It seems like forever since I’ve raced, but Viaduct was only a relatively short 10 weeks ago. Here’s what’s on tap this weekend. Wild Goose Trail Festival is a weekend of races put on by Sassquad Trail Running in the Wawayanda State Park. In addition to the 100M race, they also have 100K, 50M, 50K,…
2024 Eastern States 100 Mile Non-Race Report
Well, that sucked in a completely different manner than it normally does. World Class Race Organization You really can’t gauge someone’s character until they’re tested by adversity. I believe this adage applies to race organizations as well. The Eastern States race organization has steadily improved over the past ten years, but it’s been in all…
2024 Eastern States 100 Preview
This will be my seventh trip to Little Pine State Park. While it’s true I always look forward to my hundred mile races, I’m especially excited for this year’s ES100. I’m coming off two amazing events and my fingers are crossed that the Summer of Phil can continue for one more race. The Dream Race…
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…
Viaduct 100 Mile Preview
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…