The amazing things is that I continually try and convince myself that after doing a 24 hour ultra, I can do things later that day. A year ago I entertained the thought of hosting a D&D game. This year I had pared it down to sending two emails. I couldn’t even do that. I can barely handle the drive home. After that it is eat and sleep. And the eat part usually requires more energy than I have available. Which leads to a bad feedback loop.
Needless to say, on Saturday I started the Iron Horse ultra-marathon. This is usually my last ultra of the season. And, although it is 160km, I think of it as an easier ultra. It is generally flat and fast. The cutoff times are liberal. There is no reason that I wouldn’t be able to finish it.
But 160km is 160km. That is not easy. Several things happened that made this harder than expected. This caused me to be the last place finisher for the second ultra in a row.
The firstly, there were changes to the course. Not hugely, but they replaced flat parts with hilly parts.
Next was my right eye. Soon after night fell, I noticed a halo appearing around the moon. I eventually figured out that my right eye was blurry. Eventually it became cloudy. Towards the end of the race, it was impossible to see anything out of it. Visions (no pun intended) of a detached cornea from my laser eye surgery from eight years ago surged through my brain. Thankfully, it got a bit better after I had taken a nap after the race. But I was probably not supposed to drive the two and a half hours back to Edmonton with one eye shut. After some calls, the theory was that my eye was just dry. So it was back to normal the next day.
I had gone into the race with a plan that I thought would help me break the 24 hour barrier. That was to eat continually. I had made protein balls, which are made of healthy things and peanut butter. I was going to eat one every hour. And also to drink my gels regularly too. It probably did help, but after 112km, bad things happened. My stomach was informing me it was hungry. I ate another protein ball and my stomach immediately rebelled. I had to stop running, and try to prevent myself from gagging. After a minute, my stomach realized it was still food and started digesting, but that was my last attempt at eating those. I may have done better if I had kept eating, but I couldn’t risk it.
The weather also added an interesting element. It was pleasant enough, even through most of the night. But then the moon set. (How often do you get to say that with regards to the weather?) It started getting foggy. Enough that I had to phone the organizers for help. This part of the course had changed, and I could not see the next flag. It took half an hour before someone could come and guide me and the next racer to catch up. Oddly, he didn’t plant more flags for the next victim. This may be why I was the last place finisher. We continued on, and promptly got lost again. Eventually we got to the next transition, mostly because it was lit up brightly, but some luck was involved too.
For the last leg though, the fog really rolled in. I knew the route, go north on the road, but I could only see five feet (not counting the bad eye) and when you can barely see, it is hard to go straight on a road. I continually weaved into and out of the grass. To top it all off, there was a four way intersection at one point. I could not manage going straight across it, and started heading east. Thankfully, I could look up at the stars and navigate by them. The truck driving alone was also able to provide directions.
Then came the part where I cheated.
The Iron Horse Trail is part of the Trans-Canada Trail. It is wide and easy to follow. It may be a bit gravelly, but it’s safe. A lot of the ultra is on it. Except for one part. After following the road north, it starts snaking down into the valley and connects to the Iron Horse Trail. But the ultra has you leave the road before that and go into the trees. For two kilometres you follow a snaky trail, with lots of potential for rolling your ankles, before you go to another part of the Iron Horse Trail. I got in for five minutes and in that time had lost the flags twice. I decided that it felt dangerous. I turned around, returned to the road, took it to the Iron Horse Trail, and ran along that, finding the flags 2km after.
I admitted my failure at the finish line. They didn’t care. So I have a time of about 26 hours and nine minutes. Slower than I wanted, but I still finished.