My Big Fat Virtual Summer (2 of 3)

This is part 2 of all of the dumb shit I did this summer!

Possum’s Revenge 69mi

Finish Time: 19:32:00

Date: Friday, June 19th

(DNF, Friday June 5th)

This one took two tries, but I got it done! I had long admired the buckle, but thought it would be years before I could work it into my race calendar, but COVID changed that! I signed up for the virtual as soon as it went live and started plotting my route and how I was going to manage it. I did the Sugar Badger 50mi as a training run for this. I did SB50 on the road, but I wanted to do Possum’s Revenge on the trail. One really, really cool thing is that of the trails I run on regularly, if I did an out and back on all of them, it’s 70 miles. So I would be 100% familiar with the trails and what I would need.

Attempt #1

I really hate asking for help, so my plan was to be fully self-supported. I placed a water drop at mile 25 and planned to refill my food at mile 50 (where I parked) before heading out for the last 19 miles. It did not go great. It was an oppressively humid day and at mile 13 I stopped to take off my socks to wring them out. I was soaked from head to toe and didn’t think about bringing a sock change since I didn’t think I would want it until after mile 50.

I got to my turn around point where my water drop was and I had already been running out of water miles before I got to the next water source, so I couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving behind my jug of water after refilling. And it’s exactly where I screwed up – I took the water jug with me. So now I was having to run with a water jug in my hands. By the time it was empty, the damage was done, my running had fallen apart completely, I had pains I’d never felt before (likely from the imbalance of carrying the water) and decided to quit when I was still 3 or so miles from the car so I still had to hobble my way back to it. I was sick of being soaking wet all day and just OVER the whole thing. I went home knowing that if I wanted to finish I would have to ask for help.

Attempt #2:

At the end of my first attempt, I thought I had injured myself, but the next day I was basically fine. It was a relief for sure. I went back and forth on whether I would try again, but when I did, I was prepared. Instead of doing a single water drop and being fully self-supported, I would be partially self-supported with the same water fountains as before and with my truck, but have two crew points in the first 50 miles where there is no water at the trailhead and then pacer help in the last 15 miles.

My brother agreed to meet me at the Pruitt Trailhead, the 25 mile point, with a cooler with cold water, uncrustables, and pedialyte popsicles as well as a full change of clothes. Knowing that I was going to get out of the wet clothing made it much more bearable. I actually beat my brother to the trailhead by about 10 minutes, so I took the time to air out my feet in an attempt to get them dry before wiping them, applying trail toes, and getting changed. The pedialyte pops were the shit! I first heard of them through some ultrarunning friends, and I will use them for hot runs when I can.

I headed on back the way I came from and knew I’d be seeing my brother at the 49th Ave Trailhead (around 35ish miles). Since he had a few hours before seeing me, he went to the grocery store and to grab lunch, so when I saw him I ate a couple of his fries and stole a baggie of frozen strawberries from the giant package he’d purchased. The frozen strawberries were so good and juicy.

I got back to the truck still feeling good and moving pretty well, but as I walked into the bathroom at the trailhead to change my clothes, the weather hit. Not only was it a torrential downpour (the kind that soaks you in two seconds flat and you can’t see more than a couple feet in front of you), the skies opened up with huge cracks of very close lightning. Unfortunately, the rest of the trail was more open than the previous sections. Yes, there are tall trees, but it was going to be a lot of fear. I stayed in the bathroom for about 30 or so minutes trying to figure out my options and looking at the radar.

I decided that instead of being soaking wet, afraid of lightning strikes, and dragging my sister and husband through hours of sogging misery, I would change up the plan and finish my miles on the treadmill in our shed at home. I drove home, changed clothes, socks, got into some road shoes, and set up everything out in the shed. My sister, who was going to pace me, brought a pizza and we happily chatted and ate for about an hour and a half while I walked on the treadmill.

SIDENOTE: #CryClub – so I basically always cry at some point during an ultra. I thought it would be funny if I posted in the TJM Nation facebook group for people to guess what mile I cried at. Well, it happened while we were eating pizza. Laci handed me a slice of pizza, I was hungry, but heat screws with my stomach so I was eating in very slowly and no one brought me a plate. I cried because of that. Mile 54 – cried because I didn’t have a plate for my slice of pizza.

By that point, all I had in me was a walk. Though I think if I was outside I could have motivated myself to run in fits and starts (like from one tree or blaze or the next), but on the dreadmill I was simply slogging through as best I could. I listened to podcasts, watched some shows, and generally suffered until I was done. But then I was DONE and it was great! I was very pumped to earn my lovely buckle!

Troubled Raccoon’s Untrained Ultra Challenge

Distance: 52.7k total (13.1, 15k, 10k, 5k, 1mi)

Dates: July 1 through July 4th

Wednesday 1 mile, Thursday 5k, Friday morning 10k, Friday afternoon 15k, Saturday evening half-marathon

So I had originally planned this to be a big old PR fest and I hoped to smash a couple of my own times on these distances, but the fact of the matter is – the weather was just brutal and I haven’t done speed work in months. I was less than 3 seconds off of my mile time, but all of the other distances I decided to take it easy. I am going to revisit this challenge and/or smashing some PRs next year or during the winter when it is more conducive to running fast.

I like the format of the challenge. All five distances must be done in the span of 5 days or less. Some people chose to do the whole thing in one day, some people spread it out over all five days. You can do it in whatever order you like, too, so there’s so many variations on how to tackle this challenge. I think my most memorable run was my half marathon. I did it on the 4th in the evening after helping Tom complete his Battle Miles virtual race earlier in the day. The weather was gross hot and humid, so I decided to keep it around the 1.8 mile loop around the neighborhood so I could refill my handled with water/electrolytes every loop. It was so rough that that is exactly what I did for the entire half marathon; drinking a full 16oz every 2 miles. The worst parts about that run were that someone threw a firework at me and it was extremely smoky near the end. The best part was that my victory in finishing the challenge was celebrated by everyone in the neighborhood setting of pretty fireworks.

Troubled Raccoon’s 24/7 Challenge

Distance: 24 miles

Dates: Thursday July 9th – Friday July 10th

The 24/7 challenge is to run at least a mile during every hour of the day (24 hours) during the month of July (the 7th month, hence 24/7). Additional challenges were to do it all in the span of a week or a day.

A few weeks before taking this on, I had watched a race play out online that was called the Little Dog, Front Yard Race, and like Big’s Backyard, it is a last person standing style event. Unlike Big’s, which requires participants to go 4.167 miles every hour on the hour, this event was one mile on the hour every hour. I was very intrigued by it and was amazed that the event went on for over 10 days. More of a sleep and self-management challenge than a run challenge for sure. I thought I might be interested in trying something like that in the future, so I figured I would do my 24/7 challenge this way. Some people did the 24/7 challenge where they did two miles with one at the end of an hour and the beginning of another so they had more rest time, but I wanted the Little Dog style challenge.

I started at 11am on Thursday. It was pretty hot and I was sweating a ton by the end of each mile and by about mile/hour 4 or 5 I knew I needed to revise my strategy in how I was dressed. I realized I was going inside and just sitting in a wet shirt for 45-50 mins and it was unbearable. I showered after the 8th hour and then started rotating between two shirts. I would wear shirt 1 for a mile, immediately take it off and then put on shirt 2 right before going out for the next mile. Because of the humidity here in Florida, they never got dry, but they did get slightly less wet.

Through the wee hours of the night I struggled to stay awake and would set my alarm for five minutes before the hour just in case I fell asleep (anytime I did nod off, I would immediately spring back up thinking I had slept through the beginning of the hour). In the last 8 hours the chafing got pretty bad. I had been taking off my shirt, but not my pants, so for the last several hours, I had to air stuff out and I applied desitin to deal with the pain of the chafe.

Since I was only doing one mile in each of the runs and the weather stayed great all night, I was able to do all of them outside around my neighborhood and none on the treadmill. I also kept up a pretty brisk pace for me and my very last mile was my fastest mile. All in all, a really great challenge, but it showed me that I will definitely NOT be participating in a Little Dog Front Yard challenge in the future.