Race Report: Burning River 100 Mile Trail Run

Womens Cleveland Marathon Winner High 5'ing!

I hardly know where to begin, every day that passes since this event finished I have more thoughts and memories coming back to me. I'll start with the facts about the race for me. The number one most important thing was to finish, I wanted to run an easy 50 miles then try to maintain a sub 24 hour overall pace for the event. I did finish...in 28 hrs 45 mins, the longest I have ever run, the longest non-stop endurance event I have ever done. The only other events I have done were 24 hours or less and those were not official events, just challenges.

Kevin, Radames, & I pre BR100

Here's the standard report:
I did not feel good until about mile 34 when i finally overcame the calorie deficit that I had established early on in the race. I ran the first 10 right on track, very very humid, and draining more than I knew. I did not eat enough dinner, breakfast, or at the aid stations for the first few hours. If there was anytime in the race where I thought I didn't belong, it was right about mile 20 when I was walking already and starting to take in coke. I managed to get in the calories, catch up, run the hot-ass towpath, catch up to Kevin at 33, then started feeling really strong until about mile 50, ran that hard loop, met up with JP (Pacer 1) and away we went, back into calorie battles. 58 I ate a ton of food after we were both stung by hornets, made some friends and away we went....feeling much better. The next 22 miles were a challenge of walking, running, and playing with calories....by the time I got to 80 (Pacer 2, Brad) i was well into my speed walking and continued to do so for the last 20 miles, running only a few miles near the end.

Here is what I liked:
Positive-ness!!!!! I loved meeting people and seeing all these crazy people doing this crazy thing. It was NOT as hard as you think, it was just as hard as my other runs, just a lot damn longer. This whole thing became a battle of the calories for me, it distracted me from the length of the event, how many miles were left, etc, etc... The best part was running through a major low, then running with two amazing pacers. I truly owe it to JP & Brad for getting me through so much of that race. The other thing was the people at the aid stations, holy sh*t! I could not believe the outpouring of people volunteering, pacing, cheering, at all hours of the night all around this crazy event. 400+ volunteers for 300+/- starting runners! Amazing!

Team Outrun: 4 entered, 4 finished! with a +50% drop out rate, we friggan killed it!!

Recovery:
I slept at the finish (below) in front of the pizza shop, slept after taking a shower at home, put on the compression socks and slept, ate, then slept some more. Caught a plane to Milwaukee and here I sit in the hotel room with good legs and barely swollen feet. All I had was a blister on the left foot but I sit here still proud of all the runners, proud of myself, and a little sad that it's over. Was it everything that I expected? No, not really....it was more than I expected and I feel a pretty strong sense of pride for everyone, what an amazing experience.

Happy to sleep at the finish