2025 Superior Fall 100 Mile (Part 4)

Tuesday August 26, 2025

Cannot believe I'm now only 10 sleeps away! This suddenly has crept up on me very quickly!

I've been aggressively following my training plan and it's gone quite well overall. I'm really happy with my ability to train through the heat and humidity this year. In the past, this has really been a struggle for me and it's nice to know I can push past the discomfort! I've had little to no stomach issues, even in the extreme heat and humidity. I've been diligent about hydrating and staying on top of my salt pills. I'm careful about the sun and make sure to apply sunscreen so I don't burn (although reapplying is not something I've been good at during longer runs). Now my only goal is to NOT GET INJURED during these last 10 days. Having to help Kylah and Griffin move and Finnley move not once, but twice has not helped haha! I had my last run at Afton along with my last climb at Hyland last week. I have my last "long run" of 10 miles this week and while I had originally planned on going to Afton, now I'm fearful of injuring myself (or falling) so I'm going to head up to the single track near our house instead. 

Instead of directly following my training plan, I'm running every other day over the next 9 days, decreasing my mileage nearly every time (I ran 8m today, will run 10m Thursday, but the last 3 runs will be 6m, 4m and 2m). I'll take the day before the race off as we'll be driving up to the airbnb that day. 

What I really like about the 100m plan I followed:

* PACE: All runs were done at an easy conversational pace with low intensity. I worked really hard on not stressing my hamstrings by not running too fast. I believe this allowed me to prevent injury as I worked toward larger weekly mileage volumes. I improved my ability at running slowly for a long time. 

* HILLS: When I trained for the 50m 8 years ago, I didn't start hillwork until about a month before the race. While I finished the race, my left leg was in rough shape after so I really wanted to work on starting hillwork early this time. We started going to Hyland on Mother's Day in May and ended up going 10x over 16 weeks (we also spent a week in Banff climbing mountains). I climbed between 5-9m, averaging 6.5m or 19-20 repeats. Other than injuring my right calf on the first day we went in May, I had no other issues and was never sore after a climb. 

* LONG RUNS: I did all of my long runs at Afton. Worked hard on distance and not so much on pace. For the two 30m runs I ran a route that had me able to stop back at my car after 20m to use it as an "aid station" where I could drink some coke and have a snack before heading back out again to finish the last 10 miles. 

* BACK TO BACK LONG RUNS: According to my training plan, B2B long runs "are a safer and more efficient way to increase total volume miles for the week, without putting in extreme long distance runs". For me, they gave me the opportunity to run on tired legs. I had my first B2B in early June, running 23+10 at Afton. Starting in the beginning of July, I had 2 more B2B with my biggest B2B in early August running 30+20 at Afton. Later that same week, I took my pacers (Marcus, Jonah, Griffin and Juniper) to Afton for a fast hike to get them used to what my actual pace might be during the race (yes, we hiked too fast, but it was storming out the entire time). This gave the kids a good idea of what they might need for the day of the race (wool socks, food, change of clothes, etc). My last B2B (25+18) was the following week, 3 weeks before race week. 

What I could have been better about: 

* REST DAYS: I liked having 2 rest days most weeks! While I don't live a sedentary lifestyle by nature, it was nice to wake up some mornings knowing I could have a day to do whatever. Back in the spring, I had planned on using these days to cross train with stretching and/or strength training, but that never happened (even though it should have).

* ACTIVE RECOVERY: The other item on my training plan that I ignored was adding in different types of exercise such as biking, swimming, yoga, etc once every 3-4 weeks. Most often, I took these days as extra rest days instead. 

Overall, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling strong and in better shape than I've probably ever been in. Long runs and climbing hills hasn't left me sore or achy even once (although driving 30-45m home and getting out of the car sucks, but I can walk it off really quickly). Over 28 weeks, I'll have run 1102 miles, averaging 25-29m/week for 7 weeks, 31-38m/week for 12 weeks and 40-41m/week for the last 9 weeks. My max mileage peaked in weeks 20-21 with B2B 64+67m weeks. Overall I had 4 60+ mile weeks, 2 50+ mile weeks and 9 40+ mile weeks. Considering over the last 10+ years I'd rarely run more than 40 miles in a single week, this was an incredible feat for me!

Forecasts are starting to predict weather during the race so I'm starting to track it. As of today, it's looking like low 50's to start, warming up to mid 60's on Friday, back to upper 40's/low 50's overnight and only up to 60° on Saturday. The weather this past week has been cooler so it's been nice to train a bit in what might be "race weather". My plan is to wear shorts no matter what - I love my shorts with inner briefs so I don't have to wear underwear (this makes it so much easier to pee/change mid-run). I also mostly stopped wearing sport bras this summer as I found some Under Armour tanks with shelf bras that were really nice and much easier to get on/off while wet. I can easily throw a t-shirt or long-sleeve (or jacket) over the tanks. While I've pulled out clothes (and bought more socks), the actual packing I'll leave until next week. I'm still undecided on how to organize clothing in my gear bag as I don't want my crew to have to lug EVERYTHING to the aid station. I think the plan will be to have them bring just one of everything as I'm having them do with food. 

On that note - my most recent food discovery is Muir gels from REI - the cacao almond is literally brownie batter! So I bought 10 as they're small and easy to tear open. I also plan to make some mochi cake the day before the race. They hold up well in any temp, are easy to chew and high in calories. Also bringing plenty of m&m's, lunabars, trader joe gummies and waffles. For the salty side, I'll have potato chips, grilled cheese, string cheese, bacon, brats, salted nuts and possibly some hard-boiled eggs. 

First aid kit is packed - hoping the more prepared we are, the less likely we'll need it! Although I'm already preparing to lose some toenails, particularly my big left toe as it's given me problems in the past and is currently partly dead already. 

I still need to work on curating my music playlists. I plan on setting up on a podcast queue the night before. I may also listen to Parvati's audiobook. 

Now I'm just trying to ignore all of the aches and pains I'm noticing. My back is sore, my shoulders are sore! I'm trying to stretch out several times a day while also trying to rest (and at the same time, stay active). I actually had a massage last week, but I feel like I need one every day, haha! 

2025 Superior Fall 100 Mile (Part 3)

Tuesday August 12, 2025

Last checked in when I had 9 weeks to go. Now I'm about a month out and have 3 weeks of training left before race week. I hate to say anything right now, but I'm feeling really good. Right foot tendinitis is gone and has been for weeks. Still some minor irregular soreness in my left butt and sometimes in my left pelvis, but nothing that gets worse. 

Ended up doing a 30+20 for my "50 mile" training run. Had planned on running Thursday-Friday August 1-2, but the AQI was in the 150-160's (red zone) and decided that wasn't wise, so delayed a couple of days and did it Aug 3-4 instead. It went quite well! No notes! Oh, wait! Nevermind, I do have one note. On day one around 17 miles, I took a huge fall at the top of the meat grinder. Even with poles, I managed 6 points of impact - both knees, both hands, my right elbow and right shoulders. Knees bruised up quite badly. After another hour or two, they were really starting to hurt so I stopped and took some Advil. Wow, I don't take pain meds often, but they worked! Not only took the knee pain away, but also the butt pain I experience pretty constantly. Good to know! After these 30+20 runs, I took a couple of days off, got a short road run in and then that Saturday we took a trip to Afton with my pacers (Marcus, Jonah, Griffin and Juniper). The plan was to hike 15 miles at a 20-ish minute/mile pace. Earlier in the week, I was tracking some rain that day, but by Friday the rain had pretty much disappeared from the radar and what little there was was going to be done by 9am. We got to Afton around 9 and within 30 minutes, it started lightning, thundering and raining. And it didn't let up for more than 3 hours! So much for that plan! Everyone was soaked, but in good spirits and it was a really good lesson for them to realize what they needed to wear/bring for the race (wool socks, change of clothes, food, etc). We cut the run slightly short, ending with 13-14 miles and a pace around 17:00 which was WAY faster than it needed to be! Jonah is the only one (other than Marcus) who is going to need to hike more than what we did and the other two felt good (albeit a bit sore later that night) and confident they can pace me. 

I'm trying to take it a bit more easy these last few weeks (if you can count moving Kylah and Griffin into a new apartment and moving Finnley out of one apartment, twice, and then into a new apartment a week later). Of course, all of that only resulted in my cleaning my entire lower level and moving furniture around! My workshop really, really needs an overhaul as I haven't touched it since we filled it with Charlie stuff last fall! I may or may not tackle this in the next few weeks...

I'm also working on my crew/pacing spreadsheet. Alex called me while I was at Afton doing day two of my 30+20 to regretfully inform me that he was going to be in California the weekend of the race and wouldn't be able to crew/pace (aka be my cheerleader). As devastating as this news is, I'm working on getting through it and making a new plan! Essentially Jonah will take over for the section Alex was going to do (plus a little more). Then Griffin will take over, ending with Juniper (along with, hopefully, either Kylah or Finnley or maybe Marcus or Jonah). 

During our training run at Afton, towards the end, we ran into a runner on the river road (the place was pretty empty for a Saturday, likely due to the storm), but he started up a convo with us and we discovered pretty quickly he was a fairly experienced ultrarunner so I ran with him for a bit until the top of the meat grinder and asked advice! His name is Jeff Berg and he's the director of a film called the Pickle Juice Project which follows some women who have run the Superior 100 (as of writing this I haven't watched it yet, but will soon). He finished Superior last year and was signed up again this year. His top two recommendations were literally topics I was just discussing with the kids while we were hiking:

    * SET A TIMER - I told my pacers I wanted them to set timers on their phone (once they knew when they were starting to pace) to remind me to eat/drink plus just a general check-in. I wasn't sure if this should be 30m, 45 or 60m and Jeff, without me even asking, said 30 minutes! 

    * EAT, EAT AND EAT MORE AND CONSIDER LIQUID CALORIES - The other topic I brought up with my pacers is to ask me about what food I'm looking forward to at the next aid station as that can often keep me motivated. While they thought that was crazy, I typically do a pretty good job of eating while I'm running. I like real food and haven't relied much on gels, protein bars, etc. I've also never tried liquid calories before. But Jeff highly recommended trying something in my pack as it's an easy way to get calories without having to think about it. He recommended Tailwind and Skratch, the latter is slightly less sweet. So Marcus picked me up some when he was at REI later that day and I tried the Skratch at Hyland the next day. It was fine so I ended up buying the high-carb version which packs 400 calories into a serving. Typically, it's intended to be diluted with 20oz of water, but I'm going to put it in my 70oz hydration pack tomorrow for my Afton run and see how I like it. I'm a bit nervous about not having straight up water to drink, but I think it'll be diluted enough that it will be less noticeable. The high-carb version doesn't have nearly as much electrolytes, really only adds sodium along with carbs, so I'm also going to add one of their zero-carb scoops which will add in more sodium plus calcium, potassium and magnesium. If I don't reject this combo, it could be useful in knowing that I don't have to force food down if I'm not feeling it, yet I'm still getting calories/sodium. Overall, Jeff recommended at least 250 calories per hour (including all forms of calories) which is the exact range I was looking at shooting for! My current list of foods include: grilled cheese, string cheese, bacon, potato chips, fritos, salted nuts, salted hard-boiled eggs, leftover pizza, peanut and peanut butter m&m's, dried ginger, snickeers/reese's cups, lunabars, TJ gummies, salted caramel waffles, chocolate covered espresso beans (to use only when I'm using a headlamp so I don't OD on caffeine), coke, gingerale and skratch.

This is my last high-mile week, shooting for 66 miles, but might skip one day depending on how my 2 B2B days at Afton go this week. Hills at Hyland this weekend and then will start tapering going into next week. Only goal now is TO NOT GET HURT!