We don't need no stinkin' training... (aka dying a slow and painful death)

At the start

I ran the Sheyenne National Grassland's North Country Trail with Grant Mehring on Sunday.  The total length is nearly 31 miles (roughly 30.5), or pretty close to a 50 K.  I have to be honest, i didn't feel much like running when we began - i'd been up early to drive friends down to fargo from grand forks to catch a plane and hadn't slept well the night before.  I was nervous too - my longest run since the frozen otter (FO) ultra trek 15 weeks before had been somewhere just shy of 7 miles.  My minimalist training regimen had been stretched extra thin as i spread my 2 weekly hours between paddling, running, biking (in preparation for my "A" race - a four day adventure race in June), climbing (so i won't embarrass myself in the Gunks this week), and swimming (in case i get a chance to take on END-WET in july), and i'd averaged about 2 hours of running a month since then.

But the run was a great chance to test the theory (my theory anyway) that high intensity training and mental constitution can get you through just about anything - so around noon we headed off through the first cattle gate across the open prairie.

Grant, on the trail....

Grant, a former collegiate steeple chase runner, carried the pack with about 3 liters of water, a light jacket, a few cliff bars, and a bottle with a half a dozen pills of ibuprofen.  I carried my jacket and some gu's around my waist.  The trail was flat and fast at first.  Until at six minutes in it went through an unavoidable bog.  So we'd have wet feet and mud in our shoes right from the get go.  Good adventure race training.  The mud was so gooey it even sucked my shoes - with their elastic speed laces - right off my feet on one occasion.

The first 16 miles was mostly flat.  We managed it in almost exactly two hours, even including stopping to open the dozens of cattle gates and to take our two minute 'walk, eat, and drink' sessions every 45 minutes.  About 90 minutes in i felt the blister that had been forming on my right pinky toe (that always forms) pop and drain blood and fluid into the toe box of my new socks.  It hurt for a while as i limped on but i tried to distract myself with the new and worrying tightness in my left achilles.

Miraculously, over the course of the next few miles the blister pain normalized - it was still there but remained manageable - and the achilles stopped nagging me altogether.

Me during what were the toughest four miles mentally speaking.

None-the-less, by 18 mile mark the fatigue hit us both like a brick wall.  We'd left the flat open prairie and were into the sand-hills area - gentle rolling hills for miles and miles.  It was at this point that Grant informed me that the trail was actually longer than the 28 miles it mentions on the website on the area.  In fact, he assured me that we'd see the 26 mile mark about half a mile or so before hitting the one creek we crossed, which was exactly 4 miles from the end.

As silly as it sounds, the thought of going an extra couple of miles just killed my motivation.  So i changed gears.  I told Grant we were going to go 4 miles at a time - small chunks of mileage - rather than 45 minutes, which now seemed daunting.  Miles 18-22 were the worst - maybe because they marked some sort of a hump in which we passed our half way time and also were forced to slow down into a more manageable pace than the one which we'd held up till then.

Mile 22 to 26 were much easier.  26 became the finish line of the 'marathon' and we reached it roughly 3:36 minutes after finishing.  Between the walking up the "hills" - now defined as anything with a greater than maybe 2-3% grade - and the more frequent stops to take a few sips of water out of the bladder on Grant's pack, we were barely holding a 10 min per mile pace.  So be it.

the final time

After mile 26 the mile markers disappeared.  I desperately missed them - four 10 minute increments punctuated by definite signs of progress seemed so much preferable to a single 40 minute slog.  But it wasn't my choice.  I looked at my watch way too often - hoping to see that minutes had passed - only to find i was checking ever 20 seconds.  We wondered if the end would ever come.  Grant, who'd been on the trail many times before, kept promising one more bend.  One more clearing.  But there was always another one.  Eventually, we gave in and walked for two minutes and started a regimen of run/walking for 2/1 minute intervals respectively.  Two intervals later we saw the road.

The trail crossed the road and roughly paralleled it for a final 1/2 mile.  We could have jumped on the road and limped to the car, but predictably just knowing the end was in sight gave us a second wind and we ran the last short section with a speed and lightness that had completely escaped us for the last two hours.

It was great to be done.  It was even greater to stop in Fargo on my way back to Grand Forks and be treated to an awesome meal by Grant's in-laws.  It was a great start to the best part about doing stuff like this - the half a dozen days following where the appetite is bottomless.  Yummm....

happy to be done...