100 Dreadmill Miles

​I’ve run numerous ultras over the past 10 years, but nothing quite like the Dreadmill 48 Hour Endurance Challenge. Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like — muster as many miles as possible on a treadmill within 48 hours. Most participants went for a minimum of 100 miles, myself included. The milestone gets you a sweet new belt buckle and the accomplishment of reaching a nice round number. 

The event is a virtual race in which you register on UltraSignup and complete the run anytime in the month of December during a continuous 48-hour period. All miles need to be documented, as there are top 3 and finisher awards at stake. Those who complete 50 miles get a finishers coin. 100 miles earns a traditional pewter belt buckle. 150 miles or more gets you a gold plated version of the buckle and copious bragging rights. There’s also a 100-mile division, where runners complete exactly 100 miles as fast as they can while adhering to the 48-hour time limit. For this race less than a 100 miles is a DNF. 

It works like this. Email race director Benn Griffin telling him the day and time to start your 48-hour clock. Run as much as you can, exclusively on a treadmill. Whenever the treadmill stops, take a time-stamped photo of the treadmill’s display. When you’re done running, email all photos to Benn to verify what you’ve accomplished. Following the event, mileage is tallied up and posted

Aravaipa Strong 100

As soon as the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic was known, races cancellation notices began popping up left and right. Every spring and early summer race of significance was either cancelled or postponed, and with good reason. Many virtual races started appearing, but there were very few large scale races that catered to the ultrarunning world. Enter the Aravaipa Strong. 

Jamil Coury and his team at Aravaipa Running, a for-profit trail and ultra event company based out of Phoenix, Arizona, quickly organized Aravaipa Strong. This was a virtual race that was open globally, comprising seven distances—5k, 10k, half marathon, marathon, 50k, 50 miles, and 100 miles. Runners could sign up for a small registration fee and had from April 17 to April 26 to complete their chosen distances. As a virtual event, runners chose their own route, recorded their own times, and submitted the results for review. Unlike most virtual races, everyone's result was verified, official results were published, and awards were given to those with the fastest times. 

With 10 days to get it done, I decided I'd go for 100 miles or bust. I would've loved to run some epic route on the Finger Lakes Trail and complete the whole race in one day, but there was no way I'd have the time or bandwidth for such a monstrous effort. A week-long effort it was, then. 

To make this race fun and interesting, I set myself a couple of loose ground rules. I would do all of the miles on trails, with no repetition. That meant no multi-loop run or long out-and-backs, and no running in the same park or forest on more than one day. If I became short on time or energy, I'd make exceptions and even include neighborhood walks with the babies if it was the only

Winter Beast 2020

"Yeah, we know you can run 100 miles. You can run it through the hills of the highest mountains and through the heat of the sun in the desert valleys, but can you run it in the heart of winter? Through inches or feet of snow? Are you ready to unleash the beast inside of you and run 100 miles on the frigid, historic Erie Canal Towpath? Ladies and Gentlemen, throw away your razors for the New Year. This winter, you're going to need all the insulation you can muster!"

Thus reads the tagline on the Beast of Burden Ultramarathon's web site. After running the 50-mile option in reasonably good weather in 2016 and 2018, I was skeptical about the organizer's claims. Were winters on the canal ever remotely comparable to harsh, endless winters in the Finger Lakes or Southern Tier? Did snowstorms take the weekends off in those sleepy northern New York canal towns?

After clear trails and unseasonably warm weather for 2018 Winter Beast, I had it in my head that the 2020 race day weather and course conditions would be more of the same. I based my three months of training on this by running mostly on roads, rail trails, and bike paths, all free of snow and slush. I managed my first 100-mile training week and still felt pretty good after logging that last mile. I thought a sub-18-hour day was reasonable if the canal path was dry and the temperature kept above 20° F.

"If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all." - Albert King, "Born Under a Bad Sign"

Race week rolled around and as luck would have it, Lockport, and most of Upstate New York for that matter, got hit with three days of snow mid-week.  This left the canal path from Lockport to Middleport covered in 8-10 inches and no chance of an 18-hour

Things I'd Do For a Pint Glass: The MMT 100

On paper the Massanutten Mountain Trail 100 didn't look all that intimidating. The 18,500 feet of elevation gain, while significant, isn't all that monstrous over the 100-mile distance. The race website, however, fails to reiterate just how many large rocks have been tossed across the trails in the George Washington National Forest.

By all accounts, Massanutten is a somewhat easier course than the Eastern States 100—less technical with a several K feet fewer in elevation change, and without the switchback-less, scree-laden, 1,000-foot climbs. Training had been going well. In fact, it was the best training block I've ever had for a 100-miler, as detailed on a previous post. 

The MMT course is essentially a 100-kilometer loop around the ridge surrounding the George Washington National Forest, followed by a marathon-distance loop to the south, then a few miles down a road to bring it all back home. The course makes frequent drops down the ridge to aid stations at road crossings; this is where most of the elevation change comes in. There are a few sections with two to five miles of dirt road at a time, but otherwise it's all singletrack. 2019 marked the 25th straight year of the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club's marquee event.

MMT welcome sign. 

***

I arrived to the starting line at Caroline Furnace Lutheran Camp already in a handicapped state.

The afternoon before the race, I attended Hayley's grandmother's funeral, then drove seven hours straight down to northern Virginia to arrive around 9:00 p.m. I missed the expo, pre-race briefing, etc., but was able to get my bib and mug shot that night. The drop-bag drop-off deadline had already passed, but I'd made special arrangements with the Race Director and his drop-bag coordinator to leave my three bags in a bin behind the drop-bag transportation truck. (RD Kevin Sayers was very accommodating when I explained my predicament in an email a week earlier. More on this later.)

Pre-race mug shot. PC: Raj Bhanot

I then made my way to a stuffy bunk bed cabin shared with a dozen other runners. The lights were already out and I fumbled my way onto a top bunk, trying not to wake anyone although I doubt there was much slumbering anyway. Snoring, lack of fresh air,

Massanutten Mileage

Here we are at the start of May. The area's flora is quickly brightening and well on its way to full bloom. Trail surfaces are drying up and daylight hours are increasing. In other words, it's a great time of the year to come out of hibernation and step off the roads onto the trails.

The following are scattered thoughts on what has been my strongest training block to date.

***

At the time of this writing, we're only 15 days out from the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100, which happens to be my focus race for the first half of 2019. This past weekend (April 27-28) I completed a huge training block for MMT and am now in the midst of a three-week taper. I think this has been the best training block I've ever had, for any race or distance, and am feeling very confident about breaking 24 hours at Massanutten.

Starting the third week of December, I began the training block with a series of two or three tempo interval workouts per week for five weeks. I followed that up with a string of several 70- to 80-mile weeks, mostly on roads and occasionally on a treadmill. I largely avoided snowy, icy trails so that I could increase my cardiovascular fitness with tempo intervals and steady paced, medium length runs. The treacherous footing on trails would make the pace so slow that I wouldn't be able to benefit from

Wawayanda

Of the four 100-milers I've run the Wawayanda Wonderful Wonhundred was by far the easiest. On paper. In reality, I had to work harder for this belt buckle than for any of the previous three. I wasn't able to find much info on this low-key race aside from the event website, so I'll describe the course and the race in more detail than I normally would for anyone who's interested in running it in the future.

Now in it's third year, the Wawayanda Wonderful Wonhundred is put on by NJ Trail Series annually in mid-October. NJTS is an event production company owned by husband and wife Rick and Jennifer McNaulty. They organize trail and ultra races year round, the best known of which is Three Days at the Fair. The WW100 uses the singletrack and logging roads in Wawayanda State Park in Hewitt, New Jersey, with the race HQ located at a boat launch area on the edge of Wawayanda Lake.

The WW100 course is a looped format in which runners complete three separate loops — marked blue, orange, and purple — totaling 25 miles, then repeat three more times for a total of 100. 50-mile and 50k races are held concurrently on the same loops. This year, parts of the course were altered due to flooding on the trails; as a result each loop was shortened slightly and we had to run more of them. We started off with a truncated 1.8-mile loop run twice, then began the

Eastern States 100: The Call Of The Pennsylvania Wilds

[This is Part II of my Eastern States experience. Part I is about the injury and recovery leading up to it and can is found here.] 

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artists, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter. - Jack London, Call of the Wild. 

It was way back in January that I heeded the call of The Wilds and pulled the trigger on Eastern States 100. I could hear those mountains howling my name, taunting me, daring me to commit to this monster of a trail race with 20,000 feet of gain and loss over the steep and rocky trails, historically horrendous weather, and a three-year average finishing rate of something like 33 percent. Upon reading the course description for the umpteenth time, I defiantly left-clicked the mouse, not without an air of bravado, bringing a sense of finality to the question "Am I really stupid enough to pay for an entire weekend of mid-August masochism?" I imagine Jack London was rolling in his grave at that very moment, as his protagonists fared worse than this daily just to survive. Two days later, Eastern States 100 was sold out.

Eastern States has no official affiliation with the Western States 100 other than serving as one of the latter's qualifying races. The top man and top woman each receive an engraved, fully functional wood axe as a prize. 2017 was the fourth year of the race, and interest in the event has been growing annually. I think it's the single-loop format and the overall rugged nature of the course that have made it a hit with ultrarunners. The 103-mile loop traverses the rough and rocky terrain of the PA Wilds—a conglomerate of state-managed parks, forests, and game lands in

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Belt Buckle

It sits alone, one of its kind, longing for the companionship of others of its ilk. Yes, since taking up residence on a desk in a spare room last September, the Virgil Crest 100 Mile Belt Buckle has spent many a night alone, no other buckle in the vicinity. This buckle has many cousins in the form of finishers medals, pins, plates, and pint glasses. But the twelve ounces of solid pewter that is the embodiment of a hundred mile journey remains the first and only of its species in this abode.

Many months ago, I got to thinking of what I could do to provide a more nurturing environment for this treasured inanimate object, and so turned to Maslow's third level of human needs. With the beloved Virgil Crest recently departed from this world (see obituary below), it is impossible to bring home a brother or sister to the buckle, so a friend of similar nature will have to suffice. Something that represents hard labor, struggle, and sacrafice, at a level comparable with the Virgil buckle. Something that must be earned and is far from guaranteed. Something that, when looked at and held, will provide a catalyst for a great flood of memories—some good, some bad, and some ugly—that will make for spectacular campfire storytelling

And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

[This post is more of an experiment in creative writing as I retell my experience at the Virgil Crest 100. It is heavily influenced by several novels I've read and borrows from some of them. Click here for a more straight forward recap of the day's events.]  

04:54

 

I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves - those tiny seeds of doubt planted deep inside my cerebral cortex at such an early hour, destined to grow and blossom into a vast web of self-pity. As I slowly make my way toward the Rock Pile, those seeds are beginning to grow at an alarming rate. There seems to be a direct correlation between the arc of the sun and the declining state of my well being. Surely the mercury has not yet hit its high point of 85 degrees, but I already feel the lack of sodium intake is contributing to my loss of appetite and the dull pounding in my skull. 79 miles to go.

"Just make it to the Rock Pile."

As I plod onward I am passed by runners in the opposite direction, some looking like a million bucks and others ready to throw in the towel. As I walk up Hauck Hill Road I am reminded of my last training run on this part of the course, getting eaten alive by black flies in 90 degree heat. The flies appear to be satiated today. At least that's something positive I can dwell on for now.

I reach the end of the road and make my way through the winding singletrack to the Rock Pile aid station at mile 25. My head is still pounding and I my confidence quickly diminishing. As the orange blazed path snakes its way deep into the heart of Kennedy State Forrest, staked heads and severed limbs are exchanged for magazines. Yes! First one, then dozens of copies of Ultrarunning Magazine

Smile... Tomorrow Will Be Worse: The Virgil Crest 100

[This is one of two race recaps I wrote about the 2015 Virgil Crest Ultras. Click here for the other, which is more an experiment in creative writing than a conventional race report. Click here to read the race itinerary document I created for my crew. ]

One late September evening, while volunteering to provide food and assistance to a bunch of runners at the Hitching Post, is when I first got the itch. I decided then and there that I'd like to run this thing as a 100 mile debutante. It felt so epic just to be there, filling water bottles for 100 mile runners coming into mile 44 or 56 late in the evening. Knowing what these warriors had already endured, and what trials lie ahead throughout the night, brought a certain level of respect for all those attempting to go the distance. Having marked half the course the day before, I knew it wouldn't be easy. I'd have loved to spend the night at the aid station if I didn't have to leave at 10:00 PM to go to work at the hospital.

I spent nine months training for the 100, starting in late January, and come September 19 I was ready to go. My successful run at the Green Lakes 100K three weeks prior gave me some much needed confidence going into Virgil Crest, while the adverse weather conditions and uphill battles at the Whiteface SkyMarathon in late June helped me prepare mentally. After scrambling last minute to finalize my pacer situation, I had created a step by step game plan to help me get through this monumental task. The night before the race, I drove out to Virgil for packet pickup and to check out a

Virgil Crest Game Plan

[I've included here a separate post which is an exact copy of the Google Doc I provided to my crew. It lists my ETAs for every aid station and what I planned to do at each, the contents of my drop bags, and descriptions of the individual course sections. The document is posted here as it was originally written, errors and all. It's remarkable how accurate I was in predicting the ETAs - I listed times without really knowing what I was doing, and most of them were within a few minutes of my actual time. The only additional part is the miscellaneous photos at the end of the post. Click here and here to read two differently written accounts of my race experience.]

Virgil Crest 100 Race Itinerary

Listed here is what I think is my best strategy for completing the 100 miles, given my level of fitness, knowledge of the course, race rules, and safety precautions. Below is a breakdown of what I will hope to do at each of the 15 aid stations and a brief description of what I will be facing in between each one. It may sound a little long winded, but I want to provide as much detail as possible. Please keep in mind that we are guaranteed to be thrown curveballs mid-race and that everyone will NOT go exactly as planned. Where possible, I will try to provide backup plans for certain possible

100 Miles Is Pretty Damn Far: 2015 Plans

With the new year now upon us for over a month, most runners I know have already stated their 2015 goals. Some of those involve running a given number of races, reaching 2,015 miles for the year, tackling a new, intimidating distance, or trying out a new sport. These are all noble accomplishments, and I wish nothing but the best of luck to anyone training for something new or something different.

Per usual, I'm behind the times on this blog and finally got around to writing about my running goals for the year. My primary "goal," as it is every year, is to remain injury free and to have fun with what I do. The moment a serious injury sets in, or when I cease to enjoy running, additional stress is placed on my body preventing me from leading a happy and healthy lifestyle. The same is true for all athletes, of course. When running is no longer enjoyable, it is obviously time for a break, but I'd like to avoid this situation altogether. However, this post is about a more tangible, objective goal than the abstract concept of happiness. So here is my big plan for 2015.

I've decided to take it to the next level and go after the 100 mile distance. Starting on the first of the year, the main focus of my training is to complete the Virgil Crest Ultras 100 Miler on September 19.