Viaduct 100 Mile Race Report

Old School. Even though Viaduct has only been around since 2008 (PA’s oldest hundred miler!), it very much embodies the spirit of ultrarunning. Carl and Dave, the RDs, ran 68 miles on the course in 2007 with support from their families. The following year they started up the 50 and 100 mile races as fatass events and they’ve continued as such to this day. There’s no entry fees, no swag, no event sponsors, no glitz, no glamor. At the opposite end of the spectrum from UTMB lies Viaduct. And it’s glorious.

The course is 12.5 miles in length on the D&H rail trail from Luciana Park in Lanesboro south. I need to strongly caution you though that this is not your typical rail trail. The first four miles are flat paved or smooth gravel trails that you normally associate with rail trails. The remaining 8.5 miles are closer to unimproved forest roads than rail trails. Still plenty wide, but not smooth. The rocks aren’t too bad, but you’ll need to pay attention to your footing to avoid tripping or rolling your ankles.

The other challenge with the course is it’s a steady climb of 900 feet out to the turn around. Outside of the two sections where bridges used to be, it’s never too steep, but it’s relentlessly up. You get a bonus 100 feet of elevation gain on the return trip for a total of 1000 feet gain/loss per lap.

The Dream

Over the years, I’ve slowly improved my pacing in races, however I’ve never managed to run an evenly split race. The closest I’ve come was last month when my 50 mile splits where 48% first half/52% second. Using that race as a benchmark, I estimated that my finishing time for Viaduct would be in the 22-23 hour range. And since I’m typically looking to push my boundaries (as I would imagine most ultrarunners are), I settled on an evenly split 22 hour finish or 13:12 pace. Bonus points for me personally since this worked out to a relatively round 5.5 hours per lap.

And We’re Off!

The race started at 5am with about 35 runners across both distances. It was pretty funny with everyone standing back about 15 feet from the unofficial start line. Guess we collectively weren’t feeling very competitive. My conservative pace put me towards the back of the pack pretty quickly. Luckily there were a couple other runners around me (Jeremy, Meg) so I had some company, which always helps to pass the time.

My goal with the first lap was to run an even 13 minute pace, which would allow me to bank 5 minutes at the start/finish to load up my pack for the next 25 miles. I had read a bunch of old race reports and was a little concerned about going off course considering it wasn’t marked, however that fear ended up being unfounded. There were signs and markings at the couple tricky parts, which made things much easier. Here’s a short of summary of the major landmarks:

• Mile 4 – transition from rail trail to “rail trail” after running next to a road for 30 feet then crossing it to continue
• Mile 6 – Melrose Rd. aid station
• Mile 7 – smaller of the two former bridge sections
• Mile 10 – larger of the two former bridge sections with switchbacks going down/up
• Mile 12.5 – turnaround

Dave was at the turnaround checking runners in and I was amazed to reach the orange cone exactly when my Garmin hit 12.50 miles. Of all the things I was expecting from this race, a wheel measured course was not one of them. The return was uneventful with my biggest issue keeping my average pace from slipping below 13 minutes/mile. I got back with my 5 minutes buffer in hand, got my pack situated for another 25 miles, and left exactly at 10:30am. On pace.

Lap 2

I decided to tweak my pacing plan slightly for my second lap. It seemed a little dumb to run the same pace both uphill heading out as well as coming back downhill. So I focused on maintaining my 13:12 average pace going uphill and then would bank time coming back. I also decided I needed an extra minute at the start/finish since I felt a bit rushed to get everything done when I stopped the first time.

It was now getting hot out and while I wasn’t pushing too hard to maintain pace, I’m not sure I could really call it easy anymore. I made a good tactical decision and tried to make sure I was only running in the shaded spots and walking all the sunny areas. I reached the turnaround in a group of three and was a little surprised when logging my time to find out I was tied for second place with one of the other runners (Zach). I wasn’t expecting to be competitive in this race since most winning times are well below 20 hours and I wasn’t going to be close to that time. I spent a decent amount of miles running back with Zach. It’s always nice to chat with other runners and swapping stories since it makes the time fly. I reached the start/finish with my planned 6 minutes in hand, restocked my pack, and left exactly at 4pm. On pace!

Lap 3

You know that part of a race where the wheels start wobbling falling off and you’re thinking to yourself “Holy crap, this is hard!”? Yeah, that was lap 3. At this point, any thoughts of running 13:12 uphill are gone and I’m just hoping I can make up enough time coming back to stay on pace. My nutrition started off great, but began deteriorating during the prior lap. As the temperatures rose, I slowly dialed back my caloric intake to keep feeling OK. I’ve found that I don’t need to ingest 200 or more calories to keep moving. My critical mistake was leaving the aid station at mile 56 without any straight water. All I had to drink was Perpetuem, Coke, and a small bottle of apple juice. In order to manage what calories I was able to ingest, I was forced to cut back on my hydration which ended up being a double whammy. Of course I realized my error only a couple miles into this 13 mile section. Sigh. Thankfully the course to/from the turnaround was well shaded so I wasn’t baking in the sun, which would have been catastrophic.

When I got back to Melrose Rd., I had only drank about 30oz of fluids so chugged a bunch of water there and then made sure I had a bottle of water only for the 6 miles back to the start/finish. It got dark a couple miles before I returned to Luciana Park so pulled my backup headlamp out of my pack. Looking back I’m pretty amazed that I only lost 7 minutes heading out and then was able to keep pace running back downhill. I did a quick turnaround at the start/finish thanks to Dave who helped my swap to my good headlamp and grab my rain coat in case I got too cold. I left for my final lap at 9:40pm. Ten minutes behind pace.

Lap 4

When I realized that my Dream Race was probably not going to happen, I started thinking about potentially winning the race. I’m sure this is backwards of how most people approach things, however I’m running these races to reach my personal best not in comparison to others. And let’s be honest. It’s not like my competitive juices are going to squeeze any extra speed out of my body. Scotty had been working in my engine room for 10 hours already and there was assuredly no additional gear available.

The nice thing about an out-and-back course is that it lets you know where you are in relation to others. The runner ahead of me was running a great race and was up by 2 hours on me at one point. He was about 9 miles ahead of me when I first started wondering about overall placement. Then 8.7 miles. Then 7.5. I had closed the gap to 4.2 miles as I finished up the 3rd lap. He was still moving OK so I still had my work cut out. I left the aid station at mile 81 wondering how much of the gap I could close before we headed back. I figured I needed to be within 2 miles to have a chance of chasing him down. As I approached the turnaround, I started counting down the miles till we passed each other. Four miles turned into three, then two, finally one, then I reached the turnaround, and. . .

I was the first to write my time down (1:27am)! Turns out the lead runner had dropped at the last aid station due to stomach issues. I started heading back doing math in my head on my time behind my target pace and it wasn’t making sense. I could have sworn I lost more than 12 minutes overall and it took me a minute to realize that 13:27 was my average pace, not the military time (which in hindsight isn’t even the correct military time). I turned around, shuffled back to the table, crossed out 1:27am, and wrote the correct time: 12:39am. 24 minutes behind pace seems much better. Beware ultra brain!

Now that I’m in first, I’m thinking about the runners behind me. There were four that were grouped together 5-6 miles back at the turnaround. I passed Taylor (1st female!) and Chris right at 10 miles to go, while Zach was only 5-10 minutes back of them. My five mile lead was probably worth about an hour, which felt comfortable but I still had work to do. Amazingly enough I was able to run 80-90% of the downhill back to the finish. Unsurprisingly, all I could manage was a 13:12 pace on this stretch leaving me tantalizingly close to my dream race. My final lap splits: 5:30, 5:30, 5:40, 5:44.

This was the best executed race that I’ve run to date. I came in with a solid strategy, tweaked it when necessary, and battled to the end. Congratulations to all the runners out there who fought through those brutally hot conditions. And huge shout out to Dave, Carl, and the volunteers at the Melrose Rd. aid station! What an amazing race you’ve created and organized this year. If anyone is looking for the soul of ultrarunning, they can find it the second Saturday of July on the D&H trail in Lanesboro, PA. This is truly a special event and I can’t wait to come back and run it again in the future.