The Baack Paack

In an attempt to increase my exposure to the running community I found out about an Ultra running group that does night runs here in the desert of Arizona.  For me, it was just crazy enough to draw me into to research mode a bit more and do some reading (as well as sign up!) within minutes of hearing about the event from a fellow Spartan racer.  These races are all over the valley throughout the year and are part of the Insomniac Night Running Series.

They offer race distances ranging from 9K out to 75K, (which equals 46.6 miles, yes, ran all at once, yes, that is longer than a marathon), depending on the venue.   At the Sinister race, they were hosting a 9K, 27K and 54K race.  All in the dark, all run by headlamp, all on hiking trails.  (That alone told me YES, YES, YES! I want to do this!)  This was not going to be a 9K road race on pavement, but a trail run, with valleys, small peaks, hills, loose gravel, rocks, sand and all done via headlamp (or hand-held lamp) at night.  I found out about the race the Tuesday before it was to happen, signed up within minutes, and was registered.  My first desert night race.   Put another check in the box under the heading of “New Experience” Cool!

I have done a lot of night hiking / walking via headlamp.  That technical and mental aspect of facing the darkness factor at this event didn’t both me.  Being alone in the dark with only a headlamp is something that I am OK with.   In addition, l have also ran the route that this course is on several times,  alone as well as with members of the BaackPaack as we practiced for various Spartan races this year.  I had a rough idea of where the hills were, were the deep sand was, where the fast descents were located, as well as the flats that I could make up some time. These factors helped me solidify me decision to race.

The course had some hills, but I had run them all before and I knew what I was getting into.  The trail map above (blue lines) shows the route that we took.   As a matter of fact, the morning of the race (as well as the day after) we had a training planned to run the last 1/2 of this course (just dumb luck) so I would be very familiar with the course and be able to find a good spot to know when and where I should start my ‘hard push’ at the end.  Everything was falling into place.

 

Saturday morning: 6:45 AM  (13 hour before race time)

I hit the trails with the crew for our 4 mile ‘stick and carrot’ run.  I called the event the ‘stick and carrot’ as the goal was to run the 4 miles in under 1 hour. If you do not get the 4 miles done, then we all run two more.   The stick being the extra two miles, the carrot being if you get the 4 in under an hour, you are done!   Many of the crew that I am training with are new to running, as in, they don’t like to do it, and do not have a lot of experience doing it.  To kick it up a notch we trail run, which is a lot harder than standard road running for issues I will get into later.

I realized that when I got to the park that I left my TomTom Cardio at home, so I would be running without metrics.
Damn.

My Geigerrig Cadence was leaking due to a hose connection snafu, so I had lost about 1/2 of the fluid in the backpack reservoir.   Not having all the water in the pack wasn’t critical for this distance, but this is the desert, and I like to run with the same gear that I race with.  Having 1/2 the vest soaked in Grape flavored Amino Energy solution wasn’t what I was expecting when I did this run. I am just glad it wasn’t sticky.
Damn Damn!

I plugged in my headphones into the iPod shuffle (at least that was working), cranked the tunes as I ran out on the trail asking what time it was, so I could at least get a time for when I finished the run. “Six fifty-two” someone yelled – I could just hear it over the beats of Martin Garrix thumping in my brain.  “Fifty two.. Fifty two.. Fifty two..” became my mantra for the next four miles.  (As a side discussion, if you ever wanted to know what music I like to listen to when I am running. It is all songs similar to this one.   Hard bass beats, fast tempo, little singing.. AKA Electro & House music.  Just driving energy that rocks my skull and I can feel down to the soles of my feet.  Music my 99-year-old Grandfather would call ….”Noise”.  The linked YouTube video above is a bit strange, but the music rocks.)

The first mile of the run flew by, and before I knew it I was at the turn off for the HG trail, the section of this 4 mile out and back that had the most elevation of the run.  Feeling pretty good,  I covered the distance well, and shot down the backside of the hill to the turn around.  Knowing I was going to start to see members of the crew coming towards me now pushed me hard to run back up the incline to the crest of the hill.  I ran into all of the members within 4 minutes of each other, so I knew they were on a great pace for the first 2 miles.  About mile three my left hamstring tweaked again, (an injury behind the left knee that I have been dealing with for years), which forced me to slow down a bit as I didn’t want to really aggravate it more, knowing I had the Sinister run tonight.  I slowed down a bit but still had a respectable pace.  Finishing the run, I pulled my phone out of my vest and recorded the time.  Some arduous mathematics later I had my run time, 42 minutes.  No terrible, but I was paying for it now, as I was starting to see “donuts”, a case where my low carb lifestyle directly conflicts with the energy output that I need when I run hard.  I was starting to lose vision in the form of random spots popping up into my field of view due to low blood sugar.   This translates to “Jay needs to eat .. NOW”, I headed off to the car for a ‘nanner and some nuts.  15 min later I was right back to normal. The rest of the crew all finished in under an hour, with the last two members right at 58 minutes.  We all head off our separate ways, with some telling me and Vicki that they will see us again tomorrow morning when we planning on running the event again.

Saturday afternoon (4-5 hours before race time)

Knowing that I was going to run a night race, and knowing how I felt after the run this morning, I knew I needed to eat more today to take into account the extra level of energy expenditure during the evening race.  Let me save you several paragraphs of reading to tell you that I didn’t plan this well.  Now I didn’t eat crazy processed old Jay 1.0 foods, but I just ate too much of the cleaner “Paleo style” foods that I am living on today (I am NOT a 100% doctrine Paleo eater, I use it as a guide for clean eating, as some of the rules just don’t make sense to me).  I consumed way to many different clean options at once, in too high of quantities.  Nuts, sweet potatoes, an apple, a banana (maybe two) maybe some popcorn (air popped no butter, no salt).  Nothing terrible, but too much this soon before the race.  My desire to eat for energy wasn’t planned out properly (I should have started this on FRIDAY, not hours before the race) and left this mass of sludge sitting in my gut as I drove back to the park at 7 PM to pick up my bib and get registered for the 8 PM race.  This should have been a sign of what was to come.   I also updated my running mix on my iPod shuffle.  Dumped some older songs and updated the playlist with others, adding one song 5 different times within the same playlist as I like the beat so much.

 

Saturday night (1 hour before race time)

I get to the park, find a parking spot and quickly realize that Toto is not in Kansas anymore.  While I am the same height as some of the Ultra runners here, I, at 255# easily have more than 100 pounds on every runner here.  I might as well be an Ogre in the enchanted forest of fairies.   These guys are all 5’10 -6’6″ and not more that 8 percent body fat and super thin – as in distance running all-freaking-day-long thin. Or as in the case tonight, all night long!

I smirk as I walk through the small but very busy venue, as I love the fact that I am getting introduced to this new culture of Ultra running, and it is only a few miles from the house.  I pick up my bib and sweet graphic patterned compression arm racing arm sleeves (no t-shirts here!) and start to take a peek at what is all over and around the venue.

The bibs are chipped timed, so that means on the back of the bib is a small plastic strip with a computer chip inside of it that records your start and finish when you run over a mat that is laying on the ground.   This means, no bib, no official start or end.  My X-Racewear bib shorts are perfect for wearing my race bibs.  The shorts are very comfortable and fit and do a great job of keeping the bib flat and readable as there is a mesh pocket on the left leg that holds the bib and protects the chip on the back as well.  Awesome product!
Trying to keep my left hamstring from getting worse, I elected to wear my new CEP compression shorts. (I will be doing a review about these soon) Wow.  Talk about compression!  There are my new favorite. Blows UA and Nike gear out of the water.  They fit well and have the largest amount of compression I have felt on my hips and thighs from any of the compression shorts I have owned.   Not cheap, but worth it. I will see how the hold up to a Sprint and Super Spartan race over two days in a few weeks.  Mudwear compression socks for the calves rounded out the gear.    The area around venue was very interesting due to the layout of the race.  This course was a loop.  You start running north and work around the trails counter-clockwise until you end where you started.  For my race, it was one loop.  For the 27 and 54K runners, it is multiple loops of the same course.  Due to this, there are “pit” areas, similar to NASCAR, where the runners can finish a lap, hit their pit area to eat/ drink change socks, etc.. then go back out on the course for another lap.  It was neat to see this in action, as the 54 and 27K had both started before the 9K started.  Racers were already in their pit areas doing whatever they needed to get done after a lap.

The water station at the finish / start line as well as the mid-point on the course had water, Gatorade, coffee, (yeah buddy!) tea and a whole mix of snacks from apple and bananas to chocolate covered pretzels, gummy bears and assorted other sugar based goodies.  Heck, some of the members of the BaackPaack might take up Ultra racing just so they can eat this stuff guilt free.  No names, but I know you know who you are.    😉

I left the staging area to head back to the car to drop off the arm sleeves and to return my ID (most races need to see ID to prove you are you) as well as pick up my Cadence hydration vest, my iPod, Petzl LED headlamp, X-Racewear headband and start to get my head straight for the race.   As I walked to the car I noticed that Nathan is the product of Ultra racing as far as hydration systems.  I saw several different designs at the race, in all sorts of different configurations.  From a gear guy, this was neat to see as the vests and the rigging of each vest was different depending on the runner as well as the distance.  Getting to the car, it started to sprinkle.  Awesome!  I was excited about the rain.  Rain meant several things:

• Cooler temps
• Not as dusty on the trail
• Possible low-lying ‘wash’ area awareness and water issues to deal with

I was happy to take them all on.  However, it was not in the cards for tonight.  The sprinkling ended soon after it started.  Not even enough to run the wipers.  Looking to the south, you could see the rain bands were thick, but we dying before they hit the ground.  Welcome to the heat in the desert!
Heading back to the venue I slid the power switch and hit the play button on the iPod.  Preparing myself for some serious House and Electro music to get me rocking for this race.   The LED light that shows green when turned ON, and orange when charging, was not showing either solid color, but rather flashing: Red Red Green Green Green Red Red, repeating over and over.

‘Okaaaayy’ I thought.. that isn’t right.  Power cycle.  Off then on.  Hit the play button again.
The LED started flashing: Red Red Green Green Green Red Red, over and over again.

DAMN!

A night run with no music?  Say it isn’t so.  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. What to do now. I quickly looked at my left wrist to confirm that I had in fact remembered to bring and wear the TomTom GPS watch.  Seeing it there I smiled and thought  ‘Well, it ain’t a complete lost cause’ as I at least had the watch to track my metrics.   Then it hit me.  My phone has a previous version of my running playlist on it.  I could just pack that.  Yeah, it would be in a pocket, and I would not be able to adjust the volume or the track quickly, but I would have some sort of music.  I headed back to the car.

Sitting in the truck, grabbing the phone, typing in the phone pass code by the illumination of the interior dome light I could hear over the race speakers “9K runners 20 minutes to start time!”.
Yep, it was 7:40 PM. Looking at my phone, I saw another obstacle.  Battery life: 31 percent.

DAMN DAMN DAMN!

I quickly plugged in the charger in an attempt to get at least another 10% into the phone before I started the race.  Looking at the song selection I could the framework of a playlist there, and I spent the next 10 minutes dumping older music and moving new songs in.  Several were not yet downloaded to the phone yet, so I had to start that process as well.

DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN!

With about 8 min to race start time, and the phone downloading songs and charging from the cigarette lighter socket I headed off the bathrooms one more time to try to eliminate anything sitting in my gut.  I was chuckling out loud on my walk over to the bathroom, thinking, what other obstacle did I need to get over or think my way out of before I started this race?

Then it happened:      BOOOOM!
A massive spider of sky to sky lightning lit up entire sky over me. For a millisecond it was as bright as the noon sun, then complete blackness again followed by the hoots and hollers of other racers who witnessed the event.

 

Oh boy!  This could get real interesting real fast now.

 

Saturday night  (7:55 PM, Five minutes to race time)

With five minutes to go I unplugged the phone (41% charged) and stuffed it into my right zipper pocket of the vest.  It had to be good enough at this point.  I was out of time.  I hate using my phone for a mp3 player, especially for the chance it might rain, but I was out of options.  A couple quick pulls of ‘Grape Amino Energy drink’ from the hydration vest, I cranked up the tunes and headed over to the venue area.  I made my way to the 9K staging area looking to the left before crossing the race path of the 27K and 54K runners who had started hours earlier and were either flying by the start line or pulling into the pit area.  Either way, I didn’t want to get cleaned out by one of them as I crossed the race route.   I found my friend ‘Gio’ who mentioned the race to be the week before, who was also running the 9K.  A fellow Spartan racer, he was using this race as another training tool.  We talked briefly about what we wanted to run the race in: him, just under an hour, and I wanted to do it an hour.  Having run the morning of, and another tomorrow, I felt a 60 minute 9K trail run was respectable for me and not kill me for the training run on Sunday.  Being my first night run, I wanted to run comfortable and not at an all out PR pace.   With about a minute to start, we formed into the 9K line (towards the back) and started off at 8 PM, crossing the starting mat at 8:00:16.  I hit GO on the TomTom GPS watch and it was game on.

 

Shucking & Jiving to the Headlamp Lights

As some of you know, the start of any running race is a mad scramble for position and pace.   Faster runners want to get ahead of the pack, slower runners bring up the rear.  Seasoned runners pass on the left, newbie shoot and dart and pass in any sort of gap they can find, while others run dead center of the trail, thinking that they are the only one running out on the trail.  Add to the fact that you are running in complete darkness, except for the light of headlamps, it was a very slow start for the first 1/4 mile.  I can only imaging the frustration of the 27 and 54K runners who paced wrong and ended up finishing a lap right behind this gaggle of 9K runners.  From my perspective it was a mess, my head was on a swivel to make sure someone wasn’t zigging when I was zagging and vice versa.  I did my best to stay to the left to pass, unless I could hear the foot fall of those behind me gaining in volume, then I would slide over and allow them to pass me.  After the first 1/4 mile we had a slight uphill, which was enough to really open a gap in the 9K pack.  I was able to pull ahead of the pack and was maybe 30 – 40 headlamps (as you can only see the lamps dancing in the darkness ahead of you) from the leaders of the 9K pack.  A quick look at the watch told me I was on an 11:20m/m (min per mile) pace, and I was feeling good, albeit totally underestimating the mental awareness it was taking to maintain focus on where to put my feet on these trails due to the limited vision that the headlamp provided.  Ever present sky to sky lighting was putting on a heck of a light show, lighting up the whole park, with a strike about every 5-8 minutes – but not a drop of rain was falling from the sky.

 

Gurgle, Burps & Chunks

At mile 1.5 is when this event starting taking a turn for the worse for me.  The first thing I noticed is that my stomach was anything but settled.  It was making all kinds of noise.  I could feel the vibrations from the growling through my gut and chest area.  It was not happy, and keeping this running pace wasn’t making it happier.

In addition to this, the heat was starting to get to me.   It was 93 just as the sun went down.  Now out on the course, I bet it was high 80’s low 90s.  It was humid and with a strong dusty dry wind blowing.  Looking through the light of the headlamp, it looked like I was watching car headlamps in a snow storm.  Dust was thick in the air, and due to the heat and the wind, my sweat wasn’t staying on me, it was drying instantly, which left me coated in this grime of trail running dirt.  I could feel my body slowing down, as I was having trouble regulating the heat as well as staying razor focused on where I was running in order not to twist an ankle or fall.

Having a case of the burps after Thanksgiving, or even Memorial day is expected, almost part of the traditions of the holiday.  You eat a big meal and reward the chef or grill master with a resounding burp.  However, having a case of the burps at a dinner out with friends can be down right awful, especially depending on what you were eating.  Burps when running can also be terrible.  You can feel that your stomach isn’t quite right.  You want to burp to get rid of that pressure.  However, burping can do three drastic things when running:

• Effect your breathing cycle.  I am am pushing hard with a 150 (ish) beats per minute heart rate, a change in the breathing cycle throws me out of sync with the effort that I am putting out
• Can be very very smelly and I pity those running behind me or downwind
• Worst thing is that they can include solid matter

That last point leads us to the “Chunks” part of this post.

I have been involved with two endurance events where I wanted to throw up right in the middle of the event.  One, back in 1995 when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail in Southern Virgina, the trail took us through a cow swamp.  It was ankle-deep and a whole ‘lotta nasty.  Enough said about that.  The next day was filled with walk a mile  – dry heave.  Walk a mile  – blow chunks. Walk a mile  – dry heave.. over and over for 16 long miles –  all day long – walk, puke, dry heave, eat, walk, puke, repeat.   The second time in my life I felt this way, was this race.  By mile two I was there.  I was ready to pull off the side, double over and let it fly….and looking back, I probably should have.  By the water station at mile 2.5, I was walking more than I was running.  My time was creeping up from 11 min miles to 13.  Physically my legs felt heavy.  My stomach had a full USA Olympic team performing floor exercises at the same time, flipping, flopping and tumbling.  Mentally I was getting very tired from the attention paid to the 3’ circle of light in front of me as to where my feet would land.  I felt exhausted, tired and beat, and I still had 3 miles to go.
I hit the water station made a careful selection of two cups of water and not Gatorade and dumped them both over my head.   I could hear the volunteer yelling to everyone “hydrate, hydrate, don’t forget to hydrate”, while I soaked the crown of my forehead and let the water run down the back of my head and neck.   Forget about drinking it, I needed to cool down.  Talk about an instant pick me up!   A few more tugs on grape Amino energy drink and I was back to a slow jog.  At one point in the next mile I started laughing as I started to feel the pressure of a new blister forming on my left foot.  Really?  Now?  What else could get thrown in my way.  At this point I knew I would finish the race, however, I would not make my desired time of 60 minutes. My pace was way off, and I knew I needed to find something to focus on to get me mentally through the race.

That help came to me in the way of Alana.

 

Alana and the Lumbering Giant

There are three kinds of runners.

1. Those that draft off of another runner.  Someone running just a bit faster than you, and you keep up your speed to stick with them, allowing them to “pull” you through the course
2. Those that allow other runners to draft off them
3. Those that just run their own race

At mile 3.5 I walked up (not ran) on to Alana.  In full disclosure I do not know Alana.  I have never said one word to Alana. I have never seen Alana in the light of day.  I could not pick out Alana in a police line up.  However, if the police had the line up all turn around so I could look at the heels of the shoes they were wearing, I could tell you who was Alana.   Alana gave me the mental strength to start running again and finish this race.
Alana is a 5’6″, maybe hundred / one hundred and ten pounds, blonde, female teenager who has about a size 6 shoe, with reflective strips on the heel and outside of the toe.  I have no idea of what her face looks like, as I never saw it.  I could only tell her by her long blonde pony tail and her shoes.   Alana’s pace was just faster than mine at this point and that is what I needed.  I stuck right to her heels and paced / drafted off her most of the rest of the race.  At mile 4, when she slowed down for the hill, I slowed down.  When she sped up, I sped up.  I was not going to let her shake me.  Again, you have to realize that this run is at night.  Alana is off doing her own thing, running her own race, when this (what must have seemed to her) giant beast who is sucking some serious wind and burping – a lot –  parks right behind her and pacing off of her.  I wish I could have been in her head to hear her thoughts.   If I had ESP I would have made a point to explain what was going on, but I didn’t have the stamina to have the conversation in real-time, keep breathing, and still run at the pace I was running… without throwing up.  So, I hung behind her, like a XXL shirt on a size medium body frame. For the next mile,  27K and 54K racers would pass us as well as a few 9K racers.  One female 9K racer (Deb) ran up and was stride for stride with Alana, before she pulled ahead.  Alana took after her, (which meant I took after her as well), but was not able to catch her, with Deb pulling up about 15 seconds ahead of her.  (For those that are wondering how I know the actual names of these runners.. it is based upon the results of the race here: Sinister 9K Results)

At mile 4.5 I was starting to feel better.  Maybe it was the fact that I had only been staring and fixated at the rhythmic strides of Alana’s ankles for the last mile and I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Where she stepped I stepped, it was a game of follow the leader.. in the dark, with strangers.   Maybe my stomach had settled a bit.  Maybe the weather was cooling. Maybe I was starting to relax my vision on where to step next.  Or could it be the fact that I knew I had a mile left in the race?   Regardless of what it was, I was starting to feel stronger, and at mile 4.7 I passed Alana (who I am sure was thankful) and started the chase to the finish.

 

Bright Lights and Beer Glasses

The last mile seemed a lot father than a mile.  For some reason that stretch of the SA trail seems a lot longer than it is when you are running south to north, heading back to the main gate.  The trail isn’t overly difficult, it just seems to take forever to get to the end.  At mile five (5) my watch buzzed with the “90% completed” measurement and I knew at this point I needed to kick up my speed to the end.  No more getting passed.  No more worrying about going to throw up, no more trying keep the heart rate low.   Drop down a gear and get this mother finished!  An old Crossfit memory popped in my head of my previous coach bent at the hips leaning over me during a set of wall balls and runs.

“Don’t stop when you are tired  – WE ARE ALL TIRED – STOP when you are FINISHED!  (Thanks Courtney)

I sucked in an extra deep inhalation breath and starting pushing harder, moving faster.  Longer strides and more of them, more arm motion involved with each stride. Feel the music, work with it and get moving.. faster.. faster.  Within a minute I was now on Deb’s heels and passing her, and I could see the festival lights of the venue and the red LED lights of the race clock in the distance.  I was still too far away to read the numbers, but I knew the clock was there, ticking off the seconds and minutes the longer I stayed out on this course.  Soon after seeing the venue lights I passed another runner who was now walking.  Had this been a daylight road race I would have said a few words of encouragement, such as “You are almost there! push hard, you got this!” However, in that moment, during this night race, I think I would have thrown up if I tried to verbalize anything.  She wouldn’t have heard words of encouragement, but the universal sound of someone who was going to throw up.. and that is JUST what someone wants to hear from someone running up behind them in total darkness.
Needless to say I was red lining.  Heart race was well over 165 BPM,  my pace increasing, discomfort in my stomach increasing and the burp / chunk ratio was very close to tipping from gas only to solids with a whole lot of volume very quickly.   I wanted this over.   I passed the aforementioned walking runner, who quickly started running again. Maybe she picked up on that mental vibe that I almost threw up on her.    Within 3 minutes I could now see the festival area.  I could see the light of head lamps from the participants milling about.  I could see the clock over the start / finish line.  I could see the end.   In a last effort I increased speed again and pushed hard at the finish, pushing to get under 1:13 for the race time. I was in sprint mode now, running hard to finish this race, foot placement be dammed.  I wanted OFF this merry-go-ride.   I crossed the finish line at 1:12:46, 97th out of 146 runners in the 9K, and about 12 minutes slower than I wanted. I crossed the finishing mats and immediately walked out into the dark desert and started dry heaving. Hands-on-knees-bent-over-at-the-waist-full-scale-dry-heaving position.   I carried this sludge in my stomach for 5.4 miles and I wanted it out.  However, now that I was finished running, it didn’t want to leave.  Not wanting to create a scene though a series of manual manipulations to free myself of this stomach demon I decided instead to leave.  Finding Gio, on the way out.    Gio was over in the finisher area, enjoying some water from his race branded finisher beer glass, while talking with some other racers.  He looked good and was very happy with his result. I congratulated him, drank some water,  grabbed my beer glass from the “medal tent” and headed for the car for the drive home.

 

Several things happened during this race that I need to evaluate for future runs.

• Eating for a night race – I need to figure out the timing on what to eat and when to eat it.  This is a different monster that early am races that I am used to performing in, where I eat the day before, then a light meal about an hour before the race
• Throwing up on the course – I should have just done it and moved on
• Prepare for the unexpected  – (iPods not working, blisters, wanting to hurl.. etc.) My obstacle immunity training helped a lot with this
• Trail running by headlamp – I totally underestimated how mentally taxing this is.  I was more tired from the mental energy expenditure into watching where to run that I was from running the race.  This one was an eye opener.  I slept like a rock when I got home, not from the race effort, but from the mental exhaustion.

 

So Jay, after all of this – Will you do another one of these races?

Duh.. of course.  Without question!   I have nothing but great things to say about the event from online web site, to the staffing, to the management of the event.  It was all great, well-organized and felt very comfortable and friendly.  If you ever want to try out a night run, I would recommend this race. The ground terrain while not tricky does offer places to really move, while others you need to pay attention to.

Who knows, In 2016, I think running a 54K is not out of the realm of possibility.  I will just have to train harder for it.. and maybe even consume a chocolate pretzel or two.    And Alana if I ever get to meet you in person – Thanks!  Your shoes rock girl!