"Road shimmer
Wiggling the vision
Heat heat waves
I'm swimming in a mirror"
~ 'Heatwave', Glass Animals
On Saturday I took on the
Frosty Looper - 8 Hour Challenge. This was the first time I've tackled an event of this kind and despite the fact that I trained for it by running a shit ton of miles, I really didn't know what to expect. In a nutshell, I would be completing as many 3.75 mile laps as I could in an eight hour window. Originally, the race was supposed to take place in New Jersey and when I signed up I thought, or more accurately, hoped that I'd be doing it in person. As the race got closer and things were actually getting worse, as far as Covid goes, I realized that driving to NJ and staying in a hotel for a race would not work if I was going to see my family for the holidays. I reached out to the race director and told him that I was sad to miss it but that it was no longer in the cards for me. He let me know he understood and told me that I could still run it virtually and submit my results but that I would not be eligible for awards. A bummer but totally fair. Not that I was assuming I'd place, but it's always fun to have something to shoot for when you decide to take these things on. Since I'd been training for this for months there was no question for me as to whether or not I'd be doing it, even if I had to do it on my own. If anything, it was a test of my fitness and mental fortitude and I was "excited" to see what I could do. Unfortunately, after Thanksgiving the Covid situation continued to get worse and just a few days before the event was set to take place, the state of NJ told the race director that he could not hold the race in person. I'm guessing that he knew it was bound to get called, but it was still a blow after all the work his team had done to make this thing happen safely. Thus, the 2020 Looper was officially postponed to 2021 and the 2020 race was now virtual, if you so desired. The upside here being that I was now back in as an official entrant since all of us were doing it as a solo effort. So, with just a few days to go until race day, I tried to get my head back in the game and to get myself fired up for this ridiculous virtual adventure. And then, the Thursday before race day, we had a full blown blizzard here in the Boston area. We got over a foot of snow and the temps dropped below freezing where they were predicted to stay for the foreseeable future. Classic Murphy's law. Sure, Rebecca, you can do a virtual race but we gotta make it legit by throwing you the worst possible weather and road conditions in the books
. Now, you can go for it! Oh, and have fun out there!
As always, I laid out all my gear the night before the race. My coach and I talked about throwing in things like extra shoes and socks since there would be snow on the ground and my feet would likely get wet. I also threw in an entire change of clothes as it was going to be 10º at 7:30am when were allowed to start and closer to 30º at 3:30 when we were required to call it. Basically, if I thought I might need it, I threw it in the pile. I had driven a bunch of routes earlier in the day and picked the best possible option given the conditions. There would be no sidewalks but one of the roads had a pretty solid lip that I could stay in for the way out and then on the way back I'd be on a quieter road and just hope that drivers would give me space. The whole thing was now a bit daunting in a way I wasn't really prepared for, but I guess that's always bound to happen so I just tried to take it in stride while also laughing a bit about the craziness of it all.
I continued laughing the next morning as I got up and checked the weather. Note the "feels like" temp. That's right. 2º. Even my dogs didn't want to go outside. And I didn't blame them. Okay, so I had a brief moment with myself at this point when I questioned whether this was a bad idea. Which it decidedly was. But I was doing it anyway. Obvs.
Clover didn't really understand what was going on and began nudging me as she thought I was dressed to take her out. No buddy, I explained, it's not going to be me this morning. I gotta go do a thing. To which she responded with more nudging and some whining. She's good at what she does. I won't lie and tell you I didn't want to just grab a second cup and cuddle up with her in my bed. I wanted that real bad. I had to get out of the house pronto or I wouldn't be going.
I grabbed my bin of crap and made my way out to my car. We live on a significant hill and I was not willing to go up this beast every lap. Thus, I would be parking down at the train station and running my loop from there, using the parking lot as my pit, if you will, for breaks and to grab fuel and whatever else I might need. I turned the music up loud in an attempt to distract myself from how cold I was and to drown out my thoughts in general. The song that came on for my three minute drive down to the station was "Heatwave" by Glass Animals. Ironic, no? But also a great cut. I turned it up louder. This shit was happening. Ready or not.
THE RACE
Laps 1-3
I wish I had a photo of the start for you. Despite the cold, it was a beautiful morning and as I got into my first lap and the sun began to come up I couldn't help but be grateful to be outside doing what I love. There was definitely some photogenic moments during those first three laps, which totally flew by, with the sun shining through the trees and on the snow. But, my hands were too damn cold to deal with my phone. I had worn a scarf down to the station and ended up doing the first 15 miles in it. I've never run in a scarf. It was that cold. The photo above was taken a little before 2:00pm by my daughter. Not quite the same as first light but you get the idea.
LAPS 3-6
When I rolled in from my third lap my buddy and run wingman, Steve McK, was bundled up and waiting to do the fourth lap with me. He's a really good friend. I grabbed some fluids before we started and then we were off. He was fresh out of the car and ready to rock so my pace picked up a bit to match his. He was also very chatty which was a great distraction so I just went into cruise control next to him or behind him if the street was narrow. He threw out a gem of a "would you rather". It was would you rather have no cell phone ever available to you again or no condiments for your food. It was an easy answer for me as I'm not a big condiments person but it was a tough one for him as he truly can't imagine life without them. We had a nice lengthy debate about and before we knew it we were back to the start. He bade me goodbye and passed the wingman baton off to my friend, Anoush, who was ready to run the next three laps with me. She, too, is a really good friend. Once again, we set off and went right into story telling mode, something she is exceptionally good at. We talked all things dating, roommates, family and more. She's significantly younger than me and her life is substantially more interesting at the moment so I was happy to listen and provide comments and feedback when needed. After our second lap she noted that she was starting to feel our run in her legs to which I responded "Me, too. Shhhhh." And then we kept going.
Laps 7-10
I dropped Anoush off after lap 6 and she told me she'd come back to check on me and run a bit more in a couple hours. This is about when it set in that I was wicked tired and not even close to being done. I mean, I'd run 22.5 miles at this point. So, it made sense that I was feeling it. But it was only 11:30am so my 3:30 finish time seemed ridiculously far away. I was a little concerned. And yet, there was no turning back so I just put my Jaybirds in, turned up the music and took off for lap 7. As I was finishing this lap I noticed a person in the parking lot waving next to their car. As I got closer I realized it was one of my former LHS runners, Maya B-T, who had noticed I was doing laps on Strava and kindly tracked me down to see how it was going and join me for a round. It was such an unexpected and nice surprise. I'm sure she could tell how I was feeling and she just jumped right into easy conversation, doing most of the talking as I listened and plodded along with her. We caught up on all things college, lacrosse, running and family and before I knew it we were rolling into the pit. I said goodbye, put my music back on and tried to get going quickly so I didn't think about how tired I was. Now I was on autopilot; one foot in front of the other. No idea what time it was. No idea how many miles I'd done. By the time I finished my 10th lap the insides of my shoulders were hurting which I knew was due to dehydration. I had taken fluids at each stop I'd made but clearly not enough. I now realized that the 3.75 gap between each stop was just too long of a spread to go without drinking. I hadn't carried my bottles because I didn't think I'd need them. This was a big mistake. And I would pay for it on the back side.
Laps 11-13
Things were touch and go now. I didn't really know what to do other than just f***ing run. My stomach was a mess, likely because of how dehydrated I was. Or, maybe just because I'd done 30 something miles at a decent clip and it was straight up angry. Probably both. I texted Anoush and let her know that I needed to finish by myself. I just didn't have the mental energy to be with someone as I ran and I really needed my music to distract me from how exhausted I was. After the 11th lap I decided to change my shoes. My feet had been hurting and I thought maybe some extra cushion would provide some relief. This was also a big mistake. After about a half of a mile in them they felt stupidly heavy and I felt like I was having to work harder in them which is really not what I'd wanted from the change up. All I could think about for those 3.75 miles was how badly I wanted those shoes off my feet. That might of been my worst lap. When I rolled in after the 12th lap my husband was there with my girls. Oh my, how I was hurting. It was so nice to see them if only for the moral support. But I was really struggling. My goal had been to run at least 50 miles and in order to do this I needed to get through lap 14. The rules stated that we were required to finish with a full lap so if I got to 3:00pm and couldn't get my last one done in 30 minutes I wouldn't be able to count it. At this point, I probably could have gotten two more laps in before 3:30pm if I hustled. Ha. There would be no hustle. I knew I would not be able to get it done in the shoes I'd changed into and so I decided to take the time to switch them back and to stop and drink more which wasted a lot of time because, as I said, no hustle. And by the time I took off for lap 13 I knew it would be all I could do in our allotted time. I was definitely bummed. But I was also so ready to be done. In the end I ran 13 laps, which was 48.75 miles with a total run time of 7:06:10 (average pace 8:45). It ties the 2018 Boston marathon for the happiest I've ever been to be done with a race. I sat down in my car. And I couldn't move. Like, literally. I just had to sit there and do nothing for quite some time before I could motivate to drive back up to my house which felt a million miles away. When I turned the car on, I kid you not, 'Heatwave' by Glass Animals was playing. Now that is a coincidence.
Later in the day my coach checked in to let me know I'd taken the win for women and see how I was feeling. I told him that I was pretty happy, especially since I hadn't known the results up until then, but that I also thought I'd have been able to do more given my training. Why, I asked, was this so much harder than the last time I ran 50 miles, which was this past May. Well, for one, it was cold. Stupid cold. He explained that the body likely burns significantly more calories when it's out in this weather. Which leads me to believe that I probably didn't eat enough calories to make up for this difference. And then the lack of fluids was my other problem. I needed to be drinking from the get go and way more often than every 3.75 miles. That really hurt me for those final laps. My energy was just totally zapped and no matter how much I drank in the second half of the day, it didn't matter. It was just too late to make up for it by then. Two valuable lessons learned there. All that said, my wheels didn't completely fall off and I ran right up to the end rather than calling it early which I so easily could have. I definitely took longer breaks in between sets in the second half. And I probably wasted more time than I should have but I'll chalk it off to rookie status and remember to keep things moving for the next time when I also will eat more and carry water. If there is a next time. If you'd asked me yesterday, I would have given you a hard NO. Today? I don't know. Tomorrow? Still not sure. I might need a little more time to think on this one. Or maybe a lot.
