Greater St. Louis Marathon

Run April 26, 2025

In his book, The Science of Hitting (a great book, btw), Ted Williams describes hitting a baseball as “the hardest thing in sports”. I got cut from my High School baseball team, so I’m not really qualified to assess that claim, but running a competitive marathon seems like it ought to be up there.

While it may sound self-serving for me to say that running marathons is harder than running ultras, the truth is that it would better suit my vain interests to claim the opposite. After all, I’ve never finished better than fourth overall in a marathon while I’ve won four 100-milers. Obviously, if the goal is simply to cover the distance, the longer the race, the harder. But, when you bring performance into the equation, things change. The way to optimize performance in an ultra is to constantly adjust to what your body is giving you. Optimal performance in a marathon is the opposite: ignore the body and accept the pain. My thesis is informed by a simple fact of introspection: when I just don’t feel like I’m up to a marathon – I register for an ultra.

I’ve been doing a lot of that over the last five years. Age is a reality that is increasingly difficult to deny. After finishing sixth in my age group at Chicago in 2018, I turned in a couple top-10 overall performances in regional marathons and set my sites on cracking the top 5 AG to bring home some hardware from a world major at Chicago, 2020. Well, we all know what happened that year.

By the time COVID was gone, I was dealing with heart trouble. By the time that was gone, well, I was old. Sure, I got a new age group in 2023 and a week later took a third in 60+ at Leadville, but marathon fitness was gone. I tried to get it back in 2024 with little success. I was still placing (and, in a few cases, even winning) ultras, but I simply couldn’t get back to running marathons well.

So, here I was at age 61 asking myself if I really wanted to do marathons anymore.

Yes.

And this is what I learned.

Show up ready

Well, duh, you have to train for these things. But, as I looked back over the training logs of the last five years, I noticed that there was not one instance of properly executing a full 18-week cycle AFTER laying down an adequate base. I came close on a few occasions, but there were always missed workouts that seemed like they were probably important.

Looking closer, the apparent reason was that I didn’t have a sufficient base coming in. I never used to worry about that for two reasons: 1) running 4-5,000 miles a year, I almost always did have a sufficient base and 2) I was very good at managing setbacks. As I hit my late 50’s, little setbacks that used to take me out for a few days started becoming significant obstacles to training. As such, my total mileage dropped precipitously; last year I only managed 2,400 miles (with another 5,000 on the bike).

For many athletes, that would be fine, but that’s just not the way my body works. If I don’t have a lot of base, I break pretty easily once the intensity gets turned up. That, of course, further limits your base and creates an even greater chance of a setback. The result was that I was not adequately trained to even begin a serious marathon cycle and starting one anyway just made things worse.

After a dismal spring and summer in 2024, I took some time off in the fall to try to get myself healthy (again, this dealing with injuries thing is pretty new to me). By December, I had a dozen weeks of decent base and no injury issues, so it seemed that putting together a real cycle for the Greater St. Louis Marathon was just a matter of getting past not wanting to end workouts in tears twice a week for the next three months.

36 Quality workouts

Make that four months. Because I had already committed to Run for the Ranch 6-hour and Shippey 100, I was going to have to insert some recovery weeks if I was going to hit all 36 workouts. And, simply put, that’s exactly what I did (with an overall win at the Ranch for good measure).

Bring some support

Every single time I’ve been under 3 hours in a marathon, someone I loved was there with me. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Running a good marathon is a deep emotional experience. It’s helpful to know there’s someone there to catch you at the end. After 31 years of marriage, Kate is understandably past the point of being impressed by my efforts but she still likes a good night out. So I bribe her by taking her to dinner at Lombardo’s and then we spend the night upstairs in the Drury across from the start line. She has a friend who runs the hospitality tent for Lockton (a major sponsor of the race) so she’ll have some good food and company while waiting for me to show up.

I get up at 4 so I can eat breakfast and get in my pre-run with a solid 2-hour break before the 7AM start. The pre-run is something I’ve been doing for quite some time, but I’ve found it’s getting more important with age. It just takes longer for my body to wake up in the morning. It’s just an easy jog of 3 miles or so; particularly pleasant on this cool morning. I wander past the Arch and Ballpark Village, both of which take on a completely different air in the darkness with nobody around. I relax for a bit, change into my racing kit, and then walk over to the start area, remembering to bring a chair for Kate.

I start my warmup at 6:15 because the RGA Runners Club is taking a photo at 6:40. (For those who may be wondering, I am NOT the fastest runner from RGA; Tony Galanti, one of our younger actuaries, is on hand and ready to lay down a sub-32-minute 10K that will get him second overall at that distance). After the picture, I have enough time to jog another mile and run my usual six striders before getting into the corral. St. Louis being a mid-sized affair, I still get the pleasure of an A-corral seeding.

Start mindfully

OK, are we ever going to start this thing? Yes, yes, but there’s a reason I’ve spent so much time on the prelude. There are two attitudes you can bring to a marathon as you age: limit the damage or embrace where you are. The last 10 years, I’ve been focused on limiting the damage. My PR was at age 48 (which reflects that I really didn’t take marathons very seriously until I was 40). For the first half of my 50’s, I was basically refusing to accept that age was a thing, running the same workouts at the same paces and at age 55 I was only three minutes slower and still breaking 3 hours.

So, it worked until it didn’t. But, once it didn’t, it really didn’t. I would plan to run a workout designed for 3-hour pace, say 8x800@2:56. After a couple it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, so I’d switch to 400’s at 88 instead. I could do that, but it was no longer intervals, it was speedwork. Similarly, my “marathon” pace runs were more like tempo runs. Tempo runs were more like cruise intervals. One could squint at the actual workouts on paper and say they were comparable to the plan. But, reality was that, rather than getting a well-tuned mix of quality workouts, I was running almost everything at less distance and the wrong speed. I was showing up at the start line thinking I was much better prepared than I really was. And it showed.

This cycle, I ran the “right” workouts at the “right” pace, even if that meant running them 40 seconds a mile slower than I did just five years ago. I re-tuned my “benchmark” workouts, which always did an excellent job of indicating when I was ready for a sub-3, to indicate readiness for a 3:20. And when I went through the first mile at 7:30, it not only felt right, it was right. It was what I had trained for. It was what I could do. And, most importantly, I knew that.

Part of knowing was another habit I’ve had for quite some time but is more important when you are struggling with assessing your capabilities: I raced a 5K the weekend before. Raced it. Hard. Not only does this give you an indisputable measure of fitness (only a 3K is better for assessing VO2max and good luck finding one of those), it’s a pretty good reminder of just how quickly a pace can get hard. I ran 6:40, 6:44, 6:35 splits and, while those used to be typical opening splits in a marathon, now that last mile was total redline. That gave ample incentive not to overcook the first mile today. But, it also made the correct marathon pace seem exceedingly comfortable by comparison. Doing it 25 more times seemed like an OK idea.

Quit eatin’ so damn much!

Sorry for the rather dated Chris Rock reference but as I approach the 3-mile mark the short but steep climb off the river reminds me that I probably could have done a better job of following his diet. I did manage to weigh in at 169 this week, but it was the first reading under 170 in quite some time. The fact that I lose ten seconds to those around me confirms that my ideal weight is still around 165.

I don’t panic and firming up the pace just a bit has me back in the 1:40 pace group in another mile. (There’s no 3:20 group for the full, so I’m hanging with the half-marathon pacer). It’s a whole post on its own, so I won’t elaborate here but, I train for three surges in a marathon. So, there’s no real damage done other than the obvious: I now only have two surges left and there are quite a few hills to come.

Use the field

Why stress over 10 seconds? Well, as I’ve said in other posts, as soon as you stop caring about seconds, you start giving away minutes. Additionally, in a marathon, who you run with matters quite a bit. I have several top-10 marathon finishes where I was pretty much running alone after the first few miles, but I don’t expect any more. Further deep in the field, there is almost always someone to run with. And, if you pay attention, you can usually find someone better than you. Especially in the early going, it’s foolish to turn that down.

By “better”, I don’t simply mean “likely to finish ahead of you”, though, that’s part of it. I’m suggesting that, if one was to take a slice of the field at mile 10; say, 15 people who come through between 75 minutes and 75:30, around 10 of them are probably overcooking it and have no chance of finishing under 3:20. Another 2 or 3 (including me, in this case) are on pace, but vulnerable to messing up because this is at the limit of what they can do. The remaining few are cruising. Maybe they are running this one for training. Maybe they are running with a friend who needs their help. Maybe they are the 1:40 half pacer whose marathon PR is 2:55. Point is, they are better than this and since they are not right on the razor's edge, they are running very accurately.

It's true that GPS watches have assumed much of this role. If you don’t mind looking at your wrist every minute, it is entirely possible to stay on pace (until, of course, you simply can’t). However, the watch doesn’t know that you’re going up a 0.5% grade. It doesn’t know that there’s a slight headwind. It doesn’t know that you just lost 3 seconds grabbing a gel at the last feed zone. Being a slave to the watch is certainly better than running randomly but having some good runners to check that against has real merit.

There are real performance benefits, too. You can drop in behind them when running into the wind (if it’s a particularly strong wind, you really should offer to share the load, though runners who don’t also bike might not pick up that you are “wheelsucking”.) The psychological benefits are real, too. Seeing someone do something confidently helps get past the doubt that this might all go badly.

As our group gets to 10 miles (and a small detour to miss a sinkhole that has eaten an entire street and made national news) I’ve picked out five. Two of them (the pacer and another woman) are in the half, so they won’t be much use. We’re a couple minutes ahead of 1:40 pace, so the pacer is going to have to back off a bit. The woman, on the other hand, is digging in for the last 3 miles and drops her pace to 7:15, which is way faster than I need to be going right now. Three other women are in the full and, from the fact that they are chatting the whole time, I’m willing to assume they running within themselves. The fact that four of the five “betters” are female doesn’t surprise me at all. Without engaging in culture wars, I’ll just state that the empirical evidence from the hundreds of races I’ve run over the last 50 years points to women being a lot better at pacing than men. As the 1:40 group starts to splinter, I fall in with them.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last for long. Mile 12 is ever so slightly downhill, so I don’t mind seeing it pass in 7:22. But, as the road flattens into downtown, they hang on to that pace. Maybe their plan was to get to work once the half split off. I’d really like to stay with them because we’re about to cross the Mississippi and the bridge might be windy. I burn another surge to stay with them but decide I probably can’t afford the interest on the charges I’m making and let them go. I hit the half in 1:37:36, which is about a minute faster than I’d like, but I also know that the second half of the course is considerably tougher, so this is probably in line with being just under 3:20.

The wind is light and directly out of the north, so the east-west out and back to Illinois on the Eads bridge is not a problem on my own. And, as the route snakes through the Gateway Arch grounds, I suddenly have a companion that brings more motivation than I want.

Last year, I was the 3:40 marathon pacer for this race. As such, it was with some surprise that I found that I had actually won my age group. A marathon of this size usually has some fast old guys. Well, this year it does as 64-year-old Donald Demetriades from Montana pulls up alongside me. So much for any ideas of jogging this one in. The next 10 miles are going to be a fight.

While well marked, the course is easily the most complicated route I’ve ever run and at the end of mile 17, we hit the same hill we ran at mile 3. Donald, who probably weighs 40 pounds less than me, opens a fair gap. I’ve never pulled off a successful surge after mile 20 so now is obviously the time to burn the last one. Once again, it takes a full mile to close the gap, and this time hurts a lot more.

Just past 18, we pass a friend of his and Donald calls out, “check the shoes!” It’s a detail I had also noticed…

All in

A brief diversion, which I assure you has a point. 30-year-old me had nearly every conceivable advantage over 61-year-old me. Higher VO2max, better lactate clearing, faster recovery time, and, most importantly, was a lot more likely to get pissed off when someone passed him (I still don’t like it; but 30-year-old me was a real jackass). Endurance might be a tie, but there’s only one area where I have a clear advantage over my former self: I have a lot more money.

No amount of money makes you competitive. But, if you are competitive, there are ways to spend it that make a difference. In running, the most obvious target is shoes. So, as running well here was one of my big goals for the year, I went ahead and shelled out the bucks for a pair of Nike Vaporflys. I didn’t like the color schemes for this version, so I got the white ones with RACING FLAMES.

I wore the original model at Chicago in 2018 and did some testing to see how much they really helped over traditional racing flats. I concluded it was probably around 2 seconds a mile. Six years of R&D later, this version is better; maybe 3 seconds a mile. That doesn’t sound like much, and it’s not. That is, until you are at your limit running side by side with your competition. Three seconds a mile turns that into a fairly comfortable 1-minute gap by mile 20.

The problem is, Donald is wearing the exact same shoes (including the flames). So, there are no excuses on either end. When he makes his comment, I take the bait. “Us old guys need every advantage we can get,” I reply. He chuckles as much as one can at mile 18 of a marathon.

Stick to the plan

There is another advantage of age: I’ve been here before. Many times. As much as I feel like I could explode at any moment, I’ve felt this before and not, in fact, exploded. Coming up with a good finish is my stock in trade. To the point that I have very specific criteria for what constitutes finishing strong.

I have run negative split marathons, including one run in 3:00:16. But, all my sub-3’s as well as other good finishes on courses too tough for me to break 3 were slightly positive. I would typically hold pace through 18 miles, give a few seconds back between 18 and 21, then finish at about 10 seconds per mile off pace resulting in a second half about a minute slower. I believe this is the natural result of shortening my stride as things tighten up while keeping my cadence constant.

So far, 13 of 18 miles have been between 7:25 and 7:35 (the exceptions being the 2 hills and 3 surges) and my watch says my average is 7:32. This is the part of the race where things really get hard, so I decide that I will do everything I can to stay under 7:40 all the way through 21. The fact that mile 23 is entirely uphill is a problem I’ll deal with when I get there.

Donald hangs tough and we run side by side through 19 but he drops back a few steps through 20. There’s a small climb halfway through 21 and, when he doesn’t close back up, I take it as a sign that he might be fading. Holding this pace for another mile doesn’t seem realistic if I’m going to have anything for the long hill, so I back it off to 7:50 for 22. There’s a sharp turn onto the grade of 23 which affords an opportunity to check the gap. I can’t see him, so it seems I’m clear by at least 30 seconds. I don’t know where he started so he might still be ahead on chip time. Of course, there’s really no strategy at this point. With only 30 minutes remaining, you just go with what you got.

Let go of the plan

As expected, mile 23 is the slowest of the race at 7:56. As I try to get back on pace, my right hip flexor is flashing red warning lights. It’s looking good for both the sub-3:20 and the age group win, but a torn muscle would put an end to all of that. I back it off for 24 (flat) and 25 (back down the hill) and it shuts up enough that I get in a respectable 7:38 for the last full mile. I’ve given away three minutes in the second half instead of one, but I’ve also averted disaster. I won’t call it my best finish, but it will do.

Kate is along the fence with 200 meters to go and, seeing that I’m under goal time, shouts faux encouragement, “You’re going to finish! I’m sure of it!” I cross the line at 3:18:37 which is good enough for the 60+ win. Apparently, there was a third person in the fight as Johannes Orthen has traveled all the way from Germany to run an incredibly even-paced 3:23 and nip Ronald for second. Three M60’s under 3:25 is one of the stronger fields I’ve run in lately (not counting Chicago last fall, where a 3:20 gets you a whole box of nothing).

So, my love-hate relationship with marathons continues. They may not be the hardest thing in sports but, given that I’ll never learn to hit a baseball at this age, they’re the hardest thing I can do. And, I’ll continue to do them until I can’t.

Shippey 100

Run January 13-14, 2023

It’s not that I don’t think wind matters, it’s the whole “wind chill” thing I dislike. Yes, of course you feel colder when it’s 10 below and windy than when it’s 10 below and calm. But, how MUCH colder depends on a lot more on what you are wearing than how fast the air is moving. We’ll come back to that, but for now I’ll just say that bare skin is not a great option.

The Friday night packet pickup gives some reason for optimism. Unlike past years, the Shippey organizers have located the thermostat for the Emmerson Center and, while cool, the poorly insulated hall is providing adequate protection from the single-digit temperatures outside. (Sorry, not sorry to any international readers who disdain my use of Fahrenheit readings.) This is a good thing and I get through singing all my running songs for the dinner crowd without losing my voice.

This is the fourth Shippey and the second time I’ve camped there the night before. Unlike year one, which was held in August, the winter camping is indoors; we just pitch our tents on the tile floor of the Emmerson Center. It makes for a relatively stress-free morning though, as always, I’m scrambling a bit at the end and get to the line only a couple minutes ahead of the 6AM start.

Thirty were registered for the 100-miler, but some have already opted to drop down to the 100K. (Normally, the Shippey does not honor drop downs but made an exception this year hoping limit the number of people deciding to skip it altogether.) Though I start near the front, my thick gloves prevent me from starting my watch and by the time I decide I don’t need it anyway, I’m in last place. While I improve that position in short order, astute readers will note the deft foreshadowing.

Aggressive passing on the narrow trail that traverses the ridge isn’t worth the effort, so I walk nearly the entire first mile. Once on the ridge, the trail widens to doubletrack and I stretch out my stride. This is done more for the purpose of generating some heat than making up time. That said, I’m a bit surprised that the leaders are completely out of sight. Sure, I walked a lot, but the visibility on the ridge is very good, especially since we’re all still using headlamps. They must be flying.

Despite my deficit to the lead, I complete the first leg in 45 minutes (14-minute miles), which was about the easy pace I was hoping to start with. The plan is to leave something in the tank for the night when I’ll want to be running as much as possible to fight the cold. At the aid station, I grab a quick drink and, while I have my gloves off, get my watch started so I can make sure I don’t overcook the pace in response to what the leaders are up to.

The rest of the loop goes without incident, averaging around 12:30/mile including very short stops at aid stations. For those not familiar with the course, each 20-mile “loop” is really 5 little loops referred to as legs, varying in distance and difficulty. When running the counter-clockwise course (as we are this year), legs 1-3 are relatively short and have one big climb each (St. Louis doesn’t actually have any hills; we have valleys cut by the four rivers that converge on the city. The Shippey is run alongside the Meramec, so “big” means going most or all the way from river level to the plateau – around 100 meters vertical and often exceedingly steep). Four is the hardest leg with four significant climbs spread over 4.7 miles. At 5.2 miles, leg five is the longest, but also has the most runnable trail, so it takes about the same amount of time as four. They all come back to the same general area finishing at one of two indoor aid stations which are only a few hundred meters apart.

I haven’t made many passes on the trail but, by resisting the temptation to hang out in the warmth of the aid stations, I’ve moved up to even for second place, along with Daniel Virtue and Brian Garret. Conor Sprick is only ten minutes further up the trail so, at least for the moment, we have an actual competition going on. Of course, the three previous editions have also started with things fairly tight at 25 miles only to devolve into wars of attrition.

I run with Daniel and Brian for all of leg 2; it’s nice to have company and it’s way too early to be concerned about gaps. If Conor is going out too fast, he’ll pay for it, but I’m currently on 22-hour pace which is the on the very fast end of where I want to be right now. At the aid station, both Daniel and Brian take longer than I want to hang around, so I head back out on my own.

Not much changes over the next 25 miles. I’m on my own but moving fine. We get a light dusting of some of the tiniest snowflakes I’ve ever seen. With the late afternoon sun peaking under the clouds the entire forest shimmers. It’s a reminder of how cold it’s getting (it feels like we’re into negative territory, though I don’t have a thermometer to confirm). It’s also amazingly beautiful.

I get to 50 miles shortly before 5PM (11 hours in), having given up only another five minutes to Conor. Ordinarily, being a mere 15 minutes off the lead at halfway would have me gearing up for a fight. Today, however, that impulse is overridden by a concern regarding safety.

As I mentioned in my remarks at the pre-race meeting last night, stopping on the trail in these temps when you’re already tired can turn into a survival situation very quickly. While it’s easy enough to simply resolve not to stop (and, I’m pretty good at keeping such resolutions), the cold weather has sufficiently messed with my motor control that I’ve already fallen quite a few times, tripping on roots or small rocks. In 30 years of serious off-road running, I’ve only knocked myself out in a fall once, but that would be about all it would take tonight. Without a pacer, running hard in these plummeting temps is pushing beyond the level of risk that I’m willing to take for what, after all, is a pursuit of no great consequence. So, I grab my poles and head out expecting to hike all the technical sections of leg 4 (of which there are plenty).

I continue the strategy through leg 5, though there’s a lot more smooth running to be had there, ending loop three at 8PM. While I’ve managed to stay upright, I’m getting really cold due to the extended walking. I take a fairly long break at the next three aid stations to warm up. It’s another four hours to get to 70 miles and I’ve pretty much decided that this won’t be a competitive outing but the game is about to change again.

Frank Evans texted me last evening asking if I needed a pacer. I didn’t read the text until I was in scramble mode at the start, so I quickly replied that I’d love his help but didn’t wait for a response. I now get it in the flesh as he is at the aid station and ready to go. I keep my poles but resolve to do more running on the flat sections (even on leg 4, there is a fair bit of runnable trail). Frank is leading and I notice that he’s doing a lot of walking when I’m running. It feels like I’m trying, but this is the part of the race where my pace generally goes to pieces. I try to push as best I can and we finish the leg in a bit over 80 minutes, which isn’t great, but any forward progress is good at this stage.

I haven’t even got all the way through the door to the aid station when Race Director Jeff Bell looks at me and says, “We have to pull you, you’re getting frostbite.”

I knew my nose was getting very cold and I had been trying to remember to only breathe out through it, but apparently that wasn’t enough. A lot of emotions hit at once. On the one hand, this is a mercy killing of sorts. Getting pulled isn’t really a DNF because you wanted to continue; it was the race organization that made you stop. On the other hand, the whole reason I did this race at all was because I’m the only person who’s finished the 100 every year. I’m not thrilled that I put myself through this for nothing.

A quick look in the bathroom mirror confirms Jeff’s assessment: my nose is white to the point of being colorless, almost translucent. Another 30 minutes out there and I’d probably be looking at skin grafts at the very least if not reconstructive surgery. I sit down by the fire and sip broth.

Meanwhile, Frank is negotiating my return. Yes, the nose is in bad shape now, but the color is already returning, which generally indicates that no permanent damage has been done. Jeff asks my opinion on the matter but I’m in no shape to engage in a coherent discussion at this stage of the race. It’s -7 degrees at 2AM and the low for the day is forecast for -10 at 7AM. The wind is howling. Going back out now would definitely risk a relapse that might end with serious consequences. I suggest that we head out on leg 5 but, instead of turning to climb the ridge a quarter mile in, we make a hard left and go into the Emmerson Center where my tent and sleeping bag are still set up. I’ll sleep until sunrise and, if the nose feels OK, I’ll head back out and promise to find some piece of fabric to cover it. This sounds reasonable to Jeff and we get clearance to leave.

The run to the Emmerson Center is twice as long as it has to be because we follow the route for leg 5 rather than cutting straight across the field, but we’re still there in less than five minutes. Frank and I agree to be ready to run by 7 and I slide into my sleeping bag.

Normally, I don’t sleep very well right after an ultra, but I’m able to nod off quickly and get some decent rest before waking at 6:30. That’s a good thing because I’m now in last place. And not by a few yards. By a lot. Just about everybody who was struggling took the 100K drop down. The result is that there are only six people left in the race and the closest to me is an hour ahead.

I’ve been last male twice before in this event. Of course, the sting of that was mitigated by the fact that I was also first overall both of those years. I’d like to have more wins than DFL’s in this race. But, that’s not really what’s on my mind as we head up the ridge on leg 5. I’m more concerned with whether I’ll be able to run. I had taken a small gamble in leaving my poles behind last night figuring if I couldn’t run in the morning, there would be no chance of a competitive finish. But, I’m usually pretty stiff the day after running 75 miles.

To my relief, once on top of the ridge I find it fairly easy to run. When we get to the fastest part of the leg (a one-mile gentle downhill on an ATV track), I open it up enough that Frank exclaims that the rest has certainly done me good. We obviously won’t get all the time back, but we’re certainly going to be moving a lot faster than we would have if I’d continued straight through. We finish the leg in 75 minutes or six and a half hours, depending on how you want to look at it. At any rate, I’m racing again.

Leg 1 of the last loop sends us along the westernmost ridge, which is to say straight into the laminar flow of cold air that hasn’t been interrupted since it left Kansas City. Even with the face mask that I borrowed from Frank, it’s brutally cold. Fortunately, my nose is not objecting. The covering is uncomfortable, but it’s doing its job.

We stop only long enough to get some fluids at the end of the leg and head back up the ridge. The climb on leg 2 is somewhat more protected and once on top of the ridge we only have to run with a cross wind for about half a mile before turning east and getting the wind at our backs. As a result, I don’t feel like I need to stop to warm up at all at the aid station. I tell Frank I want to run leg 3 hard and he can sit out until leg 4, where I’ll want his help again.

I’m now moving at close to the pace I was 24 hours ago on loop 1. It’s definitely harder, but I’ve found my rhythm and the knowledge that there are only 12 miles to go gives me the motivation to push up the powerline climb on 3 which is the steepest on the course. I’ve been passing a fair number of people, but with the staggered starts across different distances, I have no idea whether I’m moving up in the 100 field. Truthfully, I don’t care that much at this point; I’m just happy to be getting it done.

Back at the aid station, I decide I’m running well enough to tackle 4 without poles. I take a little time to make sure I’m topped up on fluids and food as I don’t usually bother with aid stations in the last 10 miles. Frank and I trade leads and we get through it in under 70 minutes, more than 3 minutes/mile faster than loop 4. As we’re coming in, I see Duncan Naylor heading out his last leg. Assuming Conor finished several hours ago (an assumption that proves correct), that’s my chance to get out of the basement of the standings.

Frank has read the final chapter of this book before and decides he’ll just meet me at the finish rather than busting his ass to keep up with a runner that doesn’t need him anymore. I’m happy to be on my own since I’m now singularly focused on getting to the line as quickly as possible.

I catch Duncan at the base of the long ATV descent. He doesn’t seem to be moving that well, but he’s also only 18 and sometimes those young guys can unleash a ridiculous surge to the finish. I decide not to take any chances and hammer for all I’m worth for the next mile. I have no choice but to walk the big climb back up the ridge but, as I near the top, I’m relieved to see that he’s still not in view. It appears he’s not interested in a fight. Still, no point in taking chances, I run almost all of the last two miles except for the really slick rocks coming off the ridge.

There’s a fair contingent to greet me at the finish. Aside from Frank, Race Director Jake Grossbauer is there along with a photographer and a few spectators (the temperature is back into positive numbers, so a few more people are venturing outside). Much to my surprise, I’ve managed to pass all the women to finish second overall. I only saw one of them, so I must have passed the other two at aid stations.

At 31:37, this is the slowest 100 I’ve ever done. Even subtracting off the break, it would still be one of my slowest (and, obviously, I wouldn’t have been able to do the last 25 miles so quickly without the rest). The cold was simply debilitating. Even Conor ran the second half six hours slower than his first half (though, the fact that nobody was challenging him might have had something to do with that).

I’ve run four other ultras that started in colder conditions. However, they were all daytime events that warmed up as the race went on. Here we had slightly rising temps until about 1PM on Saturday, but it was all downhill from there. All of Sunday was colder than the start. And none of the previous efforts had the wind we had to deal with here. I’ve only encountered that combination once before, at a cross-country ski race in Rochester, NY where it was -15 with winds gusting from 20-30 miles an hour. And, I got frostbite for real at that one; I had a sliver of exposed skin on the ankle between the sock and tights that still has no feeling 40 years later. So, whether I use wind chill readings or keep the temp and wind speed as separate metrics, there’s far simpler appraisal: it was too damn cold.

Did you miss the song?

Post-Leadville wrap-up

Fall 2023

Spoiler alert: The worst performances make the best race reports. Sorry not sorry if this one is a little dry.

I’ve written before about how success in running (and, really, life in general) is all about finding the right pond. It’s the inverse of The Peter Principle. Rather than constantly striving for bigger and better things which will inevitably lead to consistent failure (even elite athletes get old and can no longer win against the best), find the level at which you perform well and learn to be content there. Note that I didn’t say find the level at which things are easy. Performing well means being outside of your comfort zone and you’ll never do that if you are content with easy. So, even if you know there’s absolutely no chance of winning a race like Leadville, you should do it anyway just to force yourself to grapple with something very hard. But, if you only do things like that, you’re cheating yourself out of one of life’s really great experiences: winning a race outright.

So, while nabbing an Age Group award at Leadville was great, it still involved finishing TEN HOURS behind the overall winner. It was time to look for smaller ponds to finish out the year.

Big River 10 – September 17

I’ve run this race in Jefferson County a couple times before and have an odd Course Record: slowest winning time. Normally, somebody finishes the 10-mile route in about an hour but, for whatever reason, my 65:50 in 2015 was good enough for the win. With almost no speed training in the last year, I expect to be significantly slower and further down the list this year. I’m right on the first count; finishing in 69:20. But, I seem to be really good at picking the slow years for this one; I take the overall win. (It should be noted that I ran the whole way with the top woman, Alejandra Pascual-Garrido. We finished side by side but my chip registered first and the organizers didn’t bother to update the official listing to show a tie.) So, now I have the TWO slowest winning times.

Arrowhead 24-hour – October 7-8

I was signed up to run Chicago this weekend but, knowing that my speed is way off from three years of focusing on 100’s, I decide to skip it in favor of this low-key affair in Southern Illinois. The circuit is a nearly flat 2-mile gravel path that circles Arrowhead Lake. As such, it’s reasonable to think that I could knock out one of the better 60+ performances in the country for 24 hours. If nothing else, I’m nearly guaranteed a PR as the only time I’ve ever gone past 100 miles was the ill-fated Outerbelt run last year, where I didn’t get to 100 until the second day. The weather cooperates, dealing near-perfect conditions at the 6AM start.

Karolina Zavisiute has come along to crew and pace me. On a loop this short, crewing is a big plus because I never have to stop and don’t have to carry anything either – she just hands me what I need each lap as I pass. It only saves a few seconds each lap, but they add up. Plus, it’s just good mental discipline to care about seconds. Stop doing that and pretty soon you’re giving away minutes.

I cover 36 miles in the first six hours and then slow a bit (it’s not hot, but there’s no cloud cover at all, so the afternoon feels plenty warm). I hit 100K right at 12 hours. So far, so good, but I’ve taken it out just a bit too fast. By midnight I’m struggling to keep going at any speed despite Karolina running alongside to help keep me awake. I don’t hit 100 miles until 3:30 AM (21:30 elapsed) which puts the top 60+ distance (120 miles) out of reach. I soldier on for another ninety minutes to set a course record and decide enough is enough, packing it in with an hour remaining. My distance of 105.72 miles is easily enough for the win and ends up being the fifth-best distance nationally for my age in 2023.

Survive the Night – October 27-28

For those not familiar with the “Backyard” format, I’ll simply say that it basically involves running a loop every hour until everybody quits. At the highest level, this can go on for several days. Locally, they usually wrap up in a day or so. To shorten things up, Survive the Night uses a “leaky hourglass” rule where the amount of time you get to complete the loop drops once the sun comes up.

The course follows an extremely circuitous route through a paintball park. There’s been a fair bit of rain the day before so the tight turns are a bit slick. Being Central Illinois, there’s nothing that qualifies as an actual hill, but there are several slight inclines that provide opportunities for 15-20 second walk breaks (spreading the walking out so you finish each lap just before the time cutoff is a big part of hanging in on these things).

We start our first loop at 9PM. A light drizzle ensures that the course will not be drying out during the event. It also takes a toll on the field. Combined with a chilly wind, the conditions could best be described as terrible. By lap three everybody has fallen in the mud at least once. After a mere five hours, only Frank Evans and I present ourselves at the start line for lap six. I’m still moving reasonably well but Frank misses the cut at the end of six.

Nobody expected the race to be over by 3AM and it seems a bit cheap to get a Survive the Night win without actually surviving the night. The relay teams are still going at it, so I finish the remaining three night loops before claiming my prize.

Don Robinson Orienteering – November 11

I don’t recall ever getting three outright wins in a row (and, I’m pretty sure I’d remember that). A few years back, extending it to four at a local orienteering meet would have been a good bet to take. While we get a healthy turnout at local meets, there just aren’t very many local folks that take the sport seriously enough to be able to navigate accurately on a dead run. It’s not like I haven’t had worthy opponents, but when there are only 2 or 3 people in contention the odds are with you. Until now.

Between my advancing years and a new crop of Adventure Racers who have realized this is the most important discipline for their sport, this was the first year in quite a few that I’ve been beat every time out. Indeed, that persists as I finish second to Nathan Graves. On the upside, it’s a decent map, fun course, and beautiful day to be in the woods. I do chuckle at the irony of winning three running events in a row only to have that streak broken by what used to be my strongest discipline.

Hot Chocolate 15K – December 3

This one is a pacing gig but I decide to approach it like a race. Not in the sense of trying to win, but rather going through the rigor of my normal pre-marathon prep. I’m pacing the 7:00/mile group, which is close enough to my marathon pace that it makes for a good dress rehearsal; except that I’ll pull the plug at 1/3 the distance.

I taper the week before, bringing my mileage down from the mid-80’s I’ve been running most of the fall to 50 and throw in some track workouts designed to dial in the pace. Race day, I get up at 4AM to have my customary bowl of oatmeal and go for a short jog scheduled to finish two hours ahead of my warmup. Upon arriving at the Forest Park, I attend a quick meeting with the pace team, run my normal marathon warmup, and get into the corral.

The course is hilly by road racing standards and there’s a brisk wind from the west. Running even splits is quite difficult and, as it turns out, ill-advised. I hold back as we run east and downhill for miles 5 and 6, forgetting that I’ll be going back uphill and into the wind for 7 and 8. It results in a fairly big push to stay on pace and I’d feel bad about that if it resulted in blowing up the pace group. Fortunately, there are only two people left hanging on and, while one of them does falter, he catches back up on the downhill mile to the finish. I finish in 64:49 (6:58/mi) which makes it a complete success from a pacing standpoint. While I’m sure I could have stayed on that pace for another hour, the third hour would have been pretty ugly. So, there’s some work to do for next year (primary goal for 2024 is to get my marathon speed back). Offsetting that is the reminder that the bar does keep getting lowered with age: I win my age group. I’ve never done that as a pacer before.

And that wraps it for 2023 (I consider the Frostbite Series to be early season 2024 even though the first two races are in December). While it has been fun to play in the smaller ponds for a couple months, it’s time to get back out of comfort zone and into that area where success is possible, but failure is more likely. I believe the best goals are verifiable, attainable, and hard. Breaking 3 hours at Chicago as a 61-year-old seems to meet all three.

Leadville 2023

Run August 19-20, 2023

As I crested Hope Pass in the dark, two consolations soothed me. One was that I had seen the entire course and done both sides of Hope; in short, I knew what it was to run Leadville. The other was that the afternoon storm that delayed my outbound trip had passed and now I was actually looking down at stars on the cloudless horizon. I would not finish, but the experience was full.

I genuinely thought I could let Leadville go after that run in 2017, but I was wrong. I went back every summer after that. Not to run the race, but simply to be part of the town and running community I had grown to love. In 2020, I even ran the “fake” race, with a few dozen of us lining up at 6th and Harrison at 4AM to mourn the cancellation of the real race and run a good bit of it on our own. Last year, I decided it was time to stop pretending the race didn’t have me in its grip and run it again.

Unlike 2017, I didn’t have a qualifier and, at the very upper end of the 10-year age group, was pretty sure I wasn’t fit enough to secure one, so I spent a weekend volunteering at Silver Rush last summer. That, and a contribution of hours from the Lindroth sisters of Ten Junk Miles gave me enough to secure a spot from the lottery. I came out for a couple weeks in June to do some high-altitude training plus put in some more hours at the Marathon in case one of my crew wanted to run next year (the chances of getting in through the lottery without volunteer hours are exceedingly low).

Having solved the problem of getting in, the next puzzle was to figure out what really went wrong in 2017. A lot of it was simply inattention. I’ve never had to worry about time cuts in the Midwest and I just didn’t realize I was getting into trouble. That said, I really did go to pieces on the return trip over Hope, so going faster to stay ahead of the cuts might have been paid back with interest and still left me late at Twin Inbound. I note that there were two places where I had to walk that I would have thought I’d run. One was the (paved!) road into Outward Bound and the other was the traverse into Winfield. The common thread: both sections came immediately after brutally steep descents. I try a couple training runs where I run down both Powerline and the south side of Hope and assess how I feel. Then I try just hiking down them. Hiking is only a few minutes slower and, in both cases, I feel much better at the bottom. While it seems intuitively nutty, I decide I really should walk these descents; they just tear up my legs too badly at speed.

There’s no guarantee that such a small change will make the difference, but it’s the best I can come up with. So, I also adopt a strategy that many Leadville veterans recommend: make Twin Inbound the finish line. Yes, there are still 38 miles and two mountains to go, but everybody seems to agree that if you make the 18-hour cut at Twin you can probably walk it in if you have to. Since most of my Midwest 100 results are around 20 hours, that basically means taking it out at “normal” 100 effort and pretending I’ll be done in a “normal” time rather than the 27-30 hours I’m expecting for Leadville.

I head to Colorado with one of my crew, Bill Langton. He was my sole crew in 2017. This year, I’ve added Frank Evans as well so they can double as pacers. We leave the day after my 60th birthday (new age group!) and spend a couple days in Fort Collins hiking in the 7-8,000 foot range before moving up to Copper (Bill struggles a bit more than me with altitude acclimation and I don’t mind a few less days above 10K because I’m still feeling pretty good from the trip in June). After a week in Copper, I head into Leadville itself to stay at the hostel there for the final week before the race. Frank arrives a few days later. We had a planning meeting back in St. Louis which we augment over dinner Thursday refining things.

I set my alarm for 3AM Saturday but don’t need it. Most of the hostel is running or crewing, so everybody is up. I walk down to the start and am in the corral by 3:45. Frank is there to send me off (a mistake, as it turns out; he misses the first wave of shuttles and doesn’t get to May Queen until a few minutes before my arrival). At 4AM the Ken Chlouber fires the shotgun and we’re off.

The first four miles are somewhat downhill on dirt road, so it’s no surprise that they go by at sub-10-minute pace. After climbing the dam up to Turquois Lake, it’s another nine miles out to the first aid station. Paul Schoenlaub pulls up beside me and we chat a bit. Paul is last year’s M60+ winner and though he says he’s not on form this year, I’ve learned to not believe that; I can’t count how many times he’s passed me in the closing stages of a race. I take his presence as a good sign that my early pace is appropriate. I get to May Queen at 6:15, which is almost exactly my split from 2017. Frank grumbles about the shuttles as he hands me some food, drink, and my poles.

The next section is my first opportunity to make time against my previous effort. I don’t know why, but I was incredibly sleepy going up Sugarloaf pass in 2017. I generally don’t take any caffeine the morning of an ultra, preferring to save the hit for later in the race. Armed with a Mt. Dew from Frank, I make good time up the climb this go round and, despite walking down the steep part of Powerline, I jog into the Outward Bound station at 8:37, a full fifteen minutes ahead of 2017. Bill and Frank are ready for me as I texted them from the road. Frank takes my poles prior to entering the aid and Bill walks alongside me into the big field to get food and water replenished without me having to actually stop at all. Bill also attaches an air tag to my water belt in hopes it will help them keep track of me, but it turns out not to work very well due to poor reception.

The Arkansas River valley is quite wide and treeless. That, combined with the fact that you can clearly see Hope Pass 15 miles in the distance, makes it feel like you’re not moving very fast. However, I’m actually on sub-20 pace thanks in part to some very comfortable running weather. That said, the sun is out now and, while the temperature is cool, there just isn’t much atmosphere to mitigate the rays, so it feels hot. I try to measure my pace and take a few walk breaks, but the 1000’ of climb to get over the side of Elbert is spread out over ten miles, so I run almost all of it. I get to Twin at 11:33, now 45 minutes up on 2017’s effort and still on sub-20 pace. Of course, that’s about to change.

Bill and Frank haven’t set up a tent, but many crews have. As crewing an ultra is always a non-partisan affair, I’m invited to stand in the shade of one of them while we get everything set for the crucial effort ahead. As well as the usual food and drink, I also don my water vest (which has emergency clothes packed as well) and take back my poles. The crew area is spread over nearly a quarter mile and walking through it is a great emotional lift. Bill and Frank follow me all the way to the trailhead out of town and I am off. The success of the effort hangs almost entirely on the next 24 miles, and I will face them alone.

The field between Twin and Hope is drier than usual. Only the stream crossing is wet (normally, there’s a fair bit of goopy or submerged trail leading up to it). As a result, I get to the base of Hope at mile 40 at exactly noon. There isn’t much point continuing to compare splits to 2017. This is obviously a different effort. Either I’ve taken it out way too fast and will pay dearly, or I’m just having a really good day and this thing is going to get done.

The first few miles up Hope argue for the former. My legs do not have the push that I was expecting and I don’t want to overuse the poles since I’ll be needing them a lot more on the return trip. The climb abates somewhat approaching tree line and by the time I get to the Hopeless aid station, I’m moving well again. I only stop long enough to fill a bottle and then press on to the top, taking in the majestic view of the Collegiate Mountains (with Mt. Missouri center frame) at 1:52PM. Sticking with the plan, I jog the top part of the descent easily and then switch to hiking on the insanely steep section to the bottom. A few runners pass me from behind and some elites are coming back the other way, but I generally don’t get in anybody’s way. It’s definitely less crowded than last time which I guess is to be expected since I’m considerably further up the field. Also helping is the fact that pacers are no longer allowed at Winfield, so it’s individuals, not pairs coming the other way.

Despite my best laid plans, I find that the traverse into Winfield is just enough uphill that I can’t run it well. Fortunately, I’m far enough ahead of the cuts that I don’t panic over that and just hike it quickly. The last mile or so into the aid station is downhill and I jog in easily, getting there at 3:46. My hope (pun somewhat intended) was to be out of Winfield by 4, so I take a few minutes to sit in the shade and get some food down before tackling the section that was my prior undoing.

After hiking up to the traverse, I find that I can run it the other direction. Of course, that was true in 2017 as well. As I hear the cowbells from the spectators standing at the bottom of the climb, I wonder, will it stop me in my tracks again? And, if it does, is my cushion enough to survive it?

To fully appreciate my anxiety, one needs to revisit the 2017 ascent of South Hope. I’ve had lots of races go in the tank. But, only once have I been stopped cold in a running race. And, it wasn’t the time I broke a bone in my foot; I managed to limp in on that one. Or, the time I tore an adductor; I hopped to finish for that one. It was South Hope. I was less than ten steps into that climb in 2017 when I simply could not make forward progress. I tried again and collapsed. I sat on a rock for a few minutes trying to grapple with my situation. I don’t think I put more than three or four steps together all the way up to tree line. Take a few steps, rest on my poles. Repeat. Throw in some puking from time to time for good measure. As the sun moved behind the peak of Mt. Hope, leaving me with my tiny backup light and out of water, you could have easily convinced me (I nearly convinced myself) that I was going to literally die on the side of that mountain. Nothing has every hit me like that before or since.

So, as I pivot to start the ascent, planting my left pole and right foot up the hill, it is with considerable relief that the left foot and right pole follow without complaint. It’s still slow going – the first mile takes nearly 40 minutes – but I don’t stop even once out of fear that once stopped, I might not be able to start again. Only as I break through the trees and see the trail turn away from the fall line at the first of the 20 switchbacks do I dare take a breather and ingest some food and water for the remainder of the climb.

At 6:31, I reach the pass and can see Twin Lakes below. I’m going to finish the Leadville 100. It’s hard to remember a time I’ve felt such relief.

Of the many advantages of being well ahead of the cut, the most pertinent is that I descend Hope in the daylight. Not that I have a real problem running at night (my light is pretty good and I actually trip less often at night), but psychologically, it’s less demanding. By the time I cross the fields to Twin Lakes, it’s getting fairly dark, but I keep my light turned off just so I can tell Bill that he was wrong about me needing my light. I reach my “finish line” at 8:20, 100 minutes ahead of the cut. While I’m confident that’s enough cushion, I have to admit I’m pretty trashed and tell Bill to expect a lot of walking on the next section.

I spend 20 minutes in the aid station (which is ahead of the mats, so my official split is 8:40); much longer than I’d like, but necessary to tend to a blister and get some food in me. As usual after dark, I’m down to just broth. I feel like I might be low on salt so, rather than noodles in the broth, I go with potato chips. I refill the cup and follow Bill towards Mt. Elbert.

If they really wanted to make sure nobody finished this race, they’d send us over the top of Colorado’s highest peak, but even just hitting the shoulder is much more difficult in this direction. Bill does an excellent job of setting a pace that keeps us even with the cuts without blowing me to bits. It’s refreshing to leave those calculations to someone else and just focus on finishing my broth. After about an hour of climbing, we hit the unmanned Elbert mini-station (which actually exists now – it was mysteriously absent in the morning). I refill my bottle with electrolyte drink, which turns out to be a poor choice as I have a hard time getting it down. Not sure what changed since Friday when I sampled it at packet pickup, but now it tastes terrible. At any rate, it’s getting cool and I’m not low on fluids, so I get by with just little sips.

I had hoped to run the stretch from mini-Elbert to Half Pipe, but I’m feeling pretty delirious and decide that my motor control is such that I should just keep hiking rather than risk a fall on the singletrack. Bill is happy to oblige and lays down a stiff pace that gets us to the station with even more time in hand. Buoyed by that success, we keep the hiking going with just a little running on the road into Outward Bound. It’s 1AM and we’re now a full two hours ahead of the cuts.

The stop is reasonably quick for this late in the race. I take some more broth to go but have a hard time getting anything down. Frank takes over pacing duties and I discard what’s left of my broth just as we hit the final obstacle: the climb of powerline.

The infamous part of powerline is the opening grade, which goes straight up the fall line. That, however, is not really what makes the climb hard. It’s only half a mile long and we power through it well enough. What follows is another four miles of steady climb that seems even longer than it is because we’re moving so slow. Despite being a mathematician by training, I’m not that great at arithmetic and even worse when I’ve been up for 24 hours straight. I begin to panic that our 25-minute miles are giving away our entire cushion. Frank takes it in stride and suggests that we might be able to go a bit faster once we get over the top. At the summit, we are greeted by the unofficial aid station, affectionately known as “space station” both for its proximity to the stars and the oddball lighting and general UFO vibe. My brain is far too scrambled to appreciate any of this; I refill my bottle and we get on our way.

As Frank predicted, once gravity is on our side, we make better headway. We even pick up about 8 minutes by running the flat mile of Hagerman Pass Road in ten minutes before turning onto the Colorado Trail to finish the descent. This last section is very technical and we return our focus to me not getting injured in a stupid fall. We arrive at May Queen at 4:40AM, technically having lost 10 minutes against the cuts, but all the obstacles are behind now, so we’re in fine shape.

We hike most of the trail along Turquois Lake. When we get to the boat ramp with seven miles to go, a time check reveals that getting in under 28 hours is still feasible if we can get running again. The trail past the boat ramp is much smoother and the last four miles are on road (some of it rather rough dirt and uphill, but still road). It seems like a reasonable thing to shoot for.

Running again feels good. We’re not going particularly fast (10-11 minute miles) but the change is stride from hiking is enough that the legs welcome a new motion. Once on the roads, we start passing people. A lot of people. We get a lot of comments to the effect of, “these idiots are still running.” At 400 feet vertical, the climb up to Leadville is hardly a mountain pass, but it still reduces us to a walk on the steep section. We agree we’re probably not going to make it, but when the grade levels a bit, Frank notes that we’re still in the hunt.

He’s also received a text from Bill that I’m in third in M60+ and that the next runner back is Paul. Paul knows me well enough to recognize me from a distance. If he sees me, I’m sure he’ll mow me down once again. Having found a mission, I now really start to push. Frank drops back saying he’ll meet me at the finish. At a mile to go, I’m joined by Eric Strand who has eight Leadville buckles to his name but couldn’t run this year due to illness. He keeps up for a while and then also says he’ll catch me at the finish. Just a few seconds later, Bill is on the side of the road and joins me in a final push to the line. I cross at 27:55:35.

Ken and Marilee are there as always to greet the finishers. While I can’t claim any close friendship with them, they do recognize me from last year when I played the Leadville Song for them, which they seemed to enjoy quite a lot. Frank and Eric arrive a couple minutes later. In retrospect, I think jogging it in and having all four of us finish together would have been a better ending. Unfortunately, slowing down at the finish is just not the way I’m wired. It didn’t even occur to me until after that I might be spoiling a moment by putting results ahead of relationships. Nobody seems too upset about it; I guess that’s who real friends are: people who know you and like you anyway.

It takes a few minutes to confirm my finish place, but I have managed to nab the last trophy M60+. Paul finishes in fourth but has the consolation of being the oldest finisher of the race (he’s 64). In the larger field, I’m 161 of 826 starters. Given the stature of the race as one of the Grand Slam of North American 100’s, this amounts to one of my best results ever.

Was it perfect? No, 100’s never are. But it was a really good showing and I can now very happily leave this race alone. But I will surely return to Leadville in some capacity. Maybe to crew, maybe to pace, maybe to volunteer. Maybe to simply look down at the stars from the top of a mountain.

Chicago Outerbelt FKT

Run July 30 - August 1, 2022

I’ll come clean from the get go. It was about the song.

Most of my regular readers know that I write songs about my races. Opinions on the artistic merit of these pieces vary, but most people at least get the idea that it’s all in fun and they aren’t to be taken particularly seriously. The fact that I accompany them with a ukulele tends to reinforce that. But, not being one for false humility (or any form of humility, really), I’ll state that some of them are actually pretty good.

I usually write them during the race; it gives me something to do during the tedious time between 6 and 12 hours in where I’ve run out of interesting thoughts but haven’t yet reached the state of mental numbness. But, partly because I was just really enamored with the idea of a 200-mile loop around Chicago and partly because it gave an obvious opportunity for 12-bar blues, I ended up writing the song for the Chicago Outerbelt just in time for the race to be cancelled. And, I was more bummed about losing the song than not doing the race.

After stewing over that a bit, I decided that just because the race was cancelled didn’t prevent me from running the loop (and subsequently publishing the song). The route was already recognized by Fastest Known Time (FKT) and, while a group claimed to have through-hiked it over the course of a couple weeks, nobody had provided documentation of a successful completion. So, it was a run-it-and-get-in-the-record-books kind of thing. Seemed like an easy win all around.

Easy, except for the running 200 miles part. My longest run to date is 105. I don’t recall thinking that another 95 sounded like a good idea at the end of that one. Several ultrarunners have told me that things don’t really change much after around 80 miles. Sure, you’d rather stop, but it’s a choice. Your body will keep going if you tell it to. I have no reason to doubt them, but every reason to doubt myself. Fifty hours is a long time to keep revisiting a decision you don’t like and that’s a best-case scenario. This could take much longer.

As a defense against that, I recruit a support crew consisting of Andy Bartelsmeyer and Mickey Howell along with Chicago local Jenny Thorsen. FKT keeps separate records for supported and unsupported efforts and I’m certainly not interested in making this harder than it needs to be. Andy, Mickey, and I drive up from St. Louis Friday afternoon anticipating a 6PM start. Jenny will meet us the next morning at which point we will start working in shifts to keep everyone from wanting to kill each other out of sleep deprivation. In an easily anticipated development, we are delayed by a wreck on I-55 heading into the city and don’t arrive at Soldier Field until 6:30. That ends up being both important and irrelevant. After a quick photo to document the start, I’m underway at 6:34.

I’m navigating off the GPS track on my watch which only shows the shape of the path. As the Chicago lakefront has dozens of paths and the route is somewhat complicated, it’s quite distracting to try to stay on course. I try to bring up the route on my phone using Strava but find the track there is only showing the waypoints, not the detailed route. After a couple slow miles, I get into a bit of a rhythm and don’t have to stop so often.

Prior to starting, I had cleared a couple of planned re-routes with FKT. One was taking the bike path around the Botanic Gardens, which will be closed when I get there around midnight. The other comes only four miles in: taking the lakefront path rather than going through Grant Park. I would have preferred to start and finish at the fountain in the park, but this is Lollapalooza weekend so doing that would have involved not only buying a $250 ticket but also pushing through 50,000 alternative music fans.

A few miles later, I hit my first unplanned re-route. The delayed start has me arriving at Caldwell Lily Pool shortly after the gates are locked. The loop around the pool is only a couple hundred meters, so I’m sure skipping it won’t invalidate the attempt, but it is a bit annoying that the route contains sections that get locked. The through-hikers did everything during the day. I wonder how many more times I’m going to have to deviate given my round the clock schedule.

At fifteen miles, I get to my third crew stop where the route leaves the lakefront. It’s now fully dark and I’m very happy to be leaving the maze of trails for a straight shot along city streets for a while. I’m making decent progress – roughly 12-minute miles – but I really need a break from the stress of trying to line up my path with the tiny squiggle on my watch face.

Two stops later, Mickey and Andy inform me that they’ve cracked the mystery of the Strava track. Turns out that the web version displays the track just fine but the phone app only draws straight lines between waypoints. As someone who’s been writing software for the last 40 years, that frankly boggles my mind. I don’t know why they would be using a different code base for the app. Anyway, being able to bring up the track, my position, and a real map all at once greatly simplifies the navigation. Since the course is about to latch onto the North Branch Trail for the next 20 miles, that’s not an immediate concern, but it will be later.

Running the trail at night is an odd mix of senses. Visually, it’s a trail through the woods, following the forest preserves along the north branch of the Des Plaines River. The ears tell a completely different story as the sounds of the city are everywhere. The laughter of backyard parties, jets on final approach to O’Hare, a group of street racers and the subsequent arrival of the cops to break it up. The dissonance is invigorating.

That said, this is a very long run and a break is in order. Approaching the 30-mile stop at Harms Woods, I tell my crew to get out the mat so I can take a quick break. The lot at Harms Woods is chained since it’s after dark, so they find a parking lot across the street. We set a timer for 10 minutes and I take a quick nap.

Eight miles later we hit our second planned re-route. We knew the Botanic Garden would be closed at night, so rather than going straight through it, I’m going to stay on North Branch path which runs just east of the grounds. Except, it doesn’t. While the path is right along the edge of the gardens, it is inside the property which is surrounded by a fairly imposing brick wall. I could probably squeeze under the gate, but can’t be sure I could get out the other end. Plus, it’s pretty hard to plead ignorance if you’re caught pulling a stunt like that. I text the crew that I’m going to have to re-route on the fly. The most promising path appears to be running along the wall to the west. This also means running along I-94 and even at 2AM, there’s plenty of traffic. There’s a wide swath of grass between the wall and the highway so it’s not dangerous, just annoying.

Back on route north of the garden we’re in a very high-end neighborhood and almost every house has a fence and surveillance camaras. We do a drive-by aid station, stopping the van on the street just long enough to refill my bottles and grab a sandwich.

I then continue north on the Green Bay trail, which is an old railroad grade. As it passes through Highland Park, I notice ribbons and flowers alongside the trail. It takes me a few moments to find the context and realize this is an impromptu memorial garden at the spot of the shooting a month ago. I pause for a short prayer and am back on my way.

At 45 miles, the eastern sky is starting to lighten and Andy joins me as a pacer while Mickey continues on in the van. Dawn five miles later brings the prettiest part of the course: the nature path through Middlefork Savanna. I had originally hoped to get here a bit sooner, but now I’m glad I didn’t. A mist shrouds the entire park yet the morning sun peaks through just enough to send sparkles everywhere amidst the bright prairie flowers. It is nothing short of spectacular.

It also completely soaks my shoes and socks, so at the end of the section, I take another quick lie down break and let my feet dry out before putting on clean socks and shoes. Mickey and Andy run off to find breakfast while I make the turn south. At 55 miles, we’re not nearly halfway, but reaching the northernmost part of the course does feel like something of an accomplishment.

Mickey takes over pacing duties at the next stop. At the following stop, our third crew member, Jenny, joins us. Mickey and I continue and, closing in on the next stop, my watch sends an off-course alert. That seems odd because there have been no trail junctions anywhere. We quickly consult the Strava map and see that the prescribed route does indeed turn off the path we are on, but there is nothing even resembling a deer track heading that direction through the woods. Furthermore, bringing up the heat map shows that not a single Strava-using soul has followed this hypothetical path through the woods. We text that we’re going to have to find another re-route and getting to the planned stop is going to add a lot of distance, so we’re going to have to meet somewhere else.

None of this translates particularly well to text messaging, especially given the fact that I’m trying to keep moving. After bailing out to a road, I head back towards the course and send Mickey to find the rest of the crew at the original stop. Turns out, they’ve already moved on to a new rendezvous point. So, Andy has to go back to get Mickey while Jenny stays put and gets me back on my way. While frustrating, these are the sorts of crew snafus that one expects in an ultra. The re-routes, on the other hand, are becoming concerning.

Jenny takes the next stop as well while Andy and Mickey leapfrog ahead to get some rest at the one after that. I notice a sign that says that the trail I’m on is not through – that it crosses a live railroad. Well, I cross live railroads all the time. Look both ways, what’s the big deal? When I get to the crossing, a train is already there. I don’t mind a short break, though it’s unfortunate that this spot has no shade. After a few minutes, the train passes, but another one is coming the other direction (apparently this is a pretty busy line). I’m sure I can make it, but I’ve also read enough survival stories to know that the vast majority of horrible tragedies are actually predictable consequences of bad decisions made by people who would have known better if they weren’t rushed, stressed, or sleep deprived. I’m all of those things right now, so I wait another ten minutes for the second train to pass.

It’s been another 30 miles and standing in the sun waiting for the train wasn’t particularly refreshing, so I take another short rest before heading back out. Andy rejoins me. We make decent time, but by the end of the leg I’m needing to sit down again. Normally, 85 miles is when my struggles are ending, not beginning, but I haven’t been pushing as hard as I would in a hundred so maybe it makes sense. The interesting thing is that I’m not tired physically, it’s more just a challenge to stay awake. Starting right after the drive up to Chicago might not have been my best call.

The next few legs are a bit of a fire drill as various crew members head off independently to eat, nap, and set up the camp for the night. It’s pretty obvious that I’m not going to make it to the camp myself, but it still makes sense for them to sleep there.

Mickey is pacing again and we hit a couple more phantom trails. At least we’re getting better at identifying them. Basically, the minute we’re in doubt, we check the Strava heat map. If it looks like nobody has ever used the trail, we conclude it doesn’t exist and immediately look for a re-route. We’re not adding much distance by doing this, but it is a bit of a psychological drain to know that at any point we might hit the obstacle that derails the entire effort. An hour before sundown we hit the worst offender: the track goes right through a 6-foot chain link fence that has obviously been there for decades. There’s no gate to be found. The idea that this route has ever been through-hiked is becoming increasingly preposterous.

As daylight fades, we get to Brezina Woods. At 105 miles in 26 hours, we’re about three hours behind my most optimistic schedule. Of course, that’s why it’s called most optimistic, so the only concern is whether to push on into the night or get some sleep. While technically closed after dark, I’m pretty sure I can sleep here with nobody noticing. There aren’t any other good places to sleep between here and our campsite, which is still 25 miles away. At my current pace, I won’t get there until close to sunrise, so stopping here seems the better option. The crew leaves me with some warmer clothes and food and heads off to the campground. I will text Jenny when I’m back underway; Mickey and Andy will sleep longer.

The park ranger takes a pass of the park road to chase everybody out. While I’m a hundred yards off the road, I have enough stuff with me to be conspicuous, so I lie down right at the edge of the woods. Pro tip: even through you may not want to turn on your headlamp in this situation, you really should check to see if you are lying down in poison ivy.

The crew did not leave me with the sleeping pad since I don’t really want to carry that for five miles to the next stop. I’m tired enough that falling asleep directly on the ground isn’t a problem though it does mean I’m mighty stiff when my alarm goes off at midnight. I take a few minutes getting my things together during which I notice the poison ivy. There’s a water spigot nearby and I rinse off as well as I can then head out walking.

Although the temps are only moderately chilly, I’m depleted enough to feel quite cold even with the additional clothing I have. I’m still too tight to really run, but switching to a walking-pace jog does help generate a bit of heat. After a mile or so, I’m moving better and feeling warmer.

And feeling sleepier. I’m not even halfway through the leg when I find the need to take a brief break to close my eyes for a few minutes. I take a Mt Dew from Jenny at the stop, but the same thing happens on the next leg. I start fine but can only go for around 20 minutes before feeling excessively sleepy. The route turns off city streets back onto trails. The peripheral shadows of the trees from my light throw my addled mind into a hallucinatory state. None of this is a new experience for me – I’ve been to the land of psychedelic fatigue many times before – but I had hoped the sleep break would mitigate it.

While the parking lots have been chained after dark, we haven’t had any problem in the forest preserves up to this point. Jenny texts me to indicate that’s about to change. Apparently, there’s a fairly significant police presence at Palos and we’re going to have to move our supply stops. She finds an alternate location just before entering the preserve. Our original spot was at the point I was going to enter the trail network. Two police cars are parked there, so I continue past on the road and then cut into the woods once out of sight. Jenny texts me to tell me there’s a cop at our next location as well, but it may not be a problem as the sun might come up before I get there.

Indeed it does and the daylight is refreshing. The trail network at Palos is dense, but I know this park pretty well from orienteering meets, so I don’t have any trouble staying on course. The last few miles are through very heavy vegetation along the Sag Canal. This section of trail doesn’t get much use and I’m obviously the first person through today which means, even using a stick to swat at them, I’m covered in spider webs by the time I reach the bridge that leaves the preserve.

The bridge presents its own problem as it is closed for construction. I can’t blame this one on the route designers; it’s just one of those things you deal with. Swimming the canal wouldn’t be completely out of the question but, fortunately, I’m able to find a gap in the barrier to get onto the bridge and out the other side where Mickey is waiting with refreshments.

Mickey joins me again and we promptly hit some more imaginary trail routing. We’re pretty much taking this in stride now and spending very little time considering re-routes. If these detours are going to cost us the FKT, they already have, so there’s no point in stressing over them. We pass the campsite a little before 9AM. That’s about six hours off my optimistic pace which translates to a middle of the night finish. That’s fine but leaves very little slack before I lose most of my crew (Andy and Mickey both have to be back in St. Louis by morning).

At the next stop, Andy takes over pacing and, after a mile of cheerful running on a well-marked trail, we hit the obstacle that breaks the attempt. Once again, it’s a phantom trail with no indication on Strava that anybody, ever, goes there. Worse, this is not an easy re-route. The trail through the grasslands constitutes 10 miles of the route. Sure, we could just randomly run the same distance on roads, but there is no way to even approximate the course without pushing headlong into the 7-foot high grass.

So, in we go. Our progress is terribly slow, 30-40 minute miles, but we are making progress. After an hour of that, we get to our next crew stop. We have another six and a half miles of grasslands to go and at this pace, we’re going to lose several more hours, which puts us in a serious bind with schedule. We decide to press on, but also text Jenny (who is resting up for the night crew shift) that the finish is in doubt.

Unlike the previous section, the trail here is “marked”. That is, there are little orange flags along the way. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to spot them in such tall grass and they don’t do anything to speed things up. At 3:40, we send the following text to Mickey and Jenny:

“Our bullshit quota has been reached. We’re busting our asses to make 30-min miles through these fields which have no trails. At this rate, we’d not be out of the fields until 6 with nearly 50 to go and who knows how many other things are wrong with this course. I can’t ask Jenny to crew through the night solo in South Chicago and if I take the night off, I’ll not be able to get a train back tomorrow. Thanks all for trying. Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

The obvious lesson learned from all this is to vet the course if you are trying to establish an FKT. Just because a website says a course has been through-hiked, doesn’t mean it’s fit for an FKT. In particular, closer inspection of the track shows that the original hike (which was done in pieces) didn’t always pick up where it left off. The resulting GPS route just drew a straight line through whatever was in the way. No idea how they got through the grasslands, but I guess if that was the only thing you did for that day, it wouldn’t be so terrible. Making the course go through gated private property is just dumb.

But, there were other lessons as well. Most interesting to me is something I mentioned earlier but had to do myself to believe: things really don’t get harder after 80 or so miles. They don’t get easier, either, but you do settle into a rhythm where you can keep going seemingly indefinitely (this, of course, assumes that getting to 80 is well within your capabilities).

Physically, that is. Another lesson was just how sleepy you get doing this. Especially when you don’t have a pacer. On a subsequent attempt at a distance like this, I’d try to have enough pacers that I always had someone to talk to; it makes a huge difference.

I think this route is fixable, especially if done in late fall when the grass will be down. The folks at FKT think so, too, and have encouraged me to submit a revised course. To that end, I’ve included an appendix of the problem areas we found, our proposed solution, and a request for any Chicago-based folks to check out the section of the course that we didn’t get to. If we can get a new route checked and approved by Fall 2023, I’d like to give this another try.

Meanwhile, I’ll just content myself with the knowledge that we did give it a legit shot and 148 is a mileage PR, even if short of the goal.

Now, about that song. I really do like it. The problem is, being Chicago blues and all, it’s scored with very prominent parts for trumpet and sax. This made a lot of sense a year ago when my trumpet/sax player, Ollie, was still living at home. With him now at music school in Memphis, that leaves me with either recording those parts (badly) myself or waiting for him to come home. As with the route, I think this one is worth getting right so it’s going to sit on the unfinished business shelf along with the FKT for a while longer. More to follow.

Appendix: Course revisions and vetting.

The original course we attempted to run is a transcription from that hosted by The Hiking Project

I transcribed it rather than using it directly because Strava freaked out in a few places where the waypoints were too far apart (or, as it turned out, not connected by reality). I also put in our planned re-routes and moved the start. The transcription can be found here.

I’ve updated the routes with a combination of what we actually did and what, in retrospect, was probably the best option for each re-route. I would go with that up to the point where we bailed in the grasslands. I still don’t have a good solution there – I’ll see if it’s less obnoxious in the late fall. The remaining 50 miles are unchecked so, if anybody has some intel on that or wants to do some reconnaissance, please let me know. The path as currently proposed is here.

Note that the proposed course still uses the bike path through the Botanic Gardens. The appropriate alternative if one gets there when the gates are locked is to take Dundee west to the Green Bay trailhead. It’s the same distance and swaps paved bike path for road, so pretty much a wash in the context of a 200-mile FKT. Of course, if doing the course clockwise, you’d want to figure this out in advance as going to the north gate and then all the way back to the Green Bay Trail would add a couple miles.

The other re-routes in the first 150 miles don’t require much explanation. I took out the Lily pond altogether, but did put the route back through Grant Park just because it’s so iconic. Try to avoid Lalapalooza weekend (and the Chicago Marathon, which is the only other time I know of when it gets completely closed).

The grasslands is the big question mark. I don’t know what time of year one can get through there at a reasonable pace and, even if conditions are good, there’s nothing marking the course. Yes, you can follow the GPS track, but that’s pretty antithetical to the whole idea of trail running. There should be a trail. At the very least, if there’s no trail, it should be: “just get to this point by whatever route you want” rather than having to follow a track that doesn’t exist on the ground. I’m open to suggestions on this one. We could just skip the whole nonsense and go around on the road, but I’m hoping there’s a better option. One possibility that looks promising is here.

Finally, I have no idea what lurks in the last 50 miles. In particular, there are some side trails along the lake that may or may not be open off hours. My inclination is just to simplify the route by staying on the Lakefront Trail but, again, I’m open to suggestion. If I take all the little side jaunts out, the mileage will come in under 200. That’s not a problem from the standpoint of an FKT, but going over the double century does give the route a bit more cachet. One easy way to add distance would be to go around the perimeter of Navy Pier. I don’t know if that’s open 24/7, though.

A final consideration is start point and direction. I still like the idea of starting downtown, but it would certainly be logistically easier for anyone not already in the city to start/finish on the west side. My current thought is staying at Camp Sullivan the night before and then leaving counter-clockwise just before sunrise. Sure, you still might have to go through Palos in the dark, but you would be all but guaranteed to get through South Chicago during the day. Starting from camp has the added benefit of starting right after waking rather than already being up for 10-12 hours at mile zero. What’s not obvious is where the crew would sleep on the east side of the course. Downtown would be ridiculously expensive, but a hotel north of that might be a reasonable option.