There were about a hundred or so of us in a pack as we made our way over a small bridge just outside of the park and towards the Badger State Trail. I had gotten caught up in the moment and realized shortly before crossing the bridge that I had forgotten to queue up my GPS watch. After all, it wasn't something I was exactly used to doing. After several months of contemplating, Sam brought to my attention that Garmin Instinct GPS watches were on sale. I took advantage of the deal and in June I began using a GPS watch for the first time in nearly two years. As the course left the streets of Belleville for the trail, I started talking to this dude who was a local guy doing his second ultra. We were only about a mile in, which for me is pretty early in a race to be chatting with people. Normally I prefer to take some time during the first five miles or so to find my groove when I do ultras, but we were having an engaging conversation, so it felt good. His name was Dylan. He had done a 50K once before and this was his first 50-Miler. He was a younger guy and attended grad school nearby where he studied fungi. I immediately thought of Sam because although she majored in psychology, biology remains one of her lifelong passions. We ran side by side and continued chatting as we made our way along the course. The terrain we were running on was a wide dirt track which was dissected by a grassy strip down the middle. Although the ground was smooth and gentle, I decided it was best to wear my Hoka Speedgoat trail shoes for not only when the terrain became less pleasant, but also for extra grip. We soon came upon the first aid station, which was at a junction where the trail meets a back country road. Dylan stopped at the aid station, so we parted ways for the time being, and I continued along the course, which had deposited me onto a short road section. This part of the course was a bit of a detour. The original route was set up in such a way that we would continue on the trail and run through the Stewart Tunnel. The tunnel lied about a mile or so up the trail and was approximately a quarter of a mile long, however it was closed off due to flooding issues. It was also deemed unsafe to run through due to the poor condition of the ceiling section. This course detour on the road would take us around the Stewart Tunnel and we would eventually pick the trail back up after bypassing the tunnel section.
Despite some rolling hills, the road section was pretty decent. I caught up with a few other runners: Skip and Gavin, both from Indiana, and Brendan, a college student from the Chicago suburbs. The four of us motored along together for a little while and we soon arrived at the Hollywood aid station, where I had been hanging out the night before. Many of the volunteers were still there and taking care of us while operating on two or three hours of sleep. Some of them recognized me from the night before and asked how my race was going. "So far so good" I answered. So far so good, but I was only nine miles into the fifty-mile distance. The course was an out and back route, turning around at the junction where the trail meets Town Center Road in Monroe. How would I feel when I passed through this aid station again at mile forty-one? Only time would tell. With my water bottles topped off with UCAN and water, I resumed forward progress down the straight, flat trail. The next several miles offered nice vistas of farmland and rolling green hills. The surroundings were pretty typical of rural recreational trails in the Midwest. The route mainly traveled through farmland with a tunnel of trees and brush surrounding both sides of the trail. When a majority of the forest was cleared out for farmland back in the day, they spared the trees surrounding the trail to add shade and a wilderness vibe to make the experience more enjoyable. Occasionally there would be a rock wall on either side of the path and there was the occasional railroad bridge above as I passed by underneath. I kept Skip, Gavin, and Brendan within eyesight, but the next several miles were run solo. After another road section I heard footsteps coming up behind me. "Hey, what up?" I said without turning my head. "Hey, is that Liam?" the voice answered. It was Gio, a member of the TJM Nation, who I had met the afternoon prior at the race HQ in Belleville County Park. He had traveled from the Denver suburbs to participate in the 50-Miler. We chatted for a brief moment before he continued on. As I continued along, Gio, along with Skip, Gavin, and Brendan slowly faded away in the distance and were eventually out of sight. I glanced at my watch and noticed my pace had been steadily slowing over the last few miles. Dylan soon caught up with me and we exchanged some small talk but soon, he too was down the trail and out of sight. I tried to not let my slowing pace derail me, knowing that it was to be expected that I would slow down as the race went on. Still though, I had not reached the halfway point of the journey. Skip, Gavin and Brendan eventually ran past me coming the other way, so I figured it would be coming up soon. Sure enough, within a few minutes the aid station at Town Center Road appeared in the distance. I was greeted enthusiastically by the volunteers when I arrived, one of them being Azam, another notable TJM Nation member. Although I still felt good, I acknowledged to the group my concern with the fact that my pace had steadily slowed over the last several miles. They assured me that I had plenty of time to finish and that I should not worry. I knew they were right, but still, my mind dwelled on the thought of getting a DNF (Did Not Finish) because I didn't make the cut off time. I knew I would finish if I just kept moving, but would it be fast enough? We would have to see. I ate a couple of Pop Tarts, and with my water bottles topped off, I headed back down the trail to tackle the second half. All I had to do now was get back in time for the cut off. I just hoped that I could do it.
Allow me to explain my concern over not making the cut off time. This was my third 50-mile race and the other two I ran had taken me twelve and a half hours and a little over fourteen hours. One of those was virtual. The cut off for this race was twelve hours. Given the relatively flat and gentle terrain, the timing was logical, but twelve hours is a little on the aggressive side for a 50-mile cut off. This meant one thing: I would either have my best 50-mile time yet, or I would get a DNF. Pure and simple. PR or DNF. Those were my two choices. I had experienced various waves of self doubt over the last several miles, but during the early miles of the return journey, reality set in pretty loudly. To quote Kevin Hart, "shit got real". As I plodded along, my mind drifted to a particular sketch from Kevin Hart's "Laugh at My Pain" comedy show in which he tells the story of when he threw a birthday party for his five year old daughter and hired a guy to dress up like SpongeBob. Apparently things didn't go as planned, and Kevin got into a heated confrontation with SpongeBob because the guy kept taking the top of his costume off and smoking cigarettes in front of the kids. So, Kevin told him to put the goddamn costume back on and put the cigarettes out "before shit gets real out here". Shit was getting real out here. Not because I was about to get into a fist fight with a guy in a SpongeBob costume, but because I was worried that I would have the letters DNF listed next to my name in the race results. At this point I was on pace for about a ten and a half hour finish, but I knew that I would gradually slow down as I kept going. After departing the Gutzmer Road aid station at mile thirty-seven, I began doing some pretty hardcore trail math on my cell phone calculator. I had about a half marathon's distance left to cover and I calculated that I would need to maintain around a twenty-six minute per mile pace to finish on time. I was averaging well over that pace and even if I slowed dramatically, I'd be moving faster than that, unless something unthinkable happened. By the way, after all that, SpongeBob then proceeded to curse Kevin out and inform him that he was fresh out of jail and he was only there to get paid. I laughed to myself out loud on the trail as the sketch flashed through my mind. As the miles clicked off, my concern over not beating the cut off time gradually melted away. I kept doing trail math, and each time I knew I could maintain a faster pace than the one I needed to finish in twelve hours. I felt mentally lifted as I drifted into the Hollywood aid station at mile forty-one and took a seat for a few minutes to be off my feet. The crowd was giving off great energy, and just before I left, Holly, Dan, Kyle, Myself, and a few others raised a toast with shots of Fireball. It was one hell of a send off.
The Fireball shot carried me along nicely. That is until I came upon the road section that served as the detour around the Stewart Tunnel. In the early stages of the race I had no issue with this section, in fact it was rather pleasant. This time though, it was a straight up suck fest. My pace slowed dramatically as I was forced to walk over the rolling hills on the back country road. Every step hurt and my progress was sluggish at best, even on the downhill sections. I was no longer worried about not making the cut off. At this point, I was just in a lot of pain and wanted to be done. It was time to dig deep and use that psychological strength I had brewing to get through these next few miles until I was back on the trail. I eventually cleared the final aid station and got back on the trail for the final three and a half mile stretch. Norbird, one of the volunteers at the final aid station, wrapped a cloth dunked in ice water around my neck, which put some life back into me. With a mile and a half left, I came up behind an older looking gentleman using trekking poles and walking at a swift pace. By the way he was moving, I was pretty sure he was a hundred-mile runner. In the early stages of the race, several hundred-mile runners passed by me going the opposite way on pace for around a thirty to thirty-three hour finish. Some looked pretty alert, others were so wrecked that all they could do was give me a blank look and a nod when I offered kudos. This guy was one of the more alert guys. I found out that he was indeed doing the hundred-miler, and get this, he was seventy-eight years old! I gave him a knuckle pound and continued on past him, but the inspiration that I felt from that brief encounter was enough to keep me moving steady until I reached the final stretch, where the course leaves the trail for the streets of Belleville. As I ran through the park and towards the finish line, I could hear the loudspeaker: "And now we got Liam, who came all the way from Sunnyvale, California, completing his fifty-miler". I threw my arms into the air in celebration and crossed over the finish line in eleven hours and sixteen minutes. Scott Kummer put a medal around my neck and I immediately gave him a big hug and thanked him for putting on such an awesome race. As mentioned earlier, during this race I was faced with two options: PR or DNF. I thanked my lucky stars that nothing crazy happened and I was able to have the first option as the end result. I wore a big smile on my face as more people offered hugs and kudos. Skip, Gavin, Dylan, Gio and Brendan had also killed it out there, and I was super happy for them as well. Not too long after my finish, Ian, the seventy-eight year old hundred-mile runner ran across the finish line sending the crowd into a roaring frenzy. After enjoying some free pizza and beer in the finish area and hanging out with the rest of the crowd, I returned to the motel, cleaned myself up, and told Sam the whole story over the phone. The next day was Monday, and the first day of month end close for July, so I had to multi task by working about three quarters of a work day from a Starbucks in Janesville before traveling back to O'Hare International Airport to catch my flight back to San Francisco that night.
Another great ultramarathon experience in the books. Every year brings new races, new adventures, and plenty of stories to tell. I had a lot of fun traveling back to the Midwest, getting a fifty-miler in, and getting to know so many awesome people from the TJM Nation. The story about the Badger 50-Miler experience would continue to linger in my head for weeks afterwards, not just because it was such great fun, but because I've been so damn busy, that I'm just now getting this piece written three and a half weeks after the race. Oh well. Time to get ready for Broken Arrow!
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