That’s a Horrible Idea … What Time?

I was mentally drafting a blog post last week about how training these days can still have purpose. I was going to discuss how you can use this time as an opportunity (I worked on increasing my run cadence and actually running in my endurance heart rate zone, which was absolute torture until suddenly it wasn’t) and how a shift in training hours with pools and gyms closed can lead to silver linings (hello surprise 6% bump in FTP!). But then on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday I started seeing posts in the Ironman Texas 2020 Facebook group about how right now we were supposed to be packing our bags and getting on a plane… but we weren’t.

I was supposed to have been doing something epic on Saturday, April 25th, and now I wasn’t. Except that there was a different epic thing that was happening on the 25th, and there was still time to get in on it. Julie, a friend and fellow D3 Multisport coach, had reached out a few weeks ago about a 5/4/24 challenge - run 5 miles every 4 hours for 24 hours, for a total of 30 miles - and I’d responded with a resounding “hell no.” I don’t like running that much, and I do like sleeping, and so really this was not my jam. And while my response made perfect sense a few weeks ago, now it felt different.

For starters, because I’d been working on my run stuff, I’d been doing a lot of frequent, shorter runs for the past four or five weeks. So a bunch of runs no longer seemed like such a big deal. And really, the challenge was just waking up early for one run and then not going to sleep until a lot later that night. It wasn’t actually pulling an all-nighter or anything like that. Five miles though still seemed like just a bit longer than I wanted to run six times in 24 hours. Specifically a mile longer than I wanted to run, or than I thought my legs could handle. But Julie said it was 5/4/24 or nothing, and I really, really wanted to do SOMETHING epic and I really, really needed the camaraderie and the suffering in harmony with my fellow athletes and the knowledge that we all went to a batshit crazy place and made it out the other side. So, never mind that I didn’t have the run mileage and wasn’t rested or tapered or anywhere close to being prepared for this - fuck it, I was in.

Then momentum started to build. I was collaborating with Julie and Laura, a third D3 Multisport coach also participating in the challenge, on how to create a community for the event. A community of people suffering by choice and supporting each other while doing it? YES! This is what I love about our sport. So of course I recruited a few people to join the group that was already 50-strong. These athletes jumped into the challenge with 24-48 hours notice, and without hesitation. It was pretty fucking awesome. And it meant that not only was I doing something epic, I got to guide and motivate my athletes through their epic day. I got to coach athletes doing epic shit! I hadn’t realized how much I’d been missing that aspect of coaching until I started texting recommendations for fueling and pacing and such. This batshit crazy challenge just kept getting better.

I went to sleep the night before the challenge with some pre-race nerves - and it was great. Usually I hate that pre-race anxiety, but this time it was so exciting to actually have an event to have nerves about that I didn’t care. (Granted, there was a lot less on the line, but still.) I didn’t even mind setting an alarm for 4:30am, and I super hate setting alarms for anything before sunrise. I fell asleep ok, but woke up at maybe 2:30 and had a hard time getting back to sleep - which was kinda awesome! Man, if only I could be this happy before every event.

The morning went really smoothly. I had plotted out my outfits the night before, and so I got dressed, made sure my athletes were up and ready to go (everyone was doing their runs at the same time, regardless of time zone), and hopped on our team pre-run Zoom session. My husband joined me for the first run, the 5am, and it was great to have company plus I knew that running in the dark makes the miles go by quicker. My legs felt fantastic - I guess a two-day taper was plenty? - and five miles didn’t seem nearly as long as I thought it would. But that was just the first one, and I was ready for it to change.

I finished the run, posted it to Strava, touched base with my athletes, put together a quick Instagram post, checked out the activity in our event Facebook group, ate something, and then hit the couch for some chill time and specifically some time in my recovery boots. Thirty minutes before the next run, I checked in with my athletes again and got suited up for another go at it. This ended up being my routine in between each of the runs, and having that routine was a pretty good way to blow through the three-ish hours of dead time. I added in showers after runs two and four, which were massively appreciated by everyone living in my house.

My 16 year-old daughter joined me for run #2, the 9am, and so fun that she was almost as excited about the challenge as I was. This was her longest run in a while, but she’s been running consistently and while it was a stretch for her it was totally doable. My legs weren’t quite as fresh for the first minute or two but they warmed up quickly and the miles ticked by just as quickly as they had at 5am. I finished feeling great, but also thinking that I’d already hit what my legs were capable of doing comfortably, and it was just a matter of time before “shut up legs” was going to have to become my mantra.

I was a little trepidatious heading on out on run #3, the 1pm, and since it was a solo run I brought some music. I hadn’t run with music in months, and my legs still felt pretty good, plus the miles still were going by quickly, which all translated to my fastest 5-miler of the day. Go figure! And how was it that five miles really didn’t feel that long? Is it really all just mental?!?

Pre-run #4, the 5pm, was all excitement. Julie had magically - I have no idea how - procured a special guest for a pre-run team Zoom session, and all we’d told the athletes was that they would not want to miss it. I had so much fun seeing the looks on their faces when they entered the Zoom session and saw Mike Reilly talking to us. Hearing his stories and absorbing his inspiring words was just incredible, and the entire team was re-energized. How do you not have a great run after that? Plus my 17 year-old son ran with me. I don’t know if you have experience with teenage boys, but when they voluntarily participate in something that does not include other teenage boys, it’s kind of a thing. So, yeah, run #4 was awesome.

It got tougher from there. The sun went down, which meant I’d rather be asleep in my bed than sitting in limbo on my couch, waiting for the T-minus-30-minutes alarm to go off. And I was absolutely convinced that my legs were going to fall apart, since at this point I was 10 miles beyond my recent weekly run volume. The two things that kept me going were (a) #NFQ* and (b) the fun I was having leading my athletes through the event, and even more so, watching them come together as a team and support each other. So at 8:30 I downed half of a Starbucks’ Nitro Cold Brew (thank goodness for caffeine!) and at 9pm I headed out with two local friends for our socially-distanced run #5, the 9pm.

I couldn’t believe that my legs held up so well for miles 21-25. I mean, I wasn’t fast, but I was moving fine and my legs didn’t feel sluggish or cranky at all. But by the time I finished my run, went through my now familiar post-run routine, and settled on the couch, it was only 10:30. Two and a half hours before my next run, which might as well have been forever. I was surprised given the cold brew that I felt tired at 11, but I went ahead and closed my eyes, making sure my phone was right next to me for the final pre-run alarm.

I woke up at 12:15am in a fog. For fuck’s sake, did I really have to run again?!? I could barely open my eyes. This had been a horrible fucking idea, which I’d known all along but had apparently decided to forget until it became really, tragically horrible. I realized I should probably drink the other half of my cold brew to wake up, but I didn’t actually want to wake up and run so I procrastinated until 12:30. Then I figured I should text my athletes to make sure they were up. It’s possible that I briefly considered bailing if no one responded. But I’ll be damned if they all weren’t fucking awake - even the east coasters, who were two hours further into the dead of night and therefore had every right to be even crankier than I was - which meant I definitely had to run.

Half a cold brew later and I was magically awake and dressed and ready. My local friends arrived and we headed out for the final run, the 1-fucking-am. I knew at this point that it didn’t even matter how my legs felt, I was giving it all I had because these were the final five miles and I wanted them fucking over with so I could finally crawl into bed. So when we started a little fast, I didn’t really care. I held on, picked up a bit with two miles to go, and then put down the hammer for the final mile. Which granted didn’t really look much like putting down the hammer given that it was mile 30, but I did lay down my fastest mile of the entire challenge, so that’s something.

Even more exciting, every last one of my athletes finished their 30 miles too! It was 2am and I was simultaneously exhausted and pumped up on caffeine and adrenaline, virtually celebrating the finish line with my athletes and socially-distanced high-fiving my local friends. It may not have been quite the same as an Ironman, but between the camaraderie and the suffering in harmony and shepherding my athletes through their day, it was still pretty fucking awesome.

I can’t wait till we can race again, but until then, I’m in for the next batshit crazy challenge and I hope even more of my athletes are, too.

*No Fucking Quitting (Did you really have to ask?)