It’s fair to say it has been a few minutes since I have written a blog post, so bear with me. In the past, I used to write fairly frequently and hope that I will be able to stay somewhat consistent in creating new posts. My goal with writing out my thoughts leading up to the 100-mile race is to hopefully have something to reflect on and use as a structured source to prepare in leading up to race day. While also allowing those who are interested—and if you’re reading this, then I assume at some level you already are—to follow along in the adventure. I hope to post once a week or once every other week about where I’m at in my training and how things are going leading up to the race. If you know me, I enjoy the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions regarding any rabbit hole I try to jump down, which is probably the most prudent place to start. Ready or not, here we go.
My brother-in-law Chris, originally from Texas, is a local firefighter in the greater OKC area and spent most of his high school and college years playing sports from track and field to football. He started running more in 2023 and ran, I believe, two half marathons during that year. Each time he would sign up for one of the half marathons, I would half-jokingly remark about signing up and running it with him, to which my wife and sister-in-law would laugh. In November of 2023, he started talking about how he had a goal for 2024. His goal was pretty straightforward: run a 100k and run a 100 miler before the end of the year.
I have always somewhat enjoyed running, albeit infrequently, in my 20s. I can count on one hand how many times I purposefully went on a run from 20 years old to 31 years old. The idea of running an ultra-marathon was intriguing to me. I started looking into what ultra-marathons entailed and watching videos about training for them. I quickly realized a few things: firstly, trail ultra-marathons seem like an exciting adventure, and secondly, to successfully run an ultra-marathon and finish well would require lots and lots of running and intentional training prior to race day.
Had I not known Chris, my buddy Kevin, who has run ultras before and was in the process of training for the Leadville 100, my cousin Carly, who does triathlons, and my friend Angie, who had run marathons, I probably would have never even had a spark of desire to go out and run a race like that. But alas, here we are. Despite not having a background in running, I figured if I had two friends training for ultras and I wanted to hang out with them, the best chance would be to do that running with them. I had also suffered from lower back pain after falling down a flight of stairs in 2017; reading about how running could actually help strengthen my lower back was something I was curious to see how it might actually help.
I started running around the end of November, which came with a learning curve. Starting out, I didn’t really have any grasp of how I should be running; I simply ran by how I felt, quickly learning I was not running correctly. By my first longer 10ish mile run, I was running too fast and pulled my Achilles. This incident led me to find Zone 2 training and the science behind how our mitochondria operate at a cellular level to utilize sugars or lactic acid as a form of energy at aerobic and anaerobic states. I might try to make a blog post about that at some point in the future. The old phrase “slow and steady wins the race” couldn’t have been more true. After learning some hard truths about needing to slow down, my Achilles bounced back, and by Christmas Eve, I went on a 17-mile run. During this run, I felt great up until the last 3ish miles when I started developing pain in my knee. Jumping up my miles at the rate I did led me to realize if I was going to sustain and increase my miles, I needed to start strength training. I took pretty much the entire month of January off from running for my knee to start to feel better. While I was taking this break, I started strength training and doing more calisthenic stretching. Kevin sent me a workout routine that was critical in not only rehabbing my knee but also gave me the foundation to build on strengthening my entire body from my lower back to my hips to my glutes and so on. I don’t know if I ever ran with my glutes truly activated prior to this moment. (This was a game changer.)
At the start of February, I was back running, but still, running the 100k with Chris wasn’t something that I really thought I would do. I wanted to know that if I committed to running the 100k, I would not only be able to run it but run it well. I would have to be able to still function to some extent and go to work that following Monday. After about a week of running, I felt pretty good; the strength training and stretching were paying off. I was confident enough that in the two months that were left before race day, I could confidently run a 50k trail run. My thought was I could run the first 50k of the race with Chris without dying. I was over at Chris’ house one night for dinner and asked him if he would want someone to run part of the race with him and that I was thinking about doing the 50k distance. He responded with, “Why not run the whole thing?” It was at that point I knew I would be doing something I wasn’t entirely sure I could accomplish. I would be signing up for the Lake McMurtry 100k distance with almost exactly two months to train for it.
Fast forward to race day. I was feeling confident; I had followed my training plan that I created and even a little more. I had run two 50ks within a week’s time frame and was ready to get going. The race itself was a lot more technical than we had thought, so our time frame of trying to finish in around 12 hours ended up being a few seconds shy of 14 hours. We ended up finishing 4th overall and 3rd in the men’s division of the race, which wasn’t even something we were going for. At the start of the race, we had a plan to take it easy for the first 50k of the race and not push ourselves, which paid off on the second loop where we started passing other runners. I remember at the end of the 100k, my legs were sore, shaky, and tired. I had just run 62 miles, but I felt like I still could have kept going. There was no point in the race where I felt like we weren’t going to finish it. We might not get our original goal time, but we would for sure end and cross that finish line in the allotted time frame.
After the race, I think my dad or brother said, “Ready for the 100 miler?” which I think an audible noise of some grunts was heard from both Chris and myself. Though after the next few hours when my legs stopped twitching and a few days later when I was able to start running again, the idea of running 100 miler not only seemed plausible, it seemed more and more as if it was the reality in our future. Chris’ goal of finishing a 100k trail ultra and then a 100 miler was not so much an outlandish idea as much as it was more an exciting adventure to accomplish. We checked out the races in the area, and due to other commitments, the one we were wanting to pull the trigger on didn’t line up. We quickly went back to the drawing board and tossed around the idea of doing our own unsanctioned 100 miler in October. Whether or not that was more us convincing ourselves we were still moving forward with the 100 miler despite not having a race lined up before the end of the year, we shortly found the stars aligning for us to pull the trigger on a race we found in Arkansas on November 1st.
A point-to-point race through the Ozarks called the Hare Mountain 100. A race which will only be its second year being held is undoubtedly going to test our physical and mental strength and fortitude. This race gives you 38 hours to finish, climbing over 20,000 ft elevation throughout the course and crossing multiple rivers and streams. Last year, during the inaugural race, no one finished in the allotted time frame, in addition to the course being one where the last 50 miles are the most technical and difficult part of the course. We are setting out for a Goliath task ahead of us: finish the race. One step at a time, we will go through some of the most historic trails in the Ozarks starting the morning of Nov. first and running through the night, hopefully to finish midday on the second. May the Schwartz be with us.
With just under four months left until the race, training is kicking off. I’m stoked for the monumental task we are jumping into but know that it is possible to finish a race like this. It is a matter of execution. I don’t know what the race will entail the day of, but I know it will be an adventure, to say the least. As I step closer to the race, I hope to bring you along to the extent that I can. If there is anything you want to know as I go through my training, please reach out, and it might help me create content for future blog posts.
Until next post; get out there, go for a run or walk, cultivate rest, and do something difficult for the adventure.
-T
Thanks for sharing!! I look forward to hearing more about your experience.