My 100 mile journey

My first ultramarathon was the Crown King 50k in March of 2000. The idea of doing a 100 mile race was always in the forefront of my mind, but I always had a lame excuse for not doing one. After a very strange 2020 that had me working from home but training more than I ever had, and after completing some personal challenges that I had never thought possible, I decided to pull the trigger in December of 2020. First, I signed up for a bucket list race, the Squaw Peak 50, in June of 2021. I wanted my first 100 miler to be very hard and very challenging physically and mentally, so after much searching, I signed up for Pine to Palm 100 in Oregon on September 11 and 12.

Training for Squaw Peak 50 and Pine to Palm 100

I’m not a person who likes to follow a set plan, and I pretty much keep myself in good shape throughout the year. I run more when I have certain goals, and I run less when I don’t. I guess I can say that training started when I signed up for both races. During the first 6 weeks of training, through mid-February, I started to add longer runs in my training and I also added one day per week with some hard intensity in order to increase my leg turnover and efficiency. Because I’m in my 50s, I decided that it wasn’t going to be healthy or sustainable to follow a traditional 3 week build followed by 1 week of rest. Rather, during the next several months I followed a one week build followed by one week cutback, then another week higher, then one week lower. Occasionally I did two weeks of build followed by one week of rest. In the end I was able to increase my miles up to a maximum of 101 miles in a week by April and several weeks in the 90s and several in the 80s before that, with the easier weeks being 40-50% lower than the heavy weeks. Except for the first 6 weeks where I included some hard running every week, I did all my running at or under my MAF, and most of that 10-25 beats under. My reasoning for keeping my heart rate that low was that it allowed me to recover from my long runs and the large amounts of vertical I was doing very quickly and to be able to add a lot of volume without getting injured. In the buildup in training for the 50 and the 100, I ended up having no niggles or issues at all.

Squaw Peak 50

On June 11 I completed one of my bucket list races. It was a very hot day, with record high race day temperatures reaching the low to mid 90s. It is a stunning and very hilly course and is very exposed along much of the course, especially after mile 25. I did not use heart rate in this race and ran by feel. For the first 25 miles I kept it as easy as possible, although when I look back at my splits I feel that I did too many of those miles a little too fast. I likely gained a minute here and there and lost several later on. After mile 20 the heat started to become an issue, so I compensated by going more slowly, power walking most of the hills and taking in more fluid, as much as one 20 oz bottle every 3 miles. I got most of my calories from gels and from Tailwind. I also used Precision Hydration 1500 every 2-3 hours, which seemed to help a lot later in the race when I was fatigued and forcing myself to take in calories and fluid. My goal time for this race was 10:30 and I believe that if the temperatures had been the same as previous years, about 20 degrees cooler, I would have come close to that. But since it was very hot and I slowed down my pace, I ended up at 12:23. I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t finish faster but I understood that the heat was a major factor and in the end it didn’t seem to affect how I felt, outside of the normal fatigue of running 50 miles.

Training for the 100 miler

I spent the week after the Squaw Peak 50 recovering, eating, hydrating, walking, and running very little. The soreness went away after about 2 days and I felt mostly normal after 6 days. I resumed shorter running after a week, and then did my first back-to-back set of long runs three weeks after the race.

Between the 50 mile race and the 100 miler, all of my training was at or below MAF, with most of it 10-20 below. My back-to-back weekends consisted of doing roughly 55-60 miles from Friday to Sunday, and I did one weekend where I ran 30 miles Friday morning to afternoon in the northern mountains of Arizona at elevation, 20 miles at night starting at 10:00, then after 3 hours of fitful sleep another 10 back up north. I did back-to-back long weekends every 2 weeks during this time. My biggest weekend was 6 weeks out, and then my last big back-to-back weekend was 4 weeks out, with a final shorter back-to-back 2 weeks out, followed by a 2 week taper. In the shorter recovery weeks in between the big weeks, I did about 50-60% less running and vertical in order to allow for recovery and to adapt to a lot of time on my feet. One week I went to the beach and ran very little, and paddle boarded a lot.

Throughout all the training, I maintained my strength training routine of 4-5 days per week, focusing on lifting heavy, 4-6 reps, with a lot of rest in between. Strength training is non-negotiable for me, but because my body was prioritizing endurance over strength, I allowed my body to focus more on the running.

The Mogollon Monster 100

5 days before Pine to Palm was supposed to start, I was notified that the race had been cancelled. Luckily I had anticipated this because Oregon had a lot of smoke from Northern California fires and also several local forest closures in the weeks leading up to September 11. I picked the Mogollon Monster 100 as my replacement race because it was on the same days and was very close to my house. So on Tuesday before the race, I had to completely shift my focus and strategy from Pine to Palm to The Mogollon Monster. Though I was disappointed that my adventure in Oregon wasn’t going to happen, I was excited to challenge myself in familiar terrain.

Throughout all of my 100 mile training, not only did I focus on the physical training aspects, but also the mental. I had never gone more than 50 miles in a race and I knew that the race would be very mental after 50 miles. I watched videos of other runners who had done 100 miles and listened to countless podcasts of people who described their 100 milers, but in the end it all came down to this as far as mental preparation: I had to believe that my training would get me through 100 miles. I had to accept that it was going to be a very hot race and that my heat training prepared me. During the last 8 months, I conditioned myself to push through anything that was uncomfortable and never quit at doing anything, which I did. I had some runs in the summer where I wanted to quit badly and forced myself to keep going. I didn’t want to head out at night to run 20 miles in the Phoenix heat and humidity after running 30 that morning. But I did. I BELIEVED in my mental preparation, and in the end, I feel that it benefitted me, especially when I got to the point during the race where I didn’t want to go another step when I had 28 miles to go.

Race strategy

I used heart rate for the first 9 hours of the race, until my Polar OH1+ battery ran out, then I went by feel the rest of the way. My heart rate was between 105 and 115 for most of that time. I did a mix of power hiking and easy jogging. I did not run one single uphill. When I got to the first aid station at 11 miles, I was third to last. Friends and family who were following me online said after the race that they were concerned that I started too conservatively. By the time I arrived at the second aid station at mile 22, I had passed 1/3 of the field. I steadily moved my way up, keeping myself well hydrated and fueled. I carried a fourth bottle that I filled with cold water from the stream crossings and dumped on my head. I also soaked my head and upper torso in the streams every chance I had. On every major hill I passed more and more people. It was very hot, and people were dehydrating left and right. I passed people who were throwing up and some who were being tended to by medical staff. In the end 62 of the 150 starters didn’t finish the race.

My friend John Kruelle paced me in the dark from 45 to 62 and by 62 I could tell I was going to be suffering a lot. I made it to mile 72 when the sun was beginning to rise, and that’s when I had to battle serious demons for about 16 miles. I made a critical error when I left mile 72. I forgot to carry my fourth bottle with cold water to dump on my head. It got hot very quickly, and when I got to mile 80 I felt very ill and completely defeated. I laid down on a cot for 30 minutes, ate some real food and drank. I was coming up with all sorts of excuses of why I was going to quit and how I’d tell my wife, who was supposed to meet me in the final miles. It was at the 80 mile aid station that I said GET UP. KEEP MOVING. GET TO THE NEXT TWO AID STATIONS AND THE FINISH LINE. I did the math in my head and knew that it would be a long journey in the last 20 miles and that I would suffer. My legs were done. My forefeet were hamburger with massive blisters and bruising. Yet I kept going. 9 miles from the finish, I ran into my wife, who paced me the last 9. She had to put up with my incessant whining, suffering, and despair, as there were still big climbs to do, but she was awesome. I learned in this race that pacers are SO much more important than I was giving credit for. I owe John and my wife Tracy so much for helping me mentally get to the finish. I only had one major goal in this race, and that was to finish. And I did. I finished in 36:22:59, 24 hours longer than anything I had ever done. I gave 100%, and though my placement wasn’t as high as most races I do, I didn’t care. The 8 months of dedication, weekends filled with training, running more miles than I ever had and doing more vert than I ever had was totally worth it. It is the most satisfying race experience I have ever had, with incredible emotions and memories attached.

Recovery

Surprisingly the lack of sleep wasn’t a big deal and my muscles and tendons weren’t in terrible shape after the race. I was very sore but able to get around just fine with some tenderness. My feet, however, were total hamburger. It took me about 6 days to recover from the bruising and feel normal. 12 days later I tore huge thick chunks off my forefeet, exposing raw skin underneath. I did my first run after 7 days and have run very short since then. I’m very slow but luckily nothing hurts. I always make it a practice to refrain from running until my joints feel like they can do it, and when I do run I keep it very short and very easy. Everything I’ve been doing is 15-25 under MAF for the most part, which is critical in gaining back my health and strength. I plan on doing very little running intensity for several months until I feel completely recovered and normal. I resumed easy strength training after 7 days, and going into the third week I am ratcheting up the intensity in order to get strong again. I also started back to rock climbing and will be doing that three times per week. My body has been prioritizing endurance for 8 months and I felt like I lost a little strength and body mass, so I am going to spend 2-3 months rebuilding and doing more strength training. For me, strength training is the holy grail of staying healthy and uninjured.

Hindsight

After looking back at my training, of course it’s easy to find fault and to think I could have done better. Two things stand out:

1. If I were to do this again, I’d include more short intensity running all the way through my training. I spent too much time in the lower zones. I feel that a little higher intensity in my training would have made me stronger later in both races. An 80/20 or 90/10 approach may have been very beneficial.

2. Sauna time. I should have cut back on a few heat runs per week and spent time in a sauna instead. I believe it would have been less stressful and more beneficial for heat resistance.

In the end, I have no regrets with how I trained and with the results. The whole process from beginning to end was incredibly rewarding. I learned a lot about myself as an athlete when I thought there wasn’t more to learn. Will I do another 100 in the future? I won’t say no, but right now I am going to take a mental break and keep my running random and without any goal other than to keep fit. But I won’t lie. I already have goals for 2022….