In early September, I travelled to Des Moines, Iowa, to crew and pace for my sister Stephanie as she embarked on her first 100 mile run. Me and all three of my siblings started running at various points in our lives, either purely for exercise or as an effective way to keep anxiety at bay. Sarah, Steph, and I all eventually started running long distances. This gave us occasional opportunities throughout the years to train and race together. Steph and I trained for our first marathon in 2002 while we were both living in Oregon. We run at a similar pace, which has helped facilitate many joint training runs, as well as quite a few races.
10 km race with all my siblings
Sarah took her running to a new level when she started doing Ironman triathlons. They are pretty inspiring races to be around, so I've traveled for three of the five she's done to be her cheerleader and to get some quality time with my niece, Madeline. Spectators are not allowed to provide aid or pace an Ironman triathlete, so being Sarah's cheering section was our lone role.
Steph has remained focused mostly on running but has increasingly been upping her distance from mere marathons (42 km) to 100 km races. Much to my delight, she has also embraced trail running, which is all my joints allow. We've started doing "destination" races every few years, such as in Death Valley and Joshua Tree. When she offhandedly asked last spring if anyone wanted to crew for her 100 mile race, I jumped at the opportunity. I have no intention of running that far, but helping someone else achieve that goal felt like a pretty worthy endeavor.
I arrived in Des Moines on a Friday afternoon, just in time to pack up Steph's drop bags and deliver them to the race staff. That evening, we talked through logistics of gear, food, and vehicles, and made a rough plan of when her spouse David and I would be jumping in to pace her. Early in our planning for the event, I told Steph that I would pace her for at least 20 of the 37 miles that she was allowed to have someone with her. That gave me a good training target and allowed her to enlist others to pace the rest of the distance. As my training progressed and race day approached, I knew I could cover more distance, if needed, so that became our plan.
Death Valley trail marathon - 2014
At 3:30 am the next morning, we woke up, made some caffeinated drinks, and packed our gear into the car. The start of the Booneville Backroads Ultra was about 30 minutes away and start time was 5 am. Arriving early to a race is always a good idea because you never know how long the line will be at the port-a-loo.
Just after 5 am, 37 intrepid runners, aged 26 to 62, left the starting line at Badger Creek State Recreation Area. The time limit for the course was 32 hours; Steph was hoping to finish in 26 hours (!). After a fitful night of sleep, thanks to Archie the cat, I decided to head back to Steph and David's house and try to get a couple hours of sleep before finding Steph along the course.
Last minute gear adjustments
They're off!
Crew were not allowed to drive the exact running route for safety reasons, but there were areas where the "running course" and the "driving course" overlapped. Fortunately for me, these locations were often at or near several of the covered bridges dotted throughout Madison County. We live next to the Felton Covered Bridge (I can see it from where I am writing this post), which is a pretty spectacular landmark. In fact, it is the tallest covered bridge in the country. Still, seeing a variety of covered bridges of pop culture fame seemed like a fun activity for the day even though the bar of comparison was pretty high. There are six intact bridges scattered around Madison County, the highest concentration in Iowa and the western Mississippi River Valley.
Felton Covered Bridge
The first bridge, Imes, was near mile 22 on the race route. I assumed I had missed my sister at this stop, so I took a quick look at the bridge and carried on to Holliwell Bridge at mile 36. It was a perfect day for exploring (and running) - a light breeze, temperatures in the low 70s, slightly overcast skies - so I found a nice rock to sit on and cheered runners on as they came through the bridge.
Imes Bridge - oldest of the bridges; built in 1870
Holliwell Bridge - the longest bridge at 122 feet
Inside of Holliwell Bridge - one of two without a fire suppression system
After waiting for what I thought would be the correct amount of time, my sister had not come through yet. I started getting worried that I had missed her, so I high-tailed it to mile 42 where there was a crewed aid station that would almost certainly be tracking runners as they came in. I knew I would be able to check-in there to see if she was ahead of me. I had the crew bag for mile 50, so I wanted to be sure I was not behind her. As it turns out, I almost certainly left Holliwell Bridge minutes before she came through the bridge. Bummer!
Leaving the aid station at mile 42
As the running course made its way through Winterset and then to the north, I went a bit further afield to see Cedar Bridge and Roseman Bridge. Cedar Bridge recently reopened after it was nearly completely destroyed by fire. It is also the only bridge still open to vehicle traffic. Roseman Bridge is one of the three bridges that is in its original location.
Cedar Bridge
Roseman Bridge
Back in Winterset, I visited the town park, where the Cutler-Donahue Bridge now sits. It is one of two bridges with a peaked roof and is the shortest in length of all the bridges. I also stopped at a gas station in Winterset to put coffee into my insulated mug. I hardly ever drink coffee, but I thought the caffeine might come in handy later in the night/early morning given my lack of sleep the night before and the little sleep I was expecting in my future.
Cutler-Donahue Bridge
I caught back up with my sister near the Hogback Bridge, the last of the covered bridges. The sun had decided to make an appearance, making things a bit warmer, but Steph was looking great and maintaining a good pace.
Hogback Bridge
The next aid station was at mile 50, the halfway mark, and our first planned rendezvous site. I arrived at the aid station about 40 minutes before my sister came through, so I cheered on the other runners while I waited. If you ever need a dose of inspiration, go volunteer at an aid station of an ultra and be amazed at the runners that are still upright, moving forward, and often times smiling. Steph came into the aid station at mile 50 right on schedule and ate some much needed calories while I refilled her water reservoir. Runners consume calories out on the route, as well, but the aid stations provide an opportunity for items that are too bulky to carry in your pack like bananas, pb&j sandwiches, and coke.
Leaving the halfway point
The plan was for me to advance to the 63 mile aid station (also the start/finish line) where I would join Steph on the route as her pacer. After looking at the route, though, I decided to meet her at mile 57 because I was concerned it would be getting dark before she got to mile 63 and I had both of her headlamps. She crested the hill at mile 57 just as the sun was setting, so I was happy I made the stop. There had been some gnarly hills between miles 50 and 57, so Steph's pace had slowed a bit, but she was still in good shape.
When I mentioned this trip to my co-workers, the first thing many of them said was, "Iowa. Must be flat." I knew better than to expect flat, but the hills of Iowa are no joke! They are not particularly tall or steep, but they are numerous and rolling, so the elevation gain was adding up. Steph wasn't too thrilled with hills by this point in the race, so my job was to "inspire" her to make it to the top of each one. The darkness certainly helped! The night turned quite chilly as fog rolled in, also making navigation a bit more challenging (the course was unmarked). My other job was to try to keep Steph moving forward at a pace that would get her back to the finish line in 26 hours or in 32 hours at the latest. This is the most difficult part of being a pacer, in my opinion. My legs were fresh at that point so setting a pace was no problem for me, but my sister had been running for 16 hours, was likely running a calorie deficit, and was certainly sleep deprived. If you push too hard, you can break a person physically and mentally, but you have to push somewhat because the mental demons telling you to quit are real, especially now that it was cold and dark. We pushed on through the darkness and were buoyed when we saw the lights of the church and aid station 73 appeared in the darkness.
I drove straight to the aid station at mile 84 so I could try to get a few hours of sleep before heading back onto the course. I was still quite awake when I arrived, but did manage to get some sleep before my alarm woke me at 4:00 am. Based on our pace the previous 10 miles, I expected Steph and David to be arriving near 5 am. I changed into my running clothes again and walked around a bit to loosen my muscles. It was still quite chilly outside, so I hunkered down in the car until I saw a pair of headlamps approaching the aid station. I was also drinking the coffee I had procured in Winterset to give myself a bit of a jumpstart.
When Steph and David arrived at the aid station, Steph did not look good. She was cold, under fueled because her GI track was in knots, sleep deprived, and probably dehydrated. She was coaxed into a chair by one of the aid station volunteers and quickly covered with a flannel blanket. She wasn't sure if she could keep going, so the volunteers and I were offering anything that might help her go back out: broth, cooked breakfast, coffee, warm coke, a nap. As she was falling asleep in the chair, she looked at me and said, "my mind is broken." At that point I stopped pushing. During a training run in July in MN, we had talked about this run and the mental stamina that would be needed to make it to the end. I asked her how she would know if she needed to stop before the finish line and she told me she would stop when her mind was broken. Steph doesn't remember that conversation well, but it was something that stuck with me. When she said those words at mile 84, I knew that was the end of the run.
We drove back to Des Moines and got her into bed. David fell asleep shorty thereafter in the recliner; he hadn't gotten any sleep during the night. Remember that coffee? Yep, sleeping was NOT in my future. My body was twitching because of the caffeine so I headed out for a run to get it out of my system. It took 15 miles for that to happen!
Steph was disappointed to be logging a DNF (did not finish) for the event, but I reminded her that she had just run 84 MILES (!), 21 miles farther than she had ever run and 80 miles farther than most anyone else on the planet wants to run. I was happy I could be around for a couple days after the run to help her process her experience and realize that she had accomplished something amazing, even if it was not what she had envisioned. As I get older, I realize more and more that we have to fail to learn and be better. This is not something our culture focuses on, particularly with social media feeds that are filled with "perfect" stories of success. We just have to be willing to learn from our failures rather than let them hinder our progress. I am so proud of my sister and have no doubt that I will be crewing/pacing her again sometime soon.
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