September 22, 2017 Goosebumps 24 Hour Run

The plan was to get a good nights sleep on Thursday night, wake up around 7 am and head to the race about 8 am for a 10 am arrival. That was the plan. We unexpectedly had our grandson, Ezra, on Thursday overnight. Good thing I packed early for this race. I loaded up the van while Ezra was taking a nap after getting home at 6 pm. The nap was short and the evening was spent playing with my 5 month old grandson. When it was time for bed he was not ready. I ended up being up until 12:30 am with him. Then up again at 4:30 am to hand him over to Grandpa and crawl back into bed. All in all I probably got 5 to 6 hours sleep tops. Not really how I wanted to go into my 24 hour race. Well if anything he was a great distration so I did not get too nervous about the race or the predicted temps of 95 degrees with humidity to give us a real feel of 98 degrees on Friday. Things were looking hot. After sending Terry off with Ezra in the morning to return him home to Mom before he went to work. I tried to sleep a bit but I was wide awake at that point.

It is about a 2 hour drive to Lacrosse, WI but with a few stops along the way I arrived at the park about Noon, just in time for packet pickup. This gave me about 2 hours to get ready and to talk to other racers arriving. I was able to pull the van right up to the course again and I found out the race was actually being run in the opposite direction as last year on this portion of the course. That meant the van would be after the aid station and fairly close. I had planned to set up my bin and chair near the start line/aid station but with the close proximity of the Aid station to my van I decided to leave it in the van. I would have time in the aid station to figure out what I wanted or needed. It worked out great for the entire race.

With the race beginning at 2 pm it was really hot waiting for the race start. Too hot to try to rest at all unless I had run the van with the air conditioning on. That didn't seem sensible. I had the van set up for sleeping again. I was not sure if I would be resting or not but considering the temps predicted I was starting to back down on the expecations knowing it would be slow going while moving and probably spending more time in the aid station resting from the heat. I have always known I don't do well in heat and humidity. Just ask my family. When sweating I don't want any body contact or skin to skin at all. Raising my babies was challenging in the midwestern humidity. So I told myself to be ok with needing to back down the goals. I really just wanted 28 miles for sure and I knew that was doable even despite the high temps.

Start of the race at 2 pm Friday, hottest part of the day!

I definitely overpacked for this race including some cold weather gear that was definitely not needed. But having the van as an aid station of sorts overpacking was not a problem. I would rather be over prepared than under prepared. 

Loops 1 to 5; 15 miles total

Each loop is 3 miles with the one aid station at the start/finish line. There were a few announcements by the Race Director, Richard, with dire warnings to take it easy and hydrate due to the excessive heat.  I started out the race with Karen Gall. She had bigger mileage goals than I did but with the heat we started out slow with a run/walk which involved more walking than running. Despite this we were able to maintain a 15 min average pace. Even at the walk my heart rate stayed on the high end. Keeping the 15 minute pace our first few loops were 50 to 55 minutes with the Aid Station factored in. I had a hard time eating much but the cold fruit was amazing. Watermelons, tangerines, grapes always taste exceptional during hot weather races.

Karen and I trying to keep cool

Loops 6 to 10; 30 miles total

After the 5th loop I realized that I really needed to make myself eat more calories if I wanted to keep going. I told Karen that I was going to hang out at the AS longer to eat more and she could go on without me. The various food that is brought in throughout the event is great. Pizza was out and I ate a few slices along with other items. Loops 6 and maybe 7 were run by myself or with whoever was on the trail. Julio would be coming out to pace me around 8 pm or so. I was starting to get tired and I was getting somewhat negative as a result of the high temps. I felt like I should be moving faster and covering more miles if only it weren't so hot. Oh and bugs were a treat as well in the heat.

Sitting in the AS I received a text from Julio. He was having a hard time finding the race. I decided to wait until he arrived before heading out on loop 8. I made this decision for selfish reasons. I knew if I headed out on another loop without him he might try to get me to run more loops throughout the night! LOL I wanted to complete the 10 loops for 30 miles to earn my sweatshirt and then slepe in the van and after some sleep see how many more loops or miles I could get in towards completing 50 miles. So Julio arrived and we ran/walked another 3 loops. Nine miles of good conversation in the night time hours. I was starting to get tired after my interrupted night of sleep with my Grandson the night before.

I finished the 10th loop and Julio made sure I ate some soup before heading back to the van for some sleep. I decided I would sleep with no alarm to just wake up when my body decided to. Even through it was still quite humid once I fell asleep a little after 1 am I slept fairly good.

Loops 11 to 17; 51 miles total

I woke up around 5:15 needing to go to the bathroom. I decided I might as well walk the rest of that loop and hit the aid station to eat as I was hungry as well. As I got out of the van and started to the porta potty Deanna's daughter Roisin came out of her tent as well. She was going to walk another loop and was interested in having some company. It was still very dark out. So we walked the loop together and she chatted the entire way! My Dad would probably say that I was talkative like that when I was her age. A few well placed questions and she shared about the book she was writing and the books she was currently reading. Did I mention that she is 9 years old? Breakfast was out after this loop. It was now between 6:30 and 7:00 when we finished our loop together.

Roisin and I getting some good conversation in as the sun rose

With 11 loops completed I only needed 6 more loops to complete my next goal of 51 miles. I picked up Dave on the final 5 loops. We were walk/running these loops as well. The bugs were heavy in the early morning but we had a few good loops before it started getting hot again.

Julio, Dave and I on Saturday morning

I was able to get to 51 miles with some time still left on the clock but I was ready to call it good at the 51 miles. With the heat of this race being record high temps since the late 1800's I was satisfied with what I had achieved. Terry came out on his motorcycle but arrived after I was done running. We hung out and ate and waited for the awards. All three of us, Karen, Dave and I would be getting our Goosebumps sweatshirts with our first 100 mile patches! Next year I only need to run about 78 miles to get my next 200 mile patch! Here's to hoping that the September temperatures are more reasonable as I will definitely be back at this 24 hour race again!

I did actually run during this race.

A few Stats: 

Total time run (with sleep 12:30 until 5:25 am or so) 22 hrs 33min.
33rd place in mileage
13th female in mileage