There are five established hundred mile races in Pennsylvania. I have managed to finish four of them over the years with Rabid Racoon being latest this spring. Viaduct is the last one on the list even though it was the first hundred miler in the state beginning all the way back in 2008. The race…
Easier, Never Easy (or why I suck at managing expectations)
I keep thinking running hundreds are going to get easy. That at some point I’ll be able to cruise through a race with no sweat off my brow. Like rolling out of bed for a Tuesday 5 miler. After twenty seven hundred mile finishes, I can tell you it hasn’t happened yet. This isn’t to say…
Rabid Racoon 100 Mile Race Report
Relentless. Let’s just just leave that word there by itself to emphasize what I think about this race. There’s a thing in psychology called the Framing Effect where what you think of something is based on how it’s presented. The course description starts out with the flat two miles before the continuous rolling terrain kicks…
Rabid Racoon 100M Preview
Finally kicking off my 2024 race calendar this weekend out by Pittsburgh. While this will only be the third year for the race, the race organization looks pretty large based on the number of other races they put on so I’m expecting a well oiled machine. Not that I need this in a race. They’ve…
My 100 Miler Ranks: 2023 Edition
Welcome to the 7th annual update of my 100 miler ranks. No race is exactly the same and since everyone looks for something different when choosing races, I thought I would give you my ranks in various categories. Only 1 race gets added to the lists this year (NJ Devil). I’m excluding NJ One Day,…
2023 Devil Dog 100M Race Report
Under New Management (Pre-Race) Devil Dog had new RDs this year. I ran this race a couple years ago and was happy to see that it was just as well run. There were a couple of changes this year though. The first is that they added a 50K option (more like 33 miles according to…
Devil Dog 100M Preview
What makes a race hard? Most people will immediately think of elevation gain/loss. Technical trails, high altitude or extreme weather are also things that make a race difficult. Basically, anything that slows you down are good criteria for determining what’s a hard race. I know this is how I’ve been conditioned to think: More vert…
The Nuances of Running A Hundred Miles
A lot of people probably question my obsession with hundred milers. Goodness knows my wife does. So why do I keep signing up for race after race? It’s because the sheer quantity of nuances involved keep the distance fresh and challenging for me after all these years. Or it’s possible that I’m just a very,…
The Big Three Challenges of Running a Hundred Miles
In my opinion, there’s three big challenges in running a hundred miles. I’m going to ignore fitness when talking about challenges though. There’s a base level of endurance competence that you need to bring to the table. If all you’ve ever done are 5Ks or day hikes, you’ve no chance of moving your body 100…
Chasing 10K Update: Halfway to Halfway
For the uninitiated, this blog is documentation of my ultimate ultra career goal of finishing a hundred 100 mile races. 100 x 100 = 10k. Rather amazingly enough this was something I came up before I had even toed the line at my first hundred miler. As I was getting into ultras, hundred milers had…