12 hours of Redmond

Nice wide smooth trails. It felt like running on the roads for
12 hours. The shade was welcome as it was the 1st warm day
of the year.


When I first signed up for this race, my goal was to run 70 miles. But having decided to run the Kettle Moraine 100 just 3 weeks after I scaled back the goal a little bit. I wanted to run the whole day comfortably, and if I felt like I was pushing myself too far I wanted to be able to scale back and take it easy. I wasn't really paying much attention to how I was doing in the race until maybe 8 hours in, and I think at that point I was in 7th or 8th place in my age group. It was fun to watch the race transpire, but I was able to stick to the plan and not get sucked into it.

I started nice and easy. And had to listen to a couple girls talk about work for the first lap. That kind of sucked. But eventually we got separated enough that I didn't have to listen to work stuff. I settled into a nice easy pace for another lap or 2. I eventually ran with Gary Vale from Beaverton for a while. We talked about how running fast marathons has almost nothing to do with potential in ultras - he was a 2:51 marathoner though - still sounds impressive to me. Although my goals have switched to someday breaking 3 hours in the marathon to breaking 4 hours in a 50K - which on the right course isn't that hard. We talked about running, blah blah blah, what else do you talk about while running? Well, unless you're Glen and I that the more miles we run together the more our conversations regress into adolescent banter. But I didn't know Gary that well so certainly didn't want to go there. He's a cool dude and is running the Pine to Palm 100 or whateverthehellitscalled in September. I hope I run into him then.

Glen came out and pace for the last 41 miles or so. That was pretty cool of him. My cheap ass camelback sprung a leak and I had to carry bottle for the last 8 hours - lame. It got pretty hot also. I was consuming about 40 ounces per hour and still had to chug a bunch of water after the 5th or 6th lap to make up for some drinking deficiencies. The salt tablets were going down pretty well also, which is not always the case. Anyhoo - back to Gen. He hept singing, "Im a maniac, maniac" from the movie Flashdance. That's what I get for teasing him about the marathon maniacs. And when he first got there he was running a little bit too fast for me - maybe some payback. I am always scared of my 4 and 5th hours into a run, as it's usually when I feel best and it becomes too easy to increase the pace - only to get bit in the ass by this later. I stayed behind him hoping that once he got up there in mileage he would not pull me quite so hard. After 8 or 9 hours of running I was still feeling good, and we were still running faster laps than we thought we should. But it all worked out really well in the end. Glen and I of course regressed into our own little idiotic conversations of kids, wives, running and burp and fart and guy jokes. Good times. Glen even got to flex a couple times for the cameras of the race. I kept forgetting what lap I was on and luckily Glen could still count for me, which was helpful. The only negative spot I had in the race was after eating a chocolate Power Bar - I don't like those things on the best of days. But I knew I had to eat something, so I was forced to consume it. After dry heaving a little bit, and drinking Heave (Heed) to wash it down my stomach eventually settled. Heed is disgusting. They have that at Kettle Moraine so hopefully they will have Nuun also. At least I can carry Nuun easy enough. I love that stuff. Eventually I finished my 11th lap, and they scorers said something to the effect that I have 90 minutes to run the last one. I was still feeling OK, so I was confident enough to do it. Onward we ran, my appetite was gone though.