Arc of Attrition '19

The road to Arc

Arc of Attrition... the good ol' Arc... Admittedly I have some history with that race. There's some love. There's some resentment. We definitely bonded over the years though.

This love-hate affair started in 2017 when I tried it for the very first time without quite knowing what I was getting myself into. Winter race, very technical trails, lots of ups and downs... I wasn't ready for any of it and had to throw in the towel halfway through, being borderline injured.

Then came 2018. I was very determined to get my revenge from previous year's DNF (my second one ever). I was better prepared and I did fight for longer but after 70 miles I was done again, this time busting my shins.

Training

And so 2019 was supposed to be the year. I promised myself to train hard and come race day to show it who's da boss!

I was always the happy-go-lucky kinda runner, never really following any structured training or plan but just running for the joy of it. So I thought, perhaps this time it's time to change it. I got myself "Hal Koerner's Field Guide to Ultrarunning" and decide to follow his 100 miler plan to the letter.

It was a 20 week long plan and I started it right on time and did stuck to the letter for a while. The high of it came around November when I logged 6 consecutive weeks of 100+ km weeks. The low came shortly after when a) I got sick and b) my ankle started giving me a bit of trouble.

Sickness was really unfortunate as it got me coughing and all snotty from around Christmas time to shortly before the race, totally upsetting my training plans.

The ankle wasn't fun either. I injured it around April 2018 on one of my trail runs when I decided to cut across a field and stumbled upon a rod sticking out from the ground. It never stopped me from running but I could feel that something wasn't quite right "down there". My heavy training wasn't helping and, fully aware of the ordeal ahead, I decided to have it checked by a doctor.

That itself was an ordeal of magnitude comparable to the race and probably deserves a post of its own, though likely on the NHS website... But long story short, mere 2 weeks before the race I had an x-ray, I had an MRI and I had a green light from the doc to give it a go (positive surprise there as I assumed the doc will err on the side of caution and will try to talk me out of doing it; to his credit he did not).

So all in all the training started great but then disintegrated completely to the point where I was questioning whether it made sense to go through with it. But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I packed my stuff and come Thursday, with my support buddy we were off to Cornwall.

Travel

We managed to get a good night's sleep and left fairly late. Still, no biggie I thought, 6 or so hours driving, easy peasy. Especially that I wasn't the one doing the driving.

And then I realized that I left in the fridge the pancakes that my better half so lovingly prepared for me. @#$(%&^@*&. NOT a good start. I toyed with the idea of going back but we were well on our way by then so it would not be a smart move.

As it turned out that would have actually put me completely out of the race before it even started. You see, once we started getting closer, the weather was turning for the worse. As in: way worse. Snow and all that jazz (there's a pic on the right, though I don't think it fully does it justice). The highway was standing still. Abandoned cars. Cars desperately spinning their wheels in place. Mayhem. Good thing that we had winter tires!

Eventually we made it. Pumped with adrenaline. Way after midnight. Way later than planned. But we made it!

Race!

This is probably going to be the worst race report I've ever written, as I could not get around to writing one and now, 4 months later, I hardly remember a thing... But, for what it's worth, there goes.

Getting up after a short night was tough, but the adrenaline quickly kicked in and before I knew it I was on the bus, half snoozing and being hauled to the starting line. Given the horrid weather conditions of the previous day, things were actually kinda looking up. It wasn't necessarily warm (which is not a bad thing) but it was dry and the snow has dissipated on the peninsula. All in all, when it was time to get moving, I was in good spirits.

Probably the first thing that gave up was my nutrition. It's all well and good to plan to eat a certain number of calories per hour but once you have to eat the umptieth shake or eat yet another one of those f*@#& bars, at some point something gives. Actually, this time I was sticking to the plan rather well before that happened. Lesson for the future: absolutely make nutrition part of your training, testing it on longer runs!

A little break of the monotony of the race came at the point when I reached a rocky beach. It looked rather un-passable and, having been there for the first I'd have probably turned around, concluding I've gone off route. But hey, it wasn't my first rodeo, and so I remembered from last year that crossing a rocky, near un-passable beach was part of the game. Not only did I plough on but on top of that I reassured the runner behind me that this was the way to go.

It wasn't. As we both realized some 10 minutes later having reached a dead end with a steep cliff. The wise thing to do at that point was probably to turn around and backtrack those couple hundred meters swearing profusely. But I was in a game on mode and instead started climbing the cliff; swearing profusely. It was steep. It was fairly high. And the clumps of grass I was holding on to for dear life had an annoying habit of giving way, apparently all too eager to take a dip in the sea below and threatening to take me with them for the ride.

Eventually I made it to the top and only then did I realize that the guy who was behind me also attacked the cliff. Somehow the idea of him falling down was even scarier than imagining myself taking the plunge. Luckily we both made it safely in the end. Oh, and by the way, mere 100 meters later, we did come upon the rocky beach crossing that I remembered from the previous year. Funnily enough, after the little cliff adventure, it felt like a walk in the park, rather than the un-passable challenge I remembered it to be.

Things started getting hard at night. My pace dropped significantly and my spirits followed suit. But I faced the deamons, made it through the night and welcomed the early sunlight. Before the climb to the next checkpoint I lost a glove, but since I was close and had another pair I didn't bother to try to get it back. And then the skies opened. Rain is a fact of life in this race. But hail was new to me. And what a hail it was! At some point when I was running directly against it, I had to slow down to a walk and cover my face with my hands as the pellets of frozen rain hitting my face were seriously hurting me.

That was the second time in the race when we were hit by hail. This time I got soaked through. I was cold and my fingers were frozen, as even the single glove I had left was not up to the task. I reached the checkpoint, took cover in the car and had a big dilemma. Technically, contrary to two previous years, there was nothing wrong with me, no injury, no pain. But my spirit was crushed. I was done for.

I debated in the car with myself (and my support crew) for what felt like 10 minutes but turned out to be closer to 45. Sadly, once the idea of throwing in the towel entered my mind it was impossible to put it aside. I did a slow walk of shame to one of the race officials. As I was approaching so was another runner entering the checkpoint and was greeted by being told he missed the cut-off time by a couple of minutes. At first I thought it was a joke. It was not.

Post-race

It took a bit of the sting out of my decision. Ahead of me at that point was the longest unsupported section of the route and, as some said, the most difficult one. Given the shape I was in (hint: the photo on the left is taken after more than half an after spend in the car with heat on full blast) and the fact that I made it to the checkpoint mere 45 minutes before the cut off, left little chance of me making the next one in time. Funnily enough, unbeknownst to me at the time, my split times tracked pretty close those of the year before; to the point that I passed 100km mark only a minute apart from last year.

In the car, on the way back to the finish line, my first reaction was pretty typical: I resolutely claimed I'm done with this race and will never enter it again. My follow-up reaction was equally typical though: before the car ride was over I was pretty much checking when can I register for the following year. Oh well.

What was new to me this year was that my body did not fall apart. No injuries. No aches. Where I did come short was with mental toughness. Good news? Bad news? I'm not sure. But I do plan to come back next year and finally finish my dealings with this race; it's time for a new challenge!