Ozark Trail 100

One day this summer I got really excited about running Western States, I thought the course looked beautiful and that it would be an epic adventure. One thing I didn’t know was that I needed a qualifier. The Ozark Trail seemed like a good one, although it might have been smarter to opt for any number of the easier/closer ones. Regardless, on November 5th I toed the line with 83 other runners hoping to make it the 100+ miles to the finish.
On the Thursday before the race my friend Joel and I headed down to the middle of nowhere for an adventure in the wilderness. The ride was long and rainy, which was a bit concerning knowing that I would be out the elements for hours upon hours. Fortunately the next day it cleared up and Joel and I went out and did some cave exploring as well as some hiking. A very fun day to have before a fun/brutal day.
The night before the race I got about 4 hours of sleep and woke up around 12:30am, the positive thing about this was that it gave me much more time to over prepare. After a long bus ride and a while sitting around a fire the 83 of us sang the national anthem and were on our way into the dark Mark Twain national forest.
The first few miles were easy going and rather fun as I settled in about 30 runners back, I remember looking back some 5 miles into the race and seeing a snake of headlamps coming down a large hill. By the time we made it to the first aid station I had ended up with a group of the younger runners, you know the 35 and under crowd. The sun had come up by this point and the aid station was more like a pit stop than anything else. Throughout the first half or so of the race I was able to maintain a sluggish pace which is probably the only reason I even finished. I bounced back and forth between about a dozen other runners, enjoying conversations with people from all over including Cath Todd the stud Australian from Dubai that won the womens side of the race ad Dale Holdaway who got second at the Hallucination 100 this year and won it in 2009. At about mile 15 my legs started to become fatigued but by mile 30 they somehow felt better than ever. This would continue to be the theme for a while, legs full of pain, brand new legs, legs full of poison, legs full of vigor. I was told by Brad Bishop, resident race expert that miles 51-68 were very runnable so I hoped my legs would cycle to feeling good by then and boy did they ever. Once I made it out of mile 51 I picked up my pace and ran probably the fastest 25 miles of my day up to mile 76. For some reason I felt the need to push it hard from 68 - 76 and while doing this I kind of wrecked myself. When I arrived at the aid station everything was slightly shaky, so I took a seat and chowed down for a bit. While at the aid station Pete Kostelnick made it up there, I was really happy for this because when I had passed him earlier had been trying to take a nap in the woods. Unfortunately while I was sitting at the aid station recovering my knee was tightening up. When Pete and I headed out together my knee decided it was done running. From here on out it was power hiking and everytime I thought I would try and run agan, my knee quickly told me no. I did make it to the finish although I would have liked to do it in a little more style but for my first 100 I was proud to be one of the 42 that finished the race and okay that I missed the top 10 by 1 place. Maybe I will head back down next year, I think I can knock off a good 3 or 4 hours and be well under the 24 hour mark.
Big shout out to Joel Maslin who single handedly crewed for me and made the experience much better. I passed out hard as soon as I got in the car and I don't know how I would have made it home in the shape I was in if he wasn't there.

Lake Perry Rocks! 50k

I’m not 100% sure why I signed up for this race, I think I was under the impression it would be some easy miles and I could use it as my last long training run for the Ozark Trail 100. Not much happened the way I thought and it wasn’t much of a training run when I found myself pushing it hard. I showed up race morning without many expectations, people had told me it was relatively flat so I thought I would average 9 minute miles and be ok, besides that I expected to have fun.
The race started off going a couple hundred yards down a gravel hill. At the start 3 guys took off sprinting, 1 50k runner and 2 half distance runners, I figured I wouldn’t see any of them again and was happy with that. I made it down the road and into the woods rather fast myself and was seemingly content to hold onto second or let people that would be picking up the pace behind me take off. After a couple miles I had reeled in Phil Sheridan who was the 50k runner in front of me and found myself in uncharted first place territory. Basically the rest of the race I was confused and anticipating someone passing me. I made it through the first loop rather fast and had I been running the half I would have been in third, something I would have been more than happy with. Going into the second lap I was feeling okay, but not great. the flat course ended up being almost as hilly as the Psummer Psycho, although the hills were much more gradual, but this began to catch up with the fast pace I had put out the first lap. At the first aid station I popped some salt pills because I felt some cramping might be coming, fortunately they made any feeling of it disappear. The nice volunteers even remarked upon my happy demeanor, but after leaving this aid station my mood took a hit. My legs began to get rather sluggish and I was beginning to walk most of the hills, soon most of the hills became all of the hills and I was sure I was going to get passed. I actually was hoping I would get passed so I could quit worrying about it. The final 5 miles or so were rather slow, but I found out I had built a nice lead and only a cataclysmic meltdown would cause me to lose the lead. The race was fun, the course was really nice, an overall good experience. My legs left a little more beat up than I was hoping they would but that was okay, I managed to win my first 50k!
Oh yeah... Thanks to Mark Carter! I borrowed his car to drive out to the race.