Javelina 100
Writing about this one didn't come as naturally as past races. In the days following the race, my mind was a bit scattered. I finished (spoiler alert) and was proud of the effort, but training for it was challenging and I thought this might be my last 100 mile race. My wife and I recently started a family and when you put the time commitment required there side by side with running, running definitely falls to a lower priority. That's exactly what happened during training -- for my first 100 miler, I averaged 61 miles/week in the month leading into the race. For Javelina, I only managed 42 mi/wk during that same period.
In the months since though, I've noticed a void where training used to be. It's driven me crazy - within a week, I've oscillated between being done with running and signing up for my next 100 miler. Last week I decided finishing this would probably help me figure out a way forward, so here we go. I wrote ~90% of this within the week of the race and the other 10% came 9 months later.
The Race
"Breathe in. Breathe out." I couldn't pinpoint to the source of the voice, but I heard it as clearly as if I was back in the yoga studio.
"And, change."
I lifted my head from between my knees, standing on my feet. As I rose out of a forward fold, drips of sweat rolled off my nose onto the towel beneath my feet. The fabric darkened where they landed and formed a Rorschach test just in front of my toes. I heard a voice, "Keep your knees below your hips. Keep breathing."
"Keep breathing," I muttered, the memory of a hot yoga class fading as the purple lights of the Jackass Junction aid station dwindled in the distance. Those lights reminded me of the LEDs spanning the ceiling of the YogaPod studio that I visited a few times in the week leading up to the Javelina 100 Mile race outside of Phoenix, AZ.
But there I was, over 50 miles and about 12 hours into a race through the Arizona desert. Did cramming 3 hours of hot yoga into the week before the race really improve my ability to run in the desert? Exhausted and drained after spending the day under the sun, I couldn't come up with an answer, but I didn't regret it. Few things are more humbling than a hot yoga class, and it's important to be grounded coming into something like this.
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| The party at the start line, minutes before the first wave of the race. |
This particular race consisted of 5 ~20 mile CW laps through the McDowell Mountain Regional Park just north of Fountain Hills, AZ. I added the race to my calendar shortly after my parents moved to the area in 2021. They're great to have support me on days like this and I had been looking to race an ultramarathon outside of Colorado for the first time. If you don't mind a looped course, I definitely recommend this race - it's more of a party than any race I've run before and the scenery is great.
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| A look at the course map, which I would spend just over a day circling 5 times. |
The first two laps passed relatively uneventfully - I felt as good as I could hope for after 40 miles of running and the views were spectacular. Saguaro and jumping cholla cacti dotted the horizon and lined the trail that took me around the park. The views distracted me a bit too much and near mile 18, I crashed hard. Fortunately there were no cactus in the area - falling on one of those would end my day for sure. I picked myself up and dusted off the dirt before continuing on back to the main aid station to see my family.
The course was far more runnable than the more mountainous races I typically signed up for, with more gradual hills and long sections of flat or slightly downhill trails. Even in the rising heat through the day, I managed a quicker pace than I had planned for from behind my computer a few weeks earlier. Things have never gone to plan though, so I wasn't too worried. My wife and parents were still able to see me at the main aid station, Javelina Jeadquarters, which was a party in its own right. I always felt more energetic leaving the aid station, especially for my third lap.
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| Arriving from the second lap, not quite questioning my life choices just yet. |
In those first 60 miles, I met and talked with more than a dozen runners. Some from Colorado, Oregon, Australia and Arizona, among others. One guy nicknamed Fight Club - I quickly forgot his real name but that nickname will stick with me for a long time.
I loved this aspect of the race - my first go at 100 miles the year prior was the Silverheels 100, which was a very lonely race. I spent the majority of the night shuffling alone and had a hard time mentally pulling through to finish. While Silverheels is a great race, I needed to try something different. Javelina delivered this and more - it felt like the trails were packed all day and only dwindled slightly at night, as some 100 mile runners finished and others dropped early. The nature of the course gave me a chance to (briefly) see the leader's on their way to some unfathomable finish times. I noticed that for some reason this race attracted a lot of runners with tattoos, more than I had seen at any other race for sure. It felt like every one out there had a tattoo. Or a bucket hat. But not both. I had neither, so I felt a little out of place. That's okay though, my daughter had me covered:
My mind wandered as I pulled around the corner to return to the headquarters and restock on food before setting out on my 4th lap of the day. On this loop, Dakota Jones who was leading the race would lap me for the last time before finishing in under 14 hours. I knew that I'd still have another 10 hours left when he crossed the finish line, so I didn't mind stepping off the trail to let him and his pacer whiz by. A few minutes later I heard a few owls hooing from atop a tree off the trail as the sun set and I settled in for cooler temps and darkness. My stomach had cooperated so far - food was going down easily still and I felt more limited by cardio/muscle strength than by nausea.
For the next few hours, I was kept alert by hundreds of critters scampering across the trail. I saw snakes and lizards, though they never hung around long enough for me to find out the species. There were more pocket mice than I could count, a tarantula (fortunately just one!) and a handful of jackrabbits. I didn't seen any javelinas while running, though a few did wander by my parent's house the night before we headed home.
Nearing mile 60, I faintly heard a heavy base from the DJ booth next to the finish line. Moments later I saw floodlights above the canopies of the main aid station. My mom and wife were shouting my name as I did the lap around the headquarters and they were definitely a sight for sore eyes after 14 hours on my feet. I stopped by the medical tent to get a blister re-taped that I had started to notice again in the final miles of the loop. Instead of taping it again, I popped it first and had the medical staff re-tape it more securely.
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| Waiting in the medical tent |
More blisters appeared in the final 40 miles of the race, but my mind had faded too much to address them. I guess they didn't hurt all that bad or I would have been forced to do something, though I am paying for them now as I write this. This was certainly a learning lesson, I've never had a problem with blisters before so I'll be making better plans to address them quickly in the future. I'm not sure if it was the dust or the water I doused myself with throughout the day, but I did a poor job of mitigating them after they popped up.
Coming into the aid station at mile 80 was one of the lower points of the race. I knew I could drop right there and be home within an hour, and let me tell you that sounded like the best thing in the world. My dad and wife did a great job of getting me warm food and trying to keep my spirits up though, and after 25 minutes I managed to get on my feet and shuffle out into the darkness once more. Much of the next 10 miles involved me humming songs, talking to myself, and doing anything I could to keep my mind off of how badly I wanted to quit and curl up on the desert floor.
At mile 90, my attitude remained sour but I felt there was still something in my legs. I was cranky and upset, wishing I was in bed instead of out in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. I found myself wallowing for a bit, but trying to steer my thoughts back to the fact that the faster I moved, the faster I would be able to stop, sleep, see my family, sleep and sleep. Once I finished the final climb coming out of the Jackass Junction aid station, I forced myself to lean forward and run as much as possible.
That carried me about 3 miles further, when I noticed a sharp pain in my right leg. I had to slow my pace pretty significantly as it flared only if I really extended that leg. Prior to it popping up, I thought I would zoom through the last aid station at mile 96. Instead, I shuffled in and stopped to get more food and water. Fortunately I didn't sit down - after what would happen at the finish line in less than an hour, I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to finish (commonly called DNF - did not finish) if I sat down.
My right leg continued feeling especially painful at the top of my calf/lower hamstring. I found myself walking out of the aid station despite feeling good mentally and having a nice packed gravel trail that was entirely runnable. I forced myself back into a shuffle, improving my pace slightly, and enjoyed another sunrise hitting the mountains around me. The trail winded around a bluff and as I rounded the last bend before the aid station, it finally came into sight for the last time. Euphoria washed over me. The race had someone stationed a few hundred yards out from the aid station and he must not have slept much, since I think I saw him every time I looped through there. I thanked him immensely as had a great sense of humor and was a sight for sore eyes each time. The cheers from my family and music coming from the timing tent carried me in for the final quarter mile lap to the finish line in 24 hours and 57 minutes.
After I finished, my wife, daughter and parents were there to congratulate me. I quickly collapsed into a foldable chair they set up just outside of the finish line corral. I was ready for a chair to say the least - I sat down so fast that I actually broke the chair. When I tried to stand up, I found my right calf had seized up and I couldn't walk, let alone stand. I had just run a hundred miles, but I couldn't take another step.
My parents carried me to a bench and put some ice on it. Not long after, extreme chills set in and I began shivering uncontrollably. This has happened to me before after a long day like this so my family was ready to help - they wrapped me in a blanket and my parents went to the medical tent to try to get help. The medical staff couldn't support me out there, so eventually my dad and someone from the medical staff carried me a couple hundred feet to the medic over.
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| Mummified; chills with a leg cramp, but at least there's an adorable baby around. |
In the tent it set in - if I sat down at that last aid station for a quick break, I'm sure my leg would have seized up and I would have had to pull out of the race at 96 miles. That would have been a hard pill to swallow and I'm really glad I didn't. That intense muscle/ligament pain persisted for 36 hours before I could walk at an even moderate pace.
I'm not sure where I can chalk that one up to - inadequate training? Poor form late in the day? Not eating/drinking enough water? Probably inadequate training but who knows what else, and there were certainly lessons learned today as chafing got the best of me. I hit the areas that gave me trouble at Silverheels, but because I doused myself with water all day, I chafed near my heart rate monitor and armpits. Those don't hurt all that much now a day our from the race, but still something I want to avoid in the future.
It's funny though - I get in my own head when it's just me and a computer screen. I can rationalize a lot of wild things. In the past I've added extra summits onto hikes in the mountains, or grossly overestimated how fast I'd be in a training run. This time though, I convinced myself that I'd find time to train for a 100 miler basically starting the month after my daughter was born.
Needless to say, I arrived to the starting line a bit less prepared than ideal. I wouldn't have it any other way though. In February, it became clear to me that with family responsibilities, work and running vying for the majority of my time, running would be the one to give room.
At the end of the day, I adjusted my goal start time based on the reality of the training that I was able to fit in, and I actually did better than my plan of 26 hours. I think that's a good sign, and a better indication of where I'll be going from here. Fitting in running where I can in a life that is filled with some truly amazing things.
Epilogue
I'm not sure what's next. After completing races in the past, I've always had a sense of direction that would fill out my calendar for the next year with new goals. That drive is markedly absent right now. This could, and is very likely to be, the last time I race a 100 miler for a while. Momentum is a powerful force, so this could very well be my last race.
While running has become a core part of my identity, I'm not convinced that moving past it is a negative thing. Hobbies, friends, passions - they all come and go. I remember skating 6 hours a day consecutively while living in Boulder, but one day I tossed my skateboard in the trunk for the last time. I don't remember anything specific about that particular day, but it marked the end of a decade of continuous work and a core part of my identity.
I'm grateful to have run the Javelina 100 through the hills of Arizona - if it is my last ultramarathon, I'm not likely to forget the experience anytime soon.
Epi-epilogue
This is Brandon from 9 months later - I left that in, but it's all garbage. I'll be signing up for another one of these when the time is right.
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