100 Miles

February 1, 2014
Huntsville, Texas
Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile Trail Run

Zach and his friend Mark ran a 100-mile ultra marathon through the piney woods of the Davy Crockett National Forest a few weeks ago.

- 100 miles.
- Must finish in 30 hours or less.
- Five 20-mile loops.
- Start at 6am in the morning, finish sometime early the next day.

I cannot pretend to understand or explain what motivates my husband to run 100 miles. In fact, Mark's wife and I were conspiring to hire Tonya Harding to go to our husbands' school and bust some knees prior to the race, as we were considerably worried about their health (and sanity).

However, it was a pretty cool experience to witness, and I would imagine you have a few questions about how one goes about training and completing a 100-mile run. I will answer a few questions that I hear a lot and share some of the pictures from that very long day. 

Waiting for Dad to come through the Park Road aid station.

Do they run the whole thing? Yes and no. They are constantly moving forward, but often times they are walking up hills and running downhills and flats. Mark and their friend Brian, who was so kind as to pace them for the last 40 miles of the race, were forced to walk the last lap due to Mark's blisters.

Do they eat? Yes! You must refuel your body. On an ordinary day Zach eats around 1800 calories. A rough estimate of calories burned per mile is 100, so 100 miles run = 10,000 calories burned. During the race the runners come to an aid station roughly every 3-6 miles and are able to refuel with food (peanut butter and jelly, bananas, pretzels, trail mix, quesadillas, sausage, chicken soup, mashed potatoes, etc. See the overall salt theme? Salt is important during an ultra). They also have energy/sports drinks, salt tablets, water, and coke.

Despite a very harsh winter, race day was quite warm and humid -- 65 degrees.
Until the front came through around 3am.

How many people sign up? More than 600 people signed up this year.

How many people finish? This year, less than half completed the race.

Drew was able to run a 3-mile section with Zach. He only fell once!

How do you train for an ultra marathon? A runner cannot go out and run 50-100 miles for training; it's just too hard on your body. The way Mark and Zach trained was to do back-to-back long (14-25 miles) runs on the weekends. During the week they did one fast (7-minutes per mile) 5-7 mile run, and during the rest of the week they trained using P90X, Insanity: The Asylum, and other Beachbody workouts in our library.

If Zach were writing this post he'd also give a shout-out to Shakeology, which he used once as a snack during the race and as post-run fuel, as well. He said the shake during the race was among the better-digested items he ate that day, and he felt like it gave him a pick-me-up when he finished, as well.

A screen shot from the live feed of the race. Zach is on the left.

Did Zach have any trouble during the race? There was surprisingly little trouble on the course. His feet were mostly fine, with the exception of stubbing both his right and left 2nd toes so often that the toenails are going to fall off. He didn't have trouble with blisters like Mark did, but that is because his feet are freakishly soft and baby-like at all times. No calluses, no blisters, no nothing, no matter what he does.Weird!

He did have stomach issues on the 4th lap that caused him to visit a few trees (that he told me were most likely going to be dead by spring). A nice Irish worker at the aid station gave him some crystallized ginger to suck on and a cup of soup and told him to get on his way. On the 5th lap he mostly stopped eating which calmed his stomach down.

On the 5th lap he began to have trouble with his knee, which caused him to have to walk a considerable amount of the last seven miles (and was the cause of him missing the 24-hour mark).

Last bit of trouble? His personal aid worker (me) neglected to give him his jacket on the last lap. When the cold front came in at 3am he was c-o-l-d, as he was in a T-shirt and shorts.

In his research prior to the event Zach read (and we have heard) that ultra marathons are emotional events, with the runners' emotions running the gambit from high to low to wanting to quit. Both Mark and Zach were very narrowly focused on completing the race, and I never once saw them do anything that indicated they wanted to quit. They were very even keeled the whole time.

Park Road aid station, 4th lap. 6 miles to the start of the 5th lap.
Head lamps help them see in the dark.

What did you and the kids do while you waited for him? The race is at a state park, and we brought the camper down. Zach's mom, the kids, and I walked the runners to the starting line before dawn on Saturday. Throughout the day we calculated where and when we could see them on the course, then made sure we were there to see them go by. It's a relatively small race, so when someone goes by you can see and talk to them. At the main start, the runners linger for a little bit to change gear (shirts, shoes, etc.), and Zach had a detailed list of supplements and supplies that I was to have ready at each lap.

In the middle of the night the kids slept in the camper while I went around the corner and waited at the starting line. I saw them at 12:30am before the start of the 5th lap, then went back to get a few hours of sleep before the expected finish time of around 5:30am. I needed to drive us home that day so it was important that I get at least a little sleep.

We started waiting for Zach to come across the finish line at about 5:30. It was cold and had started to drizzle. He didn't come and didn't come. We went inside the tent and waited by the heat lamp. Finally at 6:30am he slipped into the corner of the tent with a dazed look on his face and sat down. It was over! Rather anti-climactically, I might add.

Mark and Brian were still on the course; Zach told us he had left them shortly after the first mile of lap five because Mark was unable to run with the blisters on his feet.

"I just ran 100 miles! Thanks for the belt buckle."

After we got him warm(er) and fed him some soup, it was time to get Zach into the shower and into the camper to sleep. I didn't want to leave him alone in the men's shower, so I peeked into the ladies' room to see if it was occupied. One lady was taking a shower. "Ma'am? Ma'am in the shower?" I asked. "My husband just ran a hundred miles and I need to help him shower. You mind if I bring him in here?" "Nope! Bring him in."

The lukewarm shower wasn't all Zach was hoping it to be, but it got the grime washed off. Then he huddled over the sink for about 10 minutes and brushed his teeth. I kept wondering if maybe he was sleep brushing, but he seemed to be at least slightly coherent, so I just let him do his thing.

As we stepped out of the bathrooms we saw that the bottom had dropped out: it was pouring rain. I felt so bad for Mark and Brian. I got Zach into the camper, fixed the kids a snack and set them up with a movie, then headed back up to the start to wait for Mark and Brian with Zach's mom. At around 8:30, they finally made it.

Thank goodness for those trash bags.

They were freezing cold, but they made it all in one piece.

Yup, a belt buckle.

Mark and Brian had slept in tents the night before, and with the rain and cold I couldn't imagine that they would get any rest before trying to go home. It was a sloppy mess at the campground and there was a lot to pick up.

Not fun. Even when you hadn't run 100 miles.

So we pretty much threw everything into the camper and the back of the truck, slammed the doors, and took off down the road to downtown Huntsville where the biggest, thickest, most delicious pecan pancakes awaited us. Along with eggs, bacon, hash browns, sausage, and biscuits.

And then we drove home!

Zach got out of bed the next day unassisted, and even went to work. The sleep deprivation was pretty brutal, and we both went to bed really early the whole following week. And the following weekend there was a snow day that allowed us to have three consecutive nights of 10 hour sleeps. Felt so good.

Zach's knee continues to bother him; it appears to be a fairly severe case of patellar tendonitis (runners knee, don't ya know).

As I told several people after the race, it was amazing. And awful. I didn't like seeing him in pain, but at the same time I was amazed at the perseverance both he and all of the runners showed. Will they do it again? I honestly hope not.