Poland World 24 Hour Champs- Katowice
Poland Race Report 2012
PLACING
HOURS
KM’S/HR
HOURS
Six weeks out from the race I would have defintitely taken
228K, so I can’t complain. However I like to quote an old lady from “The 4
Minute Mile” though and say “That doesn’t stop me though does it.”
When I was bedridden and had my first ever 0K week due to
injury I wondered if I would even make it to the startline and I’m very
thankful I got to experience the week that was the Katowice World Championships. I suppose though
you don’t make it to this level if you are satisfied just to be there. The
desire to be competitive and improve is still strong. When my back got better
and I was able to do 3 50K long runs I knew that there would be no excuses for
not making my goal of 240K.
AURA decided that we should get over 2 days earlier this
year compared to the Commonwealth Champs and I wasn’t particularly happy to be
away for the extra days but decided I’d do some touring and met up with fellow
Aussie teammate Allison Lilley when our flights both took us through Guangzhou.
After about 40 hours travelling including 3 flights, a bus
and a 3 hour train trip we arrived in Poland’s oldest city, Krakow. After 45
minutes walking around we decided to return to the place next to the train
station which no longer seemed as expensive. Having both missed a day
travelling we were super keen to get a run in and headed out into the smoggy
streets. Afterwards we had a quick dinner and we were already in sync with the
time zone cause by 10pm it was time for sleep.
We woke up the next morning having slept through the night
and ready for a trip out to the Tatra Mountains. We met a friendly local on the
train from Warsaw and she had given us directions for the best way to get
there. Unfortunately we had forgotten the instructions but I remembered well
enough to get us through.
Plan at the Tatras was to catch the cable car to the top
~2000m, have a run along the ridge and then walk back down past the hut. Unfortunately
after waiting 40 minutes in line for the cable car we’d only progressed to
about halfway to the front so we gave up and headed off on foot.
I was very excited to see a sign warning about
bears in the area. I don’t think bears when I think Poland. Anyway we didn’t
run into any bears but it was a nice 1hr 40min hike from 1000-1986m. When we
got to the top I headed off for a 30minute run which was amazing. During the
ascent we hadn’t been able to see anything except fog but within minutes of
starting to run the clouds lifted and it was stunning. There were heaps of
people out walking but most moved out of the way as I headed for a distant
peak. 30minutes goes very quickly in the mountains so I chose a small summit as
my turnaround and scrambled to the top. The views were even better than New
Zealand. Allison decided it was too risky to run the rocky ridge and after a
quick tag of a 2012m peak (my first time above 2000m) we began the walk back to
town.
The descent was the hardest part
and I was wishing I’d taken the cable car for the next 3 days as I was quite
sore. Fortunately that cleared in time for race day. The halfway “hut” was
really a mountainside pub but after 2 months without a drink I wasn’t going to
have one this close to the race.
Well I’ve written a lot and we
haven’t started the actual race yet. I know for some running in circles (or
even rectangles with rounded corners) for 24 hours is akin to watching paint
dry, but it’s actually quite exciting. Anyway I better hurry things up a bit.
On the train to Katowice we met a
fellow competitor in Vilnis (or Vinnie) from Latvia and had a great time
chatting to him and a Polish guy in 1st class where we’d accidently
positioned ourselves. It was good to finally be where we had travelled half way
around the world to race. We met some of our other teammates and I parked my
bags in Ewan and my room before heading
down to dinner. After dinner Ewan had a spew and it was decided I should move
out and I moved down the corridor to room with Justin.
In Katowice I went for another
amazing run in the bush near our hotel and went shopping once for a few
supplies. Apart from that I read, ate and popped into the pool each night for a
quick dip. The day before the race we had the opening ceremony and pasta party.
I’m not a big fan of ceremonies but it was good to see Yiannis and the Kiwis.
The pasta party was pretty poor
for a vegetarian who doesn’t eat wheat (or fibre the day before a 24hour) so I
had some cordial and a chat to the kiwis before heading back to the hotel for a
dinner of cornflakes and soy milk. In hindsight I would’ve bailed with John,
Rick and co and gone to the restaurant.
I woke up the day of the race
feeling sore and tired. I actually woke up at 5am but thought it would better
to try and rest up. After staying in bed for the extra hour I felt like I’d overslept
and my neck was sore.
It was good to finally be able to
get down to business. We took the bus provided out to the park where the race
was taking place. It looked really nice and there was plenty of shade. Not that
we needed it as it had been raining most of the morning. After setting up
getting changed and checking out the porta loos before long we were on the
startline.
I started near the front with Jon
and Rick and the first K saw me relatively close to the lead. There was a bit
of tape on the ground at the 1K mark so when I got to this in around 5minutes I
consciously slowed it down. Yiannis Kouros had just gone past and I looked
forward to catching up with him later but for now I wanted to stay as close as
possible to 5:30/k.
The first couple of hours went
like clockwork. Getting my 7 laps in and taking on plenty of food and drink.
Each lap was 1554m so I was aiming to run 8-8.15 per lap to get me to half way
with 130K on the board. During the 3rd hour the Japanese went past
running as smooth as silk. Mike Morton had flown by twice during the first hour
and there is no way I would’ve considered running with him, he was on about
350K pace and I thought he was going to blow up. However when the Japanese came
past about half as often it looked easy so I fell in and decided to run a few
laps with them.
I probably ran about 4 or 5 laps
with them before stopping for a scheduled food and walk break and apart from
the last hundred or so metres it was very comfortable. By this time it had
accelerated to sub 5min/k with each lap slightly faster than the last. This was
all very well as I don’t like to get stuck into a slow rythym during 24 hour
events and will often throw in a surge to run with someone faster or when a
good song comes on my Ipod. However once I stopped I started to get some nausea
and this threw me mentally. It was going to be very hard to get 130K in the
first half.
The next 8 hours are very hazy. I
think I spent much of the 4th hour running with Ewan but when we
split up with different feeding strategies I didn’t hear from him until about
the 6 hour mark when I heard he was taking a nap. Around this time Sharon
pulled out for good with a recurrence of hamstring issues and when Susannah
collapsed “Team Australia” was decimated. Such is the resilience of
ultrarunners though as shortly after Susannah and Ewan were back on their feet
and competing again.
Before the race I had asked for
updates on the Fremantle Dockers AFL final versus Geelong. Reading back through
the updates on facebook I was reminded someone told me the Dockers were well up
at ¾ quarter time but after the race I would have sworn no one had mentioned
it. Also during this time I made a change into 2XU tights and put the Ipod on.
I also changed into an old pair of Mizuno trainers I had borrowed off Rick. My
ankle was beginning to play up in my racing flats and despite the Mizuno’s
rubbing on my left foot the ankle felt better almost instantly. The rubbing
finally lead to a sizable blister but hey “It was only a flesh wound .”
My forgettable few hours were
broken around 11:15pm with stabbing pain behind my knee. This came and went a
few times before bringing me to a halt. Walking wasn’t hurting so I decided if
I walked hard the 2nd half I could still get 200K. I walked the
remainder of that lap and another 2 in about 12minutes each but the lack of
running was making me tired. I have discovered in the past that running is a
good stimulant but unable to run I went for the next best thing in a No-Doze
tablet.
When I sat down in the aid tent
just before halfway the plan was to have some caffeine and food and get back to
walking. When I told team manager Rob Boyce about the knee he suggested taking
some Neurofen to see if it fixed it. So shortly after I popped a No-Doze and 2
Neurofen I was out there again but no longer in first Aussie as John had just
passed me. Within about 1 minute Allison came by still running strongly and I
pushed off to give her some encouragement. Surprisingly the knee felt fine and
after chatting with Allison for a little while it was obvious she was slowing
me down so she sent me on my way.
The next10 hours were quite
enjoyable as I searched out some English speaking companions to share the time
with. I spent maybe an hour with Macca from New Zealand and a similar time with
Sharon from Scotland before she too sent me on my way. I was still only
trudging 9K/hour but everyone around me was slowing down. There was a scoreboard
that updated the results when you ran over the timing mat. Unfortunately the
mat was too close to the scoreboard so to get your own result you had to walk
across and crane your neck to the top of the screen. I came up with a plan to
get Sharon’s result by letting her get a few metres in front and then surging
to catch her. Unfortunately her eyesight wasn’t up to making this a reciprocal
arrangement but from the walking across method I was fairly sure she had one
lap on me.
As the body starts to get tired
you need more mental stimulation to keep you motivated. Each hour a timesheet
would be printed out with the distance and place of each runner. These became
great motivators as I sought to improve my place each hour. After 3 hours and a
12K+ hour running with the Japanese I had peaked at 47th place. I had
then been in freefall to 12 hours and 87th place. This had all been
a mystery to me until I asked for an update at 12 hours. The other game I was
playing was splitting the race into time until my next painkiller/No Doze
tablet. After Vitamin I at 12 hours I had Panadol at 14 hours, Neurofen at 16
hours and then Panadol at 18 hours. On all of the odd-numbered hours I was
having a No Doze. Then heavily influenced by Scott Jurek’s “Eat and Run” I had
been reading prior to the race I went all hippy turned the Ipod off and stopped
taking pills. Fortunately the knee-pain never really returned.
The track was busy. A 1500m
course with 250 runners is an average of 1 runner every 6 metres. Turning the
Ipod off made me more aware of my surroundings. I was still running but lacking
the motivation or companionship to really push the pace. I’m guessing 2/3rd’s
of the runners didn’t speak English but even those who did, some you’d fly by
and rarely now they’d fly by you. Every time I saw Mike Morton he seemed to be
going to the dunny. In a peculiarity of timing I must have seen him duck in 4
times during the race. All reports were that Rick was now flying. However I
hadn’t seen him in hours.
When an ultra doesn’t go to plan
you have to change your goals. After aimlessly trudging for most of the day I
decided a “B” qualifier was an achievable goal and should allow me to enjoy the
last hour as many runners already seemed to be doing. The plan was to get this
in the bag and then enjoy the atmosphere
whilst knocking off a more sedate 6-7K an hour. However with 2 hours to
go Paddy Robbins came by at a sustainable pace and I jumped on for a chat. Pat
was really keen for some company as he closed in on his goal of 150miles so I
now had a goal and we started to tick off 10K/hr fairly comfortably.
Things got a little more
interesting with about 30min to go when Rick came past. We were now on the same
lap. I considered I was pretty safe as he’d have to be going 3K/hour faster to
catch me. Then with about 3 laps to go something went pop on the top of my
foot. I asked Paddy what I should do. He said just keep running. I tried to
change my gait to stop it hurting and was quite successful. Then we started to
wind it up. We caught John or John caught us and Paddy started chatting with
him and the pace eased off. With only about 8 minutes to go I keep the momentum
going and took off on my own. I went through the aid station for the last time
and the atmosphere was great, the Kiwis in particular were going off. With 4
minutes to go the only goal left was staying in front of Rick. I know the guy
is fast so I kept up a pretty good clip.
Then the gun went off. I had run
the last 2 laps with a big grin on my face. Not because of my achievement but
because the ordeal was nearly over. When you think your race is going bad at 3
hours, 21 more is a lot of time. One of my goals when I could no longer hit the
PB or 240K was not to be a one hit wonder. It motivated me last year as well.
My first race was 179K, then 223K, then another sizable jump to 237K. This year’s
228K now gives me an average of 229K for my last 3 24 hour races. I think I’m
actually quite good at this thing; but hopefully there is plenty more to come.
posted by dave at 5:35 AM
1 comments
