Lap Fangs: My Jack Bristol Lake Waramaug 50-Miler Race Report

Before the Thing.

I’m a planner.  I plan things. Runs, work projects, writing, meals, romantic interludes, hikes, meetings, trips.  I plan all of the things.  Sometimes it works.  Most times it fails big due to real life interceding;  I become disappointed, disillusioned, and dismayed.  Other times upon the crumbling of plans, it is for the better.  My 2019 race season was one of those times where, in the words of Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart. But then mystically they re-cohere, like seeing a lost friend. And remembering.

My racing scheme for 2019 (which I wrote in November 2018) was to run a nice early-season trail 50K in April, which I did in North Carolina a few weeks ago, then soon move into a robust trail 50 miler (Rock the Ridge in NY), do Vermont City Marathon for a BQ in late May, and the Catamount 50K in June, all in preparation for an epic 100-miler over England's North Downs Way, in August. I wouldn’t do Vermont 100 again, as I did that one last year and redeemed myself after a first failed effort in 2017.  Well, my plans hit reality like geese hitting turbines on a jet engine. A crash ensued.  “Be prudent,” I said.  “Be rational,” I said, to myself.  Run the 50K first and see how you feel before registering for other races, you’ll be fine.  Run the short one, and then make your move.  Made sense at the time.  So, I ran the Mountains to Sea 50K in Raleigh, NC a few weeks ago and felt pretty good about it.  Apparently, I had avoided losing a lot of fitness during the long and harsh Vermont winter. I certainly wasn’t 100 percent, but I felt pretty good, all told.

So, ready to pull the trigger, I get on line and prepare to do damage to my credit card with the 50M and hundo fees.  I go to register. They are both booked full.  Damn it. Hard empirical facts have laid waste to my plan. Time to regroup.  Okay, I still need a 50M, and I find one (Jack Bristol, the one I’m writing about today) only 1 week earlier than Rock the Ridge, the one I had originally planned. This one would be only three weeks after the 50K down south, though.  Too soon?  Maybe, but what the Hell.  What’s a week?  Plus, in my mind I am a stubborn and indestructible hard ass who often makes unwise decisions.  It is part of my charm.  I register.

To add two more variables to the mix: 
(1)  I started with a remote coach through CTS right after my 50K, Andy Jones-Wilkins. AJW is an ultrarunner of the highest order and a guy I respect not just for his ability, knowledge, and clear love for this sport, but for his professional dedication to secondary education, and an excellent taste in beer.  Noble stuff, all. (Note:  Kind of a sadist, though.  I mean, FFS, I can barely get down stairs right now (Tuesday) and he has me running intervals on Thursday.)  I’ve been with AJW for a few weeks now and am learning his system.  He’s easy to work with and generous with his counsel. I don’t run for miles now;  I run for time.  There are more workouts than I have been accustomed to, and the pace goals of my runs are prescribed to a rather silly level of specificity.  But I do it, and I like it so far.  My fiendishly talented running friends all laugh at me.  
(2) I started an intermittent fasting protocol recommended by my buddy Jonathan in North Carolina, also right after the 50K, called the Warrior Diet (a non-Keto version of it), in which I eat largely what I want within a four-hour window every day (2-6pm), and fast the other 20 hours, it is aka 20:4.  It is supposed to enhance the production of human growth hormone, impel autophagy, train the body to burn fat, conjure mental clarity and focus, and give a man energy. It seems to work.

Bottom Line:  Some new things going on.

The Monday before Jack Bristol, I go have my annual physical.  And by annual I mean that my last one was in 2016.  It goes well.  Resting pulse in the high 40s, good BP. I haven’t received my sugar and cholesterol results yet, but I am optimistic.  Right at the end of the appointment, Doc asks me if I’ve had my shingles vaccine.  “I have not,” I say.  “You should,” says he.  So I accede, and a nurse comes in and jabs me.  She says that the side effects could include a tightening of the throat and a thickening of the tongue and that it would happen within 20 minutes.  I get none of that, but my arm really hurts at the injection site, and at work I get very sleepy. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Maybe.  I go home, eat, fall asleep at, like, 7:30, and wake up on Tuesday morning with achy joints and a fluey clamminess all over.  I run intervals that morning and they were harder than they needed to be.  Fortunately, since it is taper time I have a recovery run and some slower stuff later in the week so I can fake my way through it.  Wednesday I feel the same, but even more weary.  I do some research and find out that the vaccine they put in me, Shingrex, has documented side effects that align with my symptoms.  Lovely.  It says effects can last for 2-3 days. Thursday morning, three days from the race, I’m largely the same, but the joint aches seem to be diminished somewhat.  I still feel intestinally unwell with a very low level constant nausea and suspicious lack of appetite.  But at least the false flu joint ache is going away. Friday I seem better, get a good night’s sleep with the help of Nyquil shots, wake up on Saturday, and drive down to Mom’s in Connecticut.  

I get there and feel a sense of unease, a nervousness I don’t understand.  Why?  Well, part of it was that I felt I was in a compromised physical state going into the race, due to the vaccine.  My appetite still sucks, I am slightly nauseous, and I know that nutrition issues at these distances can kill your race.  I dwell on that and I fret.  I also think that going in I had very high expectations of myself.  I wanted a sub-8 race (my past three 50s, Vermont, Pinelands, and Canandaigua all dropped between 8:14 and 8:39), and I thought looking back at results of past races here, I had the potential to land in the top 10.  But this damned stomach. I was convinced it would hobble me. 

My Italian Mom stuffs me with fusilli & meatballs, salad, and garlic bread. Abondanza. Delicious, but I don't overdo it because I can't. The gut. I sleep well enough and drive to the race early Sunday morning, barely able to get down an egg sandwich on the way, but I force it, and gag.  “This never happens. I’m screwed,” I think, overcast with low level dread.

The Thing.

This race is made for PRs. 50K, 50 Mile, or 100K.  Take your pick.  It is fast, all on pavement, flat but for a few refreshing undulations, and cool with gentle breezes coming off the lake (which is home to monsters of some sort, I’m sure). It starts with a 2.2 mile out and back, and then runners race around Lake Waramaug six times, each lap being 7.6 miles. The only down side of the course is that the pavement has a significant camber to it, so over time, the angle can wreak havoc on one’s knees, but this can be controlled for.  The gun goes off at 6:30. We start.

Out and Back. A friendly kid from North Haven links up and becomes my pace buddy, and later, slight irritant.  We talk.  This is his first ultra. I have run quite a few now, so he plies me for information, non-stop.  He peppers his constant questions on nutrition, shoes, hydration, packs, pace, terrain, etc, with a “Car up!” whenever he sees a vehicle.  Every damned time. And there were more than a few cars.  "We see the car, Dude; it is clear out; we all see it." He chatters and quips, and asks, and reflects, and interrogates.  "Please stop.  Please just stop talking. In the name of all that is Holy, stop," says my inner mean guy monologue. He was a good guy, though, and clearly working out his nervousness.  But I wanted some me time, and at that point I was doing 8:10s or so, and felt very comfortable, so I sped off and got ahead of him, just enough to unharsh my mellow and re-zone. He latched onto someone else.  I ran straight through the Start/Finish after the OAB and began Lap 1.

Lap 1- This circuit was all about learning the course.  I knew I would be doing it five more times so I took a moment to study the bends, turns, oddities, and landmarks.  There was the 3.5 mile piece from the S/F to Rt 45.  Then we have the 2 mile abomination that was the heavily trafficked Rt 45.  Finally we see the bucolic 2.2 mile leg on North Shore back to S/F.  I noticed objects that were to become my friends in the subsequent 5 laps. There is the orange dozer.  Over there is the big, bent, birch.  Hey, there’s a dead fish on the stoop. The Haddad’s mansion looms over there.  Here a capsized and rotting skiff.  There an ancient floating buoy like a giant dead eyeball.  There a farm-fresh egg stand.  Here, a Steampunk boathouse.  I remembered all of them and looked for them to mark my way on all my future laps.  During this first circumnavigation I also met and had the opportunity to run with Brian Teason, 58, so my age, and a gifted runner and attorney from Vermont who has won this thing in the past and was a wealth of knowledge.  We talked for a while about his ultra career, mostly road, and timed events, which has spanned decades. Fascinating guy.  Brian pulled ahead of me at the end of Lap 1.  My pace goal for that lap was 8:15.  I think I ran an 8:13.  My legs felt surprisingly good. No appetite, but I don’t usually eat until 15 miles in anyway. I would begin to reckon with nutrition in about 40 minutes. Had no idea how it would go.

Lap 2- I was curious to see how this lap would play out, since I now knew how it felt and what to expect.  I stopped at the S/F to fill my water bottle and grab some cookies for later.  About a mile in, I ran up on Brian, we conversed for a few moments, and I continued, not looking back, believing he’d overtake me later in the last 20 miles. The guy is strong.  At about two miles, I hear something behind me.  It is a runner, blazing away.  Must be a fast 50K guy, I think.  Nope, it was the 50-mile leader and he had just lapped me.  It was like I was standing still.  Turns out that he would ultimately win the race in 5:22.  Freaking incredible.  I didn’t know it at the time but his name is Joe McConaughy, Trail Name: Stringbean, and he is a supremely talented elite runner and backpacker.  In fact, he has the FKT (fastest known time) for the Appalachian Trail, Unsupported. Guy’s a stud. Being a fellow AT thru-hiker, I respect the hell out of his accomplishment on the trail.  And this road.  He ran 50 miles at my 5K pace, though and I can barely comprehend that, really.  Anyway, while Stringbean was running courageous 6:23s, I was happy with my lugubrious 8:40s for the lap. My stomach was feeling not right around 14 miles and I began to get a little worried.  I knew I needed to get something down so I stopped at an aid station and had a bit of pumpkin bread washed down with swallows of water.  Not too rich, not too sweet, and it hit the spot. It stayed down. OK, good.

Lap 3- This was a maintenance lap. I just wanted to keep up a decent tempo here and preserve my overall pace at around 8:40 to 8:45.  I knew that a 9 min overall pace would get me a 7:30, and I thought that I would probably fall apart on the final two and a half laps.  Still, I felt a sub-8 (probably a 7:50) was very much in play at this point. Then the rain began.  We’d expected it at the start, but it had held off for a while, which was nice. Now down it came and it was cold. I just looked ahead and cowboy-ed through it. Legs were getting tired, but stomach was doing okay and I was taking in calories at about 250/hr. To my surprise at the halfway point of the race (25 mi- because it is a 50 miler, you see), I was at 3:34, or an 8:33 pace.  Very happy with that.

Lap 4- Three to go.  I stopped at the S/F and got my headphones, some Tailwind, and waistbelt w/iPhone.  Time to pass the time by listening to an audiobook (Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch). I continued.  I started running and thought my legs were going to seize.  They didn’t.  It was tough to get going after an extended stop, though, and I felt a previous strain injury in my left quad emerge.  This was something I did in training a couple of weeks before.  Not bad, but definitely there, and with 24 miles to go, I needed to attend to and care for it. I pushed on and the lap went by fairly quickly though I had slowed my pace to roughly 9:10s. The quad strain was there but not getting worse.

Lap 5-This was the penultimate loop and I was deconstructing like Derrida.  My legs hurt, my stomach was off, I puked brown chocolate chip cookie goo-bile all over my wind shell as I ran, the damned book had jumped the shark (it had so much promise!), the rain was cold, I was soaked, and frustrated with my waning performance. I couldn’t find the flow. My shakras were out of alignment and I don’t even know what shakras are. This is when the wheels come off, I thought. My pace was well into the high 9s and overall I was creeping toward the 9:05 mark. I was still confident that I could pull out a sub-8, but if I continued to degrade like this, I’d run 11s and 12s in the last lap and it may be kind of close and certainly very ugly. Just get me through this circuit and let me regroup for the final push. I stride through the time pad at the S/F and with a big easy "this is nothing; give me something difficult" smile, talk to the RD and volunteers as if not a thing is wrong. I was totally faking it.

Lap 6- Final lap.  Go time.  Easy day. 6:28 on the race clock and I had just that one loop remaining.  7.6 miles. I threw my handheld into my drop bag, drank some coke, popped some Vit I and a salt tab, ate a banana nugget and beet chips, put my bespoke and originally-labeled “Runsongs” playlist on, took several deep breaths, dialed in my fierce Viking look of self-delusional intensity and confidence, and took off.  I was pretty sure I had my sub-8 in the bag, but wondered if I could get in under 7:45, and that became my new goal.  Legs hurt at the start, like quads impaled with lawn darts thrown by a fat man in Bermuda shorts grasping a can of Bud Light (likely future me), but I felt a bit more spring in them soon after. Let’s warm these things up for a mile and see what comes of it. Just a 10K left.  That's a sprint.  Then, after a modest mile 44, I felt something, or rather stopped feeling something.  The pain. How or why?  No idea. I felt a magical freshness.   I sped up. Mile 45 was at an 8:32, Mile 46 at an 8:48, I was “blazing” by people, mostly the hard working slower 50K or 50-milers I had lapped. Where did that gear come from?  Smelling the barn? Maybe. The music? Definitely.   Hilt-deep, Hyper-adolescent, Thunderchord Rock & Roll.  Nothing like it: Judas Priest, AC/DC, Dio, Sabbath, Stones, Grand Funk, UFO, George Thorogood, Boston, Barry Manilow.  Oh, Yes!  No Adele.  No Taylor Swift.  No Shins.  No Cardi B. No Billie Eilish.  I mean please, with those posers.   I was singing along, clad in black running spandex and looking, I imagined, like Klause Meine, gesturing as a Rock God does, pointing at onlookers, and smiling as I cruised.  Mile 57 was a 9:50 because I stopped at an aid station for pumpkin cake and coke and to thank the volunteers since this was the last time I’d see them. Feeling so good.  Then an 8:50 and a couple of back-to-back 9 min miles brought me home. Done.  I managed a 7:37 which was a 5^th Overall, and 1^st in Age Group. A solid day’s work.  Now what?

After the Thing.

I chatted with some of the other finishers (unfortunately Stringbean had left already, what with finishing over two hours before me!), packed up my stuff, and headed back to Mom’s.  I took a long hot shower, ate a couple Vitamin I, and we went out for Chinese, where I had at least a ton of General Tsao chicken, a sushi boat, some pork dumplings, and a 22 oz can of cold Sapporo.  Body wants protein.  Body gets protein.

So, though my original grand plan for 2019 fell apart like Francium-223, I kept it together, got my 50 mile PR, and did well overall.  Now, I have to decide upon a 100 miler for the Summer/Fall.  Since the England race is no longer in play I have many options.  I’m looking at Burning River, Lean Horse, and Grindstone.  I believe I could maybe get a sub-20 at Lean Horse if I work really hard and stay healthy.  "Something about that damned Grindstone, though," says the masochist in me.  And Burning River is a Midwestern classic which also could be fast.  In front of me, I think I’ll plan on Catamount in June.  Not sure about VCM for BQ.  I’ve done Boston already and don’t really need to do it again.  But then, I haven’t raced a marathon since 2016, so it could be interesting to do one and see how I fare.

Decisions. So many to make.   The one I need to make right now, however, as I finish this report, is: Porter or IPA?