So Friday evening Wyatt, my dad and I found ourselves at Hargus Lake in middle-of-nowhere Ohio camping. We camped next to a 50something year old dude Rick who was fun to get to know. He's ran Burning River 100 and Mohican 100 before, both two summer ultras around Cleveland. We talked about races and training and nutrition and whatnot. I learned a couple good things:
"After your first 100, your hormones will be so off and you'll be so emotional that your pencil will break two weeks later at work, and you'll start to cry and scream, "why me!?" -Rick
Eat protein early in a race 50 mi or longer. Egg whites. (I'll def be doing that at NF)
Burning River and Mohican are the races to do in Ohio. They're "not flat" but I think they'd still be flat.
With dogs barking the whole night in camp I barely got any sleep and was quite annoyed come time to wake up. I wasn't feeling it. But it was just a training effort and a small race (~140 starters?). Plus it was a nice day and a new type of race with the loops so what the heck. At the starting line I met an older dude with the finisher shirt from Terrapin this year. I wish I got his name, but he seemed legendary. Finished Hellgate 4 times! Gonna do the beast this year. He went off 15 mins before me with all the 50 milers.
"Go" and some dude literally sprinted off the line. Everyone was like, "does this dude know this isn't a cross country 8k?" The chase pack formed and quickly turned into a peloton of 7 people with me pulling up the rear. Mile 3.5 came and my dad was sitting on a bench and I said, "they're going out too fast" which they were. I dropped off the back with Wyatt after the aid station then Wyatt faded and I completed the first lap my myself and finally was running my own pace. I soon caught the then four-man chase pack and ran with them for a bit. They had slowed down a bunch and after an aid station I took the front and started feeling good. One guy dropped off the back then I let another person lead. Ran with him and another guy for the next two laps. They took the downs really slowly but overall held a steady pace which was probably a tad faster than I would have liked to have been running for a training run. But I was enjoying running with them.
Aid station on lap three and I went to fill up my bladder. It wouldn't close fully, literally took me 4 if not 5 mins to get it half way on. Then I was a little down cause I had work to do and I didn't want to race. Went through lap 5 craving coke which they didn't have at the aid stations but finally found some. My dad said, "you're in fourth the last dude just left the aid station. Do it for yo momma." And all I could say was, "it's so flat."
But I caught that guy pretty quickly and ran pretty hard to hold him off for a third place finish with a time of 4:52:00. If I was fresh and raced I'm confident I coulda gone like 4:30, but I'm content with how it went. Still a PR! I was able to run the next day to put in a solid 50 mile week. Someone was taking pictures and I got an interview (! haha) after I finished but they're not up on the website yet.
Because I ran around 85-90% effort I wasn't too tired after I finished. I was only sore in my hips from the constant running and no climbing or descending. I'm super stoked for NF and coulda kept going for 50 mi at this race. Leggo.
Nutrition (not a lot):
2 roctane gels
2 noncaffine gus
1 twix bar
~100oz water
1 cup coke
1 cup heed
= ~600 cal.
Will definitely eat and drink more/on a schedule at NF
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