Mad City 100k 2010

When I registered for Mad City, I had decided to run this year's race as a practice run for next year's race. The goal: to get on the USATF 100k team in 2011. This is a BIG goal. Especially being I had never raced a road ultra before today. My training for the last 2 months has been much different then what I am use to. Faster stuff on pavement vs. slower stuff on trails. But I've LOVED training like this. I love running hard and I've loved feeling like I'm getting faster while improving my endurance with crazy tempo runs and track work. My time goal for this race this year was to run close to eight minute miles...8 minute miles are slower then pretty much all of my training has been. But being this was a 62 mile race, eight minute miles would be good.

Mad City 100k was the USATF 100k Championship race for 2010. Meaning it draws fast runners and offers prize money to the top 5 male and female USATF finishers, along with a chance for the winner to get on the USATF 100k team. This race is a rolling hills 100k made up of 10 10k loops. I actually expected the course to be flatter then it was. I would call the whole thing rolling, with a nice flat run way coming into the starting/loop/finish area.

At 6:30am the race began. I ran the first 30K with 3 great running women (Kristin Moehl, Angie Radosevich, and Jenny Capel). It was fun getting to meet some awesome runners and talk while running along for those first loops. But after 30K I was ready to pick it up a bit. So I did. Truthfully I am a bit of a loner when I run, and I was ready to just zone out and run. No more talking. Lap 4 was my fastest loop of the day, with lap 5 taking 2end for a "clocked" 3:58:10 50k. I say clocked because the aid station was just before the time mats. Meaning I stopped for maybe 1 minute to eat, drink and take an S!Cap before running over the time mats.

By the end of lap 6 my legs were starting to cramp. I did a mental check list of the possible whys and decided these cramps were racing cramps. Nothing to be done but push on. Also on this lap, I caught the 2end place lady, Annette Bednosky. We hit the aid stations with in seconds of each other for a couple laps before my legs decided I was going to slow down.

The clock said 7:25 when I left for my last lap, in 3erd place. My legs still felt bad, but I pushed them anyway. I kept telling myself "8:20 or less. 8:20 or less", as I did my best to run up those long (though not steep) hills. At 8:02 I hit the 3.8 mile (of 6.2miles) aid station, downed some water and Mt. Dew, and pushed in to finish in 8:18:24. 3erd female, 10th person. Talk about thrilling! The website says I averaged 8:01.3 minutes for every mile. Woo-hoo! Not only that, but I now have a chance of getting selected this year to run in the USATF 100k World Championship, because I ran under 8:40. Exciting Craziness!

I still want to train for this race over the next year. I feel like I have a great shot at running quite a bit faster, if I put in the miles right. A GIANT THANK YOU to Joe, for helping train for this. I would have never done those workouts w/o someone having put them on my training plan. And I can tell they helped me out a lot. :)

Oh, I am sure some of my running peeps are just dying to know what I was eating and drinking today. Well, I tried something new. In a race. I drunk like 10 cups of Mt. Dew today, a lot of water, about 2 cups of Heed, took 10 S!Caps and 10 gels. Nothing more, nothing less.