2018 Eagle Up Ultra Wrap Up
While James and I recover from an exhilarating weekend without much sleep, I wanted to share a brief rundown of what happened in the last two hours of last night’s race and the important part that a pacer plays in a runner’s race (it’s not just keeping him on pace!).
Shortly before 7 pm, our daughter Kelly had just returned from pacing James on his 11th, five mile lap. He was low on energy, yet still in good spirits, his mind fairly sharp (for running 55 miles) and except of some upper back pain, his body felt pretty good especially after Dr. Murphy (@nortonchiropractic) came to give him an adjustment. However, he just couldn’t eat anymore without throwing up and his water intake was very low. As much as he wanted to finish his goal of 100 miles in 24 hours, he didn’t think it was achievable in this race.
Plan C: What was still achievable was finishing the 100K. He only needed to run 7 more miles to complete the 100K, AND he would beat his 2017 time by 6 hours! It was a no brainer! We made the switch to Plan C with only one problem. James didn’t have another pacer coming until the 9 pm hour and none of us thought it was a good idea for him to run alone in his condition.
That’s when second shift crew member, Tim, stepped up to pace him even though he was not a runner or power walker himself. Since James was running a much slower pace, he felt he could keep up with him. Little did any of us know that things would go awry and that Tim’s pacing him was a blessing in disguise! The plan was that Tim would pace James the last five miles with the rest of the crew and myself picking up the last two mile to the finish line.
About 20 minutes in I received a text from Tim that James was ‘walking’. This told us the lap would take a little longer so we started cleaning things up so we would be ready to pick him up around the 60th lap. About 40 mins later I received the frantic call from Tim that James was down, and in trouble. “His eyes are closing, he wants to curl up”. Kelly, Stephen (our 9 pm pacer), and I jumped in the car. James had done this before and just needed some encouragement, to keep going the last few miles, he could do it. Boy were we wrong! As we headed to the Butternut Bridge, we received another call from Tim that an ambulance had been called, James had passed out.
When we first got there James was not responsive and I was being asked which hospital they should take him to. To say I was in shock was an understatement. This was NOT in the plan. Couldn’t they just give him fluids in the ambulance like they did after he ran the marathon several years go? “Ma’am, your husband is in really bad shape and I am not going to be responsible for what happens next if we don’t take him”.
“OK, this is not good” my weary mind was saying as he stared me in the eyes. Everything seemed a bit surreal. By the time Kelly got by my side, James was becoming responsive again as they started to load him in the ambulance.
While riding to the hospital I was thinking how grateful I was to Tim and all our team. Had James not had a pacer with him, the outcome could have been different. By the time this happened the trail was dark and not many runners where still in the race. Who knows how long it would have been until someone found him, got help and contacted me. The thought is very scary and made me confirmed the importance and the value of having a pacer on long Ultra runs like this one. Thank you, Tim for stepping up to help and to all our other pacers, including those that were waiting in the wings to pace James last night. You are a very valuable piece to James reaching his goals and keeping him safe while he goes for it.
