Swedish Fish, Rice, and 50km
Or, how I respected my race plan and won my age group
As a writer, I know that happy stories aren’t really stories. They don’t go anywhere, since there is no problem or absence or lack whose solution propels the tale forward. So, in a way, I can have nothing to say about my experience of running the 50km event of the Vermont 50 a week ago Sunday. Everything went according to plan. In fact, everything went better than plan. But the Vermont 50 isn’t its own story. It’s the conclusion to a longer story that began with the Zagori Mountain Running 44km, and had its midpoint with the TAM Trek 18-mile trail run in Middlebury, Vermont. In each of those previous events, I had some difficulties and learned some lessons. Lesson #1: eat more. Lesson #2: drink more. By the time the Vermont 50 came around I was ready to have my best possible 50 kilometer race.
The Vermont 50 is actually three races at once. A 50-mile mountain bike race, a 50-mile trail-running race on the same course, and a 50 kilometer race that skips one section of the longer route. The route goes along dirt roads, on wooded single-track, and across meadows. It goes up alongside the old Mount Ascutney ski area (now Ascutney Outdoors) and comes down across the lower ski trails to the finish line. The course is kept secret until race day, since so much of it runs through private land that’s made available for the event alone. There is, in other words, mystique, challenge, and beauty enough to go around.
I signed up for the 50km race, which would add a little over four miles to my longest distance ever, pushing me from the 27 miles I ran in Greece up to 31.3. It turns out that running a race of this length on the trail (where the pace is slow enough to make exposure to the elements a factor) is an exercise in thermodynamics. How much fuel do you need to go how far in how much time? And how much of that fuel do you need to carry all at once, given that a heavy pack will add to fatigue? Add to these numerical issues the more whimsical element of what you like to eat and drink, and how your stomach reacts to it. All these things—calories, minutes, kilometers, taste—must be accounted for if you want a successful race.
The week before the race, I cooked rice. Lots of rice. I bought a box of Swedish Fish (for a total of thirty servings). I rolled up little balls of rice with coconut I chopped into tiny particles for blending. I nearly scalded myself hand-mashing rice before it cooled. I made calculations: This many calories and this many grams of carbohydrates. Per half hour. This much liquid. Every mile. I packed ziploc bags and labeled them according to each of the two aid stations where my husband could hand them to me. Following my coach’s advice, I made a little card I faux-laminated with packing tape to show a rough elevation profile and mileage markers. This I attached to my race vest with a rubber band so I could pull it out without risk of dropping it.
Everybody does these things. There’s nothing unique in what I just described, I’m pretty sure. (OK, maybe not everyone plans to consume so many Swedish Fish.) But I’ve gone into the details here because they are an example of a seriousness of approach that I honestly don’t think I’d brought to a race in a very long time. When I was new to competing as a rower in my single shell, I was this careful. I was very aware of how much sleep I was getting, how much alcohol I was consuming (or, rather, abstaining from), how I ate on race day. As I raced more and more, I suppose I realized I could get away with a more relaxed approach and still do well. I stopped being the kind of nervous that reaches the very edge of unproductive. I relaxed.
Leading up to the Vermont 50, I was not relaxed. The day before the race, I was almost jittery. That morning, I was decidedly jittery. Sure, it was a chilly morning and I kept my down jacket on until the last possible moment before handing it to my husband. But let’s just say my full-body shivers were not entirely induced by the cold.
Once we got underway, I fell into the rhythm of the easy run (a very slow pace, on purpose, given I expected to be out there for almost eight hours or more). I kept my eye on my overall pace and saw I could afford to walk up the steepest hills, where running can be slower than walking. I drank when the watch beeped for each mile, and I ate when the watch beeped every half hour. Early on, I was late with the eating, and the next food alarm came up seemingly too soon and I considered skipping it. Then I remembered: You have a plan. Trust the plan.
And it worked. I went into this race with a respect almost bordering on fear—let’s call it a healthy fear. And I managed to actually achieve a sort of relaxation that allowed me to enjoy being out on the dirt roads and woodland trails for seven hours and twenty-five minutes, beating my best hoped-for time by twenty minutes. I finished first in my age group, coming in meaningfully ahead of the only other woman between the ages of 60 and 69. More satisfying to me, I finished just below the middle of the pack, overall, and just below the middle of the pack among women overall. I feel like I now know how to do this. And I now know how to go into other challenges like it. It’s not only about the fire in the belly and the fist-pump. It’s about planning and preparation. And respect for the challenge you’re about to undertake.
So, I guess this is a story after all, and a happy one at that. With this tale behind me, I’m now interested in seeing how much faster I can go next year. I want to flirt with the edge of my ability a bit more—even if it means the risk that the story comes out less than fully happy. Because this is what we do, isn’t it? We find a new limit and then we see if maybe we can edge past it, bit by bit.
Henriette, exactly put “ We find a new limit and then we see if maybe we can edge past it, bit by bit.” Thanks for the new mental post-it note.