2025 Six Days in the Dome 24-Hour
Will It Really Be 24 Hours
My return to racing 24 hours at Crooked Road 24 was not impressive, not withstanding a lack of adequate preparation. My 50K at Dawn 2 Dusk 2 Dawn (D3) was an improvement, but still far short for what I had hoped for this year. Since then it's been constant tension between getting in a good training run of teo plus hours and sometimes needing three to four days to recover after my resting heart rate jumps into the sixties from its normal low fifties. Any intensive speed work, especially intervals, aggravates that even more. I do think I'm in a better situation now than I was for Crooked Road, but the second twelve hours of the race will still be just as much a challenge, especially mentally to discipline myself to continue when tired and need to take calculated rest breaks before I run myself into the ground.
Despite the lack of thorough preparation, several PA resident age 78 records are within reach. I already have the 50K record of 9:37:54 and my 35.34 miles at Crooked Road 24 is better than the listed record of 33.6 miles. I expect to be well over that, so I haven't submitted that result for consideration. There are no extant records for 50 miles or 100K, so if I can reach those marks, they will automatically be records if split measurements are accepted.
As I've done previous years, I drove out early to arrive on Friday and volunteer through Sunday evening before going to my hotel for hopefully a good night's rest. We were short staffed this year so I was busier than usual at the aid station. On a couple breaks to relax, I tried to get in a few miles to kept loose, but temperatures were into the mid-90s (35C). With standing around and little to no running my legs felt tired by Sunday night. At that point I hoped I would feel better once I got moving in the race. I had some discussions with Mike Dobies about pacing. I had already been considering a backyard style approach, running 10-12 laps (443.4552m per lap) each hour and resting until the beginning of the next hour. Functionally that would keep me from starting too fast and even the pacing more. Mike had suggested this approach to another runner confirming to me that it was feasible.
Grabbed a minimum breakfast at the hotel and a little more when I arrived at the race. Still feeling a bit stiff and sluggish from so much standing the last couple days, I anticipated a slow start with a gradual warm up. I was moving better and faster than expected. Since the number of laps to run each hour was a toss up, I ran 12 in 55 minutes before taking my first break. That was too much to sustain, so I dropped to 11 laps per hour, which if maintained would be well over my 100K goal, closer to 127K though I knew that was not maintainable. That was allowing me 6-8 minutes rest each hour while still running between 4:40 and 4:55 per lap with the variation mostly due to when my walk breaks occurred. By 5:30 I knew I had outrun my fitness and I would be walking most, if not all, the remaining time. Making it that far on the training I'd done was a confirmation that this was a viable strategy for future races.
I maintained a good walking pace combined with continuing breaks every hour for another couple hour. Then I began experiencing what would eventually be my downfall, almost literally. Walking along my right leg gave out on me and buckled. It was only for a stride, and at first seemed to be an odd anomaly. Then it recurred, and recurred more often, several times to the point where I grabbed the track barrier to keep from falling. I hoped a long dinner break at the 9 hour mark might help, and it did but only temporarily. I tried various stretches and finally determined that stretching my hamstring was the only one that seemed to help. After a long discussion with the RD and EMT on site, I agreed that if it got to the point where I couldn't walk two laps without issues, I would stop. Stretching my hamstring allowed me to walk 3-4 laps, and once I even made it up to 9 laps with only minor occurrences,before needing to rest and stretch. I barely made 50K under 12 hours, but was determined to reach a minimum of 60K if at all possible. What was even more frustrating was my leg giving out was the only factor hindering me. My legs otherwise felt fine and could have kept walking for hours yet. At 136 laps, which is 60.309K/37.474 miles, I was barely making a lap without difficulty, so I retired and turned in my chip. I left open the option to return in the morning for a few more miles (or laps), but I didn't really expect I would. By the time I woke after crashing at the hotel, I would have less than an hour on the track and the effort wouldn't be worth it to me.
Post race recovery hasn't displayed any issues with my leg, but the longest I've run-walked has been an hour and a half. I have months to work on my fitness and resolving this issue before my next scheduled race in October. Hopefully the stretching will be sufficient, but if not I'll schedule time for physical therapy. I'm still encouraged by how I responded to the backyard style resting and not feeling overly fatigued during the race.
