A goal:Sub 24 hours : No B goal: Finish : Yes
I’m not typing 100 splits
So this year has been my lowest mileage year in a while. Probably in the last 5 years. Started with a crash skiing in late January which gave me a bad calf contusion and re-aggravated a hip injury that had been bugging me off and on since before the DT Memorial downhill mile. I took a lot of running down time. Then my wife and I bought a house. Now it was inconvenient for me to go to my old team’s track practices, plus the turns on the track irritated the hip. Womp Womp. Upside though, the new house is less than a mile from trailheads, so I was getting to run trails 3 - 4 times a week, whereas before it was maybe once a month. So my speed was down, my mileage was down, but my trail ability was up.
I also had another 100 mile attempt this year. The Hallucination 100 at the Run Woodstock festival in MI. Unfortunately that race did not go as planned. I tripped and smashed myself in a parking lot the night before. I got stung by a swarm of yellow jackets 7 times at mile 12.5, and finally my groin / hip flexor stiffened up and I couldn’t lift my knee at all, so I dropped at mile 33.
Other big runs leading up to the race were the Pemi loop, 30 rugged miles in NH with ~9000 ft of gain, and the Vermont 50, which was a fun 50 miler which came right on the heels of my Woodstock DNF. I didn’t run a step for the first 6 miles, and my groin / hip did get sore, but never gave out totally, and I finished just under 11 hours.
I flew into SF on Thursday night before the race. I met up with /u/runjunrun who’d I’d be staying with and who was going to help crew and pace me for the race. I briefly met his pup Pockets, and then crashed on his couch. I woke up the next morning and began my journey to pick up my packet at the fleet feet in Folsom. I took the Megabus to Sacramento, and then the little train / commuter rail thing from the bus stop to Folsom, and then finally walked a mile to the store. Got my packet, got a little ice cream cone from McDonald’s and then called an Lyft to take me to my hotel.
I got a text from my friend Chris (aka “Howdy”) that’d he be arriving from SF in time for dinner, so I hung out until he arrived, then we drove to downtown Folson and I got a burrito.
We woke up the next morning and the Hotel was being super cool for the 100 runners. They were serving super early breakfast, so I got to have a big bowl of oatmeal before the race.
This was relatively uneventful. Most of the miles were in the dark, so I had to run with my headlamp. It was almost all asphalt bike path, and the midsoles of my Altra LP 4.0s just aren’t made for road running. I chatted with some folks about running and what not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTap17XLBPw
Saw Howdy for the first time here. Got a lot of sunblock applied and then kept going to granite beach around mile 24. Here I decided to change shoes. I put on some Nike Wildhorse 4s and my feet felt so much better with the squishier midsole. Had I known what the first 18 miles were going to be, I’d probably have brought road shoes, but oh well. There was another aidstation in between Granite Beach and Rattlesnake called Horseshoe bar. I have almost no memory of it.
At most aid, I would try to drink a lot of water, maybe some drink with calories (Roctane Tea or Coke), and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich corner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsKFu3Tx1nM
First time into rattlesnake. More sunblock on and I picked up some headphones. I don’t normally listed to headphone while running but I was feeling a little bored on the trail. I started up a podcast episode that I had about an hour left on (The Adventure Zone Halloween Special). I kept running with the headphones in and was able to pretty much zone out for the whole hour. At one point while running I knew there were some runners close behind me and I felt a fart coming. I let it out. I have not idea how loud it was, but I could feel it. It was a doozy. And then the runners that were so close behind me had receded a few steps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2kbmUyBaM4
Finally we hit the 41 mile aid, which was at the base of a 3.5 mile hike up to overlook aid. It was a long hot hike, but I met some nice folks so I had some people to chat with.
I picked up Howdy here to pace me. He gave me a third of a burrito with french fries in it. It was delicious. We packed up two beers and hit the trail. On our first big climb, we broke out the PBRs and drank them. It was a nice little mental boost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SDv3wHljiA This next 30 miles was pretty rough. The most technical and steepest bits of trail. Criss crossing and overlapping some of the Western States course was pretty cool. Got to cross no hands bridge. My junk had felt like it was chafing for a while so I had essentially covered everything downstairs with 2toms sports shield, which is a kind of oily lube. Anyways, at one point we found and made use of a porta potty, and when I came out, I told Howdy that my junk felt like “a greased vienna sausage” which was probably the funniest thing I said for the whole race.
One point we’re running down a trail, I’m following behind Howdy, and he pulls up short at a corner of a switchback. And then I see a round big furry head looking at us. I’m about through my thought of “that’s a cute fluffy weird dog” when Howdy yells “That’s a bear!” It was pretty smallish, probably an older cub or a yearling. We started back up the trail Howdy started clapping and yelling incase momma bear was around. I had the distinct thought of “I should get a picture” shortly followed by the thought “wait no, that’s how people die.” Shortly after, the bear ran into the woods and we could continue on our way.
We hiked for awhile. I was pretty beat up from being in the heat for the day, which I think got into the mid 80s. My head was sort of buzzing and light but not overly concerning. At some point, to help me with the uphills, I picked up a stick and started using it as a hiking stick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMYsJe-hPTc
We hiked more technical bits in the dark and finally made it back to Overlook.
Coming into overlook, we finally found Aaron. He told me “you’ve never looked more homeless” because of my beard, and the fact that I was carrying a giant stick.
I told Howdy I needed a brief nap as I was almost falling asleep. I laid down in the back of his car for just under 15 minutes, before getting up and assembling myself again. I got pretty cold in the back of his car, so loaded up on some more gear, putting on a long sleeve and a buff, and putting my gloves back on. After assembling myself and getting some calories I headed out again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJpLn51o94A
The road down is where things started to get weird. I’ve never had full on, mind bending hallucinations in a race before. I’ve had mild ones (seen glimpses of things through trees at night) and dozed off while running, but this time was different, and I started seeing stuff. It was like dreaming while running. At one point I was coming down the road and there was a divide where it changed from asphalt to dirt. But when I approached it, I stepped up to it and thought I was about fall out off a giant cliff. Like full on, I could look over the edge and felt like I was losing my balance over it. Then I realized it was just the switch to dirt and kept jogging down. I sorted kept nodding off until I made it to the bottom. I drank some redbull and ate some quesadillas and soup (these became my go to later in the race, moving away from the PB&Js).
I still had another 6 miles to go until I picked up Aaron as my next pacer. I kept nodding off while running, trees and plants looked like chairs. I distinctly remember losing a fair amount of trail to sleep, but somehow stayed on the winding single track. At one point I finally found a spot to lay down. Finally I made it into Rattlesnake to meet Howdy and Aaron.
I drank more redbull here, and ate some quesadillas. I switched my shirts to a wool short sleeve shirt I have and arm sleeves I borrowed from Howdy, because I had laid down in a patch of weird plants which were now poking me everywhere making me itch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOS25JpRAPg
Aaron and I headed out, walking along. Thankfully the course was pretty flat from this point on. I was still hallucinating a bit, but having Aaron to talk to helped keep me awake.
The sun rose and I was able to move a little faster. It was really nice to be out of the dark. Definitely felt a lot less tired with the sunrise. Moving along we made it to the last aid, Granite Beach and discovered that we were a full half mile closer to the finish than we thought we were!
This final aid station was a cool one. It was the very early morning and most of the runners were spread out at this point so the aid didn’t feel hurried. They also had a roast pig going and hadn’t touched the face. So Aaron and I ripped of crispy (heh) pieces of cheek meat and went to town. It was great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xcwAhLHtFY
Then we hauled ass out of there to the end. I felt like I ran most of the way to the finish, really picking it up to get across for the final half mile or so.
Immediately after race, Howdy, Aaron, and I sat around and ate some breakfast and drank some beers. Then we started the drive back. Aaron had to pull over twice to nap, understandably. Finally we got back to his place in San Francisco. We napped and then went out for Vietnamese food. I dumped as much hot sauce into it to try and run my sinuses and flush all the dust I had inhaled out of it.
Nest day was spent resting.
Day after, I decided I wanted to see San Francisco and wound up running 14 miles. It was beautiful https://www.strava.com/activities/1950318680
Big shoutout and thanks to /u/runjunrun for hosting and pacing, and my friend Chris for pacing me as well. Both really helped make this race much easier and more enjoyable.
This post was generated using the new race reportr, a tool built by /u/BBQLays for making organized, easy-to-read, and beautiful race reports.