2011 01 10 peanut island 24 hour

Susan Donnelly Ultramarathon Trail Runner. Motivational Speaker. http://www.susanruns100s.com

Peanut Island 24-Hour Date : January 10, 2011

With Karen at the start of her first 12-hour race.

December 31, 2010 – January 1, 2011 It all started with an itch to try some new events. I was scanning the Ultrarunning Magazine calendar for interesting races I’ve never run, and bingo! There was one listed on New Year’s weekend, right where my sister Karen lives. About a month earlier, Nikki Seger had e-mailed about this race, urging me to come down and run it. I didn’t particularly love time races but didn’t outright say “no” because I hadn’t seen Nikki in years and didn’t want to pass up a chance to reconnect. The calendar details said it was a 24-hour race (along with two heats of a 12-hour race and two heats of a 6-hour race) around a tiny island (1.234-mile laps) on concrete pavers. Hmm… In any other situation, I wouldn’t have read further, but it would be a great chance to see Karen and share the race with her, and it would be good to see Nikki and

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Jennifer too. It would also be easy and less rushed than usual on a holiday weekend…

It was just too perfect to pass up. I mean, how often do you really get to share something you love this closely with someone you love? Karen could do as many or as few loops as she wanted at whatever speed she wanted. During the race, she could sleep at night, tour the museum, take a ride on the schooner…whatever she wanted. And this was certainly something new for me. It’s good for us all to get out of our comfort zones every now and then.

In that frame of mind, I signed myself up for the 24-hour race (from 10 a.m. December 31 – 10 a.m. January 1) and…here comes the big step…at Rob’s suggestion, I also signed Karen up for the 12-hour heat that went from 10 p.m. December 31 – 10 a.m. January 1, over New Year’s Eve. She could participate for a change instead of just watching and crewing, which would be more fun for all of us, and she, Rob and I would all finish together. I entered her info online and clicked the button, hoping she would still speak to me when she found out. Reassuringly, I noticed that Nikki had apparently signed her partner Jennifer up too. At least I wasn’t the only one taking this chance!

Thankfully, when I called Karen didn’t freak out or yell, and though she sounded pretty skeptical and not nearly as enthusiastic as I hoped, she also sounded curious because she’d never been to the island.

To be honest, I’ve run 12-hour races but never run a 24-hour race and this was also a first year race, so I wasn’t sure what to expect either. Adding to the unknown, there was no bridge to the island, so we couldn’t easily get food or supplies or access the car. Since I’m almost totally vegan (I still eat eggs) and have run too many races where the “real” food is non-vegan (chicken noodle soup, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches…), and finished far too many races lately only to find any the vegetarian food gone, I’m used to making do so I planned for worst case scenario on the food. One of my two bags held an extra pair of shoes and lots of food.

On the Island Since our race started at a civilized 10 am, we had plenty of time to find the right marina and dock to catch the pontoon boat shuttling runners over to the island. We found it with only one wrong turn, got a parking permit for the car, lugged our gear down to the dock, spotted a line of what had to be waiting runners, and joined them to wait for the shuttle. Space was limited, so the shuttle made a trip before we got on, but in the meantime were joined by an enthusiastic, Ruth Stilwell, who was hoping to run her first 50k. It was fun talking with her and she would definitely be good company during the race.

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Lining up for the shuttle. This must be the right place.

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Karen in front, Ruth behind, on their way to the unknown.

Once on the island, we joined Nikki Seger and Jennifer Rangel, Mary and Dave Gorski, Bonnie and Darryl Busch and set up camp next to their line of chairs. The picnic shelter was stocked with tons of stuff, the food tables were lined out and stocked and Mike Melton’s timing tent was already set up and ready to go. Impressively well-organized. Someone had done their homework. This was going to be a much better weekend that I expected.

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Karen, Jennifer and I thinking about the task ahead.

Once Karen and I and mainly Ruth had managed to set up Karen’s tent and toss most of our gear inside (I hoped Karen was not planning to sleep there), we registered and picked up our timing chips. Karen hadn’t done a race with timing chips and I have to admit I like hearing the beep as I cross the timing mat and picturing friends or family who were following online seeing another loop in the total.

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We conquered the tent!

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Karen's got her packet...

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...and her timing chip. All prepped for her race tonight.

Soon enough, Bob Becker gathered the 24-hour runners and first heat of 12-hour runners together and gave our moderate-sized group a quick briefing. Rob and I lined up in the very back behind Nikki, Mary, and Bonnie. Since she didn’t start until 10 pm that evening, Karen was going to watch us start, then catch the shuttle to head back home to nap and run errands.

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Nikki and Mary, two one-of-a-kinds.

Our first loop was fascinating. The tiny island (remember, these are 1.234-mile loops) varied tremendously along the way. We started through woods, then under a bridge, and up the side of an honest-to-goodness “hill� as the woods opened up to shrubs and rocky beach, passed an observation deck at the top of the hill, went down the hill to more rocky beach with a boat dock complete on one side with sight-seeing schooner and a wide grassy area on the other side that held a restaurant and the Kennedy Bunker museum (oddly, the bunker built during the Cuban Missile Crisis for the Kennedy family is here), then through a nature area with plenty of picnic tables, past a camping area with another boat dock and sandy beaches, past the park office, through another natural area and back to the start/finish. It was NOT a boring loop.

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Start off into "woods." Note that the woman in blue who's walking as the pack leaves, finished second in the 24-hour. Good pacing!

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Museum.

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A few wooden bridges - it's not ALL concrete.

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On the northeast, windy side.

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Still windy, heading toward the camping area.

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The natural area...

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...and back to the start/finish.

As the day and the loops went on, there was plenty to watch. Walkers and sightseers came and went on the island, campers started to populate the camping area, boats of various kinds sailed and motored around in the waterway in all directions, people came to play on the beach, someone was holding a scuba class in one of the inlets, one guy kayaked over to read a book and eat his lunch‌ The weather varied, with one side of the island was windy as all get-out and the other was calm. And along with the varying scenery, there were plenty of runners in the 24, two 12 hour heats and two 6 hour heats, joining and leaving.

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Nikki running. So glad she's here!

We ran gently and walked plenty on the concrete pavers. We weren’t here to race hard and go for 100+ miles. Our only real goals were to get in a 50k (31 miles), which we could walk in 24 hours if we wanted, and to have fun with Karen, Nikki, and company. Pretty easy stuff.

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I can run concrete when I have to.

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Keith Straw, racking up lap after consistent lap.

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Time to re-apply. Yuck.

As the loops ticked away, we talked and laughed and watched the goings-on. Mike Melton had a projector set up at the start/finish showing our lap info as we clicked across the mat but we refrained from looking to avoid the “are we there yet?� mentality. Blissful ignorance at this point was best. We just kept looping, and later in the day started watching for Karen to appear back on the island.

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Mike's timing tent. See the times on projected in light blue? Nice!

There was plenty of food beyond the usual sweet gels and M&Ms. To my utter amazement, the race started off with lettuce leaves stuffed with tabouli. Unheard of. In the early afternoon, while I was trying to ignore the yummy-looking grilled cheese sandwiches Rob was gobbling down, Lane Vogel, whose wife was running, managed to whip up a grilled cheeze sandwich for me. It was lightly browned and the cheeze all gooey – quite possibly the most perfect thing I’ve ever eaten in an ultra. They fed Rob and I Boca burgers later in the day, and Suzanne, Bob Becker’s wife, said there was also bulgur wheat casserole (which was excellent – I even hunted it down in the coolers the next morning for another helping). I was surely going to gain weight this weekend, but what explained the plentitude of real food I could actually eat? The answer: Bob and Suzanne’s daughter was a vegan. Good for her! This was surely some kind of ultra paradise, because I never had to touch anything sweet or snacky like potato chips the entire race. My food bag stayed untouched. There was enough real, vegan food for me to eat healthy and well the entire time. That was definitely a good first!

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Plenty of food.

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Ah...a grilled cheeze sandwich.

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Boca burgers - no GU necessary!

Despite only occasional peeps at our accumulating miles, the 50k minimum seemed to take forever, but once that was done, we figured we might as well head 40 miles, since Karen wasn’t back yet. At 40 miles, we figured why not go to 50. Anything over 50k was cream, but it was nice to head for round numbers.

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Command central. David, Jennifer and Darryl watching the action.

After a while, it was apparent who was in the 24-hour. We watched the first 6-hour heat finish their last loop. The took surveyor’s flags with their names on them out on the last loop and when Bob sounded the air horn to end the heat, they planted them where they were, and Mike Melton took the measuring wheel out along the course to measure partial-loop mileage. At nightfall, when the first 6-hour runners were done and 12-hour and some 24-hour runners started to drop out, a core group of 24-hour and some 12-hour runners remained. Rob recognized Sue Ellen Trapp, a name I definitely knew from years past, who was wearing two timing chips and clearly going for a record. We talked to her briefly a couple of times and it was impressive watching her and Dave Carver, the men’s winner, keep moving. Of course, things did get a little silly too. At one point, Nikki and Mary serenaded Dave Carver, who was running in a Canadian flag singlet with “Oh Canada.” It seems they spent the entire race hamming it up.

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Sunset over the industrial side of the waterway.

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Nikki and Mary in a more serious moment.

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Yep, they're still at it.

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The gang - Nikki, Bonnie, and Mary. It was fun just to be around them.

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Ruth's too fast for the camera operator!

Somewhere in here, Karen arrived back on the island for her race. Soon enough, the clock clicked to 10 p.m. and Karen’s race started. We walked the first loop with her, seeing it fresh through her eyes and she saw things we hadn’t noticed, making it extra fun for us. I couldn’t wait for her to see it in the morning, in daylight.

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Karen, getting ready to start.

The newness of Karen starting her race had barely worn off when it was time to get ready for New Year’s celebration. People on the mainland had been setting off sporadic fireworks all evening, and judging by the music across the water, a couple of mansions on one side of the waterway were clearly having big parties. Back at camp, Nikki, Jennifer, Mary, Dave, Bonnie, Darryl, Karen, Rob and I pulled out our non-alcoholic champagne out of the coolers, filled glasses, donned party beads, and on the stroke of midnight, toasted to a fantastic new year with good friends. At the same time, the booms of a big fireworks display began, so we hurried with the drinks to observation deck on the south side of the island to watch a fantastic fireworks display down the inland waterway in Palm Beach. Not something you do in every race!

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Yay, Happy New Year!!!

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Beautiful!

Rob and I made it to 50 miles, which was cool and since we had plenty of time left with nothing better to do, headed toward 100k (62 miles). Karen did a loop or two on her own and decided to nap for a while in the tent. How she fit in among all the gear, I’ll never know, but she did and we checked on her every loop.

Finally, it was the lap before sunrise and I decided to wake her up. After only a few hours of sleep, she was pretty groggy so we left her to wake up while we ran another lap. On the far side of the island, we stopped to watch a cruise ship come in from the ocean to dock at slip on the west side of the waterway. The channel didn’t look remotely deep enough for the humongous ship, so it was fun to watch. We arrived back at the start/finish to find Karen had headed out for a lap, and didn’t catch her until the end of it, where we joined her to walk into the start/finish. She was already well over her stated 5 mile goal.

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Will it fit?

Once back at camp, Karen sat one out to talk with Jennifer for a while, so we kept looping. We came in next time to find she had started out for another lap on her own. It was hard keeping up with her!

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Rob seems to have lost his mind.

Time rolled away until, finally, we were closing in on 10 a.m., the end of our races. Karen was just below a nice round 10 miles and we were just below a nice round 100k (62 miles), so we all agreed to go for it. It was hard to do any accurate mental calculation with 1.234-mile loops but obvious we all needed at least one loop to get there so we agreed on at least one more. Rob and I ran one, and Karen was still out, so we ran one more lap to catch up and finish with her.

We finally caught up with her near the end of the loop, within sight of the start/finish. As we walked together across the timing mat one more time, I’ll never forget Karen’s name popping up on the screen with 11.11 miles and Karen exclaiming “11 miles? How did THAT happen?!?”

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Jennifer and Karen. So glad they were with us.

Overall, Dave Carver won the men’s 24-hour with 116+ miles and Bonnie took the women’s win with 104+ miles. Congratulations to them both for well-earned wins. Sue Ellen in an equally impressive performance racked up 91.316 miles, which came close to a record for road race women 60-64. What I usually prefer to run is so different from this that I can only stand in awe of people like this that thrive on this type of race. But to be honest, the person I was most proud of in the entire race was Karen, who way surpassed her expectations.

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Bob Becker, the RD who made this weekend possible.

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Waiting in the warm sun for the shuttle to arrive. No hurry.

All in All It was so fun to truly share a race with my sister for the first time and incredibly rewarding to watch her enjoy it and log her own loops. I’m proud of her for swallowing her skepticism and being a part of it, which I knew she would. Nothing can replace that experience and we all agreed we should make this an annual event. I’m still smiling from it.

The concrete was hard for me to run that far but I was honestly surprised at how mentally easy the race was. Between the runners, the other people, the boats, the animals and plants, there was always something going on or something to watch. I was far from bored.

The race organization was top-drawer. Bob and Suzanne had obviously put a lot of thought, time and effort into the race and it showed. Mike Melton’s timing set-up was great and it all combined to make our experience easy and fun, exactly what we’d hoped. I’m definitely looking forward to sharing it with Karen again next year!

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What a great weekend and start to the new year!

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