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The race director had invited some of the best ultrarunners to the 2013 race. He invited Mike Morton, the [http://www.army.mil/article/87942/ holder of the men's US 24 hour record] and a [http://trailrunnernation.com/2012/10/a-record-breaking-year-for-mike-morton/ number of course records]. [http://militarytimes.com/blogs/pt365/2012/07/17/mike-morten-wins-the-badwater135-mile-ultra-in-225255-just-shy-of-the-course-record/ Mike won Badwater] last year, but missed setting the course record by 90 seconds, so when the race director asked Mike who he'd most like to race, he said [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmir_Nunes Valmir Nunes], the current Badwater record holder. Sadly Mike had a stress fracture in his foot and could not race, but I got to spend some time before the race with Valmir, who is a charming and softly spoken Brazilian. The Women's field included [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Gardner Connie Gardner], who is the [http://www.irunfar.com/2012/09/mike-morton-and-connie-gardner-post-world-24-hour-championships-interview.html women's US 24 record holder] and is preparing for the 24 hour world championships in May. It was also great to see the ultrarunning Icon Fred "Doom" Dummar back after he injured his knee landing badly on a parachute jump.
=My Race=
The first 20 miles of the race went well, with my pace a little faster than I expected, partly due to the tail wind. For the next few miles the route went through streets that were flooded. The ankle deep cold water was not fun, but not much of a problem. However, the ankle deep quicksand was a problem, filling your shoes [[Shoes]] with sharp stones and sand, and it slowed progress down to a crawl. The race director had said at the race briefing that it was okay to go around the flooding if we wanted to. It added a few blocks of extra distance, but that was well worth it for the time saved. At about mile 28 I found out we would have to turn around, which was bad news as the wind had been rising from 8 MPH at the start to 14 MPH with 21 MPH gusts by 9am. At the turn around on Bodie Island the wind was strong enough to make running difficult and my pace declined. 3.5 miles after the turn around we got back off Bodie Island and the wind was not so bad, but my pace never picked back up again. I finished in 17:41 as third male, fourth overall (provisional results).
=What worked=
* '''No nausea'''. My last few races I've been plagued by severe nausea, so I'm happy that this did not occur again. I think that I avoided the nausea by drinking more. I drank about 2 gallons (8 liters) over the course of the race, which is far more than I was sweating out. I needed to urinate every 2-3 miles, which was annoying, but I wanted to err on the side of drinking more to see if this would fix the nausea issue. I had no concerns about [[Hyponatremia]] as I got a lot of salt from my drink.
* '''Sunglasses'''. I recently swapped from Oakley sunglasses to [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0035XQYIG Tifosi Tyrant] because I wanted a photochromic lens that would go clear for running at dawn and dusk. I've found the Tifosi 'Night Light' to work well and I find them more comfortable than my Oakley's.
* '''Morton's Stretch'''. [[Morton Stretch| This stretch]] didn't fix my dead legs, but it did help a little.
* '''Hokas'''. This is the longest race I've run in the [[Hoka Shoe Review| Hokas]], and I appreciated the extra padding on the asphalt. I had remarkably little foot soreness after the race, but overall I'm not happy with the design of their shoes [[Shoes]] as they have a tiny toebox. I think we will see far more shoes [[Shoes]] like the Hokas that are 'maximum cushioning, minimum drop'. Already there are shoes [[Shoes]] like the Altra Torin and the Mizuno Wave Evo Cursoris that provide about 2/3rds the cushioning of the Hokas, but designed for a human foot.
=What didn't work=
* '''Dead legs'''. My legs got weaker faster than I anticipated, especially my quads. There may be several reasons for this.
** My [[Practical Tapering| taper]] for the race was just a week, which is not long enough.
** I have not been doing as much [[Downhill Running| downhill training]] as I'd like. I'm planning on getting a treadmill that will do decline so that I can get in the long steady downhill runs.
** I didn't take any [[Walking Breaks| walking breaks]] for the first 40 miles. I'm not sure if this is why my legs got so weak, but the lack of walking breaks [[Walking Breaks]] did hurt my time.
* '''Radiation burns'''. The Graveyard course has little shade once the sun comes up, and I didn't think about sunburn until it was way too late. It's quite possible that the sunburn impacted my race, as sunburn has been shown to impact the ability to exercise in the [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1566925 heat] and the [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1566926 cold].