(old write up) My experience at the Vermont race is brought up from time to time in conversation. I found an old unpublished post in the draft folder and since I have nothing to share this week, so I’ll post this for this week.
The night before my trip to Vermont 100, I was anxious about the up coming trips to Vermont and Wasatch than I was for the Western States 100.
I didn’t want to jinx it. Last year, I had a difficult time to finish a 100 mile race under 30 hours. This year, I am 3 for 3 already (C&O, Old Dominion, and Western States). This weekend was my final one.
I tried to tell others of my fears but their words of comfort such as “don’t worry” did little for me.
I needed to see it in my mind eye that I could do it. For this race, I could not see it. The course was a mystery to me beforehand. I had no elevation charts or maps or youtube videos to follow and prerun the race in my head.
My Strategy: The whole course has a lot of up-and-down hills. Elevation should be similar to Western States or Old Dominion. I hoped for a fast course, since there seems to be a lot of it being on road pavement.
I did well at OD100 because I had two buddies who though we ran at the back of the pack, but ran a steady near sub 24 pace with me. We were maintaining a 14 min pace.
If I could repeat that kind of performance of not being shaken by many faster runners in the first 50 miles, I should be able to finish the race.
At C&O100, I had a slower friend at the beginning, pacing together. I was not panicking when I went slower than everyone. Later though in the second half, I could run a bit faster to even it out.
The key is to pretend the first half is not important and go really slow. We all know this, but to do it during a race is hard when everyone guns out the gate and you feel you too could keep up with them.
It is hard to not let the crowd get 2-4 or even 10 miles ahead. 10 miles ahead might be a bit too much, but usually if the course feels empty, I start to panick of being too far back.
At C&O and at OD100, I had two good people who knew what they were doing and so I did not panick.
Sleeping arrangement: I planned of sleeping at the start. So I could roll out of bed and run. At first, I planned to sleep in my car, but my friend planned to be in it since she would be starting later than me. I am hoping for a clear sky and no rain, bugs, or dew, so I could sleep outside.
When my friend said she was going to carpool with me, I was wondering how that works whether she would also sleeping under the stars.
Ended up, she planned staying at a motel. So I would be back to cowboy camping.
I hoped it should be fun. I never really did a cowboy camping before. I did it couple times on the mountains, but not for an important race like this. I felt shy if people stare at me.
We had 450 runners and many too chose camping. They would be in their fancy tents and here I was laying on the grass suntanning or moon tanning through the night.
I was not bringing a tent because I did not plan to check my bag and so it would difficult to bring a tent onto a plane as a carry-on.
If only they make tent rods out of fiberglass instead of metal (which I think they do, but not my tent). Still I don’t have enough space for a tent. It is the same dilemma when I go camping, certain things have to left out. I have done slack packing (minimalist backpacking) before, so I know ditching a tent is sometimes a hard choice, but it got to be done.
A benefit of not having a tent is to save that extra hour of setting up and putting away. Many people don’t realize how long it takes to put away the tent (you have to clean, dry, fold before packing up). Usually, if we go camping, we have to put in an hour from waking up, to time of departure, for packing away. Yes, I have done rush job of couple minutes of collapsing a tent and stuff everything in sack and go, but that is only for extreme circumstances (like one time we thought we were being danger).
At my first MMT100, I overslept, so I crawled out from the tent and ran to the start with only couple minutes spared before the race. Luckily, the tent was still there when I finished the race and it didn’t get blown away. I don’t like to leave my tent out in the sun for long either because the sun would damage the plastic linings and so it becomes less water resistant. When you are late, you got to do what you got to do and not pack things up.
(update/ps) All these plannings were moot because I missed my flight and I ended up catching a ride with a friend to Vermont. We barely were able to sleep at all before the 4 AM start. We had to leave the hotel by 2 AM and we just arrived after midnight. It was fun to look back.
In awe 