Where’s the peanut butter?!

I just got back from the Gold Discovery Run our near Fox in Fairbanks. It was awesome and the whole run has been a totally great experience. I got my coach’s approval to do the 16.5 mile run, even though the long run planned for this weekend should have dropped me back to 13. But Fairbanks is an incredibly sprawling town and I don’t have a car so I wasn’t sure how it would all work out but everything is just clicking.

First, I’m staying at Billie’s Backpackers hostel (which I recommend) which is pretty close to the University of Alaska - Fairbanks but not near downtown and feels (to this city boy) like it’s in the boonies a bit. I’d seen the registration for the race is at a place called “Toy Quest” and, amazingly, that’s probably the closest business to my hostel! Yay! So (and I blogged about this earlier - sorry for the old news), Friday I went over to register for the race. I met a nice guy named Bob who is part of Running Club North, the local club who organize the run and was managing registration. He very nicely put in a call to Steve, who I gather had been president of the club for years, and who was super helpful and willing to take me to the run on Sunday if I could go to the site Saturday for a bit and help set up. Perfect! And even more good news - unlike every other race I’ve run in where you get a cotton T-shirt for registration (well, there was one race where we got tank tops), they had nice SPF 45 running hats! This is terrific since I’d forgotten to pack a hat on the trip and think one of these would be handy sometimes. These hats alone probably cost close to the $25 race registration fee.

So Saturday morning I was planning on heading downtown to catch the parade and some other events that are part of Golden Days and gave Steve a call. It turned out they were putting on a run that morning - the Golden Mile - and I could meet him or some other club members and get everything set up for me getting to the race Sunday. While I was there I met a nice woman doing the Golden Mile named Lena who said if I was in a pinch she could probably get me to the race. This would later turn out to be great because Steve would need to get to the race early Sunday morning for setup and other things. So I had a pretty good looking plan B lined up that was becoming my plan A.

At the race, I met Keith, who (I gather) is the current Running Club North president. Keith was super nice and we drove in his pickup past the Alaska pipeline and out to Silver Gulch Brewery, where the race would finish, and started moving some things around to get ready for the post race BBQ. Steve showed up at Silver Gulch, too, and we lugged around some tables and “candlesticks” (the traffic sticks used to direct cars or channel runners), then he took me back downtown where I bummed around a little trying to figure out subsequent travel plans and booking.

So that night I got back in touch with Lena about a ride. She and Mike would be able to come pick me up in the morning at 7:30 - which would be *way* better than the option I was looking at of getting out there with Steve at or by 6, so that was perfect. They don’t live too far from my hostel and Lena said when she originally came to Alaska 5 years ago or so she’d stayed here, too.

OK, so on to the race. Today we got to Silver Gulch and boarded a bus at about 8:15 to get to the starting line. The race started at 9 and was really amazing. I have to say this again. It was amazing. I’ve never done trail running before (at all - so why not start with a run that matches the longest run of my life?) and though it doesn’t look exactly like it from the profile, the course itself was fairly hilly. But what the profile and course map don’t show is the incredible scenery on a clear day of the surrounding Alaskan mountain ranges. It’s just breathtaking. It would have been even moreso if I hadn’t been incredibly paranoid about getting stuck in the middle of a rural mountain trail with a sprained ankle and unable to continue my training, unable to run in Alaska, and possibly missing my marathon. But I caught enough peeks of the environment to say that the beauty is just staggering and it almost makes me understand how people suffer the long, frigid, dark winter months to live in a place like this.

I didn’t know exactly how hard to take it and didn’t want to injure myself and so on, so I ran a somewhat moderate pace I finished at a time with almost exactly 8 minute miles and walked through most of the drink stations. But here’s where the story gets - um - interesting…

If you have especially delicate sensibilities, you might want to skip past this…

I’m really still figuring out the whole race nutrition and eating thing. One new thing I did on this race was eat a goo (some mango flavored Clif brand). It seemed OK and probably helped me. But about 11 miles in I really needed to pee. I hate having to do this in the middle of a run because it’s uncomfortable, feels like it screws up your pacing and so forth. So, having to go to the bathroom on the run is probably an encouraging sign for your level of hydration (which is something I’m keenly aware of, having almost died 6 weeks ago probably due in part to poor nutrition) but it still sucks on the run.

But that’s not the worst part. Somewhere after 15 miles - less than 1.5 miles from the finish - something I’d been struggling with ever since the last hydration station at mile 14 became unavoidable. Borat might say “it was time make shit.” And there was nothing I could do to stop it. I ran off the road, trying to get to the bushes in time to take care of what needed to be done. I mostly made it. I really won’t go into too many details, but I was very happy to finish the race - VERY happy this happened at the end, and I spent a while trying to clean up in the toilets at the brewery and wound up borrowing their mop to clean up the bathroom. So…I really need to figure out more about what I should eat before a race. Today I had a banana, cup of OJ, and a little coffee. I think I should probably avoid the coffee (since I identify with Dr. Dorian wisdom about the physiological response it triggers). Lena and Mike suggested that they eat a bagel with natural peanut butter and it’s always been a good combination - which certainly sounds worth a try.

At the end, they hosted a very nice cookout in the parking lot of the Silver Gulch Brewery and the brewery donated a bunch of beer. I tried both beers they’d donated - one was “Vienna” something and I can’t remember what the other was. Both were very good, but one was more IPA/hoppier than I usually like, but it was definitely good for the beer it was. At the awards Steve very nicely called out people who were doing the run from out of state. He asked me “how it went” and I was a little troubled figuring out what to say about “The Events Described Above In The Questionable Part” but said I had a good time, which was certainly true.

All in all - a great, incredibly memorable, and educational race. And I should mention that all of the guys I met from Running Club North - Bob, Steve, and definitely Keith, are all awesome people and I would definitely encourage anyone visiting Fairbanks and who has even a casual interest in running to see what the club has to offer, or to just come out to one of their events and say “hello” and maybe “can I do some heavy lifting for you?” You’ll be glad you did.