2017 Dawn to Dusk to Dawn 50K

April Showers Were Late This Year

We've all been stalking the weather reports and it does not look anything like ideal conditions. The only factor near what most of the runners would like is the temperature, which should be in the 50s, 59F for a high and an overnight low of 50F. Heavy rain and wind, though, will make those temperatures feel colder and I expect we'll all be feeling a bit miserable. I'm debating whether to bring and set up my tent or not. I'm not looking forward to setting up a tent in the rain, but hanging out in the kitchen may not always be possible. If I'm to stay through the wee hours of the night to support the 12-hour and the 24-hour runners, I'll need some place to shelter from the rain and possibly take short naps.

This is my fourth D3, the first being the 24-hour race and the rest the 50K. Despite being well run, as Bill, the race director, says, "it's a race by runners for runners", I have not performed particularly well. Much of that is of course due to my lack of adequate preparation and training. With my aversion to cold weather, getting in the requisite miles over the winter is a challenge for me. This year it's a lack of long runs though my total year to date mileage is more than last year. Having slowed my training pace by a considerable amount, it takes two hours plus just to get in a double digit training run. Having missed my annual winter race in Florida, the only tune up race I've run is the 10K at the Illinois Marathon Weekend. That at least went well and seems to have helped me turn a corner in my training, probably too late for D3, but hopefully I'll be better prepared for the remainder of the season culminating again at North Coast 24 in September.

The final approach to the race did not go as well as I expected from the previous week's workouts. While I did much better in hitting my target pace on a 7 mile run, the shortened interval workout on Wednesday was a bit of a struggle and slower than last week. Thursday I too it easy and at the last minute decided it would be better to take Friday as a rest day. Meanwhile I'm trying to shift my bedtimes and wake up times to adjust to having to wake up at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday. It didn't go well as I would simply lay in bed wide awake for an hour or two. Friday night I finally gave up and got up for a while before going back to bed. The next thing I knew I was being abruptly awakened by my alarm. I had used the delayed brewing feature on my coffee maker, so that was ready. A quick breakfast, loading the last few things into the car, and I was ready. In retrospect the only items I forgot were an extra hat and an extra pair of gloves.

Faced with a steady rain, variable wind, and temperatures in the 50s, we looked more like derelicts than runners with every assortment of apparel imaginable for the weather including plastic trash bags. Still we gathered by the start while Bill, the race director, gave us our final instructions and waited for the start. The main caution was to move out of lane one if we were walking or running two or more abreast, otherwise since we were all there to race, lane one was ours regardless of our pace. Despite the rain the all weather track lived up to its name and we had no issues with puddles anywhere on the track itself. Getting onto the infield where we pitched our tents was another matter entirely.

On to the race details finally. I had been very concerned about starting too fast again. Being well rested even what feels like an easy pace may be too fast with 50K to run. This is what I had been working on with my easy runs during my two week taper and it finally had some effect in the race. Last year even trying to hold back I started with 12 minute miles, much too fast when I knew I would be averaging well over 14 minutes by the finish. I was still a little faster than my target pace of 14:29 (which I really didn't expect to run the whole race), but 13:40-13:50 was a big improvement. After a couple miles I settled into laps around 3:30 each plus or minus a few seconds. Every so often I would have a slower lap when I slowed to grab something to eat or had to stop at the port-s-potties. Describing the race lap by lap or even mile by mile would be boring. Suffice it to say I maintained that pace for the first 54 of 125 laps by running 300m and walking the last 100m of each lap. That took me almost to 22K, approximately 13.5 miles. I could feel my legs getting tired at that point and wanted to avoid another suffer fest like last year, so I reduced the running distance to 250m and walked 150m each laps. I was able to maintain that through lap 96, not quite to 39K. I was noticeably slowing down when running, so I decided to switch entirely to walking hoping to recover some and revive enough to return to run-walk. This took my pace from about 14:12 to about 14:50 per mile for the fourth 10K as my laps were now between 3:40 and 3:45 with an occasional slower lap for food. Deciding to walk at that point put any possibility of a recovery and return to a faster pace to reach my 7:30 goal out of reach. The next 4 miles were between 16:45 and 17:15 each so I was keeping a good effort for that point in the race. As I neared 45K and had only 5K remaining, I tried to reintroduce some running. At first it was only 100m then a return to walking, but even that took me down to a sub-16:00 mile. Pushing that I increased to running 200m and walking 200m and the pace dropped back down near 15:00. My final lap of 3:25.9 was as fast as my early laps at the beginning of the race.

Beginning with about 10 laps remaining the timer, Mike Melton, called out how many laps I had left every few laps to be sure I knew when I would be finishing. This was a huge help in determining when and how hard I could push the pace. When I finished he immediately came onto the track to let me know my final chip time and place. I was also able to return the ankle chip so I didn't have to worry about that later. Of the 15 entries only 12 actually came and started the race. I finished 9th of 12 overall and 6th of 8 for the men with a final time of 7:46:24. Considering my training going into the race I couldn't have been more pleased with the way the race developed and the final results.

After getting some coffee and getting warm I changed into dry clothes and spent the next 16 hours moving back and forth from the kitchen to get warm and the track to cheer on the 12-hour and 24-hour runners. During my race they were the ones offering a word of encouragement to me as they passed every few laps. There was a great deal of attrition in the 24-hour with at least a dozen of the 39 runners stopping before 7:00 pm when the 12-hour race started. That should give you a hint of how miserable the conditions were. There were some incredible performances and once again the women dominated the 24-hour race with 8 of the top 10 places including the overall winner. There was a lot of drama at the finish as well as it took every second of the 12-hour race with Maria Shields giving everything she had to set a new American 65-69 Women's Age Group record for 12-hours of 60.6457 miles breaking the old record by a mere 135m.

After this I'm taking a mild diversion to race a local 5K in three weeks while continuing my long term preparations for North Coast 24 in September. The results were very encouraging and I'll have several more opportunities to race with two ultras and a trail half marathon before then to give me some more checkpoints for evaluating my training. For now it will be more runs on the trails and hills at Valley Forge.