2024 The Stinger 12-Hour
Closing Out the Year

After the disappointment of having to stop early at the Hainesport 12-Hour because my ankle began hurting, I had doubts of whether I should schedule any more races this year. In any case thoughts of including a 24-Hour such as Fat Ox or Across the Years had to be abandoned. Learning that this would be the last year for The Stinger added pressure to register anyway, since I've had this on my bucket list for several years. After seeing that my post race recovery was going well, including my ankle holding up on longer walks, I committed to the 12-Hour and the long two day drive to Locust Grove, Georgia. With that in mind I planned to include a series of double workouts on my long days, split so that the total time would at least approach three hours.

So far, so good as I entered the final week for my taper. Mileage has been in a range of 33 to 43 miles, but more significantly 9.5 to 12.5 hours of walking per week. That has increased my optimism that I should be able to walk all or most of the 12 hours. Pace has been inconsistent. Sometimes 16:00-16:30 feels comfortable and other times I can barely hold a 17:30 pace. It makes assessing a reasonable race pace difficult, if not impossible. Of course my main goal is to endure the entire 12 hours, even if I average 18:00 or more. An average pace of 18:00 would still get me close to my (overly optimistic)goal of 40 miles, and 20:00 pace would give me 36 miles. My more reasonable goal is 50K to 35 miles.

While I took two days to drive down,it was more fatiguing than planned. My loosen up walk after arriving at Locust Grove felt like it took more effort than it should have at a leisurely pace. Then as usual I had a restless night, waking up several times before finally getting up and ready for the race. I was able to have a relatively leisurely breakfast at the hotel before checking in at the race, only to realize I'd forgotten my water bottles. Fortunately my hotel was only 5 minutes from the race, but it was still a hectic trip to my hotel room, barely making it back for the pre-race instructions.

I don't know what the other runners thought of the weather, but I was quite happy with how overcast and cool it was, around 64F. It turned sunny for only a short while in early afternoon, but we also had a few periods of light rain, nothing hard enough for me to don a jacket, and that also kept it cool. (Sorry all you runners who seem to prefer 45F, but this was ideal for me.) I started much too fast with my first few laps around 4:00 and Garmin recording my first mile in 16:21. I finally settled into a pace of about 4:15-4:30 per lap with a few slower laps for aid station and port-a-potty breaks. I managed to maintain that for 70 laps before slipping slightly to 4:30-4:45 per lap. About that same period I began to take short breaks to rest my legs. Although I was able to maintain that pace, it was wearing me down and I needed time to recover, initally after another 10-12 laps, but the interval kept decreasing. Once I passed 50K on the 126th lap, I was in an almost constant debate with myself about whether I wanted to continue, and if so how far and for how long. With about an hour and a half to go, while I was on yet another recovery break, I had a brief conversation with Bill Schultz, one half of the timing team. I got up for one more lap. While on that lap I decided that I wanted to last the entire 12 hours, even if it meant walking a lap, then sitting until I could continue. I surprised myself by walking 5 laps before my next break, but after that it was walk a couple laps, rest and repeat. I surprised myself again by stringing together 3 laps at the end to bring my total to 143 laps and 35.15 miles with the last lap down to 4:23. That placed me 9th of the 14 competitors and 4th among the 6 men, overall exceeding my expectations. I did endure the full 12 hours, and my average pace was well over 18:00, but that included rest and recovery breaks. I didn't experience anywhere near the pace degradation that I normally see, though I think much of that was due to walking rather than a run-walk method.

I think I'm through with racing this year and want to start working up to a 24-hour, or even a 48-hour race for next year. With that in mind, I may enter a local 8-hour in December as a supported training run. Including some 6-hour races in the past as training runs seems to have helped me with improving my endurance, so that is a possibility I'm considering. It adds a level of training I don't get in training runs, even with back to back long runs. I suspect the weather will play a significant part in my decision as December in New Jersey can bring miserable weather.