Burning River 100 - 2011

The Burning River 100 is a trail race in lovely Cleveland Ohio (my home town) in July.  What many people don’t know about Cleveland is that in July it gets really hot and humid.  Most people think that since Cleveland is so far north it must be relatively cool there, and for 11 months out of the year it is, in fact, somewhere between cool and bone chilling cold.  Sadly the race wasn’t in any of those 11 months, it was in the one really hot month of the year.  So race day dawned, or rather would dawn about an hour after the race started, with 70 degree temps and 100 percent humidity.  It’s really easy to tell when you’ve got 100 percent humidity because you can actually see it right there in front of you.  There we were at Squires Castle, a place I’ve always found creepy (probably because of those childhood stories about someone hanging themselves there), in an eerie mist, ready to begin a jolly 100 mile romp through the trails of Northeast Ohio.  Another misconception most people have about Northern Ohio, myself included, is that it’s very flat.  After having spent the first 25 years of my life in the region I thought I had a good handle on the terrain there.  Long story short I was wrong, but I’ll get to that later.
The first 9 miles of the course were on roads so it wasn’t too much of an issue that visibility was awful.  My plan was to run as much of the first 20 miles as possible before it got too hot.  Then when the heat started I could spend more time walking to keep from overheating myself.  Not much of interest happened on those first road miles except that I caught up to my old Saturday run friend Jordan who has since moved to Charleston, SC.  So we got to catch up for a while until about mile 16 when my digestive system started complaining and forced me to do some walking to avoid an unpleasant accident.  At the 18.6 mile aid station my crew greeted me with my text requested baby wipes (I was making a beeline for the toilets and didn’t want to hunt around in my bag for them) and also some bacon (that came after the bathroom break).  After this I was ready to go and feeling a whole lot better.  I had lost Jordan, who I would run just a few minutes behind for most of the race, but I was feeling good and ready to grind out some miles.
Between the 18.6 and 23.4 aid stations was when the clouds disappeared, the sun came out, and it started to get hot. It was a little less humid by then, at least you could no longer see the humidity, so that made things a little easier.  Luckily the wonderful volunteers at the 23.4 mile aid station had popsicles to cool us down.  It’s a good thing too because I thought I had seen an ice cream truck and that put popsicles into my head so I wasn’t going to be happy until I got some.
At this point in the race we were mostly on trails that were well tended and not at all technical so it was still pretty easy to do quite a bit of running.  I was feeling good because I had managed more running in the first 30 miles than I had anticipated and I was still feeling strong so dreams of running a sub-24 hour race started dancing around in my head.  The glory of hitting such a monumental milestone on my first ever try at 100 miles seemed well within my reach.  All I had to do was keep this up for another 70 miles, how hard could that be?  After about 30 miles we came out onto the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath which is a lovely, flat, well groomed trail that runs along the Cuyahoga River… at least that’s what it is in the other 11 months of the year.  On July 30th however, it was 3 miles of blistering sun and 90 degree temps that seemed to have taken on a life of its own and was intent on using that new found life to beat me into submission.  Needless to say when I got to the 33.3 mile aid station I was not in the best of spirits.  I had been wearing a visor since the sun hadn’t been out and that probably made things a lot worse since I had no hair to keep the sun from boring directly into my brain.  Luckily at the aid station my wonderful crew gave me a new hat with a pocket on top to put ice cubes in.  In went the ice cubes to the hat and my hydration pack and off I went.
Unfortunately, due to my boiling brain, I had told my crew that I didn’t need any more food and I had been eating plenty.  About 10 minutes later, when the ice on my head had cooled my brain sufficiently to allow a semi-normal thought process, I realized my mistake in not taking on any more food and not having eaten enough for the past hour or so.  I did have my emergency food in the back of my pack so I got that out and started forcing it down.  I also sent a text to my crew to let them know that I was not allowed to leave them again without eating more and taking on more food.  With that taken care of I settled into a good fast walking pace to try and get through the heat of the day without overexerting myself.  I can’t really remember how much of this segment I actually ran but it wasn’t much.  The course was kind enough to offer plenty of steep ups and downs on fairly technical trails so I didn’t feel too bad about all the walking.  I walked a good portion of the way with a guy named Jim that I had met at a race in NJ earlier this year.  He is studying physiology at some obscure college in NY whose name I can’t remember.  The important thing about that is that in his studies on the subject of ultra-marathons he’s come to believe that in the course of a 100 mile race a person needs to consume somewhere between 7000 and 14,000 calories depending on the conditions and the size and pace of the runner.  Being in the middle of a 100 mile race on a hot day I was dubious that anyone would be able to consume anything close to that number of calories since at that point the last thing in the world I wanted to do was eat.  But in retrospect I probably came in pretty close to the low end of that spectrum thanks to what must have been about a gallon of Coke-a-cola.  I wonder if there are any dentists that do ultra-marathons?  It seems like the diet of an ultra-marathoner would make any dentist curl up into the fetal position and cry for momma.  Nothing but sugar in the most concentrated forms we can lay our dirty little hands on.  I did brush my teeth at 70.6 miles but followed that right up with more sugar so it was probably less helpful than I would have liked.  It did make me feel better though so that’s something.

Getting close to the 49.1 mile aid station I started to feel really good again (as opposed to merely adequate) and started running.  Sadly that running was to be short lived since almost immediately after I started I ran into the aid station where I loaded myself down with more ice and some food.  I also picked up my first round of Tylenol since the bottoms of my feet were blistering by now and they hurt.  After the aid station we were back on the towpath for a mile or so.  I walked along with a guy (I later learned his name was Radames, he was a friend of my pacer) who seemed like he was having a pretty tough time of it dealing with cramps.  When we turned off the towpath and onto a mixture of roads and single track I left him to do some running.  The only really interesting thing about this segment was the house that had a bunch of chickens and the fence around those chickens had doll heads mounted on the posts.  They were probably just big fans of Game of Thrones, they’re big on putting heads on posts in that show.
I arrived at the 53.5 mile aid station (which was the same as the 49.1 mile aid station since the just completed segment was a big loop) and had my first good sit down of the day.  I also got started on drinking Coke which I had avoided for the first half of the race to keep from crashing too early.  But by now I was really tired so I needed a boost.  This was the first time in the race where we were allowed to have pacers so I picked up Shauna and off we went.  The one thing we didn’t pick up though was headlamps, and that would become a source of concern after a few miles when it started getting dark in the forest.  But for the moment everything was pretty good.  My blisters we starting to cause me real pain but it was manageable and my legs felt surprisingly strong so I was encouraged.  Especially when I compared myself with some of the wreckage I saw around me.  The heat seemed to have really done a lot of people in.
Getting from Boston Store 2 (53.5 miles) to Pine Lane (58.3 miles) was probably the most scenic but also difficult sections.  It was really hilly and down near the bottom of those hills it was very muddy.  But we made it without any serious incidents other than me almost stepping on a snake which caused me to actually jump and scream. I had no idea that my body was still capable of jumping after so many miles but my fear of snakes managed to overcome the fatigue.  At the Pine Lane aid station I decided for the first time to not fill up my hat with ice since the sun was starting to set so the temperature was dropping.  Unfortunately that meant that it would be dark soon and neither Shauna nor I had a headlamp and the next aid station was farther away than we thought so we had to really get after it for the next 6.8 miles.
The course doubled back on itself for the next mile or two which meant steep hills and shoe sucking mud.  After that we came out onto a road which we were on for a while.  I really tried to run this section but just couldn’t manage to get my legs moving.  I did keep up a good brisk walking pace so we made it into the Happy Days aid station (63.8 miles) before sunset.  Not by much though.  My concerns about running in the dark with no light being eased I tucked in to some sushi, graciously provided by my little sister Mary’s boyfriend Dominic, for dinner.  I can tell you that sitting down for some sushi 2/3 of the way through a 100 mile race will get you a few odd looks.  At least one guy, who I gather was an experienced ultra runner himself, said it was a really good idea.  My thinking was that sushi is easy to digest and a good source of protein and carbs.  Plus it has the benefit of being light and easy to eat.
With a belly full of sushi and Coke and having changed my shoes, socks and shirt I set off into the gloaming.  The gloaming, however, quickly turned into the darkest night ever since the course took us almost immediately next to a short cliff face (in north-eastern Ohio I know, I didn’t believe it either) that was to the west of us and blocked any light we may have gotten from the setting sun.  This was probably the lowest point for me mentally.  It was the first time it had been really dark and this was hands down the most technical section of trail so the going was extremely slow.  Once I started moving that slow the thoughts of how far I still had to go started creeping in and knowing that I had over 35 miles to go at this glacial pace was just crushing me.  But I pressed on and eventually the trail smoothed out and got easier to follow so I was able to pick up the pace and do quite a bit of running.
At this point I should mention that I had my watch set to beep at me every 5 minutes to remind me to drink.  Generally in these sorts of events I let myself get very dehydrated and that inevitably leads to muscle cramps and just general fatigue.  With my watch beeping at me all day I was, to put it mildly, very well hydrated.  Most of the day this was fine since it was so hot I was sweating out a large portion of the water I was taking in.  I was actually quite proud of myself that I had peed 4 times between miles 18.6 and 49.1.  On this segment of trail I ended up having to set my watch to beep at me every 7 minutes instead of 5 because I was peeing every 10 or 15 minutes.  It generally happens after running a long way that I sort of lose the ability to hold it which means that every 10 or 15 minutes there was an abrupt stop so I could pee.  At the Happy Days (63.8 miles) aid station I had picked up my little sister as a pacer and I gather she was none too pleased about running along behind me only to have me stop abruptly and turn to the side of the trail and pee.  Probably not the sort of thing she signed up for.

The last mile or so of this segment included some wide open grassy areas (again with hills, I was beginning to think we had left Ohio altogether and made it to West Virginia) that afforded some beautiful views of the night sky.  After the lovely stars and grassy hills we pulled into the Pine Hollow aid station (70.6 miles) where I would pick up Pam who was to be my pacer for the remainder of the race.  I had never met Pam before packet pick-up the day before and had found her on the facebook group for the race.  Thankfully she was really positive and excited to offset my zombie-like stumble.  So after some soup and a quick brush of the old chompers we were off on a 3.3 mile loop that would bring us back to Pine Hollow again.  Unfortunately I didn’t have any coke at the aid station so by the end of that short segment I was really dragging.  But we made it and I got myself some more caffeine.  I left my crew with a warning to not let me leave their sight without taking in some caffeine and then we were off for the 6.6 miles to the Covered Bridge 1 aid station (80.5 miles).
The segment between Pine Hollow  and Covered Bridge 1 was where the mileage really started taking a physical toll.  My legs still felt pretty good but the blisters on me feet were excruciatingly painful by now.  To add to it I was also starting to have some chafing in my nether-regions.  I suppose I shouldn’t complain about that since many people had been dealing with that for a lot longer than me.  Thankfully I had learned the lesson about using baby wipes after a restroom break in a previous race so the chafing didn’t start until fairly late in the race.  This segment was mostly trail but not very technical so I was able to run some of it but tiredness won out in the end and I walked the last couple of miles on the road to get to the Covered Bridge 1 aid station.  The covered bridge itself was a sight to behold since the aid station volunteers had decorated it with Christmas lights.  I’m sure for the people who were volunteering and crewing there it looked festive.  But after running for 80 miles and being completely exhausted it was really just surreal for me.  Kind of a dreamy sort of white glow to everything except the people who were just dark shapes moving around in what seemed like slow motion to my addled brain.
I made the mistake of changing my socks again at this point.  It was a mistake because getting my shoes back on over my awful blisters caused quite a bit of screaming on my part.  Then once I did get up the pain level in my feet seemed to have gone up several notches.  But before I could get back to it I had one more issue to take care of, the chafing.  I asked Shauna to bring me some Vaseline.  She came back with a tub of it along with a rubber glove.  Apparently my face brightened up quite a lot at this and Shauna remembers my face at that point as her fondest memory of the night.  I was fully expecting to have to apply that Vaseline with the usual tongue depressor so a rubber glove was going to be a whole lot easier.  I’m sure my little sister is pleased to know that she missed this after having to see me pee a half dozen times.  I don’t think she could have handled seeing me get a big glob of Vaseline on my rubber glove and apply it to my rear.
Chafing taken care of we set off for 4.7 miles of, what I had been warned was, very technical trails.  In reality it turned out to be not so bad.  The mud made it a lot worse than it would have been otherwise.  But there was plenty of mud and with the bottoms of my feet covered in blisters all that sliding around meant a couple of miles of extreme pain.  Thankfully after we turned back for the aid station the trail flattened out quite a bit and I was able to run most of the rest of the way back to the covered bridge.  Once I made it there I really felt like I was going to finish.  I had been warned about that last segment so I had been worrying about it for a good bit of the race.  With it behind me I knew it was just 15 miles to go and fairly easy ground to cover so I ignored the pain and set out.
The next segment was 3.3 miles to the last aid station where I would not see my crew.  The course was mostly road so it went quickly and we were there before I knew it.  The only real difficulty was the humidity was back which meant my headlamp did a great job of illuminating the mist directly in front of my face but nothing else.  Otherwise I feel like I made good time.  I seem to remember the aid station being pretty festive and everyone being dressed up, the memory is a little fuzzy though.  I do remember sitting in the chair and commiserating with another first time 100 miler for a few minutes.  We compared hurts for a little while before his pacer started telling him to get up.  Thankfully his pacer seemed to know the course pretty well and had said there was one more gnarly downhill section and then it was smooth sailing till the end.
Reluctantly I ambled out of the aid station for the 4.5 mile segment.  The downhill at the start was indeed gnarly and took a while because I was moving gingerly at this point due to the blisters.  Past that though we were back on the towpath for a while and I did what I thought was an amazing amount of running.  I was helped along at one point by a waste treatment plant next to the trail that smelled absolutely horrible.  It was so bad I would have been happy to find a skunk so I could hold that up to my nose to block the smell.  Like dead things mixed with sewage and simmered for a while in the heat and humidity.  If that didn’t make you want to run I don’t know what will.
We pulled into the mile 93 aid station around 6 am with dawn beginning to break.  I no longer cared about how bad my feet hurt I just wanted to get finished.  But that feeling was competing with a very strong desire to not leave the chair I was in.  I had been warned several times to “beware the chair” but after having a seat several times during the race I thought that might not apply to me.  This time around though the chair really had a hold on me.  But my wonderful crew again came to my rescue and forced me to get up and get moving again.  Only 3 miles to the next aid station and it was all on the nice flat towpath.  With the usual mixture of running and walking I made it and found Reece’s Cups there.  They had clearly been melted at one point and I no longer had the manual dexterity to properly open it and get the wrapper off the cup but I would not be deterred.  That must be how zombies feel about brains.  I will no longer make fun of their clumsy stumbling and single minded desire for brains.  I’ve been right there with you brothers, you’re doing the best you can.
With only 4.8 miles to go I didn’t even stop to sit down.  I ate my Reece’s Cup and had some more coke and I was off.  There was a good bit of gentle downhill which I was able to run on and make pretty good time.  I knew there were stairs coming so I wanted to run as much as possible before I got to those.  I had been dreading the stairs for days but when I actually got there they were quite pleasant.  For some reason going up stairs was the thing that made my feet hurt the least so I bounded up them two at a time. 
Perhaps bounded isn’t quite the correct term but I certainly moved more quickly than I thought I should at this point.   At the top of the stairs was a long straight section of easy trail that I thought would never end.  The sun was coming out again and it was starting to feel very warm.  It probably wasn’t all that warm but my body was having a tough time regulating temperature by now so as soon as the temperature started going up it felt very hot.  Finally there was a road ahead and I said to a guy I was passing that I thought that was where we would turn to head for the finish.  I had no basis for that thought other than hope but this guy was so happy he said he would kiss me if my pacer hadn’t been there.  The road we had seen did indeed turn out to be the road to the finish so now I could really smell the barn.  Unfortunately it was a very long uphill on this road which meant more walking.  At the top of the hill I found my Mom, sister, girlfriend and family friend waiting to run with me to the finish.  With that sort of reception I couldn’t do anything but start running again.  The running and the pavement and the heat caused blisters on both of my pinky toes to burst but I didn’t care how much it hurt, I was going to finish.  The tears started so I could barely see anything, least of all the finish.  I couldn’t believe how long it took me to get there, my toes screaming with every step, but I made it.  I crossed the finish line and Joe Jurczyk, the race director, handed me my belt buckle and I stood there bent over and cried for a minute.  It was just such a surprise to find myself at the end after such a long race.  I had tried really hard to never think about how far it was but now, at the finish, I could look back at the whole thing and marvel at what I had done.  It’s not often that I can really surprise myself, but I had this time.
I didn’t spend too long in my revelry though.  I sent my crew off to find me some breakfast while I made my way over to the podiatrists to get my feet tended to.  By the end of that both feet were almost entirely covered in bright green and red tape and I looked very Christmas-y.  After about 15 minutes off my feet I had to use the restroom again so it seems my work wasn’t quite done.  The nearest restroom was across this large courtyard which looked and felt like it was about 10 miles across.  In reality it was probably still a couple of hundred yards and that took forever on my poor feet.  But I made it and with that taken care of we were off for home and an ice bath and bed.
Looking back at it I am amazed at those people who did this without a crew.  My crew was awesome.  Everything I asked for they got for me, everything I needed they had.  I have never been so well taken care of in my life.  The volunteers at the aid stations were fantastic and were always right there with everything I asked for but having a crew that just did everything without me asking was so helpful since my mind was not the steel trap it usually is by the end.
Having pacers was also wonderful.  Knowing that I never had to worry about myself if things went bad was a real help when I got tired.   During other races that was a real concern that I just never had to deal with for this one.
Thanks to Shauna, Mom, Dad, Mary, Dominic, Pam and Patti for all your help.  Without your help I never would have been able to something so amazing.  I really can’t express enough how much help you were and I can’t thank you enough for the very long day you put in so I could do this.