[Note:  This is a VERY late race report and should have been finished in July.]

I was very happy with how I performed at Inks Lake 60K.  Considering it was my first trail fitness test leading up to my first hundred mile attempt at Cactus Rose, and my first race since the highly unpleasant TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler, I did pretty much everything that I was hoping to do.
 
I've been keeping in touch with my friend Sonia ever since we carpooled down to Nueces back in March.  When I found out she was running the night series we started making plans to carpool down to Inks Lake State Park.  As it turns out three of Sonia's friends were also going to come down for the race, so Saturday morning I met Sonia and my new friend Diane in Fort Worth and we drove in Sonia's husband's enormous truck to Hillsboro, where we picked up Malea and Becky to round out our quintet.  We had an excellent time on the drive down to Burnet, where we checked into our hotel and crashed for a few hours of rest before heading out to the race.

We were warned that parking would be pretty slim, so we planned on getting to the race an hour and a half early.  Even getting there that early we had to park a ways away and lug our stuff to the start/finish line.  We got settled easily enough, spent some time chatting with fellow runners, and generally tried to stay cool and in the shade until the start of the race.  Fortunately for us a "cool" front came through the day before the race and it was only about ninety-five degrees at the start of the race.  Compared to the 105 degrees I was used to running in ninety-five was a cake walk.  Even so, a bunch of people had serious heat trouble, despite many warnings by the race directors.

I ran this race last year with my friend Josh in 9:09:19, so I pretty much knew what to expect.  The race is set up as six 10K loops.  The hills are fairly minimal but there are quite a few rocks and some pretty rugged terrain.  On the whole it's very runnable, but the heat can make it pretty intense.  My strategy coming into the race was pretty much my strategy for all my recent races:  walk the hills and cruise the flats and downhills.  That's not really how it panned out.

The course was immediately familiar.  I recognized all the turns and climbs, the two leaning rocks, the ditch we had to jump twelve times, and the confusing rocky shelves we had to cross.  I decided pretty quickly that I was going to run the first 10K loop pretty quickly so that I could get as much mileage done in the light as possible.  I pushed fairly hard and finished the first loop in about 1:08, which is pretty much in line with what I ran last year.  I brought both my handheld water bottles but started out with only one, and the temperatures were cool enough that I never needed the second one.

After the first quick loop I deliberately reigned in my pace and ran the next couple of loops about as fast as I did last year.  I was feeling great so I picked up the pace a bit on the fourth loop.  This year my legs felt very strong and I ran pretty much everything up until the mostly unmanned water stop.  I know that there were times last year when I had to walk a bit on some of the gradual uphills on the jeep road, but this year I was able to move along them at a fairly decent clip.

I picked things up a bit more on the fifth loop.  At the water stop on the fifth loop I ran into a guy I had been leapfrogging for a lot of the race.  He was at the water stop when I pulled in and still lingering thirty seconds later when I was getting ready to pull out.  I told him he’d never finish if he didn’t get moving, so he started out shortly after me.  He caught me on the short uphill out of the aid station and we started chatting.  Turns out his name is Dave and he’s a college student at UT.  We ran the rest of that loop together at a pretty fast pace and decided to run the last loop together as well.  We really did our best to kill the last loop and finished hard in 1:30, which is a solid twenty minutes faster than my last loop last year.

I finished in 8:48:04, a solid twenty-one minutes faster than my time from last year.  I felt great.  I was contemplating heading out for the fifty mile option but I was not going to be able to finish fifty miles in under the twelve hour cutoff.  I felt great, but not a three hour 20K great.

Sonia got a bit of heat stroke during the race, so we hung out for a good while at the aid tent while she took in a bunch of fluids and was looked after by the paramedic.  Even with that everyone was in a pretty great mood when we hit the road.

I consider Inks Lake a fantastic first fitness check for Cactus Rose.  Hopefully I’ll be able to keep the momentum going for Pedernales Falls in three weeks.

References

1. Capt'n Karl's Runs
2. Cactus Rose 100 Mile Endurance Run
3. TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler Race Report
4. Nueces 50 Mile Race Report
5. Inks Lake State Park
6. Burnet, Texas

The 2011 Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners (TATUR) TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler was not a great race for me.  I ran it in 2010 and it was a hot, miserable mess of a race.  I was not planning on running it at all this year but my running partner, Josh, twisted my arm.  By "twisted my arm" I mean he told me he was planning on running it as his second fifty and I said I'd run it with him.  Sometimes I'm deplorably easy.

Although I wasn't really looking forward to the race itself I was looking forward to running with Josh again.  I packed all my necessary gear into my trusty running bag and prepared for the six hour drive to Tulsa.  My wife made chocolate chip cookies Thursday night, so between those, a bag of Lays potato chips, and a couple of Gatorades I was ready to drive.  There are no direct ways for me to get to Tulsa, so I left early on Friday morning and started winding my way along country highways, expecting to get to Tulsa around three o'clock.

My race troubles actually started on the drive to Tulsa.  My car, a 2003 Hyundai Elantra, started having engine problems a little ways south of Tulsa and more or less broke down right on the south side of Tulsa.  The heat index in Tulsa on Friday was somewhere around 106, and my poor Elantra just doesn't handle extreme heat and long trips very well, a fact I had completely forgotten.  Mistake number one.  I called around and found a shop that would be open on Saturday.  Bear in mind that we were heading into the Fourth of July weekend and I was six hours from home.  Needless to say, I was a bit anxious.  Fortunately Josh was just getting into town, so he was able to come meet me at the McDonalds where I ended up while we waited for a tow truck.  The tow truck showed up in decent time and we got the Elantra to a shop that promised to look at the car Saturday morning.

After dropping the car off with the shop Josh and I headed to the Holiday Inn Express to try to get some rest before the race.  When I checked in I asked if we could get a late checkout and the clerk hemmed and hawed a bit but finally said I could check out at one.  This was important, because I was expecting us to finish around ten in the morning, which wouldn't give us much time for sleep.  Mistake number two.  When we settled into the room Josh immediately crashed.  I tossed and turned and got basically no sleep.

The Midnight Madness starting line is in a little park with very little parking.  Josh and I planned on getting to the park about ten thirty, which we hoped would be early enough to get a parking spot.  It wasn't.  Apparently parking had been filled for hours.  We unloaded our gear and I waited while Josh went into the neighborhood across the street to find a parking spot.  The park is really nice, with a cool playground and fountains for kids to play on and in.  Josh got back and we unloaded our gear with the other drop bags and settled in to wait for the start of the race.

The really unfortunate thing about the Midnight Madness race is that it fills a large hole in my race schedule.  The last race I ran was the Hell's Hills 50 Miler at the beginning of April.  That's a long time for me to go without racing, and I start to get antsy.  Given that, Josh and I were ready to run.  Shortly before midnight the race director made a few announcements and we were off on our fifty mile adventure.

Midnight Madness consists of five 10.3 mile loops.  Each loop alternates direction.  We started running counter-clockwise, which I think is the slightly more interesting direction.  I'm not going to describe the course except to say it's almost pancake flat, we ran past a power plant and a water treatment plant, and is entirely paved bike trail.  To put it bluntly, the course is boring.  Very boring.

The first loop passed without incident.  Near the end of the second loop Josh and I were both starting to feel really beat up.  Temperatures and humidity during the night were much milder than in 2010, so I couldn't figure out why the bike trail was beaing me up so much worse than last year.  A woman at one of the aid stations later would point out that it had been extremely dry in Tulsa and the ground was probably much harder for not having any moisture in it.  I think that makes a certain sense.  By the end of the second loop I felt beat to shit.  I've run fifty mile trail races and felt better than I felt after those twenty miles.

I was not mentally in the race.  Mistake number one had me worrying about my car pretty much the entire run.  I was also concerned about mistake number two, because I wasn't hugely keen on driving home on just two or three hours of sleep.  I really should have reserved the room for Saturday as well, because then I could have just relaxed, chilled out, and not worried about driving while extremely tired.  As we neared the end of loop two I told Josh that I was very tempted to drop the race so that I could head back to the hotel and hopefully get a little sleep and then tend to my car first thing in the morning.  Josh scoffed at that nonsense, so we kept running.

The wheels started coming off the bus around mile twenty five.  Josh started getting serious pain in the plantar fasciitis and it got so bad that we needed to start run/walking.  By the time we reached the bottom of Turkey Mountain, the only hill on the course worth mentioning, it was pretty much only walking for Josh.  When we got to the aid station at the top of the Turkey Mountain hill we sat down and refueled while the very helpful volunteers tried to tape Josh's foot up so that it wouldn't hurt so much.  After five or ten minutes at the aid station we set out at a slow jog to test out the taping.  It didn't work, and we ended up walking most of the remaining four miles to the start/finish aid station.  I feel terrible that Josh's foot got injured, but I did not hesitate to drop the race at mile 31.

After recovering for a bit Josh and I went back to the hotel to get some sleep.  I managed to get a couple hours of sleep, but I was up well before our late checkout to find out what was up with my car.  Apparently there was a faulty C02 censor that they replaced.  When Josh got up he dropped me off at the shop and, at my urging, head out for Dallas and home.  I napped a bit on the extremely comfortable couch at the shop and finally got my car around three o'clock.  It was a long, slow drive back home, and it turns out that replacing the C02 sensor did not fix the problem.

Josh has a grudge match scheduled for July 6 of next year.  I know he's going to come back and destroy Midnight Madness.  I wish him luck, because I will never run it again.

References

1. Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners Website
2. TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler Website
3. Hell's Hills 50 Miler

Several weeks ago my friend Clynton Taylor asked me if I'd be interested in reviewing some Icebreaker merino wool gear for Nature Shop UK.  I enthusiastically said yes, because I've never done a product review before.  He forwarded my contact information and I promptly forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago when I was contacted by a friendly representative from Nature Shop.  She asked if I would still be interested in reviewing some products.  I looked over their Icebreaker catalog and sent her a list of a handful of products that looked like they could be useful during my summer training.

Picking Icebreaker products to try was quite a challenge.  I looked at a ton of very promising looking products and started compiling a list.  I managed to whittle the list down to about seven items, but I couldn't get it smaller than that.  I left the final decision in the capable hands of my Nature Shop representative.  When the package arrived in the mail a few days later I eagerly opened it up to discover that she selected the Ace Sleeveless Tee and the Boxer Briefs that I put on the list.

I should take a moment before I get really started with this review to note Nature Shop provided the products to me free of charge.  All they asked of me was for me to write an honest review of the products.  I don't have any affiliate links in this blog and I'm not making any money off clicks or advertising.  My goal is to give my opinion and provide links to further information for any interested parties.  Now, on with the review.

I was highly skeptical of how well the Ace Sleeveless Tee would perform in the south Arkansas heat and humidity.  First, the Ace Sleeveless Tee is a dark charcoal color.  Most of what I wear, at least in the summer, is white or light gray.  I was afraid that I would fry under the pounding, intense summer sun.  Second, the Ace Sleeveless Tee is made of wool from the New Zealand marino sheep.  Conventional wisdom suggests that wearing wool during the summer, especially if you sweat heavily, is a bad, bad idea.

I'm happy to say that conventional wisdom, in this case, is completely wrong; all of my skepticism was completely unfounded.  The Ace Sleeveless Tee and Boxer Briefs are extremely lightweight and are supremely soft against my skin.  None of my synthetics can come close in terms of weight or comfort.  The Nature Shop Icebreaker Clothing site says, "Merino wool is far finer than traditional wool and has a soft silky feel perfect for next to skin wear."  I can say this is absolutely true.  Furthermore, the charcoal color didn't seem to be any hotter against my skin than any of my other tech shirts.  In fact, since the merino wool is so light it felt cooler than some of my other shirts.  I was amazed.

The Nature Shop website also mentioned, "Merino wool has natural anti microbial properties that kill germs.  In practice this means you can wear your icebreaker garments again and again with minimal odour build up."  This made my marketing sensitive bullshit alarm go off, so I tried wearing both the Ace Sleeveless Tee and Boxer Briefs again without washing them.  Again, I was completely amazed that they really didn't stink.  Not even a little.  They smelled just as fresh as the first time I wore them.  I've worn them several other times without washing them and they still don't smell.  I really like this because it means I can wear the garments more frequently between washings, which should translate into them lasting longer.  Also, I'm generally very lazy, so the less I have to put my running clothes in the wash the better.

The Boxer Briefs and Ace Sleeveless Tee are unfortunately not perfect.  The problem with the boxers is that they are very slightly too large for me.  I was hoping that they would be a bit tighter and perhaps provide a little more support for my glutes and my upper quads and hamstrings.  This is not the case.  If I went a size smaller I would perhaps be able to get the results I'm looking for.  The Boxer Briefs also suffer from the fact that I just don't wear them as frequently as the Ace Sleeveless Tee because just about all of my running shorts have built-in liner.  I have some gym shorts that I don't usually wear for running that don't have a liner, so that's what the Boxer Briefs get paired with.  Also, the Boxer Briefs are $50.  That's more than I generally want to spend on underwear, even extremely well built performance underwear.

The problems with the Ace Sleeveless Tee are generally pretty minor.  The medium is a tiny bit too large for me, which basically means that it's looser through the chest and longer in the back than I prefer.  I should attempt to rectify the chest issue by getting back into my cross training groove, but I haven't gotten around to that since moving.  There is a "reflective piping detail" on the upper right shoulder that does not have flat sewn seams, so sometimes when I'm running I'm aware of the seams.  The neck also has a "cord management loop" for people who listen to music on the run.  I do not listen to music while running (that's a rant for some other time), so this loop is an extraneous and sometimes irritating (physically scratchy on my neck) detail that I don't need.

Fairly minor quibbles aside, I love both the Ace Sleeveless Tee and the Boxer Briefs.  I look forward to trying some of the other products offered by Nature Shop, such as the Distance Shorts and Tracer Shorts.  I think that Nature Shop is a good company to order from and they strive to be good corporate citizens.  Their customer reviews, which are handled on an independent third-party site, are uniformly excellent.  More importantly, in my mind, they are trying to be environmentally sustainable.  In fact, their Environment Policy is linked on their pages above their social media links, which I have never seen before.  They are a carbon neutral company and are actively working to reduce the amount of carbon emissions and waste across their entire supply chain.  Furthermore, the merino wool used in the Icebreaker products is a naturally sustainable resource.

References

1. Nature Shop UK
   1. Ace Sleeveless Tee
   2. Boxer Briefs
   3. Distance Shorts
   4. Tracer Shorts
   5. Icebreaker Clothing
   6. Customer Reviews
   7. Environment Policy

I was talking with my friend Doug Welch on Twitter today about the Vermont 50 Miler this coming September when, as frequently happens, Western States came up.  Specifically, it came up as a bucket list race (you know, the Bucket List).  I may as well admit that not only is Western States a bucket list race for me, I want to do the entire Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.

The Grand Slam of Ultrarunning involves running Western States (June 25), Vermont 100 (July 16), Leadville 100 (August 20), and Wasatch Front 100 (September 9), all in the same year.  That's four hundred miles of racing in the mountains in just eleven weeks.  I don't have any idea what sort of monster training I'd need to do in order to get ready for the Grand Slam, but I know that it'll be several years down the road.  I need to get experience with mountain running and going the hundred mile distance before I even contemplate the Grand Slam.

But I will.  Some day.

References

1. Vermont 50
2. Grand Slam Races
   1. Western States 100 Endurance Run
   2. Vermont 100 Endurance Run
   3. Leadville Trail 100 Run
   4. Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run
3. Articles on the Grand Slam
   1. Wikipedia
   2. Run 100s
   3. Running Times

Now that my move to Magnolia, Arkansas is complete I have been able to start getting my training back on track.  My next race is the TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler on July 1.  The Midnight Madness race is all on paved bike trails around an urban park in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  People who know me know that I'm a huge fan of Inov-8 shoes.  I currently run on roads in the F-Lite 195, on most trails in the fantastic X-Talon 190, and on really tough, rugged trails in the Roclite 295.  The problem is that my F-Lite 195s have a heel drop of only 3mm.  After sixteen or eighteen miles in them the center of my calf really starts to hurt.  I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to increase my calf strength enough to handle more miles in the 195s, but I'll have to figure something out.  In the meantime I need something that I can log long road miles in.  My current distance road shoes are the Saucony ProGrid Ride 4, and although they have a firm midfoot they are chunky, unweildy, and about as far from minimal as you can get.  I need something else to wear in Tulsa.

So I started researching other options.  Inov-8 has several options that might work.  First, if I want to stick with the F-Lite line, I can choose from the 7.76 ounce F-Lite 220 and the 8.11 ounce F-Lite 230.  I'm really not entirely certain what the difference is between the 220 and the 230 except for 0.35 ounces, so I would probably opt for the 220.  But Inov-8 recently introduced a new Road-X line of shoes that look pretty damn awesome.  The Road-X Lite 155s are perhaps the sexiest running shoes ever created.  They're a non-starter for me, though, because they only have a 3mm heel drop, but you can bet that I'll be giving these a try when my F-Lite 195s wear out.  A much more viable option is the 8.219 ounce Road-X 233.  It has a 6mm heel drop, and since it was designed for road (or at least paved survace) running it might do better over long distances than the F-Lite 195s.

In the past I have tried on the Saucony Kinvara, but the forefoot was way to soft and spongy for me.  I need something firm and responsive.  I had the same problem with the fairly minimal Brooks Green Silence.  Plus, when you're used to the extremely sexy looks of Inov-8's shoes it's really hard to switch to something as bland as what Brooks and Saucony offer.

In any case, I need to make up my mind quickly so that I can log some miles on the shoes before the race.  I have several weeks of back-to-back long runs coming up in which to break them in.

Does anyone out there have suggestions for other minimal shoes that I might look at for long-distance road running?

References

1. TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler
2. Inov-8 Website
   1. F-Lite 195 - 6.878 ounces with a 3mm heel drop
   2. X-Talon 190 - 6.702 ounces with a 3mm heel drop
   3. Roclite 295 - 10.41 ounces - I don't have any idea what the hell drop is.
   4. F-Lite 220 - 7.76 ounces with a 6mm heel drop
   5. F-Lite 230 - 8.11 ounces with a 6mm heel drop
   6. Road-X Lite 155 - 5.467 ounces with a 3mm heel drop
   7. Road-X 233 - 8.219 ounces with a 6mm heel drop
3. Saucony ProGrid Ride 4 - Not sure what the heel drop is on these (probably over 11mm), but it's more than the F-Lites, and they weigh an appalling 10.9 ounces.
4. Saucony ProGrid Kinvara 2 - 7.7 ounces
5. Brooks Green Silence - 6.9 ounces with an 8mm heel drop

I may have accidentally talked a friend into training for hundred mile races today.  Normally I'm an ultra pusher.  I never turn down an opportunity to try to talk someone into running ultras.  But in this case I really wasn't trying.  Honest.  Scout's honor.

It started innocuously enough with a video that someone posted to the NTTR mailing list.  The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) has been on my bucket list for a while now, and seeing the video rekindled my sense of damn-that's-a-freaking-awesome-looking-race.  The terrain looks absolutely stunning, the international field of runners is amazing, and apparently it's like a party in every little village you run through.  Naturally I reposted the video on Facebook and my friend Kenny got very, very interested.  I told him that you need to run races to earn points to qualify for entry.  His response was, quite literally, "Find out for me, would make a nice vacation trip a couple years from now and give me time to do the qualifiers.  Let's do this."  How can I possibly say no to that?

This is for you and your enthusiasm, Kenny.

I started with the UTMB website.  I knew there were qualification requirements, so I started hunting and found this paragraph at the bottom of the page:

Registration to UTMB® is only allowed to competitors who have already had an experience and who can prove it. It is necessary to have acquired at least 5 point by finishing, in 2009 and/or 2010, two trails listed here.This race is limited to 2300 competitors.

That led me to the list of qualifying races.  I took the liberty of finding a direct link to all of the qualifying US races.  I was very surprised by some of the races that I found on the list.  For instance, both Cactus Rose (for four points) and Bandera (for two points) are on the list.  That means that I already have two points this year, so I will qualify for entry at the end of October when I complete my first hundred miler at Cactus Rose.  Sweet!

The list of equipment that runners are required to carry is pretty daunting.  The reason for all the gear is because runners are likely to hit all manner of nasty weather, and since aid stations will likely be at least ten miles apart they need to be prepared for the absolute worst.  I'm going to post this verbatim from the UTMB website.  My intention is to come back in later and add links to some options for the various and sundry equipment to try to get an idea of what the entire pack will look like.

Obligatory material :
   - mobile phone with option enabling its use in the three countries
(put in one’s repertoire the security numbers of the organisation, keep it switched on, do not hide one’s number and do not forget to set off with recharged batteries)
   - personal cup or tumbler 15cl minimum (water bottle not acceptable)
   - stock of water minimum 1 litre,
   - two torches in good working condition with replacement batteries,
   - survival blanket 1.40m x 2m minimum
   - whistle,
   - adhesive elastic band enable making a bandage or a strapping (mini 100cm x 6 cm),
   - food reserve,
   - jacket with hood and made with a waterproof (recommendation: minimum 10,000 Schmerber) and breathable (recommendation: RET lower than 13) membrane (Gore-Tex or similar) which will withstand the bad weather in the mountains.
   - long running trousers or leggings or a combination of leggings and long socks which cover the legs completely,
   - warm long sleeved clothing (type « second layer », cotton excluded) of a weight of 180g minimum
   - cap or bandana
   - warm hat
   - warm and waterproof gloves
   - waterproof over-trousers

Required by the frontier police forces:
   - identity papers

Very strongly recommended
   - walking poles for security on slippery ground in case of rain or snow
   - a change of warm clothes indispensable in the case of cold weather, rain or injury
   - the sum of 20 euros minimum (in order to cover the unexpected....)

Advised (list not definitive):
   Telescopic sticks, change of clothing, compass, knife, string, sun cream, Vaseline or anti-chaffing cream, needle and thread,...

I know that I won't be running UTMB for a few years yet, but when I get a sense of an exact date (possibly August of 2013, shortly before my thirty-fifth birthday) I'll start collecting and training with the full set of gear.  Of course, training with the full set of gear will also help prepare me for my future circumnavigation of Mount Rainier on the Wonderland Trail.

References

1. Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB)
   1. 2011 Qualification Guidelines
   2. UTMB Qualifying Races
   3. List of Equipment (about a third of the way down the page)
   4. Ultra-Trail do Mont-Blanc Video
2. Cactus Rose 100
3. Bandera 100K
4. North Texas Trail Runners (NTTR)
5. My Bucket List
6. Wonderland Trail

I had planned for Rocky Raccoon to be my first hundred miler, but that plan fell through in the worst freeze the Dallas area had seen in twenty years.  After I wasn't able to make it to Rocky Raccoon I spent a couple of weeks pretty depressed.  I had been completely mentally prepared to give the race everything I had.  I know that shit can happen over the course of one hundred miles and I was prepared for the eventuality that something might happen and I might have to DNF.  I was entirely unprepared for not being able to get down there in the first place.

To make a long story short, I was depressed.

I raced quite a bit since Rocky Raccoon (see Cowtown Ultra Race Report, Nueces 50 Miler Race Report, Grasslands 50 Miler Race Report, and my upcoming Hell's Hills 50 miler race report), but I didn't have any direction.  My training fell way off, although that was in part because of my new job.  I didn't have a plan for anything, so I was just going through the motions and more-or-less using my races (most of which were last-minute affairs) as my training.  Seeing friends and the companionship surrounding ultras really helped me out.  But what really brought me around was deciding that the Cactus Rose 100 would be my first hundred mile race.

With a goal in place I was suddenly much, much happier.  Now I have something to shoot for.  Is Cactus Rose (basically the same course as Bandera) more technical than Rocky Raccoon?  Yes.  Shit yes.  Will it be more difficult?  Certainly.  Will I have some wonderful friends there?  Absolutely.  Am I in the least bit worried about the roughness of the terrain or attempting to run one hundred miles?  Not even remotely.

One of the first things I did after making my decision was to start researching.  I found a one hundred mile training plan on the Hill Country Trail Runners site that I decided looked pretty decent, so I started adapting it for my schedule.  It's still a work in progress, but I think that the plan looks pretty good so far.  I know that my training is going to get disrupted by my move this summer, but I think if I hit my tentatively planned races I should be in pretty good figurative and literal shape.  Speaking of races, here's a quick rundown of what I'm looking at.

1. Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon - May 1
2. TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler - July 1 - I'm really not too keen on this one, since the weather will probably be atrocious, but my running partner wants to run this, so I told him that I'd probably run it with him.  The caveat is that he needs to set the pace.  He needs to figure out how to set a good fifty mile pace.
3. Capt'n Karl's Endurance Runs - Each of the next three races has a sort of ad-hoc option to run fifty miles instead.  It's basically a race day decision where runners just notify Joe Prusaitis (the race director) that they are going to do the fifty mile option.  I'll probably do the fifty mile option in all cases.
   1. The Lake 60K - July 16
   2. The Falls 60K - August 6
   3. The Shoe 60K - August 27
4. Vermont 50 Miler - September 25 - I'm still very much up in the air on this race.  My wife would really love to travel to Vermont, but the timing on this race may be problematic and she might not be able to make it.  I'm not sure if I want to travel for a race (out of state, that is) without her.  I'll be mulling this over.
5. Fatass 55 Miler - October 1 - My schedule calls for a fifty-five mile run on October 1.  I may see about planning a fatass run for NTTR somewhere in the DFW area.
6. Tyler Rose Marathon - October 9 - I would run this as an easy long run, since it's so close to Cactus Rose.
7. Cactus Rose 100 Miler - October 29 - Holy shit!

That's a lot of racing between now and October 29, but the schedule calls for a shitload of running.  Even if I miss some of my long runs on account of moving if I can hit even most of these races I think that I'll be physically and mentally ready to take on Cactus Rose.  In the meantime I have aid station splits and maps to memorize.

References

1. Rocky Raccoon 100 Miler
2. Cactus Rose 100 Miler
3. Cowtown Ultra
4. Nueces 50 Miler
5. Grasslands 50 Miler
6. Hell's Hills 50 Miler
7. Bandera 100K
8. Hill Country Trail Runners
9. Mike's 100 Mile Training Plan
10. Jeremy's 100 Mile Training Plan
11. Preparation Races
    1. Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon
    2. TATUR Midnight Madness 50 Miler
    3. The Lake 60K - Part of the Capt'n Karl's Endurance Runs series.
    4. The Falls 60K - Part of the Capt'n Karl's Endurance Runs series.
    5. The Shoe 60K - Part of the Capt'n Karl's Endurance Runs series.
    6. Vermont 50 Miler
    7. Tyler Rose Marathon

The Cowtown Ultra, a 50K entirely on roads, was not a great race for me.  In fact, it was downright crappy (sorry for the pun, as you’ll see later).  I should note that some of this post will probably be pretty candid and, quite frankly, disgusting.  Of course, some of the most interesting running experiences are, but consider yourself warned.

I ran the Cowtown Half Marathon in February of 2009.  It was my second race and my second half marathon ever.  It was also the start of a five year medal series.  Each year the Cowtown medal is one part of a five-pointed star.  The half marathon medal has a blue background.  I discovered last year, after I ran the Cowtown Ultra for the first time (which was also my third ultra), that the ultra medal has a really nice brass background.  The star, when I am finished, will look really nice in the plaque frame that I got in 2009.  It also turns out that that stupid medal is probably one of the few reasons I ran the Cowtown Ultra this year.  I started the series, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stop before finishing.

2010 saw a new venue for the Cowtown races.  In previous years races started and stopped in Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth, but downtown Fort Worth just couldn’t handle all the bodies.  Traffic getting into the race was a nightmare and just maneuvering during the first parts of the half, full, or ultra was difficult in the press of bodies.  I know fast half marathoners who had to weave through inconsiderate 10K runners at the end of their race.

Things changed this year.  The venue was moved outside of downtown to the Will Rogers Colliseum.  Parking was plentiful and easy to get to.  The races were also, wisely, split up.  The 5K and 10K races were held on Saturday morning while the half, full, and ultra were run on Sunday.  Special bling was available for runners running a race on both Saturday and Sunday.

Josh met me at my house at 5:00 and we hit the road for Fort Worth.  We’re both generally early risers and prefer to have plenty of time before the start of the race, so this was a good arrangement for us.  When we got to Fort Worth we had to drive around a bit to find a good parking lot. The place we found was about three blocks south of the race start, and this made for a great leg-stretching walk after the race.  We were very early and got a great parking spot.  There were a couple of port-o-potties in the parking lot so I went to try to take a dump.  I was not very successful, and given the weight in my gut I had a distinct fear that it would come back to bite me in the ass, so to speak.  I was right.

After waffling around a bit we pinned on our numbers and started getting ready to go.  Josh brought one water bottle.  I carried my pack, which is not something that I bring out very often.  I looked at the weather reports and it looked like it was going to get very warm and humid during the day, and I’ve been bitten before by road marathons not having enough supplies, and I didn’t want to have to rely on the Cowtown to have enough water for everyone later in the race.  Generally I prefer to be more minimal in my running.  In any case, we got our hydration ready, checked sunglasses, ensured salt tablets were safely in place, and then walked up to the race start.

When we got to the race start we looked around for our friends Suann and Corina.  While looking for them I ran into my Arlington friends Scott, Steve, and Ben.  We chatted with them for a bit before heading off to continue looking for Suann and Corina.  We never were able to locate them, so I went to use the can (unsuccessfully) one last time before joining the crush of runners ready to start.  After the national anthem and a slightly delayed start the horn sounded and we were off...to a very slow walk.  This is really one of the things that I hate about these large road races.  The race started but it took us seven minutes to actually cross the starting line.

I’m not going to say a whole lot about the course except to say that it was a much better course than last year.  It seemed hillier and generally more scenic.  About 10K into the run we went through the Stockyards, which was pretty neat, and I enjoyed pounding up the large hill on Main Street around mile nine.  Some of the neighborhoods we went through were a little sketchy, but an equal number of them were really fancy and obviously housed a good deal of money.  The ultra section of the course, a 2.5 mile out-and-back along Trinity Trails, was pretty much identical to last year.

The weather was hot and humid, just like expected.  We got misted on a couple of times, but there was not much relief from the stickiness.  Fortunately it was overcast until right after we finished, so at least we didn’t have sun pounding on us like last year.

There were water stops along the course every mile and a half or two miles or so, and aside from the first few that were woefully understaffed they generally did a good job of providing water and Gatorade to runners.  Later in the run there were a few places that had Gu, bananas, and oranges, but the food at road races is really lame compared to the buffets we have at trail ultras.

Of course, later in the race I wasn’t even remotely interested in food.  My stomach really started bothering me about mile eighteen.  I managed to deal with it until mile twenty-one, when I had.  To.  Shit.  It was awful.  Josh and I were on a good, solid pace until I lost five minutes to the bathroom.  And the worst part was that I wasn’t done, I was just as done as I could get at the time.  We started running again and I felt much lighter, but I still didn’t feel great.  My stomach bothered me pretty chronically for the remaining ten miles.  Around mile twenty-five I was looking seriously again for another port-o-pottie, but they were all occupied and I didn’t want to burn more time sitting down.

I probably should have sucked it up and waited, because my stomach was really hampering my pace.  Josh kept wanting to go faster but I just couldn’t go any faster without ending up with a serious chocolate mess on my hands (well, cheeks).  So I plodded on, feeling awful.  From the point when the ultra split off until the end of the race, which was about six miles total, there was not a single port-o-pottie, so I was pretty much forced to hold it.  It pretty much sucked.

In terms of a race, I ended up a solid twenty minutes behind where I should have been.  The run was not a total wash, though.  I saw a ton of people that I know along the course.  Early in the race we passed the race director for the Wee-Chi-Tah Trail Marathon up in Wichita Falls.  She was talking about how they are having back-to-back marathons next year:  the Wee-Chi-Tah Trail Marathon on Saturday and then a run entirely on paved bike trails on Sunday.  I’m rather looking forward to that double headed.  Around six miles in I ran into Ted, who beat me at both Palo Duro Canyon and Wee-Chi-Tah.  He was pacing his cousin for her first marathon.  On the ultra section of the run I saw Sergio, who ran with Suann and me for eighteen miles or so at the Fort Worth Marathon; Amy, who ran out at my Fatass Turkey Trot last year and whom I ran into at the Wee-Chi-Tah Trail Marathon in January; Kay, whom I’ve run with at North Shore on several occasions; another guy whose name I forget (Darrel?) whom I have run into at several races since the Rocky Raccoon 50 miler in February of 2010.  I feel like there are others I’m forgetting, and I feel bad about that.

So my race was pretty crappy.  Stomach issues suck.  Running on roads sucks.  Will I run the Cowtown Ultra again?  Maybe.  I’ll run some race next year, but I just can’t get very enthusiastic about 50K on roads.