Next up is More Miles Last One Standing in Knoxville, MD. The race is structured as a backyard ultra where you run a 4.16 miles loop every hour with the winner being the runner who completes the most number of loops (or yards) and is the last man standing. The odd mileage is to let runners do an exact 100 miles in 24 hours. There’s camping at start/finish, which I’m planning to take advantage.
FATHER v SON
My son has started to dabble in ultras and has wanted to do a backyard ultra for a while. He picked out this race and at this point there’s no way I’m letting him do a race without me. We’ve raced against each other a couple of times over the years. I handily beat him in 5Ks as he was starting out and have managed to not race him at this distance since he entered high school and got good enough to smoke me in the shorter races. Our last race together was Labor Pains where I quit running while ahead of him (this was 3 weeks after ES100) and he went on to do another 3 laps. We’ve had a couple conversations about our running and generally agree that he would likely win any race at or under a 100k and I’d probably have the advantage in distances above that. We’re both hoping to do better than this so I’m under a little bit of pressure to demonstrate that experience trumps fitness. Regardless, one of my two A goals is to support him throughout the race and help him navigate and troubleshoot issues as they come up.
In It To Win It
This will be my second backyard ultra. I had an OK, not great race at Capital BYU three years ago and learned a lot about how to approach these races. My goals for the race was to finish 24 yards (100 miles) and to not quit (i.e. time myself out). I tried to tell myself that the latter was my primary goal, but for those who know how obsessed I am with the hundred mile distance (Chasing 10K = 100 x hundred mile finishes) then it’s really no surprise that once I hit that distance I immediately tapped out. I went out on yard 25 with the express intent of finishing over the hour time limit even though I still had more than enough in the tank to get it done. Now Capital has an insanely competitive field so there was zero chance I could be competitive, however going in with the express goal of accepting failure made it much easier for me to quit when I did.
So for this race, my A goal is to be the last one standing. Now even though I managed to win my last race, I would not consider myself the favorite or even likely to win. I like my chances of being in the last 5-6 runners, but that’s as far as I would go considering the other runners who are signed up. There’s probably at least 10-20 runners with better fitness than me. What I do have going for me is a pretty massive experience advantage; not only at the hundred mile distance, but also beyond that with three 200+ mile efforts. While I don’t know exactly how my fitness translates to this course profile, I have a pretty good idea of the hurdles I’ll face as I progress through the event and what it takes to deal with them:
- Yards 10-12: Peak heat impact of first day (lots of ice, walk all sunny sections)
- Yards 19-22: Overnight circadian rhythm lows (keep eating)
- Yards 26-28: Heat of 2nd day hits faster, harder (more ice)
- Yards 39-41: Sleep becomes necessary (5-8 minute micro naps)
The first two hurdles shouldn’t present a serious problem for me. The third hurdle is pretty much what did me in at Capital so I’ll definitely be cognizant of it this time around. Knowledge is half the battle so just knowing it’s happening will make me better prepared for dealing with it. I have minimal experience with hurdle #4, however I’m not too worried about it going in because I doubt I have the fitness/endurance to make it that far. It goes on the list because it’s better to think about it and kinda plan for it than to have an amazing day(s) and then get tripped up because I hadn’t given that possibility any thought.
End Game (Redefining What Success Looks Like)
Winning isn’t really a good A goal though because it is largely determined by how other runners perform. I’ve given a lot of thought to what a better process oriented goal would be and have settled on “a few more yards”. When you start out, covering the yard inside an hour is easy. Way, way too easy. The hard part for me is moving slow enough to conserve energy. Eventually though it’s just easy. Then slowly gets more and more challenging. My goal is that once the yards start getting subjectively hard, I want to complete “a few more”. At this point, I want to be focused on problem solving my way to squeezing out a couple more yards. Maybe this ends up being 30 second turnarounds. Maybe it’s covering a yard with hardly any walking. I don’t want to quantify this with a number as that could limit how far I go. I’m also not placing any expectations on when “hard” begins. Maybe it’s as early as yard 15 or 16. Maybe it’s early on day 2. This isn’t so much about pushing myself until I literally drop from exhaustion. Or trying to find my absolute limit as an endurance athlete. I’m just looking for an incremental improvement. Just a few more yards. How hard can that be?