Allison Woods 100 Race Report

“I don’t have anything left.”

“Come on man, we need this. It’s flat, what do we do when it’s flat? We run.” I can hear Drew behind me, but I feel all alone. Desperate. I’ve run 99 miles and I am completely destroyed. “I don’t have anything left.” “Yes, you do! Yes, you do! You could run two more laps, but you don’t have too!” My feet are shredded from 99 miles of rocks, roots, and pounding. My quads burn so intensely that I wince with every step, and I’ve chafed so badly that blood has pooled in my shorts. I’m not going to make it.

“It’s October, right?”

The race started at 8am, and the weather was pretty good! Overcast and about 75 degrees but with high humidity. Everyone shared the normal race start banter that we always do. “We paid for this?” “Start slow!” “Glad to see you out here!” I don’t think anyone knew what was coming.

I had the honor and privilege of running with an ultra-bad ass, Laura Drake. We stayed together for the first two or three loops and she, being a veteran of the 100-miler, shared a lot of advice and I got to know a little about her personally as well. It didn’t take long for me to appreciate her advice, as I was able to put it to good use over the next 26 hours. We moved along at a fairly good pace and the first 16 miles went quickly enough. We parted ways as it is inevitable that at some point your paces will change and you will part. I saw her frequently the rest of the day and night as it was a looped course and she went on to win the women’s division. Every time we passed each other, she’d smile and say, “Great job!”.

Around mile 16, it happened. The sun burned through the clouds. The temperatures reached about 85 deg. and the humidity was almost 100%. Absolute carnage. When you sweat, your skin softens, and the constant rubbing and pounding creates blisters and chafing that at mile 20 feels like a slight burn but by mile 70, becomes an inferno. As the day pressed on more and more runners dropped. I don’t know all of the whys, but I believe that heat, dehydration, and the burn became unbearable for most. One woman put it to me as she passed by, “I’d love for someone to turn the sauna off! It’s October, right?”.

The heat and humidity put us all in a position to make some choices. You could slow your pace and hope that you had something left in the gas tank later at night to make it up, or you could push to create a cushion and pay the price later. I pushed. I knew that the heat was going to punish me permanently, but I wasn’t confident that I could pick up the pace later in the race as I’d never run more than 56 miles.

“I haven’t peed in six hours.”

By the time I crossed the 20-mile mark, I realized that while I had been taking in a lot of fluid and electrolytes, I wasn’t peeing. It wasn’t a big deal, yet… By about mile 26, it was. My hands were swelling, and I was retaining water. I knew that if I didn’t get my kidneys functioning, I would have to drop. “Mary, I haven’t peed in six hours.” “What do we need to do?” I didn’t know actually. But I figured that if my body was retaining water, it was because it felt like it was deficient, so I switched from electrolyte drinks to water only and practically walked the next four miles. Success! I peed, and it wasn’t brown. You have to love a sport where peeing can be considered a huge success. From there on I drank almost zero electrolytes and took in constant sips of water. I didn’t pee for about another 4 hours, but then it finally started with regularity. With the kidney issues behind me, I focused on forging forward in to the night.

“You brought signs?”

As daylight started to dwindle, I was approaching mile 43 and still out on the course by myself. I hit a root hard and stumbled forward, praying not to fall. If I fell, I was done. But, trying not to fall tensed all of my muscles, and my entire body convulsed with cramping. My chest cramped, my arms cramped, my legs cramped; I was basically a ball of cramping muscles. It was excruciating. I quit. I told myself to get the last mile down to the aid station and stop. I couldn’t go on. Then something funny happened. As I was trudging along, the pain and cramping started to subside and by the time I arrived at the aid station, I was ready to push on.

I crawled in to the aid station and lifted my head with a double take. There were signs hanging on this aid station, so I thought it wasn’t mine, and then I saw my friend Allie. “You brought signs?” Yes. Yes, they had. Allie and JT were there to run some night laps with me with their dog Dex. I put my headlamp on and headed out in to the night with a posse.

We finished mile 52 and I was fading. Despite having great company, the grind was wearing me down. We entered the aid station still on track to beat the 30-hour cutoff, but I was crawling deeper and deeper in to the pain cave. At this point, I believe with 100% of my heart, the game changed. When we arrived, Kim and Drew were there. I know Kim and Drew from working at the running store. They are regular customers and just a great couple. Here’s the thing though. Lots of people say they are going to come out and run with you, and they normally don’t. I get it, it sounds great when you are in the moment, but as the day arrives and you are faced with the reality of driving an hour and a half and then running through the night, you realize “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.” But there they were. And the posse got bigger.

“I’ll try anything at this point.”

I will be forever grateful to Allie, JT, Kim, and Drew. Allie and JT were a huge pick me up when they arrived and as you will see in a moment, Kim and Drew went way beyond what was reasonable. Mile 65 I was done once again. The night had provided little relief. Yes, the temps dropped to about 68 deg., but the humidity was still almost 100% and the fog was thick in spots, slowing us down and making visibility a challenge. Earlier in the day I had a sense of humor and would arrive with “I need to lube up Chico and the Man” or “Kool and the Gang”, trying to get Mary to laugh and hide the pain I was in. Now it was simply “I need lube.” My sense of humor was gone.

I changed socks, shoes, underwear, and my shirt, hoping that it would lift my spirits for another loop or so, but the humidity was so high, that everything was wet immediately. JT and Allie had to work later that day, so they left, and Kim and I were out there alone when things got worse. There were sudden “gushes” on the bottom of my feet. What I thought were blisters bursting, were actually blister forming and the pain caused me to slow to a crawl.

When we arrived at the aid station, I sat and asked the team to take my shoes and socks off and have a look. I couldn’t see the blisters, but I could tell by the look on their faces that it wasn’t good. Drew started popping and draining the blisters, applied New Skin and tape, and got my socks and shoes back on. In my head, I was done. Then Kim said, “Have you ever taken Ibuprofen during a race.” I said “No, but I’ll try anything at this point.” I popped three pills and we headed out at a walk. Within 20 minutes, the edge came off of the pain in my quads, from my blisters, and the chafing. I was moving again!

Mile 74

If you ever run a marathon, you will join a pretty rare group. Only one percent of the entire world’s population has run one. At mile 74, I told myself, “Just one more marathon.” I’ve run marathons before. Hell, I’ve gone through training blocks where I’ve run a marathon every week for a month. Here was the difference. I was starting this marathon in the dark, with blisters on the bottom of both feet, pools of blood in my shorts, and my legs destroyed from the three previous marathons. Oh yeah, I also hadn’t slept in 24 hours. Still, I told myself, “Just one more marathon.”

“Guess who’s going to run a lap with you?”

The next ten miles were painful beyond belief. Every step was labored and every change in terrain or elevation shot new pains through my feet and legs. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Kim limping. I said, “You need to stop Kim, I don’t want you to get injured out here.” She said, “I’m fine, I can’t be hurting as much as you.” I knew that wasn’t necessarily true. We stumbled along, neither of us moving as fast as we needed to. That’s when I heard her phone beep and she said, “Guess who’s going to run a lap with you? Drew!”

Drew knew two things that I know he won’t admit to. Kim needed a break, and I wasn’t going to make it at the current pace. This time when we got to the aid station, Kim sat down, and I kept going as Drew hopped in. As soon as we hit the trail, he said, “You got this, but we’ve got to pick it up.” In other words, “You don’t have this UNLESS you pick it up.” The fun and games were over. If I was going to succeed, I would have to go faster, not slower for the next 16 miles.

“Don’t you stop! Go take this!”

With 12 miles to go, we picked Kim back up and now the three of us went out there. Kim was hobbling very noticeably as she had stiffened up while resting, but she was just as relentless as Drew. “Come on Joe, this is that soft mud, we can run this.” “One day we won’t be able to do this, but this isn’t that day!” Relentless. Every step was relentless. Step; pain; curse word. Step; pain; grunt. Step; pain; scream. Over and over again. But the pace was faster than before, and we made up time just grinding it out. Run until you can’t bare it and then power hike. Run again. Power hike. We started the last four-mile loop with one hour and forty minutes to go. We had it in the bag as long as I kept moving.

“Come on man, we need this. It’s flat, what do we do when it’s flat? We run.” I can hear Drew behind me, but I feel all alone. Desperate. I’ve run 99 miles and I am completely destroyed. “I don’t have anything left.” “Yes, you do! Yes, you do! You could run two more laps, but you don’t have too!” My feet are shredded from 99 miles of rocks, roots, and pounding. My quads burn so intensely that I wince with every step, and I’ve chafed so badly that blood has pooled in my shorts. I’m not going to make it.

Except, that I am. After twenty-nine and half hours of punishment, your mind plays dirty tricks on you. I thought we were so far from the finish line, but we weren’t. It was less than a mile away now and we were moving pretty good. I just couldn’t accept that we had it, because I was so scared that I had completely stripped myself down to absolutely nothing and that I wasn’t going to beat the cut-off. But there it was, the end of the trail. All I had to do is jump out of the woods and climb the little hill to the finish line. Suddenly I heard Drew and Kim yelling, “Don’t you stop! Go take this!” over and over again, as I jogged up the hill. When I reached the finish line, the race director said “Congratulations, you never gave up.” And I literally fell into his arms. He handed me my belt buckle and I kissed it.

Amazing stats for the day. I finished in 29 hours and 35 minutes. I ran 100 miles with 9000 feet of vertical climbing. I finished second male, but that was because only two males finished. The rest either DNS (Did not start), or DNF (Did not finish). Kim ran 44 miles with me! That’s not pacing, that’s racing! Drew ran 16 miles with me and pushed me on every one of them. Allie and JT ran 12 miles with me and provided me with a pick up when I needed it.

I have to thank Drew Coombes for putting on a great event along with his team. It was beautifully brutal. I have to thank Allie and JT for coming out because I love them so much and I knew that they would be there for me. I have to thank Kim and Drew because they were there when they really didn’t have to be and made all of the difference in the world. And I have to thank my sister-in-law Louella and her husband Chris for being the support crew for this crazy adventure.

Finally, thank you Mary Randene, for a beautiful life…

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