McNaughton: failure, disappointment and fun

There is no easy way to say this: I failed to finish the McNaughton 100 mile trail race; my first DNF for a 100 miler. But looking back on it, my decision to drop when I did was correct.

What happened: I showed up both undertained and underrested and too heavy (5 pounds). How both undertrained and underrested? Last year I finished the Leanhorse 100 in late August and then took cracks at 24 hour Centurion races in November and again in February.

Not only did these attempts take something out of me, but the "taper/recovery" cycle cut down on training; I had nothing extra in my "well", so to speak.

Still I was excited about the race.

This time, I had my wife drop me off; I had a cooler and a duffel with clothes with me. Just prior to the start, I was interviewed by a local TV station.

We went off and the weather was blessedly cool for the first lap. I've posted descriptions of McNaughton elsewhere on this blog; basically you do down a hill, loop around a prairie on grass and then come up to a short steep singletrack hill. Because of the 3/4 of a mile on the prairie, the line had thinned somewhat. Then up the hill, through a grass field (1 mile) through a small wood, up another hill, across a power line clearing and into another wood which contained some dips and ups. I notice there was one bottleneck; some lady had gone out fast on the straights but was struggling on the down; there was a line of 10 runners waiting on her!

Then you get to the "Totem Pole" aid station; this time it was staffed by Peoria triathlon members who were wearing bunny ears!

Though I was a tiny bit cold when I started, I warmed up quickly and really enjoyed the first loop. The trail was only slightly muddy in spots; all was well when I got to the end of the loop (2:34), right on schedule. Also, right when I was finishing, the no. 1 runner in the 30 blew right past!

The second loop was only slightly slower; I remember being surprised by a female as I watered the bushes; I apologized and she said "its ok; it's nothing I haven't seen before."

My walking form felt ok, and I was amazed at how much of a gap there was between the first few 30 mile runners. Several passed me just past half way though the second loop.

I had slowed, but I had some ominous signs; my hands were beginning to swell, my eyes were really stinging from the sweat and I was just plain working too hard.

Still, 2:38 wasn't that bad for loop two.

I made an effort to take it easy on the third loop and the fourth one was just plain fun. I was a bit surprised that so few 50 mile runners were lapping me; something was going on. Those last two loops (2:58, 3:16) were ok in terms of time, but I was getting slower and slower with the same effort. That is a bad sign for a 100 mile race; I wrote that off to it being warm (87 F).

On loop 4, my wife visited and told me that I was bent forward.

The next loop saw me start out ok for the first half (1:38) but then really fall apart. I got sick, nauseated and light headed; the next 5 miles took me 2:10 to do. I was at mile 50 in 15:17 and I needed to average just over 4 hours a loop for the next 5 to finish under the 36 hour cut-off; I wasn't going to be able to do that; so I made the decision to drop.

It was dark and my wife took me home. Therefore, I missed the thunderstorm which turned the course into a gigantic pile of super-slick mud.

I returned to the course 10 hours later and offered to help.

The race director suggested that I pace some folks. So I paced Marlin Howe though his 9'th lap. It turns out that Marlin and I had spoken to each other at the 2005 Ultracentric and at the 2005 Chicago 50K. So, though Marlin gave it an excellent shot, he was really, really suffering. Therefore he dropped out at mile 90 with 5:30 left on the clock.

Next, I paced Phil Rosenstein for his 10'th lap; at least 90% of the way. Phil was in a bad way earlier, got an IV and then got back on the course to finish the race. Anyway, I took a plastic garbage bag to pick up trash along the way and ran/walked with Phil.

The last lap was interesting: I saw Louise Mason hanging very tough; Uli Kamm recovered from his last lap beer to finish up as well. Phil filled me in on what happened during the thunderstorm; evidently it became super slick on the hills; falls and slides were common. As we did our last 3:25-3:30 it alternated between hot sun and thundershowers. I managed to fall on my butt and slide down a hill; I also managed to stay upright by running down one of the steeper hills in an "out of control" fashion.

Later as the end came near, Phil picked up the pace and, when I went to pick up some trash, he was gone and almost out of sight! He beat me to the finish line by a few minutes.

Oddly enough, my "wait on the aid stations, walk/slow jog, fall down and slide on my butt" lap was 3:31; faster than the lap prior to my bailing out.

Bottom line: this race, under these conditions (heat that I wasn't used to as yet, mud at the end) was simply too much for me. I did my best but wasn't up to the challenge.

But I did get 70 miles and had some fun.

But, that is it for me, as far as the very long races, until sometime next year. I'll focus on getting my body back together and then building up some 50K speed (50K on October 14 in Minnesota
and then on November 11 in Chicago).

McNaughton 2007 is scheduled for April 14-15 (yes, Easter is April 2).

A couple of other odds and ends:

Andy Weinberg, the race director, has a sense of humor. On the race board, he said that the course "was easier than Barkley" and the weather "was cooler than Badwater".

He put some mile markings down on the grass; one of them was "9.9 miles" when you were in sight of the finish line!

Also, there was some singletrack right after the first stream crossing. There was one path where the natural thing was to go straight ahead, but he had marked the course to go off the main path for a few feet around a clump of bushes/trees; this little dirversion maybe added 10 feet or so. :-)

It is Monday morning (early) and I am stiff and sore; I really don't understand why as I didn't do all that much.

Finally, here is an article from the Journal Star on the race; Phil is the guy that I paced on the last lap. He has another 100 coming up in a month; he finished in just over 34 hours though his trail PR is 22:5X.

From the Peoria Journal Star.
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/041706/TRI_1451CR8M.025.shtml

'Ultramarathon' pushes athletes to the limit

Monday, April 17, 2006

BY KATE HAWLEY

OF THE JOURNAL STAR
Ken Meyer wrenched off his running shoes with a loud "ahhgg!", peeling away his damp socks to reveal shriveled, blister-covered feet.

Meyer, 58, ran 30 miles Saturday over a bumpy trail, through creeks and up and down countless punishing hills.

That was the easy race.

More than 200 runners competed this weekend in The McNaughton Park Trail Runs, 30-, 50- and 100-mile races run concurrently on the same course, a 10-mile loop through John T. McNaughton Park in Pekin.

The races began at 6 a.m. Saturday and continued all day, through the night, and into Sunday afternoon, with runners stopping for drinks, snacks and the occasional nap before heading back onto the trail.

Andy Weinberg, a coach and gym teacher at Pekin Community High School, started the races six years ago with only 11 runners. The McNaughton Park run has since become Illinois' largest "ultramarathon," the name for any race longer than 26.2 miles, the length of a traditional marathon. It's the only 100-mile race in the state.

Runners traveled to Pekin from all over the Midwest-and from places as far away as Colorado, California, Alaska, Germany and Belgium.

But despite its international flavor, the event had the feel of a family picnic, with volunteers camping out in tents and Larry LaBanca, a Pekin pipefitter, dishing out baked beans, burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches to weary runners.

Many of them were unlikely candidates for extreme sports. Most were older than 40 and several were older than 60, and there were plenty of bulging bellies and stooped shoulders among the crowd.

"It's not your usual bunch of long-legged Kenyans," Weinberg said.

But it's not surprising that unconventional athletes gravitate to ultramarathons, he added, since long distances require more grit and patience than speed.

Jean-Jaques d'Aquin, 66, a 100-mile runner from Belgium, appeared in the grassy stretch behind the finish line, a white towel draped over his head.

"Go Jean-Jaques!" Weinberg shouted.

"Sunblock!" Aquin barked in reply, and struggled to open his water pouch. Minutes later, he was back on the trail.

The temperature neared 85 Saturday, making the hilly, rocky course even more challenging. Phil Rosenstein, 35, of Milwaukee was too dehydrated Saturday afternoon to even sweat.

As the sun went down, the temperature dropped. But just after 11 p.m., lightning began to flash. Overnight, rain came down in fat, cold drops that hit the runners with such force some of them mistook it for hail.

Just before 6 a.m. Sunday, Rosenstein had run 80 miles. Alone on the trail, his vision began to blur and his breathing became irregular. When he reached camp almost an hour later, he began convulsing. Paramedics arrived and hooked him up to a cardiogram and two IVs to restore his body's balance of electrolytes.

Shortly after 9 a.m., he was adjusting his mud-smeared track shorts, preparing to go back out on the trail. He'd chugged "a whole jar of Pedialyte," he said, and felt ready to at least walk the rest of the course.

He began his penultimate lap. "I'm very stubborn," he said, his eyes trained on the steep, muddy slope under his feet. "People say to me, why do you run all these races?" He laughed. "Because I can."

He had walked several hundred yards across a wheat field when he shouted, to no one in particular, "Let's try a little running!"

"Ah!" he shouted, as he picked up speed, "ahh!" And he disappeared into the trees.

Kate Hawley can be reached at 686-3254 or khawley@pjstar.com.