laz blew the conch shell to start the 33rd running of the Strolling Jim..
Unlike traditional races, which give awards to the top 3 finshers, top 3 of each age group, masters, grandmasters, etc. strolling Jim has a winner, male and female and a masters (over 45) winner, that's it. Well.. unless you want to count the coveted yellow, blue, and red shirts. Yellow shirts, which are not won by many and given to anyone who finishes under 5 hours (very hard to do), blue shirts are for those under 6 hours, (I thought I was one of them), and red was for under 7 hours. 7:00:01, you get NO shirt. You cannot image how hard someone will work for a $5 shirt. All finishers do get a nice finishers medal too, even if you finish in 24 hours!
My friend, Josh Hite (marathon legend) who runs about 2:40 marathons, had decided to drive over to Wartrace and just "stroll" the Jim for fun. Since he was only going to run to the 14 mile mark and then back, decided that he would run with me until that point. We started off together, running 8:40 or so miles, thinking we could hold it for 40+. The first 5 miles went pretty quick, I did have to stop and get a rock out of my shoe. We hit a hill about mile 8 that had written in paint "This is Not a Hill". Well, according to Laz, it's not a hill until it is more than 1100 foot about sea level. That is good to know. We conquered the non hill and ran into the little town of Normandy. Looked like a postcard. I think there is a distillery there. We turned right and immediately hit the first official hill, which was lined with trees. I thought, "This is not too bad" We held our 8:40 pace and topped the "hill" and went on. I remember commenting to Josh after looking over the countryside, "how could anyone not believe in God?" and he and a runner from Little Rock (Presto) both agreed. Bedford County is a beautiful place, especially on foot. We went over the hill, passed the place where we would turn on the return to the finish and pretty soon hit the half marathon mark. We clocked 1:53:50, which was a couple minutes ahead of pace. It was about the 13 mile mark when I started using my race crew and ate my 2nd handful of Electrolite capsules.
The roads would around, up and down these non hills, we passed the road that we would be coming out of "The Walls" on the return. and headed toward the second official hill. It was about this point where Josh turned around to go run the Walls. (I suspect that he wanted to run the final 10 miles with the leader, since he can run about as fast as he wants to). The second hill, Presto and I walked for the first time, way more of a hill than the first one. Maybe it was because we were more tired. At the top, my wife awaited me with more water and at that point, I started eating Fig Newtons. As Terri had passed me going up the hill, she leaned out of the van and asked what I needed. I told her , “fig newtons”. When I got to the top, the van door was open and there lay my unopened package of Fig Newtons. I fumbled with the package for a few seconds and being a bit frustrated, threw it, unopened, across the van. I didn’t realize that all I had to do was pull back the little flap on the top. (I heard here comment to someone later in the race that I had “thrown the fig newtons”). What’s a race without a little frustration anyway?? As we started off the side of this monster hill, Laz had painted on the road, QUAD KILLER HILL. Boy, was he right! It s hard to run down something that steep. We found ourselves holding back as much as we could. My IT band was as tight as a banjo string as I inched down Quad Killer and finally, we got to the bottom. The road leveled out somewhat, we passed a row of Tyson Chicken houses with giant fans in the ends, I sure was glad that smell didn’t make it to the road. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the houses along the way, so I really don't know what we passed there. I do remember that they told us about the mean country dogs on the course. All I saw was a few old lazy hounds that looked like they didn't want any part of a bunch of crazed ultra wannabes. They also talked about the massive amounts of roadkill that we would encounter. Since I am a country boy from southeast Ky, there is not much that I haven't seen dead on the side of the road, so I wasn't a bit worried about that. I think some of the newbies were expecting bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and more. Actually, I do remember seeing a squashed turtle, a possum, a couple of flat things that were once a Bedford County animal, but that is about it.
Presto and I rolled on, we talked about running, we talked about what we did for a living, we talked about God, there was not a lot that we didn't talk about. A couple miles later, we looked up and the 3rd hill immediately became the topic of conversation. This thing was brutal. It just rose up into the curved hill, the good part was that it was lined with trees. I was getting somewhat tired and I began to walk, Presto went on just a bit, maybe 100 feet, then he began to walk. A girl caught up with us and she walked with Presto. I walked the entire hill, Presto and the girl ran a bit then walked. This thing would around and it looked like we were at the top, then, another hill, bigger than the last one. Whew, this was a toughie. This was my slowest mile split up to this point (16:18) As I reached the top, Terri was waiting for my with the van door open. Presto and the girl were stopped and then she went on. I fueled up, refilled my 2 water bottles, ate 3 fig newtons, ate some more electrolite caps, and gently stretched out my calves and hamstrings (which felt absolutely awesome). Presto was having a problem breathing and little did I know, but his race was about over. (I found out later that someone came along who had an inhaler and without that, he woulda been toast). At that point, I informed Terri to meet me again in 3 miles (we had been meeting every 5 miles). I ran down that big hill and with the stretching I had done, felt much better. As she passed me in the van, I realized that I only had a couple electrolite caps left in my pouch so I told her at next stop, I needed about 6-8 of them. The top of heap big hill was the 24 mile mark and we only had 18 measly miles to go. What, me worry?? At the bottom of the hill, nearing the marathon mark, I heard someone say, "Good running Charlie" and as I looked around, my friend from Ashland City, ultra marathoner extraordinare, Jeff Matlock passed me. He would go on to beat me by 20 minutes. I hit the marathon mark in 4:03:43 with 16 more miles to go, including the dreaded WALLS.
As a came upon my support crew (Terri), she was standing outside the van shaking a water bottle to beat the band. I noticed that it had something white in it. She said "This stuff won’t mix with water" and had been busting the electrolite caps apart to mix them in my water bottle. We both had a good laugh and I told her that I just ate them. Terri has a hard time eating any king of pill, no matter how small, that she could not imagine how I could swallow a pill and run. I loaded my pouch back up with electrolite caps, refilled water bottles, ate some more fig newtons, stretched the calves and hamstrings and as Jackie Gleason would have said “awaaayyy I went again”. I was beginning to really appreciate what my wonderful wife had agreed to do for me! She told me later that during the first 24 miles, she would drive by, fully expecting me to be needing everything and I would hold up 5 fingers (meaning meet me in 5 miles). Now I was holding up 2.
I ran through a little community and then turned left onto a small single lane road that almost immediately showed it's face. Wow, I was getting ready to see what the walls were all about. The first hill was a good one, then over it immediately and another, and another, and another, and another. I think there were about 8-9 hills in 3 miles just back to back to back. I walked a lot of them from bottom to top. As I reached the 30 mile mark, all of a sudden, my left thigh gave birth to a charleyhorse the size of a football. Not a peewee league football, mind you, an extra large NFL one! I gasped and immediately reached down to try to make it quit hurting. After a few seconds, I attempted to run again, and it was almost instantly there again. I eased on, limping, trying to make it go away. At that point I started thinking, "My race can't be over. No way!!!" Still had 11 miles to go and I’m hurting like this. I was out of water and my race crew was no where to be found. I wound around, up and down and there on the side of the road, halfway up the next hill was the 10-15 gallon jugs of water that the race officials had put out every 2-3 miles. This water had been in the sun for several hours, but sure did look good to a guy who had no water. As I got close to the water, lo and behold, the most wonderful sight in the world drives up! It is my support crew!. She had no idea I was out of water and hurting and had been waiting on Monkey Trent Rosenbloom, who was behind me. She pulled over and I hobbled over to the van and sat down in the side opening. The only thing I knew to do was to try to roll the charleyhorse out, so I grabbed "The Stick" which I use religiously before every run to loosen the legs and went to work on the back of my left thigh. It worked !!!!!!. I continued for a couple minutes (clock is still running) and it felt even better. I refilled water bottles, took a giant drink of Mt Dew, ate some more fig newtons and took off. My pace was somewhat slower but sure beat walking. I held up ONE finger as Terri slowly drove past me, looking at me with amazement at what had just happened. I had come back from the dead! This ended up being my slowest mile (18:33) not bad for all the time I spent totally stopped.
I got out of the walls and turned back onto the road that we had passed about mile 14 and heading back toward the finish. I had passed the 50K mark not long after I recovered and hit that at 4:58: I realized that I had a bit over 10 miles to go and had 2 hours to do it to take a red shirt home with me. Now, in any given day, I can run 10 miles in an hour 20 min or better, but any given day does not have 32 miles in front of it. I decided that if I averaged 12 min pace, I could knock it out. I knew that I would be walking a lot of the remaining hills to conserve my energy but I would be walking them fairly fast. I figured that if I could hold 9:20-9:40 running pace, my walking would still allow me to be under 12:00. (My last 10 miles ended up averaging about 11:00) My charleyhorse never came back until after I finished the race. More hills, ups and downs. I actually started passing a few people here and there and came upon a mark in the road that said I had reached the 35 mile mark. About a 10k race left to run and I could see myself definitely breaking 7 hours. The route from mile 35 on was not too bad, gentler hills and a lot of semi flat roads. As I got closer, it got harder. The mental battles of running this race are phenomenal. I would have loved for someone to pull over and say, "Hey, you want a ride?" Of course, I had gone this far. I was finishing this puppy!. Terri was meeting me every mile and I would mostly drink water and eat electrolite caps and stretch every couple stops. She had told me when I was charleyhorsed that my Hendersonville running club co-hort, Tom Dolan had driven down for moral support and he was just getting into Wartrace. About the 5K to go mark, I looked up, and here comes Dolan in his purple BMW convertible. His daughter had ridden down with him and as he passed me, Im sure I looked horrible. Matter of fact, he wrote on the HRC post that he had just seen the Walking dead. He turned around and as he slowly drove by, he offered me a snickers bar. The last thing in the world that I wanted at this point was food, and I think I was pretty rude in my reply to him (sorry Tom, you just would have had to be in my shoes). I found out later that my running bud Boomer (who will be running this thing with me next year) had told him that I needed to be eating.
I ran on. Tom came by a couple more times and then I got to a turn and the marking said I had 2 miles to go. I had 30 minutes to run 2 miles!! I had this whipped. This is mine!! I picked up the pace just a bit and came upon 3 runners. As I came upon the one mile left to run mark, I passed 2 of them and the other guy just hung on and pulled away. (He beat me by about 30 seconds) Josh Hite and the winner of the race came by in Josh's car and told me I had 1/2 mile to go. I could see town!! As I rounded the last curve, I could see the hotel and the finish line. I crossed the highway, dodging the slow town Saturday traffic and bore down onto the finish. As I crossed the line, the clock read 6 hours 51 minutes 14 seconds!! I was handed my RED SHIRT, which was not cotton as prior years but Drymax material and my finishers medal. Terri had to take my timing chip off my leg because I couldn’t bend down to do it. I staggered as I came out of the chute and wobbled over to the porch of the Walking Horse hotel which had some big old porch swings. I know you are supposed to keep walking after a race, but that swing had my name written all over it. I plopped down. Terri took a picture and I looked like I was dead. I felt dead. I tried to move my left leg and the charleyhorse was on top on me again. Tom and Terri were trying to give me something to eat and drink but all I wanted to do was rest. Finally, I did manage to get off the swing and spread out on the concrete porch of the hotel on my back. I lay there for probably 20 minutes and then had to have help to get up. Once I got up, I hobbled around a bit, but the feeling came back pretty quick and within 10 minutes of so, I could walk. Had a good bathroom visit (I know everybody wants to hear about that) and moseyed over to the food.
Tyson Chicken had provided BBQ chicken, baked beans, coleslaw and sweet tea and it was awesome. The chicken was just a bit dry, which made it hard to swallow, considering my condition, but It was wonderful. I devoured the baked beans and the coleslaw and felt better by the minute. About this time, my running partner, Presto, came into town. As I mentioned earlier, he had a rough last 18 miles, however, like a true ultra man, he did not quit. You are a hero, Presto!!
We made pictures, one for sure with the winner of the race, a 32 year old girl, Leah Thorvilson from Little Rock(who come to find out later, Had gone to school with Super Stud marathon man, Scott Wietecha). Small world. This girl blistered the field in 4:44:49, a 6:55 average pace!!!!! Following Leah was 31 year old race favorite, Owen Bradley in 4:50:23, and Jadyn Stevens from Fairview Tn. in 4:55:57. These were the only finishers who got a yellow shirt. My friend Jeff Edmunds from Nashville informed me later that he would like to have one of those yellow shirts. I’m positively sure that Jeff is indeed a yellow shirt man, having a sub 2:40 marathon time to his credit. My original goal of sub 6 hours (blue shirt) was attained by the next 16 people, including 59 year old David Jones from Eagleville, TN in 5:32:48. WOW!! I finished 40th overall and even though there was no grandmaster (over 50) award, I was the 5th Old man to cross the line. One of them was the guy who dusted me the last mile. My average pace for the distance of 41.4 miles was 9:58.
Many thanks include: 1) my wife, Terri, who was my crew on her birthday and kept saying "you’re doing great, even though I’m sure she thought I was crazy. 2) My HRC running buds (Boomer, Dolan, Jamie, Ken, Mike Jones, Jonathan) and others who supported me, ran multiple miles with me when it was hot, cold, and indifferent and gave me many positive vibes, 3) All my other running buds who were there to support me with positive energy and great information, 4) Josh Hite who paced me the first 14 miles and was great moral support, 5) my great friend Dallas Smith who is a running legend and super motivator to me and is exactly what I want to be when I’m 70 years old, 6) Allen and Mark at ACME for the support and advice, 7) all the others that in writing a rambling note like this got lost in the shuffle,
Would I do it again? Absolutely, I intend on tackling the blue shirt issue again next May. I think I can whip this thing. Matter of fact, several of you HRC guys will be running it with me next year, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.
What would I have done different? I Would have gotten a bit more sleep the last 2-3 days. I might have driven the route a week or two before to get a better idea of what to expect and started 15-20 seconds per mile slower. I would have taken a couple more Hammer gels the first 15 miles. I would have run at least 2 more back to back long runs in March.
What did I do right? I Did not go out way too fast and blow up. Other than my charleyhorse, I did not hit the wall. I drank plenty of water. I wore the right shoes. I had a support person instead of going it alone. I didn’t hurt myself (I ran 4 miles the following morning and 6 Monday evening without significant pain).
Being able to tackle Strolling Jim as my first ultra (ran my first marathon in late November) and winning a Red shirt in my first attempt is encouraging to me. (I also qualified for Boston in my first marathon attempt). How much harder would it be to run a 50 miler? If run on more level roads, I don’t think it would be much different. Kind of like eating an elephant, you do it one bite at a time. I can see me doing a 50 miler maybe this fall and I am seriously entertaining a 100 miler next spring. As for now, it’s back to the grind, running a couple local 5Ks and logging a bunch of hot summer miles.
Race splits for Strolling Jim
1 8:08 8:08
2 8:16 16:24
3 8:56 25:20
4 8:38 33:58
5 8:28 42:20
6 8:19 50:39
7 8:41 59:20
8 8:47 1:08:07
9 8:56 1:17:09
10 9:50 1:27:52 First official Hill
11 8:11 1:36:03
12 8:43 1:44:50
13 9:06 1:53:02 Half Marathon
14 8:48 2:02:08
15 9:06 2:11:14
16 8:29 2:19:42
17 9:02 2:25:45
18 9:05 2:37:48
19 10:03 2:47:51
20 11:42 2:59:45Second Official Hill
21 9:04 3:08:44
22 9:43 3:18:47
23 10:57 3:29:24
24 16:15 3:45:31 Third and worst official Hill (I walked the entire hill)
25 8:53 3:54:33
26 9:09 4:03:43 Marathon
27 10:12 4:14:02
28 11:24 4:25:28 The Walls – Fourth bunch of hills
29 10:34 4:36:02
30 12:33 4:49:38 THE WINNER HAD ALREADY FINISHED!!
31 18:39 5:08:16 50K and my charleyhorse situation
32 10:27 5:18:44
33 10:22 5:29:16
34 12:39 5:41:56
35 11:19 5:53:17
36 10:00 6:03:18
37 10:46 6:14:05
38 10:57 6:25:03
39 10:50 6:35:54
40 10:25 6:46:02
41 6:51:14
Somehow, the official measurements and my garmin did not jive exactly but these are the estimated splits.