100 Mile National Championship at Jackpot

First a little catch-up is due. After my 48 hour race last year I signed up for the wait-list for the Kettle 100 and thought I had little chance of getting in, but they did work their way through that list and I was able to run. After finally having a good 100 mile trail run at Mines of Spain in 2018 I felt a higher confidence going into this race. It ended up being a rainy race with sloppy trails, but that also brought cooler temperatures than normal and I finished with a time of 16:17 and first overall. This time was good enough to be the 4th best all-time in the 25 year history of the race.

Kendra kept the kiddos out there until the finish!

Next I had a focus on training for the 24 hour race at Six Days in the Dome. And then in July on a night after a hard weekend of training I was playing basketball in the basement with my son and something happened in my foot causing instant sharp pains. Ultimately I had an MRI and they could not pin point the problem but I was between crutches and a walking boot for a few weeks. I was only able to volunteer at the dome and afterwards started over with my running. Having been so inactive for about six weeks my fitness was awful. I started with 1 mile runs at the end of August and worked up to 13 miles by the end of 4 weeks. By the end of October I was back up to marathon training runs on the weekend with only slight tightness in my foot.

At this point I decided on running the 48 hour at Six Days in the Dome in August 2020. So I thought our annual trip to the Jackpot Running Festival would be a good opportunity to really focus on setting a good 100 mile PR at the USATF National Championship. My 100 mile races up to this point had all been hilly trail races or contained within a longer timed race. Since I ran 16:17 at Kettle on those sloppy trails I really thought that running under 15 hours should be attainable on the relatively easy course at Jackpot for the national championship. It is flatter and has better footing than the normal loop at Jackpot. It is also only 1.17 miles long to make aid very easy.

Training went went very well. I had a streak of 8 straight weekends with a long run of 40 miles or longer and the body was feeling great. Weather for several of those runs was less than stellar, but I figured running through snow and slush should only make fast conditions feel easier. I tried my best to keep a large portion of my training runs around the 8:40 pace that I wanted to start the race at. I once again did a stretch of a strict keto diet for six weeks leading into the race to get into efficient fat burning mode.

We arrived in Las Vegas to stay with the brother and sister in law on Wednesday evening though the race was not until Friday. I wish I always had the luxury of a full day to relax before every race, it was so nice. I picked up some grocery items, filled up some bottles with Tailwind, placed a bet at the sports book, and rested. There was also a lot less preparation than my 48 hour race the previous year, I was hoping to be out there less than 1/3 of that time.

On race morning as the sun rose the temperatures became comfortable in the mid to high forties. There was minimal wind and sunny skies. It was perfect conditions for the start. It seems like those poor showgirls have to always have a hand on their head holding onto their feathers, but that was not the case today.

Anybody who has read my Jackpot blog entries before knew this picture was coming.

As much as I wanted to start right off at my 8:40 pace, I ran 8:11 for the first mile while really trying to slow down. Almost half of the field was ahead of me after a mile. I was able to only slow down to 8:15-8:20 pace while still feeling efficient so I settled in at that pace. I was drinking 4 oz of Tailwind every two laps that were mixed so that I would get my desired calories per hour. I keep it low since I prep for burning fat. Even before 10:00 AM I also was taking a bottle of UCAN hydrate on the non-Tailwind lap to get some additional fluids since it was gradually warming up to what would top out in the mid-60s with sunny skies. This is a hot day to a Wisconsin boy in the middle of February.

Everything felt amazing and I was starting to worry about being so far ahead of pace. Going into the race there were three very elite runners entered into the race and then a good handful of runners with results closer to mine. I knew if those three runners had good races that I had very little chance to compete with them since their best times were 2-4 hours better than mine. I was somewhere around 35 miles when one of the elites dropped. This bumped me up to 4th place at that time and 3rd place was within a couple hundred yards of me. I would be lying if I said this did not inject a bit of adrenaline with the chance to finish top 3 at the National Championship.

At exactly the half way point I caught up to Dan who was in 3rd and passed him. My 50 mile time was 6:57:35 which comes out to 8:21 per mile (8:14 or so on my watch due to inevitable weaving around folks and Garmin inaccuracies). This is the 3rd fastest 50 mile I have ever run. My body still felt amazing and I was finding myself naturally speeding up a tad which only added to my concern that I could blow up. But since everything felt so good I just kept chugging along at the pace. At this point first place was 4+ laps in front of me and second place was 2+ laps in front of me so I just wanted to focus on myself and crank out as many of these laps as possible while I felt so good.

I barely ever broke stride in this race. I had only two bathroom breaks and one stop to have my wife spray me down with sunscreen mid-day. I had gallon jugs of drink mix that my crew was refilling and handing to me as I passed so I never had to fill a bottle myself. My stomach stayed 100% content with just the Tailwind and no calorie electrolyte mix so I did not have to contend with the worries of attempting to eat and digest food which I view as a huge advantage. As the sun began to set I decreased the amount of electrolyte drink and eventually returned to only Tailwind every two laps.

My niece and nephew spent a large part of the day out there playing and helping. They were awesome.

Some time around mile 77 or so I caught up to Jacob Jackson who was now two laps ahead of me. My body somehow still felt pretty good so I decided this was the time to test if I could really summon some special power and increase the pace. Jacob stayed with me as I increased the pace under 8:00 per mile eventually down around 7:30 per mile as we reached the 80 mile mark. By 84 miles it was clear that Jacob was too strong for me to drop and I was on a trajectory to head too far into the red zone this far from the finish so I backed it up back over 8:00 per mile. Eventually I paid for my speed up as a couple of miles in the mid-90s dropped over 8:45 pace as I was pretty deep in the suffer zone by now, but I kept pushing and was able to run the last couple of miles quickly. I finished third overall in the National Championship race with a time of 13:52:39. That is a pace of 8:20 per mile for 100 miles. My second 50 miles took 6:54:23, three minutes and twelve seconds faster than the first 50 that I was sure I ran too fast.

Still processing at this point that I just ran so much faster than planned.

It wouldn't be a complete blog post of mine without some sort of graph. There were 85 laps in the race so I split the race into 17 5 lap chunks to show how my pace changed over the race. It was pretty darn steady through the first 60 laps until I started to speed up and then paid a bit during laps 76-80 for that choice. But overall, I am very happy with the pacing. If I had not tried speeding up I would not have known if I missed out on an opportunity to go for second place.

Final Thoughts

This was a great race, possibly my best to this point. It really expands my thoughts on what I thought was possible for my body. I ran in a very competitive race and hung pretty close to some of the top runners in the country. Based on ultrarunning.com only 9 North Americans ran a 100 mile under 14 hours in 2019 and I am now in that list for 2020.

Things that went well:

Pacing

Even though it was not as planned, I was very consistent based on what my body was telling me and even late when I was in the suffer zone I did not allow myself to blow up. Based on my Garmin data every mile split was under 9:00, even the three with bathroom breaks or sunscreen application.

Feet

I have transitioned back from pre-taping to just loading up with vaseline on my toes and I had no real blisters or hot spots. I also had no pain related to my injury from last year.

Nutrition and Hydration

The slow trickle of Tailwind worked nicely after my keto training and I did not have to eat anything during the race. I added enough UCAN hydrate to the mix when it was sunny and a bit warmer to keep all systems running smooth without getting too dehydrated and only needing two bathroom stops.

Time to Relax

It was so nice to have down time the day before the race. I cannot afford vacation time to do this every race, but it was awesome. I also had 1.5 days after the race which afforded me the luxury of going back and volunteering at the aid station for the last 6 hours of the other races early Sunday morning which was a lot of fun.

Things to do differently:

Make Crews Job Easier

I have never before done a short loop race where I am asking my crew to alternate different drinks. I should have had different bottles for them to make it clear which one I needed based on what I had the previous lap. This is especially helpful when young children are involved and grabbing bottles from the table in excitement :)

What is Next?

Overall my body is recovering well and I should be back running in some capacity a week or so after the race. I had a very hard time sleeping the first two nights after the race as my legs were just radiating pain when left motionless for a couple hours. I felt pretty good right away when walking around.

In August I am making my second attempt at running 48 hours at Six Days in the Dome. To allow plenty of time to lead into that race I wanted to find an early spring race and have decided to run in the Big Hill Bonk Wisconsin Backyard Ultra. This race format sounds like a lot of fun where you have to run a 4.1667 mile loop every hour until only one runner is able to finish a loop. I am looking forward to something different.

Once again, I owe thank you's out to those that spend their time supporting my running habit. Kendra was out there all but the first hour of the race getting me what I needed every lap and Abbe spent most of the day out there as well along with a combination of her kiddos and Bryan cheering for me. Those cheers go farther than you realize sometimes. And thank you Nancy for watching our children, including one with the flu, while we ventured across the country.