High Lea 100 - 2024

(Originally written for Facebook on May 27th, 2024.)

TL;DR I cried during my hundred miler because it was hard.

Before the start, I met Joshua James Janish for the first time. This dude came with like 1,000 snacks, supplements, tents, tables, all kinds of things, and this was his first time crewing me. When I say that Erik Namestnik and Josh are a match made in heaven, I literally mean it. Both guys bent over backwards to make sure that both me and all crew members (including the littles: Evelyn, Benji, Julie, and his son Hunter) had everything they needed for a 30-hour race.

I don’t really remember much pre-race aside from feeling like I was going to throw up and poop at the same time. If you’ve ever seen me race, you know the pre-race jitters are REAL. When we lined up at the starting line and the Race Director (RD) said the hundred-milers were going to be doing 34 laps, it made my anxiety all the worse. I decided pretty much right there and then that I would never look at or acknowledge that I was going to be running that many laps. Chipping away at numbers, mileage, whatever, is how I usually cope with long distances, but 34 laps just seemed like too many to chip away at. Backyard ultras are one thing, where the loops count up, but counting down from 34 was a different story for my brain, and one that I didn’t want to even entertain. Don’t ask me how my brain was okay with 100 miles if it couldn’t be okay with 34 laps. Anyway, we were off.

Miles 1-20(ish): This ultra had less than 100 ft/mi of elevation gain so I started out much faster than I usually would. I was averaging a 10:20 pace which was the pace I finished my first 50k with in November of 2022. I typically use hills to slow myself down and walk, but with the lack of elevation for this race, I had to come up with a new plan. I texted my coach, Adam Ferdinandson, to tell him that I was having a hard time slowing down and he reminded me that I should not be going faster than an 11-minute pace and hit me with the “it just takes discipline” card. My main training focus at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 has been discipline, patience, listening, and rest. So I wasn’t about to blow it and make myself out to be an athlete without discipline. It wasn’t immediate, but I did come up with the plan that unfortunately I couldn’t bomb the downhills as per usual. I LOVE to bomb the downhills so this took a lot of effort on my part, but did end up in eventually dropping my pace below the 11:00 point and down to an 11:30, right where I was hoping to be.

I did take a Benadryl at some point early in the race. It made me SO TIRED that I was closing my eyes to rest while running at only a few miles in. It was exhausting to combat the drowsiness, and I was definitely worried for nightfall, but I tried to battle through it as best as I could and eventually it passed.

Miles 30-50: HOT. That’s pretty much how we can sum these miles up. It was extremely hot. I started coming in from my laps and begging for ice to be put in my hat. It was excruciatingly cold at first, but once it started to melt from the heat of both my head and the surrounding air, and the cold drops of water began rolling down my face and neck, it was the sweet relief I needed to keep pace. I did a few weeks of heat training before the race, and although it benefited me, even with that, the heat was just too much. I was chewing on ice every lap and started incorporating a cold bandana each time I came in. I think this was Josh’s idea. Shout out to his awesome son, Hunter, for being the person to bring me ice and the bandanas. I think this was also the point that the kids started getting a little interested in what was happening outside of their own little world. Erik told me after the fact that they had begun racing and running around, and they cheered me on every time I passed. There was one point where I was able to start the lap with a .1 mile run with the kids before they had to turn back. I LOVED having them at this race. I thought they would be upset that I was passing them by so frequently, but they really brought out the smiles on this day. And major shout out to Evelyn for pulling her own tooth out while I was running! Such a brave girl.

Miles 50-85: PACERS UNLOCKED. I can’t remember who I ran with when, but I think I started with Josh, ran a loop by myself, went with Erik, ran a loop by myself, and then went back out with Josh. The original plan was to run one lap with a pacer, one alone, one with a pacer, and so forth. But my mental state DETERIORATED during these miles, especially after mile 75(ish). Originally, I was thinking that this was two back-to-back 50-milers. My OCD divides things in this way frequently. I hit mile 70 and realized that miles 50-70 were not actually only 20 miles, they felt like they had been 400. I ran this race relatively quickly, but the way these miles DRUG ON literally had me holding back tears, questioning if I ever wanted to run another hundred in my life. I didn’t know why I had even picked ultra running as my sport. I was clearly not cut out for it. 100 is a LOT of miles. There’s no way to cut it to seem like it isn’t. My brain could do all kinds of backflips and forward rolls with the numbers, but either way, I was going to be running a LOT and it was going to feel like a LOT. From about 65 on, I ran with a pacer for every loop. Erik and Josh teamed up to make sure that they each got rest and ran with me as much as they could, and they did freaking awesome.

A major concern for this race was obviously my chest pain and my heart since it ended my race at the BSBU this past March. I was told by a cardiologist to just nix caffeine. Don’t even mess with it while I was running this far because it was a recipe for disaster, as seen in both races that I used it in. This clearly ended up working because I did finish the race, but around 10 or 11 pm that night, I got so tired that I was starting to get dizzy and slightly delirious. I’m not used to running this far without caffeine. I’m not used to running this far at all. The solution was to start micro-napping. This was something that I had heard Harvey Lewis talk about on a podcast sent to me by Matt Pfahl.

Another thing of note: networking and being friends with other ultra runners is important when it comes to success at races. There’s too much to learn on your own. Pretty much everyone that you run into at these races has something to teach you about running ultra endurance events, so make sure you talk to people. I don’t talk to people a lot when I run, but I do connect with them after. I’m just not that chatty outside of the backyard format because I love to see how quickly I can run and talking wastes energy. I’m all about efficiency here.

Back to the micro-napping, which a lot of people have asked me about: I took about 3-4 micro-naps of about 2-7 minutes each. At first I thought this was a waste of time, but my coach said this may have been what helped me finish quickly, as we really don’t know how tired I would have gotten and how much it would have cost me if I had skipped them. I didn’t train for these and I don’t know if I even actually fell asleep for this, but I do know that even closing my eyes for that period of time helped propel me for another lap or three before I’d have to rest again.

Miles 85-96: This is where things started to pick up again. I remember Erik saying that I had about 5 laps left, so he would take two, Josh would take two, and then he would run the last one with me. I started these runs primarily in silence and just ran as much as I could. Sitting in the chair to take micro-naps was what triggered the pain cave for me at about mile 85 and I had to battle a lot of stiffness when I got back up, so I tried to just keep the momentum because the faster and more frequently I ran, the better I felt. Erik took me past mile 90 and then I switched over to running with Josh, basically abandoning my nutrition plan for the sake of focusing on getting to the finish line. I had a slice of watermelon pretty much every lap (I think) and still took in some water, but I felt confident in jumping away from the plan for the last ten miles. Ten miles was doable.

Miles 97-100: This final lap had a lot of crying OBVIOUSLY. I worked for almost 5 years with this one end-goal in mind and it was finally within reach. I had to stop running multiple times to just breathe and hold back the tears...pictured above. Lots of running in the last lap, and that’s pretty much all I can remember. Running, running, running…running up this hill and that hill that I usually walked. Running as fast as I could manage while also acknowledging that I wouldn’t be seeing the course again, so slowing it down while also speeding it up. Erik slowed down as I approached the finish line and let me have my moment. I crossed and pretty much felt like collapsing. I picked up my finishing buckle and my award for first and ASKED HIM TO CARRY ME BACK TO THE TENT AND HE SAID NO BECAUSE HE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY I NEEDED CARRIED AFTER RUNNING 100 MILES. The logic is there but it was not a good play for cranky Mary. I will always still ask him to carry me back to the tent. I will not give up in this endeavor of becoming a lazy pile of bones after running an ultra.

Anyway, that’s it. I couldn’t sleep after the run because my legs were in excruciating pain and I ended up with about a dozen blisters. I’ve lost two toenails so far…I really don’t think my body reacted badly to the hundred. My mind took more of a hit but it was quickly empowered by the finish and I was already looking forward to running another hundred miler by Tuesday. The soreness only lasted a couple of days, which I think is a testament to how long I was ready to run a hundred miles and how effective the training plan my coach put me on was. The stars just finally aligned.

I want to sincerely thank everyone for celebrating with me last weekend, congratulating me, believing in me, watching my progress over the years, and just being so kind to me through this entire process. I can see who is in my corner and I appreciate every one of you. It propels me to put my best effort into each race I do, especially as I get texts of encouragement throughout the day from certain hype people. I’m not a crazy talented runner. There’s no reason that I should have the amount of support I do, and it’s not lost on me how much everybody cheering me on impacts my performance for the better. Seriously, if you have supported me in any capacity, thank you. It means the world to me that people believe I can do these things. As a mom of three starting from scratch in 2020, I honestly didn’t know if I had it in me. Everybody’s belief in me has definitely changed the belief I have in myself for the better.

What I have learned: Failure will not make people love you less. It makes you human. It makes your story more interesting. It helps you learn. It shows you who is in your corner and who cares about you in the deepest sense of those words. It’s not the end, it’s a deeper look into how badly you want something and what you’re willing to do and change to get there.

I’m not a wise old guru but I do like to share that this sport is more than athletics. I think it’s primarily a space to learn and grow as a human being. Athletics second. Growth first.