The dreaded pavement run, part 3 of 3

Besides the swim, the run was the most intimidating part of this event for me. It's not so much the distance of the run, but rather it is all on road. 99% of my training is on trails. The only time I run on road is to get to the trail, which is 3 minutes by foot from my front door. Trail running is my meditation. I get totally lost and feel so incredibly lucky to run in such beautiful places. I tend to get injuries when I run on road, but this is probably more due to the fact that I avoid it until it comes to race day. My ouchy spot post run tends to be my anterior tibialis, and I was a little worries about this going into race day. With the worry about my legs I decided to run in compression socks to help mitigate the damage to my legs for as long as possible. It worked.... for a while. 52.4 miles takes a toll.

The morning started early, very early. The night before I bought some more rocket fuel at the gas station in the form of 2 spam musubis. When my alarm went off at 3am, I rolled over, turned the light on, and started to cram them down. They actually tasted good. Salty stuff after all the sweet gels the day before were a nice change. The run didn't start until 6am, but because of some serious procrastination on my part we had a 40 minute drive from the hotel to the start. Next year I'll get started on my reservations early..... I promise.

As I went to put my shoes on I felt some pain in my right toe. Noooo, there was an enormous blister on my big toe right where I used to have a toenail, until Ironman claimed it's victim 6 weeks prior. The soft new skin was just no match for 260 miles on the bike over the past 2 days. Not knowing where to find a needle in the van at 4am after it had been hit by 2 days of Ultraman tornado, I pulled out a safety pin from the race packet and began surgery. 15 minutes later my foot was nicely bandaged and ready, I hoped, for 52 miles of running.

Waiting for the run to start. It might have been the only moment all day that I felt cold. Too bad it didn't last.

One, two, three, go! It was still dark outside as we all started..... much too fast. Ooops. I know better than this, but my legs felt good. The first marathon went by quickly and felt easy. Then the heat began, my stomach started protesting, and my right leg started hurting.

My plan was to leave the socks on until they felt hot, and then change them and change out my shoes. The first half of the run I wore Avia Avi-Lite and for the finishing stretch I wanted the Avi-Bolt. The Bolts gave me the extra zip I needed to maintain my lead, plus they just look really fast. The socks still felt cool, so I left them. I also wasn't sure if I sat down to take them off that I'd ever get back to my feet again.

Just before the turn in Kawaihae. Photo by Timothy Carlson

Between my stomach protesting and my right leg pain I was alternating imodium and ibuprofen with a little improvement. I was all too familiar with this course as it's the last half of the Ironman bike course. I knew how much further I had to go and I knew I'd get there.... eventually. I slowed my pace in hopes that my stomach would stop it's revolt, and I got a little relief. The last 13 miles were torture, but I kept on right, left, right, left, repeat. My right shin felt like someone had placed a knife in it and every time it touched ground they turned it. My crew kept me moving forward, and I think they knew it was bad when I wouldn't take anything else to eat and stopped talking. No sound from me is a bad thing. The last 10K or so of the course I also know well from many a long IM day. One of those long IM days was this year, and I knew where every bump in the road would be. Finally on the top of the last hill I could see the top of the old airport buildings. Woohoooo, going to make it! I might be dragging my right leg behind me and forcing my stomach into some kind of compliance, but I was going to make it across the finish whether my body cooperated or not.

Somewhere on the Queek K.... with my crew and pacer Taylor Seavey.

Post finish and ocean dip with my wonderful crew. Thanks again Seavey family!

With Wendy Minor, my hero, she is an Ultraman finisher at age 65. This is proof for all my 50 year old patients that tell me they can't. You really can, it's all a state of mind.


With mens champion and all around nice guy, Mike Le Roux.

My favorite shoes. How can you not run fast when you're wearing these?

Immediately after the race comes the question, are you coming back next year. My first response, while hobbling back and forth to the bathroom every 10 minutes for 6 hours, was an emphatic NO. My thought was there are so many races to do and so many places to see. I've heard rumors of Ultraman Brazil, and I haven't been there yet..... Definitely on my to do list. After a couple weeks of reflection though, I will come back. The friends and family I've made through Ultraman are priceless, and I couldn't imagine not going to the family reunion next Thanksgiving.

On my to do list for next year is to spend more time running on pavement to get used to the pounding. My right leg swelled to about 3-4x the normal size the day following the race. Ouch! Spent a couple days post race on crutches to give my right leg some well deserved rest. It still felt like a knife was stuck in there, and I was worried I was doing more harm than good by shuffling around on it. The good news is that 2 weeks post race I'm back to running, on DIRT, sweet dirt with my dogs.


Bliksem with her wiggly wrap around the seat sneak kiss.