Brazos Bend 100 - USATF Championship
Why Brazos Bend 100?
After Bigfoot 200 I wanted to do a faster race where I’d be able to, ya know, actually run! Rob Goyen’s BB100 is one of the fastest around, and this year it doubled as the 100-mile Trail National Championship.
Fake Smile
PC: Dale Cougot
After Bigfoot 200 I wanted to do a faster race where I’d be able to, ya know, actually run! Rob Goyen’s BB100 is one of the fastest around, and this year it doubled as the 100-mile Trail National Championship.
As a bonus to USATF, I thought I’d have a pretty good shot of hitting at least the ‘B’ Standard qualifying time (16:10) for Desert Solstice Invitational next year, a 24-hour race around a track (I know...weird). While I do love mountains and mountain races, I’m a relatively weak climber so I’m hoping these flat races may be more up my alley. The ‘A’ Standard for Desert Solstice is 14:00, and I thought maybe I’d have an outside shot at it, although in hindsight seems maybe a tad aggressive.
BB100 is 6 equal loops of 16.7 miles, and my plan was to start off at 8:00/mile, see how that felt, then let the pace bleed slower as it got hotter and more miserable. After the gun I found myself in 10th, and I was tripping over my feet just to try and keep it slower than 7:45-ish. Around mile 11 I had a scary hamstring thing that radiated down to my shin and up to my glute. I was almost sure I’d have to DNF right there (I could barely walk for a few seconds), but it slowly started working itself out. I stopped after lap 1 to lay on various objects, trying to drive them into my glute to release whatever was going on. It felt like my left leg was bonked/dead for the next 20 miles.
That made lap 2 suck. I was at 2:11 after 1 lap (7:51/mile average), 4:30 after 2 laps (one-third complete, 8:06/mile), but my pace was already bleeding out pretty quickly. By the time I made it to the end of the halfway point (50 miles in 6:56; avg 8:19/mile), I could barely churn out 9-minute miles? On the positive side, believe it or not, 6:56 is still a 50-mile PR, as I’d never run a flat or winter 50m. Not bad, given the leg problem, and that I was running 100M effort!
Unfortunately, the afternoon brought 70-75 degrees and no cloud cover, and I was melting.
Fake Smile
Of course the bright spot was support from Julie, Teddy, and my awesome family!
The second half of the BB100 was quite the grind. I’d slowly worked my way up to 5th but had been sitting in there forever, which never changed - the next guy up was several miles ahead. I sadly watched sub-14, then sub-15, slip away.
PC: Dale Cougot
A few miles before the end of lap 5 (mile 79-ish), I got LAPPED by Patrick Reagan, who was at mile 96 and 4 miles away from a 100-mile trail World(?) record. As he passed by I let out something like “Oh no, I’m getting lapped!” As he flew by, he responded with some standard encouraging words and I congratulated him on his run, which really was freakin’ amazing.
My Garmin died early in Lap 6, but I was plodding so slowly that I was starting to wonder if sub-16 would even happen. At the very last aid station, with 1.7 miles to the finish line, I asked what time it was. 9:40. So race clock was 15:40 - I only had 20 minutes! Figuring my running pace had probably been closer to a walking pace recently, I took off! My “sprinting” got me there at 15:55 and I had my ‘B’ Standard at least..
Do I have to give this one back if the internet says so?
Do I have to give this one back if the internet says so?
Analysis
In that brutal (9-hour) second half of the race, I had plenty of time to think about why things got so laborious so quickly. I think it’s partially underperforming / execution and partially training related, but my internal expectations might’ve also been set too high - it was like every time I thought about the race, I got a little faster in my own mind!
On the execution side, I probably should’ve backed off the pace earlier - not just because of the imminent heat/sun, but when the leg issues started popping up. The other thing I have to look at, of course, is training. My volume was meh, probably ok, but since Bigfoot I don’t think I’ve even remotely challenged myself in the way that an ultra does. I think I need to race more - more 50k’s and 50-milers that I can recover from relatively quickly. I just don’t push myself in long-enough training runs to simulate those heavy legs you feel in a race.
One positive, was that I did really well eating and staying on top of nutrition, something that’s usually hard for me. I ate something like 40 gels and had gallons and gallons of Gatorade. Of course, I barfed it all up after the race, but hey, the race clock isn’t running on the way home!
All in all, a great humbling race experience, and something I think I can build on as I (hopefully) work towards some higher-profile, longer races.
You are truly amazing Joe, & have a blessed & beautiful family. I am reminded of a 2011 race where we were training buds when I ran a half so fast, as I was getting close I realized my running time was not showing seconds as I was using 4 displays. Of course, rather than simply push one button & see seconds, I was so delirious & beyond wanting to puke I freaked out & took off like a bat out of hell & dove accross finish line beating my required qualifying by 0.25 seconds ... another bonehead move that almost cost me because timing chip was on my shoe & I dove head first! �� I imagine true competitors has an internal clock & will that simply insure they achieve their goal! I may have to come run some Texas desert miles with you ... you know, while you warm up for your run!
ReplyDeleteWishing you the happiest of holidays SlowJoe!!