WARNING: This post contains a graphic description of extreme dehydration which may make you feel uneasy. If you’d rather not read disgusting details that’s enough to make even myself fell yucked out, then DON’T READ!!
On Saturday I competed in my first ever rogaine. I did a fair amount of orienteering in high school thanks to the encouragement of Kay Haarsma, but never truly appreciated how satisfying endurance running is until I realised it was time to run my first marathon last year.
This particular event was a 6 hour metrogaine, conveniently located in suburbs I know, including one stop that was almost literally outside one of my best friends (Ben P.) house, only 50m away (just after stop 53 you’ll notice we detoured slightly south by about 50m). It was the first ever rogaine event I’ve ever done, and I did it with my running friend Laura, who had never even done orienteering before either in her life. She had never even seen an orienteering map!
Amazingly, out of 72 teams that competed (you have to compete with at least two entrants per team) we won the Novice category, came third in the Open Mixed category, and came sixth overall on the day! You can have a look at the official results yourself, this link will open a pdf in a new browser window, but I recommend saving it to your desktop to view. I’m not sure if we won a certificate or anything, because we both left before the presentation due to hardcore dehydration.
Here’s a little “run-down” of the day (excuse the pun!):
- 8am: Wake up, eat good breakfast, regret not sleeping much the last couple nights.
- 9am: Leave to event.
- 9:20am: Arrive at event, walk around feeling really confused and out of place. Collect map for event, and wait for Laura to arrive and get organised.
- 9:40am: Start strategic planning for the run ahead. Much discussion took place and it was acknowledge that Laura was particularly good at the classic “Travelling Salesman” style of problem, where the aim is to go to as many places as possible with minimum total travelling distance. Eventually this was optimised to consider the gradient of the terrain, with the top of Sunnyside Road the major hill of the day. Below is a quick view of the course we took, click on it to enlarge for the full map.
We started at the bottom at the Hash House, and went anticlockwise around the map from the bottom. (The finish is also the start, which is called the hash house. I’m still not sure what type of hash they’re talking about, because there certainly wasn’t any chopped up meat with potatoes and sometimes vegetables there. That’s okay, because I wouldn’t have eaten that crap anyway, I think I’ll stick to my banannas and pasta
The control point numbers on the map aren’t quite as random as you may suspect, they are all worth different points, where the points are determined by the first of the two digits, multiplied by ten (i.e. control point 27 is worth 20 points, and control point 63 is worth 60 points).
- 10:45am: SARA give a briefing about the rules for the day.
- 11am: We start running. There’s not really much to say about the run itself, other than god damn, it was god damn hot. The forecast was for 32(C), and it was 35(C) on the day. Once the temperature hits around 30(C) whilst running I find that dehydration kicks in exponentially faster for every degree (C) above 30.
I think I first depleted electrolytes between checkpoints 46 and 67, about half way through the event. I could notice this due to my left calf muscle cramping up, exactly the same thing that happened to me at the 30km mark in the Melbourne Marathon last year. Only, this year it kicked in around the 22km mark due to this exponentially increasing effects of dehydration for every degree (C) I’m talking about.
It was difficult running with a partner over such a long distance at times, because we both required walking breaks at different times, and for me it was becoming painful to run. For Laura, it was becoming painful to walk. At times this resulted in a game of cat and mouse, but that’s okay because you’re allowed to run apart from each other as long as you stay within hearing distance of each other, and within 20m whilst punching control cards.
You may notice (if you click on the map above to enlarge it) that we missed lots of control points on the left hand side home stretch of the map. This was the pain factor. I wish I recorded heart rate data for the event but for some reason I couldn’t be bothered. Absolutely spewing about that now.
- 4:52pm: We stop running, collapse, and die.
After the event we were both so tired and just wanted to get home to die peacefully, and so we parted our ways. Getting home, I decided I should probably go urinate as I haven’t done so since before the run. This is where I remind you not to continue reading if you feel uneasy about reading disgusting details. The little urine I was able to pass was of a disgusting brown crude oil colour, such as below.
I immediately started to drink as much water as possible, and look up on the internet what the hell was going on with my body, whilst simultaneously trying to convince myself I don’t need to go to hospital. Webmd.com stopped me from going to hospital, by informing me what level of dehydration I was suffering (moderate) and what the suggested home treatment was.
Upon reflection I probably should have gone to hospital, since severe dehydration is diagnosed when any one of the symptoms are acknowledged, and in my case I had little or no urination. I settled for drinking the rehydration drink suggested by Webmd.com which is totally disgusting and I’d rather an IV drip any day
You may just call me an idiot for running 6 hours in 35 degree celcius heat on pavement, and that I should have drunk more. Well, I should have, you’re right. But seriously, it’s not as easy as it sounds. I had a 3L hydration pack bladder (full) two fruit bars and two banannas. Obviously the 3L of water went pretty quickly, but it’s not like a normal running race where you have drink stops every 2 kilometres, we had to find out own drinks during the run. I ended up drinking about 8 litres of water and 1.5 litres of Powerade during the race, and I fully regret not using PB sports drinks. I’m going to go buy PB in bulk now after this weekend! I considered buying bulk last year, but it’s so expensive. No longer will I put my pocket before my health.
After my body started to return to normal bodily function, I quickly went down to visit my awesome sister who gives the best massage in the world, and she massaged all the lactic acid from my legs out of this planet. Thanks again, sis! Today (Monday) I am still really sore in the ankles and shoulders, but ready for the next 6 hour metrogaine and ready for the next marathon in Adelaide in August.
P.S. Thanks Laura for convincing me to do it!
