Five Islands Pandemic 100 Mile Ultra 2020

This year was supposed to be my year of 100 mile redemption.  Last year I made it approx 114 kilometers into the Capes 100.  I felt trained enough, but poor shoe choices did me in.  I wrote about that in my Capes 100 blog, no need to rehash that here.  I finished recovering from Capes in the fall of 2019 and I tried to keep doing runs as I could for a May 100 mile run, Riverlands in Maine.

Capes 100 for 2020 was announced, and I signed up for that also.  Two 100 mile runs in 2020?

2020 was going to be great! On top of that, I signed Deb and myself up for the Disney

Marathon on January 10th , that was amazing, lots of fun. My 3rd Marathon at Disney (last one

was a Goofy run).

We all know soon after that our year got completely FUBARed. I signed up for a Virtural race

through Aravapia, a 50 miler I did on a weekend in April. I did 60k on a Saturday with Laurie

Currie (maintaining Social Distancing of course!), then 20k the next day.

In May I did a Virtual Elevation challenge, I got 8848 m (Elevation of Everest) in 7 days, doing

most of that at Wentworth, I also wrote a blog on this week.

I had been trying to follow, roughly, the training plan I used for Capes 100 last year. The trouble

was, events kept coming up which cut into it. I signed up for Bromont in October in the Spring,

hoping COVID would have settled down enough in Quebec to attend. At one point I decided to

do my own.

After a lot of consideration, I thought Five Islands would be a great location, it is a short course,

approx. 5.6k loop, I could leave a vehicle parked as an aid station.

Without getting into numbers, I know I didn’t train as much as I did for Capes, but looking back, I

spent a lot of time in the woods this Spring / Summer / Fall. I had a lot of doubts I would finish,

but as the date got closer, what the hell, let’s get to it.

Gear:

The back of my jeep had clothing for fall, cool and rainy weather. I had enough socks &

compression shorts to change every 8 to 10 hours, 4 pairs of pants, multiple shorts, tons of long sleeve & short sleeve shirts, gloves, hats, mits etc.  Hoka Torrents, Speedgoat 3s and 4s were my shoes.

Food:

Water and Skratch, Tuna sandwiches with cheese and lettuce, grapes and other fruit, grilled cheese.  Coffee and Red Bull for later on.  Salt Capsules every hour.

Race Morning: I didn’t sleep well the night before, woke up approx 0300 to use the bathroom, I know I fell asleep, but the night wasn’t very restful.  0500 wake up.  Deb Collicott (My wife and Crew Boss for the event got up, she helped me get fed and on track to the start line).  We walked down with Amy to begin the first lap.

0600 on Saturday morning (October 3rd) - Started out with Amy O’Brien on the first loop in the dark, met Anthony Fromm along the way and did a few loops.  I have to say, throughout the day a number of people travelled to the Park to keep me company along the way.  It was very moving for me to have such a large number of runners looking out for me.

Until approx 6 pm I had Victoria Vance, Harvey Snair, Alyson Fromm, Anthony Fromm, Jason Warham, Helena Sergakis, Mike Hudson and Jimmy Pratley.  At 6 pm approx 58 kilometers in.

During this time, Deb was waiting for me after each loop to get me going and out as fast as I could.  I had some hip and quad tightness, IT band tension is the bane of my existence.  Did some stretching and it worked out 3 or 4 times, the stiffness went away, I was surprised.

Victor Wright showed up between 6 and 7 and stayed until after 2 am, in there I was joined by Amy, Anthony for a few loops, but was with Victor more so between 10 and 2 alone.

During the daytime I had gone around the whole trail of the park, but during the evening I went on the upper trail and down the road back to the beginning.  The lower trail had some obstacles I didn’t want to do in the dark.

Approx 2 am Jason and Helena went with me, and on the first loop I felt a blister starting on the pad of my right foot.  We stopped on the trail so I could burst it, wrap it and carry on.  We continued on and I could feel blisters beginning on both feet.  We carried on until approx 6 am.  I had sat in the driver seat of the Jeep at 4 am and tried to take a small nap, set my alarm for 25 minutes.  Couldn’t fall asleep, changed my shoes and carried on for another lap.

6 am, approx 103 kilometers in, I went up for a shower.  Feet were quite tender and afterwards, I dressed to go back out, but I had blisters which hadn’t formed yet, so I needed to wait so I could pop them, dress them and carry on.  I took a 45 minute nap (why not?), got up, had coffee and went back down to the beginning.

The problem with this break to deal with my blisters cost me approx 3 hours of time.  Bright side, last year my feet had bad bruising and blisters.  This year was just blisters.

I resumed just after 9 am but at a slower pace, Jason, Helena came out for one more loop, and Deb joined in.

Approx noon on Sunday I began going up and down the road to the park as my feet were sore enough, I started power walking.  12:45 pm on Sunday I was approx 121 kilometers in, and it felt like i’d never finish.

The drama occurred at 4pm I was 135 k in and I uploaded runs to get a distance total.  I thought I was 145k in, I was absolutely sure of it.  I synced both watches again, added the distance up again and it still said 135.  I knew I had 25k to go … well actually 26k, and might as well add ½ a kilometer to be safe.  I had a big tantrum … as much of a tantrum a grown man can have.  I was supposed to be done by 6 pm.  I thought of how long it would take me on a good day to run 26k.  My big disappointment was I wanted to finish in the daylight … that wasn’t going to happen now.

I also was really disappointed it would be over 36 hours.  Bad foot care once again was causing me grief.  Deb let me finish my tantrum, then suggested we just keep going.  I’m the race director, right?  So why not finish the damn distance.

Approx 8 pm I was 150k in and Deb suggested she get in the car and I began to run towards Truro for different scenery, so I did.  I didn’t want to leave the area of “Five Islands”, but one thing I got to do which I thought was really neat was I got to move up Economy Mountain and down the other side, a route I use in the winter time for hill training for … a 100 miler.

I began to feel a little better, and was able to run / walk all the way to Central Economy.  Deb would pull over and I would catch up, she’d ask “How much farther?”  I’d tell her and she’d drive ahead.  The last .37 of a kilometer I sprinted … a blazing 5 min / kilometer pace … it was the best I could muster after 161 kilometers and almost 40 hours.

That was a long read … I am so sorry.  A 39 hour 53 minute 100 miler … Well … it was a 100 mile completion.  During the race I promised several people I would never run this distance again.  I would become a 5 kilometer at most runner.

A week and a half later?  My muscles aren’t really sore, my feet are healed, and I can’t wait to get back out on the trails.

What did I learn?  I need to get on top of and stay on top of lubricating my feet.  I dislike massive bananas and tuna sandwiches.  It was suggested to me (By Deb) to lubricate my feet (she will say she told me this last year).  Also, the last several hours my Speed Goats were too tight, and I had to throw my Torrents away Sunday morning as they ran their last kilometer.  Anthony Fromm suggested next time I have shoes ½ a size larger.  My fingers were swelling, why not my feet too?

What’s my next goal?  Well, I set myself up hardcore for a good PB on my next 100 miler. 2021, here’s looking at you.

I need to thank this girl for putting up with me, all the times I drove away from the house to do some sort of a run or another. Or ran from the house, the temperature dropped 15 degrees and I needed to be picked up, and of course going on weird trail runs with me.