Soul Sucking Sinister 7

Oh Sinister 7. Where do I start.

I've been dreaming of my first 100 miler for years... at least since 2015 when I signed up to do this race. Let me just say, it was not at all what I expected.
The spring started out so well, I was getting in lots of running before work, enough that I managed to set a personal best 10k in April. Although I seemed to be running lots, I really struggled to get in the long runs I needed. Every weekend there seemed to be another road block that kept us from reaching our long distance goals.
Though were a bit lacking in mileage, we thought we were in decent shape by June when we planned to do our longest run - the Vancouver 100 (a 100k course from deep cove to horseshoe bay area and back).
A bit of "luck" came our way at the start of June, and we found ourselves with this lovely little thing called the flu. And not just an "I'll take some Tylenol and sleep it off in a day" type flu. A knock you on your ass, high fever for days, puking off the side of your kayak flu. You can ask Chris about that last part ;) Shout out to Nick for getting him home safe - I believe Chris still owes you a kayak trip!
Alright, so now we're two weeks until race day, and all of a sudden instead of "it's okay we've got lots of time" it becomes "okay, maybe we're under trained." So we do what any 'normal' runner would do, and we attempt one last shot at getting in a long run. We decide to head out to Cultus Lake and spend the weekend running laps around it. We know the route around the lake from running the Cultus Lake Give'r Take 30 each fall. Really fun race, but sells out in the first day of registration so you gotta be quick to get in! The distance around the lake is 25k. Our goal was to hit 4 laps for a solid 100k run.

Lucky as we are, on lap 1 we discovered this beautiful little plant that goes by the name of stinging nettle. It. Was. EVERYWHERE. Now, I don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure of interacting with this lovely herbaceous perennial flowering plant, but I don’t recommend it. When you touch it, it stings. When you run through it, it stings, and stings, and continues to sting. Long story short, there was a lot of it, and as such the first 15k was significantly slower than planned. By the time we finished the first lap, it was already looking like 100k was out of reach. We continued on to complete a second lap. I downed a can of coke and was ready to rock. Chris, however, wasn’t feeling so great.  I made a great speech about going on without him, but we decided to take a quick nap in the tent, and eventually had the strength to go on! We manage 75k and decide another 25k isn’t worth the pain. I know running around the lake sounds lovely, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some killer hills!

So we head out to the race having established that our training wasn’t the best. However, we have our eyes set on our next race, the Fatdog 120, and decide that Sinister will be a great training run no matter what happens.

Race day comes, and as promised, it is hot as hell. I’m talking 30+ degrees in town, doesn’t cool off, can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t escape the heat. PERFECT race conditions. Especially when part of the course is named Satan’s Sack as it is “hot, dry and exposed.” I'd love to say we did some good heat training, but given the cold spring we had with the term 'Mayvember' thrown around - let's just say we weren't all that prepared.

The morning of the race went a little like this:
1) Wake up - can you call it waking up if you never really sleep?
2) Eat breakfast - Too nervous. Can't eat. How do you run 100 miles without eating breakfast? Choke down some food. Good enough.
3) Use the washroom - 4 times, 5 times, when will I see another toilet?
4) Start race - Clouds in the sky make for a nice cool(ish) morning. This might not be so bad.

Leg 1 was great.
We ran on some roads and trails out of town and headed up into the hills while the weather was still reasonably cool. 100 miles ain't got nothing on me.
Leg 2 was hot, steep and dusty.
Suns out, clouds are gone, things are heating up. We start by winding up through the mountains. Then it's time for our first big ascent. It is steep! Fortunately for us, the descent is just as steep. Except it wasn't all that fortunate, because they were too steep to run down! It was more just sliding down and debating if rolling would be easier. Easier? Yes. Less painful? No. They were also dusty. Very very dusty. If you're behind anyone they kick up dust and you eat it. Guess I didn't need breakfast after all. I made a poor choice at the last minor aid and didn't fill my water bladder. So when I rolled into the aid station 20 miles in I was covered in dirt and had been without water for 2-3 miles. I burst into tears as soon as I got there. I wouldn't exactly call this fun (insert typical - 'how in the hell did you think a 100 miler would be fun' comment here).
With a little food, a lot of ice, and a face wash - we head out onto leg 3.
Leg 3 was the sackiest satan that ever sucked my soul.
I'm not trying to be dramatic. But this leg was awful. It was just endless rolling ATV trails with very little cover. We had to stop at every stream and soak our hats and dunk ourselves to stay cool. We couldn't eat solid food because all of our energy went to cooling down. I was roasting. I had no energy. I couldn't escape the sun. The trails weren't even that pretty (maybe I'm a snob from BC, but I love my single track and alpine meadows). I had zero motivation to go on. The miles were SLOW. I remember at one point hitting a sign that said 9k to the next aid. It was the longest 9k of my life. It felt like a death march. That was even before we hit the burnt out forest. We pushed on at the SLOWEST PACE EVER (see, no drama here), with little desire to continue forward. We passed people wretching on the side of the trail. We didn't talk to a single solo runner out there that didn't feel like shit.
Seriously, picture those movies where people are crawling through the desert, dying for water and seeing mirages. That's basically how I felt (except I had food, and water, and wasn't seeing things).
Alright. So I'm done. But I'm not giving up that easily. I'm at least going to make it back to the major aid station where Chris' parents are waiting.  But it's so hot, every kilometer feels ENDLESS, even on the downhills. We're living on electrolyte drink. Apparently everyone is. We run into the race director (not literally, and by this point I'm not sure you can call it running) at one of the minor aids who appears to be concerned and is telling the volunteers to ration electrolyte.
WE SURVIVED LEG 3! With enough time to keep going onto Leg 4!
Leg 4 consisted of us sitting at the aid station with Chris' parents, happily eating pizza with no intention to continue. It was an extremely easy decision to make at the time. We were both hot, hungry, and miserable.

It was less of an easy decision the following days when we looked back and wondered whether we could have continued. Though rumor has it that the course doesn't get any better, so we did ourselves a favour by not going on. Maybe a course better left to relay runners.

Big shout out to our crew who drove all the way out to Alberta to wait (at the same aid station allll day) for us to run 40 miles. Who slathered us in sunscreen, and dealt with my sobs a mere 20 miles into the race. Brad and Sue you guys rock! Whoever said in-laws are awful?! In case you're curious I just googled it. It turns out there are lots of people that say it. Clearly they don't have in-laws as cool as mine.

With that wonderful experience behind us the pressure is on for Fat Dog! Better start training.....

A Runners Tale - When Life Gets in the Way and Doesn't Even Give You Lemons

The last few years have been a rollercoaster of classic 'life got in the way' moments, which I'm sure you've gathered from the fact that our posts ceased to exist after February 2015. This year I've got 100 mile dreams, and I want to be able to share the experience with you! But before I go big, I need to step back and walk you through a thing or two:
1) My introduction to trail running and my glorious 'rise' to a solid middle of the pack runner.
2) The reason(s) why we disappeared in 2015, complete with legitimate excuses for not running a 100 miler sooner.
3) Highlights of some of our recent adventures.
Bonus Track: The injury that has plagued me for years, that I liked to pretend didn't exist.

In 2011, I ran my first ever trail race. It was only 12k. What did I learn? You can fit a surprising number of evil hills in such a short distance! I remember flying down each hill feeling super human, and walking up every hill sadly out of breath wondering "Why on earth am I doing this". I would proceed to cross the finish line, forget the pain, and eagerly sign up for the next race vowing to train more.

For the next few years the pattern was very similar.
1) Sign up for race, planning to train ridiculous amounts
[Optional: 2a) Start out strong, train really hard for two weeks, get injured. Stop running.]
2) Realize the race is in a couple weeks and you really haven't trained. Start taper.
3) Run race, feel pain, vow never to do it again
4) Cross the finish line, feeling elated! That was AWESOME! Forget pain.
5) Eagerly sign up for longer race, vowing to train more...
6) Repeat steps 1-5
That, ladies and gentleman, is how to be a solid middle of the pack runner.

The calm before the pain! MOMAR 2016

By August of 2014, I middle of the packed myself all the way through the Fatdog 70 miler. After completing it, in true middle of the packer fashion, I signed up for the Sinister 7 100 miler in July 2015. In March of 2015 my job took me up north to Yellowknife and beyond, where I worked 12 hour days on a 2 and 2 rotation. It took a bit of getting used to, and my days were typically eat, sleep, work, repeat [insert wicked techno beat here]. My two weeks off went by so fast I rarely got any good training in. By June I knew there was no way a hundred miler was an option. With high hopes of more time to train, I deferred my entry to 2016.

The Bucket of Blood post MOMAR

2016 didn't exactly go as planned either (for me, or a number of celebrities). We decided to try our hand at adventure racing, and got all geared up to mountain bike. Which by the way is TERRIFYING. I mean, I love adventure. However, learning to mountain bike at 26 years old on the North Shore mountains isn't exactly the easiest task in the world. Then I went up north for work again, which means training (as per usual) was nearly non-existant. By the time we got to the race, I had been on the mountains maybe three times (One of which we had a chance encounter with a cute little bear). Three times DOES NOT prepare you for trails named "Bucket of Blood". It does, however, prepare you to become a bucket of blood. Luckily we went with a team of four with various strengths and weaknesses. This meant I could successfully run the downhills with my bike without getting behind... which for the record I DO NOT recommend. I had bruises on my legs for DAYS. Not to mention the bushwacking (orienteering) through thorns to finish the race that added some nice fresh blood to the disaster in the making.

Not all things were bad, I married the amazing man that got me into this crazy trail running madness (On the same weekend as Sinister, so deferred that again to 2017). We went on a glorious honeymoon to Iceland, and would 100% move there if the weather in July stayed all year round...

The real fun, however, came near the end of 2016. I signed up for the BMO half-marathon so that I could run with my brother (Okay, fine I signed up for the full marathon and dropped to the half because I failed to train, yet again). We then took on the Cultus Lake 30k, which I've signed up for for the past two years but conveniently been away for work so never actually had to run it. This race is great. I forgot about all of the crazy hills, and as always was ill-prepared. Halfway through I got a bug in my eye that the lovely aid-station people managed to get out! Thank you! Then my calves cramped like never before and I could barely jump over puddles, or logs, or anything. I contemplated rolling down the hill to the finish. I crossed the finish line second in my category, but there was only a handful of people in my category to start! The Phantom 24k in November went as well as can be expected on very little training. I nearly didn't run the race, and wasn't sure I could even going up to the start line. I figured worse case scenario I drop at half, which is conveniently the start/finish.

This next part of my story is hard for me to write about, which is why I haven't. Here's the part where if you don't want to get to know me too well, you should pick up a novel, or turn on the tv, or go for a run (I love running)! But for someone, somewhere this may be relevant.

So, taking a step back in time to the winter of 2014... I went into emergency at VGH because 'things' were bleeding and I was in a whole lot of pain (excruciating, can't sleep, or move, WHAT HAVE I DONEE?! kind of pain). I know "things" doesn't really help much, and I bet you're sitting there wondering how many places I could have been bleeding from that would take me to emergency. I'll leave you in suspense until we get to the diagnosis in 2016. After all, if I had to wait nearly 2 years, you can wait a few minutes. For now, lets just say this pain led to a team of gynaecologists staring at me, sending Chris out of the room, and repeatedly asking if I was sexually abused.
Dr: Have you been sexually abused?
Me: No, I just run really far and play a lot of sports.
Dr: Are you sure you haven't been abused, this is very typical of sexual abuse victims.
Me: No, I just run really far. Like farther than marathons far. Often.
I basically spent my entire day explaining this to multiple Doctors. At the end of the day I was told to rest and bathe in Epsom salts and to take it easy. I left frustrated that there was no solution or diagnosis, especially considering I had been feeling pain/discomfort off and on before this. The follow up appointment was made slightly more bearable as the Doctor was genuinely excited to meet someone so stupidly active.
Luckily I survived through the rest of 2014 and 2015 running like a wild person without too many hiccups! The only race I had to cut short was my first ever attempt at the Vancouver 100 where I felt great at the 50k mark, but certain 'things' weren't so pleased with the distance.

In the spring of 2016 I was still feeling pain on and off, and by this point the pain had been affecting my running and biking and life more and more. I decided to see what a different doctor at a walk-in clinic thought. She recognized it right away and recommended me to a urologist (yay?) who only had a six month wait (double yay?). When I finally saw the urologist he said I had a urethral carunkle... WTF is a urethral carunkle? (Do NOT google this. You do not want to know.) It's basically a common ailment in older people where your urethral lining is hanging outside where it really shouldn't be. Just so happens that in 2014 it was so inflamed/bruised/bloody that nobody knew what they were looking at (triple yay!). Turns out every time I ran or biked really far in the previous 3 years it would get inflamed and hurt or bleed. So now it's 2016 and we finally know what it is. Phew. Now to fix it. Step one was a rather awkward and uncomfortable cream that did nothing. Step 2 was surgery... AHHH!

Three weeks ago, on December 14, I had surgery to get it removed! I don't wish this on anyone. For the first week after the surgery I couldn't do much other than sit on the couch (in pain). By the second week I could walk, but I am still far from running. My hope is to be able to start training again at the end of January. The best part of the surgery was when they injected the general anesthetic. You can feel burning/tingling/crawling up your arm, and then you breathe it out like fire and fall into a deep sleep. I'm not sure what my super power is yet, but when I figure it out I'll be sure to let you know!

So 2017 brings with it the hope of finally running pain free! A chance to train (or not train) and run some fantastic races that I've put off for a couple of years!

It's time for running to get in the way of life, forget the lemons.

Happy Trails!
J.B.Resting