On Saturday, January 18, I completed the H3: Frozen Ultra Marathon. H3 is also known as Hell Hole, a swamp in the Francis Marion National Park, and let me tell you, it was a dang swap. But it was a fun swamp.
The Scoop
This was my first ultra marathon, now having completed four regular fulls and who knows how many halfs, so I drastically changed my race strategy. Typically I try not to walk at all, but the conditions and distance required it, but more on that later. In total this was a 16 loop course in the middle of the forest, with zero phone service/reception, with a mix of gravel roads, swap and flooded trail, heavily rooted and rocked paths, and your typical tree roughage covered paths.
I finished in 6:03:19 (unofficial goal was under 6 hours, but I paused too long at the midway point). The pace was about 11:25 (probably a bit wrong due to Garmin messing up), and I finished in second place! The guy in first smoked me by about 10+ minutes. Garmin data here though. There were also people doing single loop races, 50 milers, and 100 milers.
Race Prep
For H3 my only goal was to complete the race. To be totally honest I registered for this very hesitantly, but after Phil locked his in, I said what the hell. Well, his race looked like pure madness, and this was two weeks before my own, so needless to say I was mentally screaming for some time. I knew I still needed to get it done as this would mentally prepare me for Ironman Chattanooga later this year, but dread was in place. For the past two months, I have been following this 50k plan.
I was already ahead of the plan thanks to the Vegas marathon, so doing back to back long runs shouldn’t be terrible, right? Yeah, about a month in and I was severely questioning the approach, so I dug through my running bible (Run Less, Run Faster). Unfortunately, it confirmed I am in fact an idiot, signed up for an ultra, and should be doing back to back long runs. From there on, I tweaked my strategy to include running off the pavement as much as possible, changing my course often (not just the greenway), to slooooow down, and incorporate different nutrition. It resulted in the following race day strategy:
Stay above 9:20 pace (easy is 8:45), walk between .5 and .20 every five miles, keep fluid intake steady, walk when you need to but keep the scheduled walks in, and enjoy the pain. I brought two Uncrustables, seven Gu (rocktane and regular), base salt, hydration pack, and some fruit gummies. Legit athletes scoff at the processed food, but my insides don’t work so it is what it is. I didn’t need all of the above, but had it just in case.
Like any strategy, most of this changed as soon as I hit the course.
My evening pre-race ritual now goes as follows: eat a tuna sandwich (Subway if away from home), carb load on french fries, be away from electronic screens for two hours before sleep, and read until I start to nod off. Half is superstition, but most is because my stomach hates me and I know it can handle that weird diet.
Race Day
I rolled out of the house before 5 am after feeding the chicks and dogs, made it to the race area around 6:15 am, checked in, and defrosted in the car while reading (Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, pretty good so far). Around 12 minutes before the start of the race I rolled out to hear the pre-race briefing, where I honestly couldn’t tell if the race director, Chad, was joking or not. I was still half awake, but he mentioned something about knee-deep water and mud in some areas. Surely you can avoid that on trials, in a forest, right? Maybe just go around? Guess I’d find out sooner or later.
Gear for the race: two pairs of shoes, two pairs of wool socks, one regular pair of backup socks (didn’t use), seven Gu (used four or five), two uncrustables (ate one), hydration pack, base salt, KT tape (right hip), headlamp, gloves, hat, vest, compression leggings, fruit gummies, two pair of earbuds, and my phone.
Out the gate some of the 16 milers jetted ahead, but most of us stayed pretty close by as it was dark, the path relatively narrow, and only a few of us had head lamps. At mile one it was time to spread the herd, so I passed a few folks, and paced back and forth with a girl. We were both at a good distance behind these two guys holding a solid pace, so I used them as pacers for a bit. Somewhere around mile three the girl had a burst of energy, but at mile four must have dropped back because I passed her while on the heels of the leading guys. And then I biffed it.
I had just passed a road, was soaking in my surroundings, and a root took me out. I went hands first right into a mud pit, but fortunately, only my leg got swamped. Mind you, the sun was decently up at this point, I didn’t even have music on yet, and it only took a split second. Clearly this was the trial’s warning to only take in the area in small doses as this was going to be unforgiving. I dusted myself off and kept pace until mile five when it was time to walk about .5). The pack leaders officially left me in the dust, and the people behind me were becoming sparse. Somewhere around maybe mile six was the first aid station. The guys there were super nice, I hopefully thanked them, and was on my way.
Things were more or less uneventful after the first aid station until about mile 10 when I got to the next aid station, which I got a bit more water and went on my way.
At this point, I was feeling great, not even the least bit tired, and mentally was doing awesome. For most runs over five miles I have some form of music with me to squash out any of that mental doubt, but thanks to the lack of service and only having had time to download around five songs, I was on my own. Needless to say I was pretty stoked with the current status, and that’s right when the trail started to get very wet, very muddy, and only getting worse. It was around mile 11 that the water and mud became impossible to avoid, and I had to change the strategy. Somewhere around here, I caught up with two 16 milers, one who was trying to navigate around the mud mess with me, the other who said fuck it and strolled on through.
Between mud pits, I kept pace, or at least what Garmin would give me since it was having some crazy issues between miles 5-12, and used the speed to push the mud and water out of my shoes. Then it was more stop, wade through water and mud, and pick the speed back up. On, off, on, off… repeat.
To make the situation more fun, right when you thought maybe you’d pass the mud pits, another one would hit, and they just kept getting bigger. Unfortunately on most of these the brush, thorns, and other forest objects made it impossible to go around or even skirt on the sides. It was like being funneled right into the mess, so at that point you just suck it up, go right through holding steady, and hope you don’t lose a shoe. Several miles into this and your esteem will definitely take a bit of a hit, your feet will start to ache from the cold mud, an
My watch said I was around mile 14.5 when things finally started to clear up and just became woods again. I could hear the rifle range in the distance, and gunshots getting louder, which meant I was finally near the mid-way point. Finally, you hit the clearing and see the road we all came in on to park our cars. There are some were a few curves and turns, and I was out to where I started. I quickly ran to my car, pulled off my nasty shoes and socks, and slipped on some fresh socks and shoes. Fortunately, triathlon training has given me at least some experience with changing clothes in transition, but it still felt too long.
Then, we start the process all over again. At this point, I had not seen any other people racing, so I was getting a bit paranoid that I went the wrong way and got lost. This was coming back down the first two or three miles of the race, which looks different by sunlight versus a headlamp, and I had zero service on my phone, so there the only option was just to hope for the best. Around mile 19 I finally gave in and put my earbuds in. I only had five songs to work with, so hopefully, they were long enough to keep my mind at ease until I hit the first aid station again.
The songs: Elevate (DJ Khalil), What’s Up Danger (Blackway), Start a Riot (Duckwrth), Dreams and Nightmares (Meek Mill), and Downtown (Macklemore). And yes, three of those songs come from Into the Spiderverse. Every long race like this I have one song that tends to trigger some sort of running high. In Vegas it was Kesha (she did the concert), and here it was the chorus for Downtown. No idea why, but that’s what does it for me.
Arriving at aid station one, the guys are just as nice as the first time. Except… one of them told me I was in second place. Certainly, that can’t be a thing, I have never hit the pedestal of any race I’ve been in. The closest I have been was during some 5K, otherwise, I’m a midpacker through and through. So now I’ve got some pressure on me, having no idea when I would see someone creep around a bend behind me and zoom on past. Hell, even third place would be cool, but I didn’t know if two and three were grouped together.
This was around mile 20, and I was definitely feeling the impacts of the miles. I hit the porta-john, and either the humidity was visible in there, or… I was seeing things. Let’s go with humidity. Oh, and at this point all my warm 40-degree weather gear was becoming a sauna in the 60+ degree and rising temps. I felt it was best to change my strategy once again. During a half, my heart rate is easy to ignore with music. For this, I didn’t want to risk anything, and the heat kept causing me to spike, so if it bounced over 160, I throttled back or walked until it dipped back under 140. The heat and pressure of taking home second were definitely getting to me mentally, and heat is my biggest adversary. Somewhere closer to mile I have no idea what, I came across three people walking, and we had a nice/brief exchange. In fact, this has been the nicest group I have run with in a long time.
Anyways, I kept with this approach until aid station two, where I saw a guy with a handheld water bottle zooming up from behind me. Welp folks, this is it, he finally got me.
And then he yells out “I’m not racing.” My brain was already fried at this point, so it didn’t connect with me, and I just started to walk up to the aid station. He zooms up and says he is one of the people manning the aid station. There goes my momentary relief and ability to slack off…
By this point, my Garmin finally caught up I think because the pacing was showing me what I felt was more accurate. I had to keep slowing myself down, and eventually quit trying to use the earbuds since it was over pacing me. Fortunately for me, it was time for round two of the mud pits. I slogged my way through, my watch now said 30 miles, and I couldn’t remember how far out it was. It was at this point I was fully sure my watch was off earlier because I got to the midway point showing 15 miles, but that would mean I was done. I still had two miles to go, and mentally I was feeling rough because of it. Not only that, my legs were getting pissy, my ankle unhappy, and it felt like the roots in the ground were trying to take me out. But then I heard the rifle range. I pushed on, granted not as hard as I should have, and made it to the starting road again. I passed through the finish line, spaced out for a minute, chugged some ginger ale, and was ready to go and clean myself up. But then Chad pulled me over and said he was going to award me with second place. I was completely stoked and never happier to have finished such a crazy race. But in the end it was great, even if I wasn’t totally expecting this to be a mud run. Oh, and then I left my car key in the portajohn and thought it fell in, so that was pretty fun.
A day later my legs are definitely still stiff, but my body doesn’t feel nearly as stressed as the road races where I was pushing for time or at IM Augusta. So would I do an ultra again? Yeah, just… not for a while.