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 people telling you to start out slow and then slow down. You didn’t come out here to try yourself against this course, you came out to crush it! Go Big or Go Home, bro. You’ve got one paved mile to get yourself to the front of the pack to avoid the conga line on the half track trails leading to the first climb. In case you were wondering, a 9:24 pace is not fast enough as I learned this year. Apparently, everyone else already knows this strategy as I was further back in the pack and ended up losing 10 minutes getting into the first aid station.

Strategy #2: Get passed early to pass late

Probably the hardest thing with hundreds is early miles pacing. Mostly because you never practice it. Your long run pace will be too quick, but how much should you slow down? Is 10% enough? 20%? More? It’s even more difficult when factoring in that you’re not training on a course exactly like ES100. Probably the safest assumption to make then is that most people are going out too fast. If most people are going out too fast, then you should be getting passed somewhat regularly through the first 20 miles or so. And if you’re not getting passed? Yeah, you’re one of the runners going out too fast.

Strategy #3: Send a friend request

There’s typically a decent amount of shuffling of places over the first 20 miles (see Strategies #1 and #2 above). Once you get past this point though, things settle down and you’ll end up seeing the same runners through the mid-point of the race. I highly recommend introducing yourself to others, learning their names, and starting up any type of conversation. Not only does this help pass the time (which you have a lot of), but it’s also a bigger mental boost when someone offers you encouragement by name rather than the standard “nice job, runner.”

Strategy #4a/b: Survive the day/Feel good to move good

At some point between AS #2 and AS #4, it’s going to begin getting hot out. You’re going to feel pretty worked over, your paces will start feeling harder, and you’ve still got three quarters of the race to go. Not good times. The goal in through here is to stay in a positive frame of mind to avoid a death spiral. I’ve found a good way to do that is to tell myself I just need to “survive the day” and once the sun goes down, things will cool off, and I’ll feel much better. This has happened often enough for me over the years (including in this race) that I just take it on faith at this point. Things do not always just get worse.

Strategy B here is about refocusing from external factors (i.e. your pace) to internal ones (how you feel). This was one of my A-Ha realizations a couple years ago. Your pace will slow over the course of the race so as it slows, you start to think you’re doing worse, and the next thing you know you’re in that downward spiral. By focusing on how you feel, you can more quickly modify your effort to keep from pushing to hard. This will also help you address any small issues before they become big ones. Probably the biggest benefit to this strategy is that the better you feel, the more fun you’ll have during the race. And isn’t that what we’re out here to do?

Strategy #5: First things first

Aid stations are chaotic, distracting affairs. Crew accessible ones even more so. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rolled into one with my carefully crafted list of things to accomplish only to walk out forgetting half of them. Bacon? Shots? Look, they’ve got hummus wraps! My strategy this year was to prioritize my list and take care of item #1 first. This changed over the course of the race. It started out as ice (in bottles, buff, hat), then progressed to drop bags where available, something hot (Strategy #9) and then back to ice on Sunday. Food and fluids are a given for each aid station so I tried to prioritize things outside of that since that’s what I’m more likely to forget.

Strategy #6: Poles?

Oh, hell yeah.

Strategy #7: Spoil your crew

Saturday was my wedding anniversary. My 20th wedding anniversary. My wife immediately said I should run the race and that she’d crew me when I asked so I needed to come up with something as awesome as Eastern States to make it up to her. I ended up with three somethings. Her best friend makes jewelry so I had her come up with a necklace for me, which I carried in my pack and gave it to her at Lower Pine. For Hyner Run, I had a flower arrangement delivered to the AS captain who brought it and placed it on one of the tables for me to hand to her when I came in. Huge shout out to Brad Albert for helping make this happen! (Note: there really shouldn’t be any question which race has the best volunteers). Last and certainly least, I had two cans of margaritas in my Tomb Flats drop bag so she could enjoy the river crossing show (Strategy #10) in style.

Love ya, Cupcake.

Strategy #8: Carry extra fluids leaving Hyner Run

This one I’ve learned the hard way. The stretch from Hyner into Dry Run is one of the longest, with the most vertical gain, during the hottest part of the day. I make sure I carry at least 50oz of fluid with me and typically chug 10-15oz at the aid stations before I head out. This was the coolest year ever for this stretch thanks to the light rain and I still almost blew through all my fluids.

Strategy #9: The hot bottle trick

The steady rain caused me to get a tad too cold. Big Trail gave their last emergency poncho to a runner just ahead of me so I had them put their hottest fluid (chicken broth) in one of my bottles. This did double duty by warming my insides up when I drank it while also providing an external heat source for the next 30 minutes or so. This is one of my go to hacks for winter ultras and spring hundreds, however I never in a million years thought I’d have to pull it out of my toolbox for Eastern States. Just proves that anything can (and will) happen over the course of a hundred miles.

Strategy #10: River crossing technique

Sorry, I can’t help you with this one. I ended up dunking myself four or five times in what had to have taken me 15 minutes to cross that damn river. Oh, and I managed to wrench my shoulder in the process. Good times. Best of luck getting across Pine Creek.

Strategy #11: Seven flavors

Over the course of far too many years, I’ve finally settled on a nutrition strategy that works for me: 7 Flavors. This is a steady rotation through seven different flavors over the course of the race. It reduces the chances that I’ll get sick of something and stop eating. I prefer a liquid base for most of my calories (Perpetuem, Coke) and then supplement with whatever looks good at the aid stations (gummy bears, oranges, bananas, nuts, potatoes, rice crispy treats). I’ve found I never know what I’m going to be in the mood for so try to be flexible. Speaking of which.

Strategy #12: Don’t dwell on mistakes/Be adaptable

I’ve yet to run a race without making a couple mistakes (fine, more than a couple). Like professional athletes, you need to forget bad plays and move on. Deal with the hand you currently have, not the one you wish you had. My goal leaving Tomb Flats was to have at least 6 flavors, however the trauma caused by the river crossing (Strategy #10) combined with the typical aid station chaos (#5) had me exit with only four. I immediately let this go. Just like I didn’t let it bother me when wasn’t able to recharge my Garmin mid-race. Or when my splits kept slipping further behind prior years. Or when I forget ice at an earlier aid station. Or when I didn’t tie my shoe laces tight enough. [I’m going to stop here to keep this post under 5000 words.] It’s always best to practice acceptable.

Strategy #13: Bright is right

I finally splurged on a Kogella light (800 lumens). I’m a rather cheap person so have always relied on 300-400 lumen AA/AAA powered lights, however I can’t stress enough the importance of getting the brightest light possible for overnight sections. My only splits this year that were comparable to my best times from prior years were overnight with this light. Having a bright light serves three purposes: 1) more light means you see the trail better so you can move faster (especially over technical terrain, which ES100 has a bit of), 2) more light keeps you more awake, 3) the less tired you are, the more you’ll want to eat/drink. These three will then each feedback on each other providing a synergistic benefit. Of all the gear you’ll end up buying for this race, I recommend splurging the most here.

Strategy #14: Leave Tomb Flats

This one seems a little obvious, but bear with me for a second. I’ve been telling people that this is really just a race to Sky Top. If you make it to that far, you’ll finish so think of it more as an 85 mile race rather than a 103 mile one. After looking at the live tracking data from this year, Tomb Flats is really the key milestone. Of the 137 runners that left it this year, 131 finished (96%) compared to the 58% overall finish rate.

Now the important point here is leaving Tomb Flats, not just making it there. This is a crew accessible aid station, which makes it very convenient to drop (29% of all drops where here). There’s also a ridiculously long 10 miles to the next aid station and you’re here in the dead of night. You need to figure out ways to make it inconvenient for you to stop here and to motivate you to head on towards Cedar Run. Make sure you have this locked/written down before you start the race. Don’t make this one up as you go along.

Strategy #15: Be kind to yourself

The type of person that signs up for ES100 is not the type that sets realistic goals (those people run marathons). They’re ones who seek out challenges; the harder, the better. With the increased difficulty, comes the increased risk of failure. Whether that’s time goals, enjoyment levels, general race execution, or even finishing. Intellectually we know we’re attempting something hard, but a lot of times we can’t accept this emotionally. We’re like little kids when they don’t get what they want. Especially when we look at our social feeds and see the success of others. Every person with the courage to start this race should be celebrated for that accomplishment. Focus on the process, not the end result and don’t beat yourself up for things outside of your control.

After all, “only the hardiest of runners will complete this circumnavigation of Pine Creek.”

I hope to see you out there in 2024!