FANS 12 hour RR

FANS 12-hour race report June 7, 2008:
Short version: 71.21 miles
2nd out of 35 overall.
Long version:
This past Saturday, I participated in the FANS 12 hour endurance run held in Minneapolis, MN. This race benefits the FANS Scholarship Fund, which awards scholarships to inner city youth for post-secondary education.It is a very well-organized event in its 19th year of the 24 hour event and 7th year for the 12 hour.
My resume' in ultra running is somewhat limited, as my only prior official ultra was a 50 mile run last September in Iowa. I knew that if I ran with a plan, I would realize a pretty successful run at FANS.
My plan going in to the race was to see if I could average 9 minute miles for the first 4 hours, 10 minutes for the second 4, and then 11 minutes for the final 4.
The weather in MN had been quite mild this past week, but Saturday turned out to be the warmest day of the week.
On to the race....After a few brief announcements we were off and running at 8AM. A good 5-6 people shot out quite quickly, but I just sat back with my plan. For the first few laps, I was alone, even though this run takes place on a 2.42 mile loop around Lake Nokomis.
Soon I saw more people, passing them for the first time. A lot of them were in the 24 hour event and were being smart as the temperatures were rising quickly and the humidity was quite high yet from an early AM thunderstorm. The sun came out in full force, and the toughest going was from 11AM to 3PM.
I needed to back down from my original plan after 10 miles, as the heat was pretty tough and I knew I would not be able to sustain this pace for another 10+ hours. My dear spouse Mary was support crew for me, but she went to visit our daughter and estimated that she would be back about 11:00 AM. Here it was 10:30 AM and I was in desperate need of an ice bandana right now! She calls me up and tells me she is going to be late, because of all the traffic. When she got back, she made me the first of many ice bandanas that day. Those sure helped me to cool down. I was able to keep eating food all the way through 8 hours.
I got to visit with a lot of fantastic runners during the day... too many to mention (I forgot a lot of their names because my brain kind of melted down a bit also). There was a lot of encouragement every lap, including the MN RED group who had set up a tent and support area for their club members that were running that day.In the final hour, Brian (yes Hermosaboy's speedy racing friend and training partner) ran a lap with me. I really appreciated that a lot! We were able to maintain very close to 10 minute mile pace that late in the day, as the temps started to decline and humidity dropped.
After that lap, I had time to run one more lap around the lake before beginning the short laps (0.25 mile short course). Brian came out and ran me in for the last part of that final long lap.I had 19 minutes yet to compile some more distance on the short laps. I knew that I needed a few more to get over the 70 mile mark. I ran about 3 or 4 of them and got some real bad cramping in my stomach. I just had to walk now – because I felt that I would blow chunks in front of everyone if I continued to run. There was only about 7 minutes left on the clock.
When I started to walk, Hermosaboy comes up and walks with me. He didn't encourage me to run hard, he could see that I was hurting bad. After walking one short lap, and seeing that there was just over a minute left, I decided to get one more 0.125 mile in and broke into a jog again.I got the half lap counted and then the 12 hour odyssey was over.
Rob, I appreciate your friendship. Thanks for being there!
The winner of the 12 hour event was Adam Harmer. He is an extraordinary endurance athlete and compiled a little over 75 miles....
WOW!! Congratulations, Adam!
I had a great day.