2015 Surf Coast Century: a fugue

Dude: Fuck.
Walter: What'd he say? Where's the hand-off?
Dude: There is no fucking hand-off, Walter! At a wooden bridge we throw the money out of the car!
Walter: Huh?
Dude: We throw the money out of the moving car!
Walter: We can't do that, Dude. That fucks up our plan.

 - a scene from The Big Lebowski.

I'd planned it all. Down to the minute, in fact. On paper and without being in the actual race itself, it seemed like the right thing to do. Firstly, my one-man support crew, Dylan, would need to know roughly when to be at the aid stations. Secondly, if I was going to be in with a chance of beating my stretch target of sub-11 hours, I'd need to know how I should be pacing each leg. The problem was, the plan didn't account for me starting to feel like rubbish at the 30km mark of a 100km ultra. My first 100km ultra.

But now, here I was, always frustratingly close to my planned time at each checkpoint, but only achieving this by hanging on by a thread. I might have been on time, but I wasn't supposed to be feeling this bad. It was fucking up the plan.

The  Plan¹

I've given a lot of thought into how to write up my experience at the Surf Coast Century without turning it into a tome that rivals Don Quixote or Les Miserables in number of pages. And since I'm no Cervantes and Hugo, I need to be a bit more economical, otherwise the title of this post would be TL;DR. I eventually settled on a template I'd apply to each leg. Therefore, if you find the first section tiresome, you can stop there, knowing it's not going to get any better.

Leg 1 (0-21km)
Official title: Coastline Crusade
Unofficial title: Slips and sinkholes
Leg split (incl. time in aid station): 2:11:24 (49th best time)
Elapsed time: 2:11:24
Position at end of leg: 49th
Highlight: Picture running along a pristine beach, with the rising sun lighting the sheer cliffs to your left. To your right is the expanse of Bass Strait, including the occasional set of waves rolling in as the early morning surfers ponder these strange creatures heading eastwards to Torquay. What do you think the highlight was?

At the start line

(Photo credit: Dylan Perera)

Life's Good

(Photo credit: Supersport Images)

Lowlight: Somewhere in the second kilometre, stepping onto a sand-covered rock, both feet whipping out from under me and crashing ribs-first onto the (thankfully smooth) rock.
Comic relief: The untold number of pioneers who tried to avoid the ankle deep water when the tide reached the cliffs by plotting a new course, and found themselves instead waist deep (or deeper) in the surf.
Over-riding emotion at the time: Joy. It was such a beautiful setting and I ran much of the leg with fellow Dandenongs Trail Runner Scott, and the kilometres flew by.
Over-riding emotion now: Regret, I suppose. Regret that I was on a schedule on this stunning leg and only stopped to smell the roses fleetingly.

Leg 2 (21-49km)
Official title: Ironbark Basin
Unofficial title: The Turning of the Screw
Leg split: 2:57:41 (28th best time)
Elapsed time: 5:09:05
Position at end of leg: 33rd
Highlight: I really enjoyed the winding single track through the Ironbark Basin. It's not that it was exceptionally picturesque, but I was always within range of some runner doing one distance or the other and it got the competitive juices flowing.
Lowlight: For whatever reason, starting to feel flat at the 30km mark. I was hitting the splits I needed to, but in the plan, I was still feeling good at this stage. Reality was beginning to have a say about that.
Comic relief: I think I got a bit over-zealous on the foot-wash contraption you had to use to protect the native flora from whatever nasties your shoes might have picked up. My shoes were covered in a thick lather of soapy suds coming through the intermediary aid station/spectator area and it seemed that everyone was wondering what the hell these new 'foamy' shoes were, because they were all looking at my feet!
Over-riding emotion at the time: It was probably anxiety. I had reached Torquay about 5 mins behind schedule, the number of rock sections on Leg 1 slowing me down more than I expected. And then with me starting to feel ordinary with 70km to go, I was getting really concerned with how the rest of the race would go.

Over-riding emotion now: Amusement. I started to feel ordinary at 30km... Try explaining that to a non-runner! "Well, you know, the first 30km were fine, then it started to get hard. I can't explain why." "Um," the response might come, "it's because you had just run 30km..."

Early on in Leg 2, when I still felt good

(Photo credit: Supersport Images)

Leg 3 (49-77km)
Official title: Currawong Falls
Unofficial title: Cimdins Falls (Apart)
Leg split: 3:17:33 (20th best time)
Elapsed time: 8:26:38
Position at end of leg: 27th
Highlight: Seeing my family at the 70km aid station and almost bursting into tears because it was the only good thing to happen to me for the last 3 hours.

My youngest son Will trying to provide illegal assistance at the 70km aid station

(Photo credit: Dylan Perera)

Lowlight: Telling myself I wish I hadn't signed up to raise money for Oscars100 for this run. Honestly, I was so sore and fed up with trying to hang on to this shred of hope that I'd go sub-11 hours that I wished I'd never raised a cent. That way I could just pull out at 70km. Maybe I'd fake some bullshit injury. I could see myself in full Jon Belushi in The Blues Brothers mode - "I fell on my ribs... I rolled my ankle... My hamstring is about to tear... A snake bit me... You gotta believe me... It wasn't my fault!!!" But no, instead I had to keep going. And it was such a chore.

Pain, earlier.

(Photo credit: Supersport Images)

Comic relief: There wasn't much humour to be had, but in hindsight, my sooking to Scott at around 65km about how hard done by I was feeling was pretty funny, in a pathetic kind of way.
Over-riding emotion at the time: Too many to mention. Let's just go with despondency, shame, exhaustion and bitterness. Looking at my performance stats from this leg, you might think I'm laying on the false modesty a bit thick, but at the time I had no idea how I was going in relation to the rest of the field (the solo field being pretty sparse at that point). And to be honest, I didn't have the energy to even think about whether I was doing better than other runners. I'd never felt so alone and fed up on a run. I hated it.

Arriving at 77km aid station. Leg 3 finally over.

(Photo credit: Franck Verez)

Over-riding emotion now: Confusion. This leg confuses the hell out of me. And that's because I can't work out whether setting a stretch goal like I did is worth it or not. I would have enjoyed this leg so much more if I had just planned on a sub-12 hour finish, something which I thought I could achieve on most days if everything went well. But instead, since I was so close to my planned splits, I had to push for this stupid sub-11 stretch. It completely ruined the enjoyment factor, but [spoiler alert] ended up contributing to a greater post-race sense of pride. There's no getting around it - for me, on that day, it was one or the other. Enjoy Leg 3, or hate it and go sub-11 hours. And I still have no idea which is the better outcome.

Leg 4 (77-100km)
Official title: Lookouts and Lighthouses
Unofficial title: With a Little Help From My Friends
Leg split: 2:30:00 (11th best time)
Elapsed time: 10:56:38
Position at the end of the race: 22nd
Highlight: See 'Elapsed time', above. Special mention to the amazing support I got out on course from my family, Dylan and my friend Franck and his wife Isabelle. They gave me the inspiration I needed to keep going.

5km-ish to go. Smiling on hard packed sand.

(Photo credit: Franck Verez)

4km-ish to go. Not smiling on soft sand.

(Photo credit: Franck Verez)

Lowlight: Losing my cool at Dylan. He'd come down to the beach at Urquhart Bluff to tell me that I was still on track for sub-11 hours. He told me there was only around 6km to go but my GPS watch indicated it was more like 8km. In response to his encouragement I spat back that I wasn't on track and he didn't know what he was talking about (of course, he was the one who was right). Dylan was an absolute superstar all day, without him I would never have achieved what I did, and to speak to him like that was terribly poor form.
Comic relief: at about 81km, after a bit of a sustained climb up a dirt road, you turn right and are faced with a hill that's about 250m long at about 15%. It's not a big hill in the scheme of things, but it was unexpected and, well, I had 81km in the legs. "For fuck's sake!", I cried out and I'm almost certain I heard the relay runner about 50m behind me laugh.

Forcing out a smile for the camera. At least it was downhill.

(Photo credit: Supersport Images)

Over-riding emotion at the time: Determination. At the Aireys Inlet aid station (15km to go) Dylan told me I could still get that sub-11 hour time. Told me the plan was still on. I didn't want to accept that and told him I couldn't, but he wasn't having it. He said he'd check in on me at a few places before the finish, to "make sure I was still running". And as much as I didn't want to, I ran. Even when I was convinced it was a lost cause (even after I'd told him he was wrong at Urquhart Bluff), I ran. Dylan found me again with 21 minutes left before 11 hours and told me I had between 3-4km to go. You better believe I ran then.
Over-riding emotion(s) now: Pride and gratitude. The last 23km, in my first ever 100km, was my best leg. Only 10 people ran this leg faster than me all day and I even managed to pass five relay runners on their one and only leg. And a big part of that was down to Dylan, for telling me to believe in myself and giving me a kick up the arse when I needed it. And for that, I'm very grateful. 

And then it was over. I'd finished. In no time at all, Nicole had filled up my 1L stein and I was enjoying a beer with Regan Welburn, a running friend who had smashed the course to finish in 6th place. I stayed at the finish line for about an hour, cheering friends and strangers over the line and soaking in the atmosphere. The biggest cheer of the day went to the guy who finished 3 seconds within the 12 hour, 1L stein cut off. Amazing scenes.

Finished!

(Photo credit: Supersport Images)

...and finished again
(Photo credits: Dylan Perera)

So, what was I complaining about at the top of this piece? The plan worked, didn't it? Yeah, it did in the end, at least for this particular race. But I suffered more than I ever have to achieve it. The first words I said to my wife after I crossed the finish line were "I never want to do anything like this again". To be fair, she immediately replied, "You said the same thing after Buffalo." 

But maybe this time I mean it. The truth is, for the most part, I didn't have fun out there (and I know this despite the fact that my brain is already at work, reconstructing an alternative version of the events of that day, tinkering with my memory). I felt too keenly the burden of expectations. My expectations and those of others. I'll spend the next few weeks thinking about the reasons why I run, because if it's purely for fun, then I don't see myself running another 100km ultra. If I run for a sense of achievement, would I not be better off returning to road running, with its quantitative focus on times? Friendship? I've got the DTR social runs for that. If it's just for the scenery, well, I can take up bushwalking. But then I look at that finish line picture.......

I thought I had everything planned. Maybe I was wrong.

------------
¹ This plan underwent intense scrutiny late on Friday night after I learned that support crews could leave items at the intermediary checkpoints, rather than providing assistance only at the major aid stations. I'd initially measured all my nutrition (Tailwind) into 750ml servings, two of which would go into a 1.5L bladder. Now, an easier option of 2x500ml bottles at every aid station (major and minor) was possible. So Dylan and I went through the equivalent of that puzzle where you have a 5L jug and a 3L jug and you need to make 4L. We got there in the end and the bottles worked a treat.

Suunto Movescount file: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move77162773