Juliana Moves

You guys, I did it! I rounded out my spring racing season with Falling Water 100k in the beautiful New River Gorge of West Virginia! Long story short, it was super fun and also hard. I had set a random goal of 16 hours and ended up finishing just under 17. I am so good with that! 

I’ve written about this already, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. I felt really fit. I knew I was really strong. But my overall mileage had been less than when I trained for MMT and that felt like such an unknown to me. Of course, this was a different race! 40 miles less! The training wasn’t going to be the same. I leaned into it, trusted the process, and it paid off all season long.

Per usual, the only way I can organize my thoughts is with a day by day breakdown, so here we go!

Thursday

We decided to extend our Airbnb reservation so that we could make the 6 hour drive on Thursday, instead of Friday. I took this day off so that I could pack and run errands. It was a beautiful day, so I especially enjoyed my last run of the training block.

Since Patrick was working that day, we left later in the afternoon. The drive wasn’t too eventful. We stopped in Lexington, VA to pick up Macado’s for dinner. We looked like animals eating that in the car… When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised with how big and comfortable our Airbnb was! 

Friday

We both worked remotely – what a treat! We took a small break mid-morning to drive into town to go to Rangefinder Coffee. We go here every time we are in Fayetteville now! It was another beautiful day so I enjoyed a cold brew while working. Glorious!

Later in the afternoon, I sat in the sun on the porch and read my book. I dragged Alaska’s dog bed out there too. She doesn’t sleep outside as much as she used to, but she does love to lay in the sun like a lizard. 🙂

I picked up my race bib this day, too. The race shirt was a great green color! 

After dinner (pasta, of course), I prepped my nutrition for the race. The race consisted of 4 15.5 mile loops, with two unmanned water stops at miles 5 and 10ish of each loop and a big aid station at the start/end area. I thought through what I would want and need on each loop, bagged them separately to make Patrick’s life easier, and went to bed as early as I could.

Saturday – race day!

My alarm went off at 4:45 am. I was ready to roll! The race started at 7 am, but I wanted time to eat, drink coffee, and hydrate. I also had no idea what the crew setup at the start/end would be like, so I wanted to be sure we were there early enough to feel that out. I put on my favorite North Face shirt (this is my Chekhov gun, by the way), added glitter to my face, and felt ready to run for hours and hours and hours.

As previously mentioned, this course is 4 15.5 loops with only two water stops on it. Because of this, I had decided to focus on one loop at a time and one sub-chunk of the loop at a time. Generally, my strategy was this:

• Lap 1 – Recon/Warm Up Loop – Take it easy, feel out the course, and settle in!
• Lap 2 – Easy Loop – Again, keeping it as easy as possible while still enjoying the running!
• Lap 3 – Hard Loop – I’m no fool. I knew that miles 30-45 would start to feel pretty hard, so I wanted to be mentally prepared to accept that.
• Lap 4 – Patrick Loop – Pacers were only allowed in the final loop, so I was excited to just spend time with Patrick!

Typically, I don’t love a loop or an out-and-back. Honestly, picking this race was sort of out of character for me! I just love the entire Rim to River Endurance Co. organization.

After I did my first loop, I learned more about what to expect from each sub-chunk. The loop felt like this:

• Miles 0-5.8ish – Very runnable and mostly downhill! It was fun and beautiful! I never needed water from this water stop.
• Miles 5.8-10.5ish – Some proper trail running with steep descents and a water crossing. Nothing too crazy and still very runnable, but you had to turn your brain on a bit more! I filled up each time. ALSO, there were real bathrooms at this water stop. Amazing! I used them three times.
• Miles 10.5-15.5 – So. Much. Climbing. An entire scramble, even! This section was the longest each lap and was both physically and mentally taxing.

I was aiming for about 4 hours each loop to reach my 16 hour goal. This went well on laps 1 and 2, okayish on lap 3, and then completely out the window on lap 4 LOL. I felt like I did a shockingly good job with my nutrition and didn’t experience anything too whacky out there. 

I think I moved and ran pretty well for the first 2.5 laps. My leg turnover felt good and I just allowed myself to enjoy the running.

It was a beautiful day, albeit a tad humid. I felt the effects of the humidity a lot during my second lap. It has a unique ability to sap you of energy. I slowed down so that I could focus on hydrating! There had also been rain forecasted all day, which largely stayed away! I got sprinkled on a few times, but nothing crazy. The course got a little muddy in some parts but was otherwise fine.

I didn’t listen to anything during lap 1, but I did turn on podcasts during lap 2. My phone’s flashlight kept randomly turning on, so I had to put my phone on airplane mode to avoid draining the battery too much. At some point during lap 3, I had to stop using it to prevent it from dying altogether. Also, about halfway through lap 3, I started to feel super sleepy. I foolishly forgot to bring my drink mix with caffeine and didn’t think that’d be an issue, I guess?? I was struggling.

As I came through the proper aid station to pick up Patrick and start lap 4, we filled up a small flask with Coke, which saved me! We still had about an hour and a half of daylight in lap 4 before it got dark, too. During our final lap, I was moving really slow. My legs were just wrecked from the climbing, I think. I probably should’ve done more vert throughout training, but logistics were a challenge this spring. Oh well!

A few miles into the last lap, I kept commenting that my lower back/sides were burning in a strange way. It didn’t feel like chafing I was used to, so I figured I had some new, minor irritation. I had changed into completely new clothes before lap 4, and none of it was new-to-me gear, so I didn’t worry about it too much.

Patrick and I kept trucking along through the dark, checking off completion of each sub-chunk of the loop. As we entered the home stretch, I was so ready to be done! Fortunately, I never felt like I couldn’t do it or that I wanted to quit! I was confident that I would complete it the entire time. Sure, at moments I wished I was doing something else… Lol, who wouldn’t?! But I kept focusing on how grateful I was to be there.

We came through the finish in 16:52:13! When I realized I wouldn’t make my 16 hour goal, I hoped I could at least do it in sub-17. And we did! Yay!

I collected my belt buckle and mug, sat in a camp chair for a bit, and then we headed back to the Airbnb. My feet were very tired! I also have to note that I was blister-free the whole race! The water crossing was significant and your feet were entirely submerged for about 15 seconds. After MMT last year, I was really nervous about how my feet would hold up. Fortunately, since it was only one real water crossing, my shoes dried out enough each lap that I didn’t have any issues.

When we got back, it was time for me to peel off my sweaty clothes to check out the chafing. You guys. That burn on my sides/lower back? Maybe the worst chafing I’ve ever had. It straight up looked like burns. The North Face shirt has stitching that runs down both sides of my back and one horizontal stitch that runs across the bottom. Where all those stitches meet? Carnage on my skin. I’d worn that shirt on many, many long runs, but never something this long. I think the humidity and extra sweat made it stick to my skin more than usual too. Ouch. My bad. I had minor chafing on my chest and upper back, but I’m used to that and it wasn’t so bad.

Showering was a challenge! 

I felt weirdly good post-race. I thought I’d want to pass out right away but I was chatty and ate pizza and was moving around pretty well. I didn’t sleep as much as I expected that night, but made up for it with lounging on Sunday!

Sunday – post-race

Sunday was glorious. I had pizza and a breakfast sandwich and coffee all before 10 am. Lol. I sat on the Airbnb couch and watched YouTube for hours. Patrick and I briefly walked around some of the shops in Fayetteville before coming back to the Airbnb for me to continue lounging and for Patrick to go on his run.

It was a beautiful day for Patrick to trail run! I met him a few times for drop off, pick up, and a water stop. Other than that? I watched more YouTube, read, napped on the couch, and generally enjoyed resting. After his run, Patrick and I enjoyed Secret Sandwich Society for dinner. It was a weirdly long and lovely day!

Thanks to all my reading over the weekend, I finally finished The Martian by Andy Weir, so we decided to watch it on Sunday night! We stayed up later than I should’ve. No regrets. It was a fun movie!

Monday

We woke up early-ish to pack up and head home. Of course, we had to stop at Rangefinder one more time on our way out of town. Patrick was working that day, so I had to do the whole drive. Friends, it was brutal. I was mentally tired, but my legs were also getting so stiff in the car. I made us stop a bunch of times.

I listened to Noah Kahan’s album all the way through on the drive and then switched to random music and podcasts. After all the stimulation during the race, it was kind of nice to sit quietly at times. Eventually I forced Patrick to talk to me to keep me entertained! Passenger’s tax!

It was nice to unpack and be home on Monday afternoon. We walked to dinner with our neighbors, which was the cherry on top of an awesome weekend. I am so grateful for my life!

While I am stoked to take a bit of an off-season now, I can’t wait to think ahead for what comes next. I love running. I love the outdoors. Life is good.

Love,

JN