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My brother turned 30 earlier this year and to "celebrate" I convinced him to run an ultra marathon with me. An ultra marathon is anything longer than the standard The course is a rugged climb over two mountain ranges, with a total elevation change of over 17, feet. If you've ever run a marathon before, you know how important pace can be.
I obsess over my Garmin watch and time my splits so that I finish in a certain time, and I never, ever walk. This was not the case during the White River Ultra. Most of the time the climbs were so steep that even the veteran runners were walking.
At one point there was a six mile incline which went up nearly 3, feet, and the last 1. During White River, I averaged a 14 minute mile pace. My brother and I made a plan to stick together. We had no goal time in mind, although we lightly hoped to finish in under 11 hours in order to qualify for Western States next year.
Shortly after the snow-covered stretch ended, my brother's legs began to cramp up. He lives in Southern California and due to the heat outside he trained by running 30 miles at a time on a treadmill. Despite being in great shape, his legs simply weren't used to the hills. The cramps kept getting worse and by mile 33 he could barely walk, and he kept bending over and making terrible sounds and shouting cuss words I'd never heard before. He managed to tough it out until the end, but as soon as he stopped running his legs completely locked up and he had to go into the medical tent.
Eventually the cramping subsided but in order to combat it he'd taken a ton of Tylenol throughout the race -- nearly 6 grams of it. His complexion turned ghost white and he had huge bags under his eyes. On the ride home he kept making horrible wretching sounds; they were like burps mixed with dry heaves mixed with the sound of a bald eagle being strangled.
My brother is an ER doctor and in between these horrible noises he self-diagnosed that he was overdosing on Tylenol and his liver was trashed.
A friend of mine ran White River last year and convinced me to run it with him this year. All three of us started the race together, but my friend took off early and was ahead of us the entire race by about 20 minutes. I didn't see him at the finish line, but he emailed me later and told me that he'd had some kind of seizure due to dehydration. His body had redirected all blood flow to his skin and organs, and as a result there was insufficient blood flow to his brain. He blacked out and woke up in the ER with fluid tubes attached to him.
I felt strong the whole time and due to my obsessive hill training I never felt completely obliterated. Even the day after the race I wasn't particularly sore, just malnourished, sleepy, and my toenails are falling off: The run itself was surprisingly enjoyable. The pooping issue was funny, too. There's no Port-a-potties out there so everyone craps alongside the trail. I ran behind a couple of female school teachers for a few miles and they both had recommendations for the softest kind of tree moss to use when wiping your bum during a race.
I managed to bottle up my movements with chewable Pepto Bismol, so fortunately there were no mid-race poopies for me. During training, however, I went for a 21 mile run on Tiger Mountain and got lost. I'd been running for 5 hours and it was getting dark, meanwhile my bowels went crazy-apeshit-monkey-bananas on me and I wound up spraying poo all over the trail. Upon returning to my car that night I hung my head in shame at the atrocities I'd committed. I felt like a beast -- like I should stay in those woods for all time and live amongst the animals.
Yep, a year-old was three hours ahead of us. Weight too seemed to play no part, with runners and walkers of every size moving at their own pace. Your feet are on fire, your hip flexors are aching, your glutes are burning. You have two choices: In fact, by the time I hit my foot on a rock at 80km which made my toe explode, the agony was almost like an out of body experience.
Before we set off, the race organiser had two simple bits of advice: And people actually talk to each other for miles. When the whole rock-toe incident happened and I yelled profanities into the sunset over fields of wheat, every single person around us asked if I was ok or needed help.
We thought it might make a small Strava story about women doing something a bit different during the race. However it is very difficult to do enough to return you to a greater risk than couch potatoes. Thanks again for all the submissions! Joe also outlines non-specific tools a busy runner might employ to get the most out of her or his limited time. Not feet for running Unnecessary labour Disembodied foot award Assmountain conquered 1 feetsies You did not place We shall never forget Tumbeasts Golden feces I survived List your event Need to give your event a boost?
Imagine having the energy to give a crap about anyone else at that late stage. But perhaps the best example of just how open-hearted the kind of people who do these events are is the fact that they congratulate you on overtaking them. We had a two-week subscription to Fresh Fitness Food before the event to take the aggro out of prepping and cooking because honestly, by the end of our training, we were both exhausted.
You have to eat on the go and what you choose to eat is important.
As a vegan runner, I chose to fuel up with Mindful Bites nut butters and bars super easy to digest, delicious and conveniently packaged for sucking on the run , as well as Mighty Bee Bananito bananas smaller than fresh ones but with all the carb-punch of a regular banana. I tend to break down a race into thirds. The 1st third I have real food, the 2nd I switch to gels, and for the final 3rd I use caffeinated gels and sports drinks.
We store carbohydrate in the form of glycogen in our muscles and liver, but these stores only last roughly 60 to 90 minutes for most people.
The aim is to keep blood sugar levels elevated as much as possible to ensure fuel is consistently readily available to postpone fatigue as much as possible. Oh, and you have to keep drinking. By the 80km mark, I saw a guy breakdown completely — sobbing uncontrollably from pain and sunstroke. Once you see that, you start to realise just how good water is.
As night time fell and the head torches came on, everyone on the trail fell silent. The banter seemed to quieten down and a peaceful hush came over the hills towards Avesbury. Everyone was digging deep, connecting mind, body and ground. It was his third ultramarathon in a month, having never run over 30km before.