WAM 110k 2018: DNF (Do Not Feel sorry for me)

I've read a lot of "DNF" (Did Not Finish) blogs over the years. Lots of soul-searching, introspective, sometimes regretful, tales of understandingly heart-wrenching decisions to call it quits on a race. 

This is not one of those blogs. More of a comedy than a drama really, with some blood, sweat, snow, rain, and mud, but no tears. 

Just to be clear - I did call it quits on the WAM 110k, at about 60k into the race. But not even a little piece of me thinks it was the wrong decision. This was one of those rare instances that my friend Tory calls "the Happy Drop". Let me explain.

Toasty warm inside my Goretex bubble. Photo courtesy of Brian McCurdy

For the first half of this race, I ran well. I was taking it very easy, eating regularly, drinking plenty, and having fun despite fairly terrible conditions. It was raining, although mercifully not at the start - it started drizzling about 2-3 hours in and then got progressively heavier for the next few hours. Once we passed the snow line on Whistler at about 1800 metres, it was essentially sleeting. I was wearing perfect clothing for the weather, so none of this was a factor except for obscuring what I know to be incredible views on the course. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the start...

The first 20k of my race was in the dark, owing to the 4 am start time. We were running on easy gravel trails for the first 6k, which it turns out is a perfect warmup when your body is internally screaming "WTF ARE YOU DOING IT'S 4 IN THE MORNING GO BACK TO BED". Once we started on the Comfortably Numb trail, which is pretty technical at the best of times (i.e., daytime and dry) - full of roots, rock slabs, mountain bike features like skinny wood planks, twists and turns - I quickly realized that I am pretty bad at running trails in the dark. I don't see well at night anyway, and my headlamp wasn't the best (note to self: remedy this for next time), which I knew going in, so was also carrying a handheld light. I was quite uncoordinated and stumbly on this trail, but realized that it was making me run much slower than usual, which I reasoned was probably a good thing at the start of a 110k race. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same, and some of the conversations were pretty hilarious: "Oh, that creek sounded like it looked amazing!", etc. I ran into Tiff and Tyler around 2 hours in and was having fun chatting with them and marvelling at how bright both their headlamps were...when BAM! DAMN, WAM! I tripped on a root and sent myself flying in a classic superman wipeout. I somehow managed to have the presence of mind to tuck and roll, so although I rolled myself right off the trail into a bramble of sharp branches and logs, I escaped with just a few scrapes and bumps. Mostly I was mad that I ripped my awesome pants. Both T&T helped me up, and then there were like 5 runners all stopped to see if I was ok (I guess it was a pretty spectacular fall), and I urged them all to keep going, I was fine! It wasn't until they all moved on that I realized that my headlamp had somehow stopped working in the tumble (that's worse than ripped pants, FYI). Thankfully I had my little flashlight, so just kept awkwardly running and trying to catch the people ahead of me to make use of their functioning bright lights. We got to a lovely rolling gravel road section that was a little less dark than the forest, and finally I could relax a bit, knowing that we were nearing the aid station at the base of Whistler mountain. Light (note I am not saying "the sun") was just starting to creep into the sky as I arrived at the AS, at around 20k and just over 2.5 hours into the race.

I had no official crew at that early AS (6:30 in the morning just seemed like too big an ask), but Kate and Tennessee immediately came up to me and helped me with everything, including filling my bottles with water and finding my spare socks in my drop bag. Amazing. I originally had no intention of changing socks this early, but my feet were already completely drenched so I thought it was worth the extra 2 minutes to be more comfortable, knowing that there was another 35k of hard mountain running before reaching my next drop bag.

I started up the road toward Singing Pass, jubilant that it was daylight and catching up to Joanna, who I had never met but recognized because she was wearing shorts, haha. We hiked together for a bit, by which I really mean she hiked fast, got ahead of me, then I jogged and caught up. Repeat x about 6, until I finally clued in that I just felt better jogging, and scooted past to continue my slow but steady progression up the mountain. I thought about Brendan, who was running the 25k and was starting his race right around when I was reaching the alpine (he won, which I found out later in the day). When we popped out of the forest into the alpine meadows, it was raining pretty hard, but it was still gorgeous, bright yellow grasses making a sharp contrast with the grey fog. I started up the steeper parts of Musical Bumps trail, and felt my left calf twinging. This is the calf that was cramping towards the end of the Squamish 50k race 5 weeks ago, and I have been babying it ever since. I was wearing compression sleeves to try to keep it happy, but this early warning sign was a little unsettling (foreshadowing: check.). Musical Bumps is a beautiful, rolling trail with a couple steep climbs (the "bumps" - Oboe and Flute summits, the creeks from which we had crossed on the Singing Pass trail). It was full-on winter up there, complete with slippery snow and slush, and strong winds. I pulled my jacket hood tight around my face, and hunkered down for a slog. At this point we started seeing the 55k runners coming in the opposite direction, which was fun and a nice boost to have more company in this crazy snow-covered moonscape that we were running through.

Musical Bumps trail on a sunny day a couple weeks ago. Now picture this with no view and the ground covered in snow.

It was only about 10k along this stretch until we reached the aid station, but it took a REALLY long time. Just such slow going. Both Sasha and Brian were somehow perched up on rocks out in the middle of nowhere, taking photos of the runners. Total troopers. The day before the race, the organizers had been forced to move the aid station out of its planned location near the peak, down the mountain "a bit" so it was out of the snow, and we were told there was a 1.5k out-and-back that we would need to do to access this aid station. Quite unfortunately, this meant running down part of Pika's traverse - which is a road that connects the peak of Whistler to Roundhouse lodge - and obviously back up again. How to describe this road? Let's see: Steep. Covered in slush, mud, snow. Exposed. Winds howling. It was... Well. It was lucky there was a warm aid station at the bottom. Jenny and Becky passed me coming back up as I was running down - big smiles, high fives, Jenny saying "...it's...it's a long ways down. But the climb back up will keep you warm!". Haha. And what an aid station it was! Cheerful volunteers standing out there in these horrible conditions, serving up soup, pancakes, bacon, Coke, you name it. It was a little oasis in the storm, and very, very hard to leave. Tiff came in to the aid station as I was about to head out, and we were a little confused as to how I was in front of her (she must have still been in the Village aid station while I left to head up the mountain. It was all very confusing in the dark). I trudged my way back up the road, and took advantage of some kind of magical heated outhouse that was positioned on stilts near the top of the climb. Seriously, one of the highlights of my day.

Pika's Traverse, down to the aid station and back up. Photo courtesy of Ann Save, one of the volunteers.

Once reaching Top of the World, the downhill mountain bike trail on which we would start our long journey back down the mountain, the conditions were rapidly deteriorating. The rocks were covered in a thin sheen of almost-ice, which meant that a fun, flowy trail that I would normally fly down had me tiptoeing like a grandma (no offence to any grandmas out there), bracing myself with almost every step. A woman up ahead looked back at me and shouted through the wind, "Are you in the 110k? Is this right?!" and I yelled back affirmation, shortly thereafter catching up with her and realizing it was Tiff, yet again! What was happening?! We determined that she had passed by while I was enjoying the heated toilet seat earlier, and then stayed together for a while, navigating the slippery trail. Once we were back below the freezing level on Khyber Pass, the trail got more runnable, and I got my downhill groove back, feeling great and taking off again...until I reached the mudslide. It's really the only way to describe it. The combination of the 55k racers coming up the trail earlier in the morning and the heavy rain over the last couple days had turned what I know to be a technical, but mostly runnable trail into a treacherous slip-and-slide of thick, chocolate-coloured muck where there was almost nowhere to step without losing your foot under you. I took one more bail into the mud, slipping sideways on a corner and landing on my hip (it seemed like a soft landing at the time, but I am actually now sporting a massive purple bruise from that fall). What a gong show! It was insane, and I soon ended up leading a train of a few runners, including Tyler, Ben, and of course Tiff, as we tried to survive this crazy descent. It was really fun running together for that stretch, and we were howling with laughter for most of it (it was funny in a "I can't believe we pay to do this stuff" kind of way, guess you had to be there). 

Starting the long descent. Photo courtesy of Brian McCurdy

After what seemed like forever, we finally reached a slightly more gentle gradient that had relatively firm ground instead of the mud, and I opened up the stride again and went on my merry way toward the aid station at the turnaround. Let me say that when I did this descent on a chill training run a couple weeks prior to the race, it took 2 hours total. I'm not actually even sure how long it took on Saturday, because my GPS had gone wonky somewhere near the peak, but I think it was at least 30 minutes longer than that. Marieve, the eventual women's winner who led the race all day, passed me coming back up looking strong and focused. A few minutes later, Becky came by too, saying "hurry and catch up!" Near the bottom, the trail crosses the Cheakamus River on a very high suspension bridge, and then continues up a really steep but short hill on the other side. My calf was very angry when I started up that hill, so I tried to flat-foot the climb instead of running on my toes as usual. I finally rolled into the aid station with around 8h40 elapsed, within my estimated timeframe of 8-9 hours but definitely on the slower end of it. I had unfortunately just missed Brendan, who had rushed across town after his race to try to see me come through, but then had to leave to go back to the finish line for the awards. I blame the time sucking magical heated outhouse.

Kelly, my friend and crew, was there and immediately sat me down in a chair by a fire under a tent (Amazing). She filled up my bottles and got me food (miso soup, quesadillas, and bananas. Amazing). She laid out my clothes from my drop bag, so that I could change - I swapped out my whole top layer, including my shirt and jacket, put on new shoes and socks, new gloves, and ditched my soaked hat for a dry buff. Amazing. It felt SO GOOD to be dry and to be eating solid food (for some reason, all I had felt like eating all day leading up to this, out of all the options I had packed in my running vest, was gels - usually I dread eating them, but they were working really well for me for whatever reason. Who knew that orange-banana gel could taste so delicious at 5:00 in the morning?). Anyway. I spent a while there, stuffing my face and finally deciding I should probably get moving. I shuffled out of the warm little shelter and back out onto the trail, and miracle of miracles the rain had stopped! It even looked like the sun was trying to make an appearance. There were lots of people cheering my name as I ran out of the AS, which made me feel like a million bucks. Somewhere around 12:45 in the afternoon, I started back up the mountain.

By now (if you've even made it this far; is this the world's longest DNF blog?, and if you missed the obvious foreshadowing), you may be wondering why I dropped out of this race. I was having fun, for the most part! I felt great, for the most part! The problem was, the only part that didn't feel great - my calf - completely seized as soon as I reached the really steep gradient going back up. I couldn't take a step on it going uphill without searing pain. It was ok (not great, but ok) on any other kind of terrain - flat, downhill, even rolling - but the steep uphill had become almost impossible. This was, needless to say, a bit of an issue when facing a 1700m climb back up to the peak. I literally stood still on the trail for what felt like 5 minutes, weighing my options. Did I try to continue, knowing I was risking serious damage to my calf? I thought about taking an Advil to see if that would help, but decided against it, not wanting to mask the pain. I took another tentative few steps upward, experimenting with doing all the work with my right leg and kind of dragging my left leg without putting pressure on it. This, unsurprisingly, was fairly unsuccessful, not to mention ridiculous. I made the call, stopped my watch (that makes it official, you see) and started back toward the aid station, completely sure in my decision. I ran into Tara, who had come out to cheer and go for a run, and of course she immediately turned around and walked back with me, even though she had just started her run. My calf was getting progressively worse and she kept lending me her poles so that I could try to hobble up the few hills that I still had to climb. Also, at the aid station she had given me the socks literally off her feet so that I could have an extra pair to carry with me. I mean, seriously. 

Elevation profile of the race. You see the issue here, once I determined I couldn't go up steep climbs.

And so my day ended, at about 62k and 9.5 hours into the race. I limped back to that aid station, of course crossing paths with Tiff again: "NOOOOO!!!" "Don't worry I'm fine, just go and crush it!". She eventually finished in a very well deserved 2nd place with a super strong, tough-as-nails performance. 

What a crazy day! A couple days later now, and I am just starting to be able to walk somewhat normally on that calf again. I have, as mentioned, some battle wounds, but other than that feel surprisingly good (one benefit to running extremely slowly I suppose). Am I upset about not finishing? Not a chance, for a few reasons. I know based on how my calf still feels, that continuing to try to push through it would have resulted in either (a) having to drop out later on, having incurred much more damage to both my calf and likely other parts of me due to bizarre compensating strategies to manage the pain, or (b) finishing, but incurring EVEN MORE damage. Not worth it. WAM was not a goal race for me; Squamish 50k was, and I trained specifically for that race. This 110k was a "fun bonus adventure day" at the end of my season, and I wasn't out there to prove anything to myself or anyone else. I got my fun adventure day in spades: as you can probably tell from this post, it was far from a solo endeavour; rather, it was an amazing celebration of the local trail running community. Gary and his team nearly broke themselves making sure this race went ahead, despite obstacle after obstacle including permitting, grizzly bear-induced trail closures a week before the race derailing the original course plan (and then the alternate course plan), and last minute extra extra course changes due to the weather. The volunteers withstood awful conditions to help runners get from A to B (to A) successfully and safely. Sharing trail time with running buds is always something special, even more so when the situation we find ourselves in is somewhat ridiculous. And having friends like Kelly and Tara there to support me along the way meant so much. 

How could I possibly be upset? Running is a journey, not a destination. This race was just another trip along that trail that I love travelling, so much. A Happy Drop, indeed.

And ps., WAM? I'll be back next year ;)