I fell short of all my goals. 😦

But on the other, I had a solid year. 🙂

But falling short of all my goals is a bit harsh — these were the distance, time, and elevation goals, that were always going to be a big stretch!

My most ambitious goal this year was to climb 365,000′, or average 1000’/day, across all sports — running, hiking, walking, biking, including indoor/virtual running and biking. And I was close!

The other big goal was to “strength train” for 50 hours. As I’m 51 and counting, maintaining strength and muscle is quite important, and while I love the endurance sports, those aren’t helping to fend off sarcopenia. Again, super close here, and just as important, the graph shows I was a lot more consistent than in prior years – not many flat line sections at all:

The distance goals for biking and running were a bit further off, but with the elevation goal, that is somewhat expected:

And time – here I had 550 total hours which would include the 50 of strength… So a bit further off, and slightly less than last year, but still nearly 500 hours of “exercise.”

So, on the other hand — a solid year? Why say that? Well, I had another sub 8 hour Uhwarrie 40 (and another top 10), I did my 1st expedition length adventure race in 15 years, the FL Sea 2 Sea race, and I finished Hellgate (not quite as strong as I would have liked – blog post to come on that later). And outside of racing, I also got a couple more 14er’s in, and as you can see from the “exercise time,” spent a lot of time doing what I love — hiking, running, and biking, especially in the mountains.

At this point I’m keeping all the goals the same for 2022! It’s good to have big stretch goals even if I know it will be hard to hit all of them. I will again prioritize elevation and strength in 2022.

Current race plans are: Uhwarrie 40, Fl Sea 2 Sea, Barkley Fall Challenge

Addition projects I’d like to tackle: The Linville Gorge big loop, and to Everest (probably on the bike, and probably indoors!)

UPDATE: I forgot these two screen shots from Strava which have a a little additional info:

I like this one as it shows how I did elevation-wise per month:

And then this just included total days active and total distance:

Update: I’ve decided to add links to a longer article as well as the gofund.me page that was created to aid the families.

https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/2021/03/01/troy-manz-indiana-cyclist-killed-accident-sea-to-sea-expedition-race/6875003002/

https://gofund.me/5d360286

It’s now just two days from the end of the 2021 Florida Sea 2 Sea expedition length (72 hour) adventure race, and it’s still difficult to describe what happened.   I’m writing this now while it’s still a little emotionally raw, to hopefully help me process everything.

This race was my 1st expedition length AR in about 15 years, and my first AR in maybe 10.  I have done lots of ultra running in that time, and some other adventures like the MR 340 mile paddling race, the World Rogaine championships, etc.  But this was AR — back to “my roots” in endurance sports — paddling, trekking, biking, and lots and lots of navigation.

I’ll bullet point some memories from the AR aspect of the race below, or more likely a separate post, but the reason for the emotions is as follows.   My team was coming in from our last trekking section, about to transition to the final 40 mile bike ride to the finish, around 4 a.m. Sunday morning.  This was after 66 hours of racing in which we had done ~200+ mies of mountain biking, +40 paddling, and 20+ on foot .  As we came in to the TA to check in, we were told the “course was closed.”  We immediately guessed what had happened, and it’s a blur but I think Ryan asked if there was an accident and if someone had died.  The race crew said yes, and then he broke down crying.  I think we were the first people he had to tell.

It wasn’t clear to us what would happen, other than we would wait to find out.  We made it back to our gear in a state of shock.  At 66 hours with limited sleep, I think we all dozed, but it was not restful.  In my mind I didn’t know if the course was re-opened if I would want to continue.  I didn’t think so. After an hour, the race crew called all of the racers that were in the TA together and told us the race was over.  They would shuttle us back to the finish, and even go out and pull everyone still on the course off using the big rental trucks.  

I think this was the right call given the situation.  Over the last two days as details have emerged, we found the accident occurred just a little north of the last TA, about 90 minutes before we had come in and were about to head that way.   All teams had ridden the same road (US 1) to get to the TA, and then would have taken that same road north to head towards the finish.  The accident occurred about 2:30 a.m., as a car veered into the bike lane and hit all three riders of a three man team.  One died on the scene, and the other two were air lifted to local hospitals.  I understand that those two are now in stable condition.    Also from the news reports, we found that the man who died was engaged to one of his female teammates.

My own team had our own close calls with cars…  One pick up veered close to us — seemingly on purpose, though who knows?   We also had an 18 wheeler get close enough that we all were muttering under our breath (or out loud!) and had an  extreme adrenaline rush…  While the race keeps us off major roads as much as possible, it’s impossible to get across the state without utilizing some roads.  Typically the roads are used to connect various wilderness areas, where the bulk of the racing occurs.  But you can’t get from wilderness area to wilderness area without using some roads.  We tried as much as possible to chose routes that avoided major roads, and all of the big roads are off-limits according to the race directors’ rules and clearly marked as such on the maps.  But there’s only so much you can do to make it across the state.   All riders have flashing red rear lights, as well as bright handle bar and/or head lights on.

So what was an amazing “return to my roots” of AR was marred by this tragedy.  That is what is hard to process.  I had an amazing time, even though we struggled with some aspects of the race (navigation).  Other than that, we raced well together, felt strong, and were doing well.  And it was beautiful to be in areas of FL that many people never see.   I love the remote areas of FL rivers and swamps – so beautiful and pristine – there’s nothing quite like them that I have seen. 

As we were racing I kept thinking about coming back and entering as a soloist next year, rather than a team.  I am impressed by those that have taken on this event on by themselves!    We’ll see how I feel in a week, or a month, or when sign up comes around for next year’s event.  I’m sure even more precautions will be taken than ever before.  But at the end of the day, we all take risks each time we step out the door, whether it’s to drive to town to the grocery store, or whether it is to run, bike, and paddle across a state.  We have to understand and mitigate those risks as best we can.  There is a “living” part of life that has to be fed, and each one of us feeds that differently.  For me, one important part of that is to get outside, to move under my own power, and cover epic distances, and to see and experience the beauty of God’s creation up close.  

My heart is broken for the lost life and broken lives for those close to the racer who was killed and those who were injured.  I’ve left out details of names and locations, though they are easy to find online.  I may modify this write-up to include those details, but wanted to write something while my emotions are still quite raw.

Year 9 of the 40 miler!! I’m thinking one more to get 10, and then maybe take a break. I love this race and course so much, though, we’ll see if I can hold to that. 🙂

Anyway, this year would be different due to Covid. Half the field in all the races, modified courses on the 8 and 20 (now 16), though the 40 would remain the same. No shuttles, so parking near race start (which is a tight turny country road, so a major concern, but I heard from the RD that it went well.)

I’ll cut right to the chase… I ended up on the 1st row, socially distant with 20 other runners in wave 1, so was 2nd onto the 1st big climb. I knew that was a problem, so let 2 others get by, and within a minute, those first 3 were gone. Then I had a couple more on my back, and I was going too hard to soon, so I let them go, and they soon were gone. And I was by myself — for about 33-34 miles! Well, at mile 13 or so, one runner passed me, and a guy he was with stayed with me for maybe 5, 10 minutes top. Other than that, I was 100% alone!

I felt good and strong, and hit the turn in 3:52 — much slower than my best year, but I guess those dats are behind me. 🙂 At 3:52, though, I figured my “super stretch” goal of sub 8:00 was gone, and was thinking 8:15-8:30 was more likely. I was in and out of the turn in a minute, 90 seconds top, and just kept running. It was more lonely on the return this year, with just half the field of 40, and none of the normal 20 milers coming by.

As I watched the time, I kept thinking I somehow still have a shot at sub 8:00, so I just kept running. I knew it was getting really tight. I got to the aid station at mile 35 with just under and hour to go, and figured it was over. But then I remembered this aid was at mile 4.5 on the way out, not mile 5, so I had a little less distance to the finish than I had been calculating, and it was back on!

I ran much more of the last 4 miles than ever, and somehow pulled it off! Going down the steep rocky section in the last mile with speed was a bit scary, but I had enough energy to push here, and got to the finish in 7:56, good for 7th place! Again, a smaller field, but I’m still happy. And besides, my goal is time based here, not placing. (Unless I can ever get top 3 which is where the big pottery is awarded! 🙂

I’m going to update the table I’ve used in past years, and put in the splits for the years they are available, as it shows that this was my strongest 2nd half, even though I’ve had faster overall runs.

So I did break 4 hours on the return in 2016, but was still 24 minutes slower than the way out. This year, in my 50 year old body, I was only 12 minutes slower. Most years, most runners, even in the top 10, are 15-30 minutes slower, so I’m pretty happy with that!

Fuel: pre-race oatmeal and peanut butter; tailwind; 4 vFuels and 3 coconut date rolls that I carried; 1 cup of potato soup at the turn, 1-2oz Mountain Dew at aid stations 29, 32, 35, 38.

Gear: XOSkin shorts, 200 weight ice breaker long sleeve half zip top (should have worn short sleeves!), 2 buffs, one started to keep my ears warm and one to be a face covering at the aid stations, injinji toe socks, Topo Mountain Racers (so far, love these shoes!); calf sleeves (was ready to pull them off a few times but didn’t want to stop).

Oh, and a Coros Vertex – received the night before so I had literally no experience with it. My Garmin had serious GPS failures on 2 of the last 13-14 runs, so I replaced it last minute. (Actually ran with them both, and the Garmin was several miles off, while the Coros with just shy of 40 miles.)

Here is what Kelly posted to Instagram since I didn’t take a picture of my pottery:

Then race analysis from Strava:

Ok, this is very late — but I didn’t realize I forgot to write a blog post last year! Doh!

Here is what I did post to Facebook:

So I eeked out a top 10 finish but did not break sub 8:00.

Looking at the training log, it’s not hard to see why!

(Blue was swimming….)

Perhaps a better way to see it is run volume / distance:

Not a whole lot of distance there, so not hard to see why the 20 miles back took 38 minutes longer than the 1st 20!

As this was over a year ago, I don’t have much memory about any of the run itself. But I did just finish the 2021 40 miler, so stay tuned for another update soon!

Well, I realized I skipped the Q3 update, but here is the year end summary, and thoughts on next year.

The big goal was total elevation, which I set at 250k, significantly higher than prior years. That includes all sports, not just running — so add hiking, walking, biking, etc. With COVID hitting, Kelly and I both signed up for the Great Virtual Race Across TN, which had us both walking a lot more. Also, there was the Ascent Challenge Memorial Day weekend got me climbing a ton — 31k in a week! (That was all running…) And finally, the addition of virtual riding via Zwift also contributed. With all that said, I crushed my goal with well over 300k of climb, and have set a goal of 365k in 2021! Not sure how likely that is — depends on if I do any more virtual events, etc.

Next up is my time goal, which I set somewhat arbitrarily at 500. After looking through “The Uphill Athlete” last year, I realized my yearly hours trained were pretty tiny compared to some athletes! Now, this number does include a lot of hiking and walking — but only walks when it was somewhat of a workout, not just walks that were super casual. And again, I hit this target with just (barely) over 500 hours. I went ahead and bumped this to 550 for 2021, mostly because I want to (need to!) get serious about strength training now that I am 50, and I have made it a goal to lift 50 hours in 2021. Now, I may include mobility and balance in one umbrella – I’ve not quite decided. But I do some of that kind of stuff outside of a training session — just when I walk by a balance disc or am sitting in front of the TV.

Next up is running, for which I fell just short of my 1000 mile goal with 978 miles. I’m not disappointed in that at all, as I feel like a more well rounded athlete doing all the other sports again, especially mountain biking! I’ll keep this at 1000 for 2021, though a lot of that will depend on which races happen next year!

And finally biking…. I set an aggressive goal of 2000 miles, but I rode the mountain bike more than expected (as apposed to Zwift or road riding), which is always going to be fewer miles per hour. But I had a blast doing it and wouldn’t change that. I’ll probably change the 2021 goal to 1500 or 1750, but I am Zwift’ing more now than last year, so maybe 2000 is within shot and I should just keep it the same?

I doubt I’ll keep up with quarterly updates going forward — not sure anyone is really interested. 🙂 But I do enjoy tracking this kind of stuff, so will continue to do so. A shout out to the Elevate App, which is chrome extension which enables me to track this level of detail from my Strava data..

So a table to show 2021 goals:

Training for the BFC can be interesting — you often don’t know if you are in or not until just a few weeks out. The race fills quickly, and there is always a long wait list (which is where I seem to find myself each year). Last year I got the notification from Laz 24 days from race day. This year, with Covid, there was a slight indication the race may happen in late July — for prior finishers only, so I thought that might give me a good chance.

As race date got closer, we found that Laz was able to get permission to host 125 runners, to start in waves of 25, 15 minutes apart. The pool of prior finishers from the US, that wanted in, was in the 110 range, and Laz filled out the remaining spots with other well qualified runners — people who have finished a loop at Big Barkley, or who had finished other long/tough races.

Covid also changed pre-race activities – no packet pick up the day before, no lunch at the Warden’s table studying maps, etc. Instead, we would get maps race morning — roughly 30-45 minutes before our wave was to start! I ended up in the third wave based on my prior finish times.

Kelly and I made our way from NC over to Frozen Head, driving the van, stopping in Black Mountain for pizza, and then heading to the park. We had a spot in Flat Fork, but got word from another racer that her spot in Big Cove would be open as she couldn’t make it, and we opted for that. Parking the van in a relatively flat spot closer to the bathroom was much better than the primitive camp site with port-o-pot at Flat Fork. When we arrived a Frozen Head, we ran into THE Keith Dunn at the ranger station, and we made few purchases from the shop, before going to our site. We relaxed there a bit before heading to the Mexican place for dinner.

(A side note on Covid — we were quite amazed at the differences between NC and TN on mask wearing. At the grocery store in TN, maybe 10-15% of people had on masks. At the foyer of the restaurant, no one did, other than Kelly and I!!)

Anyway, race morning came, and we drove out of the park a couple miles to pick up race packets and the maps. We pulled over so I could review them before heading to the race start. I looked at it all and thought “oh, that looks easy, not anything new that we haven’t seen.” But then, after another minute or two, I noticed the “blue loop.” Hmm, loop, what could that be? It then hit me that the shirt I had just gotten that said “double your pleasure, double your fun, two, two, two rats in one,” and the double mint gum that came in the pack, meant something! Two climbs of rat jaw!

Rat Jaw is literally the hardest mile I have ever done. 2000′ in just over a mile, much of it a bushwhack through saw briers, some of it more like a bear crawl than a hike/walk (there is no running on the Rat). In the past it has taken me around an hour and fifteen minutes to make it to the top. And this year, we’d get to do it twice! Double your fun!

So we drove to the start area, and literally I had 10 or 15 minutes before my wave was set to go. I made my final gear adjustments… Another covid note — this year there would only be water on the course. No food — so you had to carry all your own calories and other gear you thought you might need. I had asked about poles, and the answer was “no, but there are plenty of sticks on the course!” So, my pack had all my food, a fair bit of water which I could top off on the way, a light, and not much else.

I won’t describe the course any further, I’ll just share pictures. I finished in about 10.5 hours, 37th out of the ~110 starters, but 3rd in my new age category of 50+ (which is not an official category, but I did have to check!)

Photos of Kelly and I at the famous yellow gate the day before the race:

Race start:

Testicle Spectacle – the smirk on my face on the 3rd shot is because I had way too much speed on my “butt slide” technique and was about to slide off into the woods!

Summiting Rat the 1st time — I had actually caught the front of the pack — there were about 25-30 of us, with the lead group of 3-4 bushwhacking, so we caught them. I thought about bushwhacking up to help, but figured it was better to save a little energy and wait.

The bottom of Rat just before starting the 2nd climb:

And the 2nd summit of Rat:

I’d note that both Rat Jaw climbs took about an hour this year, roughly 15 minutes faster than in prior years. Most of that had to be the much cooler temps — probably a good 15F cooler!

And finally, the finish:

Another great day at Frozen Head. A lot of suffering, but a lot of smiles too. I love this race, and if I could do just this and Uhwarrie 40 every year, I’d be a pretty happy runner. 🙂

I would say that lack of run volume again caught up with me in the end — runing 10 hours/30 miles/12k’ on 15-20 mpw is not ideal. I was strong on the climbs, due to all the ascending done this year, but my feet and legs were pretty shot coming down Chimney the last few miles.

Gear: Soloman Ultra Sense (or some such), Ruhn compression shorts, icebreaker sleeveless, Stio collared, injinji toe socks, big leather garden gloves, UD pack.

Food: lots of tailwind, some vFuels, part of a bar, and some granola chews. Oh, and sushi! I had the idea to grab a California roll at the grocery store the day before, and carry that in my pack. Ate them 1st before anything else so they would no sit out too long. I would not do this on a hot year, but the cooler temps meant they would keep well.