I hate quitting. It makes me cringe to see "DNF" next to my name. But sometimes things get the better of me, and I have to quit. This time it was the epically bad conditions that proved to be tougher than I was.
The Indiana Trail 50/100 was both a 50- and 100-mile race, consisting of a 16.67-mile loop. Us 50-milers were to do it three times, the 100-milers six times. This was my first attempt at a 50-miler, and was advertised as a fast, relatively easy course. Perfect! My running partner, Jayne, had called several months ago, asking if I would run this with her. It was her first attempt as well. We are really good at pacing each other over longer distances, so this was an ideal way to tackle our first 50. She's good company too, and that really helps the time and miles pass quickly.
The race was on a Saturday. Wednesday, I was still feeling positive and optimistic about it, and was looking forward to finishing my first 50, despite several days' worth of rain. After all, it had been dry for a couple of days, the water was draining, and the race directors were still reporting reasonably decent course conditions. It was forecast to be sunny and cool-ish, with highs in the 40's. Some mud, but that's to be expected, especially in early spring in Indiana. Good conditions for an ultra.
Then Thursday came...with another several inches of rain, bringing the week's total to six inches. Uh oh. This could be an issue. At least it's going to be reasonably nice on Saturday, right?
Friday night we learned that the race directors had been out on the course all day, frantically trying to find detours around the worst of the flooding and filling in the smaller ponds and mud troughs with mulch. They had been doing this all week, after each rain. Their intent was to have a good trail run, not a mud fest. They did everything possible to try to mitigate truly awful conditions.
Saturday morning, we checked out of the motel and walked to our cars at 4:30am...in the middle of a snow storm. On April 20th. Are you serious?? And it was a lovely 33 degrees, with a stiff northerly wind. Got some coffee and oatmeal from McDonalds and headed to the race start, about 45 minutes away. We were both struggling to remain optimistic about completing the entire 50 miles, and acknowledged that we might only complete one 16.67-mile loop. This had definitely deteriorated into a long training run, just to see how far we could go. We were late to the start anyway, and crossed the timing mats at 13:15 after everyone else had already started. Oh well, it's a chip time, so it didn't matter.
Our strategy was to go slower than we thought we really needed to, to conserve energy. The only way to make it such a long distance is to back off from the start, and walk up any hills. We figured we could speed up later if we felt like we had the energy. Besides, we wanted to check out the course.
We both were able to laugh when we hit the first mid-shin-deep large body of water around mile two. Oh joy. Slogged through it, thought, "This isn't as bad as I expected," and continued. We had a break for several miles, and in some spots the trail was actually quite nice. Enjoyed a nice sunrise and were grateful for shelter from the very bitter wind, until we came to a section that was higher up on a hill. Yikes that wind was cold! (I found out later that the wind chill was 20 degrees.) Got to the first aid station around mile 4.3 in 58 minutes, and were pleased with how things were going. The feet had dried out and were happy.
After discussing how far we might get before the fastest runners lapped us, we were shocked to actually catch up to some people. We'd both figured we'd be mostly alone all day, given our late start and our relatively slow pace. We steadily caught up to and passed folks for the rest of the loop, which helped boost morale (ours, anyway).
Things were tolerable until after mile 9 or so, after the second aid station. Even the mud hadn't been too awful...yet. For the next 5.5 miles we alternated between wading through frigid water, slogging through ankle-deep mud, and bushwhacking around yet more large bodies of water. We had been making good time until we hit a patch of several miles where it simply wasn't possible to run: the mud was sucking my shoes off my heels, the water was muddy and you couldn't see the bottom to know if it was flat or not, and there were thorny branches in the bushwhack detours. At times it was easier to just go through the water than to deal with the mud. As soon as the feet started to dry and warm up, there was another patch of water. Each ice bath made the toes hurt with cold, then they'd warm up after a few steps. The 10-yard long ponds weren't too bad, but the longer ones were downright painful. Got to the third aid station at mile 14, quickly grabbed some fig newtons and a mini-peanut-butter sandwich, and got going again.
Despite all this, we both still felt pretty good at mile 15, and I think we were both entertaining thoughts that we might actually complete this thing. Almost one loop done, two more to go. And we were on pace to finish it in daylight, averaging about 4-4.15 miles an hour. Great!
As we were going up another hill around mile 16, the cold finally caught up to both of us. The legs started feeling like lead, and it wasn't due to lack of food, it was from the cold. Jayne said what I was thinking, "Wonder how many people have already bailed?" Hmmmm. We were exposed to the cold wind again, our feet were wet (and would never be dry again until we finished), and we had to face that mess two more times.
After four hours and 15 minutes, we completed loop one and immediately headed for the aid tent and tried to warm up and decide what to do. We both agreed that we could do one more loop, but I just couldn't wrap my head around doing it twice more. I was able to fool myself that I wasn't really that cold while we were moving, but the instant I stopped, the chill set in. I was still willing to do a second loop until I made the mistake of standing in front of a high-powered heater. That's when I realized exactly how cold I really was. People were dropping out fairly regularly, and I overheard a few 100-mile runners talking about dropping down to the 50.
We debated some more. The first loop had taken us 4:15. We had burned another 30 minutes warming up...we were only going to slow down, not get faster. We agreed that if we could do two loops then we might as well try for the third, and each one would likely take us five hours. Then the medic said, "Well, you know, you lose your bodyheat 25% faster when you're wet." That nailed it. I just couldn't face the thought of being THAT cold for another ten hours. It also hit home when I saw a clearly very experienced 100-mile runner quit after two laps, with no regret.
So both of us are still looking to complete our first 50, preferably in better conditions. Would I try this race again? Absolutely. The weather was more freaky than anyone could have predicted. The race directors and the volunteers did everything they could to make it tolerable. They had to be miserable standing around in the cold waiting for runners to come through, but were always pleasant, smiling, and helpful. The course was beautiful, and on a normal April 20th would have been quite pleasant.
Some numbers:
- 77/90 50-mile finishers (unknown how many are 100-milers that dropped down to the 50)
- 57/152 100-mile finishers
- Air temp: 33
- Wind chill: 20
- Water: lots of it, deep, very cold
- Snow: yes
- Our time to complete 16.67 miles: 4 hours 15 minutes
