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…
2023 ES100 Additional/Final Thoughts
If you hadn’t guessed yet, I’m pretty obsessed with Eastern States so here’s yet another post on the race. Let’s start with finish times. Here are the median finish times over the years and how mine compare. 2023 was the second slowest year to the infamous 2016 race (oh yeah, it sucked). This makes me…
Strategies For A Successful Eastern States 100
I’m going a different direction with my race report this year. More of a How-To guide on running the race. If you’re interested in a more traditional accounting, you can check out my races in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022. Or my photo journey in 2021. Strategy #1: Go out fast Don’t listen to all those…
Vermont 100 Mile Preview
I’m pretty excited for my race this weekend. OK fine, I’m excited for all my races. I get amped up a little more for my hundred milers. Vermont is not your average hundred miler though (if there is such a thing). And that’s got my level of anxiety anticipation at another level entirely. I have…
Unfocused on Western States
I have a confession to make. I’m not really interested in running Western States. I feel like a bad ultrarunner even thinking something along these lines. Western States is The hundred miler so it’s more than a little ironic for someone hoping to finish a hundred of them not having WSER100 at the tippy top…
100 Mile Shrine
A couple years ago my wife got me a nice display case for my 100 mile buckles. I decided to add my bibs and additional items that I’ve received for finishing 100 miles. This includes a license plate (NJ One Day), a certificate of completion (Greenbrier), and two medals (Cloudsplitter, Olde 96er). While I’ve grouped…
NJ Devil 100 Mile Race Report
In this race report: At some point, I will be able accurately predict an ultra finish time. Last weekend I ran the inaugural NJ Devil 100 Miler. After many years of planning, the Beast Coast Pro team and their amazing volunteers were finally able to put on this race. It starts and ends at the…