My 40th 100-mile finish is in the books. This is a new 100-mile race and this year it was a free test-run. Good thing, there were a bunch of challenges but the rookie race director has learned a lot.
The race was held near the Bonneville Salt Flats, mostly on the very remote islands to the north. I thought the race would be flatter, but it had several pretty long and tough climbs up to the top of some rpasses giving incredible views of the salt flats. It looked like a frozen ocean.
The biggest problem was that the race director marked the course a week in advance. As we were running we discovered that someone had carefully removed all the markers for about 75% of the course. It must have taken them hours to do. The race director had to quit racing and remark portions and help direct those in the rear. I was the only one who ran the right course without help because I used my GPS starting at mile 30. I had critical turns marked. The winner was an elite local runner, Jay who finished in sub-17, but we think he skipped about 3 miles of the course because of marking problems. One section at night was impossible without a GPS. There should have been glow sticks, you just couldn't see any of the markers at night.
Anyway, I'll work with the RD to greatly simplify the course for next year. It was just too complex. It could be more straight-forward and still visit the same areas of these islands. Also all aid stations were about ten miles apart. The is pretty far as you start slowing down.
The weather was a worry, but we only had short stretches of flurries. However, we had constant wind. For miles is would be a 20 mph headwind and at times 30 mph. I took it easy but was amazed that I still had a good time. If I would have really pushed it, no telling what I could of done, but the wind made it tough and I really worried about the other runners getting lost. When I worry, I slow way down. After midnight, it got really chilly when there was a headwind, windchill below freezing. I had to stop for ten minutes and warm up in a car. When I got pretty cold, I kept getting very sleeping and started to stumble around.
Anyway I had a good time. For some reason I am hardly sore at all. I can't understand it. By far I came out of this 100 the less sore. Perhaps the cool weather the entire time in the 30s and 40s helped. Maybe it is because I did that 110 mile Grand Canyon run two weeks ago. I could run uphills the entire race just fine. I just got lazy and at times walked because the next runner behind me was more than two hours behind. No one was pushing me and I knew I couldn't catch Jay. But I could crank out a sub-10-minute mile at will when I wanted to.
There was one section on Crater Island way to the north that felt as remote as I have ever run. It felt like we were running off the end of the world. It was amazing. There was a guy with a SUV aid station at the far end.
Lots more details later. I wish I would have taken some pictures.
| 