Rough Creek Trail Run Report: 40 miles and a serving of humility

This race was to be a step towards ramping up for the Big Cedar 100 in November.  I’ve done this before with other races, with good results.  The basic idea is to try to treat it as a training run for a more difficult race later on.  You might end up having a lousy finishing time, but if you recover well, a great training effect.  It was also my return to the ultramarathon distance after over a year of dealing with an injury.  I was both excited and grateful to be running, but also nervous about how things would go. 

Rough Creek Trail Run  

I certainly picked a tough course for a return to ultrarunning.  I guess I forgot how hard it was since I ran the ½ marathon in 2012 and then hung out in the shade working an aid station last year.  Yeah there are long flat sections where you can cruise along without having to even look down for rocks, but then there is this stuff: 

over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... 

I’ve run a few hard races, including some in the mountains, and this might be the toughest race I’ve run.  The rocky, technical nature of the crown and the accumulation of the steep ascents and descents really add up, even though it’s a small portion of the course.  Try to remember the beautiful view waiting for you at the top...

because remember you get to do this:

over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

Might not look like much if you've run those mountain races.  Trust me, it isn't easy...

Thoughts from the trail…

“…Mind, body, and soul all do best when none are neglected…”  This was something I read just prior to the Rough Creek 40 miler and it would certainly frame much of my thoughts during the run.  Where was I right now?  This run would be pretty revealing in all three areas, and a good learning experience overall.

The Body

I’ll start with the area that had the weakest showing at Rough Creek.  OK, so I did a handful of runs in the 4-6 hour range, I was acclimated to the heat, I had done hill repeats.  I was still kind of ramping things up though and only had about 3 weeks of what I would consider good ultra training under my belt and it showed.  Loop one was easy except that I was sweating a lot and felt dehydrated even though I was drinking and trying to take care of nutrition.  On loop 2, I started to get cramps in my calves, which I've never had before.  I was still able to run about ½ the flat sections.  I knew part of this was probably a result of being undertrained for this course, but I saw some signs that I was getting really dehydrated as well.  I spent the entire 3^rd loop trying to manage my cramps and dehydration just so I could finish the run.  It turned out to be a long walk with a little shuffling mixed in.  Lots to work with here, both in my training and with my race-day fueling and hydration.

The Mind

I took a wrong turn the last time I ran here, no wrong turns this year.  I was especially cognizant of following trail markings. 

I kind of screwed up by getting behind on hydration but once I recognized it, this became a focus area.  I set goals between each aid station like what I would force myself to eat and drink.  I made myself drink so many bottles of fluid at each aid station and between each aid station.  In retrospect, I might have been able to regroup better if I would have sat down in the shade for 20 minutes or so and recovered more fully before moving on.

I admit my mind did wander and I did think about quitting, which is uncharacteristic of me.   I’m usually good at keeping positive but I found myself thinking “these rocks suck, this rusty crown sucks, this heat sucks, my cramps suck.”  It’s easy to do that.  Heck, it’s easy to do that in life, isn’t it?  I tried to think about how working through my physical and mental challenges would probably be of great benefit in a couple of months when I’m going for the 100 at Big Cedar.  And turning those thoughts positive finally started to happen…“There are beautiful yellow and purple flowers along the trail, I get to go do this, I’m still moving, I’m in a beautiful place with a great group of people!”

The Soul

What is it about these runs that get to the soul?  It’s probably all the hours on the course without a lot of distractions.  Even though I make a focused effort to cultivate reflective time into my life, it’s nothing like a full day of running around in the woods.  Add in a few challenges and I might have to think about what’s really important.  What is this suffering all about?  Is it something I should run away from, quit?  I often worry when life’s difficulties come up and wish things would go “the way I want them to.”  That’s a complete waste of time.  Maybe I could decide that the suffering could be redemptive...maybe I could even accept it and decide to carry my cross a little while. 

Dave (race director extraordinaire) asked me before I headed out for the final loop what I thought of the course since it was modified since the last time I ran it.  I said something like, “I’m really thinking about humility, Dave.”  And really that was what I thought about on the last loop.  A couple of funny things came up to help with that.  I left my shirt at a crossing where I could pick it up later, something I’ve done many times before.  I grabbed it on the way back and stuffed it in my waist band.  About a hundred yards down the trail I started to feel a growing burning sensation in my nether region.  After a quick inspection, I realized I literally had ants in my pants!  I’ve heard the phrase many times before, but whoever coined that phrase, really must have experienced ants in their pants.  You will jump around like a crazed nut and shuck your pants down without checking to see who’s looking to get rid of ants in your pants.  And that is exactly what I did. 

The hills and the cramps were really the humbling part of this experience.  Having not really experienced such disabling cramps before, it was almost comical to have the same series of events repeated over and over.  All of a sudden one of my calves would seize up, which resulted in my toes pointing straight down, which resulted in my tripping.  Soon to follow was some weird noise from me that sounded more like the bleat of some distressed animal and a flinging of my bottles up in the air as I headed for the ground.  The only way to recover was to stretch the cramp out by bearing weight on it and then pull myself up like a little baby trying to stand up for the first time.  I know it sounds like I’m being very dramatic but I think if you’ve ever experienced that you know what it feels like. 

The final 3 miles to the finish were flat.  I finally saw some signs that my hydration was getting better.  I actually shuffled along a few times without cramping up but really I just walked.  I would like to say I made a miraculous comeback but that’s not going to be part of this report.  When I got to the finish line area, I didn’t even try to muster a jog.  I just strolled on in, bottles in one hand.  Rough Creek had humbled me for sure. 

I am so grateful for this experience.  As I finished, I thanked God for humility. I thanked Him for my health.  I thanked Him for everyone out here running and volunteering.  I thanked Him for my wife, children, family, and friends.

Running and the Virtues of Fortitude and Patience

Virtues are habits and firm dispositions to do good.  The word virtue is from the Latin virtus: virility, strength of character.  Fortitude is a firmness of will in doing good in spite of difficulties faced.  To put it plainly, I think of it as overcoming fear.  You might become a pretty good ultrarunner if you have a well developed sense of fortitude.  Anyone who is willing to toe the line at a tough run of 30, 50, or even 100 miles has hopefully spent some time developing this virtue.  In fact, I think that is one of the major aspects of training for and racing the longer distances – to know it might be really awful at some point but to do it anyway.  Fortitude is something that most runners develop through their training.  In fact, it happens naturally as our long run increases and as our weekly mileage grows.  We run longer and more difficult races.  The distances that used to scare us don’t keep us awake quite as much the night before.  The interesting thing is that a lot of this transfers over to the rest of our lives and we learn to “be not afraid.”

The virtue of patience is a form of the moral virtue of fortitude.  Knowing that, you might think that patience involves just getting tougher and enduring whatever comes along.  The distinctive mark of patience, though, is that it involves bearing the difficulty caused by another person or situation.  So, instead of overcoming fear, we are now talking about dealing with situations we don’t like very much - and maybe even seeing the joy in that.  We can grow in this virtue by learning not to complain to ourselves and others, to use hardships as a way to progress in this virtue, and maybe even desire difficulties as a source of growth in patience. 

Most runners I have met tend to get fortitude down pretty well.  Patience is sometimes another story.  Part of this is just a symptom of our culture.  We are a very time-impatient society.  We want something right away, on our schedule.  My shoe order said free 2-day shipping, and my shoes are taking 3 days to get here.  I’m thinking of the finish line, and maybe I should just focus on the next aid station.  If something doesn’t go just right in my race, does that mean it’s over? What if I tried to accept it and deal with it…what if I maybe even welcomed it…what if I was grateful for the difficulty?

My own struggle has been when my sense of fortitude leads to impatience.  For a while, that involved dealing with a setback in training.  My sense of fortitude made me initially say, “No big deal…that pain will go away,” followed by something dumb along the lines of, “I’m sure I can just run through it and then it will go away once I start to taper.”  This kind of thinking led to having to back out of two goal races I really wanted to run.  In the end, it is only through patience that I am really able to heal.  Truly backing off and starting over has made me grow in patience and is also making me a stronger runner and person.  The whole thing reminds me of some advice I got from a veteran ultrarunner before I ran my first ultra.  They told me simply, “Don’t try to push too hard and make things happen.  Relax, let the miles come to you.  If something comes up (and it will), just be patient and deal with it.”  That has been some of the best advice I have ever received.