100 mile week or how to run while sleeping

So, ok, guys. I ran one hundred miles. In one week. 100 miles. In Seven Days.

looking down towards Twin Lakes from Hopeless

I hit 100 miles as a rolling 7 day total on Thursday of last week. And 103 miles as a rolling 7 day total on Friday of last week. And then a measly (haha, just kidding) 97.67 miles for my weekly Sunday-Saturday mileage on Saturday. And rather than celebrating that fact, I instead felt a wave of relief that I'd pulled it off. I mean, if I could cover that distance in one week, I have an exponentially higher chance of not just finishing Leadville, but of finishing it without completely dying (and without trudging up Powerline at such an obscenely slow pace that my total badass of a pacer wants to punch me in the throat). But it's also kind of a big deal that I ran 100 miles. Because that is the furthest I have ever run over one 7 day period. Ever. I definitely had some ice cream to celebrate.

For Hope Pass, follow the arrow pointing towards Hope.

It wasn't fast. It kind of wasn't pretty. I definitely was 80% of the way asleep for an entire 9.2 mile run (just ask "Kind of a Big Deal" Kristel Liddle and The Erskine). Like eyes drifting shut as I was still moving in a forward trajectory. I also started this 100 mile week directly off of a weekend in Silverton pacing and crewing at the Hardrock 100, where I maybe packed in 5 hours of sleep over a 65 hour time period. Because, why wouldn't I want to make a 100 mile week any more challenging than it needed to be?

In other news..24 days until the Pbville100.  

Pilot Hill 25K

While my incredibly awesome and badass friend and to-be pacer at Leadville, Cat, was out in Bryce Canyon running the inaugural Bryce Canyon 100 miler in an awesome time, I drove up to windy & chilly Laramie, Wyoming with a couple friends to run the Pilot Hill 25K trail race.

2003 Cross-Country Season

I am a huge fan of the small, local, niche trail race environment. All of your closest running friends toeing the line in frigid morning conditions with the wind whipping at your face, all of us turning purple from the wind and cold, jumping up and down and shivering miserably with a couple kegs of home-brew taunting us from a few feet away. I might complain about not wanting to run in the moment, but the reality is that it's a delicious reminscence of high school cross-country season.


Just after 8 am, the race began, with us runners charging 25m or so down the road to a tight turn onto double-track sandy trail. The course basically climbs steadily uphill for around 8.5 miles at a just-steep-enough-to-hurt grade, but not so steep that you can really get away with walking anything at all. The terrain alternates from sandy double-track to limestone pitted trails to rutted out rocky hills and back again. My head felt fuzzy the whole climb and my stomach was dancing a bit from my pizza breakfast (which I definitely knew at the time would be a bad idea), so I was generally happy that my uphill performance wasn't nearly as pathetic as it could have been. The last bit of the climb winds around 3 steep switchbacks that are so close to the top it would be ridiculous to walk them, but are just horribly not fun at all to be running up. I broke into a walk on the second steep section only to hear Mary Boyts call me out from behind and order me to get my butt in gear and back to running. Yes ma'am! Mile splits up: 8:35, 8:21, 9:17, 9:29, 10:04, 11:11, 12:15, 10:29, 10:11 (part uphill, part back downhill).



The whole field just after the start, running straight into a *fun* headwind (photo credit: Nora Testerman)

At the turn-around, I threw back a few sips of water and took off down the hill, running hard. About 3/4 of a mile down the hill, I found myself facing a cattle grate that I had no memory of coming over on the way up. Abby was right behind me as I crossed over and stopped. We looked at each other and around at our surroundings and couldn't see any orange flags in the horizon, nor did we recognize any of this section. So we u-turned back over the cattle grates, running hard back up the hill and found the turn-off that we'd both missed. Whoops! But that marks my first time ever going off-course in a race, so I guess that's cool. I kept on running as hard as I thought I could maintain for a 7 mile downhill, with Abby right on my heels almost the whole way.

Coming out of the last aid station, maybe 2 miles to the finish line, the tendon behind my left knee locked up a bit and, as we turned back into the wind, Abby passed in front of me. I tried to match and just...didn't. It wasn't really that I didn't have it in my legs, but I think I just psyched myself out at the thought of another couple fast miles and mentally checked out for a few minutes, letting myself use the twinge behind my knee as an excuse when it really wasn't. Abby picked up a few seconds on me, and then a few seconds more. By the time I got myself back into the game, I had run out of real estate to catch her. I finished in 2:22:09, with a 56:45 descent. Good enough for 42 place and 8 woman. Mile splits on the downhill: 8:33 (including our slight detour and course re-evaluation), 8:05, 7:53, 7:40, 8:37, 8:13, 7:28 (pace, last 0.42 miles). Race results here.

Almost at the finish (photo credit: Nora T.)

I think Pete sums things up best in the text he sent me at the end of pacing Cat at Bryce: "That f&%#ing sucked. Awesome course and totally worth it though." Totally stellar course, directed in a fun and professional fashion, with one of the best post-race spreads out there.  But it definitely sucked. Yogurt with fresh berries and granola, breakfast burritos and sandwiches with delicious salsa, fresh fruit, coffee, juice, water, and BEER (home brewed!) for breakfast after!


Some of the FoCo Crew, enjoying the summer heat in Laramie (photo credit: Nora T.)



Quad Rock 25

2012 Quad Rock 50

On Saturday May 11, I ran the Quad Rock 25, a killer (both in its levels of awesomeness and its tendency to literally kill your quads) trail race in the foothills of Fort Collins, put on by Gnar Runners, with a 25 mile and 50 mile option. I freaking love this race. Last year, the race's inaugural year, I ran the 50 miler for my first ever 50. And blew up pretty badly. I ran a 13:36 with a 5:50 first half. It took nearly a week before I could walk normally again and months before I could even fathom wanting to run anything more than a couple of miles again. But the trails that day were magical. Ethereal in beauty, with a light frost hanging on the leaves of the trees and a mist pervading the trails, our trails were transformed that day. If I was ever to have a long rough day on the trails, it was at least a great day to be on the trails.

This year, I decided to run the 25 mile option. I set some pretty lofty time goals for the race, with a hard C goal cut-off of running under 5 hours. Mostly though, I just wanted to run as hard as I could, not blow up, and have a great time. Lindsay and I got to the race start right around 4:50AM, got our bibs,  stashed our drop bags for the finish line, and generally milled around waiting for the 5:30 start.

2013 Race Start
Photo by: Michael Hodges

This year's course started 30 minutes later than last year, in the early dawn hours of the morning as the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. We took off in a big group down the Lory Park road towards Arthur's Rock Trailhead, a minor reroute this year after the March 2013 wildfire destroyed some of the bridges along the valley trail. I settled into a fairly easy pace, keeping my eyes peeled for THE Kristel Liddle. We turned on to Sawmill and began our first ascent of the day up towards Towers Rd. As we turned onto Stout, I found Cat and ran with her part of the way up Towers. I pulled on ahead, having a much shorter day than she did, and trying to run a bit harder on the ups than I normally do.

Coming in to Horsetooth Aid, I saw Rob Erskine straight off, being basically completely awesome in his role as aid station captain. Even more awesome, though, was the cooler parked on the bench next to him, marked "Liddle/Wilburn" and filled with bite-sized snickers bars, icy cans of coke and coconut water. I snagged a handful of snickers and stuffed them in my pack, downed a few mouthfuls of a coke and took off again, up the 2 mile climb to the Westridge junction.

Mile 19 or so, heading up Howard. Photo by Erin Bibeau

I was moving a bit slower than I wanted on the climb up Horsetooth, but I knew Mill Creek would come soon enough, and with it, some solid downhill sections. A huge shout out to Chris Hinds as well, for his lovely aid station at the Towers Road/Mill Creek/Spring Creek junction. Last year, he had some delicious and reviving ramen noodle soup going on his camp stove. But this year was even better - mounds of fresh-cooked and greasy bacon. I grabbed a huge handful and stuffed it into my pack. For the last 12 miles, whenever I started to feel a bit hungry or weak, I'd just alternate between munching on slices of bacon and chomping down mini snickers.

Cruising down Mill Creek, I caught up with, and passed, a couple of runners I knew. Kristel caught up behind me, and shouted forward that I'd better stay ahead of her. I found another gear and picked up the pace a bit. Crossing one of the gushing springs that had popped up after weeks of rain and snow, I passed by two men who were limping along pretty badly, waiting for some crew to come and help them out of the course. The course crosses over from Horsetooth Open Space into Lory State Park and turned down the Mill Creek Link towards the Arthur's trailhead, and I approached the Arthur's AS at mile 18 or so to find Mindy hiking up to help the guys I'd passed. It was so wonderful to see her, and to hear her encouragement that I was in a "really really good place, keep running hard!"

Running down Mill Creek towards Arthur's AS.
Photo by: Michael Hodges

I really don't think that Howard Trail is that brutal of a climb, but since I only ever seem to run it mid-way through Quad Rock or during a training run on the course it always seem much worse than it is. A few switchbacks before the Arthur's Rock turnoff, a woman running the 25-miler passed me by. We'd been going back and forth all day and as much time as she'd ever managed to get on the uphills, I'd always been able to catch her pretty fast once the course turned downhill again. So I let her go, feeling comfortable that I could bomb down Timber fast and hard enough to pass her before the finish. That didn't happen. I guess she found another gear, because she crossed the line a little over 2.5 minutes ahead of me. After doing my best to make a dramatic finish (er totally missed that whole crazy finish line thingy), I ended the race in 4:59:59. Sub 5 hours. I will take it. 7th woman, 44th overall. Not too shabby, I suppose.

Finishing. Photo by: Shannon Price

I spent the rest of the day gorging on the delicious food at the post-race barbecue, and drinking Mountain Lightning. I finally made my way over to the Arthur's Aid Station around 3PM to help out, just in time to see most of my favorite Fort Collins and Boulder runners finishing up the 50 miler! It was great to have a chance to cheer people on and bask in the race atmosphere without still running. I know quite a few of them didn't have the races they'd hoped for, but despite that, they all were moving well and looking strong (despite a few good-natured flip-offs at the news that they were still 2.5 miles to the finish).

A huge thanks needs to go to Pete and Nick for putting on such a great event, as well as one to all of the incredible volunteers out on the course and in the shadows for helping things to go so smoothly. And with that, bring on the next few months of training for my first 100!

That one time we lost Alan in the Grand Canyon

THE Kristel 'I'm Kind of a Big Deal' Liddle sent me a text: "Want to go run in the Grand Canyon in 2 weeks?" Well, um, of course I do! And like many other great FCTR plans before, Kristel and I were on a plane headed to Phoenix, AZ to meet up with Alan Smith and run Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim in the Grand Canyon on April 13 2013.

"Mother Nature's Buttcrack" ~Nikki Gallant 

A mile or so down Bright Angel Trail

Kristel and I ran R2R2R both ways along the Bright Angel Trail, with some bonus miles while waiting at Phantom Ranch for a respective estimate of 53 and 50 miles. Alan ran the Bright Angel Trail in the north direction and finished his day on the South Kaibab Trail, clocking in roughly 44 miles? The day was absolutely beautiful, with temperatures peaking somewhere in the 80s and just enough cloud cover that we didn't fry in the sun nor overheat too badly on the 14 mile section with no chance for a water refill, aside from the limited snow at the top of the north rim.

I could wax poetic for hours about how amazing the Grand Canyon is but it would just be a much repeated drone of "omg this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen." Instead...

1. The Grand Canyon is one of the most spectacular places I have ever seen or been in my life. Every twist and turn of the trail brought me face to face with truly breathtaking views. From the nearly tropical environment around Indian Gardens Campground to the desert landscape between Phantom Ranch and the final push to the North Rim to the rushing Colorado River, slicing the canyon in two, to the forested upper reaches of the North Kaibab Trail, heavily scented with fragrant spicy pine needle, I soaked up each and every bit and wanted more. My favorites parts were hands down the mini-oasis at Indian Gardens and the forest-like climate approaching the top of the North Rim.

2. The lemonade at Phantom Ranch is incredibly delicious. Thank you to whoever the Texan was who bought glasses for me and Kristel. This man thought we were absolutely hilarious and crazy people for running ultra distances, and self-reportedly didn't even like to drive 100 miles. But he took our crazy in great humor and asserted himself in true Texas fashion to procure 2 lemonades, even though the canteen was technically closed. The 3 cans of coke that Kristel and I brought into the canyon were worth every extra ounce of weight to carry as well. Very little, minus maybe the lemonade at Phantom Ranch, ever tasted as delicious. I think I enjoyed those cokes and that lemonade more than any piece of cake, kale, broccoli, pizza, cheeseburger, or $100 a plate meal that I have ever consumed.

Coming through Phantom Ranch on the way to the North Rim

3. Clearly communicated plans are pretty damn critical, especially with no means for instantaneous communication. Kristel and I were separated from Alan at Phantom Ranch on the return trip at around mile 37. We ended up spending around 3 hours, first patiently and then increasingly anxiously, awaiting his arrival. Finally, as the sun began to set, we made the judgment call that we needed to head for the south rim, hoping we'd catch up to Alan along the way or find him at the top waiting for us. We did, thankfully, get in touch with Alan (already at the top of the South Rim) with about 3 miles to go and found him pretty immediately upon returning to the car.

Repping some VFuel tats

4. Always always always always always (have I stressed that enough?? maybe add in 30 more "always") pack a headlamp. Even if you're planning on running entirely in the daylight. Kristel and I covered the last 11 miles or so in utter darkness, with only one headlamp between the two of us. Lemme tell ya, technical uphill with one headlamp is not the greatest. We were literally running up the trail holding hands to stay even on the trail and be able to see the obstacles on the trail in front of us. It made for one hell of an adventure though.

5. I freaking love running downhill. And running. And seeing amazing sights. And running in beautiful places.

Running down North Kaibab Trail back to Phantom Ranch

6. Bring way more food than necessary on a self-supported 50. I think I had maybe 2000 calories in my pack, and not nearly enough of it was solid. That snickers bar that I passed up buying in the grocery store out of fear that it would get too melty haunted me the whole way. And the two extra mini-fruit & nut bars I packed on a whim were saviors. Though I had a sufficient amount of food for 12-14 hours on the trails, hitting the 16 hour mark was over the line for me. I can't remember ever being so ravenously hungry in my life.

Bridge across the Colorado River to the South Kaibab Trail

Horsetooth Half Marathon

Eight days after running rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon (about a 50 or so mile run), I toed the line for the Horsetooth Half Marathon. This was the third year in a row that I've run this race, and I was especially stoked to race this year since I've spent a lot of my miles in the last 6 months training on the race route. But after deciding to go to the Grand Canyon to run the week before this race, I pretty much scrapped any hopes for a PR half, and decided to use it as a test of how well and how long it takes me to recover from a 50 miler. I've been toying with the idea of running Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, MN in June. But the race comes one week after the Big Horn 100, where I'll be pacing a friend for 50 miles. Since I'm no TNC, I have less confidence in my ability to tick off a marathon that rapidly after a 50 mile run. So I decided I'd use this race as a test to see if I could run a BQ time at Grandma's.

I felt great for the first nine miles. I cruised up monster mountain in a comfortable rhythm,not pushing too hard and averaging 9:30 pace for the first 2 miles, knowing that the following would all be net downhill and I could work down that time by quite a bit. The next four miles flew by in 7:45, 7:57 (hill), 7:51 and 7:51. I felt comfortable and easy running those miles, and my legs were holding together surprisingly well. I was feeling a bit dehydrated, but my legs didn't feel sore and weren't feeling fatigued as I turned onto Bingham Hill Rd. I slowed a bit on the Bingham Hill miles, clocking in 8:09, 8:26, and 8:19, and as I turned onto the Poudre Trail, I could feel my legs tiring significantly. At mile 8, I downed a Vi fuel, but feeling kind of dehydrated and not getting enough water, it hit my stomach harder than it should have and I cramped up a bit.

Mile 10 through the end were definitely rough. My legs were fatigued, and I could've used a gallon of water and each mile showed it. Miles 10-12 dragged by in 8:33, 8:49, and 8:34. I was working hard and not much was happening. Early on in mile 13, I came across Pete, running with Aero, at the side of the trail. I almost didn't recognize Aero since he was running so calmly and well, as compared to the last time I'd seen him. Pete jumped in a few paces ahead of me and I kicked it up to try and keep up with him. There was a group of runners ahead of me, and I picked up to pass them by with his encouragement. I clocked in the last mile at 8:07 and the last .15 miles at 7:41 pace - fairly pedestrian but about all I could muster on fatigued legs and hugely thanks to Pete.

I finished in 1:50:26, which I felt pretty good about. It's certainly slower than I could run on fresh legs, but I'm nonetheless stoked that my legs hung on for as long as they did. After my last 50 mile effort at Quad Rock last year, it took me months before I was running solidly again. So I'm really starting to feel like my training over the last months has been paying, and I'm hugely excited about that! I'm not convinced that I can race Grandma's at my time goal a week after Big Horn, though. I just don't know that two more months of training will get me through 26.2 miles at BQ or faster pace. I'm thinking I might have to bench my marathon goals until the early December marathon dates, once I've recovered a bit from the summer ultra trail running season.

I was also thrilled to see how much Aero has improved, his patience and calmness in the huge crowds on Sunday was huge. I hope he gets adopted out to a great family, because he is rapidly turning into a truly great dog (he's at Animal House). 

Thoughts on Runners and Boston

Us runners, we're a pretty quirky and weird and awesome bunch. We like to joke that our sport is other sports' punishment. And it kind of is. Where others whine and complain about having to run a mile or two, we wake up at 4AM to fit in a run before our families start waking up and our classes and jobs start.

We run in the early morning pre-dawn hours, at lunch time, as the day wanes to night and the sun drops low on the horizon, and at all other hours in between. Sometimes we spend an hour or two, or 24 or 48, trotting circles around an oval that could be 1/8 mile or a 1/4 mile around. We bound across open fields, up mountains, down canyons, and along roads. We wear shorts and sports bra tan lines with an overt pride that is viewed as just plain ridiculous by many outsiders. But it's a point of pride for us. As are the scrapes and scars and twinging muscles from biffing on trails and hard workouts.

Running is our compulsion and our love and our sanity. For some, running is a never-forgot first love, derived from preschool days of sprinting around the playground for the sheer joy of moving so fast that our legs almost feel as though they will fall off. For others, running is a passion found in the deep dark depths of adulthood - a more enduring and positively life-changing form of the oft-cited "buy a ferrari and find a younger girlfriend mid-life crisis." Some of us are heavier, others are thinner. We run fast, slow, medium, long, short and everything in between. Long runs are spent with our closest running pals discussing running, upcoming races, relationships, work, family, and any number of unsavory topics related to bodily functions. We can be a little bit gross a lot of the time, and a lot gross a little bit of the time. And unless you want to see something truly disturbing, you should never attend a buffet with a group of ultrarunners or marathoners or even most collegiate athletes - it's treated as the ultimate gauntlet, and we deeply desire to win.

Runners are found in the real world as police officers, teachers, college students, investment bankers, stay-at-home moms and anything in between and beyond. They take many shapes, sizes, ages, and occupations. But the one thing that runners are not is violent or vindictive. We are tough, determined, and bad-ass. But we are also peaceful - we want only to be left to determinedly persevere through our training schedules and cycles and go about our days as we wish.

We endure a lot as runners. There is the heat and cold, snow and rain that we run through. The drivers who strive to run us off the road and shout ridiculous epithets of misunderstanding at us. But we should never have to endure what happened at the Boston Marathon on Monday April 15, 2013 - Patriot's Day, Marathon Day.

This person, whomever they are, that planted those bombs, clearly had no idea who they were dealing with. That person tried to break our spirit, but the thing that I know about runners is that an attack on our kind just makes us more determined to come back even stronger. You just don't mess with a group of people who run 26.2 miles for fun, and run it fast.

Oh and messing with Bostonians was also pretty stupid. I mean, we're talking about a group of people who founded this country, helped to incite the Revolutionary War, and cheered on the Red Sox with heartbreaking conviction through their 86-year Curse of the Bambino. If ever a city and its people were as determined, enduring, and hard-headedly stubborn as runners, then that city would be Boston.

I might be from New York, and live in Colorado, but today I stand united with Boston. Because no one fucks with my people. And runners of all sizes and speeds - those are my people. If this person intended to scare us and turn us on each other and create terror - well they picked the wrong group. Because I have not heard a single response about never running Boston again, nor have I heard one single story about looting or trampling or any negative reactions. Instead, what I witnessed was a beautiful response to a terrible thing. Spectators sharing their cell phones with runners to help them find family and friends. Water being handed out. Blankets shared and medals given to those not allowed to finish. Runners finishing a marathon and running extra to donate blood. The man in the cowboy hat helping to save a life. And a flurry of runners across the country vowing to run Boston in 2014, if there is any possible way they can make it there. My heart goes out to those injured and killed in this terrible attack. And it also wells with pride and love at the response of my fellow runners, and my fellow man, to this terrible and tragic attack.  

Moab Red Hot 55K

I have been staring at the white screen of this page for a couple weeks now, on and off, trying to think of how to describe this race. I can't even call it a race. I wasn't racing against myself, let alone anyone else...not even against the clock.

The morning started off at 6:30AM, loading ourselves into my friends' (Victoria and Chris) car, only to discover that it wouldn't start! All the other cars at the hotel were pretty much at capacity for runners, but our friend Alan and his wife agreed to swing by our hotel to pick us up on their way to the race start. Phew! Crisis averted! Got there, checked in, etc with plenty of time to spare.

I started off with my legs feeling dead - not an ounce of spring in the step - but it was also still pretty cold, with temperatures hovering just below freezing. My first four miles actually went by at a decent pace. Nothing too fast, hovering just below a 10 minute per mile average. From there, things went rapidly downhill. By mile 8, I felt like I'd already run 30. My head felt like I'd just emerged from a day under water and my chest felt like it had a iron vice clamped over it. I couldn't draw a full breath and my legs felt like lead. I might as well have been running at 14,000 feet. Except I usually feel significantly better at 14,000 feet than I was feeling during this run.  At mile 11, I was around 10 minutes slower than I'd normally be in a training run. And from there on, I just hemorrhaged time. My average pace dropped slower and slower until, around mile 19, barely able to maintain a 15 minute mile, I slipped my watch off and shoved it in my pack for a few miles. I felt horrible enough without having visual proof of just how slow I was moving.

Around mile 15, I was ready to quit. I've never DNF'd a race. I didn't. Mostly due to a couple of good friends who flat out told me to cowboy up (cupcake), and the looming mental game of running my first 100 miler this summer. It was pretty pathetic. Pathetic, as in the most pathetic I think I have ever run in my life.

But, after a pathetically long amount of time running a not-that-slow course, I finally found myself at the finish line, surrounded by friends, cold beers, free soup, and a chair to sit in.

I feel like there should be some big moralistic take away from this. But I don't really have anything profound to say except this: there is little that is more motivating than knowing that if you DNF, you'll have to explain why you quit and gave up. It's way easier to push on and later say that you had a bad day and your time sucked.

At least later that night, we got to have some fun around a huge bonfire and consume delicious lasagna, courtesy of Dakota (and mostly his awesome Mom).