It all began in March and I was feeling a bit down. I ran the Woodlands Marathon off the couch.
The next week COVID-19 hit. Not knowing the magnitude of the pandemic, I ran the Green Ultra 50k. The race was so small social distancing took care of itself as I was alone on the trail the whole race.
When it was clear racing would be halted, Rob and Trail Racing Over Texas began putting on virtual races. I signed up for the first three available: Coyote Run 50k, Brazos Bend 50k, and Colorado Crossing 50k.
I ran these and chipped away at my time, getting in shape:
3/21 - Coyote Run 50k 7:41
4/4 - Brazos Bend 50k 6:57
4/10 - Colorado Crossing 50k 6:42
Then I decided to run long. I was going for the Blazing 7s 100, but by the time I made it to 100k, I called it. In retrospect, I should have kept going when I felt good. Nevertheless, I finished the Crazy Desert 100k.
By this point, Ed Shelton had created a distance leaderboard for the spring/summer virtuals. The thought occurred to me that, as a slow runner, I rarely have a chance to top a leaderboard. But with this, I would have a shot at doing well. The races would continue until August 1st and I made up my mind to compete.
A highlight was Brazos Bend 100k, where I barely made it in under the 16 hour cutoff. I strained the tendons atop my right foot in the race, which sidelined me two weeks. After that, I came back and was fine.
For most of the spring and into summer, a lady named Jillian was in the lead. I moved back and forth from 1st to 4th place.
By the time I had finished the Rising Phoenix 200k series, I was getting tired. I switched over to marathons, running Mystery Marathon and Wildflower Marathon multiple times. Still running one or two races a week, I kept plodding along. I had run the races in March, April, and May by first running 20 miles then throwing in walking. I shifted over to run/walking my 1.9 mile neighborhood loop as I was tired and also wanted to avoid injury.
Around the middle of July, a gentleman named Wayne ran the Rising Phoenix series a second time, opening up a 140+ mile lead...not sure of the exact mileage at this point. This coincided when I got a bit down emotionally and didn't run for 12 days.
What could I do? I decided to run what I could. Two weeks with back-to-back marathons on weekends plus mid-week marathons:
7/14 - Mystery Marathon #7 6:52
7/18 - Mystery Marathon #8 7:22
7/19 - Wildflower Marathon #2 6:41
7/23 - Wildflower Marathon #3 6:27
7/25 - Wildflower Marathon #4 6:26
7/26 - Wildflower Marathon #5 6:56
Wayne ran another 50k at some point, putting him up 20+ miles. The final week of the season was heavy on work for me: professional development all day plus teaching at UHD. Normally, I did not want to run races under a marathon but this would be all I had time for. I ran the San Felipe Shootout and Possum's Revenge 8 mile Monday-Wednesday. This, by my calculations, would put me up by 4 miles. Wayne and I had distanced from the field by over 100 miles, so unless someone had not reported a bunch of miles, we would go one-two either way.
The final day to race would be a Saturday, so I knew Wayne had a shot at running again. I was worried he might run a long race like Possum's Revenge 69 miler. If so, I'd have no chance at catching him. I had my kids with me on Saturday so running a marathon or more was out.
I ran:
7/30 - The Sweaty Yeti 13.1 3:08:19
7/31 - Double Dragon 13.1 3:19:50
8/1 - Unicorn Challenge 10k 1:24:10
This would give me a 36 mile lead if Wayne ran nothing. It was a cushion if he ran a 50k. If he ran 50 miles or more he would beat me.
The final results came in and I finished in first place with 814 miles.
Reflections
It could be no one else cared too much about the distance leaderboard but me. Regardless, it was fun for me to compete and kept me going emotionally. I had watched The Last Dance about Michael Jordan's championships and that inspired me as well.
This was the only time I've ever been first place overall in a running event. Given that there were 1500 runners overall, it made me feel good. My pace was 14:39, under the overall pace of the field of 14:44. That was another motivation in the last races, to keep the pace under 15 minutes.
Apart from the minor tendon strain mentioned above, I made it through 5 months of racing nearly every week without an injury. I finished physically strong, emotionally drained. I attribute the lack of injury to only running when racing, resting on other days. Run/walking the last races too helped. For all the races, I pushed it a bit to give it a good effort but never was redlining it.
I ran on days I didn't want to run, especially towards the end. I regret not finishing 100 miles when I could have.
I'm not sure I can do this again, but I'll always remember it.
