2023 Dawn to Dusk to Dawn 50K
Looking For Confirmation

After a late fall and winter healing from and rehabbing torn tendons in my left ankle, I had hoped to prove my fitness at the Alexander County 12-Hour race in Taylorsvile, NC, last month. Instead I ran into heat problems less than six hours into the race and chose to retire instead of risking a medical emergency. I was particularly disappointed in this because I was running strong approaching the five hour mark and anticipated meeting my 40 mile goal with room to spare.

With only four weeks between races there was little time to train after allowing time for recovery and taper. Since I didn't run a full race effort, I was able to shorten the recovery time and get in some good workouts including one set of back to back long runs before easing into my taper for D3. I began tracking long range weather forecast over two weeks before. D3 weather can be very warm when it isn't a torrential downpour. Unfortunately the weather has not been cooperative in my attempts to acclimate to the heat. High temperatures have remained in the 50s Fahrenheit, often accompanied by a cold rain. The best I've been able to do is overdress and take hot baths hoping that will elicit some response.

After all that fretting over the weather, race day arrived with near perfect weather as far as I was concerned, overcast with a light drizzle and the high about 72F. All the street parking was taken by the 24-hour runners, so I parked in the school parking lot, which meant a slightly longer walk to the track. That wasn't an issue as I set up my personal aid station, but I wasn't looking forward to carrying everything back to the car after the race. This was my 7th Dawn to Dusk to Dawn race, so there were a lot of familiar faces and friends to greet. I would be seeing them many times on the track as they lapped me, but it was doubtful that any of them would be moving slow enough to share a few laps. All that remained now was waiting for the last minute instructions from the race director and getting started.

There's not a whole lot to say about circling a track for 125 laps, so this will be concise and only significant details will be related. The first lap would give a good indication of how the entire race would unfold. The next real checkpoint wouldn't come until around 20K, 50 laps. The first few laps were easy and quick for me so the taper accomplished what it was supposed to do. Settling in to my run 1:00, walk 1:00 routine I averaged about 3:26 per lap for the first 10K with most of the variation dependent on when my walk breaks occurred. Not unexpected the second 10K was a little slower with more brief breaks to grab something to eat and drink. Even so the average was 3:32.8 and still well within my target range. More importantly I still felt like I could maintain the effort and keep close to that pace for quite a while yet. The gradual slowing continued through 30K while maintaining much the same effort with the average lap at 3:39.2 for that 10K and 3:32.7 overall. At this point my dream goal of 7:20 was unattainable, the question remaining being whether I could hold this pace for the last 20K to finish under 7:30. Previous race results made this historically highly unlikely. Somewhat surprisingly I maintained the 3:39 pace for another 6K before I admitted that I needed to walk to prevent a full blown crash and burn. Until the final lap I slogged through at a 17:50 pace. Granted that was not as bad as some races where I had slowed to 20:00 or worse, but I had hoped to be able to walk at least a sub-17:00 pace. At this point all I focused on was one foot in front of the other and counting down the laps, with an occasional mental calculation to be sure I would finish under 8 hours. I managed to summon enough energy to pick up the pace a little the last 3K and even to "sprint" the last lap in 3:26 to finish 8th out of the 12 starters in 7:55:49. Having expended all that energy, it was a blessing for two friends to help carry my gear back to my car, a task I had not been looking forward to.

Looking back I believe much of the lack of energy for the final 35 laps was my inability to take in sufficient calories. I was consuming some, but mostly from liquids in the form of a sports drink, because any time I ate solid food my stomach started to feel queasy. And if I drank too much, I felt bloated and uncomfortable. The fare was not my favorite PBJ and grilled cheese, so I was relying more on chips and other snacks. By the time the PBJ was available I was already experiencing stomach issues and it wasn't enough to completely settle them. I didn't even consider the pizza until after I finished. Normally I can eat anything the aid station offers, so I'm not sure why my stomach revolted this time. Overall I'm encouraged by the race though the final time wasn't what I had hoped or expected. Next up is a fun race, What the Duck 12-Hour, where I will be part of a team. Socializing will take precedence to running, though it will still count as a long run for me as I prepare for the 12-Hour race at 6 Days in the Dome in June.