October 2017 Running Challenge

I had a mostly great weekend.

Friday my wife & I played hooky and went sailing for the final time this season. Our boat gets hauled out this afternoon. It was a bit cool, and even some sprinkles to start, but it was great to be back on the water. Between my son's soccer games on Saturdays and trap shooting on Sundays, we had been out since Labor Day weekend. We wanted to spend the night but with a race on Saturday, I needed to get back.

My trail HM was awesome! I totally redeemed myself after the HM debacle 3 weeks ago. I improved my time by over 36 minutes! I came in at 2:07:59, about mid-pack for the 214 racers. The "Feels Like" temp was 40 degrees cooler and the course was much flatter than the other trail HM. It was a gorgeous course, though, and I had to stop for photos a few times. My pesky calf muscle felt great until mile 8, was tight from then to mile 10, then started hurting. On a training run I would have stopped but of course had to go on. I slowed down my pace until the last mile when I pushed hard for the final stretch.

The timing was great. The weather was perfect for a run to start, about 48F and cloudy, but as soon as I crossed the finish line it started to sprinkle, and before I left the post-race festivities, it was pouring, and there were still folks coming in. I felt bad for those guys.

At that temp I didn't bother with carrying water, figuring I could get what I needed at the water stops. I never felt tired or thirsty. Probably because I eased off because of my calf. Normally in a HM I'd target an HR of 161 but in this race I averaged just 152.

The course started from the rural church which hosts this race, along with a 5K and 10K. All races started the same time. The 10K runners started with us, while the 5K runners were bussed to their start an ran back to the church. We started out with 1.25 miles of road running before getting to a nearby state park where the trails were. This is where we met the 5k runners going the other way which made passing a PIA. Since I wanted to baby my calf, I did no warm up, instead taking it easy on the road, and consequently be passed by numerous runners. Once on the trail though, I did a lot of passing (when I could).

The church which hosted the race also provided all of the volunteers. The money they raised went towards their mission work. They've been doing it for about 15 years and they do a great job. They had a well marked course, plenty of course marshalls where needed, and well-placed water stops. At the end they fed us a meal of homemade soup, homemade bread, and homemade cookies!! I joked with the church ladies in the kitchen that next year I was going to run the 5K so I could get to the wonderful food sooner.

And like any good church event, they had a bake sale. I found $5 on the course so I used that to buy cookies, muffins and even some farm fresh brown eggs! Oh, and I won a door prize of homemade apple jelly! An amazing deal for just $15 (normally $30, they had a one day discount which I happen to see).

Because of my sore calf though, I elected not to run the AIM Melanoma 5K Saturday. The rest of this week I'll be getting ready to take my son deer hunting, and then the hunt, so I may not be able to run it until Sunday.

Are you ready to race report? Yeah you are, ultra ready even .

So our tale begins at 4:55 on Saturday morning when, while turning the corner to the brewhouse that was hosting our mandatory race meeting at 5, I had a heart attack when 10 people raced past me. Holy blanking blank, was I late?! Did I just travel and train for nothing???

Nah, it was just the early start for the back of pack people who were concerned about finishing before the 6PM cut off. Good for a rush though! Once I got into the brewhouse I talked to a nice German guy who was running on the back of hiking mountains in South America for the last two weeks and flying back the night before. I also met N and her husband and little boy who would change the course of my race.

We started in the pitch dark so we were hitting trail by headlamp and the grace of God. Almost immediately I took lead female, 4th overall in the pack because classic Jessica going out hot. I ran on the heels of men 3 and 4 (one of whom dropped before the day was through, think he went out too fast and didn't recover), with N keeping pace with me and we were flying steep downhills for 10k until I pulled forward on all of them.

After 3km or so I realized the pylons had stopped in the middle of the trail- someone had moved the pylons!!! I doubled back but having lost 6km of ground to running the wrong direction killed my lead. At about 23km in they released the first set of relay times runners onto the course and they were flying past me. At one point I guy shouted at me in the most patronizing fashion, "Aw you're doing so well for a female soloist.". I didn't know whether I should tackle the blatant sexism or the fact that he was running an eighth of my distance so I just gave him evils.

I went with the relayers until the 25km mark when I had to pee and found N, a speedy former university track girl, suffering at the porta potty. She had never had runners GI issues and was in really bad shape and was unsure if she'd be finishing. So I told her that of course she'd finish and that she would run to my drop with me, she'd take some of my Immodium and I would stay with her until she recovered. That got her moving again and once she got the Immodium down after Leg 3 we bolted for Leg 4.

The hills on Leg 4 are fairly yuck, steep and loose rock so I walked a lot of them with her. Going into Leg 5 she felt better but wanted to stick with me which worked fine for me- afterall we had to be middle of pack after her issues and my losing 6k's worth of time at the beginning, right?




Wrong. Upon finishing leg 5 we heard the announcer boom "In the lead we have Jessica McBride followed closely by...". Holy hell, we had managed to stay the fastest females despite all the set backs! So we hit leg 6 and decided to stay together as long as we could before one of us had to pull forward.




At the tail end of leg 7, after tackling gross hills my piriformis started to go beserk and I was losing control and awareness of my leg rotation. We stopped at my drop and I hit the Naproxen quickly before we headed into the final leg. It was upon entering leg 8 that I realized my leg was going to hold both of us back and shouted at her to go get gold. She was hesistant to leave me but the third place female was gaining fast (an older lady who clearly knows how to negative split) so she channelled her track star essence and bolted.

Leg 8 was not my finest moment. The third place female passed me for second because my piri had me dragging so hard and I was just willing the universe to give N the win (which it did- by 40 seconds). I kept grinding up winding hills but it was pure suffering time. And then, at the 2km mark, three things happened; the Naproxen was finally working, my Brad Paisley running soul song "Some Mistakes" came up in my Spotify and I saw N who had doubled back after her win to run me in part of the way. I had a lot of things in both my eyes as you might imagine.




In typical me fashion I sprinted the end past a male soloist so fast the announcer couldn't read my number well enough to tell who I was coming in.



The RD was waiting for me at the line to tell me when the awards were being held and to ask about our ultra backgrounds (zero sir! lol). Upon meeting N's parents post race I was introduced as "the reason I was even able to finish today"

Today I am thrashed from about shoulder down (I wish I was joking) because I raced Whistler hard, but my heart is whole. While I could have done the "competitive" thing and placed better at my ultra debut and left her early on or whatever I was able to support somebody else's dream instead and that matters more to me. And I really hope that our kids learn from my race at Whistler that it is not always to our personal advantage to help other people- but you should always help them anyway.

October 1- 28+7
October 2- 18
October 3- 20
October 4- 15
October 5- 18
October 6- Off
October 7- 32
October 8- 18
October 9- 13
October 10- 8
October 11- 12
October 12- Off
October 13- Off
October 14- 86
October 15- Off
October 16- Off

275/450km

@7lenny7 wow holy crap what an improvement!!! What a great day (except for the sore calf) great weather, found money, awesome food, won a door prize. Congrats. Love the pictures and the sailing.

@JessicaMcB ha ha not bad for a girl you should have told him if he ran a little faster he could run like a girl too. This made me cry While I could have done the "competitive" thing and placed better at my ultra debut and left her early on or whatever I was able to support somebody else's dream instead and that matters more to me. And I really hope that our kids learn from my race at Whistler that it is not always to our personal advantage to help other people- but you should always help them anyway. I 100% agree with you!!! Your girls are very lucky to have you as their mom! Loved the race report I was leaning forward in my seat reading it. Congrats Girl just fantastic!!!!! I remember finishing my first HM I cried like a baby, Skip thought I was hurt.

Just checking in for the first time since Thursday. The Bourbon Chase was AMAZING, and I will try and fill you all in with some details later. I have not yet had time to go through everything that I missed this weekend, but I did catch @JessicaMcB 's unbelievable performance at Whistler. You are one amazing woman! Congrats!

I also wanted to post my AIM virtual race photo. Because I was in the midst of the Borbon Chase relay, I did not get to "officially" run my 5K, but I was out there putting in miles in honor of Steve. I had my hubby take a photo of me on our deck yesterday for your collection @HonuNui . Hope this is okay. I am so glad to hear that the event was such a success. Two of my legs this weekend were in the very hot sun, and you will be glad to know that I wore my sunscreen because of you!

Big love and thanks for your kind words @PastorVincent, @RunRachelleRun , @seanevan10 , @tomaattikastike , @lporter229 , @girlinahat , @skippygirlsmom , @ariceroni , @midwesterner85, @Elise4270 , @kgirlhart , @fitoverfortymom and @RespectTheKitty ! Was a great experience!

@MNLittleFinn yes N was very cool. We talked about modern feminist paradigm shifts, microbiology and the gut biome (she is working on her PhD), the decline of women's athleticism with age relative to men's decline, maternal-fetal health care outcomes, God, nutrition, the merits of physician assisted suicide, privilege, poverty and of course, the distance sickness. Typical ultra fare . My husband's response after the race, having snapped photos of us talking while dashing through the 72k mark, was "I didn't know people could run fast and talk..." Haha!

And because it didn't load in my original post, me clapping like a fool with my second place cup at the awards when they called N up to accept first place Women's Open. And yes, I am always this photogenic lollllllll

I feel like I've been totally neglecting you all for the last few months. Life's been crazy, hope I can catch up soon.

I skipped the 5-mile race I was supposed to do on Saturday and "only" did the HM on Sunday as I got worried at the last minute about my somewhat abbreviated training due to travel.

Full race report later if I find time. Weather was windy, but nice. About 48° and slightly overcast. Overall time was OK, not great...about my "usual". I enjoyed it!

52.8 miles of 100.