From the outside, ultrarunning may look like monotony. To the runner, it is a series of interleaved challenges and endless surprises.
I had little idea what to expect from the Run de Vous 100 mile run. The course was simple: a two mile asphalt loop, with narrow dirt and gravel strips along either side, and a gentle hill at the start of each lap. Access to an aid station and my drop bag every two miles would make logistics simpler than the mountain races I’m used to, and the completely runnable terrain would make be sure to make for a faster time.
Still, I was just coming back from a couple minor injuries after Bryce. My foot was fully recovered, but I knew I’d have to stop to stretch my back often assuming it held up at all. Thanks to recovery time, I felt undertrained. Worst of all, I’d never run more than about 15 miles of flat or paved track, never mind both.
That’s right, I skipped road marathons and went straight for a paved 100 miler. Because I’m smart.
With the path running through a cluster of tents and shade structures for runners, pacers, and crew near the aid station and timing booth, race central reminded me the slightest bit of a back street at Burning Man or Occupy San Francisco in its heyday. It didn’t hurt that there were trays and tables setup with sunscreen and mysterious food-like concoctions, exhausted and sun-fried runners looking for ways to help out, and the same sweaty people kept stumbling through every twenty to sixty minutes.
As the race began at 6:00 am on Saturday, I tried to focus on pacing myself and learning the course. I had no hope of being the fastest runner there, but I had a shot at running the smartest race. In trail runs, my only advantage usually comes from my ability to run relatively fast down steep, tricky terrain, and that wouldn’t be a factor here at all. Good pacing, quick aid stops, perfect nutrition, and cutting the shortest line possible on each lap would be the ticket. Not to mention a whole lot of caffeine.
The first quarter of the race went well. I moved easily, and I think I paced myself fairly well. I settled into a routine of walking a short section of the gentle hill after the aid station and trying to run the rest of the course. I became familiar with the undulations of the track along the irregularly shaped loop, which would help me keep my laps short at night. I had a nice view of a coyote padding through the fenced in cow pasture in the center of the park.
From around miles 28 through 40, I had a much tougher time of things. The heat reached the mid 80s, and there was absolutely no shade along the course. My hamstrings felt like cement pillars, and I feared that with my lack of training for this kind of race, I just didn’t have the conditioning I needed for them to recover. For a while, I thought about dropping.
It occurred to me that I’d experienced this kind of doubt before. It occurred to me that this new kind of challenge was exactly why I’d signed up, and I just needed to get myself through the worst part of it. Finally, it occurred to me that things felt pretty bad, but they weren’t getting worse. Based on the emotional and somatic ebbs and flows of my previous 100 milers, I figured that meant I’d come out the other side feeling great. I’m glad I had that presence of mind, because I was right. I came into the aid station at mile 40 just as it was starting to cool off a little, had some watermelon, and felt revived.
I was still having trouble keeping up a running pace, though. Mostly I kept an eye on my watch and if I couldn’t keep moving faster than a fifteen-minute mile, I’d take a short walk break. It wasn’t until around night fell, the temperature dropped about ten degrees, and I finally figured out the course that I was able to start making up time.
For 19 of the last 20 laps, I walked all of the first third (or two-thirds of a mile) from the aid station to the bench at the crest of the hill. From there, I was able to run the rest of the way in, every time.
It was also around then that I realized if I could maintain this average pace of under fifteen minutes per mile, including my walk breaks and aid stops, I had a shot at finishing in under 24 hours total. I didn’t know if I could maintain it or not. Was I running too much, too hard?
For most of the night I ran under the nearly full moon without my headlamp. Sometime in the small hours, the hillside tore open with the howls of coyotes. I thought about grabbing my headlamp for the next lap, but saved it for moondown after all.
For the first time since I started running 100 mile races, I stopped worrying about finishing and started worrying about finishing fast. Headlands, HURT, and Bryce were about survival. This was about running.
I became obsessed with time, wanting to take less than 30 minutes on each loop so I could build up a margin that I felt certain I would inevitably need. After my watch gave out at mile 82, I would ask for the time each time I came in to finish a lap. After hearing a few disappointing but misleading answers, I started asking for the exact time.
With six miles left to go, I knew I would pull it off. I’d thought about aiming for twenty-four hours when I toed the line, but it had seemed like a fantasy goal until the final forty miles. Now it seemed certain. Walking up the gentle hill after the aid station, I experienced a rush of emotion and unbidden tears of joy, as intense and as beautiful as nearing the finish of my first 100 almost a year before.
I ran all of the 50th lap.
I finished in 23 hours, 31 minutes, and 35 seconds. It was my first sub-24 hour finish, and my first top ten finish as I placed eighth overall.
With a few naps mixed in, I stuck around to cheer for as many of the incredible people who were still out there running as I could. Less than a full lap behind me was 13 year-old Miguel Vivaldo, who would set a new world record as the youngest sub-24 hour 100 mile finisher. I don’t know what distance she was going for, but I was told that one woman who was walking the course had had chemo the previous Monday. Several people kept pushing for a 100 mile finish straight through to Sunday afternoon, when temperatures were in the 90s and there was still absolutely no shade on the course.
Race director Rajeev Patel would say Run-de-Vous is “about you,” but I’m pretty sure it was about them. I feel great about what I pulled off last weekend, but those people are just amazing.
Split times, for posterity:
10.05 miles: 01:47:00
20.10 miles: 03:45:00
30.15 miles: 06:06:00
40.20 miles: 08:50:00
50.25 miles: 11:22:00
60.30 miles: 13:59:00
70.35 miles: ????????
80.40 miles: 18:58:00
90.45 miles: ????????
100.5 miles: 23:31:35