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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Blazing Good Time

Blazing 7s

A Solo 100 mi Virtual Run Effort


TROT (Trail Racing Over Texas) has been amazing with supporting out running community and has offered a variety of virtual runs since the lock-down from the COVID pandemic has started. When the spring/summer virtual events opened up there was very limited options for a 100 mile option, and so naturally I jumped on that opportunity and snagged a spot in the Blazing 7s 100 Mile Virtual Run, and a chance at another buckle. This was back at the end of March and we had a deadline of August 1st to complete the distance and submit the data in order to earn the buckle. I had no initial plans of when, where, or how to run this 100, I just knew I wanted to join in the fun as I have come to love the 100 mile distance. I kept busy in the spring and did a bunch of smaller 50 km virtual races so I kept delaying when I put this one on my schedule.

Fast forward to July and I managed to sneak in a 100 mile real life trail race in Colorado (see prior blog post). Since I had delayed scheduling anything else this left me with basically 2 weekends to get my Blazing 7s done. I choose July 24-25 since I could finish my work a bit early on Friday, head out running and then finish up by Saturday evening to have Sunday with the family...pretty simple right? Seemed like a great plan to me and then the Tropical Storm in the Gulf started forming and was about to hit SW Texas coast at this time as well.

Pre race photo by Katie Meding.

Set up my garage as a nice little aid station with my essential supplies around my chair and foot stool. I had a plan of running as much local trails as possible prior to the mass rain that was inevitability making its way to our region from the edge of the storm. I placed plenty of socks nearby as I thought this might be a time I'd change between loops (this turned out to be good foresight).
Victory Sportdesign (Cougar II) and my much needed Trail Toes anti-friction.
Also had some emergency GU roctane gels for some extra energy boost if needed. 

I set off mid afternoon on Friday after completing my tasks at work for the week. I figured I could get a nice jump start on my miles and then arrive back home for dinner with my family for our regular Friday pizza movie night. My first "loop" consisted of hot humid miles where I linked up a bunch of my local trails. I got in 3 hours on nice easy paced effort to kick off my race. It was now Meding family movie night, and so i kicked off my shoes and came into the house for pizza, beer, and family time with the wife and kids as we watched the kids pick of Ugly Dolls movie. I relaxed for just over an hour and then decided I better get back out before the rain crept in. This loop I set off for a section again on my local trails, 2 miles to the trailhead, a 7 mile trail segment, and then 2 miles back home. I took my headlamp with me in case I was longer than anticipated. The storm clouds were getting closer and darker too. I knew staying dry at this point was now just a luxury I should enjoy. Of course about half way through my trail segment it started raining hard which made the trail super slick. Here in the Houston area it is super clay like and so rain on the trails is much like ice in terms of the surface. My pace slowed dramatically, but i was still enjoying the miles in nature. My thoughts also drifted to the fact this would be my last trail miles for this run as the trails close with rain storms. I arrived back home darkness now here and had finished around a marathon in distance. A quick stop this time around and off I went for an hour more of running, this time on local sidewalks. Finished this off and i basically had done 50 km at this point (31.9 mi to be precise). I then kicked back on the couch and grabbed some more pizza and sat with my wife on a family zoom call (in lieu of the usual family get together at this time of year).

Just over 2 hours had gone and it was nearing midnight now. Time to get back at it, as my wife was heading to bed. Put on my third pair of socks thus far and got some podcasts queued up for the night sections. I had these 2 long road segments planned to get done which were my last 2 streets to complete my #EverySingleStreet Sugar Land project that I have been working on (*full blog post to follow on this project). The miles were pretty boring and lonely, which is why i brought my podcasts to keep the time ticking by. This brought me to almost 59 miles done and nearly to sunrise. I got out of my wet clothes from the non-stop humidity and light rain all night. I took a small nap and spent another 2 hours at home before getting back out.

The day brought on more intense rain storms that were unavoidable. My pace seemed very slow and i was getting annoyed by the squeaking of my constantly wet socks and shoes. By around mile 73 I noticed that chaffing was occurring from the constant wetness even with my regular Trail Toes use. THe problem was i got a bit of irritation in a spot that had not happened to me before, so i had to deal with that unpleasantness. After stopping and then getting running again seemed to be the worse pain until i got in a groove and everything was lined out so to speak. I utilized a lot of Trail Toes (anti-friction body creme) to get this run complete - but it definitely helped save my race.

After 81 miles the skies were nearly black again, cause of the next wave of storm clouds. I did not want to keep taking extended breaks as i found it hard to start back up. My next loop I choose to run nearby our house and just do loops around this small neighborhood pond, which is like 0.7 mi around. I did I think 8 loops here and came back for more hydration and snacks, and of course another pair of socks (I lost count of how many pairs at this point). Only 12 more miles to go.

Since i was getting lazy and tired i kept my last 3 loops simple as can be. I ran around New Territory Homeward Way which is a nearly 4 miles from my doorstep to doorstep. I made the stops between these 3 loops more like true aid station stops where i just came in the door filled up my bottles and was back running in under 2 minutes. At this point I was moving much better than earlier and I started to count down the miles. With one neighborhood loop to go I noticed I had exactly 45 minutes to go sub-30 despite all my stops. With that I had a new goal and put the hammer down to keep pace on that last loop to get under that round 30 hour mark. It turned out to be my fastest "loop" at 09:44 min/mi (fast pace for me during a 100 miler).

Results


My map from STRAVA.
  • My miles were also used to advance myself and my 2-man team further across Texas (virtually) for the Trans-Texas Virtual Run
  • Mentioned above the final 2 streets of my #EverySingleStreet was completed during this run. A full blog write up on that will follow soon.
  • This was my 65th ultramarathon and my 17th 100 mi (or more)
Texas sized bling! One of the coolest buckles I've earned to date. Thank you TROT!


Gear Used

Thank you to my family for letting do my crazy ideas and even running virtual races from our own home.

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