Running and napping at the Badger 100

“How to get good at sleeping during a race” is not something you hear a lot about in training guides.  However when you’re on your feet for 20+ hours, you might need to take a nap at some point.  The San Diego 100 was the first time I felt the desperate need to sleep during a race.  At the Badger 100 last weekend, I got a lot more practice, thanks to an unusually bad stretch of insomnia leading up to the race.

Luckily, this race was a good one for getting lots of napping practice without worrying about cutoff times. The Ten Junk Miles crew wants you to finish, have a good time, and make friends.  I like listening to the podcast as a running buddy, especially the multi-hour interviews which dive into some darker corners of runners’ lives and often cover a lot of things that aren’t running.  The raunchier and less predictable Gang Show episodes remind me of hanging out with a band on tour.  I like the balance of the two.

The day before the race, I flew into Chicago and met up with my friend from Seattle who drove our rental car from there to Belleville, Wisconsin.  I was especially grateful for this, as driving was not a great idea considering how tired I was.  If tiredness is as bad as drunkenness, I was blowing at least a 0.10%.  We took the scenic route, saw a roadkill badger, and stopped by packet pickup.  I hoped the unlucky badger wasn’t a preview of things to come.

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The morning of the race we got a pre-race brief from Scotty (race director and main podcast host), who informed us among other things that cows have the right of way when crossing the road.  He also shared the wise ultramarathon advice of “the first half, don’t be an idiot.  the second half, don’t be a wimp.”  And if we had any doubts about which direction to go in on the rail trail, just do what a train does.  A train goes straight.  There were going to be a few places where we went off the trail, but these would be the only marked parts of the course, since it was pretty much impossible to get lost on the Badger State Trail.

Legendary pacer and multi-talented midwestern endurance athlete Dusty Olson was there to guide us to the start with his dog Tala.  I wish I remembered what advice he gave us right before we started off down the trail.  The red sun was creeping up over the flat horizon and the air was definitely cooler than what I’ve been experiencing in Tucson lately, but with about twice the humidity.

It was a given that a lot of us started too fast.  For a while, I let myself pretend that I could keep up a sub-24-hour-finish pace.  This seemed totally doable in the first 10-20 miles or so, but in the rising heat this delusion quickly melted away.  If there’s one thing I took away from this trip it was: respect the Midwest summer.  I am so glad I spent some time grinding through the monsoon weather in Tucson before this race, since it wasn’t such a shock to the system to feel like I was swimming in hot soup later on in the afternoon.

The 30-ish mile run up to Belleville felt mostly good and it was fun to recognize a few names and faces from the podcast.  I also really enjoyed the fact that I didn’t have to constantly look out for rocks, spiny things, and snakes.  When we got back up to the park, I met up with my friend and laid out a bunch of stuff to come back and grab after doing an out and back to Dot’s Tavern. 

Dot’s is a tiny bar in the basement of a house on a neighborhood street surrounded by rolling green fields.  More recently, they added an outdoor bar where lots of people were hanging out to wait on their runners and cheer us on.  I was on an upswing for this part, and still running most of the time.

Back at the park I prepared myself for the 30 mile trek back down to Orangeville, which would cross over into the night.  I made plans to meet up with my friend most of the way there, around mile 60 in Monroe.  The first few miles I didn’t see another runner and got worried I had somehow gone the wrong way, despite the assurance that it was impossible to get lost.  I stopped a few times to double check the course, plug in my battery pack, and desperately slather on some anti-bug lotion when tiny mosquitoes started getting into my eyes, ears, and mouth.  I finally saw my first bunny rabbit of the race at this point, which I took as a good omen.  It was a big one and looked like it had a good life that matched the gentle, pastoral landscape.

The evening took a while to cool off.  Along the way I heard an unfamiliar bird sound coming from the bushes and used my BirdNet app to identify them as Sandhill Cranes.  There were a lot of good bird sightings on this trail.  Around 10 miles later, I called my friend to let her know my latest ETA while I put away a handful of pizza rolls.  I ate more ‘real’ food at this race than usual, partly because there was so much of it was available, and also because I knew that the more calories I got that weren’t gels, the less likely I’d have weird digestive issues later on.

After the sun set I was treated to flashes of fireflies in the dark.  I wasn’t expecting them and it was a magical surprise.  The last time I’d seen fireflies was when I spent a couple days in Kentucky years ago. 

Somewhere towards the end of this section I started nodding off while running.  My head would dip down, my eyes would close, and a moment later my whole body would jerk itself back into consciousness.  No amount of caffeine helped. 

When I met my friend in Monroe, I lay down in the back of the car and rested for a while.  This was my first and least successful nap of the night, although it doesn’t get an F because it seemed OK at the time.

After a lot of gear re-organization and a change of clothes behind a cheese outlet, I headed out feeling stiff from stopping for so long, but still optimistic.

The only aid station that didn’t have an impressive array of food and volunteers was the water-only stop before Orangeville.  A little while after my car nap, I knew I was going to have to lie down again.  I felt frustrated that I was so tired, given that I’ve run for longer and didn’t have this problem until recently.

When all you’re doing is going from point A to point B, your needs become very basic.  All it took to lift my sprits at this point was a folded-up tarp that I found on the ground.  I dragged the tarp off to the side in the grass, so I was a little bit hidden behind some trees.  Then I used my vest as a pillow and lay down.

As bare bones as this setup sounds, this was the best napping experience of the race.  The grass was soft, my vest worked well as a pillow, and a tree rustling overhead was the perfect sound for me to drift away to.

About five miles on I was relieved to finally make it back to the Orangeville aid station, where we had started the race a lifetime ago on Saturday morning.  It was now technically Sunday morning.  It meant there was only a 50k left to go.  The food spread was especially generous here with Chef Josh having made a large array of pancakes, bacon, cheeseburgers, and several other options on the menu including Malort-fired burgers.

The only problem was that it was pretty noisy with music and cowbells clanging, and I needed to lie down again.  I was starting to accept the fact that my life was now made up of ~3-5 miles of running alternating with passing out.

I wandered away from the aid station. The best candidate I could find was a bumpy concrete bench, so I lay down on it.  It was a testament to my accumulated sleep debt that I fell asleep on this at all.

When I opened my eyes again I grabbed a cup of hot coffee, spilled some of it on myself, and headed back towards Belleville.  My brain wanted me to despair at the fact that I still had 30 miles left and would have to run well into heat of day again to get there.  I tried my best to internalize the advice not to be a wimp, and to remind myself that I had signed up and flew on a plane to be here, along with my friend who had already done so much to support me.

Plus I remembered there was both a picnic table and other benches on the way back, along with the place with the tarp. I was really looking forward to the tarp.

The next nap was on a picnic table by some running water, which was another nice background sound to sleep to in the darkness.  I realized that I should try camping sometime.  It might be less of a questionable thing to do than run back and forth between two states.  However, this was my chosen adventure today.  When I was done napping on the picnic table, I heard someone settling onto the other side of it, behind a big sign that divided the table.  I got up as quietly as I could so I wouldn’t disturb them and continued north.

I made it back to the water station as the sun was lightening the sky.  Instead of rustling leaves this time, I heard cows mooing and starting to go about their day somewhere nearby. This nap is rated slightly lower than the first time I slept here because flies started buzzing around me towards the end.  Towards the end of this nap I heard someone comment on my sleep setup who sounded oddly familiar.  Eventually I’d discover that this was Holly from the podcast, who was at the race pacing a friend.

Now that the life-giving sun was up, I had less problems with sleepiness.  At least for a while.  Most of the Badger Trail is lined on both sides with trees and other rich, green vegetation.  Every once in a while, one of these green tunnels opens up to fields of corn and other crops.  As fate decided it was time for one last lie-down, I scouted for a spot to pass out yet again.  My last spot was nestled between two rows of corn.

The sun was bright at this point, but it wasn’t very hot yet, and I drifted away to the sound of corn leaves rustling and people occasionally running past.  I was far enough to the side that I hoped nobody saw me and thought there was a dead body in the corn.  This one got a B because it was surprisingly cozy, despite the ground being kind of hard.

When the heat did return, it was a lot harder to grind through than it was the first afternoon.  I think that running for over 24 hours was mostly to blame.  I was drinking a lot of cold water and electrolytes and and still filling up with ice, but the heat seemed to be roasting my body no matter how well hydrated I was.  I did a lot of walking to avoid feeling like I was overheating.

The most difficult section to get through here was a detour on a winding, paved farm road.  This was the only section with any hills, and it was towards the very end of the last push to the finish line.  When I heard some large machinery in the distance I jumped off to the side of the road and waited for whatever it was to pass.  A very huge vehicle that looked like some kind of jacked-up monster tractor drove by, filling the whole road.  I also spotted some of the aforementioned sandhill cranes around here and stopped to get a closer look.  They were big and seemed annoyed so I backed off pretty quick.

The last aid station after the road section felt like an outpost in the Sahara.  My fellow tormented souls were not in a super talkative mood at this point. We just sat in the shade and tried to reset before the last few miles.  I was grateful that I wasn’t falling asleep anymore. 

After I got up to get rolling again, I was immediately back in a dream world of never-ending numbered wooden bridges and farm road crossings. The Wisconsin countryside was very beautiful but didn’t have many distinct landmarks, so it was especially disorienting to try to figure out what was coming next.  Bridge 28?  Milepost 10?  What did it all mean?  In any case, once I finally saw the end of the trail I somehow conjured enough energy to run the whole rest of the way through town and back to the park.

I got my hug and buckle from Scotty and we chatted for a moment. After mentioning I lived in Tucson I think he was a little surprised when I said it was a hot race.  It was a very hot race.  Despite the extreme mugginess, I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the people who showed up.  I didn’t hurt myself and I recovered surprisingly quickly afterwards.  The hardest part was getting back to Tucson.  Flights got all messed up due to weather and I got stranded in Denver for a while.  This past week was the longest continuous break in running I’ve had in a long time while I get my other affairs in order.  It might not be the best preparation for my big fall races, but I do feel really good about finishing another 100 miler after the way the rest of the summer has been going, mileage-wise.  Now I just need to get some sleep.