For Gondor

Wild Sebastian 100 November 10^th & 11^th

I love the events I enter that require two dates to express when they occur. Wild Sebastian is a hundred mile race held on the grounds of the state park in Sebastian FL. It is a large park, with important habitats for various rare Florida species including Gopher Tortise, manatees, and a small woodpecker which I don’t know the name of. It is also the home of wild boar, turkey, various snakes, birds, raccoons and a million amadillos. I’ll get back to the animals. The flora is mostly scrub pine, palmettos and grass. Some areas of the prairie are flooded.

I arranged to meet Scott Peters at the airport and convey him to the event in exchange for his holding my hand for the first lap, I mean, in exchange for sharing hotel costs for the two nights we didn’t camp. I thought I would run better with a good nights sleep, so I elected to spend the night in a Holiday Inn Express down the road.

On the way to pick up Scott, I stopped in the local Publix there in Lakeland Florida.  I forgot that I had: 1. Gotten a Mohawk to beef up my courage for my run (Thanks to Juan Jorde for the idea) 2. Worn a prison orange shirt.  As I walked to the restroom, I noticed a rollingpin. Juan had been using one the week before as a self-massage technique. I thought “why not” and picked it up on the way back to the cashier.

Cashier: “What are you going to do with that?”

Me: “Uh?” … I just don’t want to tell her. “It might not be what you expect.”

Cashier: “Well, I hope you aren’t going to hit anyone with it.”

Me: “What? You’ve been watching too many Mafioso movies. Sopranos fan, are you? Could I have some ice, please.”

LOL, at least the cashier was direct and said what other people were thinking. I look insane. A middle age man with a Mohawk has something wrong with him. Upon some reflection, yes. Yes, indeed.

I picked up Scott, and we headed to the event.  

Scott’s 100 mile race philosophy meshed really very well with my own.  The plan we developed and agreed upon before we set out was that we would walk the first mile, completely walk and not run at all.

Subsequently, we would run a 4 minute interval slowly (10 to 12 min/mile pace) followed by a one minute walking interval, trying to keep the walk fast. Scott has practiced this technique extensively, I have not.

We had dinner with FUR runners the night before, including Joyce Lulloff and Jerimiah Hartz, along with Bruce Sun Lee Choi, Zsofia Inhauzer, David Krupski,  his wife and daughter, Susan Anger, and several other runner who I am sorry to say I didn’t catch the names of.

The race started without a gun. Kristen Beck basically called it out “Go!” Scott Peters and I watched the group run off. Scott got a great photo of the pack disappearing into the prairie. I’ll point to it when he posts it.

Cindy Schnell was tickled pink to find some runners at the back of the pack moving at her pace, so we moved together for an hour  or two. Cindy and Bob Schnell  are the volunteers who were notably helpful for me at JW Corbett when I struggled with the heat and my legs cramping, so I was pleased to meet her and learn her husband was running.

We enjoyed some chat and ran/walked to the first aide station. FUR was there, with Susan Anger and several other well known FURbians, such as Zophia, Jean Babtiste and Issi, along with Alex Krupski.

Moving along, we ran the lap enjoying the scenery and taking lots of photos.  

At some point along the way, I started making my usual references to the Lord of the Rings. I told him about the blog posts I make, which always have a title reference to the Lord of the Rings. And I think I startled him by shouting “FOR GONDOR” sometime early in the run.

Then again, later, I warned him (& Christine Lawson) before running towards Aide Station #1 shouting “FOR GONDOR FOR GONDOR FOR GONDOR.”  When I got to the station, I sat down saying “ok, Gondor can wait a minute, give me a cup of coffee.” They gave me espresso.  They should have known better. I was soon quoting Star Wars as well as Lord of the Rings and making other nerd references, much of which went unappreciated if I may say so.  

It was during that second lap that the truly scary happened from my point of view. Not being a hunter, having avoided hunting habitat during “the season”, I am not used to hearing shotguns nearby.  After nightfall, around 7:30pm Saturday, a hunter fired his shotgun about a hundred and fifty feet away from me, Scott & Christine. We all ducked, hunched. I yelled “WE ARE HERE!!” The hunter replied casually “Oh, yeah, I saw you.” I shouted “THEN DON’T FUCKING SHOOT!”  You might get the impression I was angry.  The hunter did not reply.  Someone said “let’s please not insult the man with the gun” quietly. We took a few steps. We ran. Hunters I spoke to later described the incident while not being illegal as violating hunter etiquette.  

At around 9pm, I hit the start/finish line for the second time. I had run 50 miles. I congratulated Christine, who was finished with her first 50. Scott had run on a bit faster. I saw him start his next loop. I met Renee and started my own third loop. It was dark and cool. The trail was rough, the ground has been torn up everywhere by wild boars. Each step, particularly in the dark, it is hard to anticipate the level, direction of tilt and angle of the ground.  It was easy to twist your ankle, trip or fall.

There was a lot of debate about how to handle the wet section of the trail. Some runners just ran right through, didn’t change shoes, didn’t change socks and some did well. Some of those runners got nasty blisters. I waffled between putting bags over my feet or just taking off my shoes and socks and wading. I used the “take ‘em off” technique until after I caught up with Bob Schnell. Bob convinced me to use the bags over my feet approach. Renee asked a volunteer for a couple trash bags, which AS 3 provided.  Using Bob’s technique was a zillion times faster. I think one of my bags popped, but leaked slowly, so my foot stayed mostly dry.

During the 3^rd lap, I started slowing down. Renee was pacing me, and Bob too at first. Bob did some math, realized that we weren’t moving fast enough, told me we had 15 hours and 35 miles to go, but if we didn’t move faster, we were not going to complete it in time. Bob moved on. I slowed down even more.

By the time I hit AS 4, I was in bad shape.  I had slowed to a slow walk, my speech was still fairly intelligible but I was nearly delirious. My legs were on the verge of cramping despite my taking salt and every effort to keep them fresh. I sat down in a chair by the fire, shivering and figured that’s as far as I was going to get. I wouldn’t admit it, even to myself. Renee gave me a bag of water. I ate grapes, a PB&J sandwich and waited. Renee literally gave me the shirt off her back (yes, she wore two). Walter, the volunteer at AS4, saw this, went to his car and got a set of sweats. He gave me sweat pants and shirt to wear.

45 minutes later, I was in much better shape. I set off from AS 4 with a grateful salute to Walter.  I started running. I was able to run pretty well by AS5, perhaps half the time. Sometime before the water crossing, I was strong again, with optimism and determination. I even told Renee “Look my diction has improved!” I was thinking more clearly. Water and time was all I needed.

Unfortunately, I took too much time. I ran out. I got back to Start/Finish at 7:15 am in the morning. Kristen Beck handed me my finisher’s medal, awarded for finishing 75 miles. I was terribly disspointed. She could see that, and said “well…” I said “I am not going to argue with the race director.” It was a failure of will. I was more than halfway to saying “but if you let me try, I could finish.” I didn’t say it. I believe she would have let me run. That failure of will haunt me until I finish my 100. Some day soon, I hope.

ADDENDUM:

After stopping, I hung out with the other finishers.

I met Liz Bauer, an impressive woman who holds the world record in 100 mile races completed in a single year. She has completed 32 so far this year, and plans more. She has run 100 mile races each weekend for the past 6 weeks. She put in more mileage just in races than I expect to run races, training, riding my bike, total, everything. And I thought I ran a lot, upwards of 2000 miles is a lot. I believe she was even the fastest woman at Wild Sebastian.

I sat beside her after giving up, and beside Dave Krupski, the Wild Sebastian 100 champion.  He completed 100 in roughly 19 hours. When I finished 75 in 24, he had had a shower and was playing with his infant child. I chatted with the two of them until I decided it would be a good idea to impress them with my sleeping abilities, and that the grass would be good, right there between them. The decision tree for this decision was the shortest ever: Sleep here, or move over there. Yes, here. Now.