A Hundred Miles and a Thousand Trials: Javelina Jundred Recap
The disappointment hitting me moments after my fourth place Javelina Jundred finish. Photocred: @bantavisuals
If you're reading and are of voting age, I hope you exercised your civic duty. Javelina Jundred has come and gone, and I've had time to reflect on the journey and the race itself. Overall, I'm disappointed. I ran countless simulations in my head, imagining the outcome. Crossing the finish line first was the most vivid. I truly believed I was going to do it.
The Grind
For those of you who don't know, I'm also a full-time teacher. I try to keep both careers separate from one another. I don’t talk about my running at work and vice versa. I work at a continuation school, teaching high school math to students who've dropped out of a traditional school or needed the right fit. When I approach a training block, I have to think critically about balancing full-time teaching and professional running. It's exhausting, to say the least. I'm currently in my fourth year of teaching in Denver at the same school, and I'm now in a place where much of my curriculum has been critiqued and revised on numerous occasions. As a result, I used my planning period to get in easy mileage. I'm lucky to have a planning period right after lunch, which gives me enough time to get in my car, drive a couple of blocks, change in my car, go for an hour run, change again, and return for the last class period. This has allowed me to double after work. It may not sound ideal as I'm taking advantage of my prep period to prioritize running. However, for me, it actually rejuvenates me to teach my last class better and prep for the following day after school, especially knowing that I don’t have one massive run to do after.
As a result, I was able to fit in 120-130 mile weeks, along with strength training, stretching, and, of course, getting as much sleep as I possibly could—usually 7-8 hours a night. In addition to this, I sacrificed all the cool things that single millennials tend to do: go to breweries, concerts, hang out with friends on weeknights, and um…climb stuff? For me, I had to turn into a monk, enduring groundhog day for eight or so weeks working to turn my vision into reality.
By race week, I was extremely confident. My biggest concern was whether my knees would hold up. I've dealt with some variation of patella tendonitis since the Jackpot 100 miler earlier this year and took time off this summer from racing to address the issue (still trained, though). I constantly refreshed the weather updates for Fountain Hills, and to my dismay, saw it trickle upwards north of 100 degrees, so I adjusted my game plan. I looked up Jon Rea's performance (shoutout to Jon, an amazing guy) from the year prior along with his splits to see how he ran the race and told myself that I would not go faster than his course record pace in warmer temps.
The day before the race, I was incredibly calm, seemingly prepared, and ready to run all five loops. I assembled the A-team of pacing: Brandon Johnson and Mason Frank, both incredibly talented runners who've qualified for the Olympic trials in the marathon. We held a team meeting where I went over the crewing logistics. My game plan involved wearing an ice pack, consuming gels and salt tabs, and how we'd handle bottle refueling. I had this idea where I'd do a shirt change for each loop at the headquarters, which made absolutely no sense given that I could have just sponged myself down with ice water, but other than that, a decent game plan.
Race day arrived: a hundred miles in the desert. I approached the starting line with confidence and a sense of calmness, understanding what I was getting into, but not afraid of the challenge. A minute before the race started, I crouched down and had a moment to myself. Then, bang. The gun went off and we trickled out of the headquarters onto the dusty singletrack to start our 100-mile journey. If you saw the live stream, you might have thought, "Wow, Raj is running this really conservatively," as I hovered somewhere between 8th and 10th place. I was not. My competitors went much faster than the 100-mile course record pace. Much of the first fifty miles were spent convincing myself that runners ahead of me would drop, and they did. Plenty of them. One by one, I picked them off in the grueling heat until I was in third place heading into the last loop. At this moment, like everyone else who had started that fateful final loop, I was fried. However, I was hopeful that I could pick off second place as he was only 40-60 seconds ahead at that time. I did my zombie shuffle, holding down 9-minute miles from miles 80-83. By this time, I began to count down the miles in my head: "19 miles to go. 18 miles to go, etc." Unfortunately, I took a fall right after the first aid station of the last loop. It seems that every time I run Javelina, be it 100k or 100 miles, I take one fall. This time, when I brushed myself off, I could feel the heaviness in my legs take over. I was now running a 10-minute mile pace. During this time, someone flew past me and I was now in fourth place. The remaining miles were a blur, but from what I recall, I remember trying to convince myself to run Tunnel Hill in order to redeem myself. Regardless, I mentally called it a day. Fourth place with a time of thirteen hours and sixteen minutes in the hottest recorded race conditions at Javelina. Disappointed, but not devastated. I had trained incredibly hard and attribute my performance to technical errors that I had made, and needed to make, in order to be better prepared for hotter ultra-trail marathons.
Here are some errors that I made:
Nutrition: My nutrition plan was theoretical. I have a strong gut and have never puked. I don't have any issues consuming gels. However, the thought of consuming 400-450+ calories was mind-blowing. I made it a thing to take in 30g carb gels every 25 minutes and consume 36 oz of fluids every hour along with salt tabs. I started cramping early—about 40 miles in—and anytime I cramped up, I'd take salt tabs. I estimate that I took 1500 mg of salt/hour. I perceive myself to be a heavy sweater, but don't know how much I need to take. I might've taken too much/too little and it's difficult to tell considering that overconsumption of sodium could potentially lead to dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance. I need to take a salt test so I better understand what my body needs for superhuman efforts.
Time at aid stations: I spent approximately 8-10 minutes cumulatively at the headquarters, getting my bottles refilled, taking in a waffle, downing a bottle of Liquid IV, and doing that unnecessary shirt change. I didn't realize that I can have my crew follow me for the inner loop. That adjustment would allow me to continue jogging/running while getting my gels, bottles, and ice bandana ready for the upcoming loop.
Gutsy and Smart: I couldn't find the fine line that separates "gutsy" and "smart." I ran the race smart, but it wasn't gutsy. However, the ones who held on for dear life—three to be exact—finished higher than me and had a much gutsier performance with the winner, David Roche, running both a smart and gutsy race. What I learned is that you need to run both smart and gutsy to win bigger ultramarathons. The challenge is finding that fine line and flirting with it for a hundred miles. You have to have strong intuition that isn't qualitative and unique to you if you want to squeeze every bit of yourself for all one hundred miles.
With that being said, I'm hopeful about my future in ultra-trail running. I needed this experience to learn and become a better athlete, a better competitor the next time around. I have every intention of running the Javelina Jundred next year and redeeming myself. There's nothing more that I love than having a shot at redemption. There tends to be a chip on my shoulder that evolves into a proverbial boulder that I have to carry, but don't mind doing.
@bantavisuals
