Let's get the nice-guy stuff out of the way first.
Thanks to Timo Yanacheck and the organizers of the Mad City 100K for again producing a first-class event. Notable improvements vis-a-vis last year included extra-bountiful goody bags (with three pairs of socks, plus a cheese-filled dartboard from the Wisconsin Cheeseman) and a detailed, reliable webcast.
Thanks to my Kenosha-based aunt and uncle for hosting me again this year. Thanks to my wife for letting me travel to this race. And congratulations to all finishers, but especially those who surpassed the U.S. World Cup 100K team selection standards: Michael Wardian (6:56), Steve Stowers (7:14), Adam Lint (7:19), and Carolyn Smith (8:25).
As for myself, I think I've just about hit rock-bottom in terms of racing success and confidence. Of my last four major races -- the Western States 100, the World Cup 100K, the JFK 50, and Mad City -- all but the World Cup have been unmitigated disasters.
I've previously attributed my poor Western States performance to lousy downhill/trail technique and my poor JFK run to the lingering effects of strep throat. Is there an equally plausible race-specific excuse that I should invoke this time? Or is a more general long-term problem to blame for all of these disappointments? Here are some hypotheses.
A. I'm getting old. Undeniably true -- and I can't seem to run 400m-800m repeats as quickly as I used to. Still, I haven't had any recent injuries and have been doing my physician-prescribed stretches with some regularity. At age 34.9, I can't already be past my ultramarathoning prime, can I?
B. I'm overtraining. This may have been true at times last year, but lately I've taken a more cautious approach to my long, hard runs. I think I've become more attuned to my body's distress signals so that I know when to hammer and when to back off.
C. I'm not fueling myself properly during races. This seems unlikely, since I've only made minor adjustments to my nutritional routine over the last year. Also, my JFK and Mad City problems arose within the first 25 miles, which would be awfully early for my body weight/electrolytes/etc. to be way out of whack.
D. My blood and/or hormones are messed up. Could I have anemia or hypothyroidism or something like that? It seems unlikely, since many of my workouts this year have gone reasonably well. In fact, the disparity between workout results and race results suggests another idea....
E. I've become a head case. My mental preparation may indeed be suboptimal, as indicated by the fact that I sleep poorly the night before races. Nevertheless my race-day outlook is more flexible and positive than you might imagine. For example, after the first 40 miles of Western States last year, I was in about 13th place -- far out of range of the top-three finish I had hoped for -- and well behind my goal splits. Yet I was still enjoying myself, more or less. It wasn't until after I fell apart physically that I fell apart mentally. Similarly, at Mad City I convinced myself that my time shouldn't be a major concern, given the nasty weather, and that it was OK to let Wardian surge ahead because he might come back later. Only when my body shut down did I abandon my cautiously optimistic mindset.
F. I was sick again. My wife and son were both ill during the week before Mad City. I myself didn't have any symptoms before the race, but afterwards I was quite congested. In fact, my ears were killing me at the end of the flight home. (I was reading the seventh Harry Potter book at the time, and the onset of my ear pain coincided exactly with the death of Voldemort, which was spooky.)
So what's a once-fast runner to do? I've made a doctor's appointment in the hope of ruling out (D), for starters. Perhaps additional strategies will occur to me in the coming weeks.
