2023 Alexander County 12-Hour
Post-Injury Return to Racing

My last race was seven and a half months ago on Labor Day weekend. I had to cancel my last race of 2022 in October due to an ankle injury, then spent all winter healing and rehabbing the ankle. This is my first race since returning to normal training and will be a test of where my fitness is. I have hopes of reaching 40 miles, a goal which eluded me last year. The weather promises to be more of a factor than I had anticipated. Despite having a mild winter, I have not had time or opportunity to acclimate to the temperatures forecast for the race which are expected to reach the mid- to upper 70s with little cloud cover. My training has been going well, though I haven't run as many long runs as would like. Those that I have run have gone well and at a faster than expected pace for the effort. I think I can attribute that to all the long walks I took while rehabbing my ankle and waiting for clearance to resume running.

Last year I was fine with driving straight through in one day to get to the race, so that's what I did this year. The major change I made was staying at a different hotel. The location in Statesville was what appealed to me because there is a Waffle House within walking distance. There aren't any near me and I've come to enjoy eating there when traveling through Virginia and North Carolina, quick service, hot food, reasonable prices, and I like the breakfast style menu offerings. I went for a short shake out run, cleaned up, ate supper at the Waffle House, and relaxed for the rest of the evening. I had no concerns about the morning because I tend to wake up every couple hours the night before a race, so it's almost impossible for me to oversleep. The hotel breakfast opened at 6:30 AM which gave me ample time to eat and drive to the race for an 8:00 AM start.

I met up with the few people I knew there from other races, then waked over to the starting line on the track after opening remarks and the national anthem. As usual I started slowly, quickly dropping toward the back of the field, though not last. With three races, 6-hour, 12-hour, and 24-hour, there were 29 runners total. I kept a very steady run one minute, walk one minute for the first 18 miles. Lap time varied within an acceptable range, mostly between 3:20 and 3:30 on the track which is certified at 400.68 meters. Of course my Garmin distant didn't match but it was working out to averaging about a 14:15 pace including time for aid station stops and port-a-potty breaks. That was well within hopes and expectations, and also about what I ran last year in the 6-hour race. I was still going strong at that point when the sun came out and it heated up quickly. I think it was more than just the heat, rather the direct sunlight that adversely affected me. My lap times slowed to 4:30-5:15, even with applying ice to my neck and head, even longer as I incorporated more walking. For a short while we had some cloud cover and I was able to get in a couple laps just under 4:00, but when the sun came back out I headed to the aid station for more ice.

It wasn't until I stopped moving while waiting for ice that I realized I was having significant heat problems. Fortunately I admitted to feeling a little dizzy (hard to deny that when I'm leaning over with my head resting on the table), and they called over the EMT on site. While I was drinking more cold Gatorade and eating pretzels, he was checking me over. His biggest concern, and the numbers surprised me as well, was my blood pressure was 90 over 60 with a weak pulse. That was not good. He continued to monitor me, though he also commented that I was getting back some color and my BP was returning to normal. I think if I'd been on my own, I might have tried to get back on the track to run more, but knowing what my vital signs were convinced me that would not have been a good idea, and that I should follow his advice and call it a day. Mostly likely I would have been right back where I was in a mile or so if I had tried to continue.

My final numbers were 21.1625 miles in 5:19:42, far short of what I wanted. Up to the point where the heat affected me, I was moving very strongly and confident that fitness wise I could have gone quite a bit farther before increasing my walking time or dropping to a steady walk. As I write this almost a week after the race, I'm recovering much quicker than I scheduled time for, which confirms that my fitness is good and fatigue played little or no part in my needing to stop early. My next race is 50K, also on a track, and I have a month to acclimate more to the heat and see what I can do to delay or prevent the onset of heat issues.