The Badger 100 Part I

At some point during Rocky Raccoon, I think I told Nicole that I didn’t think I’d want to run another 100 miler for a while. But here we are 6 months later and I’m writing a race recap of a second 100 miler attempt. Clearly, I have a horrible memory or am a glutton for punishment, haha. But the why is an important question to address especially given the outcome and why it was so disappointing. After mulling it over quite a bit, I signed up for The Badger for one main reason: COVID times are weird and wreaked havoc on many of our goals this race season but that shouldn’t be a reason to put things on hold. I still wanted to challenge myself. I have been trying to change my perspective on things and not see 2020 as a total loss, but rather an opportunity to practice, improve, and get to know myself better for the 2021 race season. 

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Based on my experience at Rocky, barring a serious injury, I knew the mileage wasn’t going to be a problem. However, I remember feeling awful after mile 60 something throughout the night. My mind wasn’t as sharp as I wanted it to be and I felt like I was running half asleep. I didn’t like feeling out of control like that so my main goal going into The Badger was to figure out how to best manage the fatigue. In order to do that I decided to implement the following to see if any made much of a difference: 

1.   Waist light/headlamp combo: I usually only run with a headlamp, but wanted to try adding a waist light to the mix. It seemed appealing because with two beams of light, I’d be able to keep my head on a swivel without losing sight of the trail.  At Rocky, I had upgraded my headlamp from 200 lumens to 650 which was awesome…but several hours relying on one beam of light can lead to some serious tunnel vision and eye fatigue. Verdict: I think this combo will work well. Unfortunately, it was a little hard to gauge during the night portion because of all the artificial light in the area. However, I am definitely going to continue to test this. 

2.   Nutrition: When it comes to nutrition, I’m a big believer in testing early and testing often. I like to “stress test” my fueling choices to make sure they will work under pressure. I love it because as conditions change, your tastes might change too. As the mileage goes up, something that worked for you before, might not work anymore…I find the process fun because it is always evolving! If you’ve read my race report from Rocky, you will know that during Lap 4, I ate two high calorie Spring Energy gels (~400 calories total) to try and stop the momentum of a serious downward spiral. I’m still convinced that they brought me back to life and saved my race…so naturally, I decided to experiment this time around and fueled almost exclusively with Spring. I supplemented the solid gels with Tailwind for quick and reliable liquid calories. Verdict: Absolutely 100% the right call. I did not feel loopy at all and remained focused and “with it” the entire time I was out…so much so that even my wife commented that the difference was noticeable. 

                     

3.   Ramen: One of the biggest questions I had after Rocky was “why didn’t the ramen work?”. I was excited when I found out it would be offered at the aid stations, but found that it did nothing for me during the race. This was weird because I had a really good experience with ramen during the Long Stage at Grand to Grand (G2G). The main difference between the two events was that I ate a whole package of ramen in one sitting during G2G versus the smaller portions spread out over several hour at the aid stations at Rocky. So for The Badger, I decided to take the time to eat a meal before transitioning into the loop portion of my route. Verdict: Another good call! This slightly extended stop increased morale and augmented my nutrition strategy. For me, this mid-race meal is just as critical as stopping to swap socks and treat feet and will likely be something I do from here on out for all my 100 milers.  

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Alright, now that is all out of the way, let’s get into the recap!

I was originally supposed to run The Badger virtually on August 1^st-2nd. Unfortunately, my right IT band, Sartorious muscle, and hip flexor flared up during one of my long training runs forcing my coach and me to push race day two weeks to the right in order to give me time to rest and rehab. Luckily, the majority of the issues resolved with rolling, stretching, and rest…but I found myself still chasing down some intermittent aches and pains up until the last minute. This definitely didn’t help my pre-race nerves and I went into race week with a lot of self-doubt and worry. As a result, I didn’t setany expectations for myself. I just wanted to do my best to finish and have fun (maybe).  

After work on Friday, I set about prepping my gear and nutrition. I picked up a few things for my mobile aid station from the grocery store, got my drop bag ready, and started charging all my tech (ie. battery pack, head/waist lamps, watch,etc). The one thing I didn’t really have prepared-surprisingly- was my route. The only part that was planned to a T was the first section – a 57 mile point to point – with 9 aid stations.  After that, my plan was to run a 1 mile loop around my neighborhood until the sun came up using my house as an aid station. The decision to do a loop was mainly due to the uncertainty of how my leg would hold up and I wanted to be close to home in case anything happened. The third section (sun rise to finish) was not mapped out at all and I was going to play it by ear depending on how I felt (ie. continue to loop to the finish or punch out on some local trails for an out and back). I’m not going to say that I was winging it exactly…but there was definitely some wingage happening. 

That night, Kennedy and Ren hosted a pre-race meal. Sticking with tradition, they set up a build-your-own pizza bar which was amazing. Since they were in charge of crewing and pacing throughout the night portion of the race, it was nice to hang out and play catch up since the next time we’d see each other, I’d be in the thick of it. 

After dinner, Ericka and I finished pre-staging everything for the next morning and tried to get some sleep. But that 3am wake-up call came early and we ended up snoozing for 30 more minutes before dragging ourselves out of bed to get ready. Once we were up, we started moving like clockwork to get to the start line.We didn’t have a lot of time to waste because the drive out there would take a little over an hour and I wanted to make sure that I could start running as close to 6am as possible. During the drive, I ate my standard bagel with peanut butter for breakfast and had a few sips of coffee to wake up. 

Before I knew it, we were at the W&OD trailhead in Purcellville. It was still dark out, so I needed a headlamp to start. Of course, some technical difficulties had to pop up at this moment so I ended up starting with just a waist light. No major issues here really since the sun came up rather quickly, but it was just another reminder to always have a backup with you. 

Shortly after 6am, I started running and my virtual Badger 100 attempt was on! The weather was cool and overcast helping the miles pass quickly. Ericka was once again on point with her mobile aid stations. While we stuck with many locations we’ve used before, I added a few more to ensure that aid was - at most- every 6-7 miles. The modification on the number of aid stations definitely helped make the point to point part of the course more manageable and easier on the mind when I hit my low points.  

All in all, the point to point could not have gone better. Like I said during my Sugar Badger recap, I wish I had more to write about here, but things were going really well. My only real concern was that my pacing was a little fast. I actually forced myself to walk a mile at one point just to slow down and conserve some energy. I hit 50 miles around 11 hours and 15 minutes and only had 7 miles more to go before I reached the next aid station and transitioned to the loop.

I got back to my neighborhood just after 7pm (13 hours in). As I rounded the bend to my house, I was greeted with cheers and saw Ericka, Lesley, Heather, Kennedy, and Ren waiting for me. It was so awesome to see everyone and hang out for a bit. I ate some ramen, treated my feet, and got my gear ready for the first set of nighttime miles. Kennedy was able to fix the issue with my headlamp so I was able to run with my double light combo. Because I was feeling pretty good, I decided to start this section off alone. With well wishes and cheers from my crew, I headed off into the night just before 8:30pm. 

After a few laps, I ended up picking Kennedy up at mile 62. The first few miles with Kennedy passed quickly as we alternated between running and walking. It’s amazing how time flies with good company and good conversation! We started breaking up the night into 5 mile sections and stopped for aid at the end of each block. I think Ericka went to bed sometime around 11pm and Ren took charge of the aid station. Ericka planned to check on us at 4am before waking up at 7am to help crew the last handful of miles. The first few laps after this point were fine and I was stoked with our pace. Leg turnover was good and despite minor aches in my legs/feet, everything above the waist felt great. No GI issues and I was coherent. But then things took a turn for the worse.

For the entire week leading up to race day, I had been monitoring the weather. The forecast had changed from thunderstorms on Saturday and Sunday to rain…and then from rain to mostly cloudy with some chance of rain. I even told Kennedy a few days ahead of time to bring some rain gear just in case. Despite the forecast, I planned to run anyway because during the real thing, you have to play the hand you’re dealt good or bad. Earlier in the evening, we experienced some light rain, but nothing earth shattering or worrisome. But shortly after midnight, the sky opened up and it poured. For hours. And hours. And hours. Any hope of continuing our walk/run intervals went out the window and we death marched for quite a while. Despite a sock change, the rain was relentless and started to wreak havoc on my feet. My shoes were drenched and without an opportunity to drain or dry out, I could feel blisters starting to form on the balls of my feet. Even though the pressure was painful, it wasn’t foreign…I’ve walked through worse before and knew I could dig deep to do it again if I had to. But the rain was wearing on us and a chill was setting into our bones. So at mile 80, we headed back to the house with the intent of drying off, putting on a fresh kit, switching shoes, and getting back out there. It was just before 4am when we arrived so I called Ericka and told her to come downstairs and help us assess the situation. 

The rain was coming down hard and fast. We sat huddled on folding chairs in the garage looking out at the wall of rain in front of us and silently contemplated our next move. Ericka brought us blankets and towels for us to dry off and keep warm while Ren got our gear ready for the next set of miles. We checked the forecast and saw that the rain wasn’t projected to end until later that afternoon. Great. 

After some discussion, we decided to take a tactical pause for an hour to see if the weather conditions improved at all. If the rain let up, we would go for it. If not, we would re-evaluate. Unfortunately, nothing changed and ultimately, health and safety (especially during these times) were the main concerns. At the rate we had been going at the very end (3 miles in an hour), it meant we’d have at least another 6 hours in the rain unless we picked up the pace. Even with dry gear, we didn’t know how long it would be before everything would be drenched again. So at mile 80 after 23.5 hours (22 hours of grinding, 1.5 hour tactical pause), I pulled the plug on my Badger 100 bid. 

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I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed at the outcome. I feel like I had a huge breakthrough in my race strategy and finally figured out what works best for me. The execution was near perfect and I had it…I was on track to finish my second 100 miler of 2020. Sadly, the weather had different plans, but I am thankful for the opportunity to learn from this experience and proud of the 80 miles that I did complete. That said, I feel very fortunate to have another shot at this race. Results are not due until the end of September so I will be attempting The Badger again next month!! Let’s get it!