“I don’t want to be a marathoner. I want to be a runner who has done a
marathon, once.” I said those words to
my family in 2009 when they were worried I was training too much. That statement was only somewhat true. I didn’t fall in love with marathons. But I did fall in love with distance. While my own journey didn’t follow the
natural progression from shorter to longer (I ran 100 miles in 24 hours before
a point-to-point hundred and 250k in under 48 hours before either of those.),
many will find the natural distance progression of 50k, 50 mile, 100k, etc. The point is, there’s always something else,
just when you promise, “this is it, 100 miles, nothing longer.”
“Did you follow Johan at LAVS? Alan’s screwed record was
supposed to be untouchable.”
Just when you‘ve promised, “this is it,” you hear the
discussions at the starting line of your goal 100-miler. What are they talking about? What are those acronyms? Who are Alan and Johan? What in the hell is a
“screwed record”? Eventually you fall
in step with another runner during the race and your eyes are opened to the
world of multi-days. You spend the
better part of the next day listening intently to the stories of runners
covering hundreds of miles over the course of 2-10 days, and even longer. The rest of the race you spend wondering how
you’re going to break it to your family that there indeed is something after one hundred miles.
Several Epsom salt baths, a massage and fourteen straight
hours of sleep later, your significant other catches you scrolling Ultrasignup
for Across the Years and The Last Annual Vol State. You try to explain as you’re met with a
cocked eyebrow and “what the f---- is a multi-day?”
Since the questions will come rapid-fire, hurled at you like
a Stephen Strasburg fast ball, and you’ll be left muttering something about
“300 miles and six days” here’s a little cheat sheet to read off of, or just
share with your skeptical spouse or concerned kids, explaining what these
events are and how, exactly you plan to do them without fear of divorce, job
loss and going into debt to pay for them.
A multi-day is just what it sounds like, a race of two days
or longer. They come in several forms
such as fixed time, fixed distance and stage races. They each require a special mind-set and have
different pros and cons that may work with your particular lifestyle better
than another.
Across the Years (ATY) is an example of fixed time. ATY is run in Phoenix, Arizona every year
during the week that spans the end of one year & beginning of the next. It
features races of 24, 48, 72 hours and six days all on a loop course. The goal is to get as many miles as you can
in the allotted time frame. Fixed time
events may be one of the easiest ways to break into multi-day racing. The short distance loops alleviate the need
for crew or carrying gear and supplies on your back. The cost is kept to a minimum because runners
camp usually camp on site and while you might bring food you specifically want,
the races normally provide adequate and easily accessible nourishment. This same loop format also makes it ideal for
loved ones who are so inclined to support/torment you as they will see you
regularly with a reasonable amount of predictability.
Some events may allow “pacers” or “safety
companions,” which is an excellent way to involve a friend or family member
late in your race. Even a non-runner
will likely be able to keep up with you and can choose to stop when they’ve had
enough of running, or your rapidly declining attitude. Even if companions are not allowed on course,
you’ll likely find lots of company. On a
short loop you’ll share trail, track or road time with runners you’d likely
never see in a traditional point-to-point race.
This may also be one of the easier to defend against concerns about over
doing it. “I’ll have a tent. Look, I have a schedule with nap breaks and
everything. Naps!” Never mind that your
schedule will be out the window six hours into your 48 hour race and you’ll
skip your last break, hallucinate three dimensional glowing arrows in the
middle of the road somewhere around forty hours and will require a few hours
sleep in a luxury hotel before you can drive home. You don’t know all that yet. The biggest drawback, for me anyway, of timed
events is the very thing that makes them affordable and friendly also makes
them exceedingly easy to quit or at least take extended breaks. You do not need aid every single mile. Keep moving through the start/finish for
several laps at a time and hold yourself to a predetermined time to leave the
aid station or your tent when you do stop and you’ll be fine.
Stage races are races where all participants cover a set
mileage each day and cover the distance in stages. The goal is to finish each stage as quickly
as possible, to allow some recovery before starting again the next day. The “winner” has the lowest cumulative time
over all stages. The Marathon de Sables
is a six day stage race covering 156 miles in Morocco, across the Sahara Desert
and is considered one of the toughest foot races in the world. Each day is a different stage with its own
cut-off, like running consecutive ultramarathons of varying lengths daily, until
the finish. The challenge here is to
knock out each stage in under the cut-off.
Getting up day after day knowing you must stop and start at given points
and times is more challenging to some than a continuous distance where breaks
are at the runner’s discretion. The
great thing about stage races though is since all runners stop and start at
given points on the course, once you’ve finished for the day (depending on the
race difficulty and venue) there may be time and opportunity to socialize and
still get some much needed rest. Again,
a format that could be easy to defend by pointing out you’re only “allowed” to
run so many miles each day before you stop.
And, again, stage races provide opportunity to see family and friends at
various destinations. Stage races can be
pricey though, especially if you’re required to pay for lodging. Also, many of them are in Europe, but hey,
that could be a selling point if the family wants to travel while you torture
yourself.
Finally, there are the fixed-distance multi-days. These can be point-to-point or loop just like
any other standard distance race. The
loop variety has similar pros and cons as the loop timed events. If you’re thinking of something like the
Self-Transcendence 3100 miler though, you’d better make sure you have that
vacation time saved up. It has a 52 day
time limit and is run around a city block in Queens, NY. Having
time off from work is one thing. How you
get a 52 day kitchen pass from home is another.
Let me know if you figure it out.
The point-to-point, for me, provides the biggest
challenge. All participants follow the
same defined course route and start together.
There is a final cut-off. Some
may even have intermediate cut-offs to ensure runners are making the minimum
daily progress necessary to complete the race.
What happens in between, well, that’s up to you.
Before you ever get to the start though, consider if you’re
going “crewed” or “screwed.” Going
crewed means you will have a crew of at least one person who either cares
enough about your safety or has, as one of my own crew once put it “a morbid
curiosity” to watch your struggles up close.
The advantage of a crew is you have someone catering to your every need
along the way. No need to carry a pack,
in some cases not even a handheld. They
can pick you up and transport you off course to seek aid, shelter, go bowling,
watch a movie, get dinner, whatever your heart desires, as long as they put you
back out where they picked you up before you advance. Also, you have somebody who (hopefully) still
has their wits about them when you finish and is able to drive your tired
behind home or to the nearest Super 8.
Why Super 8? Since you went crewed, that’s probably all you can afford
by the end, if you’re lucky. And there’s
the drawback. You convinced somebody to
join you for probably a week, or close to it, and cater to your every need,
whim and demand. The descent thing to do
is pay all of your future ex-friend’s expenses.
Future ex-friend? You heard me. Hopefully not future ex-spouse. Don’t get me wrong. The experience together has the potential to create or strengthen a bond
between friends, spouses, siblings or parents and children that will never be
broken and can’t be explained with words.
However, it also has the potential to ruin relationships and create a
lot of drama. Running a multi-day is
already a drama. You’ll experience every
possible emotion, in cycles…Cycles that become shorter as the race goes
on. You’d never snap at your wife, you
say? Good luck with that, buddy. Let me know how that goes. It is a days long process that puts stress on
runner and crew. A good crew/runner
relationship can make your race. A bad
one can make it downright miserable. If
you go crewed, choose carefully, preferably someone with a thick skin; someone
who is willing to push you “just three more miles today before you stop”; someone
who understands your motivations and knows what buttons to push to get the best
out of you but who knows when you’ve reached your limit. One
way to cut expenses, if you have an amenable crew, is to avoid hotels and
travel in a van or suv, something large enough to sleep in. Generally speaking, not always, crewed
runners finish faster than uncrewed because their loads are lighter and a good
crew keeps them moving like clockwork.
Having run both crewed (Tarheel Ultra 367 miler in 2013) and
screwed (Last Annual Vol State Road Race 314 miler 2014 & 2015) I have to
say screwed is the ultimate adventure. It’s
just you, your pack and some money. In
the case of Vol State you leave your car in a field in Georgia, are transported
to the ferry crossing the Mississippi River in Dorena Landing, Missouri and the
only way home is to travel, by foot, back to your car. “Screwed” means you can take no assistance of
any kind from anyone associated with the race, a crewed runner or his crew. Screwed runners may work together. And they may accept aid from concerned
strangers who probably think you’re homeless (no joke).
These good Samaritans are known affectionately as Road
Angels and often remarkably show up at the exact moment you thought you were
going to die. For instance, this year at
LAVS, my partner and I were running and opted to leave a restaurant with less
than topped off bladders in our packs, knowing there was a farmer’s market
nearby that had restrooms, drink machines and bottled water set up for the
runners. It was dark and as we
approached the outskirts of town we realized we had to have missed the
market. Suddenly we were faced with the
choice of backtracking to the market or trying to press on to the next town,
probably without adequate supplies. As
we stood contemplating, a young man with two children pulled up and asked if we
needed anything. He had bottles of
water, granola bars and popsicles. We
eagerly loaded up on all he offered and thanked him profusely. He probably saved our night.
Barring the appearance of a road angel, your next best bet
is to start looking for outdoor spigots.
Churches are a favorite of the Vol Stater for both water and
shelter. By the end of 300 plus miles, a
screwed multi-dayer has become a master at spotting outdoor sources for both
water and potential sleep. And it is not
beyond reasonable to end up knocking on a stranger’s door if you’ve planned
really poorly and run out of water sooner than expected or opted to pass up an
opportunity to fill up in order to keep your pack lighter.
Speaking of light packs… Planning what you absolutely need,
what would be nice to have and what you can live without is tricky business for
the multi-day runner. This is a problem not encountered when running
either loop races or crewed point-to-point.
You have the luxury of “better to have it and not need it, than need it
and not have it” mentality in those cases.
Often you’ll figure it out on the fly, ditching things you originally
thought were necessities as you go. And
believe me when I say this: veterans will judge you by your pack. One of the surest ways to identify yourself
as virgin multi-dayer is to show up with a 35 pound pack with five days’ worth
of clothing, a pop-up tent and three pairs of shoes. One of the biggest compliments I’ve ever
received from a veteran is “wow, I wouldn’t know by your pack that this is your
first time.” You will learn you CAN wear
the same clothes for a week. Water is the
most important thing. If you have the
ability to carry water, most other things can be dealt with as you go,
especially at a summer race like LAVS where you (most likely) will not have to
worry about warmth.
One of the biggest decisions you’ll make, and one of the
biggest money-savers or expenses of the race, will be determining your lodging
strategy. You can most likely plan your
entire race around the availability of hotels.
If you choose this option, you’re at the mercy of what’s open, what
their rates are and whether there is also a softball tournament happening that
weekend, effectively removing any chance of getting a room at your desired
location. Yes. That has happened to
me. More than once. If you’re a super good planner and believe
you can absolutely stick to your schedule (yeah right), you could book your
rooms well in advance. So far I’ve not
been able to accurately predict where I’ll be when I’m ready for a hotel room
beyond day one. I suggest you make sure
the hotels you choose have a lenient cancellation policy so you aren’t charged for rooms you never use
if this is your plan. If your goal is
to stay in a hotel every night (or day, as the case may be) you will benefit
from hooking up with another runner(s) to share costs. Often runners on different run/sleep cycles
will vacate a room well in advance of checkout time. Usually there is some system for notifying
others of the availability of a free room through a social media group or email
system.
Of course you can cut your costs drastically by choosing to
“hobo it” for the entire race. This
could be a selling point or a scary point for your family. Obviously the number one benefit of sleeping
wherever you can find shelter outdoors is not spending money. But if you tell your family this is how
you’re cutting costs, most likely they will be worried to death that you’ll be
murdered in your sleep until you finish.
I don’t recommend telling your mom that this is your plan. Maybe not your kids either. The second benefit is not wasting time
getting to, in and out of hotels that may or may not be directly on course. Even more, you won’t have that urge to take a
whole day off in your cushy hotel room.
Cushy being any room with running water and pillows, hookers and drug
dealers outside are optional. Downside? No shower for a week. But, this is an adventure. Wear your ever-increasing filthiness and
homeless appearance like a badge of honor.
When, on your last day and final push to the finish, you are mistaken
for homeless drifters by actual
homeless drifters (as we were this year), well, you know you’ve embraced the
“screwed” experience.
Perhaps the best option is to utilize a combination of
sleeping outdoors and using hotel rooms.
There is a lot to be said for what a shower and actual good rest can do
for your pace. It can be difficult to
get honest sleep on the side of the road, a picnic table or in a gazebo fifteen
feet from a railroad track (personal experience in all cases). As our friends over at Dahlonega Ultra
Marathon Association (D.U.M.Ass) like to say, poor decisions make for good
stories. Maybe not the best finishing
times, but definitely the best stories.
I don’t regret any of those choices.
But, my plan for next time might be slightly different, should my goal be
to actually finish faster.
When considering
which point-to-point you’d like to do, take into consideration the route and
time of year the event happens. Crewed
runners don’t have to worry as much but screwed runners definitely need to
consider weather and availability of services in their race plans. For instance, LAVS is in the summer. Cold weather gear isn’t a factor (except
during the arctic blast of 2014). You
can definitely pack lighter. Also there
is pretty ample opportunity for necessary services. Tarheel is a winter race. You must factor weather, especially if you
plan to sleep outside. It’s in the Outer
Banks, during the off-season. You could
find yourself with no choice but to sleep outside because hotels close their
offices early or close up for the winter altogether. Available services can be very far apart,
even outdoor spigots. If the cost of
specialized gear is going to be an issue (honey I NEED these $150 heated
socks), perhaps a warmer weather race is more practical. Although, the likelihood that you’ll need an
IV due to dehydration and heat exhaustion along with a signed waiver and
probably consent from your next of kin (yep, I’ve seen it happen) in order to
finish is low at Tarheel. Some races may
have lots of scenery. Others, nothing
but road. Some have a healthy mix of
both. Some have a painful amount of
elevation change. Some are painfully
flat. Do not underestimate how a flat
course can wear on you. Do your homework
and decide what mix of challenges you’re most willing to deal with before
deciding on your multi day race.
Finally, screwed or crewed, you may face the decision of
whether to run with someone. Perhaps you
go to the race with your best friend, significant other, or some other
important person in your life with the intent of running together. Or you go alone and quickly find someone who
seems to be running a similar pace. Eventually
you have to decide to stick together or not.
If you sign up together it is absolutely imperative that you
decide in advance if you’re committed to sticking together or not. One person could definitely end up with hurt
feelings or worse if this is not clear from the beginning and gets left behind
by the faster runner who assumed “this is how we’ve always done it.” Multi days aren’t your average 50 miler or
even 100 miler. The concept of sticking
together as long as you can and the faster one pulling away to do his or her
best later doesn’t necessarily hold up here.
If you commit to sticking with someone understand that you will move at
the slower person’s pace, always. Who is
slower can change daily or hourly.
Without a doubt the faster person at some point will get frustrated that
his partner can’t go just a little faster or needs so many breaks to continue. The strong one at the start may not be the
strong one at the end. Reconcile this in
your mind at the beginning and embrace the experience. You decided to tackle this thing
together. Again, it’s an adventure. Enjoy the experience and forget about your
time or who’s ahead of you. If you
aren’t having fun, you’re doing it wrong.
Of course even if you separate at some point you may end up together
again before the end as your up and down cycles change.
Picking up with another runner during the event is another
thing altogether. First of all, run your
own race and your own pace. You may
decide to go slower in order to have company but sacrifice your goal finishing
time. That can work out fine as long as
you’re sure you won’t spend the next year (if you’re lucky enough to run it
again in a year) regretting it and blaming your finish on the person you chose
to stick with.
Last year at LAVS I linked up early with a couple of
runners. We never verbally committed to
staying together and ended up leaving each other time & again in various
combinations. We benefitted from the
company. We shared costs of food &
hotel rooms at times and we finished within an hour of each other in the end.
The big mistake can be saying that you’re going to pace off
of someone who has definitely planned to set a fast pace. You have no agreement to stay together and
while that person has no problem with you tagging along, he also has no plan to
change his own pace to suit yours. Now
you’re running someone else’s race. This
can blow up early and spectacularly. If
you do this, remain calm, regroup and finish your race. Maybe the finish you had in mind isn’t going
to happen but you can finish. Embrace
the “poor decisions” mantra and move on.
In any of the types of multi day races always remember that
your goals most likely will change as you go.
As much planning as you may put in, there is always something unexpected
that happens. That’s why it’s an
adventure. If the outcome were certain,
why would you want to do it? For myself
I usually set and A, B & C goal. A
being the best case, everything goes right goal. B, the I’d really be happy with this result
goal. C being the absolute minimum I’m willing
to accept goal. If I’m lucky, I don’t
have to resort to D on the fly. I
usually accomplish this in point-to-points by scheduling myself back at work
the day after my C goal, and something faster than absolute cut-off. That can provide either motivation or unnecessary
pressure. That’s not a strategy I
recommend, just one that has worked for me.
In timed races I often keep a pace board with columns for my A, B and C
goals that I can reference regularly to see where I stand without doing math
after moving for 36 hours straight.
Everyone thinks differently and responds to different motivation. Figure out what tricks work for you. If it works I don’t care how silly someone
else thinks it is.
Wow. That’s a lot to
consider! You still want to conquer a
multi day? Once you wrap your head
around all that running a multi day encompasses, I can tell you it will be one
of the most rewarding experiences ever.
Maybe you end up loving them so much that you try all the formats and
try them crewed and screwed, solo and paired with a friend. Choosing your first multi day can make you
feel like Goldilocks, “this one’s too
cold,” “this one’s too far,” but “this one sounds just right.” Study up. Listen to stories, especially the ones that
involved poor decisions, and choose the right one for you. For all the grief you may get in the
beginning from your family, they’ll still beam with pride when you get
home. But they won’t be so impressed
that you get out doing your own nasty laundry.
Remember, if you aren’t having fun, you’re doing it
wrong. And please don’t forget to have a
beer along the way.
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