Race Experience - Part Two - Sleep Monsters and Foot Pain

Our strategy was simple - try to sleep 1 or 2 hours for every 24 hours racing and see how our bodies reacted. Ultimately, we slept only 7 1/2 hours in 6 days - mostly in short spells of 20 minutes to 1 hour. We raced for roughly 34 hours before finally lying down for our first 20 minutes - we didn't sleep - but the short break severely reduced swelling in our feet and made an enormous difference in our mental conviction to continue.We finally stopped for some warm soup and laid down for 2 hours - of which I slept maybe 1 hour - but it made a world of difference. We felt renewed, our feet no longer ached, and our energy returned - incredible considering the amount of terrain we had just covered.

Many people have asked us how we can manage to continue for so long without sleep. It seems that constant physical exertion produces endorphins and adreneline that both help to keep you awake. We also take caffeine in the form of gels that helps keep the sleep monsters at bay - at least for awhile - but when the body decides it needs sleep - the battle begins. There were sections where we walked for hours with every cell in our bodies screaming to lay down and sleep if only for a few moments. We would lie down on the ground and it felt as though we were being sucked into the center of the earth. It took enormous effort to stand up again and continue walking, tripping and falling along the way - to reach the next destination. We found sleeping in the open more difficult than we expected as the cold and wind conspired to prevent any rest and we ended up using beds at the life stations for most of our sleep. These were usually hot and noisy - but more comfortable and we found that with even 20 minutes of sleep and an hour of lying still - the body was able to recover and repair enough to continue.

In some sections - we had to repeatedly sit down as we were so tired we could not focus our eyes - we called it wiggly eyes - you would try to focus on a rock ahead of you and it literally bounced back and forth and your eyes would not steady. It caused us to stumble and fall at times and occassionally we would need to lie down for 5 minutes to make it stop.

Foot pain is something you learn to live with. At times the aching in the feet felt like a toothache, other times like walking on hot coals. By hour 100 our feet were swollen to a full size larger that normal and felt and looked as though they had been inflated to 200 lbs pressure and a pin prick would explode them. By hour 130 many racers were limping gingerly and reported foot pain that was like walking on a hundred needles - which we learned was the nerves in the foot reacting to the constant pounding of the days past. It literally felt like our feet were burning to walk on them. On the final section - I refused to let my feet dictate whether I would run or not - and concluded if I began running - endorphins would come to the rescue and the pain would cease - I was right. Within 2 minutes of pounding my foot pain disappeared and my feet became numb. I used this opportunity to sprint the entire last section of the race. As I guzzled coca cola, ate 6 or 7 gels and half a liter of water I passed over 30 racers on the final stretch to the finish line and then hiked up to the trailhead to walk the final km to the finish with Delena who was fighting her own battle with muscle cramps in the quads but managed to overcome the pain and force herself to 'shuffle' to the finish well before the cut off time as well.