2020 Delano Park 12-Hour
An Unexpected Journey
North Coast 12-Hour in 2013 was my first ultra marathon and perhaps still my best, so Delano Park will be a good measure of where I stand since then. This will also be my first race in Alabama. It's a certified 1 mile loop with more than 100 runners registered, including five more in my 70+ age group. I'm not thrilled about a 6:00 AM starting time, but that also means I won't need a head lamp. Getting there put me in a quandary. It's just far enough that it would mean a two day drive, but that would be less expensive than flying and renting a car. I'm also leery of flying with the erratic winter weather we've had and my experience with flight cancellations last August traveling to and from Lean Horse 30M. I have no idea how that much driving will affect my race performance.
I drove extra on Thursday so Friday's drive wouldn't be as long. Of course that meant I had time to spend at the Space Museum in Huntsville. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do spending four hours on my feet walking around the exhibits, but I thought it was a wonderful complement to the Kennedy Space Center rather than a duplication, so well worth whatever effect, if any, it might have on my race. I also checked out the course before packet pick up and pre-race dinner. I was definitely confused because the obvious loop was only .9 miles, not the certified 1 mile advertised. This was cleared up at the dinner when I asked some runners about it. There's a loop around a water tower that branches off the main loop and returns to make up the extra distance.
Saturday morning was cold! I didn't want to freeze the first couple laps, but neither did I want to get overheated from wearing too many layers. I opted for a tech short sleeve t-shirt, a lighter weight tech long sleeve shirt, and my warm up jacket. The jacket came off after two laps and the gloves after about 8. While cool at first when I took my jacket, the temperature was rising quickly from just below freezing at the start to eventually mid to upper 50s Fahrenheit with plenty of sunshine.
As planned I started with a one minute run, one minute walk that I would keep as long as I could before shifting to a longer walk recovery. I hoped that would be for 25-30 miles, but strange and unusual things happened. Normally I try not to make big changes in race plans and strategy mid-race, but being a fixed time race, I thought some changes just might bring some unexpected results. I was consistently keeping the one mile laps between 13:15 and 13:45 except when an aid station or port-a-potty break took a little extra time. And at 15 miles I was still moving very easily and comfortably. That's when I started thinking about what sort of times I could run (unofficially unfortunately) for the marathon and 50K. I had a good idea where the splits would be from checking the distance from the start multiple times with my Garmin. At 20 miles I was still moving briskly and keeping laps in the same range, so I decided then to keep pushing the one minute run, one minute walk beyond the point where I would normally shift to longer walk recoveries. If I hit the times I thought I could for the marathon and 50K I would still have more than ample time to walk enough to reach my pre-race goal of 40 miles, though I expected those miles would not be pleasant.
By this time in the race my Garmin readings were a quarter mile off from the certified distance, so I had to be careful that I was at the correct distance for the splits taking into account the offset error. I had selected landmarks and hoped I'd remember to note the time when I passed. As I swung by the marathon split my watch read 5:58:58. Fortunately that would be easy to remember. I could see myself noting the times, then getting confused and not remembering correctly after the race. At 30 miles, split in 6:52:04, I was over 15 minutes ahead of my Lean Horse 30M from last August which I considered a better performance than my official over 70 50K best time of 7:25:43. At 50K I was 7:06:04 which is more than 1:30 faster than the shorter Lean Horse 30M. I had also noted that at 6 hours my distance was 26.28 miles. All of the above are my fastest times since turning 70. The 50K time is my second fastest ever, bettered only by my 6:45:38 from five years ago.
I paid a price for pushing that hard. As soon as I dropped to a walk I knew it would take a huge incentive to get me running again. I was barely shuffling along at 20, 21, maybe even 22 minutes per mile. At that point I was mulling over my options and considering finding the tiniest excuse to stop even though I was short of 40 miles. I'd weigh that against the effort, mostly mental though some physical, but always decided to keep going at least until I reached 40 miles. Then I could stop regardless of how much time would be left. What I didn't count on was meeting up with one of the top over 70 runners in the race, one who consistently finishes ahead of me, talking to himself about whether he could match last year's total of 43 miles and whether 45 was within reach if he did some running. He probably didn't care, but that triggered my competitive instincts and it just so happened that I started feeling a lot better then. My walking pace improved to sub-20 minutes, then got even faster when I had another runner to walk with. I think we were close to 16 minute miles. Meanwhile I'm trying to keep an eye on my fellow competitor to be sure I didn't lose too much ground to him. I inadvertently discovered I was 3 laps ahead, so it was a matter of not losing too much ground to him. Then the numbers started to kick in. When I got to 43, I was positive he couldn't catch me even if he were trying. But 45 miles was only 2 more laps and 45 sounds better than 43. Then there was less than an hour remaining, so why stop now. Then there's just over 19 minutes left. Sure, I can finish one more lap, and maybe run a little to give myself a small cushion. About 14 minutes later I completed lap 47. That placed me 15th of 54 men and 28th of 115 overall. Not a bad showing given that I was ready to quit at 35 miles.
This race raised a bunch of questions and leaves the rest of the year in turmoil and uncertainty. In one race, at least unofficially but good enough for me, I've already met almost all my goals: 1) sub-6:00 marathon 2) sub-7:15 50K 3) 75 km in 12 hours (47 miles = 75.639 km) About the only one I haven't met is 45 km in 6 hours. That's 27.962 miles and is the minimum to be listed on DUV for the 6-hour race. Last year only 33 men in my age group made the list worldwide, only one of them from the US, so it will be a very challenging goal. Meanwhile I need a break, not only for physical recovery, but a mental one as well after the build up to and running of this goal race. I'm clearing my race schedule until May 16th when I run a certified 50K at 3 Days at the Fair. I'll get back to serious training for that in a few weeks after I enjoy this success.
