Running for the Bay, in Pictures
Today was the main event for this trip: the Apalachicola "Running for the Bay" 50 km Ultra-Marathon.
This was a psychologically interesting "out and back" course: it crossed two very long sea bridges then down a coastal island, all at right angles to each other, so from the start line you could effectively see the turn-around point from the start line, some 25 km away on the horizon.
We set off before dawn into a cool ocean breeze towards the rising sun.
About 45 minutes into the race, still on bridge #1, the sun finally came up over bridge #2, where I'd be in an hour (and again in four hours).
I spotted this billboard at Eastpoint, the stretch of mainland where the two bridges connect. Twelve years ago when I first attempted marathon running, I used the Jeff Galloway training program. Was this a sign?!? (Metaphorically, in addition to physically, that is.)
(Post race Googling revealed there is no relation.)
Bridge #2 was long and lonely.
Really long...
Seriously, will this bridge ever end?
Finally onto St. George's Island, the course finally changed from "nothing but concrete and water" into vacation summer homes and rentals, though I wasn't able to take a ton of pictures because the heat was making my hands quite sweaty so operating my iPhone was difficult.
2.5 hours ago I saw the 5K runners turn back; 2 hours ago I saw the 10K runners turn back; 1.5 hours ago the half-marathons turned back, now it was time to say goodbye to the marathoners.
(Read: "Wimps made out of marshmallows, turn left; heroes chiseled out of steel, turn right.)
I finally reached the (very anticlimactic) 50K turn-around point at just over three hours, just ahead of my target pace of 6.5 hours for the whole course. (This is quite slow for most of my friends who run, but relatively fast for me. I chose this time because it is the course limit for the Calgary 50 km if I ever chose to run it.)
Getting back down St. George's Island is where I started to feel the first hints of fatigue, largely physiologically-inspired since it was quite hot, humid, and there were only a handful of us left back here. (FWIW I wasn't last, but there were only about a half-dozen people behind me.) By the time I got back onto bridge #2 I was all by myself, with no other runners within sight in front of me or behind me.
This was where I suffered my most lingering injury from the race, in the form of sunburn. I had basically bathed in 50 SPF waterproof sunscreen before starting the race, but that was 5+ hours of sweaty running ago and I knew it wouldn't last the race, so had mostly tried to cover up with clothing. However, running away from the sun on this white, reflective asphalt, my calves got absolutely fried and were beet red and stinging for days after the race. (Also, after sweating so much in the briney sea air, drips of sweat dried into crusts of salt on my brows and left me with sunburned outlines of drips on my face.)
As I got back to the mainland and with a few km before attempting the return over bridge #1, I had just passed about 40 km and was at about five hours, meaning I had a full hour and a half to complete the final ten kilometers and was feeling pretty good about it. However, now on land I realized the sea breeze had been keeping me cool and now in the noonday sun, running on blacktop with no shade at all, the temperature jumped by 10C or so. Then my old nemesis came a knockin': HUNGER. This had been my undoing back in Warsaw last month, and now it was past 12:30 I was running into trouble again. (My running friends don't know this pain since they generally finish early enough to have a late brunch.) "Enough with this running bullsh*t", said my brain, "Let's go into one of these beach bars and get some nachos!" (I still had a lot of Cliff bars and Sharkeys in my camel back, but I simply couldn't stomach eating any more of them.) As another bad omen: the batteries on my Apple Watch and my Bluetooth earbuds both died. (I had chargers for both but it seemed like I would be finished before they had time to recharge.)
Within minutes the wheels fell off and I could barely bring myself to walk. I hit "the wall" as suddenly and as hard as I ever had. (I had been texting Jessica updates through the race, and afterwards she noted there was only 11 minutes between "Just got by 40K; 6.5 hours will be close" and "Just ran out of gas; need to walk now.") I managed to run 50% of the time until I got to the full-marathon distance of 42.2 km just as I started back on bridge #1, but then had to give up and start power-walking 90% of the time, running for maybe 50 meters at a time.
This was a looong, unpleasant walk back across the bridge: no other runners within sight, the hot midday sun beating down on me, and sucking in exhaust from the heavy two-way traffic ripping by meters away. Plus, despite having a backpack full of running food, I was STARVING and kept texting Jessica to bring food to the end line. The small hill at the end of the bridge might look like a gentle incline, but to me it was the final ascent to the summit of Everest (and I climbed it slower than people on the mountain make that final push).
Finally back in Apalachicola, I mustered the strength to break into a slow jog for the last kilometer and finally turned the corner to see what I had been dreaming of for the last seven hours, though there were few left to cheer me to the finish at this late hour.
(Sadly, with my watch no longer working I hadn't realized I was so close to at least staying under seven hours, else I might have tried for a little more of a running push at the end.)
So sadly my definition of a "50 Km Ultra Marathon" was really "a regular marathon plus a 8 km power-walk". I'm disappointed but not devastated, because I knew my training this summer had been lackluster and that the Florida heat was going to be a problem, and I'm glad I was able to stumble to the finish line under my own strength at all. Now it's behind me there's only one thing left to say:
(Events of October 23, 2016.)
This was a psychologically interesting "out and back" course: it crossed two very long sea bridges then down a coastal island, all at right angles to each other, so from the start line you could effectively see the turn-around point from the start line, some 25 km away on the horizon.
We set off before dawn into a cool ocean breeze towards the rising sun.
About 45 minutes into the race, still on bridge #1, the sun finally came up over bridge #2, where I'd be in an hour (and again in four hours).
I spotted this billboard at Eastpoint, the stretch of mainland where the two bridges connect. Twelve years ago when I first attempted marathon running, I used the Jeff Galloway training program. Was this a sign?!? (Metaphorically, in addition to physically, that is.)
(Post race Googling revealed there is no relation.)
Bridge #2 was long and lonely.
Really long...
Seriously, will this bridge ever end?
Finally onto St. George's Island, the course finally changed from "nothing but concrete and water" into vacation summer homes and rentals, though I wasn't able to take a ton of pictures because the heat was making my hands quite sweaty so operating my iPhone was difficult.
2.5 hours ago I saw the 5K runners turn back; 2 hours ago I saw the 10K runners turn back; 1.5 hours ago the half-marathons turned back, now it was time to say goodbye to the marathoners.
(Read: "Wimps made out of marshmallows, turn left; heroes chiseled out of steel, turn right.)
I finally reached the (very anticlimactic) 50K turn-around point at just over three hours, just ahead of my target pace of 6.5 hours for the whole course. (This is quite slow for most of my friends who run, but relatively fast for me. I chose this time because it is the course limit for the Calgary 50 km if I ever chose to run it.)
Getting back down St. George's Island is where I started to feel the first hints of fatigue, largely physiologically-inspired since it was quite hot, humid, and there were only a handful of us left back here. (FWIW I wasn't last, but there were only about a half-dozen people behind me.) By the time I got back onto bridge #2 I was all by myself, with no other runners within sight in front of me or behind me.
This was where I suffered my most lingering injury from the race, in the form of sunburn. I had basically bathed in 50 SPF waterproof sunscreen before starting the race, but that was 5+ hours of sweaty running ago and I knew it wouldn't last the race, so had mostly tried to cover up with clothing. However, running away from the sun on this white, reflective asphalt, my calves got absolutely fried and were beet red and stinging for days after the race. (Also, after sweating so much in the briney sea air, drips of sweat dried into crusts of salt on my brows and left me with sunburned outlines of drips on my face.)
As I got back to the mainland and with a few km before attempting the return over bridge #1, I had just passed about 40 km and was at about five hours, meaning I had a full hour and a half to complete the final ten kilometers and was feeling pretty good about it. However, now on land I realized the sea breeze had been keeping me cool and now in the noonday sun, running on blacktop with no shade at all, the temperature jumped by 10C or so. Then my old nemesis came a knockin': HUNGER. This had been my undoing back in Warsaw last month, and now it was past 12:30 I was running into trouble again. (My running friends don't know this pain since they generally finish early enough to have a late brunch.) "Enough with this running bullsh*t", said my brain, "Let's go into one of these beach bars and get some nachos!" (I still had a lot of Cliff bars and Sharkeys in my camel back, but I simply couldn't stomach eating any more of them.) As another bad omen: the batteries on my Apple Watch and my Bluetooth earbuds both died. (I had chargers for both but it seemed like I would be finished before they had time to recharge.)
Within minutes the wheels fell off and I could barely bring myself to walk. I hit "the wall" as suddenly and as hard as I ever had. (I had been texting Jessica updates through the race, and afterwards she noted there was only 11 minutes between "Just got by 40K; 6.5 hours will be close" and "Just ran out of gas; need to walk now.") I managed to run 50% of the time until I got to the full-marathon distance of 42.2 km just as I started back on bridge #1, but then had to give up and start power-walking 90% of the time, running for maybe 50 meters at a time.
This was a looong, unpleasant walk back across the bridge: no other runners within sight, the hot midday sun beating down on me, and sucking in exhaust from the heavy two-way traffic ripping by meters away. Plus, despite having a backpack full of running food, I was STARVING and kept texting Jessica to bring food to the end line. The small hill at the end of the bridge might look like a gentle incline, but to me it was the final ascent to the summit of Everest (and I climbed it slower than people on the mountain make that final push).
Finally back in Apalachicola, I mustered the strength to break into a slow jog for the last kilometer and finally turned the corner to see what I had been dreaming of for the last seven hours, though there were few left to cheer me to the finish at this late hour.
(Sadly, with my watch no longer working I hadn't realized I was so close to at least staying under seven hours, else I might have tried for a little more of a running push at the end.)
So sadly my definition of a "50 Km Ultra Marathon" was really "a regular marathon plus a 8 km power-walk". I'm disappointed but not devastated, because I knew my training this summer had been lackluster and that the Florida heat was going to be a problem, and I'm glad I was able to stumble to the finish line under my own strength at all. Now it's behind me there's only one thing left to say:
Thank fuck that's over!
(Events of October 23, 2016.)
posted by Paineroo @ 7:05 AM
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