Ironman 140.6 Distance

Supported Attempt Ice Age Trail - 4 Counties Section with a total of 140.6 miles. I will be attempting this starting on Friday 28th August. I will be doing this for charity, and to raise awareness for “Bigger Than The Trail” - Here is a link for my charity page https://team.bttt.run/pete-caldecourt.

I will be attempting to run 4 counties (Sauk, S.Columbia, Dane & Green) across Wisconsin on the Ice Age Trail which will a total 140.6 miles – My goals are to raise awareness for the Ice Age Trail, and more importantly raise money, and awareness for a charity organization that provides assistance for people with Mental Health issues, which I am an Ambassador for. The reason for me getting involved is the struggles I have seen with my daughters that have Anxiety, and for my youngest she also has ADHD, and Sensory disorder and wanted to help raise the awareness around Mental Health.

This is my second year supporting this organization, and see how we can make a difference for people that are struggling with the services they provide.

Here are more details of this organization:

Bigger Than the Trail (bttt.run)

Here is my fundraiser page:

Pete Caldecourt (bttt.run)

Where I will be running:

Ice Age Trail Alliance - Home

While doing one of my long training runs in July I started thinking about what event I wanted to do in August, and did not see anything. Looks like I just left it too late to sign up, so I came up with an idea to do an extended run across the Ice Age Trail and to do 140.6 miles. I decided on this is the total distance for an Ironman, Where I know I am not a swimmer this is not an event I would participate in. I have always been in awe, and have much respect to the people that do these types of events and really enjoy watching them, and the championship in Kona. So now I have the distance, and the trail just need to map up a route for me to follow. Settled on running 4 counties from Sauk, S.Columbia, Dane, and Green Counties.

Now the planning begins of what additional training do I need, equipment, nutrition, support, map, and to raise awareness for BTTT, and of course the Ice Age Trail. So I really continued with my training plan which is for the Hennepin 100 October 2nd, but now the plan has a really long running week :).

What I hope is that I can recover, and be back and ready for Hennepin. Asked my son Aaron if he would be my mobile aid station which he agreed to. Printed a map off of the Ice Age Trail, and made a checklist of each turn as to not get lost. In addition to this I used the Guthook Guides App which had been recommended to me (This was excellent!). Equipment was pretty much the same as in my previous report, but I was getting chafing from the new UltrAspire Legacy 2.0 Race Vest which was disappointing as I really liked the previous vest. I did some research and purchased the Ultimate Direction Mountain Vest 5.0 which worked really well, within chafing and very light. Fo nutrition it was the regular suspects of Tailwind Nutrition, Honey Stinger Gel, Chews, and Waffles. PB&J Sandwiches, Oranges, Bananas, Apples, and Water Melon. Three cases of water, Mountain Dew, and Gatorade. Then Aaron was tasked with picking up K/Trip Chicken Strips, and Kentucky during the run :)

Went to bed at 8pm Thursday evening, and was up at 4am Friday getting ready, and packing the car up. Aaron arrived in time for us to leave at 5am and we arrived at the starting point by 6am, and I started about 6.10am.

The first distance was 18 miles, and I would meet Aaron at Devils Lake. The weather started off nice and cool, but it was humid and just after a few hours of running I was soaked however the temp soon got to the high eighties. This part of the run was pretty easy going, all the adrenaline of starting off, running too fast and needing to make sure I slow the pace.

Met Aaron is Devils lake without any issues and cleaned myself up from feet to new socks on, and changed my top. Topped up the nutrition, ate some snacks, sandwiches, fruit, and set off through Devils lake. Now this section was tough with plenty of elevation, and navigating the steep rock trail, bluffs and the sun and humidity. Took a while to get through this section and really pleased that the park had the water fountains in service to help cool down, and refill the bladder, and bottles.

I continued on through the Merrimac Segment and heading to get the ferry across the Wisconsin River. This was a great experience of having the Ice Age Trail navigate you to use the ferry to get to the next segment. Nice to have some time relax and enjoy the crossing, and then I would wait for Aaron to arrive the other side of the crossing.

Aaron arrived with more supplies from Kwik Trip including more water, ice, fruit, Chicken Strips. Again a good time to change the clothes as they are getting soaked from the heat, and humidity. My main concern was changing the socks, making sure to clean the feet and use aquaphor to help . At this point I changed by backpack from the UltrAspire, to the Ultimate Direction as I was getting chaffing marks coming up on my back, and that would be the last thing I needed. When meeting up with Aaron I would also charge my phone for a bit as I wanted to make sure I was still able to use the Guthook Guides app as this was spot on for helping me stay on track. Now I had crossed into S.Columbia County and was headed to Gibraltar Rock Segment, Fern Glen, and to the City of Lodi, and the next checkpoint would be at the Lodi Marsh Segment.

This section took a while to get through the Gibralter Rock section was challenging which I think was just due to running on tired legs from Devil’s Lake but was still enjoyable, and a great experience. Then there were quite a few connector sections going through Lodi, and what I found was that Farmers didn’t like strangers running around 11pm and later anywhere near their farms :). I had one farmer asking who I was, and what I am doing. While I let him know who I was, and what I was doing. He waited until I had run past him, and then he drove off down the road, and about 30 minutes later he turned up again with someone else in their truck and they pulled up on the side of the road, and just watched he as I ran past on the road. Finally they drove off in the other direction, and happy to say I did not come across them again. Arrived at the Lodi Marsh Segment, and Aaron was waiting and again got me what I needed and got me set up to go out again where we would meet up at the end of the Indian Lake Segment.

This section went well, and now I was in territory which I have run before and recognized the location, and trail. It was probably around 2am when I was going through this section I started to notice lightening in the distance but nothing more than that apart from it just starting to rain so grabbed my rain jacket. Met Aaron and all was good, and again got changed, and grabbed what I needed and eat some more real food and grabbed the nutrition what I needed and set off again, From here I ran through the Table Bluff, and cross Plains sections and this is when the rain came in and went on for a good few hours. So really needed to be careful on the rocks and trail which was starting to get slick. What was good there were no bad storms, ski just dealing with rain, and all of the frogs which were going out of nowhere. I am sure they were just falling out of the trees :)

Table Bluff, and Cross Plains can be challenging is there is a lot of elevation, and some areas were very steep and where it was raining made for a slippery experience going up, and down. Went through the new section in Cross Plains which takes you out to Stagecoach Road, and met Aaron there to get completely changed as everything was just wet. Glad I had my OrangeMud Wrap which was perfect to get dry changed and ready to go again. The next check point was to meet Aaron at the Valley View Segment and have some food, I think the time was around 11am on Saturday and at this point had still not slept so this is going on 29 hours. The food request was Kentucky Fried Chicken and the spicy chicken sandwich with fries, and Ice Tea. This went down well, and again it was a quick fill up of supplies and then planned to meet Aaron at the end of the Madison segment.

Now the temperatures were getting really intense for heat, and humidity. And my feet were getting in bad shape, I really struggled through the last section with the shoes, socks I was wearing so need to do a complete clean up of feet, and again used aquaphor and then band aids, and surgical bandages to wrap my feet and help cushion the blisters and sores on the feet. Put the socks on, and a fresh pair of shoes (Hoka One Challenger Atr 5) and set off again and where I took time here to get read, and re stock I felt good. From here I ran through the Verona Segment, and met Aaron at Prairie Moraine where I had now reached 91 miles.

Filled up on supplies, and then headed out to the Montrose section where I met Aaron at the end of that got stocked up, and ready to go, and happy to report no more Farmer issues :). Continued on through the Brooklyn section and was feeling good, and then it suddenly hit me of being tired, I made it through this section ok but was really struggling at the Monticello section met up with Aaron at some point and got stocked up, and then the plan was to continue for another 7 miles miles and meet up with him and at that point we would be done. During this section I felt like the wheels come off the bus, and it was more from being tired (around 38 hours without sleep) and needing to sleep during this time the hallucinations came in and could quite work out if I should be going left, or right. So decided to get some sleep on the side of the trail for a few hours. When I woke up I felt as good as new, and was off again. Met up with Aaron, and then from where he was parked I basically had an out and back of 9.6 miles miles. Going out 5 miles was easy, it was coming back and doing the last 4.6 miles which felt like it took forever but felt very satisfying when the watch ticked over at 140.6. I was done, and now ready to sleep - Oh but have a McDonalds breakfast on the way.

Lessons Learned

There are always many emotions you go through from running, and for this run what I found is that I did not need any music, and just enjoyed listed and embracing the experience and having many internal discussions and always come out feeling like a better version of myself.

Watch out for Farmers

Make sure your running waterproof jacket is waterproof

Build in a sleep plan

You can never have enough socks, and shoes

The Garmin Enduro is the best watch I have owned

Distance Summary, and Stats:

Now to planning for the next adventure.................