Where: Badger State Trail from Belleville, WI to 5mi outside of Monroe, WI and back
When: Aug 4, 2019 with a 6am start time
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2591504498
Goals:
Finish under the 12 hour cutoff ✔
Finish under 11 hours ✔
Have fun ✔✔✔
Results:
Finished in 10:08:58, taking 2nd place female, 8th overall. I think this was the smallest field of all 6 races occurring.
Training:
I've done three 50ks using the plan from Krissy Moehl's book and they worked wonderfully, so I decided to use her 50m plan. I think the mileage may have been a tad bit too high for me. I followed it pretty closely but did end up completely missing one back to back weekend and had a lot lower mileage on a second. One was due to the flu (missed a 20-22 and 9-11 weekend) and the other one I tried a new trail and made the mistake of only bringing a gallon and a half of water on a 105°+ heat index day on a more exposed trail than I expected (should have been a 25-28mi run, but I ran out of water around 16 miles), I missed the next day completely (14 miles). There were also maybe 4 or 5 weekday runs missed due to work or life over the 3ish months.
Travel & Packet Pickup:
My dad came with me to serve as my crew and travel buddy. We flew out of Orlando to Chicago-Midway because it was not hugely expensive like closer airports. Next year I will look for a deal flying into Madison or Rockford or really anywhere but Chicago, because that drive sucked.
After way too many hours of travel, we made it to the adorable town of Belleville. We got there around 4:30 or 5 and waited in line for maybe 15 minutes or so. They were very organized with the pickup including distributing advanced orders from the TJM store. Swag bags included: a trail toes sample, Arteryx koozie, TJM Racing B(L)uff, a tshirt, a pair of Fitsoks, an ornery mule racing pin, and of course a nice drawstring backpack it all came in. I was surprised there was so much stuff in there!
Since I am a TJM superfan, I was super nervous to meet the cast, but I shouldn't have been. They're such nice, genuine people and I was just happy to be there and see the love they put into this race. Holly was also awesome enough to introduce me to so many guests I recognized from the show. It was amazing seeing so many of my "running friends" that I trained with, lol.
Pre-Race Volunteering:
Since I wasn't running until Sunday, I decided to go volunteer at one of the aid stations for a few hours. I was there during the late afternoon and it was really great to cheer on and help out the 100m and 100k folk. Oddly enough, I would see about 10 of those people the next morning during my 10ish miles of running as they were nearing the finish of their race over 12 hours later.
Race day:
Everyone had to check in for a timing anklet since the race would be chipped timed that way (100m and 100k were hand timed). Scotty gave a pre-race briefing about how they wanted to show everyone the really nice trail that was here and WWTD (What Would a Train Do?). Soon after Dusty blew an airhorn and we were off!
Because I had been training through the brutally hot Florida summer, I did not have any temperature issues like many other runners did. The hottest the temperatures got both Saturday and Sunday was essentially what it feels like by 8am at home, but less humidity than I'm used to (I think the high was in the mid-to-upper eighties each day). Because of that, I ran a lot faster than I expected to. Many times I had to purposefully slow myself down because I felt I was going too fast. Pretty early on I noticed my HR was reading incorrectly. I was barely breathing hard and my watch listed my HR as 235+. I fiddled with the strap on and off, but finally gave up and removed it around mile 3 and threw it in the back pocket of my vest.
One aspect I enjoyed was seeing other people going the opposite way on the course on the way to the finish line. Some in good spirits, some death marching, some puking. I will be like one or all of those people in the race next year, lol.
The trail was great, just a nice well kept trail that was a joy to run on. The tunnel was amaaaazing. If anything, the RDs undersold the greatness of the tunnel (also, there is graffiti in the tunnel that is super hilarious). The aid station folks were so helpful, I know most of them barely slept all weekend and I so appreciate everything they put into this race.
Food & Aid Stations:
I brought so.much.stuff. Lots of GUs, clif blocks, clif bars, body armors, and a can of pringles. Literally the only thing I had of my own were the pringles and a few swigs of coconut body armor. I have a full list of what I ate, but it amounts to about 4 pb&j sandwiches, 1/2 grilled cheese, a can of ginger ale, 6 bottle refills of tailwind of varying concentration, 2 refills gatorade, 5 pizza rolls, 1/3rd can pringles, 1 shot of fireball, and 1 shot of blackberry brandy. The aid stations had tons of food both hot and not, but I love pb&j during races.
My dad was top notch as a crew person, especially considering it was his first time. If you've crewed someone, you know how frantic things feel when you've been waiting for 2-4 hours, your runner comes in for a very quick stop, and then poof, they're gone and you're back to playing the waiting game. He handled it so well and I hope I was a good runner, lol.
When the Going Got Tough:
I had a great steady run, no walk breaks expect for eating when I left aid stations until about mile 30, which is when I told myself I would start a walk/run pattern. The ratio changed around, sometimes it was 8/2, 6/2, 5/1 and around mile 40 it was 5/1 then turned into 4/1 through mile 45 where I was convinced I would be walking it in because I somehow couldn't run anymore.
After two miles of power walking I asked myself why I thought I couldn't run anymore and couldn't find an actual answer, just that walking was easier to do. So I started some walk/run intervals again and finally decided to listen to something other than my own thoughts. Normally on runs I listen to podcasts or audiobooks, but I wanted to be fully present for this race. I didnt want to wear headphones, so I did the douche move and turned on a playlist through my phone's speakers, I did turn it down as I passed other people on the trail. Ozzy's Crazy Train came on as I was coming into Belleville and it had me damn near sprinting (or whatever sprinting is at mile 49.75, lol). I came into the finish, Adam gave me my medal and told me I was 2nd female. I had several delicious beers (the RD's purchased 3 kegs of New Glaurus' Spotted Cow) and watched many inspirational finishes happen in the last hours of the race. What an absolutely amazing time and race!
Misc Notes:
- Several of the aid stations ran out of tailwind in the afternoon, which was a bummer, but understandable since it was near the end of the long race weekend. - My dad heard a woman complaining about how there were cyclists on the trail and how it upset her. I don't get that at all, it's a public trail and most of the bikers were so encouraging. I loved it.
- I had trouble deciding which shoes to wear, but I settled on my Cliftons. Trail shoes were not needed, my Bondis may have been a good choice, too; I may use those next year if trail conditions are the same.
- My dad and I stayed at the finish line until the very end. There was a large group of people acting as cheering squad and crew for a 50 mile runner and they were extremely negative. They were mad that the cutoff was only 12 hours and that other distances had such large amounts of time and how the RDs better not remove any of the finish line stuff. I really hope they didn't confront the TJM Racing folks about it. From what I can tell from the timing spreadsheets posted online, people came in until about 1 hour after cutoff. This was one of only two negative people out of the 100+ we interacted with during the weekend.
- Part of the trail was closed for an unknown reason, so there was a road section shortly before the Ornery Mule Aid Station in Monroe (miles 20 and 30). Weirdly, I really liked that detour since it changed things up.
- The aid stations were super easy to get to for crew members. I saw some people being crewed/assisted at random road crossings later in the race, so the race is super easy to manage as a crew person.
- Speaking of road crossings, I think there were at least 10(?) throughout the whole race, but I only had to stop for cars at two of them, both times for maybe 10-30 seconds?
- One disappointing, but understandable, thing was how much trash I picked up. 2 energy bar wrappers, 2 gu wrappers, three stickers from a local tavern (required to pick up to prove you made it to the checkpoint), aid station cups .5mi from the garbage, and various candy wrappers. I imagine a lot of them got accidentally dropped overnight while people were struggling
