2021 Icebox 480 Race Report

Saturday November 6th, 2021 was the 9th running of the Icebox 480 - an 8-hour timed race on the Whitetail Ridge Trails in River Falls, WI. A 7-mile loop to be run (and completed) as many times as you can (or want to) in 480 minutes. No partial laps count. 

After my last race in January (Harbison 50k), my running was up and down for a few weeks, and then an ankle issue popped up, my thoughts were either a stress fracture or tendinitis. After replacing running with rowing starting in March, and going through April (I hit 1M meters for my lifetime), and Still having minor issues, I decided to see a dr. Inconclusive x-rays, and 6 weeks in a walking boot. Five weeks later (mid-July) with just some biking and walking, I started PT. Continued biking and walking, and 2 weeks later (July 25), ran for the first time since March 21. 2 weeks to get to 5mi running, 3 more weeks to get to 7.5mi. 3 weeks later, all while doing PT, I was still having twinges of ankle pain (all very minor, still more of an annoyance). I decided to stop doing PT, and continuing to run my 4-7 mi routes. 6 weeks later, my ankle pain was gone. 2 weeks later was the Icebox 480.

My intention was to run a lap, or maybe even two depending on my fitness, and then keep moving until I had my 28mi.

I choose to start just before the sun rose at 7:53am. It was late this year as the time change was the following morning. A flexible start time was allowed between 6am-8am due to COVID-19 still being a consideration. It was 43° as I took off (alone) at 7:36am, not needing a headlamp. Perfect for shorts, t-shirt and my jacket, and one handheld water bottle. Wore my calf sleeves too (and still have to think hard about whoch direction faces front!)
1st loop was uneventful, ran alone, and tried to pay attention to certain locations with respect to times - that worked out well for me last year to know how much longer I had in each loop. 

Came into my pit area (at 1:12) just outside the trail entrance, out in the small field, and swapped out my water bottle for my vest/bladder and grabbed a bag with chips and part of a pb&j. Pit time was no more than 2 minutes (I'm pretty efficient most of the time) and legs were good. 

2nd loop, I was behind a group of 4 for quite a while, but my left hip flexor started aggravating me in the 2nd half of the loop. I was still doing ok, but it was starting to slow me down, and I came into the pit area after 2:33 (2nd loop of 1:21). Another 2min pit stop to grab another pre-made baggie with pb&j and chips. I was halfway to my goal and felt pretty positive it would happen. 

Loop 3. Pace still slowed down and was just behind two other runners for a while (Ed & Maria). My left hip and right IT band started up on this loop. Got back into the pit after 4:07 (1:33 for that loop). Took 5 minutes or so to add Gatorade to my bladder, make a toilet stop, and grabbed another baggie. Had some coke and took a swiss cake roll as I walked out to start my last loop. 

Again, I was mostly behind one person for a little while as I mostly shuffled/walked the loop. My IT band was the major issue, not allowing me to run for more than 20secs at a time. I'm a fast walker, and finished the loop in 1:43 for a total time of 5:50:36. I sat on the bench with two others who were done as a couple people tried (desperately) to get me to go do one more loop. Their appeal did not work and I was just glad to get my 28 miles in. [Thinking later - the appeal they should have used, was that if I had to stop running after today, would I be satisfied with stopping while I could still go out for more. I may use that for myself next time, because I certainly could have done another loop in under 2:10.

I now have just over 164 Icebox miles. :-)

My hip, knee, shins, and lower back were sore for 2-3 days and got back out to run on Thursday.