100 mile races

[InDeep]

What's your favorite race. I'm going to start looking for my first 100 miler . And would love to here your thoughts on what you guys have ran .

 

[Owens]

I have run and paced at both Run Rabbit Run in Steamboat and Bighorn in Wyoming. Both are well run races and have a great post race celebrations. Bighorn is known for mud, which I experienced pacing a friend. I ran the race this past June and it was hot and dry. I thought we maybe caught a break this year, but it was still difficult. Run Rabbit is also a challenging course, with some sections around 10k feet. It typically gets cold over night there. Of course Run Rabbit is in September so could interfere with archery elk season. Happy to share more if you are interested in either of those races.

 

[Wingnutt]

Running the War Hammer this coming June. It'll be my first 100! Might pm you for any traning and race tips.

 

[sd375]

I have run and paced at both Run Rabbit Run in Steamboat and Bighorn in Wyoming. Both are well run races and have a great post race celebrations. Bighorn is known for mud, which I experienced pacing a friend. I ran the race this past June and it was hot and dry. I thought we maybe caught a break this year, but it was still difficult. Run Rabbit is also a challenging course, with some sections around 10k feet. It typically gets cold over night there. Of course Run Rabbit is in September so could interfere with archery elk season. Happy to share more if you are interested in either of those races.

What did your training look like for these races?

@CanEater

 

[Owens]

What did your training look like for these races?

@CanEater

For perspective, I'm a mid to back of the pack runner and went over 33 hours for both of these races. I followed a 26 week plan with mini cycles of 3 weeks building and one "recovery" week. In the meat of the 26 week schedule, I averaged low to mid 60 mile weeks, with a few peak weeks hitting 70 miles. Both cycles included a 50k race and 50 mile run. For Run Rabbit, I ran 50 miles in an overnight race (partly to get used to running in the dark). For Bighorn, I ran Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim in the Grand Canyon (48 miles and about 12k feet of vert). Both cycles also included few weekends with back to back 20+ mile runs.

Run Rabbit was in 2016 and was my first 100. For that, I pretty much followed a plan in the book Relentless Forward Progress that was based on 5 days per week. For Bighorn, this past June, my plan was loosely based on the same book. But being my 3rd 100, I made some adjustments. My average weekly mileage was a little higher for Bighorn than it was for Run Rabbit. And I ran 6 days per week. I also mixed in some speed work one day a week in the early part of the Bighorn cycle.

The lead-up to Bighorn was also pretty different. I had registered to run in 2020, but of course it was cancelled. I kept the running volume fairly high through 2020 doing unsupported runs in the mountains with friends. So I came into the 2021 cycle for Bighorn with a pretty solid base. Here's a link to my profile on Strava if you want more detail. https://www.strava.com/athletes/2324114

 

[Hackleback]

This is a hard question as its very personal. There are a ton of good races out there ranging from wild to mild. Do you like heat, or big climbs, runable trails, rough scrambling..... The last 100 I did was Flagstaff to grand, a variable tread course with mild temperatures and a bit of rain. This made for a good day for me.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I did the Mohican 100 and the Leadville 100 after recovering from Ironman races. It seemed to work really well. Never ran more than 20 miles at a time in training and ended up finishing pretty well. I don’t do any distance running anymore though.