Hinson Lake

I did not achieve my main goal at Hinson Lake, which is to run/walk/crawl for 24 hours.  I quit just shy of 21 hours.  My pain tolerance is apparently lower than most people out there who persisted to the very end.

However, there are quit a few things that went well, very well at Hinson for me.

I've half heartly followed the low heart rate training since 2010, but started really stick to it after the half marathon in Jacksonville in December of 2011.  According to SportTracks, the average heart rate of all of my runs was 145 for 2010, 139 for 2011, and 132 for 2012.  The benefit of this training did not show up at The Scream in July, but really shined at Hinson.  I run most of the first 65 miles/16 hours, and while running, the heart rate stayed in the 130 to 135 range.  As the distance piled up and the running slowed down, so did the heart rate.  Eventually it was rare to get above 130. This was HUGE.  In the past, my heart rate would spike at any thing past 20 miles.  I remember back at Umstead 100 in 2011, after 40 miles, even the smallest imperceivable hills caused me to walk slowly.  At Hinson this weekend, I was still happily running up (some called it shuffling, others called it not running) the small hills at mile 60.  So the Maffetone training has definitely paid off.

I have been playing with Hammer Perpetuem since March of this year.  It worked very well at Chattooga 50K for me.  At Hinson, Jade mixed 1.5 scoops in each 1L nalgene bottle, and I drank from it at end of each 1.52 mile lap and never carried anything during the lap.  I did not take any salt tablets or eat salt, except for whatever salt that was in the three slices of pizza that I consumed.  I was urinating every 1.5 hours to 2 hours, and did not see any signs of swollen fingers or feet.  Came home on Sunday and discovered I was at the same weight as pre-race.  So for running at this effort level, Perpetuem is a tremendous success.

Brian posted this quote on the Hinson group page last week, and I was repeating it to myself during the night when I was doing most of the laps on my own, occasionally passing or getting passed.  It kept me going for a long time.

"Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction", by William James.

Other things did not go well.

Blisters........blisters suck, need to learn to tape.

Chaffing.......need better lubs.

Motivation......I lost mine when I realized I couldn't hit 90 miles with about 2.5 hours to go.  Well, I could get 85, maybe 87 miles, but the drive simply disappeared.  I guess I was so super fixated at hitting 90 for the last 6 or 7 hours, that once it became impossible, I didn't have a second goal to help motivate me.  Sort forgot my main goal for the event.  Maybe I should write it down on my shoes so every time I look down it'll remind me.