NOTE: Contrary to my thoughts in my previous post “Doing Stuff Anyway”, I remembered that I have in fact run one race close to the same distance at a similarly fast pace – the Coldwater Classic 26K in Merritt last year. That course was quite flat though (only 800 metres of elevation gain), on very fast, flowy and not-too-technical trails, and conditions were pretty near perfect. This race, especially the first leg, was going to be a different animal altogether, with wet, rainy and slippery conditions, very technical terrain in the first leg, and some substantial, steep climbs in the second leg. Read on to see how it went…

Race Recap: Around The Lake Give'R Take 30K

Let’s jump straight in for my start-to-finish recap of yesterday’s wet and wild trail race! If you haven’t read it already, do have a look at my previous post “Doing Stuff Anyway”, which will give you an idea of my mindset going into this race. As you’d guess from the title, I REALLY didn’t want to do this race due to fear and anxiety around injuring myself as I tried to push the pace to meet the aggressive cutoff times.

At the pre-race briefing, they announced that due to the trail conditions and the ongoing “atmospheric river” rains, they were going to add on another 15 minutes to the Watt Creek aid station cutoff time, making it 3 hours instead of the previously announced 2 hours, 45 minutes, but with the overall race time “expectation” still being that everyone would be off the course in under 5 hours, though they never did say that was a hard cutoff for an official finish.

While that gave me some reassurance that I could make it through the event without DNF’ing due to pace, I had planned in my mind for aiming to beat the original cutoff time, and that was how I intended to run my race. I ended up too far forward in the start corral during pre-race briefing, but didn’t have an opportunity to move back before the start, so I knew I was going to be passed by a BUNCH of people on the 2-3 km flat road / beach trail section that started off the race, which is always super fun for the old ego...

Pace Driven By Fear

As the race got underway, that prediction came true even though I was running what (for me) was a very fast 5:45 / km (I.E. 5 minutes, 45 seconds per kilometre) pace. I was wary of going out that hard, knowing the protracted climbing that lay ahead, but I felt that I needed to put some time in the bank to be sure of making the cutoff. I was going for broke on the first leg, and just hoping that my legs would hold together from there to the finish!

As we hit the start of the first climbing section, I immediately reverted to walking the uphills, despite many others around me pushing to run them. With about 1/3 of the field being relay team runners who were only doing the 17-18 km to Watt Creek, I knew there would be some who didn’t have to pace themselves with the second leg in mind and it wouldn’t make sense for me to try and keep up with them. I was already going to be pushing harder than my normal pace, so there was no point blowing my legs out completely because my ego didn’t want to let people pass!

Both of my shins fired up almost immediately when we started climbing, an issue I hadn’t really suffered much in recent months. My guess is the fast flat pace at the start irritated them, and then they decided to let me know about it as soon as I asked something different from them. They constantly burned and felt tight, throbbing through the entire 5-6 km of the climb, and the arches of my feet decided to join them about halfway through as well.

It was unpleasant, to say the least, and I really wanted to ease off the pace and let them rest and recover, but that was just not possible if I was going to make the cutoffs. I just gritted my teeth, “embraced the suck” and kept hammering away at that never-ending hill, running every bit that seemed kind of runnable and walking frequently, keeping up a pretty spicy pace of around 10:30 to 11:00 / km, leading a small pack of runners who seemed content to follow my lead of run / walk up the climb.

My heart rate leapt up into the high 160’s due to the high output and the fear of the not-so-runnable, mucky and rocky flats and descents I knew awaited me on the back side of the first leg ever present in my mind. I kept seeing my pace average dropping, dropping, dropping with every passing km, but thanks to that fast pace on the flats, it was still looking “OK” – nudging up over 9:00 / km as I walked past the first aid station, then approaching 9:30 / km as we began the descent down to Lindell Beach at around the 9-10 km mark.

I felt like I had a razor-thin margin to make the Watt Creek cutoff at that point, and I was trying not to panic. My pre-race calculations were that I needed to average better than 8:45 / km if Watt Creek was at 19 km (a guess based on my reconnaissance hike with Steve L a few weeks prior, where we left out the flat starting section), so I needed to gain a LOT of time on the descents, and we were coming up to the part of the race that I was most scared of, given the weather and trail conditions.

Running The Gauntlet

My anxiety went into overdrive as I started to open the throttle…actually, I guess “let off the brakes” would be a more apt metaphor…on the flatter, rolling portion of “TTT”, the dirtbike trail. The conditions were super mucky, with the deep central rut filled with water hiding the dangers beneath the surface. One bright spot, however, was that my shins started to ease off once the climbing ended, which I had hoped would be the case.

Other runners around me were slipping and falling when trying to ride the sloping sides of the trail to avoid the pools, but I knew my shoes were no grip monsters in these conditions, so I had little choice but to run the middle, risking the hidden rocks, roots and unknowable depths of water and muck. If a somewhat-runnable-but-near-flat ridge appeared around the pools, I took the chance to run those, but it was like trying to hit a balance beam at full speed, anticipating a slip and crash, or that sickening crunch of a rolling-over / snapping ankle I am unfortunately all too familiar with. Somewhat miraculously, I managed only one minor ankle roll through that section (which I was able to kind of roll with, sparing my ankle any injury), before the course turned sharply downhill and the slip-and-slide really began.

Many of the steeper sections of trail were covered in an inches-thick layer of slippery muck, and in most places there was no option to skirt the edges. In a few places, I had to resort to trying to surf down the mudslide, one foot in front of the other, or sliding down on my hands and feet. In between those sections, seeing the slip-sliding tread marks of runners that had gone before me on the sides of the trail, I opted to run the centre where water was flowing in the hopes that would mean the clay and rock base of the trails would be better “washed” and offer more traction. That strategy worked well, and despite having to effectively run that imaginary balance beam, only this time constantly turning and twisting, I was able to set a much faster pace than I had anticipated, into the mid-6:00 / km range.

Getting off the dirtbike trail and onto the FSR (Forest Service Road) that led down towards the monastery was a bit of a relief, despite having to deal with massive pools of standing water all along the way. My legs and nerves were both pretty frazzled, and I was dealing with the beginnings of an issue in my left calf, which really started to fire up about halfway down the more open bit of the FSR, forcing me to rein the pace back in. I still pushed as hard as I dared through the more narrow confines of the trails approaching the monastery because I was still above that 8:40 / km average I felt I needed to make the cutoff, and I had another minor ankle roll along the way.

As I jogged past the second aid station and started on the road section past the monastery, I saw my average pace dip below that magic number, but I knew there was a longish uphill road section from Lindell Beach to Watt Creek and the climb into the aid station itself so I felt I couldn’t afford to take any chances. My left calf was still struggling, feeling like I was being stabbed in the back of the leg with every stride, and the arches of my feet were still throbbing away, but I tried to just push that to the back of my mind, and I really opened up on the run down into Lindell Beach, even dipping down to a 4:58 km at one point.

I was super happy (even though my pain face might not have shown it…LOL) to see my Super-Wifey, Raina, at the side of the road, cheering me on as I tried to extract whatever speed my legs had left. That lifted my spirits quite a bit despite the pain I was feeling in my calf, and as the course levelled out ahead of the slight grade that I knew would take us up to the aid station, I knew I had that crucial first cutoff in the bag (not the revised, 3-hour cutoff, but the original 2 hours, 45 minutes one I was still aiming to beat).

Coming through the Watt Creek aid station

As I turned up the gravel drive towards the aid station, I had another fun surprise, seeing local ultramarathon legend, Gary Robbins, at the turnoff. I thought, “Wow, that’s nice of him to be out here cheering on all us randos!” As I rounded the corner to head across the timing mats and walk past the aid station, I saw my Super-Wifey! That was awesome and again, unexpected, as I had figured she’d head back to the Main Beach start / finish area after I saw her at the side of the road earlier. So cool to see both my favourite person in the world and a local celebrity in such a short space of time! I made my way through the aid station, with an official split time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 38.2 seconds.

Okay, Now What Do You Have Left?

With that goal accomplished, the question became whether I had taken too much out of my body to endure the grueling climbs and muscle-shredding descents of the second leg of the race. I wasn’t at all sure I had it in me to run the remaining 13 km with nearly 700 metres of climbing and descending in the time needed to finish under the 5 hour mark, but I felt if I could just hold it together, a 4-1/2 hour finish might be within reach.

There was really no time to ponder the eventualities because the first punishing climb started right out of the aid station, gaining about 130 metres of elevation in a bit less than ¾ of a kilometre. The brutal grind was made more tolerable as I matched pace with another runner, and we chatted and commiserated over the course and conditions as we went.

It took me a few minutes to realize that, hey, I recognize this person – it turned out I was running with Linda, Gary Robbins’ wife. THAT made more sense than my “out cheering on randos” version of Gary being along the course …LOL!

It was a real pleasure to share that time chatting away on the trail with her, and it made that unpleasant climb pass almost without notice. She is definitely at least as nice and cool a person as she seems in Gary’s videos. ;) As we rolled over to flatter terrain at the top of that initial climb, I bade her farewell and sent her on her way ahead of me. She clearly had more pace in hand, while I was ever mindful of the even longer, more challenging climb I knew lay in wait during the latter part of the leg.

I pushed ahead as best I could, no longer with enough energy to skirt around the large puddles on the trail, choosing instead to just splash my way through them. My average pace was slowly but surely creeping backwards, but at a slow enough rate that I felt I could still meet my revised target of a sub-4-1/2 hour finish as long as the second major climb on the back of the course didn’t do me in.

As I passed the final aid station on the course to head up that climb, I was deep into my “zombie running” mode, just shambling along and letting gravity take me where it could, and mindlessly ploughing forward when gravity was working against me, one foot after another, sometimes at a near crawl but never stopping. I knew I had “one Ledgeview” worth (about 270 metres elevation) of climbing to reach the final summit but at a steeper grade, completing that gain in only 1.5 km. It was just a matter of grinding it out, and then holding on for the final 6 km to the finish.

I was right at the threshold of full-leg seizures for the latter half of that climb and the ensuing 318 metres of descending for 4.3 km. Everything from my feet to my hips was on the verge of spasm. That whole descent, I was just thankful that the forecasted deluge of rain for the second leg of the course had failed to materialise, because I knew from past experience that even one small slip could trigger severe cramping and then I’d be reduced to a walk. I concentrated intently on each foot placement to keep my face from meeting the trail despite the state of my legs, and somehow managed to pull it off. I rode a fine line to squeeze out every last bit of descending pace I could by relaxing into what amounted to a kilometres-long controlled fall without triggering my legs with too-intense a contraction at any point. As I exited the trail onto Edmeston Road and ran down that last short chute to cross the Columbia Valley Road for the final time, I knew that even though the rest of the course was pretty flat, it would still be a hard, 2.5km slog to the finish with virtually nothing left in my legs.

It took everything I had left to not walk in that final stretch. Folks that I had previously passed on the long descent breezed past me as I tried to dial in my familiar, sustainable long-run pace. “Keep going, we’re almost there!” a few of them called out, not realizing I WAS going…that seemingly snail-like pace was every bit of pace I could manage without passing that tipping point into cramping, and I was damned if I was going to let THAT be the way I finished this race. Better to look like the shambling zombie runner I felt like than hobble in with spasming legs.

That last run down the beachfront felt like an eternity and I could feel the pace ebbing away. Those final metres along the main beach, I just tried to keep plodding forward, looking forward to seeing my Super-Wifey somewhere ahead and being done with this race, and my 2024 racing season for my 50th birthday year.

I finally crossed the finish with an official time of 4 hours, 24 minutes, 34.9 seconds. 93rd place overall out of 117 finishers (not sure how many DNF’d by missing the Watt Creek cutoff), 62nd of 73 males, and 4th out of 5 in the men 50-59 age group.

So – despite my weeks of trepidation leading up to the event, self-doubt that made me seriously consider not running on several occasions, and the poor weather and trail conditions on race day, I managed to achieve my goals for the race. I finished without injury (aside from a mildly strained left calf which is still bothering me 24 hours later), beat the cutoff at Watt Creek, and finished under the 5 hour limit.

I was also quite surprised to have pulled that off while only consuming half of my planned fuel, never stopping at any aid stations, and consuming less than 750 ml of water (though I did pre-hydrate with 1L of water in the 90 minutes before the race start. I put that down mostly to the very cool conditions, but it’s an interesting puzzle that I might try to figure out in future.

As with my 50K Spartan Ultra on my 50th birthday, this was not a big “wow”, life-changing event for me, but somehow the experience on this race of having to really push through my fear and anxiety, combined with the right-on-the-limit level of physical exertion made this one a bit more satisfying. I still have trouble wrapping my head around why I didn’t (and still don’t) feel as big a sense of accomplishment as I had expected at finishing the Ultra and coming 2nd place in my age group, but oh, well. Move on.

Wow - I looked a LOT better than I felt after the finish…LOL!

So what’s in the future?

I’m not sure.

I am nearly certain that I don’t have another Ultra race in my future, given the lack of satisfaction I got from what was a very good result on my Spartan Ultra. While there definitely is a bit of an art to the disciplined pace required to pull that off, it just didn’t do it for me. I hated having to always be conscious of my pace in training all year, always thinking, “could I sustain this for 12 hours?” There just wasn’t any room for fun in my training, just hours and hours of discipline and practice, day in, day out. It was like having another job, and I don’t think I want to do it again. I do still have an interest in doing a straight-through push on a longer route like the Juan De Fuca trail, but without the pressure of a race environment. I’m also still on the fence about a 65-mile rucking event I’m signed up for in northern Florida at the end of January. We’ll see…

Part of me is running back this race in my head and wondering how much better I could have done if I’d been training for that kind of speed all year instead of preparing for the slower grind of the Ultra. Or if I’d been more diligent with my nutrition and prep, and had managed to get down to a lighter body weight, how much more pace I could have extracted out of my legs.

One study I looked up said that a 5% increase in total mass for highly trained trail runners (using a weighted vest) decreased speed by 2.2% and a 10% increase in mass decreased speed by 6.1%, so based on the weight difference alone between my near-200 pound race weight vs. my 180 pound target, I should have been able to run closer to a 4 hours, 10 minute time. I was, after all, only 16 minutes behind the 3rd place finisher in my age group, so that would have put me within striking distance for podium contention. I don’t *think* the 1 hour faster time I’d need to run to be in contention for 2nd is attainable, though, even if I were at my target weight and no matter how much I train. Those guys are just too fast, and I’m not really built for this stuff, as much as I do enjoy it sometimes.

Still, I’m leaning more towards focusing next year on running local races in the 25-30K distance and trying to be faster. They’re short enough that I can still let loose and actually “run” them, but not so short that I would have to be SUPER fast to do well. I also wouldn’t have to put in as many miles in training to prepare for them, and those miles I DO put in can be more fast and fun instead of always maintaining a disciplined pace. If there ends up being a Spartan Race event in BC next year, I’m also thinking about doing a full-speed, mountainous Beast race, which I’ve never gotten to do in the past 9 years. So far, though, there is no BC event on the calendar.

I’m also considering doing no races at all next year, and just getting back to enjoying time out on the trails. Again, I’m just really not sure where I’m going with this.

For now, though, I’m taking a couple of weeks away from running altogether.

I plan to get back into the gym and hit that kind of training more consistently and harder than I have over the past couple of years while my focus has been mainly on improving my distance running performance. I also want to spend some time and energy dialing in my nutrition to get my body weight and composition to where I’m not lugging non-functional pounds up and down the mountains next year, whatever I choose to do.

Final Thoughts

Overall, running the race was a worthwhile experience. I reacquainted myself with the true limits of my mental, emotional and physical performance and gave myself a clearer picture of what I do and don’t want out of my time on the trails, whether in race mode or in training.

If I had given into my fears, doubts and anxiety and sat this one out, I genuinely feel that I would have been worse off. I would have planted further doubt in my mind about the person I am vs. the person I aspire to be, and that would NOT be good.

So:

Do Stuff Anyway. Even if it scares you, and even if you might fail. You’ll learn, grow and improve from the experience no matter how it goes. And you might even surprise yourself with what you’re capable of!