The Grasslands Run 2003
LBJ National Grasslands
Decatur, Texas
March 22, 2003
50Mile Report by Art Hutchinson
The coincidence of a Dallas business trip and low airfare for staying the weekend found me abandoning the remnants of an especially cold and snowy New England winter to toe the starting line for the 5th Annual Grasslands 50-mile run on Saturday, March 22nd. Alongside me was my good friend Bruce Grant from Vancouver—vacationing in Texas with his wife and some other friends. Preparing for his second Western States 100, Bruce had committed to this event months ago. He had roped me in at virtually the last minute.
This was to be a tentative, early-season training outing. I did not intend to race. After a poor marathon performance in early February, I felt under-prepared to take on a 50-miler. I would be satisfied merely with a finish—regardless of how long that might take. I was not at all concerned or embarrassed about the prospect of walking, and I felt less revulsion than usual at the prospect of dropping out if that seemed prudent. With a personal record of 10:35 in my only other 50-miler (Vermont, in 2001), my outside ‘stretch’ goal was to go under ten hours and qualify for the Western States lottery—if everything went perfectly.
After a difficult 50K event the previous weekend, Bruce was motivated to agree with me on a conservative approach: we would stick together, take the day as it came, have fun, and try not to hurt ourselves too badly.
A beautiful pink Texas prairie sunrise greeted us through the broken clouds as we arrived at the starting area around 6:30AM —near the end of a long, rural dirt road. The temperature hovered just under 50F. During the day, it climbed to just under 60 with a little sun, then fell back down into the low 50’s with a chilly breeze and overcast skies: perfect running weather, and lucky. The previous week it had been near 80F. The previous year, it had rained buckets, churning up mud and slowing times by over two hours.
There were just over fifty individuals entered in the 50-miler. A marathon and half marathon started an hour later with considerably more participants. The course consisted of four different but slightly overlapping loops. On the map, they appeared to blossom out like a cloverleaf from the central start/finish area that doubled as an aide station.
We set out gently with a simple “go”, and quickly learned a bit of what the day would bring. Texas is synonymous with horses, and the trail surface left no doubt that they were plentiful. Though soft (a blessing for knees and feet), the trail alternated between dried mud and loose, fine sand, with many areas of gooey spring mud thrown in for good measure. The most common surface was awkward and sometimes frustrating to navigate: hard dried mud in uneven 3-6" pits all across the trail.
The surroundings were beautiful: highly varied vegetation, winding through open prairie, live oak forest, pasture, scrub-forest, pine groves, swamps, and even microclimates with cactus. Elevation change was negligible: just enough to keep the legs from going stale. Only a dozen grades could really be called hills and justify walking up.
My expectations for this event ranged from a long hike/walk with some running—hopefully finishing before dark—to a steady but painful push to complete in near my previous best of 10:35. My longest run in the past two months had been just over 3.5 hours, and the next longest just over two. This was definitely a gamble. Following our pre-race pact, Bruce and I started together and remained together throughout the event. It was clear though that, had we chosen to duke it out, Bruce would definitely have prevailed. That he chose to stick with me, encourage me, and deliberately distract me when things got rough is something for which I am deeply grateful.
It took awhile to start feeling good. In the first hour, a week of standing around at trade shows, eating out, and sleeping soft hotel beds had me feeling awkward, stiff, and heavy. Miraculously, many of these early complaints evaporated as I loosened up and established a rhythm.
I had few noticeable low points. One came just before 3 hours when, after wolfing down a lot of food between laps one and two (just short of 15 miles), my blood sugar crashed. The internal dialogue went something like this: "nice warm sunshine, beautiful little pine grove out of the wind, soft pine needles, no energy, sleepy, maybe lie down here and take a little nap?" That bit passed fairly quickly. The second low point came for both of us on the interminable third lap (taking us from 25 to 39 miles), when we decided that we must be on an *endless* loop that seemed to circle, maze-like, back in and around itself forever. The third low point came as I ran out of system fuel around 47 miles. With six miles left, I had chugged a cup of Coke at an aide station. My stomach said “no” promptly expunging the Coke—and more. I felt much better, but worried that my energy would drop fast. Overall though, the run was remarkable for its steadiness.
One interesting incident came in the early 30-mile range as we heard shotgun blasts in the distance. We had observed many shotgun shells on the ground, and—this being Texas—were not surprised to see people with guns. But as we drew closer, we realized that they were shooting birds at a low angle, in the general direction of some trail we would need to cover shortly. We yelled to the pair of hunters, but at 300 yards away upwind (and probably wearing ear protection), they appeared not to hear. I tucked in close behind Bruce’s red jersey and we picked up the pace considerably. Thankfully, there were no more shots, and the trail stayed a relatively safe 800+ yards away from the line of fire, behind a thick grove of trees.
Other wildlife encounters included cattle (both longhorn and not—sometimes standing in the trail), circling vultures and buzzards (a reminder not to slow down too much), horses with riders on the trail (some in control, some barely so), and all manner of tracks in the mud that provided for endlessly fascinating speculation as to origin.
I gained several new, if unconventional race nutrition insights at Grasslands: Texas barbecue two nights before; Mexican food as a pre-race dinner. On the course, I took Vanilla Ensure and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as well as Gatorade and Succeed beverages, homemade brownies, pretzels, and my much-anticipated afterburner drink just before 40 miles: a Starbucks Mocha Frapuccino!
As we began our final lap, I calculated that we might have a shot at breaking nine hours. I really hadn’t thought about a finishing time until now. Nine hours was well beyond my most optimistic fantasy. “Maybe” came his response. As we ran a little further, I noted that he was taking few, if any, walking breaks. “You’re gunning for 8:30, aren’t you?” I asked. “Well maybe.” His determined easy stride said the rest. If 9:00 was fantasy, the idea of 8:30 was positively dream-like. I decided not to pinch myself and risk waking up.
There is an art to pacing, and Bruce has it down. I stayed as close as I could behind as he tried to stay just far enough ahead to coax me out of any complacency. As we tired, our non-verbal communication became acute: a heavy sigh signaled the need to walk a few steps; a different footfall meant slow down but keep running; a cough might mean to start up again. As we passed checkpoints in the final lap, it became clear that we would be very close to 8:30. We were even building a slight cushion. Ultimately, we would eat back into that cushion, but still come out all OK. Our final finishing time (in a hands-held-high-tie) was 8:27:58, good for 19th/20th out of 51 total finishers.
I had been so focused throughout the day that as we finished, I could scarcely comprehend the significance of what we’d done. I had set a new personal record for the distance by more than two hours and seven minutes. This event—so insignificant in my initial expectations—had turned into a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment. I’m still not quite comprehending that it all came together so perfectly. We even managed to execute a textbook race strategy of aggressively negative splits, covering the first 39.3 miles at an average pace of 10:23 per mile and the final 10.7 miles at an average pace of 9:21 per mile, even though the terrain in each section was virtually identical.
So much fell into place so perfectly that I sensed the palpable presence of divine help. That this amazing day was given to us tells me that the human spirit is endowed with powers well beyond what most people ever conceive. We simply have to ask.
All the best,