Training Log Archive: KFish

Dogman put me over my 1100 foot mile goal for the year. And I have 2 months to add to that total! By far my best running year ever.

At some point the top of my right foot started bothering me. I put it out of my head for a while, and tried to continue walking without a limp. Around this time that effort had started to fail. We also werent very motivated at this point, and the first section out of the TA we were just traveling slowly without much purpose. Its not that we werent having fun, or enjoying the pretty sunshine, we just talked about how were having a good time and not in it for the prize money, just nice to be out together for the first time in a year.

We took the southern loop, which we thought left us more bail options. It was the less popular choice (we were the only ones), because it was also a lot less points than the N route. Disaster almost struck at 52. We found an obvious stream bend, but no flag. As we started to continue down the stream to double check, we got yelled at "Don't go towards the lake", by a hunter in a tree stand. We asked if he had seen or taken an orange flag and he said no, although somewhat unconvincingly. We didn't want confrontation, so we moved back to the trail and texted steve the predicament (phone battery said 1%!!, even on airplane mode). [He later found the flag at the trailhead, uh what?]

We continued on to TA2, deciding peach mountain was out of our reach, and 39 and 40 werent worth the distance or nastiness for low points if we werent continuing east. At TA2 we chatted with Steve, Todd and Julie while I ate some pickles and pringles. Didn't do much else here, it had only been 3 hours since the big TA (should have foot lubed). Steve gave us a bit of a pep talk that renewed our interest in finishing strong, and we decided to go for the full N loop, which included a lot of 90 pointers.

After a 25 minute TA, our feet felt a lot better, so we decided to continue on in 1 hr increments with 5 minute sit breaks to renew our feet. We set arbitrary 1 hr cutoffs that were about every 3 controls. This strategy worked tremendously for us, because 1 hour seemed so doable and the breaks felt great. We fell behind the 3 control goal a few times, but on a few of the splits we even managed a little bit of trotting. My calf, followed by my heal started to get very uncomfortable. Syd suggested removing my gaiter, which did alleviate the calf pain. Throughout the remainder my heal continued to get more painful. Eventually I picked up a walking stick which helped take some of the pressure off for a while, but after ~2 hours it wasnt doing much to help.

The navigation went well despite tired brains. A few inefficiencies, and my pace counting had gotten far too short due to the limp, but overall this part of the race went as good as we could hope. We did decide to drop 60 - we probably had time, but the pain wasnt worth it, and were convinced (and were right) that the placing wouldnt come down to those points. Other than that we cleared the rest of the E portion of the map. By the last 2ish hours my limp to the end was pretty pathetic, but at least I was still moving. Limped into the finish and had a few people ask if I was alright, which I was just needed to sit down for a while.

Besides my various right leg/foot troubles I felt AMAZING for this entire race. I had no problems with my stomach, which is a first for any race over 6 hours I think. I have finaly internalized that I need to eat what works for me, and that is NOT what is available on the fitness food section of sporting stores. My stomach cannot handle sweet and sugar during races - i only ate 1 gu. I at a variety of salty snacks, some slightly sweeter ones. PB crackers, waffles, Teddy Grahams (awesome snack), crepes with nutella (also pretty good), 2 awake bars overnight. On the half hour, instead of Ecaps, i ate pretzles 2-3 pretzle rod halves. I also ate pretzel rods variously throughout, and at some of my 1 hour snacks. These are defiintely the key for me, they keep me salted up and I can eat them under any circumstances. In TAs i ate pickles and pringles. I drank almost 4 2L bladders of the course of the race, filling up at every TA1, central, and a water stop on the E side. I peed in between almost every control, and it was always crystal clear (i like cooler weather and slower travel! Ha).

Changing socks (wore medium weight DarnTough) and food lube at the first two TAs played a role in keeping my feet working well. I would have changed again at the third TA if I had had another DT pair there, but compression socks werent going to cut it. Through the night, i wore a long sleeve and my heavier rain coat, which was quite comfortable in the high 30's at a walking pace. I used light fleece gloves and buff to regulate the rest of my temperature. At TAcentral, when the sun rose, i switched to bike jacket and buff, which didnt last very long before just going to long sleeve shirt.

This race renewed my faith in my ability to race, and reaffirmed that cool weather is key, and that pretzles are my saviour. I still cant quite fathom that I walked 58 miles almost in one go, had no stomach problems, and was still walking, albeit with a limp at the end. I found it much easier to push physically without the stomach problems that usually plague me. Syd was an awesome partner, and I truly enjoyed spending the time with her and working well together. I also avoided any emotional breakdowns, which i think are also usually tied to stomach issues (one close call when my shoe came off in nasty horse-mud, but I pulled it together). Writing this wednesday, and almost all my foot and leg pain is gone. I can induce the top of foot pain, but in standard walking its gone.

On the ride home, my R hand was quite swollen, and my index finger tendon hurt a lot when bending my finger. Syd and I got a good laugh that after 58 miles on our feet, my worse injury seemed to be to my hand. Still not sure what I did to it, but its also fixed by wednesday.

Thanks again to Lost Arrow Sports, Steve, Angel, and volunteers Jens, Todd, Julie and everyone else. I cant imagine the work that goes into putting this on, and am very thankful to have the opportunity to compete.

3/12 overall, 1/2 coed

Event: 2019 Legend of the Dogman
 

Legend of the Dogman 24 hr Rogaine
Waterloo and Pinkney Rec areas, MI
by Lost Arrow Sports

After falling through last year and dropping to the 8 hour, I was both excited and nervous for this race this year. This is only my 2nd 24 hour rogaine, and my first time on a team with syd in almost a year! We drove up Friday, arriving around 4 for check in, both sleeping in and then napping a few times in the car. We had already sorted packed just about everything (packs + 3 drop bags + race gear) ahead of time, so we were ready to go when maps were handed out at 5:30. Format was get 3 1:15k maps that you had to visit TA1 at the far point, and then return to the start/finish. There you would get another 3 maps and plan (on the clock) the second half. Forecast was clear skies, with a low of 37F at night, and a high of about 60F during the day.

We planned to hit the harder longer half first, and with wheeled 2 mph estimates we would arrive at the TA at 2:30am, half an hour before the cutoff. We thought the 2 mph was conservative, but we also thought that it was a little too close for comfort.

At 7pm, just ask dusk fell, we were off! The prologue was simple and fast, and then it was out to a brief road run with 2 other teams. It seemed liked most people chose the other direction to get to the TA with plenty of time before the cutoff. We jogged and trotted on roads in the early goings, and chatted with the teams as we went back and forth with them. We also prioritized keeping our feet dry for as long as possible, so we took a few longer route choices. We started off getting a little ahead of our time estimates, maxing out at about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Everything was going quite smoothly through the first 13 controls.

Between 81 and 87 was our first swamp crossing. After descending the hill from 81 we crossed a thick but wet stream at a power line. We took this to be the marsh we were supposed to cross. We continued S towards the campground, but seemed to hit more swamp in every direction! It seems to be a prerequisit for night racing in MI, we always get lost in a swamp! After about 20 minutes of wandering we eventually figured out that we must not have actually crossed the swamp. We followed the power line across another swamp that was much wider, and about knee deep. We also heard splashing about 200 m to the W of us. When we emerged on the other side the map was making sense again, and we ran into TanZ who had just crossed and were up to their chest! We felt very fortunate for our knee deep crossing!

We had used up our time cushion, so we were a tad worried, so we started trotting again, and also helped to warm our legs back up. By the time we reached friendly faces (Hi Jens and Ed) at the TA, we were back to about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We changed socks and lubed feet (and also shirt for me), I ate some pickles and pringles, and we were off in about 15 minutes - not too bad, but probably could be faster.

The return trip to the TA was much easier nav, almost entirely trail. We were mostly walking, and passed a few teams that were walking more slowly. Dawn was starting to rise as we approached the last couple CPs before the TA, and we also started to see hunters out and about.

At the TA we did a complete change of clothes + more foot lube, made some Ramen noodles (yum, salty and warm!) and syd planned while I tried to transition to our smaller packs (from outhere to nathan). 8 hour people were starting to arrive, and we got several "I thought you were doing the 24 hour!" We had budgeted 30 minutes for this TA, but it took 45 and we felt we were rushing around!

Full tracks:
https://www.livelox.com/Viewer/2019-Legend-of-the-...

C • blacked-out areas on the map 5

I had surprising success on v2-4 today

Yoga