On
April 3rd I completed my 102 mile race in under 30 hours. The race that I completed was called "The Race Across Taiwan." Some of the runners started in Taichung city on the western side of the island and were running all the way to Hualien on the eastern side. These runners would be up for close to three days without sleep and would run a whopping 246 kilometers. I contemplated entering this group but with work and other time constraints I decided not to. Instead I signed up for the 164 kilometer (102 mile) race that started in Puli and skipped over some of the more congested areas then would finish in Hualien. Since, I am all finished I can say it was not quite
what I expected but everything went as well as it could have went. The weather was okay, I didn't get horribly sick, and I didn't get really
lost.
There were a lot of unexpected challenges leading up to the race. The
biggest challenge was dealing with our boss. Over the last couple of weeks our
boss at our school has become more hostile and less friendly than ever. As a
result, working at the school has become a very stressful. Conflicts would arise all the time and the interactions between us became one of the most unpleasant experiences that I've had in a long time. With this thought of running a hundred miles on busy roads sounded more and more appealing as long as I got away from my job.
On Friday evening we got a taxi from work to the train station. Then we took a high speed train to Taichung and from there got a bus to Puli. Once we got to Puli the taxi drivers didn't want to take us to the guesthouse from the bus station. So we ended up having to walk there with our bags. It wasn't an ideal since I was trying to rest before the race but I guess I shouldn’t complain about walking a couple extra miles. As we got to the guest house I the both of us were exhausted and my throat felt raw from the long week at work.
On Friday evening we got a taxi from work to the train station. Then we took a high speed train to Taichung and from there got a bus to Puli. Once we got to Puli the taxi drivers didn't want to take us to the guesthouse from the bus station. So we ended up having to walk there with our bags. It wasn't an ideal since I was trying to rest before the race but I guess I shouldn’t complain about walking a couple extra miles. As we got to the guest house I the both of us were exhausted and my throat felt raw from the long week at work.
I
slept pretty good that night but woke up feeling under the weather and tired the next day. We
were planning on taking a taxi to the starting line but the owner of the guest
house was nowhere to be seen. So, we
ended up walking again with our bags down the grimy, busy street to the start
of the race.
At
the starting line there were about 30 runners in my category which was the 164 km
race. There were some speeches in Chinese and lots of pictures
being taken. Then we all lining up at the
starting line and the (fake) guns were fired. I started off at a slow pace and followed the crowd of runners going up the road.
Right
away it was getting hot and humid. I’ve gotten fairly sick before running in
the heat and I didn't want to have to have this happen during the race so I
wet my shirt down then at every faucet, waterfall, or creek that I could find. While doing this I also got my phone saturated with water. As a result it would only work some of the time and it was a little inconvenient because I was using my phone for navigation. I was lucky enough to see other runners ahead of me and was able to make out the general direction of the course. The first 20 miles or so there was a lot of very steep climbing and I think a couple of the runners dropped right away. It was hard to go more than 2 miles an hour for a long way and everyone slowed to a walk going up the hill.
Adrien took a bus that was going to follow me along course and help me out. She found out the bus that she was on was more concerned about picking up the runners that dropped out from the 246 group. I ended up being pretty far ahead of her and didn't get to see here until 21 miles into the race but it was a real treat to see her. She had some food ready for me from 7-Eleven and there was a place to cool down. After my brief visit I left and was lucky enough to have a nice section of the course. There was lots of shade and a turquoise lake to look at as I trotted down the road.
Just when I started to enjoy myself we got to a new intersection and we turned on a really busy highway. As we continued it got steeper and more difficult. There was no shoulder and the traffic was getting overwhelming. There was lots of dust, exhaust, and pollution. This made my throat feel like it was on fire. Going up the busy highway I passed mock European villages and other semi ridiculous tourist attractions. It was strange passing all these families walking to their hotels. I couldn't stop to think about what their day might have been like. Maybe they slept in and got a late breakfast, took some pictures and now their going to get dinner. As I was thinking about this my legs where tiring and my feet were starting to hurt and I was questioning my decision to do this race.
As I continued on the sun started to dip behind the horizon and I wasn't even at the 64 kilometer (40 miles) mark yet and I still had a lot of climbing ahead of me. The road that I was running on is called the Central Cross-Island Highway and it is the highest paved road in the country. The race started in the bustling streets of Puli Township at a little over 1000 feet with the feeling of humid jungle mountains. I was dipping up and down canyons and mountains, and even into a pine forest. My final ascent up Mount Hehuan was the highest point of this road, at 11,227 feet. As I continued down the road I got to the next big aid station where I met Adrien again.
I was around 6:30 pm when I got to the aid station and Adrien had all my gear ready for me. I quickly changed my shoes since I was drenching myself at every opportunity everything was pretty wet including my feet. I got some food and with my dry shoes and socks I headed up the road into the night to do the final climb to the top of the mountain. By around 10 o'clock I was above 10,000 feet and the air was very cold and crisp.
I was pacing myself as I started to get waves of nausea from the elevation. The snow on the side of the road and stars in the sky made me feel a little better. It was nice to be finally breathing cleaner air. I managed to get up to the top of the mountain and start coming down and was able to run at a good pace again.
The race directors warned everybody how cold it would be up on the top of the mountain but it wasn't extremely cold. As I continued to go down the air seemed to get thicker and in no time I was approaching the 55 mile mark and getting to the next aid station. When I arrived Adrien told me that there were some runners that had gotten hypothermic and had to get on the bus. Also by this point a lot of runners were dropping out and experiencing acute altitude sickness and throwing up so it wasn't very pleasant for her to be on the pungent bus. She was there to help me get some warmer clothes and get some hot food in me. The race director walked up to me and asked if I was going to keep going. I guess this was a common thing with all the runners. It seemed a bit strange for him to be so discouraging. It seemed like in America everyone has a can-do attitude and will push you to go on and try. But here in Taiwan they were doing their best to make runners quit. It seemed at times that the directors would almost harass the runners, especially the runners going uphill.
Before long I was off again going down and entering Taroko Gorge and I was required to wear my helmet which was required for the next 40 miles. I was not looking forward to this but I didn't want to get disqualified. After throwing on my helmet I ran as fast as I could down the mountain hoping to get as far as I could before the traffic started again.
I saw the sun come up while entering Taroko Gorge and it was beautiful seeing the sunrise while running through these magnificent tunnels and marble canyons. There were many waterfalls and 2000 foot high sheer cliffs with trees growing out of the sides of them. It was really amazing to see.
Even though I felt like I was moving at a good pace I was a little bit behind schedule. I found out that I was near the cut off point. I was just making it to the cut off points for certain aid stations and as I went on there was a lot of confusion about when the aid stations closed.
A very important aid station was at mile 90 and according to the schedule it closed at 11 AM. As I went on many of the runners told me that they extended the time to 12:30 or 1pm. This made sense because if you made it by 11 am and then you had 5 hours to run 10 miles since the absolute cut off point was at 4pm.
I was about four miles away from the mile 90 aid station when one of the race directors jumped out of a bus told me that the time was up. He told me to get on the bus, but I said no I want to continue running anyway.
I only really had about 15 miles to the finish line and I figured I should just keep running even if my finish was not official. Since he told me that I wouldn't be able to qualify for the actual race I left my helmet by the roadside for somebody else. I figured someone would pick it up soon enough. Also it was getting very hard to run with the heavy helmet on. It made my shoulders and back strain a lot. I was hoping that Adrien would still be at the aid station even though it would be closed.
When I got there Adrien talked to the race directors and convinced them to let me continue the race officially but they said I had to have a helmet . So, Adrien quickly went to the bus where all the runners that quit were and asked everyone if they had a spare helmet. Not to long after, she got me a bicycle helmet to wear. Then she got me a snack from 7-Eleven and told me to get going.
I was tired of all the mind games of the race directors so I ran hard. As I went on I met other runners and we motivated each other to run faster. Mostly because we thought the finish line was sooner than it really was.
By this time I was with six other Taiwanese people and we were approaching an intersection. One way went to a temple that we all saw on the race pamphlet and the other was continued down the busy highway. We all thought the temple was the finish line so we all went that direction, looking around and getting excited. There were nothing but tourists. We knew we made a mistake and finally saw in the distance other runners running across the bridge far off and we decided to catch up with them.
So after wasting about a half an hour and a lot of energy and we made it back to the main road and kept on trying to guess where the finish line might be. As time went on we came to a town and I kept on having to stop and try to look and decide which way was correct. Finally some photographers pointed me in the right direction and ran up the road towards a rundown looking town. Off to the side was the finish line. It took me a little over 29 hours to get there but I made it. As a reward the race directors gave me a printed certificate and a paperweight. The whole experience was strange and a bit stressful but was worth getting away and doing something different. But I don't think I'll be doing another road race for a while.
Adrien took a bus that was going to follow me along course and help me out. She found out the bus that she was on was more concerned about picking up the runners that dropped out from the 246 group. I ended up being pretty far ahead of her and didn't get to see here until 21 miles into the race but it was a real treat to see her. She had some food ready for me from 7-Eleven and there was a place to cool down. After my brief visit I left and was lucky enough to have a nice section of the course. There was lots of shade and a turquoise lake to look at as I trotted down the road.
Just when I started to enjoy myself we got to a new intersection and we turned on a really busy highway. As we continued it got steeper and more difficult. There was no shoulder and the traffic was getting overwhelming. There was lots of dust, exhaust, and pollution. This made my throat feel like it was on fire. Going up the busy highway I passed mock European villages and other semi ridiculous tourist attractions. It was strange passing all these families walking to their hotels. I couldn't stop to think about what their day might have been like. Maybe they slept in and got a late breakfast, took some pictures and now their going to get dinner. As I was thinking about this my legs where tiring and my feet were starting to hurt and I was questioning my decision to do this race.
As I continued on the sun started to dip behind the horizon and I wasn't even at the 64 kilometer (40 miles) mark yet and I still had a lot of climbing ahead of me. The road that I was running on is called the Central Cross-Island Highway and it is the highest paved road in the country. The race started in the bustling streets of Puli Township at a little over 1000 feet with the feeling of humid jungle mountains. I was dipping up and down canyons and mountains, and even into a pine forest. My final ascent up Mount Hehuan was the highest point of this road, at 11,227 feet. As I continued down the road I got to the next big aid station where I met Adrien again.
I was around 6:30 pm when I got to the aid station and Adrien had all my gear ready for me. I quickly changed my shoes since I was drenching myself at every opportunity everything was pretty wet including my feet. I got some food and with my dry shoes and socks I headed up the road into the night to do the final climb to the top of the mountain. By around 10 o'clock I was above 10,000 feet and the air was very cold and crisp.
I was pacing myself as I started to get waves of nausea from the elevation. The snow on the side of the road and stars in the sky made me feel a little better. It was nice to be finally breathing cleaner air. I managed to get up to the top of the mountain and start coming down and was able to run at a good pace again.
The race directors warned everybody how cold it would be up on the top of the mountain but it wasn't extremely cold. As I continued to go down the air seemed to get thicker and in no time I was approaching the 55 mile mark and getting to the next aid station. When I arrived Adrien told me that there were some runners that had gotten hypothermic and had to get on the bus. Also by this point a lot of runners were dropping out and experiencing acute altitude sickness and throwing up so it wasn't very pleasant for her to be on the pungent bus. She was there to help me get some warmer clothes and get some hot food in me. The race director walked up to me and asked if I was going to keep going. I guess this was a common thing with all the runners. It seemed a bit strange for him to be so discouraging. It seemed like in America everyone has a can-do attitude and will push you to go on and try. But here in Taiwan they were doing their best to make runners quit. It seemed at times that the directors would almost harass the runners, especially the runners going uphill.
Before long I was off again going down and entering Taroko Gorge and I was required to wear my helmet which was required for the next 40 miles. I was not looking forward to this but I didn't want to get disqualified. After throwing on my helmet I ran as fast as I could down the mountain hoping to get as far as I could before the traffic started again.
I saw the sun come up while entering Taroko Gorge and it was beautiful seeing the sunrise while running through these magnificent tunnels and marble canyons. There were many waterfalls and 2000 foot high sheer cliffs with trees growing out of the sides of them. It was really amazing to see.
Even though I felt like I was moving at a good pace I was a little bit behind schedule. I found out that I was near the cut off point. I was just making it to the cut off points for certain aid stations and as I went on there was a lot of confusion about when the aid stations closed.
A very important aid station was at mile 90 and according to the schedule it closed at 11 AM. As I went on many of the runners told me that they extended the time to 12:30 or 1pm. This made sense because if you made it by 11 am and then you had 5 hours to run 10 miles since the absolute cut off point was at 4pm.
I was about four miles away from the mile 90 aid station when one of the race directors jumped out of a bus told me that the time was up. He told me to get on the bus, but I said no I want to continue running anyway.
I only really had about 15 miles to the finish line and I figured I should just keep running even if my finish was not official. Since he told me that I wouldn't be able to qualify for the actual race I left my helmet by the roadside for somebody else. I figured someone would pick it up soon enough. Also it was getting very hard to run with the heavy helmet on. It made my shoulders and back strain a lot. I was hoping that Adrien would still be at the aid station even though it would be closed.
When I got there Adrien talked to the race directors and convinced them to let me continue the race officially but they said I had to have a helmet . So, Adrien quickly went to the bus where all the runners that quit were and asked everyone if they had a spare helmet. Not to long after, she got me a bicycle helmet to wear. Then she got me a snack from 7-Eleven and told me to get going.
I was tired of all the mind games of the race directors so I ran hard. As I went on I met other runners and we motivated each other to run faster. Mostly because we thought the finish line was sooner than it really was.
By this time I was with six other Taiwanese people and we were approaching an intersection. One way went to a temple that we all saw on the race pamphlet and the other was continued down the busy highway. We all thought the temple was the finish line so we all went that direction, looking around and getting excited. There were nothing but tourists. We knew we made a mistake and finally saw in the distance other runners running across the bridge far off and we decided to catch up with them.
So after wasting about a half an hour and a lot of energy and we made it back to the main road and kept on trying to guess where the finish line might be. As time went on we came to a town and I kept on having to stop and try to look and decide which way was correct. Finally some photographers pointed me in the right direction and ran up the road towards a rundown looking town. Off to the side was the finish line. It took me a little over 29 hours to get there but I made it. As a reward the race directors gave me a printed certificate and a paperweight. The whole experience was strange and a bit stressful but was worth getting away and doing something different. But I don't think I'll be doing another road race for a while.
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