Notes
Dear Friends and Family:
Many of you have asked about our 106.5k (66.3 miles) race yesterday, entered in honor the Beatles’ “When I’m 64” (….”maybe in the summer we can rent a cotton in the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear…”). Thanks for asking! [Just hit delete if you aren’t very interested (and I don’t assume you are!)].
OK, here is our race report:
Going in, I had a great training season, with all of the doubles I wanted (back-to-back long runs on 5 sequential weekends), but Kathleen came up a bit lame in a training ultra 3 weeks ago (a 51k in Scotland). She inflamed the synovial tissue around a knee, and so couldn’t run much at all since then, and even had little training leading up to the Scotland ultra, for other reasons. The day before yesterday she was seriously thinking about bailing, because her knee was still bothering her quite a bit. My point is that she went into this with really low expectations. I, on the other hand, was confident in my training but filled with my usual pre-race performance anxiety.
Then there was the weather… Winds! And really chilly for May. We started in gusty 39 degree temps, high of about 49, strong northerlies gusting and standing us up when running into them. But no rain (!), and that is huge in a long race … So all in all, not a bad forecast, but just one that made the course longer, because of the Kansas Hills (i.e., wind).
So we set out for our start at 6:45 a.m., and the fun began! I uploaded some photos, which you can see here if you like:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gsic9RhL4bk6FSDbA
The course follows the entire perimeter of the island (hence the odd distance), and was utterly spectacular. If you click in the little info button in the upper right of the Google Photos link, a side panel will open and you can see the name of the picture file, which describes what you are looking at. We had everything on this course: spectacular coastal views, nasty treacherous woodland single track, miles of pavement through coastal villages then up and down to get to the next town, high bluffs overlooking chalk cliffs, gorgeous gardens and homes, views of Southampton across the Solent, with the barges and cruise ships coming and going, ancient pubs, pretty agricultural patchworks… And also we had every possible slope and surface! Big challenging hills, a bit of mud, gravel, sand, rocky, rooty trails, etc.
It was hard. Harder than I had imagined. Kathleen and I ate lamb stew (and more!) at the mid-point feed (the aid stations, though only 11-17k apart, were amazing), but she couldn’t digest well after that and struggled with a bad tummy to the end. But she never a bad attitude – she is an amazing natural ultrarunner, just relentlessly positive and loving all of the nature around us, problem solving, and continue to move forward (“forward is a pace”). My quads started hurting pretty badly by halfway (surprised me, being well trained), and I knew that this would be a long day, but I had Kathleen there the whole way for moral support and good cheer. Also, I got very cold at the end, even with a down vest and my trusty Ultimate Directions jacket. It’s just a long time to be out there being buffeted and getting depleted…
The best news of the day was that Kathleen’s knee held up (!!!), nothing fell off of or out of (yuck!) either of our bodies, and we made it around the circuit. Our finishing time was 19 hours and small change (6 minutes or so), slower by about 4 hours than I had thought ahead of time, but still good enough for 100th of 285 finishers. As I said, this one was tough. We saw nobody else our age out there, likely won the Top Iowan Old Fart awards.
So now we are going plant collecting for work for two days, hobbling through the marshes. Tonight we hope to be able to down a bottle of champagne (or two?) at the Wight Mouse Inn (also pictured), our nearly perfect local pub by our B&B, which looks out at the start and finish line.
Thanks again for your interest and concern (if you have any!).
Hugs to all, Jonathan and Kathleen