Rocky Raccoon 2012 Recap

I'd set high goals for myself this year at Rocky Raccoon 100 as I thought there was only one thing to try to do after last year went so well - really go after the clock. Normally this is the opposite of what I do since I firmly believe that your best time in a race is usually from sensible pacing so that you don't slow down much or at all, as I mentioned in a previous post.

But it's a game of odds regarding maximizing your chances at a good run. So to go after the most ambitious target required more of a risk and that's what I decided was worth trying. I had A, B and C goals - 12:32:04 (World Best), 12:44:33 (Course Record) and 13:16:02 (previous Course Record), all of which were ambitious. And I thought that I'd need to go through the end of lap two at 40 miles in 4:50 (last year 4:54) and lap four at 80 miles in 9:50 (last year 9:58) to have a shot...not easy on the trails on a good day.

Race morning started and there were thunder, lightning and possibly the Mayan calendar's predicted end of the world. It was hard to tell with all the rain. Hal Koerner, Karl Meltzer and myself started off at the front in the dark first few miles, with Karl having to stick close since his headlamp was weak and he couldn't see the trail well without our lights.

The start line. Photo: Drymax Socks

By the DamNation aid station at 6.2 miles we also had Oswaldo Lopez running with us and it stayed like that for the first lap, with Oswaldo on my shoulder then the other two just behind. Great to meet him more after seeing his great win at Badwater last year first hand. 2:27 for lap one put us on target, but it felt fast, partly due to the mud. Oswaldo and myself had broken away slightly, then I sped up to go through 26.2 miles in 3:10 on my own, three minutes ahead of last year and flying along feeling good.

Oswaldo Lopez. Photo: From Oswaldo's Badwater-style crew.

Hal Koerner charging in the lead on lap three. Photo: Drymax Socks.

Me on lap three. Photo: Drymax Socks.

Karl Meltzer. Photo: Drymax Socks.

Sabrina Moran racing to victory. Photo: Drymax Socks.

Liza Howard before she got injured. Photo: Drymax Socks.

By around 30 miles I caught glimpses of Hal behind and the legs were starting to feel some fatigue. Even with the surface water, the course had been fairly easy to run on in lap one, but by lap two, 680 people had churned it and it was slippery. I could tell I was slowing and Hal caught me just before the end of the loop with us going through 40 miles together in 4:55, just over a minute off last year and too slow for my A goal given I wasn't going fast at that point.

Karl was barely behind us and both he and Hal went past me within the first couple of miles of lap three as I focused on nutrition to help me feel normal again. Even with some walking breaks, I couldn't get back up to the pace I needed and by 50 miles I felt my left hip flexor was very sore. All that sliding over the mud must have strained it more than normal and I soon started limping. By Park Road aid station at 55.6 miles, Hal was 14 minutes ahead and Karl around 5 minutes, but I couldn't run properly and walked parts of the next section to the loop finish.

At 60 miles I had my trusty pacers from last year (who'd done a great job of getting me through aid stations to that point very quickly), Paul and Meredith Terranova. So I ate some food, had a stretch and decided to start out the next loop and hope for an improvement. All (good) time goals had gone from my mind, but if I could only limp then I knew it'd be stupid to do it for over 40 miles and make things much worse. By the 63.1 mile aid station I decided to call it a day, over nine hours into the race. But somehow running through puddles and mud hadn't caused me any feet issues so I know I can trust my Drymax socks - that was something that had concerned me as a potential reason for slowing down.

Hal went on to win in a mightily impressive 13:24, faster than his 13:26 in 2011 and Karl ran 10 minutes quicker than last year, in 14:17. Oswaldo had dropped off a lot but came back for 3rd in 14:30.

Two-time defending champ, Liza Howard, had led for much of the day in the ladies' race but had to drop at mile 80 with a foot and shin injury to leave the way clear for Sabrina Moran to win by a huge margin in 17:06.

Full results and splits here. Congratulations to all the finishers (and starters).

Joe Prusaitis and his team put on a great event with fantastic volunteers and I can't fathom the effort it takes for the runners out there for up to 30 hours of rain and mud (I've still not done more than two thirds of a day on my feet!). I'm happy that I went for the record but learned that maybe less than perfect conditions on the trail should have made me adjust the goal. I think Hal, Karl and Oswaldo would all have run marginally better times if we hadn't started so fast and I'd have probably finished too, but that's hindsight for you. Next year...this is always worth coming back for.

Some thoughts on race tactics

The photo shows Cavin Woodward at the London end of the London to Brighton route in 1975, the year he won the race in 5hrs 12min 7 secs (52miles 1172 yds). This was one of his 12 Brighton finishes spanning the years 1971 to 1998.

I've always been a firm believer that the best pacing for a race up to a 100k is a negative split (second half quicker than the first half), assuming the course has equally hard halves. But I doubt there's many 100 mile races run with anyone getting a negative split, so what's the best tactic? And should it vary depending on whether you're trying to win or to beat the cut-offs? I'm not sure I have any answer, but here's some of my thoughts, prompted by a very unusual article I read.

Well, I was shown this article on a 100-mile track race in 1975 and it certainly made me think again: http://www.ultralegends.com/the-tipton-100-miles/.

In the race described, Cavin Woodward (who unfortunately passed away in early 2010) set the world best time at that point for 100 miles in 11:38, but it's the way he did it that amazed me. He ran 2:31 for the marathon, 3:01 for 50k, a world best for 50 miles (4:58) and a world best for 100k (6:25)! That would have been fast enough to win the World Championship 100k most years nowadays...easily. And he held on to break the 100 mile record in a top class field where five other guys broke 13 hours. That just sounds like the craziest race I've ever heard of. I mean, imagine if Geoff Roes had got to half way in last year's Western States in 6 hours then held on for the 15:07 course record ("CR"), since that's about the equivalent.

So I wondered whether Cavin Woodward has any lessons for others or if his time was a combination of him being mentally like granite as well as maybe a bit lucky that it didn't all go wrong. Should people just go out hard and assume that the pace will drop off? This is the opposite of the standard advice of going out easy (since the pace will still tend to drop off).

I'd guess that anyone, even at the elite end, who tries to replicate Cavin's tactics would probably not finish their 100 miler or would crawl in near the back of the field. But perhaps going out a bit harder than might seem sensible is actually the best idea for the elite runners (although slower runners are likely to be less well trained and so not have such high levels of endurance to pull this off, in general)?

I say this after having had some emails going back and forth with Eric Clifton, the man whose 15-year old RR100 record I was fortunate enough to break. Eric is well known for being an all-or-nothing runner with many, many CRs which still stand and even told me that he didn't like winning unless he also ran as fast as he thought was possible. As Eric said to me, referring to pacing purely for a win instead of a fast time:

"I have had many, many people tell me 'how you can win [Western States]' and they can't get that is not the way I want to win WS. It would be a hollow victory to me."

I like his mentality and it was this type of tactic which made the 2010 WS race so enthralling. Anton Krupicka and Kilian Journet hammered away at each other for 80 miles before the more evenly paced Geoff Roes overtook for the win (and CR). I'm sure Eric liked the front running, although nobody could say Geoff wasn't motoring too.

So, for those hyper competitive races with hard fought CRs, sometimes it takes this kind of all out effort to push to a new level. But not always...Russian Oleg Kharitonov holds the current world best for a road/track 100 miler (11:28) and he ran evenly (splits of 5:37/5:51). And I'm happy with my even pacing, which has paid off in the shorter ultras and also did at RR100. I don't think I'll be changing it any time soon, except maybe as a one-off experiment at some point, just for fun.

One last thought is to consider the tactics of the legendary Bruce Fordyce, who won Comrades an unprecedented nine times and still holds the world's best time at 50 miles (4:50). He always went off at his own pace and was often a long way behind the leaders, only to come through near the end of the race as the hares slowed. I don't have a quote to hand, but he was known for advising runners at Comrades that if they went out too fast, they'd pay for it later and run a slower overall time. In particular, he said that for every minute a runner goes ahead of their optimal even(ish) pace at half way, they'd lose several minutes in the second half.

I've read Bruce's book and his attitude of running his own race and ignoring the competition is the way I prefer to run. He believed that if he runs his best race personally then it was up to the other runners to beat him. If they started faster and held on, then they deserved the win, but he wouldn't be closer to them if he matched their early moves.