Ken Bohn, 100 Miles, 1 Day

April 1, 2014 (My First 100 Mile Ultramarathon Race)

Ken Bohn, 100 Miles, One Day

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So I’m not quite sure what got me onto my quest to run a 100 mile ultra-marathon. I recall running my first road marathon (a mere 26.2 miles) back in 2000 and thinking that was an absolutely amazing accomplishment. I then decided to run it again in 2001 just because I thought there was a big difference between those people that ran one marathon and those that ran more than one marathon. Since then, I dabbled in running, and migrated from road running to trail running about 6 years ago.

Running on the trails is such a different sport than running on roads and sidewalks. While it is much harder and takes much more concentration, it is also much more serene and calming. It is often said that trail running really helps you to clear your mind, and I would completely agree (as it’s hard to concentrate on not twisting an ankle every step you make while you are also thinking about what happened at work that day).

Inevitably my trail running started bringing trail racing; mostly shorter distances at first, around 3 miles, then 6 miles, then 10 miles and even up to a half marathon distance on trails. After running multiple trail races and hundreds of miles with my running buddy, Chris Hayes, we decided to run our first ultra-marathon about two years ago. It was “only” a 50K race (30.1 miles) that started in the late afternoon and went into the evening. I did relatively well, finishing in 5 hours, and I was hooked on trail ultra races.

My next race was actually quite a jump in terms of the level of difficulty; it was the Leatherwood Mountain 50 mile ultra, which had approximately 15,000 feet of climbing and descending. While I felt very strong in this extremely technical race, I missed a trail marker flag with only 10 miles to go, and went off course for about an extra 8 miles on some very steep terrain. I still finished in around 13 hours, with some bonus mileage added to my race that day. Finally, I ran a 12 hour race in June 2013, and ended up coming in first place overall, with a distance of 65 miles.

Even with some strong finishes in these ultra distance races, I still don’t quite recall one exact trigger that made me want to enter a 100 miler. I had watched a great movie called, “Unbreakable: The Western States 100”, which showed a very intense 100 mile race between 3 of the world’s best ultra runners. As inspiring as that movie was, I still remember thinking how crazy that distance would be. Chris and I talked about what our next ultra races would be, periodically pondering the options of 100 milers, and eventually that started to become a realistic goal worth serious consideration.

After doing a little research and looking through the various races posted to Ultrasignup, I identified one that was only 2-1/2 hours from my home…Umstead 100 in Raleigh, NC. The race had a 20 year history and had rave reviews from all of the blogs I read, so I thought perhaps this could be the one. I talked to my wife, Josie, about my thoughts of signing up for a 100 miler. We explored the time commitment and impact that it would have on our family (which cannot be understated), but she was nothing but supportive. Without the loving support of my wife, I would not have even considered embarking on this adventure. I can not thank her enough for everything she did to keep our family and home in one piece while I focused on my training.

With my wife by my side, literally and figuratively, the first goal was to register for the 2014 Umstead 100. The registration process was one of the more stressful parts of the entire process. A full seven months before the race, there would be hundreds of people trying to be among the first 250 to register on the Umstead website the moment it went live. My wife and I anxiously counted down the seconds and continuously refreshed the registration page until it finally opened. I nervously entered my information, which included information on my prior qualifying races, and I became officially signed up for my first 100 mile ultra…with 7 months to prepare.

The Training Schedule

I kept my training schedule moderately basic, especially since it would be complicated enough trying to juggle my travel schedule with work, which requires me to take multi-night trips approximately three times per month. For the most part, I took Mondays and Fridays off from running. I would then run approximately 6 miles every Tuesday and Thursday and 12 miles every Wednesday (shooting for around 25 miles over the course of the work week). These distances stayed relatively static throughout my training, primarily due to time constraints. If I had to travel on a training day, I would either lose that day of running, or try to add a run in on the Monday of that week. No matter what, I tried to keep Friday’s as rest days to gear up for my increasingly long runs on the weekends, where long back to back runs became a staple of my training. I started off doing 12 miles on a Saturday, and then another 12 miles on Sunday. In the weeks before my ultra, I was consistently running 30 miles on a Saturday and 20 miles on a Sunday. What made these 50 mile weekends most impactful was that my Sunday runs would often be at Crowder’s Mountain in NC, which has some rather steep and rocky terrain. I am confident that these long weekend runs made more of an impact on my training than anything else. Of course, in preparing for a 100 miler, you also need to get used to running both at night and through the night. Since Chris and I had done many night runs, especially in the winter when it was night before we could even make it home from work to squeeze a run in, running at night was common place. However, my first stab at running through the night was almost as hard as the 100 miler itself. My plan was to work a full day at work, on a Friday, and without eating dinner, be on the trail by 6PM and run until 6AM the next morning. To make it more complicated, this was in the middle of winter where the temps would be dropping into the high teens that night. Since my house backs up to the primary trail that I run on, I was able to use my basement as my staging area and aid station every 6 miles. This was one of those runs that was tough from the first mile and never got any easier. I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do that night, but I went approximately 30 miles and threw in the towel around 4:00 AM, mostly due to exhaustion and sleepiness (which can be two very different things, and dangerous when added together…especially at night). However, with the low temperature and grueling effort, I learned that I needed to be able suffer more, and find a way to claw back up when I am feeling so low. But damn, that was tough.

I also had to rehab and train through some injuries. Most people will get some type of injury(ies) over the course of their training, so the question comes down to whether you need to take some time off to heal, or whether you can find a way to duct tape yourself together and press on with your training schedule. My primary injury was patellar femoral syndrome…or what is commonly known as runner’s knee. I started having some pain under my knee cap following some longer back to back runs three months into my training. This caused me to take some time off and back off my mileage significantly. I spent about two months just trying to maintain some of my fitness with the injury just slowly getting better. I finally decided to go to a physical therapist, which I probably should have done much earlier on. And while I only went for about 4 or 5 visits, they gave me some very good stretching and strengthening exercises that I continued to do for the next several months. I also heavily relied upon several different types of knee straps to allow me to continue running, while not making the knee any worse. I also learned to ice the injury at least three times per day. Bottom line, training is hard. It needs to be hard. If it’s not hard, you aren’t training enough. Take advantage of every opportunity to make the training as hard as possible to strengthen your mental toughness and perseverance. It is much better to learn this resolve in training than it is to learn it for the first time in a 100 miler.

The Race

Since we live only 2-1/2 hours away from the race site, we left home around noon on Friday, leaving us plenty of time to get to the 5PM race briefing and the 6PM pasta dinner. This was a great chance to get to meet some of the people you would be spending your weekend with, and provided some good reminders and inspiration from the race director, Blake Norwood (noting that this would be the last of his 20 years of directing this race). Immediately following dinner, we went to the hotel to lay out the gear for the next morning and try to get some sleep. I was in bed by around 9:30, but probably only got around 2 – 3 hours of sleep that night…which is to be expected.

My three alarm clocks went off at 4AM, allowing me time to eat my bagel with peanut butter and honey, take a quick shower, put body glide everywhere where chafing or blisters could be an issue, get dressed and head out. We were at the race site by a few minutes after 5AM and quickly found a place for my wife to spend her day as my crew chief. We put a tarp on the ground about 200 yards from the primary start/finish spot so that I could let her know what I needed before going through the start/finish area each lap, which would allow me to grab it on the way back out for the next lap. My goal was to keep my aid station breaks to 2 minutes each…which is easier said than done. More on that shortly.

📷Lap 1 (2:00)

The starting canon went off promptly at 6AM, and I was lucky enough to start right next to Hal Koerner, but was smart enough to let him run out of sight within seconds. I had a plan for each of the eight 12.5 mile laps with fastest and slowest parameters, and I hoped to run my race, not someone else’s. My fastest lap times had a finish goal of around 23 hours, while my slowest had a finish goal of around 28 hours. As I decided to run without my GPS watch (since it only had a battery life of 6 hours), I ran with a regular running watch, and had difficulty predicting my pace for my first lap time. Nonetheless, I felt strong during the first lap, running almost everything, and finished the first lap in exactly 2 hours, which was 20 minutes faster than what my fastest time should have been. My wife, Josie, did exactly what she was supposed to do, and proceed to tell me sternly to slow down. And with a brief exchange of hydration soft flasks, an S-Cap and some gel packs, I was back on the trail for the next lap.

Lap 2 (2:12)

I was still feeling strong for this lap, and had a better sense of my pace. I intentionally took it a little easier this time on some of the steeper hills (primarily on the back section after the 6.75 mile aid station), but continued to keep the pace clicking along. Twenty five miles down, and still feeling good. This lap took me 2 hours and 12 minutes, well ahead of my fastest “planned” time for this lap of 2 hours and 30 minutes. Again, a quick switch of hydration flasks and gels, and back out onto the trail.

Lap 3 (2:29)

As the first half of each lap is a bit flatter than the last half, I spent the next hour keeping a very steady pace with continuous running. However, once I got into the saw-tooth section on the back half of the course, I could feel the tendon in the front of my ankle on my right leg start to have sharp stabbing pains. This was actually from an injury that I sustained just a couple of weeks prior to the race where I went out for a run that ended up being a PR on the trail behind my house, but while I thought I gave it plenty of time to resolve, it apparently wanted to join me for my Umstead 100 miler…so it stayed with me the remainder of the race. By the end of lap 3, this tendon was burning with every step I took, and was especially painful on the downhills, which are normally a time to pick up some speed…but not today…not with this injury. This injury also caused me to alter my gait as I tried to land softer on this side, which started causing some iliotibial (IT) band tightness in my right hip. The hip tightness would periodically turn to spasms, which would require me to stop for a 30 second stretch to get it to loosen back up so I could continue. That happened only about two or three times on this lap, but between these two issues, I knew I would have to struggle through some pain all day. But other than those two issues, I truly felt great. I finished lap 3 in 2 hours and 29 minutes. At my crewing station, I changed into a pair of compression shorts (my apologies to everyone that I flashed) and put some sports tape around my right ankle to minimize the movement. I also grabbed my iPod for the next lap as I wasn’t feeling too talkative, even though I still had a ton of energy.

Lap 4 (2:33)

With some loud music rattling between my ears, I sought out to forget about the pain and remind myself that was an expected part of the experience. I remember rationalizing that pain is just a neural response where the body is trying to let the brain know that it is injured. Message received, now leave me alone! While I could drown out the pain in my ankle, I still continued to have times where my IT band in my hip would lock up until I released it with a stretch. This was also moving from my hip to my right glute. To keep the race in perspective, shortly after the aid station halfway through the lap, I looked up ahead and was shocked to see Hal Koerner, moving along significantly slower than when I saw him at the start of the race. I had to take the opportunity to talk to him and let him know how psyched all of us where to see him come out to the east coast to join us for this race. After a minute or two, Hal explained that he had just raced last weekend, and was still not recovered from that race, which was not helped by going out fast in this race. In spite of this, in typical Hal fashion, he kept a smile on his face and was extremely humble about the day. As much as I would have liked to have run a couple more miles with Hal, he encouraged me to keep pushing for my sub-24 hour goal, so I left him behind and picked my pace back up. (Note: Hal is one of the elite runners that inspired me to push further into ultra running distances, so the time running with him was worth every second that I lost by hanging back to talk. It is also worth noting that Hal decided to stop running after that lap, which I think was lap 6 for him). I was still able to finish this lap in 2 hours and 33 minutes, bringing my first 50 miles to a close in just over 9-1/2 hours.

Lap 5 (2:42)

I spent a little extra time at the aid/crew station this time to change my socks in order to address a hot spot that I started getting on my left foot in lap 3 (but where my other injuries took precedence). Rather than putting band aids or tape over the one blister that was starting to develop, I simply went with a thinner pair of socks and liberally applied some body glide. For the most part, that did the trick for the remainder of the race, as my feet held up relatively well (with the exception of one toe). I also added a second layer of compression shorts to try to keep my IT band as still as possible where it connected at the hip. This would only mitigate the number of times it would lock up, which was now approximately 6 times per lap. However, I was happy that I was able to run with Chris for this lap, and in no time, it felt like we were on one of our many weekend training runs. I recall telling Chris that other than my entire right leg, I felt great…and that was the truth. I finished this lap in 2 hours and 42 minutes, slowed down by the frequency of my needed IT band stretches. Coming into the aid station, I started drinking chicken noodle soup, and man did that hit the spot!

Lap 6 (2:49)

For this lap, Chris got to take a break, and even a short nap, while my friend Derek Oliver would run with me. While still continuing to get interrupted by my mandatory hip lock-ups and requisite stretching, Derek and I got to work pushing to pace to the degree possible. My ankle was still throbbing in spite of the layers of sports tape that I kept wrapping it with, but through the good conversation the miles seemed to move along pretty well. I think it was early in this lap that we joked that “the miles aren’t going to run themselves.” But as we neared the half-way point of this lap, I remember commenting to Derek, as it turned dusk, that this was the way running was meant to be, and that it doesn’t get much better than this. It might have been around this point that I had full confidence I would finish the race, and finish it relatively well. We had to start using our headlamps before the end of this lap, as the sun dropped below the trees and night officially set in. Given several all-night training runs that I completed over the past several months, I was completely prepared to finish this race through the night with no sleep. Even with the sun down, the temperature still felt a little on the warm side, so I continued without having to change into warmer clothes. Aside from my right leg pain, this was a very enjoyable lap.

Lap 7 (2:52)

Mentally, I viewed this as my last “working lap” and went with the mindset that lap 8 would be my “victory lap”. That certainly helped make this lap feel a little easier, as it is otherwise one of the hardest laps to get through. However, I was lucky enough to have Derek Oliver pace me again on this lap, making it almost a full and continuous marathon for him…so these pacer efforts are definitely recognized and appreciated. I had my regular bouts of my IT band locking up in my hip, and the continuous throbbing pain in my ankle, but other than that (which probably should be expected to some degree), my mind and body were holding up just fine. I kept thinking that I was going to “bonk” at some point, where I would start a gradual decline into a deep dark place filled with a desire to quit and go home. That feeling never came. I attribute this largely to a consistent nutrition and electrolyte intake, as well as keeping a “moderately reasonable” pace, which was still significantly faster than what either me or my crew chief (my wife, Josie) thought would have been possible before the race. I finished this lap around 11:40PM (taking me 2 hours and 52 minutes to complete the lap) and came in for the aid and crew station stop one last time. I changed into a long sleeve shirt, grabbed another cup of chicken noodle soup and prepared for my last lap.

Lap 8 (3:05)

My final lap. My “victory lap”. I was extremely thankful that Chris Hayes, who had just run a very technical 50 mile race the weekend before, would be able to join me for this last lap. My energy was starting to diminish and my quads were starting to feel the miles and the hills. As much as I honestly thought this would be a fun and inspirational lap, I had to dig down a little deeper than I thought I would need to. I wasn’t very talkative during these last 12 miles, and the usual banter between Chris and I became largely one sided, with Chris trying to keep me focused, while I was quietly trying to put one foot in front of the other. I could feel my eyes try to close occasionally, as the lack of sleep from the night before, and the full day of running were starting to catch up with me. I felt a bit mentally numb by the time we made it to the aid station half way through the lap. I had backed off of my sodium caplets two laps earlier, so perhaps that was catching up to me as well. Nevertheless, I remember not being able to focus on my nutritional needs at this aid station. I am sure Chris made me eat something as we quickly walked through, but I was running on mental fumes at this point. Immediately after leaving the aid station, the air turned rather cold as the wind started to pick up. I had some warmer clothes in a drop bag at this aid station, and I briefly contemplated going back to get them, but my desire to finish was now over-riding my desire for any semblance of comfort. So I trudged along, trying to stay on Chris’ heals…which seemed to be getting further away with each mile. Unfortunately, I never got the burst of energy and enthusiasm that I was hoping for in this last lap, even as we rounded the curve and headed into the last stretch. But I did manage to keep a steady pace, and even run up the final climb to the finish line. It actually took both mental and physical effort to raise my arms in a mechanical celebration, but I was deeply satisfied that I gave this race everything I had to give. At the finish line, I was joined by my beautiful wife and crew chief, Josie, who was unbelievably supportive every step of the way (literally and figuratively), as well as my two friends and amazing pacers, Chris Hayes and Derek Oliver. This was truly a team effort, but I was the one lucky enough to take home the coveted belt buckle, that says, “100 Miles, One Day”. Total finish time – 20:45:31.

📷 I would be remiss if I didn’t also recognize the race director, Blake Norwood, of the Umstead 100 race. He and all of the volunteers (which almost outnumbered the racers), did an absolutely amazing job at coordinating what I believe is the premier 100 mile ultra on the East coast. This was Blake’s 20th and final year directing this race, and he will certainly be missed. I’m glad I got to shake his hand as I accepted my very cool belt buckle at the finish of the race. Gear, Nutrition, Etc. Shorts: Salamon S-Lab Twin Skin Shorts & 2XU Compression Shorts Shirt: Salamon Ultra Shoes: Hoka One One Stinson Evo Trail Hydration System: Salomon S-Lab Advanced Skin Hydro 12 Set Pack Electrolyte: Hammer Perpetuem Electrolyte Drink Gels: Hammer Gel Sodium: S-Caps Visor: 2XU Visor Socks: Injinji Trail Running Socks Lubricant: Body Glide (applied liberally everywhere) Stomach Preventative: Tums & Pepcid AC Food: Bagels, oranges, bananas, PB&J, chicken noodle soup, muffins, pretzels, cherry sno-cone, Clif Bar, Luna Bar Running Store: Charlotte Ultra Running Company Best Advice: 1. Train hard to make racing easier 2. Eat solid foods early and often, and leave the gels for when solid food is difficult to digest 3. Minimize time in the aid stations, but spend time on issues that could cause problems in the long run (i.e. blisters) 4. Address muscle tightness as soon as it arrives (i.e. stretch and massage) 5. Set clear expectations in advance about what to run and what to speed-hike so you don’t give yourself an excuse to walk/hike when the going gets tough 6. Get some strong pacers to join you as much as possible (no, you can’t have mine) 7. Dial in your hydration ahead of time (i.e. 18 – 22 ounces per hour); don’t over or under hydrate, being sure to monitor the frequency (and color) of your rest room breaks 8. Pay very close attention to your mental state, as once that goes, everything else will go with it 9. During training, no single run is worth risking injury that could adversely impact your ultra race 10. Prepare to disassociate the pain between your body and mind, and know that the body is much more capable than you think. Find motivation to finish, rather than excuses to quit!