This was my first ATY and I am glad I could fit this in 2019. This is one of the iconic timed events , it was on my horizon for past decade and finally 2019-2020 was the right time for that. Thanks to family's support as usual.
Event details:
https://www.aravaiparunning.com/across-the-years/
I had a goal of crossing 200 miles in 3 days, which seemed possible, I got in touch with Karen Bonnet who had done this several times infact she got a 1000 mile jacket this year for crossing 1000 miles over several events in the past decade. Karen offered me some great tips and it all gave me real good idea on what to expect.
my goal was to run
day 1: 85 miles
day 2: 65 miles
day 3: 50-55 miles
with 2-3 hr sleep each day. But things turned up way different than my plans.
Day 1:
Things always look good for day 1 , got in zone and started cranking steady miles, I was mostly running with Karen for 1st 50 miles she was in 48hr event and did 110 miles , including few biking miles as well. Incredible tenacity. I think ended up running 1st 50 miles more than I should have, I was little too anxious to get to 1st 100 and have some buffer for last 2 days to achieve 100 miles.
finished 1st 52 miles with Karen in 11 hrs, she had plans of running remaining 48 2nd day so went home 1st night
I took a small break to refresh and refuel, I wanted to keep going until 3 before taking a short nap. night miles were v slow started sleep walking quite a bit, had multiple mocca's 1st night I got to about 70ish and decided to sleep at 3:30 for 2.5hrs, got up at 6 and got few more miles to make it to 81 for day 1
Day 2:
many had told day 2 is kind of the tougher than day 3, which I soon realized, took a long time to get in zone, I was zombie even during day, took a short nap at 11, which helped, I focussed on getting to 100, finally made it to 100 in 31hrs, things were looking better for sometime until my right knee started acting up, luckily I had packed 2 knee braces and 1 ASO ankle brace, I havnt used for any of my races in past, ended up putting knee brace and it helped, but my walking was much zombier still, had too many AS break as well even day time felt zombie-ish, I was waiting to get done with Day 2 and move on to day 3. finally decided to call it a day at 11 and dozed off for 4 hrs, needed that sleep, I wasnt making much progress anyways. I got up at 3am, got ready and started looping again.
Day 3:
All this while main aid station was running very well with constant affair of real good food, breakfast burritos, pastas, pizzas baked stuff at various points, we were spoilt v well. This is a truly a great event, folks who love timed races no need to look any further. All the faculties of the races are v well organized. 5 star event management IMO
Started day early and got to 122 by 9am, making my day 2 miles to a measly 41 miles.
But day 3 felt great, I was running more, even walks were much smoother and felt lot better, I started chugging along well, still I had hopes of getting close 190-200, with few mini goals here and there, made good progress and got to 145 by 6pm. At this point I decided to take a short break to drain my legs . after a short break I realized my ankle was swollen and soleus area was badly blistered on right leg. I couldnt put my feet inside the shoes. headed to medical tent and got some bandages, ice for the ankle and knees. This break turned out to be a big one, overall it was 90 minutes downtime, precious day time lost, I went to my tent put on my ASO wraps for better ankle support, my left knee started hurting now, so put on knee braces as well. After few more v slow laps, with my knees and ankle pretty beaten up, I decided to take a break, ice up and get back. But I was hardly moving. I decided to take a nap till 11:30, one of the things I wanted to accomplish was to do a lap in 2019 and 2020, so at 11:30 started my 148th lap and made just in time for NY eve celebrations at the Race central!! It was quite a fun event to be celebrating in middle of a Ultra event.
at 12:02 we started a community lap, soon after that there was wedding of Tracy and Sally 2 ultrarunning veterans. After a short break tried to do few more laps.. but I could barely walk I had crossed 150 by then and didnt see 200 miles in the horizon, I decided better let my knees recover than slough through, I was about to end my race at 1 am, but decided not to incase my pain and swelling subsides.
After a regular nap on 3rd night :), got up at 7:30 had some food started looping few more laps to end the event at 9am. got about 31 miles for day 3
Things fell off the track pretty quickly after 6pm on day 3, what looked like a solid 15 hr of work ahead of me and possibly another 40-45 miles, it came crashing down soon.
Overall It was a good 1st try at this format, I loved the race, weather held up v well, it was chillier in the night but with sufficient layers it was great weather. Organization couldnt have been any better. Lot of Veterans out there still working on their 6Days and 10 Ddays event.
Great to run with Karen for most of day 1 and few laps on day 2. Her suggestions for the race were very valuable. She is shaping up very well for her Arizona Ultraman in March!!
I will surely get back for this one sometime in future.
