Goose Bumps 6 Hour Race for Lupus Awareness - Race Report

This was a fun event / race, I hope it is an event that continues and grows. 

The event was held on the trails at Goose Island in Stoddard, WI (Just outside La Crosse).  A 2.8 mile loop with a nice mix of grass and dirt, wooded and nice views of water at many points.  The course was well marked with flags and ground paint.  It was flat and non-technical by trail running standard, but did have many very some small ups and downs and a few rocks and roots.  This would be a great event for serious trail runners and 1st timers looking to try a trail ultra.

Richard (RD) Over-did the in-race and post race food and beer (Not that I am complaining).  The start finish was at a park shelter that was easy to keep all your stuff safe and dry.  There were 2 park bathrooms at different points on the course just a few feet out of the way.

Another nice thing for this event was Richard had the support of a Gel sponsor Vi Endurance, whose owner(s) actually ran the race with us.  These are the gels I used in the race
http://www.viendurance.com/p/57/vanilla

They are made from organic ingredients - The vanilla has 2 types of pure vanilla (Which was the best tasting gel I ever had).  Complex ingredients that were easy to digest (Most gels have very simple sugars - overly sweet by gel #10) and gave a much smoother flow of energy. 

If you would like to try the gels - Here is a coupon code that will give you 10% off the purchase price and the Lupus foundation $10 per box :LupusAlliance1010  (I think he said this would be good through October 10th)

This was a family event for us and I am very proud of my family for participating and want to thank them for making it a fun race day.  DD#2 (7) completed 3 laps for 8.4 miles and DD#1 (11) and my DW did 4 laps for 11.2 miles.  With my family kicking in 11 laps = 30.8 miles, I only needed to do 12 laps = 33.6 to hit our family goal of 100k.

I ran the 1st 4 laps with the La Crosse gang (John, Angie and Jim) and it was nice to catch up with them.  At lap #4 I thought about what I wanted to hit for the race - 14 laps popped into my head.  I had the realization I was moving too slow to hit 14 laps.

My plan was to crank it up for 2 hours and then back down to just hit 14 laps. 

Hours 2-4 were like may "Middle" of races ~ I was running pretty hard, but doubted I could keep the pace up to the end.  It seems 5k - 24 hour race, the middle part of the race is often about overcoming doubt about keeping the pace up.

I hit 10 laps in 4:08 with many laps @ 22 minutes.  I did some quick in-race math, I could actually do 5 more laps if I ran 22 minutes per lap.  I decided to run 2 more faster laps to see if I could put myself in position.

Part of this mental wrestling was beacuse of the cause of the race = Lupus.  Lupus has knocked my friend Richard down many times in the last 2 years.  Richard will always get up one more time than being knocked down.  He loves trail running (Superior 100 mile finisher) and being active ~ But these activities have been very limited during this time.  My decision to push for 5  was in part to honor all the pain Richard has had to endure for much longer than 2 measly hours and part because he would love to be able to push his body and relish in the pain of racing.

With 67 minutes to go I had 3 laps to run - I knew I could.  In the end I ran the last 3 laps in 60 minutes, getting to 15 laps ~ 42 miles in 5 hours 53 minutes.

I was happily spent.

Post race was a burger and a beer with all my fellow racers and with a great RD and friend Richard, Renee his DW and my family.  What a nice way to spend a day!

Good running to all ~