Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Bandera 100k race report, by the numbers

1,423:  Miles that my parents drove to come be my support crew at the race

1:  Number of people who purely coincidentally rented the other half of our holiday cottage in Bandera and who I know from Scotland!

46:  Temperature in Fahrenheit at the start.  Perfect.  It got hot later, but only because of the intense sun.

10/10:  Beauty of the course at sunrise and sunset

3:  Feet in the air that I jumped after something large and brown slithered away from where I had just stepped, around mile 35

2:  Times during the race that I swore I would never run another ultra

0:  Times during the race that I wasn't enjoying the course.  It was perfect running the entire way; just the right amount of technical and non-technical sections.

4:  Vomiting sessions during the race.  Less coffee for me next race...

8:  Miles of the race that I was struggling

54:  Miles of the race that went well

3:  Square inches of my legs not sliced to pieces by the sotol plants lining the Three Sisters hills

1:  Sotol needles I got stuck in my finger and then proceeded to stab myself with when I put my hands on my legs to walk uphill

1/2:  Radius, in miles, that the World's Most Annoying Dog, who someone had brought to the start/finish area for the entire day, could be heard barking nonstop.  This actually helped me out twice during the race.  First, it provided great motivation not to linger at the start/finish area when we passed through there at mile 31.  And second, near the end of the race, just as I was starting to get frustrated by the fact that there was STILL no finish line in sight, I suddenly heard...yap!  yap!  yap!  and knew it was time to sprint.

+50:  Difference between number of calories I was wearing at the finish, courtesy of a leaky bottle of sports drink earlier in the day, and number of calories I actually consumed during the last 9 miles

+55:  Minutes of positive split on my second of the two 50k laps--ouch!  Goal was no more than 30 minutes...

0:  People who passed me on the second lap

2:  Minutes by which I missed my goal time

11:01:  My finishing time

5:  My finishing place

7/10:  Happiness factor for my race.  I made a mistake by overdoing the coffee and by not wearing a hat to protect myself from the intense sun, which might have kept me from overheating so badly, but I did have a good first lap without going out too fast and a reasonably strong last ten miles.




11 hours of crewing is a long time!