Race Report: Indiana Trail 100, October 13-14, 2018.

The course:

This race takes place at Chain O’ Lakes State Park in Indiana as part of the Ignite Trail Series.   Well named because it seems like there was always a lake on the right or left or both. It is five by twenty-mile loops with a drop bag at 12.5 mi. A couple other AS. The race used to be in spring and the reports I read always spoke of mud (which I hate), and so when I saw this race move to October, I put it on my calendar. I was familiar with the course having done the winter Huff 50K race at that park. IT100 is a well-established race and a WS qualifier. Also, part of the Midwest Ultra Grand Slam, as a fifth option for a race in the series for “Super Slammers” doing all 5 100 milers in a season.

The course is overall pretty low elevation like 8K for 100 miles, but not flat or rail to trail monotony, it has nice rolling hills, nothing real steep either. Lots of double wide dirt and grass trail, occasional roots, very few rocks but some of that tiny gravel, a smattering of single track and no significant road running. A lot of tree cover, nice scenery with some fall colors and like I said lakes. Even though it rained the night before there was not much mud as it has been dry. Whew!

Without much elevation, I could run almost all of it without needing a ton of effort. This is not all good, because with a course like that you don’t have automatic stops to hike or walk, so in the early loops I was barely doing any walking except briefly small hills. It takes a lot of discipline, more than I have not to run a runnable course like this early on. One the course there are some wooden bridges which in the AM had a thin layer of ice you couldn’t see and were slippery from the rain having frozen. Fortunately, though it rained the night before the race, the night of the race it did not, so the next morning when zombie walking, the bridges didn’t have ice just slippery wet leaves. That’s about it as far as the course goes.

Pre-Race:

I think I packed and repacked 2 or 3 times. I had stuff for every possible contingency in duplicate or triplicate. Everything labeled in Ziploc bags. Two large plastic bins and a cooler. A small bin in the large one with an action plan on the cover and smaller gear inside. The action plan is what I need to remember to do at the aid station head to toe, so I do not forget anything. Mostly this comes into play in the later part when the mind is fried. I am not a spreadsheet guy, but I am a pack rat. I am even excited when I find the rare 2L Ziploc bags at the store. This is who I have become. It is somewhat to my detriment. The more you pack, the more things you root through and consider, and waste time.

I had a butt pack that I planned to use instead of a vest with everything for the first 40 miles (save hydration) packed in it. I wanted to do this just to free things up a little from the vest until it was later and I needed more gear along. Just putting that vest on makes me slow down. Also, it does make you hotter. When I got to the hotel, the butt pack was nowhere to be found. I still do not know where it went. It is quite a mystery. Well, I hope whoever finds it appreciates my nice packing. I am kinda bummed though because I just bought it and really liked it for long runs. Discovering that I lost this the night before the race didn’t really matter for the race. Due to my obsessive packing, I had plenty of what I needed to pack the vest.

I do not have a crew or pacer, so I feel like I have to be super organized and bring everything I could possibly need with me in the vest for that stretch. As a result, I am sure I overdo it. For example, because it was mid 50s day, drop to mid-30s night, I was particularly concerned with hypothermia. Even in mild temps like this, this happened at Tunnel 100 to me after the sun went down and you are 60+ miles in, doing more walking and wet, suddenly it gets cold fast. I didn’t want that to be an issue again. As a result, I had multiple shirts, jackets, gloves, hats. But in the end, I wonder if just having a couple layers and running wet and warm rather than trying to stay dry by changing more would have worked.

I drove down the night before. Its 3 hours but there is also a time change  Having shown up for the Huff an hour late because of that, I learned my lesson and set anything with a timer ahead when leaving. I stayed at a hotel in a nearby town. Glad I didn’t camp because it was raining pretty good and colder in the mid-30s. I don’t have great camping gear. Camping is definitely on the short list of things to start doing every race. Pretty much because hotels are so expensive, I can save a lot and I don’t think either way I sleep great. Even so, with traffic from Chicago to Indiana, I got there after the pre-race meeting and the pasta dinner all but gone and cold, bummer. I had some cold spaghetti and root beer, then later I broke out the ensure. Woo-hoo Friday night party!

I didn’t sleep well at all which is pretty typical and so I don’t let that bother me. Just too much excitement/scenarios to play out. With the time change, getting up early was really early so it almost felt like I never really went to bed and it was the next day. I scouted around for a place for am coffee, no Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts (or whatever its called) but a 24 hr. McDonalds will do. I had bagel, coffee and ensure (yum).

Loop 1 mile 0-20:

The race start was 6 am. The sun comes up just before 8 am, so we are in the dark for a while at the start. It’s cold I in the mid-30s. The race has a 50 mile and 100K.   The 100K starts a couple minutes before and then the 100 mile starts. Not sure about the 50 mile. I think there were about 160 at the start of the 100 miles. All things considered, the temps were about as perfect as you can expect. I did have to manage too many layers from the start, and like I said, I go a little overboard with the packing.

I don’t remember much about the first loop except thinking how great this course was, almost entirely runnable but not so monotonous as rail to trail. Also, beautiful scenery. I was pretty hungry too, I remember. I ran faster than goal pace but too fast like long run or 50k pace. My goal pace was to be around 14-15 min/mi with stops included which would put me in 24-25 h finish time. Honestly, I thought 24 was a bit beyond what I could do, but 25 h should be doable. I think I had pretty good restraint. I use the heart rate for the first 30 miles or so to constrain pace and of course effort. Still easy effort was 10-12 min mile at the least. Like I said, not a lot of built in walk breaks in the course. I should have put some more in.

Loop 2: Mile 21-40:

I think on this loop at the end is were I was chatting and slipped and fell into a bank. Luckily soft mud/grass, no harm except to the ego. I didn’t have any of my spectacular falls this race. It occurred to me that the injuries from my 50-mile last month were nowhere to be found. I had fallen and had bad rib pain and I had jammed my toe. I thought certain the toe was going to bitch at me. Even the taper week the toe was still hurting. So was my hamstring for the taper since a 5K I ran, but that was also not bugging me much at all except a little the first loop just letting me know it’s there, that is all. The sun came out a bit too, which was great.

Loop 3: Mile 41-60:

I didn’t make the mistake I made at Tunnel, although it was light and warm at the end of this loop, I put some tights in my vest and had a 3-layer system: t-shirt, light breathable jacket, and light water proof jacket on top (this later serving mainly for cold as it was not raining). I would use this until the last lap when I added a warm vest (which was too much in the end). I started getting bad chaffing from my pack on the back rubbing. Also, some itching with the Smart wool which is a new thing that I hope doesn’t become a thing (I react like that to wool, but not Smart wool ever and I really like how dry it keeps you in winter).  I figure out how to adjust the shoulder straps so the pack rides higher up my back to avoid the chaffed area and really lube the back up which helps.

During this loop I started thinking about just stopping at 100K. I think the race brochure said you could and get your 100K or 50-mile buckle anyway. My reasoning was, I have done a good run, had a good time, and I can drive home tonight, get home at a reasonable hour and have some quality time with the family. I get a lot of guilt training and doing these races, and that always comes during races. I just was struggling for the motivation to run through the night. I was thinking, this is actually kind of boring now, why continue?

At some point my shin starts to hurt which I have never had an issue with, it just creeps up on me. I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started. This becomes a major issue down the road. Right now, what it doing is starting to slow me down as I have to carefully choose my steps.

I fuel with combination solid food like grilled cheese, quesadillas with chicken/cheese, Halloween candy, tailwind, chips, ensure. I am pretty hungry and my stomach is growling. I prefer to just listen to my body in terms of eating rather than a fixed intake. But, I do have a general range I shoot for around 200-300 Cal/50g or so of carbs per hour.   Though if my stomach turns, I am not forcing anything. I am also very conservative with plain water. My experience is that it does not absorb well and sloshes more which is disturbing and uncomfortable.

Loop 3: 60-80.

Some drama starts now. It’s the sun goes down and cold, I can see my breath and it fogs up my glasses. My shin is killing me, I cannot do a normal run. I can at first land on my forefoot (but not stride through), then I end up running on the outside of my foot. Eventually, any position flares up the shin.

Nausea also sets in. I have plenty experience with nausea and if I do not manage it, it can result in disaster such as not being able to move, at all. I slow to a walk. Not able to eat, but I can take sips of stuff. I have been fueling with tailwind, ramen, still some candy and soda. I wish they had hot cocoa because I love salted hot cocoa. I would like to try coffee but I worried about the diuretic and bowel effects. I have coke, ginger ale, and some mountain dew that I can work with. Eventually, these and electrolyte tabs in water are all I can stomach. After a day of TW, I can’t handle anymore—perhaps I should have avoided it at first and put it in later to avoid that. I am able to get ensure down. I have about 1 per loop, but I can’t have that as a sole nutrition source, its too much. I need variety.

I prepare at the back end of this loop to drop out. I foresee I am just going to have to walk the last loop pretty much alone with this nausea and this bum shin. I didn’t really come here to hike. Really, I cannot come up with a great reason why I should keep going. Before the race, I did come up with lists of reasons why I would not quit: wear and tear injuries that are not serious, nausea and vomiting, hypothermia (what I mean is I was going to prevent it at all costs not that if I was actually hypothermic I wouldn’t stop and take care of it), not making my expected time/pace goals. I think the why was harder than last year when it was my first 100. That’s a big why no longer available.

I think of races like problem solving, like the Apollo 13 mission where they use duct tape to keep the mission alive by fixing the carbon filter. Only this is a mission of 1, that no one really cares about and of no consequence. Not even the first mission. I am starting not to care about it either.

One thing I value is not just finishing but running a race well executed in terms of pacing, goals, setting and meeting realistic expectations. In fact, a lot of my progress has been basically accepting that I am just not going to be as fast and smooth at these races than I think I should be. The way I run these races has very little to do with running in and of itself. I mean, I am running slower than easy training pace. I could walk it just as fast a pace save for stops. The challenge is all with nutrition, environmental, pain, and emotional management. Those things will manage me if I do not manage them.

The brain is tricky, it will use not only rational thoughts, but also guilt, pride, sadness, helplessness to get you to stop. Management may not be the word, I mean you cannot quell or get the thoughts to respond to your will or positive thoughts all the time-at least I cannot pull that off. But if I can wait or just watch them like a meditation or a question-rather than a conclusion- that can help. And things do turn around eventually.

It’s much more satisfying to set realistic goals and accomplish them rather than unrealistic goals and fail them. Either can happen with the exact same finish time at your race. You might never know. But of course, you do not want to sell yourself short. Not having any failures, I would have to seriously consider that I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough no matter how well executed the training and race.

Loop 4: 80-100:

In the start/finish aid station before the start of this loop there is a woman wanting to drop and the AS worker giving her a pep talk as I am sitting by my new friend the heater. I am going into the start/finish at mile 80 around the time I was hoping to be finished (24-25h). But after sitting in the AS tent for a while I decide to get going. I cannot now precisely put my finger on why this change. Maybe my pain and nausea settled down a little sitting and my brain’s central governor got lazy or took a nap.

I think my mental state was that like this in the elimination race this year, I would not quit even though looking ahead, getting pulled was a good possibility, I would get swept or pulled at an aid station. For me that’s easier to swallow.

I have some ginger chews. I eat/drink very little, occasional sips of coke. I am just walking now with no hope of running twofold: one due to nausea worsens when I run and two, my shin hurts to much. I have to rotate it out and kind of limp a little, and at 6’4” in the night I look like Frankenstein, a role people have told me I was born to play even before this injury. I keep seeing people over and over either ahead or behind me. Then ahead again at the aid station. So much overlap, we are all running different but averaging about the same. I am also impressed by a few people running by in decent form. What are these individuals doing for training to look like that at this point? What beer and ice cream do they eat that I haven’t tried?

There is a lot of lonely walking. I have some hallucinations like a log is a cat, or some animal, or trees overhead bridge, or that creepy feeling there is a guy right next to you, that is in reality a tree. Nothing very inventive though. I also realize that maybe looking at the ground aggravates the nausea so I start to look more with my head up. Also, I need to lose the belly fat which I think tugs around or at least do some core exercises so there is a semblance of muscle there. I am not able to externalize great in the dark alone at night.

At some point I over hear that to finish a 19:20 min/mile pace avg including stops is needed. I am doing a lot of miles over 20 and although it wouldn’t take much, I don’t care to go faster. I am saying, good, then I will get cut and be done. This self-sabotage seems entirely reasonable to me after training for the whole year, upwards of 200 miles per month, 6 days a week!

Then at an AS, I think called Hilltop (but no zombies or Maggie Rhee, unfortunately), I get a couple Tylenol and then I put bio freeze on my ankle. Then about 15 minutes later, it feels great. I can start shuffling along a little bit. I am still nauseated so I don’t want to eat too much, just sipping soda. I have been able to do a little ensure here and there. The sun has come up, then suddenly the nausea lessens and I get this feeling like it’s a new day and more energy.

A lady comes up behind me saying she just passed the sweeper and he/she wants a 16 min/mile pace at last to account for the slower hill pacing to get the average 18 min mile minimum. For some reason instead of my overriding desire to sabotage my race, this lights a fire in me and I take off literally running.

It is not bad at all. I don’t feel worn out. I think what happened is with my all-night walk-a-thon, my muscles and stomach had active recovery and were now back in full force. I came into the aid station at mile 92 and worked with a nice AS worker to unload all the crap I didn’t need in my vest and get out quickly. She said I was running well, so that was good to hear. My hopes of dropping out or getting swept had vanished. I wanted to finish it now and there was still enough time if I paid attention and didn’t stop for too long. After that I see the paces are dropping down to 13-14 min/mi avg from 20+ min/mi avg. I end up passing a lot of people. Eventually the bio-freeze wears off, I settle down into a slower shuffle and calm down a bit but still keep up a pace staying average below 16 min/mi. Somebody says, “wow you really flew since the last AS”, also my phone just started blaring music at random which helped energize me.

In the last 3 miles, I am pretty much jogging past everyone walking. There is really no hurry, we are all going to finish in the 29^th hour more likely than not, it’s just I am tired of walking and free at last to run. I am able to run strong down the grass hill to the finish, it is sunny and great weather. I am happy that I didn’t drop. I go through the finish and go for the tent forgetting my buckle, but the come and grab me. Some woman in a buffalo suit, and this is not a hallucination this time!

Aftermath:

I came in at 29:30ish. I was DFL in my age group but not DNF! I have some DFL age group 5Ks but no ultra ones, so that is a new badge. There were 122 finishers and about 61 DNFs. I feel just as good after, I imagine, as if I had gotten my A goal because I think the amount of pleasure is somehow tied to the amount of suffering overcome. And why suffer only 24 h when you can suffer longer? Why not get all you signed up for?

This report has gone on far too long. I am mainly managing my shin injury post race. Everything else is fine. I am not sure if it is shin splint, MTSS or fracture. I got an x-ray and so far, so good. I got some crutches all the bio-freeze they had at CVS, and lidocaine patches. Besides that, everything else is fine. I had some blisters to take care of, but oddly not really painful during the run.   Not sure why that is. I don’t have any more races this year so plenty of time to heal.

I think the biggest mistake I made in this was too much AS time. At mile 20, 10 min, at mile 40- 36 min, at mile 60 an hour and at least as much at mile 80 (I don’t even recall why). That’s 3 hours right there. In my mind I was doing this at first to change and get warm to prevent being wet and cold then later for lack of motivation maybe? Or just tired. I think I should have left myself wet and keep moving and then only if I was cold doing that, change or add a layer. I need to pack less so there is less to play around with. Or at least not do it so much.

Btw, having nausea at an AS is not great, everyone is doing their job asking you what you want to eat and offering you all sorts of food and I feel like a jag just turning them away. I didn’t get bad abdominal cramps, vomiting or severe nausea lasting hours after the race, so all that is better than Tunnel Hill for me. I don’t think there is some magic thing I can do to avoid nausea besides slowing down, not eating or drinking much until it starts to turn around. Maybe not looking down if possible and some weight loss / core work will help too. I was mostly on the chilled side, so I don’t think it was as tied to heat, maybe that’s one reason it was better than some other races.

Summary:

The Indiana Trail 100 is a great race. All the AS staff were enthusiastic and helpful. I especially noticed how at the end they were pushing people to keep going, helping motivate people to get going and get it done. The race was well organized and marking great. AS were all stocked pretty well and the hot food like grilled cheese and quesadillas were actually fresh and hot. I had a ton of ramen which also helps on a cold day (though I swear there is something in that that is a diuretic).

I think this is a great 100 mile for first timers for many of the reasons Tunnel Hill was great for mine: Excellent support, frequent AS, altitude and elevation or extremes of weather not really involved, organized race with clear communication, safety personnel right there, and great atmosphere.

(note, my watch ran out the last couple miles, most of its here though):

Strava Link to IT100

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Woohoo congratulations and I loved the RR.  I'm still dreaming of my first 100 and will add this one to the perhaps file.

Thanks for the report! Always interesting to hear the mental side of it, since I've never run over 50 miles. I've had coffee during races, and it was fine, I could see how it could be bad though

Your RRs are always so funny (in a good way) to me. I can't really explain why, other than they really do read like I'm inside your head, following your thought process. No pretense. I can relate to a lot of this too. I'm an overpacker -- just fought the urge to pack too much stuff for a 2 night business trip I'm taking tomorrow (with all the safety gear I have to take with, there's not much room for overpacking at the moment). My first year at FANS I packed so much stuff and then was so embarrassed to have to haul it all out when I stopped early. I've significantly reduced the amount of stuff I bring/carry as I get more experienced, but I am such a worrier that I'd rather overpack and ease my mind a bit more, than worry I've forgotten something I needed. I forgot an entire bag once for an overnight trip for a 50K last fall, and nothing in there was important.

Do you ever use mints, like Altoids or Lifesavers, to deal with nausea? I find them really helpful, even if it's just a placebo effect. You did a darn good job finishing the race! Congrats on moving on from your BFF the heater, and on shaking off all those reasons to quit. Maybe it was too much time in the aid stations, maybe it was what you needed to even be able to finish. You never know.