Mohican 82.5/100 Mile Race Report

Nope, didn't finish. Ran apx 82.5/100 miles. Stopped at the 80 mile mark but had earlier gotten lost for 40 minutes so I'm callin it 82.5 miles, darnit! If you don't want to read this whole long report, just print it off and divide it up into 10 sections so it looks shorter.

*Click here for pics/videos.

Chris and Jamie and I left to OH Friday afternoon and arrived at the hotel that night; I went straight to bed; then woke up at 2:30am on Saturday. When we went to pick up my packet around 4:30am, it was raining super hard. At the 5am start, the rain stopped and it was super humid.

Since I didn't have many pockets to carry things, I wore my CamelBak and then my Nathan vest underneath it (which surprisingly didn't bother me). I had brought 5 drop bags for all of the locations that included: bagels, Ensure protein drinks, fruit snacks, electrolyte jelly bean things, beef jerky, tropical trail mix, and nasty electrolytle fruit snacks. Yeah, I overpacked and definitely didn't eat all of that stuff.

The course consisted of 10 miles on gravel roads and then a bunch of different, random loops. These random loops repeated themselves and then it's 10 miles back to the finish (I think, anyway). The trail wasn't very technical or hilly and my first impression was that it was pretty easy; much easier than Gnawbone. The hills were mainly just long, gradual ones that we all walked up. It was so hard for me to know how to pace myself since I would be running for a million hours. I started out at a slow-moderate pace in the beginning and since I felt good, I just kept going.

Around mile 21 we started the Purple loop. There was a really pretty section by the waterfall and some fun hand-over-hand climbing section that was about 5 feet long. This loop was only supposed to be 4-5 miles long. However, despite Mohican's website that states that they are known for having a well marked course, this was the loop that every person got lost on, including myself. There were at least 20 people that I know of that got lost. We finally got back on track 40 minutes later. This wasn't the only time that there weren't markings on the course...luckily we just happened to be running with someone who knew the area during those times.

Prior to the start of the race, I had predicted a 27-28 hour finishing time. Jamie and Chris met me at the 37 mile aid station. I lubed up my feet (no blisters yet), put on clean socks, and ate a lot of food. Since I had been maintaining a good pace and I was feeling strong, we talked about finishing at a sub-24 pace. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. How dumb of me to think such a thing so early on. Ohhh how things can change.

So overall up to mile 45 or something, I was having fun talking to people (thanks Doug, Stan, Mike, and Randy!!!). I finished 50 miles at around 13 hours. (I still have no idea how it took me so long...the course wasn't that hard and I was running at a good pace, so I thought. Maybe spent too much time at aid stations and the fact that I got lost?? Oh well, doesn't matter.)

But after those 45 miles, my feet just started killing me from blisters. I could feel a million of them all over which was also annoying because I usually never have blister problems. After Gnawbone's 50 miles a month ago, I had maybe 2 blisters and I never noticed them. Why did I already have a ton of them so early on? We had about 6 or so water crossings that affected it, but #1, there were water crossings at Gnawbone and #2, why weren't all of my fellow runners feeling the awful blister pain then, too? I've heard some people say they love those Injinji socks and that they never get blisters and then I've heard others say they hate them. I've never tried them but who knows what will work for me!

I made it to mile 60 at the Fire Tower where I met up with Chris who was going to pace me. Why the heck was I thinking/fearing for the last 5 months that I'd have to climb that awful Fire Tower during the race? For some reason I got it in my head that that's what we'd have to do before we kept running and I was dreading that narrow, 100+ foot climb. I was showing pictures of it to people at work and talking about how crazy that was. Whew, we didn't have to at all.

I don't want to sound all whiney and annoying but my feet were still killing me at this point. Literally- every single step I took sucked. Every stupid root, every rock, every little maneuver around something hurt me. I felt new blisters forming and then immediately popping and then skin ripping off and all that jazz. I would be limping to avoid pain on one foot and then the limping just caused another blister on the other foot. Going uphill put pressure on one part of my blisters and then going downhill put pressure on the other. I was cussing every 2 seconds. What a beautiful experience, huh?

So at this aid station at mile 60, Chris somehow had the guts to pop some of my blisters and put mole skin on them, then I changed socks and put on different shoes and we kept going. I had to just endure the stupid pain of the popped blisters and try to get used to them. I was afraid I was going to OD on Advil since I took a couple each hour.

It was now dark outside and I had my headlamp on. It was the first time I had run with one and it was pretty annoying to not being able to see all of your surroundings. We kept tripping on a million roots; partly because we couldn't see them and partly because we couldn't lift our legs up off the ground. It would have been really boring (Randy and I ran out of conversation a long time ago) and scary if Chris hadn't been there in the dark.

At mile 68 I sat down (I thought, screw the "beware of the chair" shit). I was in a bad mood because of the pain. Dangit, now I feel bad for the aid station workes; they probably hated me. Here they are at 11pm trying to help me out and I'm just complaining the whole time. I really considered quitting at this point. I was running and walking really slowly and we were getting closer and closer to the cut-off point.

After this station, I made a mental decision to SUCK IT UP and stop verbalizing my complaints. I knew Chris and Randy didn't want to hear it and it wasn't helping anything. I needed to get through it. I turned on my music for surprisingly the first time and I somehow made it to the next station- mile 75.

Jamie was there and was so kind to have bought pizza for me- that's all I had wanted. Unfortunately because I had been running for 50 freakin hours, my stomach couldn't handle it and I barely ate anything. Again, I talked about quitting right there. I was tired and in pain and going slow and it all sucked. Jamie suggested making it to the next aid station (mile 80) and then deciding what to do. So I continued.

I really thought I'd be able to keep going, just 5 miles to the next place. After about 1 mile, I had slowed down so much because of the blister pain that I just told Chris I was going to DNF. Randy had already passed us since he wanted to make the cut-off in time. I walked the rest of the miles and it took us about 2 hours to come in. It felt like forevvvvver. I wanted someone to just come and pick us up in a helicopter.

We made it to the station before the cut-off time but I told them I was done. We had been going for 24 hours. I laid down on the ground and fell asleep for a little bit before they took us to the finish line. Which reminds me- the lack of sleep SOMEHOW didn't affect me that much at all. I never hallucinated, I always knew what I was talking about, I never started to fall asleep on the trail. Of course I was really tired the whole time but I didn't notice a huge change or anything as we entered the night.

Despite my negativity in this post, I'm not super disappointed that I didn't finish. I think if I had DNF'ed because I was just tired or didn't want to continue, I'd be mad. In my case, I feel like I was physically unable to move, even though I really wanted to. It was frustrating because my legs and head and stomach felt totally fine, it was just those stupid blisters.

Having said all that, I don't know if a 100 mile race is that fun. Haha. Maybe if I do more of them then I'll get used to it...but it kind of sucked. Maybe I'll stick to 50 milers. Afterall, that's the part of this race that I actually enjoyed. And yes, 50 milers and 100 milers are different ballgames.

I slept for about 5 hours on the way home yesterday and then napped for about 1 1/2 hours later. Since yesterday was Father's Day, I spent time with the family in a wheelchair and fluffy slippers.

My feet are still swollen and so I tried icing my feet in water this morning. Nope, not gonna happen. I lasted about 10 seconds with each foot and decided it was way too cold to continue. I might soak them in warm water with epsom salt later on.

I still feel tired, kind of sick, and calorie-depleted now. A few days after Nick's 100 mile race, he said he was still losing weight. So I thought, "hmm...wonder what I weigh now". Why in the heck do I weigh 2 pounds more than beforehand? That's retarded! Only I would actually GAIN weight after having run 82 miles. That's bullcrap.

ANYWAY, to conclude everything...I'm sure I'll attempt another 100 miler just because of my dumb, competitive nature. I have to say I did one. Maybe I should just choose a flat, paved race to make it easy. Right now I'm saying I'll take a little bit of time off from running. We'll see what I say next week when I'm all healed up and have forgotten all of this junk.

Thanks again to Chris and Jamie who chose to give up a weekend to help a poor, complaining, slow-walking girl this weekend (!!!!), thanks to the runners who kept me going for all of those miles, and thanks to Mohican staff/volunteers for your hard work!!!!!!!