This race was a struggle for me last year as I was pretty sick and probably shouldn’t have been running. This year, I got off the wait list about 4 weeks out. Oh Snap! I’d not run more than 8 miles since Hellgate back in December! So I quickly got a 20 miler in 4 weeks out, and a 17 miler in 3 weeks out, as my only prep. But the philosophy is “The Event is Life,” and taking that to heart, I should be able to jump into just about any crazy adventure in a very short time period. So it’s not like I hadn’t been training, I just hadn’t done any long runs in 3 months.

My phone died early so I only have two photos from the course that I took!

The race photographer caught these two:

Casey and Riley surprised me at the finish, so I have these as well:

I ran much better this year — as I should have not being sick. 13 hrs 14 minutes compared to 14:22:51 — so over an hour faster. I was also 33rd out of 97 finishers and 120 starters. So not too bad for an old man that feels quite slow these days! I’ll take it!

My only real insights is that I’m a strong climber — this race has 3 major climbs and I did not get passed on one of them, but often passed 5 or more other runners. But most of the time, all of those I passed would fly by me on the downhills. I was once a good downhill runner, but as you get older, you get wiser (or more likely just scared). I do worry about blowing up the quads going too fast downhill too early, but there were also some technical trails here that are sketchy (to me) to take too fast.

Strava data:

Funny last year’s GPS data showed over 14k, which I know is wrong. But I think this course is closer to 12,500 not 11,608!

Nutrition was a base of vFuel and Tailwind, and I supplemented at the aid stations with whatever looked good. At the last aid, I grabbed a 1/4 grilled cheese and started back on course. About 20 steps in I took a bite and immediately turned around to get a couple more — they were so good!

Gear was Hoka Speedgoat 5, injinji toe socks, XO skin base liner with a TenThousand short above, and then the Hellgate Patagonia Capiline from 2021 up top, with a NorthFace vest when the weather got cold. I did wait too long to put on my injinji gloves climbing Mitchell, where the weather was mid 30’s and damp and windy. Should have put them on much sooner and I suffered for that. I didn’t bother changing into dry socks up top — I knew the trails down were going to be swampy and they were.

Shoutout to Brandon and Tanawha Adventures — they always put on great races. Great course, great aid stations, very well organized, etc.