It has been about 10 weeks since my first attempt at 100 miles in Wyoming which ended with a sprained ankle and a horseback ride out of the canyon. Immediately after this tragic turn of events I went ahead and registered for another 100 mile footrace. This one would be the Leanhorse 100 in Hot Springs, SD. By comparison this 100 would be a much easier race in terms of elevation change, but this would be a much hotter race. I paced around the starting line on the warm sunny morning with my team of friends. The team consisted of Alex May, a math teacher in Fort Collins and ultrarunner. Alex was coming off of the Leadville 100 race the previous weekend, but had ran Leanhorse the previous 2 years, so he was a great person to have helping. Also from Fort Collins, Cat who is a seasoned ultrarunner herself. She has a few 100 mile finished under her belt, her experience on the trails will be vital to my race. And last but not least my roommate Mallory, who herself is beginning to find an interest in the trail running world. This team of runners will be a huge factor to how well I can perform at this race. I have a bit of a bone to pick with this 100 mile distance. I told my team that I was willing to run myself into the ground if that’s what it took to cross under that glorious finish line.
I toed the starting line with 150 or so other runners competing in various distances. I was all set up with 2 hand bottles, a gel flask with about 320 calories and the obvious running attire. The rest of my gear would remain in my car which would be at most aid stations along the way as my crew would follow along. Coming into this race I had the goal of just finishing, depending on how I felt later on I may try to go for a time goal. Sub 24 hours would be great, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself since at this point 57 miles had been the longest run I have ever been on. The longer these races are the more likely things will go sour at some point. The key is to plan for the worst and hope for the best.
Here comes the countdown from 10..9…8. A chill runs down my spine, 7…6..5, holy shit I am about to do this again…4..3…well here goes everything..2..1.GO!. We begin at a painfully slow clip, but this will be quintessential to a finish. Start off slower than you think you need to go is what I tell myself. I ran right through the first aid station and onto mile 8.9 to see my crew for the first time, I felt great at this point as for the sun has not came up completely. I was right on schedule with about 12-13 minute miles still. I wanted to remain relaxed and consistent like this all day long. I continued on with my steady rate of speed and effort. I do not listen to music or carry any sort of GPS, I just listen to my footfalls and what cadence that is, I try and keep that going to a nice consistent rhythm. I take a walking break for about 2-3 minutes every 90 minutes or so. I notice many people around me that seem to run super hard and then walk, so this yo-yo effect is happening when they pass me running and get passed walking, while I just remain at my own effort not changing a thing.
Right around mile 28 the sun is in full effect and from I had learned hit a high of about 103 degrees. I was making sure that I was carrying salt tabs and increasing my hydration from 40oz to almost 50 oz per hour by increasing my intake at each aid station. I moved the bandanna from my head to my neck and replaced it with a hat. I began to notice a pulsing pain in my left foot/ankle, which is the one I sprained at Bighorn. Great…I thought to myself. Then I remembered something Cat told me that she heard from Gerber that you should never extrapolate, so since I feel this bad at mile 28, it doesn’t mean it will be twice as bad at mile 56. I just needed to keep my mind on the task at hand, which was placing one foot in front of the other.
Mile 42 and I am beginning to place handfuls of ice in my pants, under my armpits and on my neck to try and stay cool. The heat is starting to get to me but I continue to push on through, right on pace. I make it to the turnaround in 10:17(mile 47), I eat a sandwich and take a few ibuprofen to ease the pain in my feet which unfortunately has been getting worse and worse with each mile. After a sock change I head back out to tackle the rest of this beast. I have pacer for the rest of the way back that will be a combination of Cat, Alex and Mallory. They tell me that mueling is allowed so without hesitation I hand over my hand bottles for them to carry. Having their clear minds will be awesome to keep me on track with hydration and nutrition. The air is thick and sweltering, I am being choked by this heat, but still just keep pushing. Ice in the pants, soaking my shirt and just keep on moving along. I make the 50 mile mark in 10:40, still right on schedule. My feet are still getting worse and worse with each step, I go against the advice and begin to extrapolate…”man I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with this pain”. I knew exactly what I got myself into and just needed to remind myself that pain is part of it.
Around the 60-65 mile mark it finally begins to cool rapidly. I am loving this and I can finally focus a bit more on the race rather than the pain in my feet and the heat in the air. I drop the hat and put my bandanna right back on. I am still running right on schedule, looking at around a 22 hour finish if I can keep it up. This is the point at which I need to really remember to run aid station to aid station rather than to the finish. After running 70 miles the last thing you want on your mind is running another 30, so instead I just think of running another 4-5 to the next aid station. I feel great and am right on track with my hydration and nutrition. I make the conscious decision to cut back on salt tab intake and hydrate a bit more slowly as the sun set. I wanted to avoided getting bloated and having too much water sloshing around in my stomach. This paid off as I continue to pee regularly and my legs still felt pretty fresh on the run with the amount of calories I was taking in. My pacers were all doing amazing jobs at keeping me engaged, and keeping me eating. Once the sun began to set then my pacers were carrying lights to light up the trail. We have less than 30 miles to cover in the dark, STILL right on track with everything. Feet…they feel like absolute shit to be honest, but ive gone to far to let it bother me. I remember that my body will always heal and recover but mentally I didn’t want to go through another DNF. I began to talk much less which worried my pacers but I assured them that I was just really focusing. I even instructed them to talk much less so I could just go to my happy place in my head and just go for it. I started to lean onto the gas a bit and pick up the pace and felt really comfortable still. I pulled into mile god-knows-what at this point and saw that 2-3 people were dropping. I grabbed a bite, told Alex I was going to keep going. I ran off with another runner, neither of us had a light. We stepped lightly down this trail in the pitch black and then I looked back and saw no one coming. I had no energy to waste so I just kept moving forward. 10 minutes go by and I realize that I am not carrying water or food either. Great…no light, water or food. 15 minutes now and I finally see a light coming from behind which I hope is my pacer. It is! Its Cat to the rescue with some water, we have about 5 miles to the aid station so I figure I can make it without any food. We make it in to the aid station still on track for about 22 hours. This is where I will run for a few more miles before turning off onto Argyle road. I see that another 3-4 runners have pulled out at this aid station. I head on into the bathroom for to relieve myself, when I attempt to stand up my legs both seize and I take a face plant right into the door of the porta potty leaving a pretty sizeable lump on my eye…classy, I know. We turn off onto Argyle road which is where we will run on rolling hills for about 12 miles before we hit the town and…the finish. I am sure of a finish at this point within the cut off, but it is a race, a race in which I want to push myself and leave everything possible on the course. 18 or so hours in I feel absolutely fantastic and continue to push the pace past mile 87, the pace up and down the hills feels awesome and I cant believe it. We are hitting the 7:30-9:30 min/mile pace for a few miles. We are picking off runners in the process and surprising the volunteers with our light mood in the night hours. My stomach feels great but I cant chew to well so I start dunking my grilled cheese into my mountain dew…delicious!..seriously though it was pretty good.
I pick up Mallory again for the last stretch on Argyle road, we run smooth and confidently through the dark night. As we come up on a turn I halt and grab Mallory to stop her from running. “Wait!”, I yell. “The hell is that…it’s a freakin space ship, dude we cant go there”, I cry. Mallory looks confused and a bit worried. I continue to rant a plea to not travel this same way, when suddenly the space ship disappears and we continue into the night. I still feel great but need to ease back onto the pace. But then right at mile 95 I was hit with a mac truck. My body started to really feel the wear and tear of this race. My feet, my arms, my knees, hips, back all were just done. I was able to muster running 20 steps at a time at most. I pick up Cat as we enter the town, 3 miles to go. 3 of my blisters burst wide open and saturate my sock. Each step I am wincing in excruciating pain and discomfort. I run for 3 steps at a time. I must keep going forward, no stopping I say. Mile 99 I have my pacers leave me to finish this on my own. Each step sends a shooting pain through every square inch of my body, but the finish is almost in sight. .5 miles to go and I begin to emit a Chewbacca like roar with each step but just keep moving forward. I see my team as they point me in the direction of the finish, I cross the bridge and under the finish line as the clock ticks to 21:48. After a roller coaster of feelings and emotions I just sit down, I don’t cry or get emotional at the finish. I simply say with a smile “Welp…glad that’s over”, but I wasn’t glad. As much pain that I put myself through it was an amazing experience that I immediately began to miss.
I realized a lot of things in the last 22 hours. One was just because a race has much, much less technical climbing than a different race doesn’t make it that much easier. Every race has its own difficulties and barriers to over come. Today was the heat and the long flat, continuous straight trail. Mentally it was easy to slip when you had no turns or steeps to focus on. I realized that is does not matter what your body looks like, it what you can do with it. I know that i do not look like a runner. I am short, stocky, overweight and not built like the typical muscle-less, tall, slender runner. But you know what...i finished right in there with the other "runner types". Another thing I realized is that stale grilled cheese dipped in mountain dew is delicious. Another thing I learned was that you do not need to run more than 40 miles a week to be able to make a 100 miles a reality. The most important thing I realized is that you are only as strong as the people around you. I understand running is an independent sport, ultraunning even more so. Today I had 3 great people on my team which made this possible, I also had 100 other runners putting themselves through the same punishment. Today I was only as strong as all of them. Without my pacers/crew waiting my arrival at aid stations, running with me and keeping me focused, this race wouldn’t have gone the way it did. 100 miles is never a solo effort.
Give us that stength to dig deeper than ever to continue.Our bodies are saturated with your never ending strength, power and love whether we knew it or not. Deliver us 100 miles from now safe and smiling .Please place your blessing among each and everyone of us.Remind us on this day and through all of life that we never run alone.
I toed the starting line with 150 or so other runners competing in various distances. I was all set up with 2 hand bottles, a gel flask with about 320 calories and the obvious running attire. The rest of my gear would remain in my car which would be at most aid stations along the way as my crew would follow along. Coming into this race I had the goal of just finishing, depending on how I felt later on I may try to go for a time goal. Sub 24 hours would be great, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself since at this point 57 miles had been the longest run I have ever been on. The longer these races are the more likely things will go sour at some point. The key is to plan for the worst and hope for the best.
Here comes the countdown from 10..9…8. A chill runs down my spine, 7…6..5, holy shit I am about to do this again…4..3…well here goes everything..2..1.GO!. We begin at a painfully slow clip, but this will be quintessential to a finish. Start off slower than you think you need to go is what I tell myself. I ran right through the first aid station and onto mile 8.9 to see my crew for the first time, I felt great at this point as for the sun has not came up completely. I was right on schedule with about 12-13 minute miles still. I wanted to remain relaxed and consistent like this all day long. I continued on with my steady rate of speed and effort. I do not listen to music or carry any sort of GPS, I just listen to my footfalls and what cadence that is, I try and keep that going to a nice consistent rhythm. I take a walking break for about 2-3 minutes every 90 minutes or so. I notice many people around me that seem to run super hard and then walk, so this yo-yo effect is happening when they pass me running and get passed walking, while I just remain at my own effort not changing a thing.
Right around mile 28 the sun is in full effect and from I had learned hit a high of about 103 degrees. I was making sure that I was carrying salt tabs and increasing my hydration from 40oz to almost 50 oz per hour by increasing my intake at each aid station. I moved the bandanna from my head to my neck and replaced it with a hat. I began to notice a pulsing pain in my left foot/ankle, which is the one I sprained at Bighorn. Great…I thought to myself. Then I remembered something Cat told me that she heard from Gerber that you should never extrapolate, so since I feel this bad at mile 28, it doesn’t mean it will be twice as bad at mile 56. I just needed to keep my mind on the task at hand, which was placing one foot in front of the other.
Mile 42 and I am beginning to place handfuls of ice in my pants, under my armpits and on my neck to try and stay cool. The heat is starting to get to me but I continue to push on through, right on pace. I make it to the turnaround in 10:17(mile 47), I eat a sandwich and take a few ibuprofen to ease the pain in my feet which unfortunately has been getting worse and worse with each mile. After a sock change I head back out to tackle the rest of this beast. I have pacer for the rest of the way back that will be a combination of Cat, Alex and Mallory. They tell me that mueling is allowed so without hesitation I hand over my hand bottles for them to carry. Having their clear minds will be awesome to keep me on track with hydration and nutrition. The air is thick and sweltering, I am being choked by this heat, but still just keep pushing. Ice in the pants, soaking my shirt and just keep on moving along. I make the 50 mile mark in 10:40, still right on schedule. My feet are still getting worse and worse with each step, I go against the advice and begin to extrapolate…”man I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with this pain”. I knew exactly what I got myself into and just needed to remind myself that pain is part of it.
Around the 60-65 mile mark it finally begins to cool rapidly. I am loving this and I can finally focus a bit more on the race rather than the pain in my feet and the heat in the air. I drop the hat and put my bandanna right back on. I am still running right on schedule, looking at around a 22 hour finish if I can keep it up. This is the point at which I need to really remember to run aid station to aid station rather than to the finish. After running 70 miles the last thing you want on your mind is running another 30, so instead I just think of running another 4-5 to the next aid station. I feel great and am right on track with my hydration and nutrition. I make the conscious decision to cut back on salt tab intake and hydrate a bit more slowly as the sun set. I wanted to avoided getting bloated and having too much water sloshing around in my stomach. This paid off as I continue to pee regularly and my legs still felt pretty fresh on the run with the amount of calories I was taking in. My pacers were all doing amazing jobs at keeping me engaged, and keeping me eating. Once the sun began to set then my pacers were carrying lights to light up the trail. We have less than 30 miles to cover in the dark, STILL right on track with everything. Feet…they feel like absolute shit to be honest, but ive gone to far to let it bother me. I remember that my body will always heal and recover but mentally I didn’t want to go through another DNF. I began to talk much less which worried my pacers but I assured them that I was just really focusing. I even instructed them to talk much less so I could just go to my happy place in my head and just go for it. I started to lean onto the gas a bit and pick up the pace and felt really comfortable still. I pulled into mile god-knows-what at this point and saw that 2-3 people were dropping. I grabbed a bite, told Alex I was going to keep going. I ran off with another runner, neither of us had a light. We stepped lightly down this trail in the pitch black and then I looked back and saw no one coming. I had no energy to waste so I just kept moving forward. 10 minutes go by and I realize that I am not carrying water or food either. Great…no light, water or food. 15 minutes now and I finally see a light coming from behind which I hope is my pacer. It is! Its Cat to the rescue with some water, we have about 5 miles to the aid station so I figure I can make it without any food. We make it in to the aid station still on track for about 22 hours. This is where I will run for a few more miles before turning off onto Argyle road. I see that another 3-4 runners have pulled out at this aid station. I head on into the bathroom for to relieve myself, when I attempt to stand up my legs both seize and I take a face plant right into the door of the porta potty leaving a pretty sizeable lump on my eye…classy, I know. We turn off onto Argyle road which is where we will run on rolling hills for about 12 miles before we hit the town and…the finish. I am sure of a finish at this point within the cut off, but it is a race, a race in which I want to push myself and leave everything possible on the course. 18 or so hours in I feel absolutely fantastic and continue to push the pace past mile 87, the pace up and down the hills feels awesome and I cant believe it. We are hitting the 7:30-9:30 min/mile pace for a few miles. We are picking off runners in the process and surprising the volunteers with our light mood in the night hours. My stomach feels great but I cant chew to well so I start dunking my grilled cheese into my mountain dew…delicious!..seriously though it was pretty good.
I pick up Mallory again for the last stretch on Argyle road, we run smooth and confidently through the dark night. As we come up on a turn I halt and grab Mallory to stop her from running. “Wait!”, I yell. “The hell is that…it’s a freakin space ship, dude we cant go there”, I cry. Mallory looks confused and a bit worried. I continue to rant a plea to not travel this same way, when suddenly the space ship disappears and we continue into the night. I still feel great but need to ease back onto the pace. But then right at mile 95 I was hit with a mac truck. My body started to really feel the wear and tear of this race. My feet, my arms, my knees, hips, back all were just done. I was able to muster running 20 steps at a time at most. I pick up Cat as we enter the town, 3 miles to go. 3 of my blisters burst wide open and saturate my sock. Each step I am wincing in excruciating pain and discomfort. I run for 3 steps at a time. I must keep going forward, no stopping I say. Mile 99 I have my pacers leave me to finish this on my own. Each step sends a shooting pain through every square inch of my body, but the finish is almost in sight. .5 miles to go and I begin to emit a Chewbacca like roar with each step but just keep moving forward. I see my team as they point me in the direction of the finish, I cross the bridge and under the finish line as the clock ticks to 21:48. After a roller coaster of feelings and emotions I just sit down, I don’t cry or get emotional at the finish. I simply say with a smile “Welp…glad that’s over”, but I wasn’t glad. As much pain that I put myself through it was an amazing experience that I immediately began to miss.
I realized a lot of things in the last 22 hours. One was just because a race has much, much less technical climbing than a different race doesn’t make it that much easier. Every race has its own difficulties and barriers to over come. Today was the heat and the long flat, continuous straight trail. Mentally it was easy to slip when you had no turns or steeps to focus on. I realized that is does not matter what your body looks like, it what you can do with it. I know that i do not look like a runner. I am short, stocky, overweight and not built like the typical muscle-less, tall, slender runner. But you know what...i finished right in there with the other "runner types". Another thing I realized is that stale grilled cheese dipped in mountain dew is delicious. Another thing I learned was that you do not need to run more than 40 miles a week to be able to make a 100 miles a reality. The most important thing I realized is that you are only as strong as the people around you. I understand running is an independent sport, ultraunning even more so. Today I had 3 great people on my team which made this possible, I also had 100 other runners putting themselves through the same punishment. Today I was only as strong as all of them. Without my pacers/crew waiting my arrival at aid stations, running with me and keeping me focused, this race wouldn’t have gone the way it did. 100 miles is never a solo effort.
Give us that stength to dig deeper than ever to continue.Our bodies are saturated with your never ending strength, power and love whether we knew it or not. Deliver us 100 miles from now safe and smiling .Please place your blessing among each and everyone of us.Remind us on this day and through all of life that we never run alone.
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