THE MUSINGS OF INTERN TIM
volume 4
Each summer at Big River Running Company we hire an intern or two to help us out with anything and everything at the store. This year our West County Intern, Tim Butterfield, just happens to be a writer and so we figured he could test our his skills by writing a few articles for the website. Here is his fourth piece...an article on Big River staffer Drew Wyant and his experiences at the Howl at the Moon Ultra Race.
"Howl at the Moon"
It inspires me so much to realize how accomplished the staff at Big River Running company is. I'm reminded of this every time I watch an employee help a customer find the right pair of shoes, accessory, or outfit. Each worker at the store provides so much helpful assistance, because he or she has experienced the thrills of competitive racing. In fact, essentially every member of the Big River staff has achieved tremendous success in the running world.
Allow me to hone in on employee in particular – Drew Wyant. A former runner at DePauw University, Drew just recently received his master's degree from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. You can often find him at the store, and you might also bump into him at a race or two.
On August 8th , Drew completed the Howl At The Moon 8-Hour Race in Danville, Illinois. Drew's distance for the 8-hour race was 49.06 miles – an awesome feat that earned him a second-place finish.
Drew ran his first ultra marathon (a race longer than the standard 26.2-mile marathon distance) – the Bass Pro Shops Dogwood Canyon 50k – in Springfield, Missouri, last October. He liked the experience and decided to race another ultra in the near future. When this summer rolled around, Drew set his sights on the Howl At The Moon, a race his father had run twice before and thoroughly enjoyed.
Because he is training for his first road marathon (the Indianapolis Marathon in October), Drew figured he would be relatively well-prepared for the 8-hour race. However, his two longest training runs were just 15 and 18 miles, and those were the longest runs he'd done since last October. Admitting that the training he had done prior to the Howl wasn't ideal for an ultra marathon, Drew says, “My training was sub-par and I wasn't very fit going into the race. I decided not to taper for the event, because my main focus this fall is the Indianapolis Marathon.”
If not being very fit could earn Drew a second-place finish in an 8-hour race, I'd love to be “out of shape” any day of the week.
Drew ran 18 miles the Sunday before the Howl, an easy 10 on Monday and Tuesday, a hilly 10 on Wednesday, and another easy 10 on Thursday. He ran 6 miles on Friday – the day before the race.
Although the Howl isn't a traditional race with a start and finish line, it's pretty simple to figure out how the race is structured. Competitors run around a 3.29-mile loop as many times as they can in 8 hours. Officials count the laps, and the runner with the greatest total number of laps run after 8 hours is the winner.
8 hours is a long time to run (or even be up on your feet, for that matter), yet ultra runners put themselves in fast motion for this amount of time, and sometimes even longer. Thus, there was no need for Drew to run any warm-up miles before the race. As Drew put it, “The first 48 [miles] got me good and warm for the last mile.”
Drew's experience at the Howl was much different from his 50k race last October. Last year's race was on a very difficult course, which wore him out in a completely different way than the Howl, which consisted of repetitive laps. After the 50k, Drew had been extremely sore and couldn't run for a week afterward. The day after the Howl, however, Drew went out for a 3-miler. He then resumed his normal training schedule for the October marathon, albeit at a slower pace.
“I preferred the 50k because it was a set distance and I knew how far I had left to go. When I was running for time at the Howl, it was a lot harder to gauge my effort and how much I had left in the tank,” said Drew after the race.
A few days after the Howl, I asked Drew if he had “hit the wall” in his ultra marathon. He responded, “I didn't so much hit the wall as much as I fell off a cliff about four and a half hours in. I did manage to regroup a little for the last two hours, but I had a real bad stretch there for a while.”
The shoes that carried Drew through the good and bad stretches were his trusty Brooks Adrenalines. Having worn several versions of the shoe since middle school, Drew figured they were a logical choice for the race.
During the race, Drew ate 6 energy gel packets, some Gatorade, and, of course, lots of water. The temperature was around 95 degrees (with a 112 heat index), after all. He took one bathroom pit stop about four hours into the race.
Drew ran positive mile splits (decreasing, rather than increasing, his pace), which was his plan going into the race. But despite aiming for a “controlled explosion,” Drew says he “blew up a little bigger than I had hoped for.” Nevertheless, he persevered to the end, fueled by the many spectators at the race and the well-stocked aid stations every lap.
Although Drew's family thinks he is “a little crazy” for competing in such intense events, the race could be considered a Wyant family experience. Drew's father, Mark, ran the race for a third time this year, covering roughly the marathon distance in 8 hours. Drew's wife, Mandy, also racked up 23 miles of her own while jumping in and out of the race to keep her husband company.
Drew finished in second place overall, but he says that he never felt like he was racing against anybody but himself. “It was really a fight to keep myself moving towards the end of the day,” Drew says. “My thought wandered from: ‘This feels so easy' to ‘How can I cut my own legs off?'” But despite the struggles he had along the way, Drew's experience and ultimate success has made him eager to run more ultras in the future.
“I would definitely like to do another ultra, and I am on the prowl for a good, competitive 50-miler sometime later this year or early next spring,” says Wyant, adding, “But I would like to try to avoid another 95-degree day, if at all possible.”
Drew will continue his marathon training and might run a few tune-up races in the coming weeks. He will compete in the Indianapolis Marathon on Saturday, October 17th . Remember to check the race results to follow the successes of one of Big River's finest!
Other Articles from Intern Tim:
All Star 5k
Big River Cross Country Camp
Saint Louis Track Club Cross Country Kickoff
Shoes!
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Big River Running Company
14059 Manchester Road
Manchester, MO 63011
636.394.5500
5352 Devonshire Ave
Saint Louis, MO 63109
314.832.2400