First of all, this race was not on my dance card. My goal race for the year was Bandera 100K, which I was pleased to finish in early January. I had used Sunmart 50 miler in December as a stepping stone and final test for my Bandera race. But of course there's the “Texas Trilogy", so after Bandera I had to at least think about doing it. I actually had thought of Rocky as my first attempt at a 100 miler, but not until a year from now, in February 2006, when I had another year of time on my feet on the trails. It took me four years to go from sprint distances to Ironman in the triathlon world, so I was very leery about “winging” a 100 mile attempt after only one year on the trails. I finally decided to go for it because many of you all were doing it, including my trail buddy Liam; because some work changes coming up are going to mean much less training time for me for a while, so why not go for it while I have the training time already in my legs; and of course for the same reason we all do these – curiosity as to whether I could finish it.

Because of the way I “backed into” this race, I was feeling ambivalent mentally, not focused or as intense as Bandera. There, my attitude was “someone is going to have to pry me off this course with my fingernails clawing into the rock if they want to keep me from finishing”. Here, it was more like “ gosh I wonder how many of these loops I can do, or if I can finish the full 5?” Adding to the uncertainty was a nagging right hamstring problem which I’d been icing, heating, massaging, stretching, medicating, taking Epsom salts baths etc, but which lingered.

I drove to Huntsville Thursday night. This schedule worked well for me at Bandera, work commitments permitting. I spent Friday from 8:00 a.m. through 1:00 p.m. working from my hotel room, e-mails and conference calls. So then when I broke I was already in the right city instead of frantically traveling to Huntsville Friday afternoon or evening.

I volunteered for packet pickup which I did from about 1:30 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. Friday. I begged for some off-feet volunteer responsibilities, since I was running the next day, and Joe kindly let me repeat my Bandera packet pickup duties. Plus, it’s a good way for me to get to know the runners, especially those traveling in from out of town. One of these was Hans-Dieter Weisshaar, whom you may have read about (was it in Runner’s World?) as having done 68 100 milers, starting in the late 1990’s. He was impressed that I pronounced his name correctly. Duh, my parents were both German and emigrated here; I’ m a first generation American.

I was doing packet pickup with Joe, so as we were talking I told him of my concern about lack of mental focus on this race. He gave me some really good advice, which was basically just go out there and have some fun, and only think about getting to the next aid station. We hear this a lot I guess, but many of us are pretty goal-oriented, type A, driven folks, and actually putting it into practice is easier said than done. More on this later. Of course it goes without saying that once again Sammy V. and his amazing culinary crew cooked us a delicious pre-race dinner Friday evening. Back to my hotel for final drop bag preparation and to get to sleep early. Up at 3:30 a.m., start my Hammer Sustained Energy breakfast (no solid food) and coffee, then off to the park to leave my drop bags by 5 a.m. Because of the frequency of the aid stations (every 3-4 miles) I carried one hand held water bottle instead of a full Camelback, what a pleasure. And my nutrition plan was 100% Hammer stuff, rotating through Sustained Energy, Perpetuum, and Gel. Plus Hammer electrolytes and capsules each hour. The start was at 6:00 a.m., I headed out and felt my hamstring was my weakness, and the likely limiter to finishing.

Loop 1 felt good, a pretty good run / walk ratio, and a 5:06 loop, 10 to 20 minutes faster than I had planned or thought. I spent zero time in the aid stations. All I took there was water.

After loop1 I changed shoes. I had started in my Vasque Velocities, size 9.5. Knowing my feet would swell (and they did) I had planned two shoe changes, to my Montrail Hardrocks size 10 after loop1 and to my Hardrocks size 10.5 after loop 3.

Loop 2 was even faster at 4:50. I felt comfortable and, unusually for me, eager to kick up the speed just a bit, so the negative split from loop 1. I was still feeling really good starting loop 3, and so started out fast again (for me), but slowed to a walk once the darkness set in, I was not confident keeping a running pace in the dark, so loop 3 took me 6 hours. At mile 50, the half way point, I still felt very good, and the time was only 13:00, about 1 ½ hours ahead of my planned pace !! The end of this loop though was tough, alone and in the dark.

My motivation finishing loop 3 was that I’d be picking up my pacer for loop 4! Yay! I actually met her for the first time in person as I finished loop 3, a mutual friend introduced us: "here's Amanda, your pacer, go!!" We spent the first few minutes on the course talking about my nutrition and hydration plan, what I needed to pick up or drop at the aid stations, etc, then settled into a 20 mile loop, and it worked just great. During loops 3 through 5 I fell in love with piles of paper cups. No, I was not delirious. Well, maybe I was but that was not the reason for the cup infatuation. There are two looooong out-and-backs on this course, and seeing paper cups meant we were approaching the next aid station. One more aid station segment ticked off (“just another brick in the wall”). There was a 24 hour cutoff to finish loop 4. Namely, a runner who has not finished loop 4 within 24 hours will not be allowed to start loop 5 and finish. Amanda did exactly what I asked her to, get me to the end of loop 4 inside of the 24 hour mark. We finished at 23:38, with 22 minutes to spare. Whew. 6:45 for this loop, understandable I guess in a 100% darkness loop, almost no running, almost 100% walking.

For loop 5 my friend Doise was pacing me. Starting loop 5, now I’m thinking I will finish barring some major catastrophe or personal meltdown. We started in the darkness but after about an hour the sun started to come up and, as at Bandera and as I expected, the sunrise brought new energy, hope, optimism, and vigor. We were not exactly burning up the course, very little running even after the daylight improved visibility enough to run, but we were persisting with a decent paced stride. A high point emotionally was immediately followed by a low point, a real emotional valley, at mile 90. The high point was “wow, only 10 more miles to finish!!!”. The immediate low point though was I then did the mental calculations and at the approximately 20 mpm we were then doing that still meant we had about 3:20 left to go. I can’t describe how depressing that thought was for about 10 minutes, then I just let it go and got back to “right foot, left foot, make it to the next aid station”.

The last 5 miles were just pain management – trying to ignore the pain. Most of me felt fine, but the soles of my feet were just killing me, each step was quite painful. I made Doise keep chatting to me to take my mind off it, but poor Doise had to listen to me complain quite a lot about how much my feet hurt.

I did not bother to fake a run across the finish line, I was happy to walk and finish in 30:46. All my HCTR buddies were there to cheer; all I wanted was a chair and to take my shoes off. It’s amazing how much better I felt how quickly once I sat down and just got off my feet. Joe not only had my finisher’s belt buckle waiting for me, but also a beautiful Texas Trilogy finisher’s memento. And I got finishing hugs from both Joe and Joyce, thanks! I ate and drank a bit, and stayed at the finish line and waited for Donna and Robert M. who were still out there, and they both finished. So I did not win the coveted DFL this race, but hey, it’s only fair that I share, I have so many.

104 of the 143 starters finished, or a 73% finish rate. I drove the 15 minutes to my hotel, barely able to stay awake in the car, got pasta takeout, started the Super Bowl but fell asleep almost immediately. I drove back to Austin early Monday morning instead of Sunday night. A few post-race and recovery thoughts. I had no blisters at all from this race, zero. Hard to believe really. I wore Injinji toe socks, with plenty of Chamois Butter between my toes, and an over-sock over the Injinji’s called Oxysox. I broke the “never try anything new at a race” rule with these socks. They are over-the-calf and elastic, and the theory is they help recirculate blood from your lower extremities back to the heart. Well, I don’t know if they helped, but I do know this – I didn’t change socks for the whole 100 miles !! I did change shoes and wiped sand and debris off the socks before putting on the new shoes but hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. One of my friends on hearing this said “burn those socks” but they are already washed and ready for the next time.

So, speaking of “the next time” of course my initial reaction was “never again, now I’ve done 100 miles and I don’t need to put myself through that again”. But of course by a day later I was already thinking “hmm, if I do this and that and can get a bit quicker in the dark I can go sub-30 for sure, so I suspect you’ll see me try 100 again.

I recovered embarrassingly quickly. By Monday morning I was a bit stiff and my feet and ankles still hurt but not horribly. Stairs were tough, especially going down. Monday night I got a massage, which helped. By Tuesday I felt mostly back to normal with only the going down stairs part still a bit uncomfortable. But by today, Wednesday, I really feel fine. Looking back, I think a few things contributed to my being able to finish this course. They include training runs, especially with my running buddy Liam, a good nutrition and hydration plan that I stuck to, and great pacers. But importantly, I followed Joe’s advice. I really started the day not so much driven to finish as to have fun, enjoy myself, and to the extent possible NOT obsess about my time or think ahead but really, truly, just go from aid station to aid station. Thanks for the good advice Joe. Anyhow, thanks for listening /reading, and for all the support, help and encouragement along the way. This is a great sport with terrific, enthusiastic people, thanks for letting me into the club!!

Jeff Lynn