I did what I thought was impossible and ran 13:49 at the Yeti 100 miler. In my 22 years of racing and 6 years of coaching experience, I still struggle to comprehend what happened out there.
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After a two-hour delay of the start until 7:45pm, I stood smushed in at the Place de L’Eglise. A steady rain came down, but it cleared 20min before the start. I wrangled my rain jacket off and back into my pack with the help of some nice runners around me. A beautiful sunset appeared over the mountains, and I was excited to run through the night, my favorite part of the race.
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I decided to run the Snowdonia 100 as I was looking for a hard 100-miler in the first half of the year and have been trying to run different races to change things up. The race takes place in the mountains of Wales, about 5 hours north of London, and sports the tagline: “beautiful beyond belief, savage beyond reason.” I’ve heard legends of this race with everyone calling it “way harder than UTMB.” The race has 33,500 feet of vert across 101.7 miles, but I’d find out the terrain is what sets it apart.
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I had an incredible time running the Kodiak 100 miler, finishing in 22:32. While it is the UTMB Major and I do want to run a 5th UTMB someday, UTMB was not the main draw for this one, as I’m planning on Tor next year. It just looked like a cool race and fit the race calendar well. I also had several friends and athletes I coach running it, so I knew it would be a good time.
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I finished the Swiss Alps 100 in 29:03, 13th place in the most competitive year of the race to date. It was all I had hoped for and then some.
The Hardrock 100 has the famous tagline: “Wild and Tough”. I’m giving the Swiss Alps 100, a Hardrock qualifier, the tagline “Scenic and Savage.” I had a hard time finding a good comparison between Swiss Alps and UTMB, but I definitely believe Swiss Alps runs tougher and slower. Even with a 50 hour cutoff, over half the field DNFed.
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The Old Dominion 100 is the second oldest 100-miler. Despite it being in my backyard, my schedule has never worked out to run it.
Well, the schedule wasn’t ideal this year either with Hellbender 4 weeks before, but on a whim I threw my name on a long wait list. I had forgotten all about it when my named got pulled – surprise! Recovery from Hellbender went well, so I decided to give it a go.
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I returned this year for my fourth Hellbender 100 miler, one of my all-time favorite races. After the devastation of Hurricane Helene, this year’s course would be largely different. While I love the original course, I was looking forward to exploring some new mountains and trails.
This edition featured ~19,000 feet of vert compared to the original 24,000 feet. There would still be plenty of steep, technical terrain, but I figured the course would run about 1.5 hours faster. Previously my best time was low 25 hours, so I built my splits for 23.5 hours.
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I have long been terrified of a runnable 100 mile course. I am better at steep climbs and descents than flat, fast running. A runnable course is relentless and monotonous, and I also find it much harder to keep nutrition on the rails when running a faster pace. The only runnable 100s I’ve tried ended in DNFs many years ago.
It is good to challenge yourself though, and I figured something different was called for after Tor des Geants. Rocky Raccoon is a 5-loop course in Texas with about 7,000 feet of climbing. The race has been around for over 30 years with many historically fast times. For four months, I’ve focused more on speed and running economy. Marine Corps Marathon (2:58) and Devil Dog 100K (9:23, CR) both went really well, so I was excited to see what would happen at Rocky.
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Recovery went surprisingly well after Tor this year. With only 2 weeks of training, I was able to run 2:58 at the Marine Corps Marathon. I had a huge base for Tor and was able to layer some solid speed on top.
I signed up for the Devil Dog 100K in Prince William Forest. I hadn’t run it before, but I have run the OSS CIA 50 miler many times, which covers most of the same trails. I also coached several athletes at Devil Dog last year.
The route has 3 laps primarily on single track trail with about 6,000 feet of vertical. It is largely runnable with some punchy, steep hills and a few sections that are quite technical, notably the South Valley Trail.
I looked up historical results and set an ambitious goal of trying to break the course record of 9:44. That seemed like a big stretch and would take an amazing day, but it was a fun and motivating goal to chase.
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Tor is an unimaginably difficult race. It has around 85,000 feet of vert packed into 215 miles. Some sections are so steep and technical that it is hard to believe they would put 1,100+ runners on it. It is also an unimaginably beautiful race. I have been fortunate to run in many places on this planet, and Tor is the most beautiful course by far.
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