Bob's 2014 Ancient Oaks 100 FAQ

With Christmas quickly approaching I have no time to draft an epic race report for this year’s Ancient Oaks 100 full of my usual drama, hilarity and eloquent prose. So instead I quickly tossed together the following FAQ based on questions I have been answering over the past few days.  Enjoy.

Bob’s 2014 Ancient Oaks 100 FAQ

1.      Are you crazy?

Admittedly

2.      Did you finish/what was your time?

I did.  My time was 28:22:47, a PR by 1:19:04 compared to my finish at the Javelina Jundred last year.

3.      Did you win?

No, but thanks for bursting my bubble.

4.      Did you run all that time without stopping?

I walked some and took short breaks between each lap around the course.  The 3.46 mile loop has some small inclines and a section that had very serpentine single track that was very rooty and I would usually walk those sections.  Over time, the rhythm of the race became automatic and oddly comforting.

5.      Did you ever sit down?

I ran about the first third of the race without sitting, except for a quick bathroom break and to tape my toes for blister prevention. After that I would sit for a few minutes between laps to rest, recover, eat, and try to address any issues I was having like hot spots on my feet or chafing down under.  FYI, lubing the undercarriage is quite a difficult task late in the race and I lost all sense of modesty about it. At the beginning of the race I would shyly step into the bathroom with my Body Glide in my pocket. By mile 90 I would step behind a parked vehicle, drop my shorts, bend over and take care of business in broad daylight.

The shortest of these rest stops were less than a minute to refill my water bottle.  The longest was about 45 minutes which included a 20 minute nap.  The average was about 9 and a half minutes so I think there is room for improvement here.

6.      Did you sleep?

I took a 20 minute nap at the start of the 22^nd lap. I think that was about 2:30 in the morning. I had been suffering from nausea for quite some time and felt like I was weaving back and forth along the trail. I hoped that the nap would refresh me and allow my stomach to recover. It worked.  During that last lap before the nap, about 70 miles into the race, I think I was feeling more fatigued than I ever have in my life. The urge to stop in my tracks was irresistible. I kept visualizing myself bent over, hands on knees, refusing to take another step. Luckily, I had the foresight to supply my pacers with cattle prods.

7.      This really sounds crazy, are you right in the head?

Probably not.

8.      What did you eat?

Dinner the night before the race was delicious beef tips and mushrooms over noodles (thanks Jen!). 

Breakfast before the race was 2 slices of peanut butter toast.

Solid food consumed during the race:

2 Gu's

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Turkey wrap with avocado and cheese cut into bite size pinwheels.

2 Taco Bell soft tacos

Lots of trail mix

Orange Slices

Chicken noodle soup – mostly the broth

A handful of french fries

Two bites from a McDonalds Sausage Biscuit

2 apples

Half a slice of pepperoni Pizza

A handful of wheat thins crackers

Fluids consumed during the race:

Tailwind Nutrition - 6 or 7 bottles @ 200 calories each

Water

Coke – about 2.5 liters

Gatorade

A few sips of coffee

9.      How can you eat like that and run without puking?

Oh, I puked.  I actually learned some lessons during this race about how I personally need to take in food that I think will benefit me in future races.  Namely, that I cannot eat and run at the same time.  I initially tried to reduce my time at aid stations by grabbing a handful of food and eating on the run, but what always happens after a few hours of running is that my stomach rejects the food and I have difficulty even swallowing anything in my mouth.  This meant a lot of walking while I was trying to get some food in my gut and a lot of wasted food that got tossed aside.  I found that a few minutes to eat, and swallow, my food while resting at the aid station yielded much faster lap times. It will just take some more trial and error to find the optimum amount of rest so that I am not just killing time at aid stations.

I think I also figured out that I do not need as much food as I thought I did.  Planning for the race I tried to figure out how I could pack in about 400 calories per hour.  I don’t think I ate anywhere near that much during the race.  I suffered two significant low points in the race, but I don’t think they were related to nutrition.

10.  Did you change shoes/socks/clothing?

I changed socks twice but wore the same shoes, Saucony Kinvaras throughout the whole race. I did change into a dry shirt several times.  I wore long sleeves at night and for a few laps a light jacket. I considered changing into dry shorts, but figured there was no point. The new shorts would be sweat soaked in no time anyway. I did suffer from chafing in my groin late in the race, so that might have been a mistake. It was minor compared to previous races though and was gone within 24 hours after the race.

11.  Do you listen to music, don’t you get bored?

I never use an ipod but I do listen to the soundtrack in my head much to the dismay of my crew and runners around me when I start singing along with the music. Unfortunately the song Black Widow was stuck in my head the whole race and I had to listen to that one line from the song “Like a black widow baby” over and over because I do not know a single other word from it.  I think I can honestly say that I was never once bored during the race.

12.  Why would anyone want to run 100 miles, that’s insane?

I think we have already established that.

13.  Did you get any blisters?

A few, but they did not impact my running. I was pretty tuned in to my body this race. As soon as I experienced an issue I was able to address it before it became a problem. I stopped twice to tape toes when I felt the friction between them becoming an issue and avoided any blisters there.  I did have a few around the base of my heels.

14.  How many calories did you burn, you must have lost a lot of weight?

My guess would be somewhere around 10,000 calories. However after getting on the scale two days after the race, allowing a little time for the temporary weight loss from dehydration to adjust, I weighed exactly the same as I did the day before the race. I did not lose a single pound. I can't say that I gorged after the race either.  It takes me a while to get my appetite back once I stop running. I had a small cheeseburger on the way home, and then a reasonably portioned dinner before going to sleep. I think I drank a beer and a half and had some chocolate milk. I resumed my regular eating habits the next day.

15.  Who was that hot girl you were hugging at the finish line?

I’m a lucky guy.

16.   Do you know how crazy this sounds?

Asked and answered.  Aren’t you paying attention?

I can’t thank my crew enough, Jennifer Florida, Matt Vayda and Mike Grogan for coddling me all weekend and of course race director Mike Melton and his volunteers for putting on a great event.

And bad mistakes, I’ve made a few. . . .

I DNF’d (did not finish) at mile 65 of the Ancient Oaks 100 this weekend.  I completed 19 of 29 loops around the 3.5 mile course.  It was a harsh reminder that 100 miles is not a distance to be trifled with.  It is a distance that will punish you even if you are well trained both physically and mentally, and if you are not then it will leave you, as it did me, balled up in a fetal position pleading for mercy.

So what happened after completing the 19th loop?

The Big Bonk

I puked up the entire contents of my stomach during lap 14, about mile 47, worse than I ever have before in a race.  I was never able to shake the nausea after that point.  It happened again on lap 19 only that time I was shocked to discover that my stomach was completely empty, not even any fluid.  I stood bent over the trail, dry heaving, and realized that that for quite some time I had stopped both eating and drinking.  That put me in a precarious spot.

I Depleted my Bank Account

My goal for the race was reasonable.  I figured if I averaged just an hour per loop it would “easily” get me a 100 mile PR.  I ran the first part of the race really strong and by the end of my 9th loop I had “banked” over an hour and a half under my goal pace.  I was even so confident as to start hoping for a 28 or even a 27 hour race but in the back of my mind I knew I was running too hard.  I have heard this advice over and over again.  Any time that you bank in the beginning of a race will cost you many times over at the end of the race, that is if you finish at all.

My lap times started to creep above the one hour mark around lap 10 and by the time I finished lap 19, the hour and a half I had banked in the first quarter of the race was gone.  I realized I was looking at the prospect of a 30 hour race, or probably even longer.  This was hugely demoralizing.

Running 100 Miles Hurts

Actually, my legs were still doing okay, but my feet had taken a pounding.  I ran the first 58 miles, 17 loops, in my Luna Sandals and then switched to a normal shoe.  I always take some ribbing about my shoe choice but I’m willing to endure some pain in the soles of my feet to remain free of blisters and to have relatively fresh legs after 60 miles of running.  Switching to a more cushioned shoe at that point of the race feels luxurious and is a nice reward that in the past helped to carry me through to the finish.  I know from past experience that I can compartmentalize this kind of pain.  If my head is in a good place this kind of pain recedes from my consciousness, bothering me much worse when I am at rest than when I am running.  Unfortunately this time my head was not in a good place.

It takes Commitment

Embarrassingly, Matt Mahoney, an icon of the Florida ultra-running community, passed me while I was still dry heaving spittle on the forest floor on that 19th loop.  Because I was still stooped over, he asked if had lost something on the ground.  I rallied again just a little bit after that and was heartened somewhat to find that I was able to keep up with him for the rest of the loop, even as we climbed his namesake summit and Florida’s only famous 14’er, Mount Mahoney (Elev. 14 feet).

But when I reached the end of the loop and sat down I shut down mentally.  I had my physical hardships, my excuses, but it was nothing that most of the people that finished the race didn’t also suffer.  I saw them run by one after another, loop after loop, hour after hour.  Some were so raw with emotion they were crying uncontrollably.  I heard pacers and crew recount their suffering and still they managed to continue.  Meanwhile, I succumbed to the nausea and stubbornly refused to try to take in the food and drink I needed to continue the race.  I spent most of the rest of the night in that chair, doubled over, hugging my knees, feeling sorry for myself and struggling to ward off the pre-dawn chill.

I realized you have to be 100% committed to finishing or you are almost certainly destined to fail.  On this day I did not have that level of commitment.  I had given myself excuse after excuse even before this race began.  I gave myself permission to fail, so the result was practically pre-ordained.

Photos courtesy of Chris Goodreau

A few acknowledgments:

Matt Vayda for pacing and crewing me through the night and for cooking a mean chicken soup.

Ezequiel Cuellar who surprised me by showing up in the middle of the night with his daughter and paced two loops with me and to Ezequiel’s wife for the delicious quesadillas.

Chris Goodreau and Jennifer Echegaray who lifted my spirits early in the day with some great company and yummy pizza.

Claire and Norbert for the their companionship and for pacing me through a hard run loop 16.

Smith Jean-Baptiste, Rameek McNair and crew who coincidentally set up shop next to me in the parking lot.   Rameek in particular who escaped the "chair of despair" after the sun rose to get in two more loops.  I was awestruck.

Jennifer Florida for her inspiration and the warm words of encouragement she gave me after the race.

And of course, RD extraordinaire Mike Melton for putting on an awesome event.