I was back at Hill Country State Natural Area in Bandera, TX. Just 10 weeks earlier, I ran Cactus Rose 100 miler in the same park, on many of the same trails. During that race, I went blind and it took me over 31 hours to finish. As I pulled into Hill Country State Park, the memories of that race flooded back. This time I was prepared. This time would be different.
Going into Bandera Endurance Race 100k, I had a goal to finish in under 15 hours with a stretch goal to finish in under 12 hours. In the end, I finished in 14 hours 59 minutes and 46 seconds. While I was more prepared for this race, it is still a very difficult and technical race.
The 100K race is made up of 2 loops on a 50K course. Given this, I decided to bring all the fuel/snacks I would need for 50K, then do a complete switch out of fuel/snacks for the second loop. I liked how this simplified my planning/packing.
I arrived at the park on Friday night and decided to camp there for the night. Unfortunately when I packed dinner, I grabbed the wrong granola to eat with my yogurt. The granola I brought had a lot of flax seeds in it. My digestive system does not do well with a lot of flax seeds; they give me stomach cramps and gas. (Not something I want to deal with on race day.) I realized my mistake before I ate too much of the granola. Since I packed pretty light, I did not have a backup for dinner which means I did not eat much food. I feel this affected my race performance.
Race Time
The 100K kicked off at 7:30am with around 300 runners. For the first 28 miles, I felt good. I was right on pace with where I wanted to be. Around mile 28, I began to feel fatigued and hungry. While I had been doing a good job eating/fueling according to my plan, I was feeling like it was not enough. My pace began to slow down, so I decided to eat the granola bar I packed. After a little bit, I felt my energy come back. I realized that I needed to eat more, but not more sugar based foods. (I could tell my body felt like it had too much sugar already.) Given that I packed so light for this race, I did not bring a lot of solid foods. I knew I had to rely on the aid stations.
Runner Needs Food Badly
I slowed down significantly in the last 4 miles on lap one and finished behind the pace I wanted. I knew I could not reach my stretch goal of 12 hours, but still felt pretty good about my 15 hour goal. On my the second lap I stopped at almost every aid station, eating cheese quesadillas, pretzels, and bananas. All the food really kept me going, but I needed to slow down for about a mile right after I ate each time.
As I approached the end of the race, I kept checking my time knowing that finishing under 15 hours was going to be close. 14.5 hours in, my watch died. I knew I had to keep moving, but I did not know my pace.
The Final Sprint
During the 2nd loop, another runner and I kept leapfrogging each other. We were pretty close to each other when we hit that flat section about a half mile from the finish. Once we did, we both picked up our pace. He was about 10 feet in front of me. When we came around the final turn and could see the end, we both started to sprint. The crowd began to cheer and I started to catch up to him. Both of us sprinted as hard as we could to the finish line. He just beat me as we finished in the same second. I gave him a big high-five after we finished and he replied, “Thanks, I needed that.” This was my favorite moment of the race.
Those final few minutes were so much fun. While I am a little disappointed in my final time, I am very happy with the race. I walked away from it injury free, only mild blisters, no vision issues, and I qualified for Western States. All in all, I had a good race.
