Running 2023
I thought for a long time whether to write or not because a lot of time has passed. But people from various podcasts I listened to told “me” that I should write. Otherwise, what’s the point of running all these races? I planned to publish the text sometime in April. So, some of the thoughts or conclusions are outdated
Introduction
2023 didn’t go as planned for me. Initially, I intended to return to Norway for the 100 km race I attempted the year before. But at the beginning of the year, the organizers sent an email saying they wouldn’t be holding the 100 km race this year. It seems this was due to the low number of participants and the immense effort required to prepare such a race. My application was automatically transferred to a shorter race: 48 km with a 3900 m elevation gain. There was also an option to cancel the application and get a refund, which I intended to do. I liked such distances less. Mainly because you have to run fast on them. I can force myself to do it, but it’s just that — a force, not a desire. I am quite a lazy person deep inside. Due to this laziness, in mid-March, I went to their website to cancel the application and get the entry fee back and realized I was late. There was no such option anymore.
Fate and laziness pushed me towards an idea that occasionally appeared in my head — instead of a long race, try running several relatively short ones. Thus, the race calendar was formed as follows:
- May 27, 2023 — UTM 45. 49 km / 2750 m+
- July 22, 2023 — Tatra SkyMarathon. 46 km / 3140 m+
- August 12, 2023 — Stranda Fjord Trail Race. 49 km / 3870 m+
All of them are similar in numbers.
Motivation
The next task was to determine why I needed to run them.
Just enjoy competitions? Show yourself and others that you are better than others? No, this never resonated with me. I think because I grew up in a village where there were not many opportunities to show everyone that you are the best. It was quite easy to become the “first guy in the village.” I primarily mean school and lessons. All lessons except PE. Running or other physical activity didn’t interest me much at that time.
The desire to see that you are becoming better relative to yourself resonates more. Will I become better compared to last year? This is the question I eventually tried to find an answer to.
UTM 45
I saw this race as a litmus test. I wanted to understand if training in mountainous terrain helps run better (read: faster) on hills. Additionally, I decided to complicate my task a bit and didn’t take poles. But even that seemed not enough: why spend money on expensive nutrition gels when you can make them yourself?!
I hardly noticed the absence of poles. It seems that somewhere it even helped me: it’s easier to force yourself to run when there’s nothing to lean on.
However, my culinary experience was not successful. After about 30 km, my stomach asked me not to give it my delicacies anymore. And after the finish, it ended up in a completely non-working state. And, as a result, so did I. Several hours after the finish, I was shivering, feeling hot and cold alternately.
The result? 6:11:23. That’s 50 (!) minutes slower than last year. Position? Last year I finished 10th with a time of 5:21. And now I was 5th. Additionally, the course configuration slightly changed and became 4 km longer and 200 meters “higher.” Therefore, using time as a metric was impossible. I didn’t get any answers. But I enjoyed it despite stomach problems.
Race result: 6:11:23, 5/77.
Tatra SkyMarathon
The next race was the Tatra Sky Marathon. I started preparing for it in the second half of June — it took me about 3 weeks to recover after the previous race. Preparation for the race in the Tatras was quite simple. As always, I ran the same routes, and changing intensity of the training. It was the time of beautiful sunrises. I had to get up before 5 a.m. to catch these wonderful moments.
Two weeks before the race, I started reducing the training volumes. Usually, it’s hard for the body. Some inner rhythm, a clock, is developed. The body demands physical activity and doesn’t get it in the doses it’s used to. The mood can become unstable. As a result, the subconscious searches for what can replace the lack of physical activity, and it’s usually work. You immerse yourself in it: the body rests, but the brain does not.
On the last training session a few days before the race, while descending a hill, I stumbled very badly and hit my knee hard on a rock. It seems it happened due to mental fatigue: I stumbled because my head at that moment was thinking about something else, occupied with its own business. The pain was so strong that the stars in my eyes disappeared only after a minute or two. It was painful to bend the leg. Life experience told me that this pain wouldn’t go away in a couple of hours, I would have to live with it for some time.
Plans for the race had to be changed as a result. I clearly couldn’t and didn’t want to run at full strength, so I decided to set aside thoughts of how to run the race as fast as possible. The new plan was not to make the knee worse and enjoy the race.
Tatra Sky Marathon is a very crowded race compared to others I participated in in recent years. This crowdedness somehow adds internal tension and the feeling that this is all very serious. I don’t know what the word “serious” might mean in the context of races, but such a feeling was formed.
After the start, I lost interest in the race already on the first big climb. Perhaps due to mental fatigue, perhaps due to pain in my right knee, perhaps due to the large number of participants. It seems that all together. I reluctantly dragged myself in the train with other participants and didn’t find any motivation or strength to overtake this train. “Okay, let it pull me,” the thought sat in my head. All this time I was waiting for the first big descent. Descents are always fun and fast. Perhaps constant training in hilly terrain made me much more confident and faster on descents. At first, the descent was relatively technical — with a lot of rocks. Therefore, I tried to run quite carefully. Somewhere in the middle of this descent, I began to “revive” — interest in the race began to reappear. Perhaps it’s just that adrenaline entered the bloodstream. From the middle, the descent became less technical and faster — large rocks underfoot began to disappear, the road became smoother. Only occasionally did roots from trees come underfoot. The slope sped me up. The pain in my right leg, however, was with me all this time. It was still difficult to bend and unbend it. And then my leg catches on a small stone/root…
I’m not running, but already flying. I extend my hands forward, make a somersault. I get up. I try to run further. My flight was noticed by a group of tourists who were walking towards me. They ask if I’m okay. At this moment, I look at my palm, which was hurting: it’s all red with blood. Blood is slowly dripping down from the palm. “No, not okay,” I reply and continue running.
I decided not to stop and not to treat the wound myself. I knew that there was a food and aid station nearby. I thought I would listen to what the doctors would say there. The question arose, “Do I need to continue at all?” I didn’t have enough motivation to fight further, but I didn’t want to just quit either.
Naturally, I was worried if everything was okay. After all, it’s the hand — a lot of small vessels and tendons. It seems easy to hurt yourself. On the other hand, there were several “positive” points that calmed and even slightly uplifted me:
- The fingers and hand moved. It seems all tendons were intact.
- The blood wasn’t flowing fast. So, I hadn’t damaged large vessels.
- Due to stress, the body reflexively, it seems, threw another dose of adrenaline into the blood. The head instantly became clear, muscles and legs became light. This helped me quickly fly the remaining part of the descent and overtake several people.
At the aid station, I was met by Alena, Sasha, and Hanna. They took me to the doctor, who was basking in the sun at that moment and seemed to be enjoying life. He washed the wound and said it was just a scratch. Finishing the race because of a scratch seemed a very weak argument to me. So, I ate, drank, whined a bit, and went on. In retrospect, I am very glad that Alena and friends met and supported me. However, during the race, I was only halfway with them. The other half of my consciousness was somewhere else.
On the second big climb, there was even less motivation than on the first. I lazily crawled up. The sun was beating down on my forehead. People who I overtook on the descent were passing me. Closer to the end of the climb, it started to rain. Short, about 15 minutes. And it seemed to wake me up and give me energy. The last 200 vertical meters I climbed quite briskly and with enthusiasm.
The last big descent again brought joy. After all, it’s very fun to fly down at full speed. The descent is the moment of maximum concentration on what you are doing. On where you need to place your foot, what awaits you in the next 15 meters. On instantly finding balance when the stone underfoot turned out to be not as stable as you hoped a few seconds ago. Internet influencers call this “the flow” and say it’s one of the best states a person can be in. They are right.
I overtake several people. It seems, those who overtook me earlier on the climb.
The last ~5 kilometers were through the valley. The least interesting part of the course. Flat, lots of people. I try to run as fast as possible to finish it. I don’t look back. I imagine another participant is catching up with me. This creates some internal tension, which also makes me not slow down. In reality, there was no one close behind me. Before the finish, I even managed to almost catch up with the person in front of me.
After the finish, friends advised me to go to the doctors again and show my hand. The wound was well washed. I looked at it and life experience suggested that it needed stitching. The doctors confirmed it.
Race result: 6:47:30, 54/300, 3 stitches.
Stranda Fjord Trail Race
On the third week after the Tatras, there was Norway. I understood: the race would be hard for me. Very little time to fully recover. Besides, the knee didn’t heal. It felt like the ligaments were damaged. Such injuries do not heal quickly. This gave an understanding that I shouldn’t count on running fast. So, I tried to put the sports side in the background (even backbackground) and, again, enjoy not only the race but the whole trip.
This year, I settled with the thought that Norway is the most beautiful and fascinating place I’ve ever been. I was here for the second time. It seems everything should be familiar and understandable. But these mountain walls that rise from the ground and peek out from behind low clouds right in front of you… It’s so impressive that you look at them and can’t take your eyes off. The untouched nature also attracts. It feels like you are a guest here. It’s a completely different impression in Poland and other Western European countries. Civilization is felt everywhere. Crowds of people everywhere, like in the center of Krakow.
The race? It was hard. It became hard after the first 100 vertical meters. At the same time, I can confidently say that this is the most diverse and interesting race about 50 km long that I had to run. I’m ready to recommend it to everyone.
First, it’s a long climb from sea level to 1400 meters above sea level. Over time, this climb becomes more and more difficult. First, a gravel road, then trail. After it ends, and the last part you just scramble up big rocks.
Then begins the descent over the same big rocks. I was surprised that I couldn’t descend fast. So, over time, a guy overtook me. I tried to follow him closely. I was surprised that I could easily keep his pace. Running in his “verified” footsteps was much easier.
In Poland, descents never scared me so much. Even if there were only stones underfoot. You just fly down and don’t pay much attention to what’s underfoot. And if the foot slips, then most likely nothing terrible will happen. It’s important to keep balance. Additionally, I had time to develop an understanding of which stones are stable and which are not. However, here my experience turned out to be completely irrelevant. I ran down and couldn’t understand if I would slip off the stone, if it would flip over, if my foot would get stuck between other stones. I ran down very carefully, distrusting every step. Naturally, this tired me out a lot — both psychologically and physically.
Before the descent into the town, there was a long section without elevation gain. There I planned to recover a bit after the climb and descent. However, I completely forgot that this area was boggy. Every step required significant effort: you had to pull your feet out of this bog. As a result, I got even more tired on this section. Then, the long-awaited descent into town. A usual path underfoot. Finally, I can speed up.
In the town, there was a food station. There was a little over a third of the total distance left. Inside, I felt that I already had enough impressions. The desire to finish the race here forced me to go out for the second lap.
The second lap was not as difficult as the first. It was a technically simple but long climb and then almost immediately a descent back into the town. The way up was very, very, very, very slow. Literally, like a snail. In these 2 hours of climbing, 3 or 4 people overtook me. On one hand, it demotivated. On the other, I told myself (and them) in my head: “Nothing, on the descent I will leave you in the dust (or mud in case of Norway)”. All that was left was to endure to the descent. And strength began to return when I already started feeling that the descent would start soon. The backs of people began to appear. The descent itself was familiar to me from last year. I flew off it, it seems, instantly. About a kilometer before the finish, I finally managed to overtake 3 people who had overtaken me earlier on the climb. This fact brought satisfaction from the finish and from the race as a whole.
Race result: 8:35:02, 19/66.
Conclusion
Looking back, it became clearer to me that such races are still not for me. They require systematic training. With a plan, analysis, etc. My approach is more chaotic and relies primarily on personal feelings. Based on these feelings, I adjust the volumes and intensity. With such an approach, it’s hard to count on outstanding results.
PS
Thank you very much for reading to the very end. This text turned out to be “messy” — about everything and a bit of everything. In some sense, that’s how it lay in my head. Unsistematically, chaotically, interwoven. However, I still wanted to free my head from these thoughts. Make room for new impressions and life experiences.
