So Foggy, So Sleety, So Dark! Orcas Island 100M DNF Report

Not long after running out of time at the 96-mile mark at the 2015 Mountain Lakes 100M, I realized that 6 whole months would elapse before I could attempt another local 100-mile endurance run. I planned to run the Badger Mountain Challenge in March 2016, but needed to train and practice for that. I rejected out-of-hand the idea of running Orcas Island 100M; with nearly 30,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain, steep climbs, wet winter weather, and short daylight hours (February), Orcas was unthinkable for someone who couldn't finish Mountain Lakes. Plus, runners had to pre-qualify.

I was researching more sensible alternatives like Javelina, and Across the Years, when the question surfaced again, like Swamp Thing: what were those pre-qualifications for Orcas, again? I was surprised to discover that I met the qualifications. Orcas hadn’t sold out either, so I wouldn’t feel guilty about displacing a more qualified runner. 

I signed up and trained hard. By January, I started to wonder if it might be possible for me to finish.

Or not.

On the one hand, I had a solid strategy and a theoretical shot at finishing. I was determined to do my best.

On the other hand, I had very good reason to believe that, even if I was strong enough, I might not be fast enough to finish within the time limit of 36 hours.

In the end, I missed the 27-hour cutoff time to proceed with the fourth lap. Under the circumstances, I was thrilled to have completed 75 miles on this brutal course.

POETRY SLAM

During the final week before the event, runners tapered and diverted their nervous energy toward other pursuits. An off-line poetry slam flared up, taking the edge off the drop-bag tension.

I was inspired to write four haikus: one for each of the four 25-mile laps around Moran State Park. Here they are again, along with my impressions during the run.

lap one

mossy single-track

beckons, switchback summit vistas,

camera air stunts

When I wrote lap one, I imagined the irrepressible energy and exhilaration of the first 25 miles, the mossy old-growth forest, steep climbs, spectacular views of the San Juan Islands from the summit of Mount Constitution, and runners leaping into the air for Glenn Tachiyama’s camera:

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama

This was the first time I ever managed to leap into the air for any camera – a classic rockstar jump - except I utterly misjudged the timing and Glenn’s field of view. That is my left arm, catching air in the left margin of the photograph frame below...about ten paces past the camera frame....pretty incompetent, yep:

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama

The trails WERE mossy, sinuous, inviting. The west flank of Mt. Pickett and the east flank of Mt. Constitution were blanketed with luxurious, green, fluffy, stump-consuming moss:

The trails were also WET. Epic wet. Submerged, even. Two days before the run, Race Director James Varner warned runners that the trails were unusually wet.

The water was at least a foot deep along a 30-foot section of trail. Back at Camp Moran, hillside runoff gushed out from under one of the bunkhouses. Out on the course, it was possible to pick one’s way around this puddle:

Yes, that is an official course marking arrow in the middle.

But the flooding south end of Twin Lakes was much wider than it was long:

Ready. Set. Suck it up, buttercup.

I finished lap one in 7 hours and 4 minutes, over an hour ahead of plan. I climbed the tower at the summit, too. And I finally intersected with the camera frame:

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama

The trail was wet and pig-slop muddy in places, but the incoming weather front held off behind a blustery drizzle. It seemed like I might be on track to finish. I picked up a headlamp and a 600 lumen waist-lamp at Camp Moran, and kept my original pair of shoes and socks on for a second lap.

lap two

owl hoots, bats swoop,

headlamp beams dart, nocturnal

forest solitude

I took this photograph at the beginning of the second lap from a viewpoint below Little Summit. Right around the corner, my path intersected with the cloud line, where it promptly began to hail:

Dark descended and the wind picked up. Trees creaked and groaned where they leaned into each other. Runners had spread out along the trail. We would run together for a while, and then pull away, headlamps glowing through the trees. I listened attentively, hoping to hear an owl, and was rewarded with the cries of a hawk.

Near Cascade Falls I spied a closely set pair of glowing, green dots in the woods staring at me – some bold robber-raccoon, I think. He held his beady, unblinking gaze straight at my headlamp.

I finished lap two in 9 hours and 12 minutes, still about 20 minutes ahead of plan, including the tower-climb at the summit.

My Achilles tendons and the soles of my feet felt tender, so I changed out of my Salomon Fellraisers into a pair of well-cushioned Hokas which….really don’t fit my feet, but I needed to rest my Achilles tendons and the Hokas were what I had to work with. I took my time taking care of my feet and left Camp Moran around 0:30 Saturday morning. I still felt optimistic that I might finish in time.

It had started raining in earnest. I ducked back inside to throw a cheap plastic poncho over everything, and then headed back out into the dark for my third lap.

lap three

aid station zombie,

blistering ten-minute nap,

electrolyte rain

This haiku turned out to be an accurate and prescient description of my third lap. I imagined by then that it could be rainy and muddy, and that my sleepy, oxygen-deprived brain would be reduced to one-word sentences.

I felt alert striding up to Little Summit. And the descent to Mountain Lake Aid Station required close attention; that section of trail had become very muddy and slippery since the previous lap. I stopped at the Mountain Lakes Aid Station just long enough to drink some warm miso soup. By the time I had turned up the trail from Mountain Lake to Twin Lakes, I became overwhelmingly sleepy.

I have struggled with sleep-running before, and was disappointed to be experiencing it so early in the evening, by 3 am. I knew from experimenting on shorter runs that coffee and coca cola have a catastrophic effect on my gastrointestinal tract, so I deliberately avoided both. Worse, I had failed to experiment with and procure caffeine tablets, which easily might have been the only thing standing between me and victory.

I staggered forward indirectly like a zombie, partially propped up on a pair of trekking poles. It seemed the harder I tried to stay awake, the more completely I sank into unconsciousness. I walked straight into trees, and tripped on uneven ground. I curled up on the snowy moss and set my cell phone alarm for an 8-minute nap. I stumbled along for a while and attempted a second nap, for 7-minutes, but it was too cold to stop and too dark to shake my brain out of it.

A pair of course sweepers passed me on their way to the next aid station. Glen Mangiantini passed me, chatting away reliably. Each time, I struggled to keep up within earshot, but I was sleep-stumbling and sleep-mumbling, and I kept falling behind.

I could tell that I was not fully conscious, and not seeing what was in front of my eyes. I remember being lapped by the front-runners here. I stepped in deep, saturated mud and ice-cold standing water over and over again. I was relieved to see glowing lights and welcoming campfire of the Pickett Aid Station through the trees:

The Aid Station Captain encouraged me to pick up the pace rather than stop. I countered that I was more narcoleptic than hypothermic, and simply needed a safe place to park myself for a while. The trail would become more technical between Mount Pickett and Cascade Lake, and there were plenty of places to become disoriented in the dark and slip off a cliff into a waterfall. The Aid Station Captain relented, and I ended up taking a cat nap on a cot under a sleeping bag.

I wasn’t paying any attention to the clock, but roughly six hours elapsed between the time that I left Camp Moran, and the time that I left Pickett Aid Station, about 9 miles apart. Many runners completed a whole lap within that timeframe. I estimate that I spent about three hours blundering around in the dark between Mountain Lake and Pickett Aid Stations, not including the nap at Pickett. My original plan for completion allowed for about one hour of float in my schedule, not three or more. Once the sky began to lighten, I left Pickett for Cascade Lake Aid Station, determined to finish lap three.

I felt strong on my third ascent up the Power Line Trail, power-hiking the whole way, chatting for a while with Byron from Florida, on his fourth lap (How do you train for this ?!?). When I reached the rolling terrain at the top, I was no longer able to jog properly. Descents were distinctly uncomfortable. After 15 miles in the Hokas, my pinky toes already felt crushed, as though the whole toe could – or should - fall off. I shuffled along quickly enough, and was passed by another wave of front-runners on the way up to Summit Aid Station. Daro Ferrara caught up with me on the descent and ascent to Mt. Constitution, his third lap as well. I knew I had already missed the cutoff time for the fourth and final lap. Instead of pressing on to Camp Moran like a responsible runner, I indulged myself shamelessly at Summit Aid Station by sitting down in a camp-chair, eating pancakes and bacon, and socializing.

On the descent from the summit, I began to drift in and out of consciousness again and hallucinate.  It was hard to tell if I was making any headway. Finally, one last trip up the Picnic Trail, down dammit, up, up, scramble up, down dammit. I thought to myself: Picnic Trail isn’t named that because it’s a picnic!

Then up the paved road and across the lawn toward the once and future finish line. James Varner was waiting at the finish with a high five for every runner. The atmosphere at the finish line was festive, and everyone shuffled out to cheer on the incoming runners, and staggered back inside to watch volunteers update remaining runners’ names on the white board.

With all my dawdling on the third lap, I covered 75 miles in just under 31 hours, around 30:57, including my third and last trip up the summit tower. 

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama

 

lap four

hamstrung quads seize, brain

hallucinates, finish line yes,

one-hundred high fives

Missing the cutoff time to proceed onto lap four did not deprive me of the agony and ecstasy of the quads, the calves, the hamstrings, the hallucinations and mirages, the finish line celebration at Camp Moran, the hugs and high fives.

Photo by Glenn Tachiyama

Looping the course through the Start/Finish Line at Camp Moran was a tremendous advantage for this event. Even if you didn’t finish, you were never farther than a short walk back to the finish line, bunkhouses, hot showers, coffee, beer, and pizza. On Sunday, there was a slideshow and award ceremony at the local theater in Eastsound.

Thanks again to everyone who dreamed up, planned, pinch-hit, participated, photographed, tweeted or posted, volunteered, finished, Did Nothing Fatal, cooked up, messed up, and cleaned up, for the Orcas Island 100. It will be hard to decide whether to run or volunteer next year!

 

GEAR SLAM

SOCKS – Injini inners and Smartwool outers

Normally, wet feet guarantee blisters within 5 miles. But these 75 miles at Orcas were the furthest I’ve ever run without one single blister. First, I encase my toes in high-melting-point Trail Toes, slip on a pair of Injinjis, followed by thick or thin wool socks, depending on how swollen my feet are.

SHOES – Salomon Fellraisers and HOKA Challengers

Shoes that provide aggressive traction like my Achilles-torturing Salomons; cushion every foot-strike like my blistering, pinky-wracking Hokas; drain water and mud like my zero-cushion, metatarsal-splintering Montrails; AND, that actually fit my feet like: nothing manufactured on this planet, remain an unfulfilled fantasy. I just try to groove on whatever the current pair of shoes has done for me lately.

POLES – Black Diamond Graphite Z-Poles

I used trekking poles for the first time for one day about one month before the race (thank you, Vivian Doorn!). I found them distracting, but agreed that they would be helpful on the steep climbs, and I bought a pair. At Orcas, I did not pull those poles out of my pack until I reached the first ascent up the Power Line Trail. Then, I surprised myself by never putting them away again, even after my trapezoids were SCREAMING for mercy on the third lap. Graphite was a last-minute impulse upgrade. I can’t imagine how the extra grams in the less-expensive aluminum poles would have felt after 30 hours but, very glad I splurged. Yes, poles. Yes. All the way.

RAINGEAR – Patagonia Houdini and Fred Meyer-brand Child’s Emergency Poncho

The Houdini was fine for persistent drizzle, and intermittent rain, but too thin for the heavier precipitation after midnight. Also, the jacket is too short (on me) to prevent water from wicking up from waist level. Fortunately, a $1.99 emergency poncho thrown over everything kept the water out without compromising breathability. Underneath the Houdini, I never needed to change my lightweight wool jersey, but I did add an old, windproof, SportHill XC skiing vest at night when it started snowing. I got chilled napping in the snow, but that vest prevented me from getting hypothermic.

ILLUMINATION – UltraAspire Lumen 600 Waist Pack and Black Diamond Spot 130 Lumen Headlamp

I LOVE the Lumen 600 waist pack. It is a little eerie running along with your legs so brightly illuminated while your torso and head are immersed in darkness, so a headlamp is an important, redundant counterpart. Many Orcas 100 runners complained about fog and sleety whiteout conditions at night, and difficulty discerning the route, but I never had trouble seeing the trail through the weather. I still haven’t left the lamp “ON” to see if the battery lasts 16 hours as advertised, but I did use it continuously on high beam for 11 hours. It is theoretically possible to re-charge while you are wearing it, BUT plan ahead: the lamp won’t activate while the (lithium ion) battery is charging.

HYDRATION PACK

Yes, I’m still using that old, heavy, rear-loading Camelbak M.U.L.E with a 2L bladder and about 10,000 miles on the odometer.  But, probably not for much longer….