World's End 100K attempt #1

 WORLD'S END 100K Attempt #1

Ah, World's End. The race that intimidated me and did not disappoint! Eastern running is not something I was ready to take on, I'm just going to put that out there right now. World's End is a magical and treacherous course, and one that's going to keep me coming back for more until I get better and better at it. When I was running the course, I did have thoughts cross my mind about never coming back again (many times, actually) haha, but it's funny how the good overcomes the bad in many areas of life isn't it? Now all I can remember is the beauty of the course and how I can prepare to give the course the effort I feel it deserves the next time around.

How do I even describe this race? I felt like a giant had decided to throw a temper tantrum which resulted in the trail I was now trying to navigate through. Rocks and roots were everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. These roots and rocks were also covered in beautiful green moss, great scenery when it didn't involve the morning rain which had turned the moss into a black ice like surface. I couldn't see very well because my headlamp was not bright enough the first couple hours of darkness during the race before the sun finally penetrated the forest floor, so the slick mossy rocks and roots were an accident waiting to happen for me. I highly suggest visiting a race course before you run it. I think that would have at least helped me at least a little, but I have never needed to do that before so I didn't think to do it for WE. It's something I added to the "learn from your mistakes" list.   During the first couple of miles of this race you immediately gain quite a bit of elevation because of the first big climb which leads to a narrow cliff trail. I was doing my best to navigate all these slippery roots and rocks when, WHAM! I fell hard after slipping on a wet root or rock I hadn't seen and must have stepped on at the wrong angle. Thankfully I fell to the non cliff side of the trail though. :) I pulled myself up quickly and let the runner in back of me know I was fine, and started running again on my now really shaky legs. I really wanted to keep up with my friends Scott and Marit and I figured the shakiness and pain would eventually dull after I had a chance to shake the fall off a bit. Once daylight hit, I had a couple people ask me if I was "ok," and I didn't think anything of it since it was such a tricky course, but responded that I was fine and thanks for asking. At the first aid station around mile 5, I finally looked down at my leg and realized it was bleeding pretty good, but other than scratches and soreness the injury seemed pretty superficial so I kept going.I did have a few aid stations give me the title of "bloodiest female runner" which I wasn't sure how to take at the time.... . but at least I was moving ok.

I lost Marit pretty quickly, she is an amazing runner and there was no way I was going to try pushing any speed on this course. I had two goals now that I knew what this course was like: try to keep up with Scott, and remain uninjured from this point on. Thankfully Scott let me tag along after him and I decided it would be a great idea to start naming the crazy steep hills after shark species to take my my mind off my throbbing leg and the miles and we decided to save the great white of course, for the worst hill we found. They kept getting worse though, so we would find other sharks we thought compared pretty well on the deadly scale but still kept GW open for that extra awful hill we knew was out there. And we found it. See the elevation chart below? Great White is pretty easy to spot. That hill lasted forever! It had to have been close to a mile long! And now the course was heating up as the mid day sun warmed everything up.

It was nice to have most of this course shaded though, so there were only a few areas where the hot sun was bothersome.

So back to the course itself, the next few pictures were taken by a photographer at the race who was kind enough to let us download and share his pictures. I only got a couple pictures during the race because I was just too focused on the trail and course markers. This guy captures some of the course very well, although it's impossible to truly show how difficult it really was. (photo credit to Randy Gessler Photography, thanks!)

The climbs are tough and relentless, there is even a bit of bouldering to be done here and there. Sometimes the trail just disappears and you look blindly around for another trail marker to figure out how to navigate to the next trail
section you can see and I'm pretty sure we got lost at least 3 or 4 times for just a bit before realizing we needed to turn around. The downhill sections are so steep and filled with slick rocks and roots it was pretty difficult to actually "run" down them, so figuring out a way to shuffle quickly became my next strategy.  On top of just the intensity of the course, there had to have been some pretty significant rainfall within the last few weeks (and of course, I can't forget to again bring up the rain the morning of the race) because there were many sections of the trail (yes, often times while climbing a hill, in the middle of the hill too) with huge patches of
thick mud, water, and rocks. The waterfalls were beautiful when you could take a minute to look at them that is! There was one point where a wooden ladder needed to be utalized to climb over an steep area with a waterfall right next to you. I think that was my favorite section of the race.  I can't even remember how many stream crossings there were.. a lot. Scott and I got pretty good at hopping along the rocks to avoid getting our shoes wet. But my shoes eventually were covered in so much mud I just started walked through the stream crossings in an attempt to clean them off.

So back to my journey. My knee and leg were starting to throb from my fall, the mud, hills, heat and hours of running and power hiking were wearing on me. We came into mile 35 and saw a beautiful view! All of that climbing had finally (well, maybe at least one of the hills) paid off and it was glorious. And I was starving for once! Because of the terrain, my pace had slowed down a lot and I think this actually helped my stomach  by allowing it to digest. They had grilled cheese sandwiches, ginger cookies, rice krispie treats and many other kinds of treats. Man, it was a feast! I thought for sure this would perk me up and I'd be ready to go again soon. My sister was also this stop and encouraged us to keep going, that we'd be fine and she'd meet us at the next aid station to pace us for the last 20 miles. Neither one of us were in very good spirits at that point but we left the aid station and carried on.

I followed Scott to the side of the "vista viewing" area and guard rail, and was wondering where the trail was. Then I heard his voice from below say "you're not going to like this very much" and I look down to a drop off style steep down hill section (well  there had just been this beautiful vista, ->  so I don't know what I was expecting to come next. Sure seems par for the course that a steep down section was coming up, but my brain was in runners fog mode) where I almost had to sit down to scoot along a steep patch of loose gravel. Then came the next drop off section that was full of water and mud. And down down down we went... take a look at that elevation chart at the beginning of the blog again.. remember the "great white" hill? Well, this is the downhill section that led to it and wow was it was rough on my sore knee and shin I had hit earlier.

A few miles after this downhill section we start on another hill and after rounding a corner of what we thought was a really big hill Scott said "I think we found great white" and oh how true that was! To make it even more fun, there were, of course, several muddy watery sections as we climbed searching ahead for the end of this monster. We crossed a few more streams and then came to a bit of a drop off and a decent sized stream crossing and I heard our names yelled. My sister had decided to tell the aid station workers our names, so of course they were cheering us on as we tried to pick our way across the stream. I sure wish I felt as good as they sounded!

So at this point my leg was throbbing in two specific spots (knee and shin) everything else was of course very tired and general soreness was starting to set in. My sister tried hard to motivate us to keep going, but at that point I had every reason to want to stop, and I knew that.. this is what happens at an ultra and it was time for the brain power to kick on and take over for the body. But my brain had been battling a fear since that morning which I hadn't dealt with and it ended up ending my race. I could tell it was getting to be early evening because of the lighting, and I knew those cliffs and wet slippery trails were waiting for me to once again try and navigate through them in the dark with just that stupid headlamp to keep me from slipping and falling again. Well, the light I had sure didn't help me avoid a bad fall for the first portion of the race, so how was it going to help me now? And instead of 3 or 4 miles of darkness, I was looking at at least 3-4 hours of running that way. My brain started shutting down and I knew that I wasn't prepared to deal with these thoughts at this point in the race. I gave in. My first DNF (did not finish). It was so hard turning my bib over, I think that was the worst part to be honest. Not getting the buckle and crossing the finish line was sad, but at the same time I had a feeling of peace about the decision after I gave the aid station workers my bib. I was still moving and I was pretty sure I hadn't sustained any severe injuries.

 I'll never know if struggling through those final 20 miles would have worked out, or if I would have sustained a more severe injury by continuing on. What I do know is that I will be back for revenge, and the next time I will be ready to battle this course and earn that buckle. I'm also going to try using a flashlight with my headlamp because Scott told me that should help with my perception/view quite a good deal.

 
 Now, to heal my knee and shin up and focus on my next two races, Marquette 50 mile in August and my "A" race for the year, Superior 100 in September.


Until next time World's End. You deserved my first DNF. Thanks for the wonderful, terrible time!