Canyons 100k.
Ok look.. I know the great Oppenheimer (don’t fact check me) once said correlation does not imply causation but I have raced twice since I started this blog and I have won both races. Want a cold hard FACT? Blogging. Wins. Races.
I only kind of kid. The reason I started this thing is because I did not want to make the same mistake twice in a race ever again. The hope was that writing those mistakes out and putting myself on blast to all 12 people (4 being me) who might read this thing would hold me to a level of accountability I historically have not been able to hold myself to. I was tired of talking about how much I hate handhelds but then lining up with them again, of having caffeine too early in the day, cramping up my stomach but then feeling like I needed that boost to wake up the legs for the early start, of drinking aid station mixes without even knowing the concentration of carbs and electrolytes in them running out of calories before hitting my crew but then still choosing to take from them. I was tired of making these obvious errors and chalking up the result to not being fit enough or good enough to compete with the best. If I was going to lay over, die and accept that truth, I needed everything else to go right so the only disruptor would be fitness, and this was the only way I was going to do that.
After Black Canyon, I was super disappointed with how the race went down. I executed strategy poorly but I also just felt like I had no chance of being competitive in that field, which made me feel like I had no chance being competitive in a Golden Ticket race ever again. My coach Matt Ison and I had a soft-ass pity party call where we talked through my frustrations and how I feel like I’m putting so much time into this sport and making so many time-consuming sacrifices but not able to break into the upper-echelon of it. Something that really stuck with me was him saying that at the frequency that we’re racing, I’m only going to get 2-4% fitter training block after training block and it’s not fitness that will close the ~40min gap between me and the podium at these races, but nutrition can. That really really stuck, and I’ve always known it but this time I really believed it.
If you read my last blog, the main blockers I faced at Black Canyon were going out way too slow, under-fueling for the intensity a 100k Golden Ticket race requires, and calf cramps in the later stages of the race making closing hard on the final climbs out of the question. There were more issues, but you can’t fix everything in 11 weeks. I wanted to focus on these three. The first fix is easy - just run faster at the start, bud. The second two, less easy, but I sought the help of Vic Johnson (@mountain.sports.dietitian) after my close friends Dani & Emkay interviewed him on their podcast. Vic and I hit it off quick and went straight into using every long run and workout in my Canyons training block as an opportunity to drown myself in carbs. We also got a sweat test from Precision and found out my sodium concentration per liter of fluid loss and did multiple sweat rate tests in different conditions through this training block to get a rough idea of how much I need to replace. Spoiler: it was a lot.
Last time I did a recap, I did it aid station to aid station but I don’t really think that tells the best story of how the race plays out a lot of the time. When I try to recall the race last weekend, I seem to break it into the following five sections in my head. Each of these sections had critical moves made that changed the dynamics of the race for me. I’ll spend some time recapping what happened at each next.
China Wall to Deadwood 2 (Mile 0 - Mile 17)
Deadwood 2 to Volcano Canyon (Mile 17 - Mile 25)
Volcano Canyon to Cal 1 (Mile 25 - Mile 33)
Cal 1 to Drivers Flat (Mile 33 - Mile 47)
Drivers Flat to Finish (Mile 47 - Mile 63)
Section 1 - China Wall to Deadwood 2 (Mile 0 - Mile 17)
The mood was set early on the start line. Katie Schide and I lined up next to each other and two minutes before the horn went off she leaned over and said “I better not see you that late in the race again today”. She was referencing last year at Western States when it took until Green Gate around mile 82 of the race to finally catch up to her. She knew what I knew - that I needed to run hard from the start today. Thanks, Katie.
10 minutes later I saw my second sign that I couldn’t fuck around for the first couple hours again. While everyone was running packed like sardines on the double-wide rutted fire road, rolling their ankles every other step for the first mile, Tim Tollefson decided to get out of the mix and save some energy by leading us out. I’ve run side-by-side with Tim on so many Saturdays in the last year now that it felt right to join him up there today. So I did, and we lead the next mile together until turning onto the singletrack into the first canyon of the day.
This was a foreign place to be for me this early into a 100k stacked to the brim with the best ultra-trail runners in North America. I felt like I was making a mistake but I quickly realized, everyone else is literally running the exact same pace as us, just a few steps back and more boxed in. Controlling the pace at the front doesn’t mean you are burning a match - you might even be saving one.
There was some mixup in the leads down the singletrack to Indian Creek but more or less, all the same +/- 15 seconds. Petter lead the first climb to Deadwood, Adam on his heels, and then me. A small gap opened up and the three of us came into the first aid station at Mile 10 together. I took my time and refilled 2 bottles here as I had already downed 2 in the first 75 minutes of the race and then caught back up. A few others caught up too by the time we were descending The Thumb to Swinging Bridge. The front pack now consisted of Petter, Adam, Stephen, Makai, Preston, Tracen, Ryan, and myself with Drew and Matt basically in there too. Up the Thumb, Adam pulled aside and let Petter go. I thought that was a little weird but probably smart also - Petter seemed characteristically bouncier up the climbs than any of us - but I decided to test my legs a little and bridge up to Petter instead of hang back with the rest of the group. It was fun climbing out of The Thumb and taking the lead for the outer Loop 6 section to Deadwood 2. I felt extremely strong and got my first hints that today would be an excellent day.
Section 2 - Deadwood 2 to Volcano Canyon (Mile 17 - Mile 25)
The group quickly bunched up again after the Deadwood aid station and on the descent down to El Dorado. I lead the way with Stephen right behind me. We caught up a bit and compared how much faster we were running down this thing now than during States. At the bottom of the canyon, I pulled over to take a shit and let the group run by. It took about a mile up the climb out to catch them again and I felt like I worked a little too hard to do it. I noticed that Petter had broken away again and wasn’t even in eye-sight of the group, which I was a little upset by. Then Stephen made a move and no one was responding either. Being at the back of the train, I couldn’t really do much but figured I needed to chill a little any way. The last mile of this climb mellows out a little and opens up from singletrack. I weaved through the group and was happy to see Stephen still in eye-sight by the time we hit the top and ran down to the Michigan Bluff aid station.
Nikki and I had a plan to set up at the end of this aid so I could clearly see who had already passed by and headed out. I loved this and it will be something we do moving forward. I noticed Petter hadn’t left and Stephen did a quick transition and was already passing through right when I hit Nikki. Being the pro that she is, it only took us 10 seconds here to shove 2 new bottles in my vest and hand me the 2 gels I needed to get me to Foresthill, and I was out of there in 2nd.
Stephen was out in front but made a wrong turn once we hit the dirt road. Petter had caught up to me here and we screamed at Stephen to come down onto the lower fire road. He made it down and we had a pack again - us 3, Preston, Tracen, Adam, and Ryan.
The fire road is about 1.5 miles long and the last half mile before taking the sharp left to Volcano is a bitch of a kicker. I knew this and was thinking about it while going up El Dorado. I could tell climbing out of El Dorado that my strengths today would be on the climbs and I needed to capitalize on that before Cal Street because there was no way I would be able to break away on that flatter/downhill stretch. Once we hit the steep section, I started to open up and I told myself to build for 2 minutes, that’s it. I slowly picked it up and Stephen came with me. I looked back once we reached the top and could not believe the gap we had. Stephen looked back too and says “I think this is where people pop”. I responded back, “Do you feel good?” and remember thinking what a dumb thing to ask. He humored me though and said, “Yeah I’m feeling good” and took the lead after we topped out and made the left down to Volcano. I said, “Good. Then let’s go.”
Section 3 - Volcano Canyon to Cal 1 (Mile 25 - Mile 33)
Stephen was on a mission and I was all for it. We sent it down to the river crossing and started the climb up to Foresthill. Once we got off the singletrack and onto the road, I opened up a bit not with the intention on trying to drop him, but just extend our lead a bit on the rest of the group before the aid station. The two of us were working so well together I truly wanted to run the rest of the race with him. I remember at one point thinking, “Damn, I like this guy. I would not mind getting second to him and us both grabbing the Tickets.” Hope you read this, Stephen, but if not I get that too.
We arrive at Foresthill together and are in and out together too. 20 seconds here maybe. It felt so smooth and Nikki was on it. I also saw Vic for the first time here too. Super fun to have him out there watching me execute the nutrition plan we put together five days prior.
Stephen took the lead down Cal Street. I think we both recognized that he was pushing the right pace going down to allow us to maintain a gap. I think I would have eased up too much so I’m really glad he took the initiative. We also had a wild Mike McMonagle on our ass with a camera which helped us push just a little bit harder. The pace felt hot but it felt good. I was expecting my quads to be toasted here based on the earlier miles we hammered so I was pleasantly surprised with how I was feeling following Kersh’s heels down to the deck where the Cal 1 aid station lives during Western States.
Section 4 - Cal 1 to Drivers Flat (Mile 33 - Mile 47)
Stephen pulled over to tie his shoe. I was about to stop and wait for him so we could keep rolling together. It felt wrong to give up the energy I was getting from him and I just knew we were putting time on the field together. But I also knew that I had to do my time at the front at some point too, so I decided to keep moving but slow it down a bit so he would catch up in a few minutes or so.
Right after Cal 1 there’s an extremely steep but short climb (Strava shows 0.34mi at 18.7%) that I call Senseman Hill. I saw Eric Senseman here at my first Western States in 2021 when we were both unbelievable fried and walked together with our pacers for bit. I remember being so dead but running into him bringing me back to life for a bit. It’s always so energizing feeling great in places you’ve felt terrible in before. Obviously the context is a bit different (mile 64 versus mile 34 / 105 degrees versus 65 degrees) but still, it’s such a pure and obvious example of your growth and all the hard work paying off, it’s hard not to get excited. I literally and figuratively ran with this energy I got climbing up that hill and decided to go, cresting hard to the top of the hill and keeping the momentum going until Cal 2.
I filled up 2.5 bottles (I had an extra empty flask on me from crew at Foresthill) knowing that this next stretch descending down to and running along the river to Rucky Chucky would be the hottest of the day, and continued to try to keep the pace up. I experienced my first real low of the day here from Mile 40-45. My legs felt like lead on the climbs. More specifically my hamstrings and calves felt like they weren’t functioning at all how they should.
All the negative thoughts start to come into your head at this point. I hadn’t even made it to Driver’s Flat climb and I was already feeling like I was fading. Talking to multiple people before the race, everyone agreed the race starts at Rucky Chucky on the climb up to Driver’s Flat and you need legs there, so I started to feel the imposter syndrome kick in. Downhills were still fine though so I took advantage of that and ran hard down them. I continued fueling on schedule too as I was having zero stomach issues and things started to turn around by the time I started climbing up to Drivers.
I did shuffle up this climb and it was nowhere near as fast as I pictured myself running it when visualizing the race. But then again, I was picturing myself hunting here rather than holding onto the lead, so I gave myself a break. A few 15 second walk breaks on the steeper pitches reset me a bit and had me running up at a better clip.
Section 5 - Drivers Flat to the Finish (Mile 47 - Mile 63)
I went straight to Nikki, Chloe, and Vic, emptied the wrappers out of my belt and couldn’t believe how much I ate. Loved seeing all the trash flow out. Vic asked me what I’ve been eating and what hasn’t been sounding good. I replied back, so proud of myself, “I’m eating everything bro.”
Onto the endless rollers to Mammoth Bar and where I thought would be the crux of the course - some long and gradual, some short and steep, but they all hurt. I knew I needed legs here so I was quite a bit worried how I would hold up during my low around Mile 40. I was able to start rolling a bit after the reset at Driver’s and then I ran into the livestream cameraman who followed me for the next couple miles. Being in the front is such a huge advantage for this reason, especially in the later-stages of the race when you need it most. You basically get a pacer following you with a camera. Is this cheating? Is this doping??
I came out of the rollers with about 10 miles to go in the race and saw Kim and Topher who told me Drew had moved up into 2nd at Driver’s Flat and was only 2 minutes back. Not even kidding, I almost gave up here. 2 minutes is nothing for freaking Drew to close. He would only need to run 12 seconds per mile faster than me to catch me by the end, or 20 seconds per mile faster to catch me by No Hands, and I didn’t feel amazing.
It was all out from here, turning my legs over as fast as I could. I was moving ok but nothing out of this world. I thought at best I was holding off Drew to the same gap, but all it would take is me having to walk up one of the last two ~600ft climbs to get caught. I shuffled up the climb out of Mammoth Bar and thank god I saw Mike halfway up it taking photos. You never want to walk for the camera. I tried my best to bomb down the cruiser to the Confluence aid station and saw David Roche there who said I had a 7 minute gap on 2nd place at Mammoth Bar. I seriously couldn’t believe it and still was not ready to celebrate.
About 20 miles prior, I told myself if I didn’t get caught by Robie Point I would win this race. I kept that mindset the whole way to the last climb and it was only until halfway up it when I made that infamous right hand turn off the trail onto the road that I actually started to believe this was going to happen. It freaking happened. I am the HOKA DACIA UTMB WORLD SERIES NORTH AMERICAN MAJOR BY SUUNTO BY WAHOO IN HONOR OF JIM WALMSLEY champion.
I will be running Western States. This will be my 4th year in a row. 2021 I DNF’d. 2022 I slept for 2-3 hours at ALT and finished in 59th or something. 2023 I finished 11th, 5 minutes outside the top 10 in 16:15. Recalling that last performance, DBo said it was “nowhere near my potential” which I don’t think is how I would have ever thought about it. I never really thought I would come close to that time I ran last year, but I am hoping Dylan is right and something big is around the corner.
I think most would classify me as a “newer-age” runner who has recently broken onto the scene because I’m on the younger side of the sport, but I’ve actually been around for a while. I ran my first ultra almost 9 years ago and I’ve raced at high-level races for the last 5. I’ve experienced a few highs but nothing crazy. I’ve experienced an absurd amount of lows. My path to putting it together at this race has been long, drawn-out, and gradual. I absolutely love that and hope I have another 9 years of up-and-to-the-right growth still in me… Back to the grind.
2024 Canyons 100k - 1st place, 8:44:30
https://www.strava.com/activities/11278480226
