Vermont 100 Race Report 2014

Vermont 100 - 100 miles 
14,000' of elevation gain 
July 19, 2014
17 hrs 24 mins
8th place overall

The Short
This race was my first attempt at a run over 50 miles.  My goal was to finish under 24 hours, I really wanted to finish under 20 hours and if I had a great day I thought I was capable of finishing under 18 hours.  The weather was perfect, my crew (Hillary, Rock, Annette and my mom) was great, the aid stations were abundant, and my body held up better than expected to finish in about 17 and a half hours.

The Course
The course is about 70% on dirt or jeep roads with the rest on trails.  I would say the majority is really dirt roads.  It is continuously either up or down with very few flat sections as you can see from the profile below, but it is extremely runnable.  Some of the steeper hills on the roads I hiked and there were a couple surprisingly steep hills on the trails albeit they were all relatively short.

Course profile from the VT100 Blog website

Preparation

Gathering my gear together the week before the race

Hmm ... which Salomon's to wear today?

The 3-4 days leading up to the race I spent time formulating my nutrition plan.  I dorked out making spreadsheets of aid stations and mileages along with projected times for all stations based on a range of average paces.  This is important because it allows me to see the amount of time between manned, unmanned, and crew accessible aid stations.  Unmanned stations had water and Gatorade in large jugs.  Manned stations had food and multiple liquids.  None of the food was very portable beyond the station (i.e. no GU or packaged bars, etc.).  Crew accessible stations were the same as the manned stations just with lots of people and my crew with whatever I needed!  I decided that with my projected pace I would be able to run all day with just one 20 oz Amphipod handheld bottle.  At each crew station I would pocket enough Nuun tablets to add one to my bottle at every aid station encountered before the next crew station and top off with water at the manned and unmanned stations.  I also picked up 4 GU Vanilla Bean packs at each crew station and put them in my handheld.  The final thing I carried was about 6 SaltStick pills, just in case!  If it was hotter or sunnier out I would have likely needed two bottles for a couple sections of the race.
PB and raw honey on english muffins and granola bars periodically from my crew and a lot of PB&J squares from the aid stations.  I decided to race in my Salomon Speedcross 3's.  Great on trails and they also surprisingly perform well on the dirt roads too even with the cleat-like pattern.

Race Eve

Hillary and I set up camp on Friday evening at the start/finish area at Silver Hill Farm.  I slept on a foam pad followed by a dog bed followed by a sleeping bag for a pretty plush bed!  I stopped in to register early in the day and weighed in at 149.2 lbs.  I haven't weighed myself in about 5 years and it seemed a tad low, but I was hoping it was a sign that I was fit for the race.  Hillary attended the prerace meeting at 4p while I finished up summer registration for students at Castleton and then I ate two full plates of food at the pre-race dinner.  Ear plugs in and off to sleep around 8:45pm.

And we're off ...

At 2:45a the alarm went off and I felt pretty well rested considering it was an early wakeup and the night before a big race.  Dark and dewy.  I put down a bagel, a couple granola bars, a GU, and a bottle of Nuun in the hour before the race.  At five minutes to go folks started putting down their coffees and making their way over to the start line.  I went a couple rows back so as to not get wrapped up in too fast of a start pace.  We were off and running downhill before going into the woods for a bit.  I just tried to not pay attention to anyone around me and run comfortably.
 I paid a lot of attention to my heart rate for the first half of the race.  If my heart rate elevated close to 150 bpm I would start to slow down on the hills and if it still crept up I would start to power walk at about 152 bpm.  I was also very conscious of not running too hard on the downhills early on.  I knew that my quads would be the first thing to hurt me at the later stages of the race and where I would do the most damage would be if I started pounding downhills with long strides.  For the first 5-7 miles I was still pretty grouped up with people and sat back at about 35-40th place (not that I knew it then, but I knew I was well back).  My plan was to stay more consistent than most folks through the race and not blow it early on.  I was hoping to slowly pass folks throughout the day as I ran my own race.


From 10-25 miles I ran off and on with Amy Rusiecki (the new RD) and a fellow runner of hers Jayson.  They had similar goals of finishing in the 18+ hour range if they had a good day.  They had both run the race before and after talking to them it really made me think about my early energy expenditure and how it would affect my performance later on.  I vowed to stay in a comfortable pace range and pull myself back on the hills if my heart rate increased too much.  At mile 15.4 was the first recorded time check and unknown to me I was in 27th place overall at this point.  At 22.5 miles (still in 27th place) we came to the first crew accessible aid station at Pretty House and it was great to see Hillary and people in general.  I came into this station having run with Harris from Pennsylvania for a little bit and felt really fresh.  Hillary filled me up with GUs and Nuun tabs then I was off.  At all aid stations, especially crew accessible ones, I was very conscious of not spending too much time there.  There are a total of 29 aid stations along the course, so if you even spend just two minutes at each one that adds almost a full hour to your overall time!!  I was pleased to see at the end of the race my Garmin 310XT showed that I had only spent a total of 20 minutes not moving throughout the entire day.  Less than a minute average per aid station.  A bit longer at the crew stations and much shorter at the others.

Another crew station at 30.1 miles at Stage Rd. (24th place) where I felt like I was still just on a Sunday stroll.  No too long after we went on some climbing in the woods and I ran into a strung out group of about 5 people.  I passed most of them while hiking up some steep hills and then teamed up with Ben Pangie for a few miles once it leveled out and ran downhill.  It felt good to catch a big group and move up to 19th overall in just 3 miles, but after leaving Ben folks were a bit more spaced out.  It was motivating to see people in the distance and I would slowly make up time on them.  Over the next 13 miles I would pass another 6 racers one at a time and move into 13th overall.  This included passing Kathleen who was the first place female.  I don't think she walked a hill until after mile 80 in the race!


Into Camp 10 Bear at mile 47.6 (13th overall) is a crew station with the first medical weight-in/check.  I was UP about 3.5 lbs from my starting weight!  The doctor said I was taking in too much electrolyte and asked what my consumption rate was.  Uhhh ... I think I said something like 400 mg/hour, which was probably a bit low.  He said I was retaining too much water and needed to cut my salt intake a bit, since this is no good for my kidney and liver.  He let me continue after a minute or two of instruction.  I thought about my last 20 miles.  I was coming into the manned and unmanned aid with about a quarter of my bottle still filled.  I would add a Nuun tab and top off with water.  Then again the same thing probably for 3-4 consecutive aid station.  My drink was much more salt concentrated than normal!  Dang, Nuun is perfect!  One tab per 20 oz is what I should be taking or else I am over doing it.  I restocked from Hillary, took a refill of just water, and was off.

Beyond 50
I was starting to break into uncharted territory.  I saw a sign that said '50.2 miles, 49.8 to go', well that makes me feel good!  I couldn't think of the race in terms of total time remaining, instead I said to myself, 'I feel way better than I do at the end of a 50 mile race, so my pacing must be close to good for 100 miles!'  I could feel that my pace was starting to slow down a little bit at this point, but I still caught racers as I approached the crew aid at 59.1 miles at Seven Seas (10th place overall).  I saw my mom here for the first time, gave her a hug, assured her that I was surprisingly feeling really good, took on some aid and took off.  I was again using 1 Nuun per 20 ozs.  I think I told Hillary here that my legs were starting to get a little bit tired.  I would pass another racer at the aid station at Margaritaville at mile 62.5.

Mile 65ish ...

Then the course became pretty lonely and I could feel the relentlessness of the dirt roads.  I was wishing at times for some steep uphills, so that I could walk up them.  Then other times I wanted downhills to speed up my overall pace and get to the next aid station.  I moved up one more place to 8th with about 7 miles to go to Camp 10 Bear for the second time which is at mile 70.5. I just kept wishing Camp 10 Bear was around the corner to see my crew and pick up a pacer (Rock!) to run with.  Coming downhill in the distance I could see streams of racers coming down the hill from Camp 10 Bear to the road I was on.  The course makes a 23 mile loop coming back to Camp 10 Bear for a second time.  Spirits were instantly lifted!  Dang these folks are 23 miles behind me and I only have 30 more to go!  Cars lined the entire uphill to the station.  Congrats from the racers and the enormous amount of crew folks that lined the road.  I ran the whole hill as the endorphins pumped.  My whole crew was there!  Rock was ready to run, but first another medical weigh-in.  I handed off my bottle to Hillary to get reloaded as I went to the scale.  149.5 lbs!  Perfect, see ya!

I think I started to hit the wall around mile 70!?

Rock and I were off and I was starting to hike slightly longer sections of uphill at this point.  Still I wouldn't let myself go for more than a couple minutes walking even if I was on a hill.  I would talk to Rock and pick out a landmark to start running again.  Rock was great!  We spent 7 miles mostly talking.  I was rejuvenated, but was starting to have small highs and lows.  It was apparent when I went from talkative to a listener whether I was at a high or low.

At mile 77.4, Spirit of '76, I picked up Hillary for 11.6 miles.  I came off the aid station high and hit my lowest point of the race for much of this section, sorry Hillary!  I just kept moving, didn't talk much, but still would demand of myself to run all flats and not so steep hills, although my overall pace was slowing.  Running zombie man.  Never once did I consider stopping, I had experienced lower lows (i.e. Bryce Canyon 50 at 9,500' post fever at mile 42 during a 1200' climb ...) and knew if I kept moving it would pass.  Unfortunately for Hillary it didn't pass until I hit my next crew aid station high at mile 89.0.  Hillary did a great job dealing with me.  She made me eat some food

even though I was trying to negotiate with her.  I ran with some PB&J sandwich square in my mouth with a mad face on for a couple minutes before swallowing it all down.  I didn't feel like I was sick, I could still put down food, but my stomach wasn't perfect and I could feel pains from time to time.  During this time Kathleen (the top female) passed me on a hill.  It was the first time I had been passed since the start of the race.  Would others be right behind her?  I could tell she was suffering on the hills, but I was definitely slowing down.  I thought I was in the top 10 and I didn't want to blow it.  I was becoming increasingly aware of my emotional/mental state and after picking up Rock for the second time things started to change.


11 miles to go
I looked at my watch.  I figured my last section was approaching 13-15 minute mile pace.  This would put me right near, possibly over 18 hours.  No, I can do better than that!  I told Rock that if I could push and ride this high I could put this race under 18 hours.  My mind needed some kind of external motivator to make my body crack back to reality.  We ran a greater percentage of the hills, we hit some trails and pushed up then strided out the downhills.  My quads ached!!  Downhill hurt, but I told myself it wasn't for too much longer, I could deal.  On some of the uphill trail sections that we ran I could here Rock breathing and not talking as much ... I smiled, I was racing again!

At mile 95.9 I thanked Rock, because I am sure he felt like he didn't do anything to help, but what he and Hillary did for me was incredible.  Just having them there was helping me move forward.  I should also not skip over the work of Annette!  I won't get in to it, but she was the one that pulled the right moves to get herself and Rock to mile 70 just a couple minutes before I arrived and quickly took over Hillary's role at the aid stations while Hillary served as a pacer.  Thank you!  Hillary joined in the fun as it was turning dark. 4 miles to go!  Headlamped up we ran some more dirt roads as I kept my spirits and pace as high as I could muster.  We saw a headlamp ahead of us as we approached the 2 mile mark and we entered the woods for a 1.5 mile climb on the trails before descending to the finish.  As we approached the light, Kathleen called out, 'Who is there?', nervously.  I knew she was wondering if it was the second place female, so I called out 'a 100 mile male".  I could sense her relief as she said 'Oh okay, good job.'  We continued to push, running all of the steep hills that never seemed to end.  We hit the 0.5 miles to go sign and then bam, 'Wait is that it, is that the finish?'.  Hillary said, 'Yeah!'  I was done running, it felt a bit weird to stop.  Man what a great 11 mile high to end on!  We put over 4 minutes on Kathleen in the final two miles.


We walked back to the main tent and I sat in a chair.  I felt great for about 10 minutes, then I was wondering if I was going to throw up or not?  I went outside and laid in the grass for a minute and it passed.  As I walked back into the tent I started to shiver and I spent the next hour and a half wrapped up in blankets with my sweatshirt on laying on a cot.  I was reassured by all of this.  I think I was able to push my body to a new limit during this race and it made me smile.  The end of the race really did in my quads and my body as a whole was ready to shut down once my brain told the rest of me we were done.  I ate very little and Hillary helped me limp to the car then to the tent.  After 28 GUs your stomach feels a little funky.  Well I guess I should never stop too long during one of these races, I go from feeling pretty tired to immobile pretty quickly!