My Tuscobia 160 Mile Race

Finish Photo - Credit Mary Ehlers

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. From the first time I heard about the Tuscobia Winter Ultras  I knew I had to do it.  I tried and failed, twice.  This year I got it done.

Tuscobia offers a 80 and 160 mile run/bike/ski event in Rice Lake/Park Falls Wisconsin.  The 80 mile runs from Park Falls to Rice Lake.  The 160 is an out and back from Rice Lake to Park Falls, and back.  There are certain gear requirements that result in a "pulk" (sled) being the most effective means to carry your gear.  There is a shelter/aid station at mile 45.  There is another at the turnaround at mile 80 - 35 miles later.  The final shelter is back in the middle 35 miles later, after which it is 45 miles to the end.  You are allowed two drop bags.  One you see twice.  You have 65 hours to complete the race.  In 2016 4 people finished the 160.  This year 14 (out of 30).

Me and my pulk from Arrowhead 135 2016

Both times that I quit I quit for no good reason.  I took very long breaks at the halfway point with a plan of evaluating where I was at when I woke up.  This year I planned to finish.  I also trained to finish, averaging 80 mile running weeks in the forth months leading up to the race.  I also got serious about my diet by eliminating refined sugar and grains in September which resulted in 40 pound weight loss.  I was physically and mentally in the best possible place.  I strongly believed I could finish.

I drove up and stayed the night before the race with a close running friend, Tim Kruse.  Tim is a Frozen Otter finisher, Gnarly Bandit finisher and really, a tough and smart guy.  We had been talking about gear and logistics since fall.  He was ready too.  It was a great ride and really fun to discuss the race.  We planed to start together and hoped to stay together on the course, though we realized that sweat, speed, injury, sleep, etc. could effect things.

Tim at the Ojibwa checkpoint

This race requires you to bring your sled inside the start and the RD's make sure you have each item of required gear, which includes: A zero degree or better sleeping bag; bivy sack, sleeping pad, stove, pot, firestarter, headlamp, 3 flashing red LED lights, a headlamp and 3,000 calories of food.  All of these items must be on your sled the entire race.  If you don't still have them at the finish you aren't going to count.  At the end of the blog I will list the specific items I took with pics.

I expected the race to start in the low negative single digits, get into the double negative digits on Friday night, and generally warm up over the weekend.  So of course at the start is was between -15 and -20 degrees.   We had no idea.  I instantly had a major ice beard.  And we were off. 

Tim and I at Birchwood, mile 20ish

The first half of the race really couldn't have gone smoother.  We locked into a nice 3 mph pace, stayed warm, minimized breaks and really had a nice time.  At mile 45 my friend Chalayne applied some frost strips to protect my cheeks.  It was a cold, double digit negative night.  Tim and I passed a bar right around bar time and decided to capitalize on some red bull and coke. The bartender was surprised we were out in -19.  we were surprised it was -19 ourselves.

What?  It's -19?

When things got rough Tim and I decided to just put our emergency jackets on and walk 2 mph.  That worked really well.  It was much better than stopping.  It really warmed us up and gave us confidence.  We knew that no matter what happened, we had that option.  It was a comfort.

We reached the turnaround at Park Falls at about 11:45. (so 29:45 for 80 miles).  We decided we were leaving at 2:00 p.m.  Tim and I took about an hour nap, then screwed around with gear, changed socks and clothes, applied necessary lubricants, and the like.

Sleeping at mile 80

One observation.  My body hurt exactly the same way it did the last two years.  My feet were hurting and blistered.  I was cold a tired.  This year dropping wasn't a consideration.  We left at 2:15.

The third section is really where shit got real.  The cold, plus sleepy, plus fatigue compounded and slowed us down a bit.  (We later learned that it was the coldest Tuscobia on record with temps mostly in the area of -teens.  At one point Tim decided to just sleep on his sled in the middle of the trail.  As I stood beside him sleeping on his sled snoring in -15 temps I wondered what I was supposed to do.  Leave?  Listen?  I decided it wasn't safe or a good idea, so I woke him up after 15 minutes and told him if he got to the next shelter which was 4 miles away by doing 3 mph again, we could take a 2 hour nap.  I was wrong.  The shelter was 12 miles away (so I was off by 3.5 hours?  Shoot me!).  Tim didn't seem to mind.  We got there at 4:00 am and had a plan to leave again at 6 am.

In the morning I told Tim my plan.  I was going to move at 3 mph and start running the downhills.  If he couldn't keep up I would meet him at the finish.  I didn't want to cut it close and after two failed attempts and a finish in my sight I wasn't taking any chances.

As the sun rose I jogged down the trail to some hip hop ("My Dick" was the name of the song) and really started to make time.  I thought about the past year and all I had been through.  I thought about how some people had given up on me, or I had given up on myself.  I realized that today was the day that I could start turning all of that around.  I realized that I was going to finish.  I did a bathroom stop, re-arranged my sled, changed some layers and did the math.  All I needed to do was 34 minute miles to finish.  I hit the trail and cried tears of joy that I was going to make it.  Then cried a little extra when I realized that I was celebrating something not likely to happen for another 12 hours. :)

The balance of the day I listened to hip hop, Bob Dylan's theme time radio hour, the Packer game, and then for the last couple of hours my thoughts.  I believed that today I proved to myself that I can do anything.  I was proud of myself.  I crossed the finish line 63:21:00 and felt like I had finally realized the person that I can be.  I hope that same person shows up for the Arrowhead 135 at the end of the month.  

Tim finished an hour or so behind me.  Seriously, if it weren't for that guy I don't know if I would have finished.  

Gear

Arrowhead Racing Toboggan - Black River Sleds

Mountain Hardware Ghost -40 Bag

Sierra Designs Backcountry Bivy

Thermarest Ultralight Pad

Black diamond distance Z Poles

A shitload of Buffs

Arcteryx Rho Balaclava and Mountain Hardware Balaclava

Shitload of Hats

Special organizer for food built by Kylia Kummer

Mountain Hardware Absolute Zero Mitts

Arcteryx Fission Jacket

Lots of blinkers

Totally useless watches that froze and died.

Safety vest

Compression sack for all the extra jackets and such

injinji thigh-high socks and drymax socks.  Drymax won.

Wool Mitten (not used), Arcteryx windstopper gloves (not used), mountain hardware powerstretch gloves (wore 100% of the time

Arcteryx Phase Glove Liner (wore 100% of the time) Patagonia over-mitt (used about 20%)

The world's oldest and nastiest jar of emergency peanut butter.

Hydroflasks

Non-NSNG Food sources :)

Goggles (not used)

Esbit Stove and Fuel

Pot

Arcteryx Fortrez Hoody - Heavily used

Arcteryx Atom Pants - used 100% with North Face thermal compression underwear and tights.

Hoka One One - Tor Ultra Boot - wore 100%

Arcteryx Styka Hoodie - Used 100%.  changed mid race.

Arcteryx Thorium Jacket - Not used 

Arcteryx Atom Jacket - Not used

Arcteyx Alpha Shell - Used a ton

I also ran with my iphone 5.  I placed a hand warmer in a pices of tissue in a zip lock bag, and then placed that zip lock bag in another ziplock bag with my phone.  I am proud that my phone did not die once during the entire race :)

Trail Therapy - and Being in a Hole

I realize I haven't blogged in a while.  There has been a combined overwhelming amount of activity with the Ten Junk Miles podcast, Flatlanders, races and personal issues (health friends and family).  I hope to write more in 2016.  Once in a while someone gets something out of it. It always helps me.

A lot of us in the trail and ultra world, myself included, are a little bit broken.  We were abused or neglected, had drinking, eating, sex, money or gambling problems.  Some of us are running away from things and others are running to things.  It's different for everyone.  One thing many of us do share is using trails and/or running as therapy.

I found running when I was finally sorting out all of the hard times I had been through.  Sometimes when I run I think about my childhood and how extremely unfair it was to experiences the horrors I have been through.  Other times I think my addictions and recovery.  I've thought about the death of my friend Alfredo.  Sometimes I just worry about others.  (Although, to be fair, I do think about jokes from time to time too).

When you are running away from horrors you can forget them on the trail.  Running a marathon, or a 20, 50 or 100 miler sometimes gives you clarity and singularity of focus.  The bills, the kids, the boss, your "baggage" no longer matters.  And when you cross that finish line and they give you the 100 mile buckle you can feel, in a real sense, validated and good enough.  It doesn't matter so much that you've been a shitty friend, husband, co-worker or human being from time to time because, well, look.....you were working on achieving this piece of awesome!  No pain no gain.  You can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs.  You can forgive yourself.  Others forgive you.  It's all good.

Sometimes we don't know what to do when trail therapy doesn't work.  You see, I have thought about the fact that I might not be the best husband, worker, friend, etc. but that it's understandable based on my circumstances.  I mean, I'm training for X.  It makes me forgive myself for the shortcomings that, between you and me, would normally keep me up at night.

The problem is that when (like now) the running isn't working, it only emphasizes the fact that I fall somewhat short in every other category.  When running is your therapy and your medicine and it stops working, you can get a little lost.  Everything seems ten times worse because you can't feel better by just going for a run.  In fact, the struggle of the run makes it all feel much worse.  And now, "I can't even do this right?"

I think some of the answer lies in removing the results from the calculus and enjoying the run, the friendships and the experience over the result as a way to "get over."  If there's one thing running has given me, its unimaginably good friends that share an intimacy like very few other groups.  To be with another runner, in the woods, sharing my problem makes me feel not so alone.  And as we say in one of my 12 step groups, "You're only as sick as your secrets."

I recently related the story of the guy who fell in the hole to a couple people.  It goes like this:

This guy is walking down the street and he falls in a hole.  The walls are so steep he can't get out.  A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up "Hey, you, can you help me out?"  The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down the hole and moves on.  Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up "Father, I'm down here in this hole.  Can you help me out?  The priest writes a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a friend walks by.  The guy yells "Hey Joe, it's me, can you help me out?"  And then the friend jumps in the hole.  Our guy says, "Are you nuts? Now we're both down here."  The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before - and I know the way out."

Bottom line - running fast, running far and running in amazing places can and will help you through almost anything, but nothing beats being able to spill your guts to someone when they don't have time to judge you because they don't want to trip on a root.  Reach out.  We've all been in the hole at some point or another.

And keep running.

Quick Update and Review of 2Toms and Saxx

It's been an interesting month, to say the least.  My double Potawatomi 100/Indiana 100 didn't turn out as expected.  I dropped at mile 60 at Potawatomi, but managed to pull out a 29:30 finish at Indiana in some calf deep, shoe sucking mud.  (special thanks to my pacer Paul Wilkerson).

Hanging with the crew at POT100 post-DNF

Photo by Scott Laduick

Going into Ice Age I wasn't totally healed (only 11 days post Indiana 100) and my feet, knees and back were a little sore.  Nonetheless, I had a great day (for me) and finished 11:15, more than 30 minutes faster than last time.  I was really happy with how strong I pushed and how good I felt all day.

Next up I have a large block of training which will end with Cry Me A Rive 50 Mile and then a short rest before Angeles Crest 100.  AC100 is the main race of my year and I've been waiting a long time to get to that start line (I was DNS due to injury last year).  This is a really important race to me.  It'll be the hardest race I have attempted.  Graduate level. Mountains, Altitude, Extreme Heat.  But breathtaking views and many great runner friends.

To get ready, I am going to have to train pretty hard.  I expect to really make it hurt on the trails and stairs...especially in the heat.  I am also going to have to work on losing about 30 more pounds by following the NSNG program I have been on.  So far I've lost ten pounds on it.  You can learn more about it here: http://vinnietortorich.com/

At Ice Age I tried two brand new products for the first time.  (I know....bad idea).  2Toms sport stick:

And Saxx underwear:

There's no delicate way to say this.  I'm a big guy.  Big guys chaffe.  In many, many places.  I also have a track record of blisters on my gnarly feet.  I am happy to report that, in spite of the really humid temps, I didn't chaffe AT ALL at Ice Age and both of these products are AMAZING.  No blisters, no chaffing.  I didn't change clothes once.  I wore a polyester tshirt.  (Imaginary Foundation).  And my mind was blown by these products.  I can't say enough good things.

Finally, things have really been taking off for Ten Junk Miles.  http://www.tenjunkmiles.com/

We've had about ten times as many listeners as I thought and it gets bigger every day.  If you get time give us a listen and rate and review us on itunes.  We don't make any money off of it, but your reviews move it up in the ratings so more people can find it.

Have a great Summer!!!!