Dawn2Dusk2Dawn 24HR - Race Report

When January rolled around this past winter, I hadn't run a step in 9+ months. No time. Too many obligations elsewhere. Wrapping my head around squeezing any feasible training plan into my weekly schedule seemed an impossible task. Then one day at work I sat down and saw 173 new emails in my box (I had taken the previous day off...sigh...such is my work life). Immediately the stress meter hit 11 and started rubbing my forehead. A couple deep breaths later I said, "Ok, this is just like when you've already run 100 miles and need to run 50 more. Just start picking them off one at a time and let the momentum build." One step at a time is a valuable lesson for anyone to learn, and having learned it over and over in its most literal sense during the past 8 years of running ultras, I truly appreciate its figurative value in relation to other walks of life.

After digging through all the emails, I felt a little pride, but then much more frustration/anger with myself. It used to be I was proud of myself when I ran some crazy adventure. Now I've replaced that with lame pride of clearing out my In Box?  Screw that. I was mad at myself for letting life get the jump on me. It was time to hit the War Room and draft up an attack plan on Life Lameness. One way or another I wanted to get back in the running game. From there, a plan was hatched, and one run at a time, I started grinding myself back into shape through the winter.

Initially, the treadmill got my legs moving late at night after I put the family to bed. The arrival of nicer weather mercifully allowed me to hit the trails after work with Sammy as my (heavy) co-pilot in the running stroller. I may not have adult running partners to motivate me, but when we get home from a long day and my little guy says, "Daddy, let's go running!", it's tough to turn that offer down. I may not be able to run as fast or far with him, but our loop of about 7.5 miles includes some serious hills, and pushing a combined weight of about 55 lbs of stroller/3 year-old is an honest workout. I know I'm getting my effort in when Sammy responds to my shift from conversation to Grunt n' Gasp mode with a motivational, "Go, Go, Daddy! You can do it!". He usually saves this for the final super-steep climb up from the riverbed to our street. Sure, he only has a little high-pitched voice, but it gives me the rush of a stadium full of people cheering me on. He's a good training partner!

Those Sammy runs cover the 3-4 days a week when life allows me to get out and run after work. The next step in advancing my training, however, proved a tough puzzle to solve. How could I find the time for a long run each week? After considering all options, I had to face reality: When there's nothing left to burn, you set yourself on fire. For the few weeks of peak training, I needed to pick one night a week and simply run through it. Sure, skipping sleep isn't sustainable in the long-term, but for a handful of weeks this spring, that's what I did. I tried it a couple different ways, preferring the "head out at 11pm" route over the "get up at 1am" plan. I also found that Thursday/Friday was the best time to do it. In the end, like all crazy running adventures, I had plenty of fun out there, but I definitely appreciated the weeks when Lizzy took on solo Sammy duties and let me head out for some Saturday daylight hour runs. It only took me a few of those runs to readjust to having other people outside running with me instead of deer and foxes. In the end I was able to string together 6 weeks of 30-35 mile long runs each week. Not huge miles, but really all I need to get my rig ready for long race efforts.

So what was all this training for? Well, I have but one goal left in my running career, and that's to make the U.S. 24HR Team again. I need to avenge my medical DNF from last time I was on the squad at the World Championship. Plain and simple. The next World Championship will be held in 2017. The qualifying window for that team opens in October of this year. I picked the Dawn2Dusk2Dawn 24HR race as a first test to see how my current training level (only about 45-50 mpw) needed to be augmented in order to make a run at 150 miles during qualifying time (150 is about what I assume I'll need to do to get on the team).  Having not raced in 13 months, and training on 60% of the miles I've done in the past before these races, I set 130 miles as my goal for D2D2D. I would run without a crew, and run with my head more than my legs all day/night. Sure, I hadn't trained a ton of miles, but I have Belichickian-level confidence in my game-planning abilities for 24HR races. These suckers are defeated with confidence in, and execution of, the plan you draw up in the War Room of your head prior to the race.

Last Friday night I found myself in Philly on the eve of the race. I made the only logical choice for a pre-race meal in said city: I found the dirtiest-looking cheesesteak place in the area and ordered a large:

I regret nothing!

The race program shown above featured the bios of the competition friends I'd be sharing the track with the following day/night. It seems a bit odd, but I've never cared about winning a 24HR race. My only care is about my mileage total. If I reach my goal, I'm proud of myself. If I was to run less than I hoped and win the race, I really wouldn't be happy. I don't need any more ribbons or plaques in my basement. In the race program, I saw a ton of talented runners, but had no concern about where I'd place among them. I was out to run 130 miles and enjoy smiling and reuniting with friends in the process.

The next morning, this was our playground...

Yup.

About an hour before the race, I set up my aid table and canopy next to a nice guy named Eric. He was out to walk as many miles as he could in 24HR. Some of the best walkers in the sport can cover 100 miles in 24 hours. This seems insane to me. There's no way I could walk 100 miles in 24 hours. I enjoyed meeting Eric and cheering on his insanity all day and night.

The race had fancy chip timing and video screens (more on that later), but also had an old-school leader board they updated every hour. I LOVED the leader board. After the race they let me take my name plate home. FYI, Virginia has a pretty bad-ass flag to race under!

Seriously, that lady is stepping on the throat of the dude she just killed. Take that, every other state flag with bird and flowers on it!

The race began as planned for me. Running mid-9s and nowhere to be found on the leader board. For the first hour I treasured the opportunity to catch up with the Knight of Nottingham, old friend Keith Straw. There's no better man in the sport than he. The wisdom and motivation one can gain from Sir Straw in 60 minutes can better a runner/person for a lifetime!

Always an honor to run with Sir Keith! Photo: Jeremy Fountain

Right around hour 4, the D.ROSE name plate popped into the last spot on the board, and the game was a foot! The biggest challenge for everyone after the first couple morning hours (the race started at 7a.m.) was our good ol' friend the Sun Beast. Simply put, it was a shadeless bake-fest in 90+ degree temps all day. I went into my proven heat survival mode: Hat down, glasses on, mouth closed, eyes open about 10% of the way. Fool the brain by obstructing its visual input sensors, that's my game. For me, this works like magic.

Me in Sun Mode. That little kid behind me was in Super Adorable Mode all day. Loved passing him every time! Photo: Jeremy Fountain

Round and Round we went like an 80's Ratt song. Lots of casualties during the heat of the day thinned out the traffic a bit. Daytime highlights include the wind breaking my canopy badly enough that I had to stop 3 times (about 10 mins total) to try and fix it (I needed to keep shade over my fuel table), and eventually tear it completely down when it was beyond repair. I don't need a crew when I run, but I will admit I wished I had one when I was on the sideline with duct tape and sticks trying to rig up a support system to keep that stupid thing in the air all day!

Dear Santa: I need one of THOSE professional canopy tents back there. My old one received its proper burial in a Philly dumpster after the race. Photo: Jeremy Fountain

Mercifully, sometime around 7 p.m. the shadows started to stretch and an audible sigh could be heard from the track itself as the Sun Beast receded. For me, as usual, the end of daylight marked "Go Time" for my race plan. Sure, I'd intentionally try to keep things under control pace-wise this time, but I still allowed myself a couple hours of turbo booster running with my headphones on. It's too much fun to resist...besides, you try running slowly with the playlist I crank into my ears. Not possible.

Weeeeee!   Photo: Jeremy Fountain

The night, as always, was a treat. The miles clicked by, my legs felt 100% the whole time, and best of all, I met a couple really great guys on the track. First up was Padraig Mullins, just a killer Irish dude currently living my hometown of Boston. We probably ran about 4 or 5 hours together overnight. He kept me motivated with his strong running, and I did my best to get him out of his chair when he'd pause for a break. There's strength in numbers out there in these races, and it's fun when you meet a guy like Padraig who you can laugh and shoot the shit with all night while traveling around in little circles.  The other guy I met was Dave Johnston. It took me about half a lap of talking with him to realize I love Dave Johnston. You know he's awesome because I just linked his name to a random Google hit that came up for him, and I'm 100% sure your mind melted upon reading it. Dave, much like Padraig, was more than willing to kick my ass all night and laugh with me while doing it.

As the race wound down to the final few hours, I realized my goal of 130 miles was a certainty, so I started being lazy and walking some laps chatting with people. I was sitting in 3rd place with a 25-ish lap lead over Dave in 4th. The problem was, Dave is so friggin' talented and tough, he kept running and running trying to catch me. I'd run with him for a while and say "Dave, it's OK, you can stop now, I'm not going to let you catch me!". Then he'd laugh the kind of laugh that makes you nervous because you're not 100% sure you can hold off a running beast like Dave Johnston.

Because Dave was such a jerk all night, we ended up dragging each other for about 6 or 7 miles more than we probably would have otherwise. The absolute highlight of my race was, with about 90 minutes left, Dave grabbed a couple ice cold beers from his cooler and we toasted each other while walking a lap and enjoying a brew. I assumed this meant he wasn't going to keep running, but of course I was wrong. After the beer lap, he started running again. Such...a...Bastard! ...and so I followed him as best I could. He was flying. In the end, I could say I held him off by a handful of laps, but the reality is that he just ran out of time. Dave Johnston is a beast. I'm just glad he's from Alaska so I don't have to worry about running into him on the street at home and having him kick my ass again.  After the gun when everyone was hanging around the finish line, I walked up to him shaking my head and smiling. He just smiled back and said "We had fun, didn't we?". Yes, Dave, you sick SOB, we did. Thanks, buddy!

In the end we all received the official results that showed I ran 137.9 miles. Encouraging for many reasons, especially since my legs felt great and I know I had more miles in them if needed. A couple days after the race, the RD said there was a timing issue and the timing company revised the totals. The new totals had me listed at 15 miles less. A quick look at the split times proved to me that the "corrected" results were totally bogus too (the split times were hilariously incorrect). There's been plenty of back-n-forth on Facebook between everyone involved (many of whom ran with GPS watches, etc and have hard evidence that their totals are incorrect). For me, it's not my first time at this 24HR rodeo. I know *something* happened for a couple hours overnight with the timing system as my live split times on the screen would vary from :30 to 4:00 when reality was I was running steady 2:20s.  Unfortunately, I don't think anyone will ever know exactly how far they ran at this race, but I'm actually OK with that. My goal was to run 130 miles, and I'm 100% certain I did that, at least...and with plenty in the tank if needed. It was a success all around, plain and simple. I feel bad for the top two guys (Ian McIlvenna and Josh Finger) who thought they were in the 150s (with Ian breaking a Canadian record), but now have no solid record of what they ran.

Oddly enough, recovery went extremely fast for me as well. I was at work the night after the race and was walking back to the office from Subway when I saw the crosswalk ahead was counting down quickly. I had no hesitation in saying to my colleague "We got this!", and immediately started running across Independence Ave.. The legs felt perfectly fine. I think running on a controlled, smooth, flat surface at a steady pace really helped in that regard. Also, the Hoka Clifton is as amazing a shoe as Dave Johnston is a pain in the ass.  Oh, and I should also note I think my speedy recovery and lack of leg pain during the race itself was partly due to the fact that I drank an obscene amount of fluid during the daylight hours of this race. Normally I'm a 20oz. bottle/hour in these races, but with the sun/heat, I was drinking as many as 3 bottles/hour to stay cooled internally. I adjusted my electrolyte intake each hour to fall in step with the water consumption, and I honestly think I nailed this part of the race perfectly. It felt great to not feel overwhelmed by the heat when it was obviously such a huge negative for so many out there all day.

The honor roll of Thanks goes out to the great RDs Josh Irvan and Bill Shultz for putting on "a race for runners, by runners". Both Josh and Bill are super accomplished ultra runners themselves, so we were all in great hands all day and night. Big high-fives to all the volunteers, especially Josh's students at Valley Forge Military Academy who not only worked all day and night, but helped make the awards, name plates, etc to give the event a special non-prefab touch that makes races like this so special. Hugs and fist-bumps to my brothers in legs out there all day and night, in no particular order: Phil McCarthy, Johnny Geesler, Dave Johnston, Padraig Mullins, Keith Straw, Tom Dekornfeld, Israel Hernandez...and everyone else who was brave enough to be out there, I'm inspired and impressed by you all!



Last night at work a colleague came up to me the following conversation ensued:

Him: "Hey! I guess congratulations are in order!"

Me: "Thank you, we're really excited to have another little Rose running around (Lizzy and I are having another baby this Fall, and I figured he'd either seen her or heard the news otherwise)."

Him: "Oh, I didn't know that, I was congratulating you on the other thing!"

Me: "Ah, yes, sorry. I'm looking forward to being the boss for sure (I was recently promoted at work)."

Him: "Wait, what are you talking about? I'm congratulating you on your great race over the weekend!"

Me: "Ah! Yes, thank you!"

As stupid as I may have seemed to him during that chat, in reflection it made me happy that my natural reaction to his congrats was to apply them to what I'm actually most proud of in my life. Family first, work stuff second (it pays the bills, after all!), and then this silly little hobby of running around like a kid all day.  After putting my running plan on track this spring and achieving my "first step" goal of 130 miles in a 24HR race, I couldn't be more encouraged for the next step of tweaking a few things to put in an honest effort at 150 miles in the next 18 months. I'm not sure if I'll have the chance to race again this year, but I don't seem to have any issues racing once a year and reaching my goals. Sure, the goals aren't world-class lofty, but they do make me proud of my effort, and in the end that's all that matters!

Oh, So THIS is What Running Feels Like!

Well hello there, everyone! It's been a while...like a 7 month while...since I started a running hiatus. The initial reason was I randomly cracked one of my lumbar vertebra back in March, and that led to a bulging disc and a couple months of insane pain. During all that fun, my dad's health took a sudden turn for the worse and he passed away in May. If the physical pain of my back was the catalyst for a running break, the death of my dad was even more affecting in a mental/emotional way. I know this, because when I was given the OK by my doctor to start running again, I did for one day, but it wasn't the same. Running is usually fun for me - I get to turn my brain off for 1 to 60 hours and just let my legs take me where I need to go. When all is not well in my non-running world, I have an almost impossible time going out for even the shortest run. My brain can't kick back in its skull hammock to relax and let my legs run freely when something is wrong with a friend or family member. For months after my dad's death, I had none of the mental rest I need to be interested in running at all. During that time I also bought a new house, which is awesome, but as anyone who has moved and not been lobotomized immediately thereafter knows, is also an insanely exhausting amount of work. ....and to end the list of things I'm whining about here, my Fall was also the busiest I've ever been at work. You know when you're putting in 70 and 80 hr work weeks, you're working a little too hard.

Me and my old man at the finish of my very first ultra (North Country 50M in Michigan, 2006)

....but every storm eventually blows through, and I'm happy to report the skies are looking nice and clear right now. Over the weekend, I finished setting up the utility room in our basement, complete with a new (to me) treadmill and the kind of Spartan feel I love when hammering out hard training miles around the clock to get back into shape. My theory is if you're staring at a concrete wall for miles and miles on the ol' hamster wheel, then the pleasure of getting out into the mountains for races makes for a nice analgesic from the leg/lung pain. The immortal quote from the movie DodgeBall: "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!", always runs through my head when I psych myself up in training with, "If you can run for 5 hours on a treadmill staring at a wall, you can run any ultra distance you want."

Not exactly the buffed trails of Marin County or a 5-Star Health Club, but nothing beats a true Pain Cave when you have 7 months of rust to kick off!

Now the whining stops and the work begins once again. As AC/DC reminds us: "It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n' roll"...and I most definitely want to rock and roll down some trails in 2015, so it's off to Pain Cave Studios for me! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all, and I look forward to having some fun race reports to write next year!

Guest Blog Post - Amelia Runs a Marathon!

On Sunday, November 2, my best-friend-of-a-million-years Amelia finished the NYC Marathon. This was her long-delayed triumphant debut at the distance. She asked if she could write a guest post after her fantastic finish, so her words follow below. I do want to note a couple things first:

1) I dug up the photos included here from my archive, but through the grace of my kind heart I omitted the dozens and dozens of horrible Brightroom and MarathonFoto shots of her during her past races. She proudly shares the links to these photos with me post-race with email subject lines like "I know you're happy I'm running races again"...and you know what, she's right. Laughs of that level are tough to come by. ...but it's probably wrong for me to share those photos with the world on this blog. Especially now that the Halloween season has passed.

This just in! The race photo from the NYC marathon is actually fantastic! What a reward for all the hard work of running a first marathon...the ever-elusive quality in-race shot!

 2) Amelia wrote all sorts of stuff about things I've said and done in the past here. It probably doesn't speak well of me when I admit that I remember basically none of the good things I've done for her as a friend, but recall every last one of the jokingly mean things I've said with great pride!

3) I know most people reading this blog have run a billion miles longer than a Marathon, but rest assured Amelia has worked really really really hard to join the club. As she admits below, she's not really a runner at all. What she doesn't mention is she set all sorts of records in college on the swim team, is a member of her high school athletic Hall of Fame for her skill in the pool, and has to deal with asthma that makes her breathing sound like a Amtrak train whistle during most runs outside. I would say her biggest talent in terms of her translating her skills to the running world is that she's just as stubborn and relentless as most of us ultrarunners are: she set the goal of wanting to run 26.2, and even though it was delayed by having a two adorable kiddos in the past couple years, she stayed focused and found a way to get to the finish line at the NYC Marathon in 4:09 with a super steady splits. That's 100-mile-level dedication, and she has definitely earned her guest post here. Well done, Greenberg!

How Dan Inspired Me to Run a Marathon - Amelia Greenberg

I am Dan's friend Amelia and I just finished my first marathon. I asked Dan to let me post on a his blog about this experience as a guest writer and he kindly agreed. Dan has been a huge inspiration to me to set my running goals higher, as I know he has been to others, and I am so happy to have the opportunity to say publicly how grateful I am to know him and be inspired by him.

Before I get to the race, I'll speak a little about our friendship, which began our freshman year in college.

In actions, there is no one I rely on more. Dan has helped me move more times than I can count, he has given me more rides than I ever should have asked for, I call him randomly out of the blue all the time to say things like, "I am lost - can you get me directions to XYZ place immediately?" or "my computer crashed and gave me message $584&X - what do I do?" Dan once came and picked me up in Boston on his own initiative after he'd heard I'd eaten dinner in a sketchy part of town and was planning to take the subway home, and not only does he volunteer to beat up people who are mean to me, but once he paid his own way to go on a trip with me out of state to see if my younger sister needed rescuing from some horrible summer job where she'd ended up working for a mentally ill woman and being housed in the home of a coworker she'd not previously met who was a single male in his 40s. [Happy ending: turned out the guy had a fish fetish and was not interested in humans so my sister was safe.] When I left our group house early the morning of our college graduation to do something before the ceremony, and then realized I'd forgotten my gown and called home to ask Dan (of course) to bring it for me, I found out from our other roommate that Dan spent 20 minutes ironing my gown before the two of them headed out for the ceremony. When I turned to Dan and said in amazement, "You ironed my gown?" - something I surely never would have bothered to do - he said, "Well I didn't want it to be wrinkly!"

In words, Dan is the brother I never had. I have so many examples, but I'll give you just a few. I am relatively tall, and once when we were at a wedding where I wore a floor length purple dress, Dan spent the whole day calling me "Barney." When I am slow on the uptake, which alas happens all too frequently, Dan is fond of telling me, "You know, you are pretty dumb for someone who is supposed to be smart." Sometimes when he sees me, Dan likes to say, "You know Greenberg, you are really letting yourself go." Whenever Dan and I jog together, he invariably will say before the run is over, "Greenberg - you have been half-assing this workout the whole time." One Sunday in college, when Dan and I were watching football, I had purchased a fairly large bag of Reese's peanut butter balls [note: these taste like the cups, but are the shape of marbles - a delicious invention] and I ate the entire bag by the time the game was over. Dan spent the rest of the semester calling me "Whole bag" in commemoration / mockery of this event. Dan also calls me "stone hands" when we play catch and I drop easy passes. Incidentally, years into our friendship, when I met the lovely Lizzy who is now Dan's wife, one of the first things she said to me was something like, "I am so happy to meet you! Dan has said so many nice things about you." And I looked at her in genuine astonishment and said, "Dan said nice things about me? Dan ... Rose?"

Amelia and Dan prior to the New Year's Eve Central Park run in 2005. Half-pictured is Amelia's sister Emily who ran with us as well. Not sure why she was sawed in half like this, she's really quite lovely in whole form! Amelia's husband Joel (who was behind the camera here) also ran with us in our dorky matching race shirts. I don't recall much else from that race other than it was more of a "cattle call" than a race, and there may have been a dude or two running around in nothing but a speedo as well. Sure it was freezing out, but it was also NYC on New Year's Eve!

When Dan got his diagnosis of cancer, it was first and foremost of course a horrible shock to him and his family, but I felt pretty devastated and scared too, as did all of his friends. I watched Dan handle that time of his life with bravery and humor and an incredible amount of compassion for how difficult it was for the rest of us. Even in his very lowest moments in the hospital, that fight could not keep him down. In fact, one of my very favorite memories of all these years of friendship comes from a day I was visiting Dan while he was getting chemotherapy. We were watching a hockey game on tv. I don't watch much professional hockey, but I do watch professional football, and at the time the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs was Trent Green and he was having a fantastic year. Anyway, we were watching the hockey game and the man calling the game said something like, "...and Trent Green chases down the puck." And I said outloud but half to myself, "Trent Green?" I was thinking it was surprising that both a professional hockey player and a professional football player active that year would have that name. Then, the color commentator said, "You mean Travis Green, not Trent Green." And the man calling the game said sort of testily, "Yes, though I suspect our listeners would have missed that mistake if you had not expressly pointed it out." And Dan, though weak from chemo infusion and half passed out in his hospital bed, cried out with great spirit, "But not Greenberg!!!"

The running part of this story is one that I think that most of you, Dan's readers, already know. When Dan finished his treatments, he not only rededicated himself to his sport, but set goals that seemed outrageously unreachable to me, and then reached them. And then he'd set even higher goals and reach those too. It was impossible to be anywhere near that comeback effort and not be inspired. So, although running was never my sport, I started to consider some higher goals for myself. It took me until 2010 to get up the guts to commit to the dream of running a marathon, and it's taken me until 2014 to put that plan into action. And, as you'd suspect, Dan has been a very steady coach and encourager throughout my marathon training. If I texted him that I'd had an off day, he'd say, "What a fantastic time you ran given that it was an off day!" If I said I had a good day, he'd say, "What an amazing time! You're a machine!" If I had a day that was totally ordinary in every way, he'd say, "When your runs start to feel mundane, it just means you've been doing a lot of training. Congratulations on doing all that training!" Now that I'm done, he's texting me, "Now we can do 100 milers together!" It has been really fun, but also undeniably important to my training, to have someone believe in me even more than I believed in myself, and to show me by example how a person who at one point can barely walk out of a hospital can still get himself into ultramarathon shape just by daring to have that goal and then committing to it. I never would have run this marathon had I not seen Dan set and work toward his goals.

Pretty sure Amelia has helped me a million times over the years in my running goals as well...like when she crewed for me at MMT100 in 2008...

...and when she paced me for a million miles of Run 192 as well. I don't recall which night this was, but I will tell you that smile is a lie! That run hurt!!

As for the race report, today I finished my first marathon - the New York City marathon. The views of the city were fantastic, the wind blew in hard and icy gusts at times to give our day a little dramatic flair, the crowds cheered loudly, and when I heard one cute little voice from the crowd call out "Mom!" to a passing runner, I almost cried because it was so adorable. I saw many signs that were giant photographs of the heads of runners on posterboard and then attached to a stick so that the fan could wave it in the air. Is this how people make signs for their favorite runners now? Many different bands played along the course, and I got a big surge of adrenaline when one of them played "Hit Me with Your Best Shot." I started to lose my legs somewhere in the Bronx and never really got them back, but I did feel a great rush of joy when the course turned into Central Park and I knew we were almost at the end. I teared up at the finish line. And, I finished in 4 hours 9 minutes and 20 seconds. Yay!

I wish I had pictures to add to this post of me and Dan in college, but I don't. However, he's said that he just might append one of me eating ice cream for breakfast, so we can hope for that!

Thank you thank you Dan for the friendship that has now lasted over half my life, for the unwavering support, and for inspiring me to achieve a goal that I can now list as one of my proudest accomplishments. I'm still not running 100 miles though.

No "ice cream for breakfast" photos here, sorry! ...and none of that Barney dress either. Just one random shot of the future formation Amelia will follow when running her first ultra. C'mon Greenberg, it's only a few miles longer than a marathon. You know you want to run one. Think of all the Reeses products at the aid stations!

Thomas Jefferson 100K - Race Report!

-Thomas Jefferson was our 3rd President.
-I finish 3rd in an absurdly high percentage of my races (as previously mentioned here).

-The original building of the Library of Congress is named after Thomas Jefferson.
-I work in that building at the Library of Congress.

-Thomas Jefferson put the city of Charlottesville, VA on the map, founding the University of Virginia as well as building his Monticello estate there.
-My wife earned her masters degree from UVA, and Charlottesville is on top of a very short list of places to which we'd consider moving in the future.

-Thomas Jefferson's second Vice President was George Clinton.
-I've seen George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars in concert.

...Ok, that last one was a stretch, but all of the other facts are solid reasons why, when the inaugural running of the Thomas Jefferson 100K in Charlottesville was announced, I immediately knew I had to sign up. This race is the brainchild of one of ultrarunning's elite personalities and performers, Andy Jones-Wilkins. AJW, as he is known by many, has about a million ultra finishes on his resume, including multiple 100 mile wins and a stellar 7 consecutive years of finishing in the Top 10 at the Western States 100 miler. Andy moved to C'ville a couple years ago and, following a long-time dream, organized the TJ100K as his first-ever race from the other side of the clipboard.

As expected from a guy like AJW, every facet of the TJ100K was top-notch. We were all invited to his school for the pre-race dinner/meeting as well as the Awards Breakfast.

The picturesque setting for our pre & post race gatherings on the campus of the Tandem Friends School (at which AJW is the Head)

Couldn't resist taking this shot of the main building on campus while walking back to my car.

I was a happy boy when I saw the cap of this Starr Hill brewery treat peeking out from my swag bag at the packet pick-up! The odds of AJW, a man who loves beer, including this Thomas Jefferson recipe-based brew in our bags for this race was pretty much 100%.

AJW leads the pre-race meeting...then slips behind the curtain and reemerges to act out the one man play "How the Battle of Western States 2005 was Almost Won".

The race itself took place in the scenic Walnut Creek Park a few minutes south of the Tandem Friends School, and the course consisted of seven loops of 8.9 miles with 1,000 ft of gain/loss on each circle of the merry-go-round. On paper that might seem like a bit of a yawn, but let me tell you, it's anything but boring. Traversing the rocks, roots, and rollercoaster rises of this lyric little loop through the cold darkness of the morning, the warming glow of the sunrise, and the high-noon heat offers runners something different to experience every time around. As one can expect, the hills also tend to grow a bit later in the day, so loops 5, 6, and 7 bring out new appreciation for how much you really hate the wonderful people in out sport, such as Andy Jones-Wilkins.

As for my personal race report, here goes:

This being the second year of running on my Daddy Schedule (i.e. on a 75% training level), I've settled in nicely to not caring about much other than enjoying the experience of running a long way with friends on race day. That said, I still have long legs and love the trails, so when I start chatting with a fast new friend in a race like this, I can still kick out the carbon a bit to keep the conversation going at a faster-than-fitness-level pace...for a little while, anyway. Such was the case from the giddy-up of this race when the masses headed out on the first loop at 5:00 a.m.. Brian Pickett was sporting bib #2 (which makes my lungs hurt just typing), and darned if he wasn't a fun dude to run with...so we stuck together at the front of the race...for the first 36 miles. The good news is, if either of us ever needs someone to write our biography in the future, we pretty much covered all the necessary life topics during those 6 hours of running together. The bad news, for me anyway, was when we started out on loop #5, I found myself grinding gears a bit trying to keep Brian in sight as he slowly pulled 2 minutes ahead by the mid-loop aid station. At the time I didn't think that was a huge problem since I had the two long downhills in the second half of the loop to open things up and try to reel in Blazin' Brian...

...A few minutes later, when a guy pushing his mountain bike up one of those hills stopped to ask if I was OK, I realized, in no particular order: 1) I was not catching Brian, 2) Trying to run downhill on one's face is a bad idea.

We've all tripped on the trails a million times, and countless "best blood" awards have been given post-race for crimson knees and hands, but actually hitting my face on the ground? That was a new one for me. The good news is, my cheekbone turns out to be pretty sturdy, so aside from seeing a few stars, I was no worse for the wear in the facial disfigurement department. The downside, in terms of the race itself, was I knew I'd be running the last 2.5 loops in a bucket of syrup just to get it done.  So that's what I did, and you know what? It was still pretty enjoyable. Sure I was tired and a bit wobbly on the downs, and yes it was getting a little warmer than any of us were accustomed to after this past winter's crazy cold, but nothing can take away from the pure fun of running around in the woods all day. The race's TJ-inspired tagline "Persue Happiness" couldn't sum up the whole experience better for me. What a great day for running.

With RD AJW at the Finish

The talented Mr. Pickett enjoying his hard-earned first place finish in the sun!

In the end Brian held our original lap pace pretty evenly the whole way and grabbed the win in a solid time of 10:33. I was lucky enough to hold on to 2nd place about a half-hour later. Peter Jetton rounded out the Men's podium, and the ladies superstars of the day were Stephanie Wilson in first, Jennifer Nichols in second, and Carter Wiecking in third. Congrats to all! Full Results here. Also, AJW was the RD, but there were dozens more amazing volunteers of all kinds who made this race such a smashing success in its first year: Co-RD John Andersen (of Crozet Running), Sophie Speidel and her course-marking crew, and so many many more. Dave Snipes gets his own sentence here, just because he's awesome. This dude always seems to have my back - thanks again Sniper!

The great gifts kept coming after the race with everyone getting a crisp $2 bill (with Jefferson on it, of course) as they crossed the finish line, and I was lucky enough to also score this sweet pewter Jefferson Cup as well!

An engraved pewter Jefferson Cup ranks just behind the Loch Ness Monster on the list of things that are impossible to photograph.

One final note: As it turned out, the week of this race marked my 10 year anniversary of being officially cancer-free. I ended up really appreciating the chance to run solo during the last few hours of this race. We are all really fortunate to be able to enjoy life in whatever manner we choose, and for me to be out on those trails running around like a kid in the woods all day, well, I didn't take one single step for granted.

That said, my next race will be one of the greatest experiences I've ever had the chance to enjoy. I've spent the last few months putting together a team of 10 ultra-running cancer survivors, and we're all headed down to run the Virginia 24 Hour Run in Hampton, VA on April 26-27. This is most definitely NOT a fundraiser for our team. Everyone is tired of that type of thing at this point. Instead, we're all teaming up to try and break the course record for total team miles (somewhere north of 700 miles). It's going to be a blast being a part of a Team out there encouraging each other all day and night, and while we may not get that record, if you want to see toughness and grit on display in a race, we'll definitely be the poster team for that!

24 Hour (or 13) National Championship Report!

You know that thing when you're gliding along at mile 82, just smiling and joking with the folks you're passing, and then suddenly you're declared all but legally dead at mile 83 for no apparent reason?

Yeah, that's basically my race report for this past weekend's 24 Hour National Championship out in lovely Oklahoma City.  The Handsome Cowboy of Race Directing, Chisholm Deupree, hosted this year's 24 hour family reunion in a nicely wooded park on the north side of OKC. Sure, it was a little rainy and windy and cold, but we've all signed up for races that intentionally boast extreme weather in all of those categories, so all of the sky's activity basically amounted to a nothing more than a bonus distraction for us to talk about as we looped the park all day and night.

Oh, and I also earned the right to check the box marked "Ran a race during which a city's tornado warning siren sounded for 5 minutes" on my lifetime bucket list. So that was convenient.

Lots of hugs and handshakes were shared with with friends I only get to see every couple of years. Physically catching up with them on the course in order to conversationally catch up with them was the weekend's highlight. There are some genuine, good people in this sport.

Having to stop, rather suddenly, after 83ish miles and only 13+ hours of running has me lacking any useful info to relay in terms of the race report, but I did kill some time with a bic while flying out to OKC for the race, so I'll conclude this unorthodox race report by transcribing the following in-flight thoughts, which no doubt would have served as the opening to my real race report...you know, if I actually ran the whole race.

I'm currently flying somewhere over the clouds in between DC and OKC. It's the penultimate eve before this great country's 24 hour national championship, and I'm finding it quite enjoyable to be sitting on United Airlines finest 1970's era flying air machine.

The Airline Downside: After decades of use, all that remains of my seat is nothing more than a thin cut of leather tautly stretched over what I can only assume is the world's largest diamond. I say that not to claim my bottom is presently perched upon untold riches, but rather to recall my high school chemistry lesson in which I learned, on the hardness scale, that talc and diamond represent the extreme ends.

The Up, Up, and Away Upside: When the electrical engineers designed this plane immediately upon returning from their brave service in the Korean War, they didn't need to worry about equipping the passenger cabin with fancy technological advances like, well, anything other than an overhead light. This means, quite delightfully, that I am sitting here without access to any video or audio entertainment. Pen is hitting paper right now and I couldn't be happier - I need a few hours to start sloooooowing things down in my head right now. Uncle Danno is tired.

Sometimes races fall perfectly in step with the rest of your real life schedule. Sometimes they fall this week:

1) Work is moving at a billion mile per hour pace these days, and I know this because I find myself saying things like, "I really need to get up and hit the bathroom, but..." multiple times daily.  

2) At home, Sammy, who I couldn't love more, apparently couldn't love sleeping past 5:30am any less this past week. He's the only person in the world right now who would actually look forward to those obscenely early 100 mile start times.

3) The stupid Red Sox are in the World Series again. I mean really, it's great and all, but these baseball playoff games are so long that they just finished playing the 2007 Series last week. ...and yes, you can ask "Why don't you just not watch these games and go to sleep?". Well, I, and everyone else in Boston, will happily give you 86 years worth of reasons why you don't take something like this for granted!

The bottom line: Brain cells aren't just being fried this week, they're permanently wedged at the bottom of a wire cooking basket at a State Fair concession stand. The faint, muffled echoes of REO Speedwagon - or at least their former bassist and three other guys claiming to be REO Speedwagon - could be heard in the distance when I closed my eyes to pass out for a small handful of hours each night this week.

Despite (or perhaps in step with) all of the above evidence of my imminent mental collapse, I'm pretty darn happy to have the chance to run around a paved circle for 24 hours on Saturday.  Yes, I may collapse with fatigue or death at some point, but along the way there will be no cell phones or emails or meetings or...anything, really, other than left-right-left, left-right-left. I can definitely smile and relax while doing that!

Funny how it played out pretty much exactly as I predicted. I would have loved to run the whole time and continued to finish that report, but it wasn't in the cards this time around. Running these races is usually a pretty miserable experience at one point or another, but the company we keep out there keeps us all coming back. I'm looking forward to being miserable among friends again soon!

Guaranteed Ego Boost

Hey lonely single guys, want to feel the rush of literally hundreds of women chasing after you?  Be like me last weekend and agree to be the Rabbit at an all-women's race!  Thanks to Tracy Dahl, RD of the annual VHTRC Women's Trail Half-Marathon, this was my morning last Saturday (Thanks to the great Aaron Schwartzbard for all the photos!):

Less than 4 minutes before the start, they told me I had to wear the Bunny hat too!

One second to go!

If you were to suggest that I gave myself a wee bit of a head start to ensure I wasn't caught in the first meter of the race, you may be 100% correct.

Sneaking a peek after the first hairpin turn...

Eeeek!! Here they come!!

It was all business from here on out: Full-on stride and anaerobic gasping. Thank you for nearly giving me a heart attack while I worked hard to stay in front, Super Speedy Ladies!

End of Summer Update!

As always, this summer has flown by like a Flock of Seagulls haircut passing you on the sidewalk. We all want it to slow down so we can enjoy it more, but long before we're satisfied, it has sadly passed us by...

Come back, Summer!

In terms of running, after all of the fun in the Black Hills, I spent the first couple weeks of July realizing that the trade-off for racing 100 miles on light training is a crazy painful recovery period. I had no injuries, per se, just completely and totally destroyed legs.  I wonder why my quads felt so beat up?...

Oh, I see....Just a wee bit o' stress on the running sticks there...

Yup, welcome to Blown Quad City, Dan. Population: You.

I guess the good news is I was too excited during the race to realize I was crushing my quads so much on the downhills. In retrospect I'll trade pain after the race for fun and success during, so in the end I can't complain too much!

Now that I'm fully back in the swing of things, I'm getting excited to head down to the 24HR National Championship in Oklahoma City at the end of October. It's been 4 long years since I've run the Championship, which more than anything else means that I'm getting incredibly old. It'll be a blast to run loops with so many great friends who I don't get to see that often, and it's also nice to check your true fitness level on such an important stage. There's no hiding lazy training when running on a 24 hour loop with the best of the best! 

Speaking of the best of the best, I had a nice summer highlight a couple weekends ago when US 24HR National Team member (and 3rd place finisher at the most recent World Championships!) Suzanna Bon came to DC to drop off her daughter at college. We met up for a sunrise run on Sunday morning and covered a fun ~16 mile loop that included just about all of the DC and VA monuments and notable sites any out-of-town visitor could want to see. It was blast to chat with Suzanna, as always, and to show off some of the massive network of paved trails we have in the area. Plus I had an excuse to bomb around the single track on Teddy Roosevelt Island again - I run by it all the time, but haven't skipped over the bridge to do the ~1.5 mile loop in about 6 years! It's always fun re-discovering running routes in your hometown.

On that note, I'll end with the story from this past weekend that reminded me why I love running:
I ducked out for a standard evening 6.2 mile loop around 7pm on Saturday. This is a loop that I've run (according to my running log) 81 times for a total of 500+ miles thus far in my 2013 training...One could say I'm familiar with the terrain. So, off I went on a pleasant DC summer evening as the sun was headed down.  About 3 miles into the loop, I hit the point where I normally turn left into a delightfully shaded trail that eventually brings me through a tunnel under the highway and back up the other side for a couple miles to return to my doorstep. The surprising thing about this, the 82nd time I've run the loop this year, however, was when I took the left onto the trail I saw a shiny new path on the right which lead to a brand spankin' new bridge over the river connecting me to a brand new trail.

If there was a way for me to write that last sentence in candy letters so everyone reading it could just eat the tasty tasty words as they saw them, that is how runners like me feel about finding a new trail so close to their home.

Of course, my excitement far exceeded my common sense once I took the hard right to hop over the new bridge and onto the trail. Predictably, I both ran out of sunlight and trail after a couple miles, and despite my lame efforts, could not use the side streets to make my way back to anywhere I recognized. The good news is, my night-vision had a banner evening as I eventually turned around and got back to the new (and now very dark) trail to retrace my steps back home without falling flat on my face. All in all, it was the best 13 mile version of a 6.2 mile run I've ever done!

Black Hills 100 Race Report!

Wow! What an amazing adventure! It's not too often that one's lofty expectations before a trip like this are not only fulfilled, but vastly exceeded. My journey out to South Dakota for the Black Hills 100 this past weekend was most definitely an example of the Vacation and Running Gods joining together to make everything spectacular. For those of you considering running this race in the future, save yourself the time of reading everything below and just sign up now. You won't be disappointed. Just be sure to note it would be a huge crime to head out to this race and not give yourself 2-3 days purely dedicated to being a tourist first. Simply running the race itself would still be awesome, but you'd be missing out on so much more cool stuff that this area has to offer!

Pre-amble

First off, how about getting upgraded to First Class for the flight out?  

"Another mimosa before take-off, sir?"

You bet!!

I don't always fly First Class, but when I do, I wear my Drymax.

Upon arrival in to Rapid City, SD on Thursday morning, I headed into town for some supplies and lunch before doubling back to the airport to pick up my brother in-law and awesome crew member Jeff. I immediately immersed myself into the local cuisine by ordering a buffalo burger at a downtown bar. While chatting with the bartender and a friendly barfly named Fritz, I learned much about the lay of the land and some spots I should visit while in town. I also smiled when I saw the ad for this year's events in nearby Sturgis -- Note the June 29-30 event. That's our race!

My Tatanka Burger. Always have to sample the local cuisine. So very very tasty!

After picking up Jeff, we headed about 45 mins west into the southern Black Hills to take in the two Must See attractions out there:

Mt. Rushmore, and...

The Crazy Horse Memorial.

Both carvings were obviously super impressive (especially on the gorgeous weather day we had), but it was during the trip to Crazy Horse that I had the special bonus of learning a little more about the history of the Black Hills and the Lakota tribe who inhabited them long before the pioneers and settlers made their way to the region in search of gold and silver.  The video you see prior to viewing the Crazy Horse site includes interview excerpts from former Olympic 10,000m champ, and Lakota tribesman, Billy Mills. I saw this as a positive sign since I have both met Mr. Mills in person, and the classic video of his stunning 10,000m victory in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was the subject of my 4th post ever on this blog back in 2007!

From Crazy Horse we headed north through the Black Hills up to our hotel in Sturgis. If anyone is considering this great race in the future, I highly recommend staying at the Best Western in town. It's the nicest hotel in Sturgis, an easy 2 mile ride to the race start/finish, and has a fantastic restaurant ("Caddy's") attached to it.

Once in Sturgis you notice one major theme: Harleys. Obviously the annual week-long Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is a huge part of this tiny 6,000 person town (400,000+ bikers attend each year!), and all the t-shirt shops and bars that line the main drag in town promote their goods accordingly to the riders passing through. Jeff and I saddled up at the Knuckle Saloon to sample a couple local brews shortly after arriving in town. My favorite was this tasty treat from the Crow Peak Brewery one exit up the road in Spearfish:

"Pile-o-Dirt" Porter = Yum!

Friday morning saw us head back down to Rapid City to pick up the 3rd member of our team, my father in-law Paul. Some of you may recall him as one of the survivors from my crew during the sub-freezing 24hr race in McKinney, Texas back in 2008. Apparently the human brain can only remember horrible hypothermic memories for about 5 years, so I was more than lucky and excited that he forgot about that miserable experience and decided to join in the fun at the last minute!

With Team Rose all present and accounted for, we headed back into the Hills to visit the historic mining/casino town Deadwood. If you haven't seen the eponymous HBO mini-series, you're really missing out on something special. I loved the show, and it was a HUGE treat for me to tour all of the historic sites in town that have existed since the boom of the 1800's gold rush. Here's Jeff and Paul in front of Sheriff Seth Bullock's Hotel (played by Timothy Olyphant in the show):

Sheriff Bullock would definitely respect the Sheriff and Deputy of Team Rose!

Another highlight from Deadwood: Just above the city on a steep cliff sit the gravesites of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane (played brilliantly in the show by Robin Weigert)

After our visit to Deadwood we headed back to Sturgis for packet pick-up and a bite to eat before crashing for the night. All in all, we crammed in about as much sight-seeing as possible in two days...a nice warm up for the 100 miles of running/crewing that awaited us in the morning!

The Race

Race day came as sunny and pleasant as any runner could hope for. I met up with my fellow VHTRC teammates (about 12 of us made the trip from the east coast) at the start for our group picture:

The "Blue Train" is ready to roll  (Photo: Kimba)

In all, about 200 runners were ready for some fun on the Centennial Trail in the Black Hills, and at the stroke of 6:00 a.m., we were off!

3....2....1....Go!

My plan for the race was to go out easy. I wasn't in bad shape heading into the race, but I definitely wasn't in great shape either. Dealing with a crazy work schedule this spring, and never wanting to compromise my Family Fun Time on the weekends, I ended up not running any single run beyond 20 miles in the 8 months prior to this race. Prior to Sammy's arrival, I'd do that multiple times a week, but it's just not what life allows right now, and frankly I have no problem with that! Instead of long runs, I found somewhat regular spots in my weekly schedule to run two workouts a day on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Those runs pretty much maxed out at 10 miles each, but I hit them all pretty hard and worked in as many hills as I could. On the other nights of the week I just settled for a hilly 10k when I could squeeze it in. Overall, I only averaged 65 miles/wk (usually I like to be up around 90-100), but they truly were all quality miles.

I should also mention that, even though he can't run a 6 minute mile yet, baby Sammy is one heck of a great training partner for me. Pushing him in the stroller is a fantastic resistance workout, and even though our regular "Sammy Loop" is only 6.2 miles long, it is an absolutely lung-busting affair with some serious hills (and lots of headwind) mixed in. Yes, we usually stop about 4 miles in so he can play at a sweet playground by the river for 20 minutes, but the mile long climb back up out of the riverbed more than makes up for the break I get while playing on the slides with him!

I guess what the paragraphs above should convince most ultra runners is that running 100 miles successfully is truly equal parts mental and physical. You really don't need long runs, just regular, quality workouts, and the confidence that you can get yourself to the finish no matter what. If you truthfully assess the physical shape you're bringing to the starting line, and you adjust your race pace plan accordingly right from the gun, you will succeed if you really want to. It's not magic, it's just managing pain for 15-20 hours or so.

So, given the light training I mentioned above, I knew I needed to keep my pace nice and relaxed during the day in this race. Once the Sun Beast started to retreat in the 2nd half, my plan was to empty whatever was left in the tanks on the way back to the finish. My mantra for the race was "Survive the day to enjoy the night". I repeated this to myself about 2,000 times in the first half of the race whenever I noticed I was pushing too hard. As the course profile shows below, it was nothing but ups and downs all day long on the semi-technical mountain trails:

It was a common pattern the whole way: Up, Down, Aid Station...Lather, Rinse, Repeat...for 100 miles.

 My trick for staying relaxed on both the steep grunting climbs and the speedy descents into the aid stations was to breathe exclusively through my nose (both in and out) the entire race. The only time I opened my mouth was when I chatted with fellow runners in spots or when I talked to my crew at the Aid Stations. I've controlled my pace this way for short stretches in races in the past, but never for anything close to 100 miles. For whatever reason, it just happened naturally in this race. If I felt the need to open my mouth to get more air on a climb, I just backed off the pace so I could keep breathing through my nose. 

See? No mouth breathing!

After the initial 5+ mile stretch over a steep but short foothill on the way to the first Aid Station, we passed under a highway and into the Black Hills proper. Recalling the stories I'd been told of the native people who originally lived in these mountains, I took a moment to ask the Lakota spirits to grant me safe passage through their land over the course of the day. In exchange I promised to leave the Hills in better condition than I entered them. I found holding up my end of the bargain all day to be easy as I stopped to pick up any runner trash I saw while running the course. By the end I picked up 6 or 7 gel wrappers. That's not cool, runners! My silly "Deal with the Lakota" story aside here, 100 milers in the woods aren't road marathons with street sweepers. Don't throw your crap on the ground!

Somewhere on the first big climb heading to the Bulldog Aid Station (Mile 10), I hooked up with Anthony Parillo as we settled somewhere around 6th or 7th place in the field. Anthony was a fun guy to run with who also happened to be fresh off a sweet 100 mile victory four weeks earlier in the heat at Old Dominion! We ended up running a funny yo-yo effort together just about all the way to the 50 mile turn around. The pattern would be him pulling away from me pretty effortlessly on all the climbs, and me catching up on the downs. In the middle we'd chat about this or that before one of us would naturally start pulling away

Doing my best to keep up with Anthony early on.

on our preferred terrain and say "I'll see you on the next up/down". Understandably feeling the hard miles of OD100 on his legs, Anthony decided to back off the pace and enjoy the day a bit further back in the field after the 50 mile turn around. It was great to share those miles with such a talented runner though, and I look forward to chasing him up all the climbs in future 100s!

On the way to 50 mile turn at Silver City, we passed through hot (but not too hot) and rugged (but not too rugged) terrain. I enjoyed the beautiful vistas from the ridges, and the delightful shade in the more thickly grown areas of ponderosa pines. With basically no humidity out there, all I needed was a little shade to feel 100 times better after a longer stretch in the sun. When the sun was beating me up a bit, Jeff and Paul were always more than ready for me with ice and a cold towel at all the aid stations. My crew was awesome.

Jeff brilliantly handed me an ice water bottle a couple dozen yards ahead of where he and Paul set up my bag in the shade at each stop. This way I could chug/spray the cold water as needed before grabbing my new pack and heading out without delay. Such a perfect flow we had at each aid station. ...and yes, if you can zoom in, you'll see my mouth is still closed here!

You can find these guys in a file labeled: "Crew, Awesome".

During the long final descent into Silver City, I was able to see everyone ahead of me on their way back to Sturgis. Returning champ, and course record holder, Jeremy Bradford was firmly in the lead, and I was running in 8th place. The most notable runner in between was Kaci Lickteig, a Olympic Marathon Trial qualifier who was making her first attempt at 100 miles. Lightning fast and beyond light-weight in appearance, I was quite interested in seeing how she would fare over the final 50 miles as she ventured beyond her previous distance PR of 100k.  As for the other guys in front of me, as soon as I started making my way back on the course, they quickly became targets for me to try and reel in over the last 50 miles. When the sun started to drop and the shadows grew long, daytime was quickly turning into Go Time. As I promised myself from the start, I survived the day, and now it was time to enjoy the night!

In 100+ mile races, one big thing I've learned is you need to be 100% honest with yourself and your abilities as a runner. It's super cool to win these things, but that's also obviously really really really hard. For me, when running in the mountains I know my limitations. Shoot, I live at an elevation of 100ft. and train 99% of my miles on roads. I don't have easy access to train in the mountains on long climbs, so I don't pretend on race day that I can hang with the dudes (and dudettes!) who are great climbers. One natural ability I do have regardless of my regular training routes, however, is a freakishly strong ability to run fast down technical mountain terrain. Maybe that can be attributed to my build, foolish confidence, luck, or some combination of the three. Whatever the reason, in the second half of this race, I felt confident I could rest on the climbs and use my fresh legs aggressively on the descents to reel in the field ahead of me.

Guess who's ready to fire up the legs on the downhills? Bombs away! ...also, mouth still closed!

...and so it began. After a big grunt out of Silver City, I passed the #7 runner at the end of the long downhill leading into the mile 58 aid station. We entered the AS at basically the same time, but my crew saw the look in my eye and quickly handed me my fresh pack as I bolted back onto the trail in about 30 seconds alone in 7th. The next section's shorter climb and much longer descent worked brilliantly into my favor as I bombed the long downhill into the Nemo aid station at mile 64 absolutely on fire. My crew let me know the gaps to close with the next 4 runners ahead of me (all within 20 minutes), and I was quickly off to catch them.

I saw the #6 runner toward the end of the big climb out of the aid station and stayed back a bit saving my legs and biding my time for the pass on the downhill. Everything played out as planned in the next two miles as I passed him with legs spinning like the Road Runner on the descent. My crew was psyched to see me striding out of the woods ahead of another runner at Dalton Lake (mile 70.8), and I started to really feed off their excitement as well. I grabbed my headlamp and readied for the next 12ish mile section before seeing my crew again. They told me I was 13 minutes behind the next runner, and off I went to reel him in.

It was a long climb out of Dalton Lake, and about 1/2 up I started to see the headlamp of #5 (the speedy Scott Kretzmann from Denver). I hadn't turned my light on yet, preferring to run stealthily while catching up to him from behind. I pulled up behind Scott just before the top, and chose to run behind him for a few minutes to chat and rest my legs a bit for the downhill pass. I enjoyed chatting with him and easily could have enjoyed his company for much longer, but my engine was purring and my sights were set on the guys ahead of him. I asked to slip by on the downhill and quickly shot down the mountain, blowing through the Crooked Tree aid station at mile 77.5 on my way to my crew at the mile 83 Elk Creek aid stop.

When I pulled into Elk Creek, I was again boosted by my crew's excitement from how fast I was moving up the field. I was entering another 12ish mile section without my crew, and I knew my goal was to catch and pass the two runners who were 10-12 minutes ahead of me in this next stretch. Again, no time was spent at the aid station, and just as in the previous sections, I saw the headlamps I was chasing shortly after I started the long uphill out of the aid station. Recalling this section's terrain extremely well from earlier in the day when I ran it with Anthony (we both commented on how great it would be to run the long downhill into the final aid station at mile 95), I was steady and patient on the climb up, very slowly pulling closer to the two headlamps ahead of me. Giving a little extra effort to finally pull up behind them at the top, I took a few moments to chat and realized one of the guys was a pacer for the other. This meant I had caught #4, but had no clue how far ahead #3 was. Time to get to work! #4 let me slip by and I quickly took off running like my pack was on fire down the dark and rocky trail. After about a mile of downhill screaming, I saw #3 slowly walking down the trail, clearly dealing with some blown quads. I gave him an encouraging pat on the back and let him know the Bulldog aid station was just a mile further up.

Happy to not only be running in 3rd place, but also with tons of fire left in my legs, I just needed to know one thing: How far ahead were Jeremy and Kaci? Thankfully, the good folks at the Bulldog aid station (mile 90) had the answer for me while I ran through without pause. I was half-disappointed to hear the insurmountable 40 minutes for Kaci and 50 for Jeremy, but the other half of me was happy I wouldn't need to sprint this thing all the way to the end. I always enjoy being able to cruise in the last few miles of a satisfying race when I can appreciate the stars and peaceful silence of nature in the wee hours. ...but before that, I wanted to make sure I had a big enough gap behind me from the guys I just passed!

After the short climb out of Bulldog, I hit the gas on the last long downhill into town. To say I smoked this section would be an understatement. When I pulled up to my crew at the last stop, I had gone from 10-12 minutes behind the 4th and 3rd place runners to 20 minutes ahead of the closest one behind me. Not bad for 12+ miles work!

No time wasted at the final stop had me grunting up the short but stupid-steep climb out of Alkali Creek with happy thoughts that I wasn't going to be caught from behind. In other words, I went into Cadillac mode and took plenty of time to cruise comfortably over the top of the open foothill while gazing at the sparkling stars and brilliant pink-orange half moon. I truly enjoyed the calm and cool miles of this section as a reward for working so hard in the second half. All was well in my happy nighttime running world.

 As I passed through the tunnel under the road and onto the bike path back to the finish line, I recalled the RD saying it was almost exactly 1 mile from there to the finish. I thought this was good news for sure...

...but then I looked at my watch.

It read 19:52:30. Crap! Now I had to beat myself up over the last mile for the pointless, yet un-ignorable goal of breaking 20 hours. We're stupid like this, we runners. So off I went, in trail shoes on a concrete path and with 99 mountain miles on my legs...off to run a 7:15 mile for absolutely no sound reason whatsoever.

Half way there, I was surprised to see a lady coming back in my direction. She was a 100k runner who turned around because she said she saw a mountain lion on the path ahead of us. Hoping she didn't confuse my lack of slowing down for heartless non-concern, I just said, "Follow me, I'll scare the s#!t out of it so we can get by!". I'm no mountain lion expert, but I figured if I just told the cat I was sprinting out a 7:15 mile for no good reason, it would think I was rabid and/or simply insane and just leave me alone. I think that's just solid Darwinism on the mountain lion's behalf.

About 100 yards down the path I saw the eyes of a deer off to the side of the trail and yelled back "It's just Bambi, he won't hurt you!", and was off on my final sprint toward the finish line. As I entered the lights of the stadium, I saw the official clock ahead read 19:59:30, and I knew I had done the work to break 20 hours with only 100 yards left to go. I cruised in with 15 or so seconds to spare and gave Jeff and Paul triumphant hugs after their brilliant support in helping me execute my race plan perfectly.

Coming in for a 19:59 landing...

Sure, it's blurry and I'm looking off to the side, but you can still see my big smile, right?!

The mouth was certainly open here...to smile with pride! Talk about a banner day for Team Rose, a.k.a. The Deadwood Three!

In the end I was proud to break the existing course record (which was my #1 goal heading into the race)...it just so happened that Jeremy (19:05) and Kaci (19:12) also broke it by a bunch more on their way to winning the Men's and Women's races. Hats off to them for brilliant races!

The next morning we returned for what I had been psyched about (and blogging about) since I signed up for this race last December: I was awarded my 2nd place Tatanka Skull!

Of all the skulls I saw at the pre-race meeting, I liked the 2nd place red-white-and-blue one the best. Perhaps the Lakota did reward me in the end!

Close up of the skull (you can see Kaci with her First Place skull off to the left)

One more runner I want to mention here before wrapping it up is Gary Knipling. Gary is one of the major forces behind the success and fun that pervade all Virginia Happy Trails Running Club events. Everyone knows Gary, and to know Gary is to love Gary. He was instrumental in selecting the Black Hills 100 as our club's road trip race this year, and without that added element of fun, I'm not sure I would have committed to come out myself. He's simply a good dude. Oh, and did I mention he's 69 years old and finished this race well under the tough cut-off time at 31:22? Talk about friggin' awesome! Here's his triumphant moment on the track:

For those of you who know Gary, you are well aware it's not just Coke mixed in that cup! (Photo: Keith Knipling)

After the Awards Ceremony, Paul and I used our final day in the area to drive about an hour east to visit Wall Drug and the mind-boggling geological brilliance that is the Badlands. Much like the Grand Canyon, amateur photos do this area absolutely no justice. You need to come out and see it for yourself if you haven't already.

Paul's dad brought him here as a kid, and he in turn brought his own kids here years later. You can bet I'll be passing on privilege of seeing this magical site to Sammy when he gets a little older as well!

Of course, none of the fun I just wrote about would have been possible without the support and energy of many many people. Time to give some much-deserved THANKS:

Obviously Jeff and Paul deserve the biggest high-five of all time for flying all the way out to South Dakota for the joy of spending 19 hours and 59 minutes waiting for me to emerge from the woods, mumble a couple things for 30 seconds, and take off again...about a dozen times. All crews are selfless, but these guys are amazing to boot.

Huge thanks also go out to the RDs and all the volunteers who put in the hundreds of hours it takes to organize such a smooth and seamless 100 mile race. For such a new run, it sure operates like it's been going on for decades.

Giant THANKS, of course, to my lovely wife for giving me the green light to chase down a dream in the Black Hills while she took on solo baby duties back home. I'll owe you a looooong time for that, baby! YSC!!!

...and, once again, I'll put the ol' record on repeat: If you're not wearing Drymax socks in your 100 milers, you're making it too hard on yourself! The stats, yet again, from race day: ONE pair of Drymax Max Pros worn = ZERO blisters or hot spots. Thanks, Drymax!

...and finally, to help anyone reading this understand why I have absolutely no problems cutting back my running and racing now that I'm a daddy: Here's the scene captured on a blurry phone, well past a certain baby's bedtime when I arrived home from the airport. Sammy was so excited to have me back home, he used all of his little 17 month-old strength to help push my luggage back into the house so I wouldn't leave again!

Daddy loves you, Sammy!!