ARNOLPHE - Quelle nouvelle?AGNÈS - Le petit chat est mort.ARNOLPHE - C'est dommage : mais quoi !Nous sommes tous mortels, et chacun est pour soi.
These are part of the first lines of Molière's L'école des femmes. For my non French-speaking buddies and readers, it basically means that, Agnès being asked how things are doing, what are the news, she mentions that the young cat has died. With Arnolphe then dismissing the importance of it because we are all mortals after all, and should first care of ourselves. Or, more exactly, our self.
Kiwi, our 18-year cat, died at home on Friday. She was incredibly perfect from the day we adopted her as she was one year old: affectionate, docile, sociable, playful. No drama, no scratching of our stuff, she always used her toys to sharpen her claws. I've known a few cats, all having a way to remind you who was in control. Not Kiwi. She leaves a big hole at home. I've been raised in a family where, in line with the above excerpt from Molière, pets were just animals and it was more important to care about our fellow humans, including ourselves. Confusing feelings about the deep love we grew for Kiwi...
And teasing me, here by bombing a post Fat Ox picture setup: way to capture attention! ;-)
Anyway, between this loss and insane negative stress at work, not to mention the country and world news, my tank was almost on empty on Friday afternoon. I still found the courage to carboload as usual before an ultra, but the mind wasn't there. And I managed to sleep for 7 hours before a 4am wake-up call, that helped refill with some gas.
As much as we advise not to try anything new on race day, and that was going to by my 387th race, I felt the urge to brew a mug of coffee for my ride, for some mental boost. I've started enjoying coffee only 2 years ago --it was about time, wasn't it?-- but not taking any before a race yet. In his detailed race analysis, elite 100-miler Zach Bitter details the calorie count of course, but also caffeine. Given the circumstances, I felt it wasn't going to kill me then.
I got to the start by 7:15a, just in time to get the last convenient parking spot, phew! The vibe was building up for the 50-mile start at 7:30. New this year, a 100K format was added to the already rich spectrum of distances, to give Billy Mertens an opportunity to improve the M55-59 American Record. From Colorado, Billy is a Jed Smith regular and 3 of his 4 current records were set here. In 2017, one year after Rich Hana and I improved the 32-old M50-54 record for 50K --for me, despite experiencing a mini-stroke 1 mile from the finish, at the Nationals on Long Island, NY-- I even helped put Billy onto orbit so he could decrease the record to 3:16:29 in 2017 (Michael Wardian lowered it to 3:13:32 last year).
With that, this year's distances were staged along 3 start times: 100K and 50M at 7:30, 50K and Marathon at 8:30, and 30K and Half-Marathon at 9:30. The design of our 50K course comes with a special perk, passing the marathon mark right at the end of the 5th of 6 laps. This way, the chip timing company can issue us an official and certified marathon time which can be used as a Boston Qualifier.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, at least over the past 6 months, you know that 2025 was a rebuild year after being 7 months off running with a torn/broken meniscus in 2024. Since coming back, I've always worked hard to prove Coros wrong about their prediction for my marathon time. Initially around 3:15, they lowered it to 3:09 a few weeks ago, phew! And I still felt I could beat that. For one thing, when I was focusing on marathons, I established my own law (not Moore's one about computer chip performance), stating that I should be able to run a marathon in 2 hours plus my age in minutes. At least before the hockey stick which physiology experts place around 70 years old, when you switch to another linear and much steeper degradation of performance and fitness with age. Now, granted, my law didn't take into account injuries, and the loss of muscle mass when stopping for a few months...
As I mentioned, we started with the marathon runners so I wasn't sure exactly who was running what, despite wearing different bibs and crossing everybody in the initial 1-mile out and back. Elite international marathoner Ian Sharman was at the top of the UltraSignup ranking in our entrant list. He was running really smooth and easy, in the lead on that first mile. I got chicked by Jessy Herring right off the bat and ran the first 3 miles in Victor Skorapa's footsteps (Excelsior), in 6th place.
In the 4th mile, I could feel my glutes well engaged and somehow them telling me to ease up but the breathing was good and I felt the urge to keep the pace as close to 7 min/mile as possible. It was exciting to clock a few miles as fast as 6:52 but each were a reminder to ease up a bit and not getting ahead of myself. I was running on my own by mile 5. As usual, I was carrying 2 bottles, one with water, one with GU Energy Brew so I didn't have to stop. I also also had S!Caps (one every hour) and a couple of GU gels. My first stop was at the end of lap 3, mile 16.5, to ingest a serving of Vespa Power. I wasn't drinking much so I didn't even have to grab my other bottles, pre-filled at the car. (Photos credit: Joe McCladdie)
On the 4th lap, I was closing on Sergey Vasyliev (also Excelsior) and that helped remaining focused, although I was determined not to accelerate to chase him. Needless to say, the legs were feeling a bit tired at that average 7:00 min/mile pace, and I didn't need to crash that early. Certainly not before the marathon point since that had become my main goal for today given the perfect conditions and momentum. I did a brief stop at the end of that 4th loop to grab an extra gel, drop my hat, and I lost a few seconds and yards to Sergey.
But I was amazed at how fast I was still moving, when I had hard time maintaining a 7:15 min/mile during two 25K track workouts in January; there is certainly something to say about the special excitement and motivation on race days! On the 5th loop, I could see Sergey in the distance, closing on Jessy, but I had just enough gas in the tank to still run miles under 7:15, not 7:00 anymore. Jessy must have slowed down because I almost caught up with her before we got to mile 26. As a matter of fact, as I was sprinting down the steep access road at the park entrance, I placed my left foot outside the asphalt and rolled my ankle, what a stupid move to try to save fractions of a second by getting too close to the turn... Thankfully it wasn't too bad, I barely felt it while running 15K this Sunday morning, one day after.
While I would have been delighted to break 3:02 right away to embarrass or challenge Coros' analytics, I was still super happy to clock 3:05:46 for that intermediary marathon. To be fair, I had run the 5th loop as if I was going to still run hard in the final loop, not like it was the marathon finish. So maybe I do have 3:02 in me for my 62 (in a month). For now, based on the myriad of metrics they capture with their watch, Coros lowered its prediction to 3:04:42 as I write this report, there is that to show some progress and improvement. And some hope!
In all fairness, my motivation to push hard decreased on that final lap and I started feeling some cramping coming too in my tired legs. While I'm super proud that my 21 first miles were under 7:15 (11 under 7 actually), the last ones were 7:33, 7:30, 7:37, 7:46, 7:49, 7:57, it was time to get to a close... I crossed the finish line in a time of 3:43:19, a 7:12 min/mile pace. With that, I didn't see Jessy finish, 1'25" ahead, and she was 53" behind Sergey. Upfront and far ahead, the race was won by Blake Furman of Pennsylvania (3:21:42), followed by Ian, now based in Oregon, in 3:26:35. Another Exclesior, Karl Schnaitter came in 5th in the Men, followed by Victor, respectively in 3:58 and 3:59.
At 59, Verity Breen took 2nd in 4:14:35!
I stayed for 2 more hours to see others finish their race, and also work on my tank again. I mean fluid and calorie wise. Indeed, as much as I'm still relying so much on Vespa and therefore, energy coming from my fat, I dangerously played with physiological limits that Saturday. On the fluid side, I didn't even drink all my GU Brew bottle, when I used to drink one every 15 miles. And same thing on the water side. I took 3 S!Caps as planned, but only 3 gels, which is on the low side. And I didn't stop at any aid station otherwise. Things could have gotten worse in the final laps...
I left by 2:15, seeing Billy stop at the portapotty then changing shoes. I saw later in the afternoon that he managed to clock 8:05:32, when the current record was set by another of our local runners, Thomas Reiss, at 8:28:11. That new mark should stand for some time!
In the 50 miles, two particularly remarkable marks on the men side with Anthony Fagundes winning in a blazing 5:24:00 (6:29 min/mile!), and Eric Neill in 5:46:56. And, on the women side, Bev Anderson-Abbs keeping doing her thing, winning overall in an impressive 7:01:30. At 61!
That was my 85th 50K race. After the 2024 incident, I'm so grateful to still be able to run and race again. Still missing the sub 3:20 times of 10 years ago, but we can't have everything, right? Since coming back from the meniscus injury it has been 4:04:17 at Jed Smith last year, 3:51:19 at the Mad City 50K Road Nationals, 3:46:35 at Ruth Anderson, then 3:43:19 today. Enough for me to be foolish again and dreaming of getting under 3:40, at least... But it's going to require a lot more work, again and always...
Speaking of work, I teased Ian that I likely worked harder than him. Just the way he appears to run effortless. He disagreed and, to his credit, he is also back from injury (Achilles). We'll see in 20 years. Fun fact: Ian is going to score points not only in our PA Grand Prix (sorry Sergey...) but also for our Quicksilver team (sorry Shiran!). Because he hasn't switched his membership and club affiliation since moving to Bend.
Quick chat with Gary Towle, MD, who has been on the Western States Board of Directors since 1982 (44 years and counting)! I didn't know, Gary is a big fan and voted for my "older guys" performances in the UltraRunning Magazine rankings.
While I didn't have the time to stop at the intermediary aid station to thank them, that was quite a youthful crew which spent the day helping us out: thank you! Thank you to the course monitors spending hours at the key turns and intersections of the course, and the lead bikers. Thank you to the volunteers at the check-in table in the early morning.
Thank you to those manning the busy start/end area aid station. Thank you to all the volunteers working behind the scene to make this Buffalo Chips event another success. For 45 years and counting! And even without interruption through the pandemic, thanks to John Feeney, Race Director. John who we honored for his 10 years at the helm of this race, last week, at our Pacific Association MUT 2025 Volunteer of the Year (more on this award in my upcoming/next blog post, shortly).
Back to the title, I hesitated with "when impatience pays off" given the inconsiderate initial push of the pace, early in the race. Or "the fruits of hard work and persistence" to relate to the hard work at the track these past months, as well as the importance to keep showing up even when you don't feel good enough. But with the current events and societal changes when they aren't for the better, I see so many people leaving these so-called social media to recharge their empty tank, feeling exhausted and hopeless. So, yes, let's focus on what allows to recharge. And, for me, racing, a good test to feel better, and show that there may be more than what we thinking is left on our tank.
PS: more pictures
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