Training Log Archive: Bash

Javelina 100
McDowell Mountain Wilderness
Fountain Hills, Arizona

The Lavaredo Ultra Trail in June was so much fun that I looked for an autumn ultrarunning adventure. I couldn't find an ideal race and as the summer turned into one long heat wave, my enthusiasm for long runs faded along with my fitness.

Eight weeks ago, Charlotte Vasarhelyi and I decided to run the Javelina 100 on the outskirts of Phoenix. It was too late for me to train properly, especially with Wilderness Traverse and Star Tracks taking up so much time, but it would be a fun vacation with a friend regardless.



Javelina is billed as a Hallowe'en-themed running party in the desert. As 100 milers go, it's the opposite of UTMB - five loops with just 25% of the elevation gain of UTMB, a time limit of 30 hrs instead of 46, a huge base camp, pacers, costumes (for some) and a disco at one of the aid stations.

A loop format isn't my favourite but it has advantages. I had no support crew or pacer but I could easily support myself. There were almost 600 registrants in the 100 miler and 200 in the 100K, and many of them had pacers. Since we changed direction after each loop, I would never feel alone at night with the mountain lions!



The organizers built a tent city around the start/finish leg of the race course, which was really convenient and fun.





Char and I rented a large tent with cots. Racers and support crews could also bring their own tents or RVs.



There were food trucks offering wood-fired pizzas, kettle corn and smoothies. There was even an outdoor trail running film festival on Friday evening.



We started at 6 a.m. and got squeezed onto single track early on. I had to walk most of the first 30 minutes because it was so crowded.











Sunrise over the desert was beautiful. I decided to do a little more running on the 1st lap since I expected to walk most of the 2nd lap in the hottest hours of the day. The temperature was going to be close to a record high; the paramedics later said it got to 102F but that sounds high. There was no shade until the sun got very low - and even then, the shade of a small shrub isn't that refreshing!





I got distracted chatting with another adventure racer and twisted my left ankle hard at the 5K mark - a reprise of the weird-angled twist that happened two weeks ago when I was putting out flags for Star Tracks. It pulled something in the bottom of my foot, which stayed sore but wasn't too painful to run on.



It was hot by mid-morning and by 11 a.m. we were broiling. My one real crisis of the day was realizing that my hands had swollen so much that both my wedding ring and my engineering ring were stuck. I almost always wear them while racing but my hands don't usually swell that much. I had been madly drinking and popping salt pills so I'd run out of ideas. Maybe I'd had too much salt? Maybe my hands would swell even more and the circulation would get cut off to my ring fingers? Maybe I'd have to ask medics to cut them off? (The rings, not the fingers.) Aaaackkk!! As I ran, I used precious water to keep my fingers wet until I was able to slowly, painfully twist off each ring. Phew.



I finished Lap 1 around 11:20; it was 5K longer than the other laps but it was still my fastest lap.

This was the first aid station where I went through my heat routine - put on cooling sleeves and got them wet, applied sunscreen, put ice and eLoad in my bladder, and filled an extra flask. Then I put ice in my hat and set up my cooling buff to hang over my ears like a safari hat. As the ice melted, it soaked the cooling buff, which dripped cool water. This took a lot of time at each aid station (four per loop) but it was worth it and I still seemed to pass people at aid stations since everyone was doing something to deal with the heat. I saw a bunch of runners who felt terrible or developed stomach problems. My cooling sleeves and buff always dried out before the next aid station but they made a huge difference. My small water flask was mostly dedicated to keeping them wet.







I did a lot of hiking on Lap 2 until the sun got lower in the sky and my heart rate still stayed pretty high. It took 6 hours to get back to HQ.







After a slice of pizza at sunset, I set out for Lap 3 at 6 p.m. I was looking forward to the cold night in the desert; the race briefing had warned about the risk of hypothermia. Well... not tonight. I think it got down to 22C and there were still guys running shirtless and women in sports bras. It didn't feel like racing in an oven anymore but it was still warm.

I had to make up time after the slow Lap 2 so I pushed as hard as I could on Lap 3 in the dark. But even though conditions had improved, I had already been on the trail more than 12 hours. Although I did more running and got through aid stations more quickly, it still took 6 hrs to get around Lap 3. I arrived one minute after midnight, having completed 100 km. I'd been doing the math as I ran and realized there was no way I'd get through the HQ aid station and then complete Lap 4 by the 6 a.m. cut-off. If by some miracle I *did* speed up that much, my 5th lap would also need to be faster to make the final cut-off at 12 noon - and that lap would be in the heat again.

So... I called it a day at 100K. I didn't feel like running the same loop again, knowing I'd DNF eventually anyway. If it were a point-to-point race, I probably would have kept going until I was cut off. Until this year, Javelina used to give 100 mile racers official rankings in the 100K race if they stopped early, and I would have ended up with a respectable result. But I think that was an unfair rule so I don't mind that I didn't get my belt buckle! The heat really was crazy and the small victory is that I felt pretty good for 18 hours in the hottest, driest race of my life. Unfortunately, dealing with the heat was time consuming so I didn't get a chance to see if I could go 100 miles. I wasn't alone; the finish rate was around 50%.

Charlotte had an awesome race and was the 8th woman! Zach Bitter set a course record of 13.5 hours. It was impressive to watch him fly past on the trail several times, always smiling and saying "Great job".

Javelina was very well organized and a lot of fun. In most years, it would be hot but not ridiculously hot. I'd recommend it for sure. If you go, our Morning Skillet at Inn at Eagle Mountain the next day was one of the best breakfasts of my life! (I don't normally take pictures of my meals but...)





Morning coffee on our balcony was terrific too. I really like Arizona even though I'd rather race in the snow!

First 50K of Javelina 100 (measured as 46.4 km in Ambit 60-second recording mode)
Time 8:20:10
Elevation Gain 703 m

Second 50K of Javelina 100 (measured as 48.52 km in Ambit 5-second recording mode)
Time 9:41:37
Elevation gain 425 m
Started at 2:41 p.m.