Capes 100

This weekend RP (Run Partner) and I traveled to Mabou, Nova Scotia to race in the Capes 100 race in the 100 mile/160km distance. 

How did I get signed up for this race? RP and I briefly talked about it while one day searching for a 100 mile race with no qualifying race to get in. Capes fit the bill and was pretty, so RP signed us up for the 2022 waiting list that was 80 People long thinking we’d then be in a mailing list to get info for 2023 when we might be ready to do that distance. Well. The deadline to get a refund if you wanted to drop out passed and suddenly there was room. RP said, "are there two spots? There are two of us, we run together or we don’t do it.” He emailed back “yes, both of you get a spot. You have 3 days to decide and pay” so 12-16 weeks out we found out we had a 100 mile race to train for. 

We got to the Toronto airport with a backpack (which would serve as our drop bag during the race) and a carry on roller bag each. We were told Toronto was having a hard time keeping up with baggage and we should carryon everything we needed for the race.

We arrived to the airport with lots of time which was good because we went to check in and found my roller bag too large due to the length with the wheels. So I pulled out the pocket knife on the required equipment list for the race and used the screwdriver to take off the wheels. I drug it to the security only to discover a bunch of the nutrition items for the race were considered liquids and we had more than one liter each and ended up checking the bag anyway. Live and learn. I’ve taken that bag on many airplanes and never had an issue before. 

We flew to Sydney, NS Thursday morning where we picked up a borrowed car and drove south of Lac d’Or on our way to Mabou where our race would start with a pre race meeting Friday night. We had lunch in Sydney for a lobster roll and Atlantic salmon, then walked around a bit on the pier.

We got to our Air BNB, a converted 2/3 of a mobile home with two rooms that was on the water with the Coastal Trail right outside our door. 

We took a short run on the trail which was a groomed, gravel trail and had small break areas along the way. Then we headed into town to the Red Shoe Pub for dinner and were lucky enough to enjoy live music-fiddlers, accordion, and piano.  Then we headed back to prepare our drop bags for the next day.

There were hummingbirds at the Air BNB

These videos have no video but are small snippits of the live music we heard:

Friday we headed to Cape Breton National Park to check out the views and run the Skyline trail. 

We put our stocked drop bags in the car as the park was north of our accommodations and then if we were running close to the time we needed to be at the meeting there wouldn’t be a need to go to the airBnb 1/2 hour south if we didn’t need to.

We then walked a .5km bog trail and found Pitcher plants.

We snacked for lunch and had an early dinner on the way back to Mabou along with a stop at the beach and for ice cream. Managed to find myself a lactose free vanilla with a gluten free cone!

Friday night we headed into Mabou to register for our run, get any questions answered, review the course map and turn in our drop bags. A drop bag is a bag you can put stuff in that you will want during the run- change of clothing, additional snacks, first aid items you don’t need to carry, etc. this race was set up is we were able to access this bag 6 times during the race. 4 of the times were 20-40km apart, so we organized what we needed to make sure we grabbed by filling ziploc bags and labeling them with what km to grab them at. 

We were also treated to more fiddle and piano music and met two of the other 7 women who had registered to do the 100 mile race. All 4 of us had run ultra distances but this was our first 100 mile race. The required meeting went over some guidelines required by the town permitting, a notice that we’d be checked at 2 of the early stations for required items and given a weather report that included good run weather for day 1 (no rain, not too hot, not too cold, overcast) and a possibility of thunderstorms overnight.

Then we headed back to our AirBNB to load our run backpacks and layout our clothing and lights out by 10 for a 4am wake up. Packing up I noticed my 2 L backpack water bladder had a small slow leak. I’d been suspecting it. Left it unpacked and dried overnight planning to fix it in the am with the duct time we were required to bring.

Woke up next morning, fixed leak, got ready. By time we were ready to leave it was apparent my fix wasn’t working so I threw the bladder in a huge ziploc bag (between the two of us we probably had 40 in every size imaginable) and figured the leak would be contained. We threw our bags in the car and went to the race early as there was limited parking spaces.  

All three distances offers started at the same time and place- 46km (approx just under 30 miles), 87km (approx 50 miles) and 160km (100miles). 

 At the start line a few things struck me.  1-everyone was incredibly fit. At most races you see a large variety of body shapes (esp local 5k races). Even at marathons you’ll see people ready to walk the race who are on an amazing fitness journey and doing it to celebrate meeting a goal along the way. But everyone here had done the training. 2-everyone had tight muscular calves. I joked the trail association could raise some serious dough with a calendar of the calves in this race. 3- everyone here was crazy and into running really far in the forest like we were. We were surrounded by people as into this as we were instead of being some of the few in the room. 

We saw the women we’d talked to the previous night and go in line at the start. A few minutes to the start I discovered my duct tape and bag fix wasn’t working. One of the other women ran to her car and grabbed me a quite new 1.5L bladder, RP moved my water from my leaking bladder to the new one and got rid of the old one and we got me put together about 2 minutes before the 6am start time. Side note: this is one thing I love about trail racing over road racing. The people who do trail racing are generally really well prepared, generous and really nice.

We started out and headed down the road and into the trail. We would go on this rutted gravel road/creek bed with creek crossings a total of 4 times during the 100 mile distance as we took it into the forest, then ran back out it to the turn around point at 87km and then back into the forest for our second loop then back out to the finish.

This creekbed/road WAS the trail. 

The first aid station was at 11km in and had a port a potty (I had some issues that required it and Imodium during the race). We grabbed Tailwind (the electrolyte offered by the race) I filled up the water bladder and we look off further into the forest on a steep, mossy path. We took a few pictures at the top and while I had the phone out I updated Paul that we’d made it to the top. I was so naive. We were about 1/3 of the way to the top.

The second aid station was at 20km where our drop bag was. We realized quickly why all the experiences runners had used a dry bag (used for scuba and boating). The bags were in the muddy grass by the trail laid out labeled as we had done the night before with duct tape. Note: if anyone has a recommendation for a waterproof 30L size bag (a big backpack) with pockets please message me! Many people who used a drop bag had dry contents but no pockets means digging deep for what you needed. My backpack had a cooler bag bottom which allowed me to throw my clothing in the bottom. Each item of clothes was bagged together in half and full gallon bags (I buy the half gallon bags on Amazon in packs of 4 boxes they are suck a handy size between quart and gallon (medium and large sizes in Canada). It had been recommended to me to pack clothing by item rather than outfit because if you only need a shirt or only need socks it’s easier to see what you need and grab without digging. I used the main pocket for my labeled baggies of snack refills (1/2 gallon for 20 km sections and full gallon for 40km sections) as wall as a large bag of odd items I may need. Examples included:

Tennis ball (massage)

Extra meds (pain reliever, etc)

Baby and face wipes

Toothbrush and toothpaste as well as mint gum (can be a huge pick me up when you are sick of drinking sweet electrolytes for hours on)

Bug spray

Sunscreen

Pain lotion

Additional first aid supplies to refill anything used in backpack

Contacts and glasses items 

I had water bottle holders on each side of bag so I wrapped up my extra shoes in plastic and put one in each holder.

We grabbed our snack bag, anything from our drop bag we felt we needed, refilled liquids and set off on the first large loop. We went through a very steep hill that we would traverse up twice and down twice over the course of the race. The first time up we were headed for an unmanned water only stop is a place labeled “cow pasture.” As several of us headed up the amazingly steep slope- a large group sets out and as the faster are divided from the slower everyone spreads out the further you are in the race. Over these distances with the small number of people who are crazy enough to do this you will likely be spending a lot of time alone during the race-walking and huffing and puffing and remember me explains how fit everyone was? This hill was hard!) we joked about how these must be some lean beef cows judging by how athletic they must be living on a mount like this.

We got to the top and followed the sign for Inverness (next town over- this was a race so long more than one town was involved) and the cow pasture. We filled up water at the jerrycan jugs waiting for us and run on more rutted gravel/mud roads down to the town of Inverness. This was the only loop we only did one time. We went all the way from the very high cow pasture to a Lower aid station with the other port o potty, filled up again and ran down a very steep 2-3km paved road into the coastal town of Inverness. Once we got there we ran in the sidewalks to the beach. We walked the sandy beach collecting small bits of sea glass and taking photos. After 1km or so we were directed by a volunteer to steps and boardwalk back into town and then walked back up that paved hill in the sun glad we’d only be doing this once.

We got back to the Inverness aid station (we’d be seeing it 3 times over the course of the race) and headed for more up and down on dirt/ gravel roads. These wet in slightly better shape than the ones at the start of the race. There were homes and cabins along the roads set back by long  driveways but I decided If you had one you’d better have large wheels and good shocks/struts. After that we headed back into the woods up to the top of the hills and enjoyed an amazing view. Up there some of the paths were quite narrow and didn’t have a lot of room for any footfall mistakes. We hoped we wouldn’t be doing this section in the dark.

We made it back to the aid station with our drop bags at 60km and reloaded and grabbed headlamps as by this time it was late afternoon. We left that station for the crux of the course. A 10km loop that took about 3 hours. Just to put this in perspective, the Around the Bay 30km road race took me 3 hours to do. There was not a lot of this section that was able to be run. There was a steep decent, a gully where a brook was crossed 6-8 times. And the descent was the oh so steep hill that also led up to the cow pasture. After that look we were back at the aid station and it was starting to get dark. We got dry shirts from our drop bags. We saw the 100km 1st place runner who was on target to finish in under 24 hours and we were only at 70km of 160 and he was at 103. After a refill we were headed back out towards the start and the turn around to start our second loop. We headed back out in the rutted rocky dirt road and started up the headlamps. At the aid station along the way RP had a grilled cheese sandwich and we continued on to the turn around at the road we’d taken to the course. We made it to the turn around at 87km and looked around us amazed at all the people. Though we’d been running with a group of 4 men whom we chatted with for awhile we’d not seen many people recently. Every once in awhile there would a headlamp going towards us if someone who had turned around to start their second loop so we were able to figure out a) there were about 25 people in front of us and b) we were in the back of the pack. One of the women we’d met Friday was doing quite well and we cheered for her when we saw her and checked in with how things were going. It was easy to find her even in the dark because when you said “hello” to those coming towards you all but 2 were male voices. 

At the turn around were people who had finished the 87km in the dark or people who had run 87 of 160km and decided they were done racing and didn’t want to do the loop again  after seeing what was in store. The town didn’t want anyone running the road section in the dark so if anyone finished at night they were given a ride back to their car at the start. Those who didn’t finish are referred to as “drops” short for dropping out of a race. Also known as DNF- did not  finish. This happens for a few reasons. You can get hurt or sick and decide not to continue. A volunteer or race director can pull you out based on symptoms (someone joked at the meeting- “make sure you smile coming into the aid stations” so it wouldn’t happen to them). Or you could just be tired and decide you don’t want to run anymore.  Also if you either don’t finish in the allotted time (36 hours in this case) or get to designated time check-ins later than allowed meaning you won’t finish on time you’ll be pulled out of the race and will DNF. 

The race director met us at the turn around and directed us to the correct chute (87k finishers needed to cross the timing strip, 160km needed to check in and turn around) and asked how things were going. We said well, asked what was available we wanted to throw out some garbage and RP wanted some Coke (known in races for its caffeine and sugar properties). The turn around was not an aid station so there was no garbage but the director did have some Coke in the car and filled up one of her flasks to take with her. As we went to leave (no point in hanging out) the director said, “ you guys are doing really well. You look good and I think you are doing the fastest turn around I’ve seen all night. A lot of people are resting 10-30 minutes here it deciding not to continue. Good job” then sent us on our way to head back up the dirt rutted road with the creek running through it. We got back to the aid station and I sat for a minute to look at my foot. I had felt a blister forming in the bottom if it and felt I needed to deal with it. Turns out both feet had the biggest blisters I’d ever had. So at 96km I took some ibuprofen, popped them, wiped them with an alcohol wipe from the station, threw a bandaid over the owning and attached duct tape over them to try to keep the bandage from moving and told myself the ibuprofen would help the pain as would caning removed the liquid and if I just kept running eventually they’d get numb (spoiler alert: they never numbed just felt like pricking for 64km- soft dirt was uncomfortable but when we ran in the Ricky roads with ruts and large rocks every rock I hit was excruciating painful).

We headed back up the road and back onto the uphill mossy trail. At 103 we refilled snacks from our drop bags and headed back up the trail to go to the cow pasture. We hit the pasture 1.5 hours earlier than the 13.5 hour cut off time. Our first cut off of the race. After it the aid station at the end of night / daybreak. RP laid down for 10 minutes while I had some hot broth and used the potty. Then we dealt with the blisters in the bottom of her feet and set back off for the dirt road up and down. She realized how bad blisters on the bottom of feet hurt and we talked ourselves into using the Fartlik method of running for the next section (walking and running intervals- we would run the flat and downhill and walk up the hills- this is how most ultra running is done. You have a finite amount of energy and running so using it to run down and flats is a better use if it than pushing up hills). This got us back into the forest and more uphill to the top of the mountain and the narrow trail that we’d not wanted to do in the dark. 

We got back to our drop bags at 132 for our last refill and headed up that 10km hardest section. Then it started to POUR rain. We were already tired and doing tough things and the rain let loose. We screamed obscenities at the hill, at the rain. We took the race directors name in vain and cursed him. We got back to the top of the hill back down and had a chat. It had stopped raining. It was probably wet and slippery. I would go down as fast as I could with RP going slower and more carefully and I’d get us dry shoes and socks ready so we could change and go because the rain had slowed us down and we now had to make cut off times and this was our priority. Almost at the bottom it started pouring again. I was ticked. Now what? Our feet would just get wet again! I considered abandoning the shoes and going back to check on RP but went to button like original plan. I was in a bad mood. The volunteers asked if I needed anything. I grunted back, “not yet” fount our shoes and socks and put in plastic and sulked and thought for a minute. I looked at my shoes in the bag. Because my bags were to protect my backpack not the shoe the toes of my spare shoes were damp. Then it hit me. I wrap our socks with plastic bags. So, I got our stuff ready. I pulled off my shoes, pulled off the bandages. A volunteer may have gasped at the sight of my hideous, wet, white blistered feet. I put in dry socks, baggies, my drying shoes. Then handed over my flasks for refilling. After refilling I set to put them back in my bag preparing to go back and Check on RP. After the rain we were now only 1/2 hour before cut off and I wanted to see if I could help her and move us faster. The rain had cost us almost hour of our slacktime.  RP then popped out of the woods! I congratulated her and knew we would be ok. I sat her in a chair, she dug stuff out of her bag, volunteers gave her broth and filled her flasks, I pulled off her shoes, another volunteer helped me bandage her foot with gauze I’d brought and a bit of the required tensor bandage then they taped it all up. I only found huge ziplock bags for her feet but they were really thick and bulky. I brought my grandma to mind and said,” the grilled cheese sandwiches! Do you have the bread bags?” They did. We used those. Thin and tall. (My grandma used to put them in shoes and boots to make them warm and waterproof). Then we taped the baggies and put on her shoes and headed out towards the finish. 

We needed to cover about 5km per hour to finish. We could do it at a fast walk but had no room for error now to make the final cut off of 36 hours. I said,” I know it hurts but we HAVE to run a little so we have a few minute if we fall, get lost, or the finish is not exactly 160km.” Rarely is a trail race exactly the distance advertised. Sometimes it’s a little over sometimes under. Already our watches were off from each other by 1.5km. Whose was more accurate? Was the end exactly 160km? 162km? There was pavement at the end that would be faster going but it was all uphill. I started panicking. What if we’d made it to 145km miss the final cut off by minutes?  

We left the aid Station with our battered feet wrapped in dry socks and plastic bags and hoped for the best. The sky cleared up a bit again. We took raincoats off. We shuffled when we could and walked as fast as we could when it was too steep or rocky. We made it through the last bit of forest. 150km and we had two hours. 5k an hour. The last 10km were rocky road and there would be pavement at the end. Every time we stepped on a rock with our thin soled large lugged trail shoes pain shot up our legs. We joked anyone wanting to run 100 miles should just learn to walk on glass shards without flinching. The pain was a prickling sensation. For 54km I’d already run on them in this state. It was all mental to make my body keep running with that pain. To ultra run you have have the ability to force your body mentally to do things it won’t want to do physically. You must have an override system. I imagine anyone who has lived life with chronic pain but still have to do the activities of life knows what this is. I’d done things like this before but talking after RP and I have no idea how we were able to dig deep enough to run in so much pain that long. All we can figure is practice. We did the training. We practiced hard things. We just relied on what we knew. 

So there we are, shuffling in the road, urging each other to keep moving. RP had a small fall “I’m ok!” I heard her say from a bit ahead after a small shriek. I yelled back,” I don’t see you upright!” Then she popped up and we continued on. Then the third rainstorm started. Pouring again. We just looked at each other. Nodded, got the raincoats out again and trudged on. 

We got about 2-3 km from the end and started a shuffling run. I was ahead of RP and there was another guy who had been around us who was also panicking about making the cut off. He was taking with trekking poles and was injured. I saw the road and I thought, “ I’m running with everything I have left. I’m making the cut off and hitting the finish line then I’m turning back around to get RP.” I hit the road running under 7min/km with 25 minutes left. A truck went past with the Race director saying, “ don’t kill yourself if you don’t get there you are close enough you’ll still get the buckle” ( in 100mi distance you get a belt buckle instead of a medal). I Shouted, “find Kat and tell her, I don’t know if she’ll make it!” He said, "where is she?” I said, “she’s just behind me!” Right around that time I felt a huge sharp pain in my right pinky toe. I had no idea if I’d just broken it. I hobbled a few steps and ran again. The pain leveled off and I figured I’d probably just pulled off the toenail. I sprinted up the huge paved hill to all the finish volunteers going crazy watching me sprint up this huge hill at the end of a 100 mile race. My watch turned over to 160km. I sprinted over the finish line and put my hands to my knees. One of the volunteers grabbed me a chair and I said, "something’s wrong with my pinky toe." She asked if she could take my shoe off. I said “I have to find RP” she said,” no you don’t, she’s coming up the hill now.” I let her take off my shoes and stood in bare feet as she came sprinting across the line and we hugged.

The guy who had been with us then came up walking with his poles. They’d offered all of us the ok to take over the 36 hours and all 3 of us made it. Nick, the last finisher was done at 35 hours 54 minutes.

Our new Friday night friend we saw at the turn around offered to run to the car and grab my sandals so I didn’t have to walk to the car in bare feet or wet shoes. We hobbled downstairs to the basement and pick out our belt buckles. All the backgrounds were different but the 2022 buckles had moose and the 2019 had lighthouses.  Due to Covid there was no 2020 or 2021 race. The race director was really proud of these two women from Ontario who showed up to do something hard even though we’d never tried it. Afterwards we mentioned our training runs involved setting FKTs on 120km and 50km runs. He’s also on FKT for two runs himself in NS and participated in the by invite only incredibly difficult Barkley Marathons. Twice (there is often no winner or even finisher in this race that involves orienteering in Tennessee), so he realized we’d come to finish and quitting was not an option.

RP's pick for belt buckle

My belt buckle

all possible buckles:

48 people were set to start the 100 mile race, 23 finished. 4 women of 7 finished.

We heard some comments during the race several times:

“You guys have been together the entire race?” to which I would reply “she signed us up, making her finish is my way to get back at her.” I guess it’s not common. We had always planned to stick together. One might run ahead but we always waited at turns, aid stations etc. This race had an overnight portion. These woods were pitch black and eerily quiet. Even in the daytime. Runners were allowed a Pacer to join them at 109km in the cow pasture and sometimes a crew could meet you in a few places. A pacer is another runner on fresh legs who runs part of the race with you. They help you keep moving when you are tired, talk to you and check in with you. This is helpful esp overnight and when you are having issues that you need to problem solve on the fly. It’s like grabbing a pair of legs and a brain partway though the race. A crew is someone who meets up with you during race and can help you work through problems or bring you something. Need pickles and the air station doesn’t have them? Call your crew and they’ll meet you at the next access point with them. We were each other’s pacer and crew. We’ve run enough together we don’t always have to say out loud what we need, we know what each other’s go to solves are for common issues. We can grab stuff for each other. We typically hit highs and lows at different points to be able to help each other mentally. 

“How are you doing this without trekking poles? “

Note about poles: we did borrow some and tried them out during two Iroquoia training runs. We didn’t rule them out and do think we may use them in future races but not the entire time- we would out in our drop bags and use later in the race. We did wish we had them when our feet ended up so hurt. We think it would have lessened the pressure On them. For this race there were a few factors- I’d just spent a lot for the race and gear this year. Good, light weight run poles are $100-200. We only found out we’d be doing this race 12-16 weeks before race day. We didn’t really have enough time to train with poles. To use poles you need to be confident with them or they become a tripping hazard doing more harm than good. This is especially true on downhills. I have some arm/shoulder issues I am addressing now and this fall/winter. Until then I wasn’t sure if that arm would be up to supporting  my weight.

“You guys are really fast in the aid stations. “Some people got tired and would sit around a bit. The longest we sat was when we addressed blisters.

We felt we really did well in this race. Some of the things we were esp happy with:

Huma gels. Our newest go to. They are chia seed based, easy in the stomach taste good even after running 32 hours, have a ton of flavors and come in regular and caffeinated.

Problem solving and staying calm. Except for my urgency the last 4 hours about cut off times we stayed calm, talked through problems, knew what to do when things came up, felt with issues quickly and fast. We talked ahead of air stations and figured out our priorities, got there and got to work. One of us may need blister care so the other grabbed flasks and filled up. We might need to grab sunscreen and bug spray midday you each of us grabs one and throws in our pack. We worked like a well oiled machine.

Salt tablets and caffeine. Feeling queasy? Salt tab Feeling tired? Caffeine gummy, electrolytes or gel Generally feeling crappy? Salt tablets.  Special thanks to L who we found in the participants site of the 2019 race and I tracked her down on Facebook and picked her brain. She even met us for a run and brought her drop box with her to show us what was in there. We tried them on a long run and were hooked. Has solved a lot of our stomach problems. The caffeine we figure out by doing the Iroquoia 120km run overnight. That run not only made us much more comfortable with running overnight but also made us realize we could do this race. Game changer training run for sure.

The course was beautiful. It helped distract us from pain and in hard parts. Neither of us thought that this would be a one and done and are already researching other races.

Stuff that sucked:

The rain. So much rain. It was hard in our feet. I haven’t had luck finding waterproof shoes due to wide feet (typically waterproofing makes shoes less wide). We will experiment more with socks but we need to figure this out as we are losing a lot of skin and toes.

Large blisters on the bottoms of feet. Way harder to deal with than toes or edges of feet. This often stops runners from finishing. Because the climbs were so steep, we were using the balls of our feet and almost tip toeing up and down hills. The balls of our feet took a lot of abuse.

Swelling afterwards. We used calf compression but I can’t fit in my recovery sandals. I need to find something a few sizes bigger esp if I will need to get on a plane within a few days.

The elevation. I mean we got some amazing views out of it and now laugh at runs local to us we thought were hard. But so.much.elevation.  It was hard on the feet. I was very thankful I’ve trained enough that in the last month people who have run with me for awhile have noticed my breathing is better going uphill from all this training.

So, in summary. It was great, I’d be willing to do another one, I am in pain but overall better shape than I expected and I am glad I did it.

On the way to the airport we checked out the Louisbourg lighthouse.

Last stop before the airport was Breton Brewing Co.

We flew home hobbling on our swollen feet.  Blisters are one thing but the swelling has been crazy. Our feet were swollen so we put compression socks on for the flight, but flying made it even worse.  Having both had 3 kids, we agreed that this was the most swollen our feet had been since being 9 months pregnant and about to burst.

Hoping to work on getting the swelling down this week to assess the damage and start healing to go on to the next adventure.