The other way I’ve gotten over the cancellation of the Vermont 100 this month was by signing up for another race. I went to UltraRunning Magazine’s awesome calendar to find a replacement. I started by looking specifically for hundreds on the same weekend as VT100, however there wasn’t anything scheduled that was within driving distance from my house (+/- six hours). There were a couple options the following weekend, however that would only give me 3 weeks until Eastern States. I’ve never done four weeks between hundreds so three would have been much less than ideal so discarded those races almost immediately.
My other races this year are in late October (Tussey mOUnTaiNBACK) and early December (Devil Dog). The timing of them is such that November was out so it was going to be September or nothing. This narrowed things down to four races: Pine Creek 100M, Virgil Crest 100M, Grindstone 100M, and Buckeye 200M. Pine Creek and Grindstone were quickly removed as the latter I just ran last year and the former is on my list to run next year. Not that I don’t mind doing races over and over again (i.e. Eastern States), however I was looking for something new. Virgil Crest would be a completely new race and that was going to be my backup race until I realized it was scheduled for when my brother was going to be up visiting from Florida. So that left me with. . .
A 200 mile unsupported journey run on Ohio route 45. This is the out-and-back version of the Olde 96er that I ran back in 2019. I had signed up for this race before, but COVID ended up cancelling it. I guess it’s appropriate that I’ll finally end up doing it due to the cancellation of another race. Very nice symmetry here. This race scares me like nothing I’ve done before, which will be an excellent distraction from missing VT100. As much as I’d normally already be obsessing about this race, I have some business to take care of in Waterville, PA before then. Eastern States is definitely not a race I can look past. But soon I can start looking forward to getting back to Ohio.