Just For Fun!

By Michelle Didion
(June 23, 2007)

Run Under the Stars

First an apology - this may be pretty jumbled, I've had only 20 minutes of sleep, but wanted to get this out there while it's still raw because this is a raw kind of event.

10 hours. 10 hours. I just could not wrap my mind around it. A nice run is an hour. A medium long run is 2 hours. A marathon is 4 hours. I was going to run for 10 hours?!?! Is it any wonder I was panicked on Friday. Wrapping my mind around it was my biggest issue all night long.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Just a bit of a spring refresher here. I've run 4 marathons since April 1st of this year. With the last 2 being the previous 2 weekends, I really didn't know what my legs would be capable of for this event. And for the record - I was doing this "for fun". Yes, I really did at some point think running 10 hours would be fun. Or maybe I hadn't really thought it through at all. Who knows, but I registered and the family and I made the 7 hour trip to Paducah Kentucky Saturday morning. We arrived at the horse track after a short side trip to Metropolis to see the "giant superman statue" in time to put up both tents and get unpacked. They let us all put up tents in the infield of the horse track. We even got to see them working some of the horses while we were setting up.

We left the horse track and explored a bit and went to church. We then naturally got lost coming back with more moments of panic for me. I don't do pre-race well, getting lost did not help. The family dropped me back off and went in search of dinner. I picked up my packet and got my gear laid out and somewhat organized, although my family will certainly beg to differ with the number of times I had to tell them where I had placed a needed item throughout the night. I had 2 pieces of pizza an hour before the race. Gotta love the whole "for fun" mindset. It let me do all kinds of things I would normally never attempt. With a bathroom accessible every half mile, you have more freedom. Heck, with the track being a half mile, everything was accessible every half mile.

Race started exactly at 8 p.m. The director explained how we would switch directions every 2 hours and had all 39 of us and 3 relay teams walk over the chip mat individually to be sure we all registered. Then it was "go" and we went. I was finally somewhere where I didn't stick out like some weirdo. The guy I was running with at the start had done 4 100 milers already this year. Made me look pretty wimpy. He said my marathon PR would kick his butt any day, but I claimed the Western States finish trumps all. I ran with Mike for the first hour and enjoyed hearing his story. He was one of my biggest fans for the rest of the race, even after he called it a night early after incurring a minor injury.

The first 2 hours felt wonderful. But that nagging voice in my head kept saying things like 2 down 8 to go. And I just could not even fathom it. I.just.could.not. So I just worried about running the hour I was on. At least that is what I tried to do. When we switched track direction at the 2 hour mark, I felt really good. I needed the directional switch. That would be a pattern for me all night, the hour after we switched directions I felt pretty good for. The second hour, not so much. At 11 my husband took my littlest to the tent for bed. He left me the older 3 to fetch and carry. They were quite the support crew. They were amazing. I would hand off my water bottle they would fill it and jog it across to the other side of the track to me. They'd run a lap here and there with me. They'd eat snow cones from the aid station - oh wait, that isn't exactly helpful, but it was fun for them, and the support crew has to be happy too. They also got really good at going to my cooler for my supplemental goodies. I settled into a really good fueling pattern for the race that served me very well. On the hour I ate and drank 20 ounces of water and on the half hour, I had 12 ounces of Mountain Dew or RedBull. I also took Succeed every half hour. Sometimes it took me the full half hour to figure out what I wanted to eat or could stomach, but I ate something every hour on the hour. I had pizza twice, gummi bears, vanilla pudding, M&Ms, Snicker bars, and vegetable soup, so a pretty good variety. It got to the point where I did not want anything sugary sweet anymore so it got to be more of a challenge to find something appetizing.

At the 3 hour mark, I realized my legs were really pretty sore. I groaned a bit to my husband about how in the heck was I supposed to run 7 more hours when I was already hurting. He said, "just keep moving forward no matter what - goodnight." Um yeah, thanks. Around the 4 hour mark I had covered a marathon at a 9:12 pace. I still could not wrap my mind around 6 more hours of running AFTER having already run a marathon. It was enough to send me into a panic tailspin every time I considered it. But here's the thing, most people were not running. Most people, by the four hour mark were walking way more than they were running. I was one of the only people just trotting along. One of the race organizers came up on me and ran part of a lap with me after 4 hours and told me I had taken the lead. The 16 year old who had been in the lead was now walking. This wasn't supposed to be part of the deal - I was doing this for fun, remember? Sigh. Ok, so I keep trotting along. I have my pace dialed in and I am uber-consistent. Over and over I hear how consistent my splits are coming off. I also hear a lot of encouragement, but I've never run over 50k and have not been that far in 18 months. I temper everyone's enthusiasm for me by telling them it is early and I am in unchartered territory, and there are so many hours left. When I get my next update, I have 34.5 miles in and am 3 laps up on the person closest behind me. Ok, so I'm still running. At 2 a.m. I send my support crew to bed, reluctantly. I know they cannot stay up all night and then survive the 7 hour drive back home. So I am on my own. I put my tunes on at the 6 hour mark and have a really good hour. I feel way better than I did at hour 3. All kinds of better. Bill comes out to check on me and I tell him I have no right to feel so good, but I do and I'm going with it. I love the world and I love to run and I am by golly going to get to 50 miles.

50 miles was my goal. There I said it. I always told everyone I just wanted a distance PR, but in my heart, I wanted to run 50 miles. All the sudden it seemed there would be no way I could fail. I told myself I could get my phone and call BillP again when I hit my milestone. I started calculating when I thought I'd get there and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized I would likely hit the 50 mile mark somewhere before the 8 hour mark. I all the sudden realized I would have run 50 miles, it would be 4 a.m. and I would STILL HAVE 2 HOURS of running left. Gulp. Panic. Fear. Terror. I could just stop. 50 miles was my goal. But, you see, I was winning this event, and I wasn't just winning the women's division, I was WINNING every division. Um yeah, ok, this is so much more than I planned on. So naturally I kept running. I figured at some point I could calculate how far ahead I was of the next person and quit when it got to the impossible to catch point. (are you buying this?) I hit 50 miles at a 9:15 average pace. Remember what I said about consistency and having hit the marathon at a 9:12 pace. I was still running very strongly.

Unfortunately I did have a pretty big low point after the 50 mile mark. I was tired and my left knee was getting increasingly painful. I know it was due to the turns, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had taken some Tylenol 8 hour earlier, but that was hours ago and I was in quite a bit of pain. I played the "is this worth it" game for a good hour here and did slow some. But I am very proud to say, I was still running. Sometimes it seemed as though I was the only person not on a relay team on that track running. Bill came and checked on me and brought me 2 ibuprofen which I took and that did make the pain more manageable. I found out at the 8 hour mark that I was 6 MILES ahead of the next competitor. I had gained some serious ground. So I thought again, hey, I could really quit at 9 hours and a bit and be good. I'd still win. But then, I couldn't. I kept running anyway. Then I thought, well, there's no way he can catch me with 30 minutes to go, I should just quit now. But I didn't. Bill kept saying, "you know you have this, don't kill yourself" but I kept running. I could not not finish this the way I had run the whole thing, strong. So I kept on running. I finally stopped at 9:55:04 because I wasn't 100% sure I'd get the lap in before the time switched over and if I wasn't across the line it would not count. So I stopped, plus I was at a nice round number - who wants to quit at .5?

So, how'd I do? You already know I won. I am giddy at that. Because this is my first win that doesn't have an asterix after it, as in "I won the women's division but 5 men came in before I did." Another thing I am absolutely giddy about is that I RAN for 10 hours. I figured I'd be run/walking this thing - it was 10 hours long, these events are made for that, but I ran, with the exception of 3 100 yard eating breaks, the whole 10 hours at an average 9:27 pace! And finally, I am positively, ginormously giddy about the fact that I ran 100k or 63 miles actually, but 100k sounds so nice and big and round. I am quite content right now, if incredibly, painfully sore.

And for the record - I will NOT be racing anything next weekend.

Seriously - It's the Snickers. Proud member of the Snickers Marathon Team.