It's been a long time. The last time I raced an ultramarathon was September 2018, the IAU 100 km world championships in Croatia. I had a pulmonary embolism at the time, and didn't know it, so I basically ran 10:00 pace, had an average heart rate of 180 beats per minute, and after 4.5 hours, called it quits as I was getting lapped on the 10 km circuit. Then in the spring of 2019 I broke my ankle in two places and partially tore two ligaments. While I started to recover from that injury, and did a couple 40 mile trail runs, ultimately my ankle wasn't really healing, and in the winter of 2021-2022 it got to the point I could not run 3-4 miles without ankle pain. I didn't know if I would ever run long distances again. So in April 2022 I had a stem cell procedure where bone marrow was taken out of my hips, centrifuged to get the step cells, and they were injected into my ankle bones and ligaments. The recovery was hard, and it really took about 8 months before I started to feel actually better from it, but I did start to feel better.
2023 I gradually felt better and on a trip to Seattle in September I went for a 12 mile run, the first that long in over a year. It felt good, so when I stumbled into free entry for the Boulderthon half marathon in October 2023, I thought, 'hey, why not go run a half marathon and see what happens?' I ran 1:37, which while not fast by any means, it was a huge improvement from where I had been the past few years. I've never ran the Boston Marathon, and it's one of the things that still motivates me, so I decided to try and go qualify for it. I registered for the Napa Valley Marathon in March, and while I was on 3:00 pace for about 16 miles, I fell off and hit the wall, coming in at like 3:24. So I registered for another marathon, the Revel Rockies downhill marathon in June, and managed to run 3:01:00, getting 4:00 under my qualifying time, however the criteria to get in to Boston in 2025 was to be 6:52 under your qualifying time, so I didn't get into Boston. But it gave me a lot of confidence.
So I registered for the Fat Ox 24 hour USATF national championship in November this year. If I won, and ran 145 miles, I would get entry to the 2025 world championships. The two times I've gone to the world championships, once I had a stress fracture and then had whole body cramps, and the other time I had the pulmonary embolism. I'm a good runner, I have this talent that God gave me, and I don't feel that I've really had the chance to show that on a big stage.
The Fat Ox 24 went really well! I set a speed limit for myself of 8:30 per mile, and only had a few laps faster than that. I drank a lot of Maurten, gatorade and electrolyte drink, and didn't hit the wall until 110 miles. I did slow down in the heat of the afternoon, and fell off my goal pace of 150 miles, but I was doing well. After my 2:30 AM hitting the wall, I was able to get back out there and keep going to ultimately get 125 miles, and 3rd place for the men, and 6th place overall. While not the top end goal I had for the race, it was really exciting to be back, and run something like that with essentially no pain. Or at least, not the ankle pain that I battled for several years after my skiing accident in 2019.
What's next? I already put my name in the Leadville 100 lottery, and I'd like to take another crack at making the 2025 24 hour world championship team, but for now I'm still in recovery mode. I went on my first run after the race, 12 days later and only 3 miles, and it went well, but I am clearly still tired.
