For several years now I have been trying to up my game and find new limits in my ultra adventures. I have missed for several years now on the Leadville 100 lottery and I'm also now 0 for 1 on the High Lonesome 100 lottery. I've got several 50 mile races under my belt and in 2025 I did the Sawatch 50-50 which ultimately added up to 100K over two days. It also served as a qualifier for entry into the HL100 lottery. Looking ahead to 2027 I needed another qualifier and so it was time to check out 100K options. After a lot of travel the last two years it made sense this year to find an option closer to home. I finally opted for the Woodstock 100K at Pinckney State Recreation Area in Michigan. Conveniently, the course would be run on the very trail system I call my "home trails" as I visit often and I love them.
Walking into the Start/Finish area
This race was shaping up to be right up my alley and I was hoping to be primed for success. Over the summer leading up to the race I ran the course a number of times to get a sense of timing and pacing. I even went to one of their training run days and pulled off back to back days running the 16+ mile course. My training from May up to race day seemed to go incredibly well. I was feeling as injury-free as I had in years. I kept blaming things on being in my 40s and falling apart and yet here I was in 2026, not falling apart as much anymore. Leading into the race I didn't just want to finish my first attempt at the new distance (100K), I wanted to finish it well and perform. I wanted a time I could be proud of.
Table of Contents
RACE RECAP
After months of preparation both physically and mentally I was concerned from the very start of the race that things weren't going to plan. That alone is frustrating after all that time and when you get to the moment and it still isn't right. I was standing in the starting corral listening to them play the anthem and realizing I had to go to the bathroom one more time. I had 3 minutes to start and I made the quick call it was worth it rather than having to stop once the race started. Luckily the portos were very close by and relatively empty and so I was able to use one. It brought back memories of Leadville Silver Rush where I was actually a minute late to the start because of this. Here I got back outside into the corral just as the masses were moving and I was able to start with the bunch.
The first 2 miles seem to go to plan as I kept easy pacing amidst the crowds and just kept moving along with the flow. But by mile three or four I realized I was going to have to use the bathroom again. I suspected there might be one at the Bethel Woods Aid but I wasn't going to make it that far. So I made my first pit stop into the woods, luckily I had toilet paper along.
I got moving again after that stop and found my way in the flow of the other people through the Bethel Woods Aid station. As would be my routine all day I was in and out in under a minute. I filled my bottle with water and threw in my Tailwind powder and grabbed some chips.
After that aid however I only made it another mile or two until I realized I would have to go again. I still had some toilet paper left and I found another quiet spot in the woods. This drew my concern and annoynace as I might be doing this off and on for a while this day. It was cutting into my timing, but in hindsights I realize that should not have been my concern. Luckily as the rest of the day would play out that would be my last need for a pit stop and the GI issues would ultimately go away.
The rest of the first lap would seemingly go to plan. I was keeping pace around 12 minute miles and keeping heart rate in zone 2 with some zone 3. It was feeling a bit warm and there were times I thought I probably should have used the ice bandana. But there would not have been ice available on course, only at my vehicle.
When I returned to Hog Farm Aid (which was right by the vehicles and a quarter mile short of the start/finish) I took about 5 minutes at the car going through my checklist. I did change shoes as I could feel my right toe rubbing in the Hoka Challengers and I went straight to the Altra Lone Peaks for the bigger toe box. I did not change any clothes at this time. I grabbed my headlamp and updated the food and drink powder I was carrying. The Hog Farm Aid was just about a hundred feet from my car. After that was about a quarter mile stretch on the camp roads to the actual start and finish. Lap one came through at about 3:32 which was pretty much right on target for me. So far so good even with the GI issues. The only lingering issue was I could feel just some light achiness in the quads. I didn't know yet if it would be nothing or if it would get worse.
The first part of Lap 2 went fairly smoothly. I actually ran it a few minutes faster than Lap 1, helped by not making any bathroom breaks. It still felt warm out and I was hoping for things to cool when dark hit. During this lap I was modestly growing more concerned about my quads. I could just feel a little bit of a niggle in each and it seemed too early for me to have any problems there. As the evening approached I pulled my headlamp out along the campground road but I did not have to turn it on till around the Rosemary Forest Aid.
As I returned to Hog Farm on Lap 2 I continued my routine at the car. The guy in the car next to me was also there and we chit-chatted a bit and I may be lost 6 or 7 minutes talking with him. Here I did finally change my shirt and my shorts. After all the sweating it seemed wise to refresh everything. Lap 2 was around 3:42 and so things were still going fairly good on my time goal. The hope originally had been for around 3:30 on laps 1 + 2 and then around 4:00 on laps 3 + 4 for a total of 15 hours.
As Lap 3 progressed in the dark I was having increasing issues keeping my heart rate aerobic. I wasn't feeling tired exactly but I was certainly feeling the quads more and more getting very uncomfortable. It was evident my walk breaks were becoming more prevalent. I did my best to try to keep a good run/walk routine going, not worrying about time, just about keeping moving. By the time I reached the Food for Love Aid, which was always the halfway mark of each lap, it was very uncomfortable to be running.
I walked the entire campground road and continued my walk once we hit the trail from there. It was here the mental dialogue of what to do at the end of this lap occupied my thoughts the rest of the way. Initially I thought surely I will try to regroup at the car and head out for Lap 4. I had plans to grab the trekking poles and make a go of it. I was probably making the mistake of doing all sorts of mental math of how long this would all take. As I hiked I was moving briskly and I could tell on the uphills there was still strength in the legs. But the running motion just brought so much discomfort. So it wasn't so much a bonk where I just felt exhausted in the body as a whole, it was almost entirely in the quads.
My feelings changed over the last few miles of Lap 3. I could sense my walk slowing. I must have hunched slightly as I was getting some discomfort in my lower back. All of this led to a mental decline and an increasing desire to simply be done at the end of Lap 3. I was getting passed by a handful of people but not a ton. I remember the lead male and the lead female going by and each was moving very well. When I return to the Hog Farm area at least tried to run the last 100 meters into aid and after all the walking my legs actually didn't feel horrible. I should have looked into that more.
When I hit my van I sat in my chair a few minutes mentally resolved to be done. I looked at my watch and it said 49.13 miles. I gave some thought to what it would take to at least get to 50 miles but I didn't go for it. I ultimately walked the few feet over to the Hog Farm Aid station and told the captain there that I was done. They were very kind to try to talk me out of it and they had some very good reasoning but I was absolutely done. I had even already stopped my watch and saved the activity. At the time I didn't second guess too much. I mostly wanted to crawl into my van to go to sleep and that is essentially what I did.
Now that I've had time since the race to think back, of course there is a lot of second-guessing. Certainly I had plenty of time to complete Lap 4, even if I walked the whole thing slowly. When I had gotten in my van and slept 45 minutes I got up to go to the bathroom. I happened to notice when I did my legs hadn't seized up yet and even felt a little bit improved. That certainly could have been a sign that an hour or two of rest and sleep might have reset me. It's also possible I could have restarted Lap 4 and immediately got into soreness a mile down the road. But it certainly makes me wonder whether I should have just slept an hour or two in the car and then started up again. Some combination of the tiredness and also a certain prideful annoyance of losing out on my performance goals sapped all my motivation to just push for a finish. I found that my ultimate goal wasn't a finish, it was to run the race in a way I was proud of after all the training and a 16 mile death march for lap 4 wasn't going to do it.
But it definitely frustrates and aggravates me that I had such good training and so much preparation and thought I had things all in place for the race and then it didn't work. That last week of taper just didn't quite feel right. Not sure why that was or if that contributed. Also frustrating that I didn't have a better mental game to try to stick this out and finish one way or another. I could have even noted that Lap 3 actually was faster than I thought it was, I was thinking over 5 hours with all the walking but it would have been about 4:25. So it wasn't horrendous. As I walked Lap 3 I certainly had that bad mental thought that if I couldn't handle this course in this race, what was I thinking ever trying to go back and do another 100K or more. That maybe this was it and I had found my limit. As it usually goes in ultras though, by about 4 days post-race my mindset had recovered and I was beginning to embolden and decide, I had to try a 100K again. Back to the drawing board.
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| Near Hog Farm, my van is parked under two trees on right |
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| More of the 100M/100K runners car aid area |
Hydration
- The race start was around 75 degrees and sunny. While this is on the warmer side the recent humidity had been down a bit and so the air wasn't too oppressive. Running in the woods the whole time also kept the sun off of us.
- The running effort I was putting in, combined with the temps which hit upper 70s, made me feel just a little too warm. I was regretting not having used my ice bandanna more.
- I had hoped that by lap 3, when running in the dark, things would quickly feel cooler. There was very little breeze and it was taking time for the air in the trees to cool. In the rare sections (usually on boardwalks at the lakes) when we got out into open air you could feel it 5-10 degrees cooler.
- By the time I wrapped up on lap 3 the temps were closer to 60 degrees.
GARMIN FENIX 7
On my watch I predominantly followed a screen with "Timer", "Lap Pace" and "Heart Rate" on it. I was using the timer to track short run-walk intervals. I was following lap pace hoping to keep things within range. I was using HR a lot to keep things in the zone 2-3 area.
Pre-race I had setup a course for the race. Oddly enough, I totally didn't remember to load it on race day and in fact didn't even realize this until I started writing this report 5 days later. This was fine as I knew every inch of the course very well and it didn't really matter.
As usual with trail races, I turn off the "auto-lap" on every mile and instead was hitting the lap button at entry and exit from aid stations.
GEAR
I used my Ultimate Direction Ultra Vest 5.0 today. I had debated just using a handheld but I also wanted to carry toilet paper and the extra drink powder and the vest just made sense. I was using these mini plastic travel bottles to put two scoops of tailwind in each. I was also carrying some extra gels and Honey Stinger chews. I even put my phone in the back of the vest and this helped me avoid having to wear a running belt the whole time. For laps 2 and 3 I also carried a collapsible cup to be able to grab some coke.
I would say I went training specific for Woodstock during the last week of May. This made for a 16 week training block. I was consistently running good 40-mile weeks heading into this and had run the Pinckney Trail Marathon at end of April.
Through the first 5 weeks I felt I was really humming along. I capped that off with a great 18-miler at Pointe Mouillee where I covered the miles and still felt fresh. The following week was Colorado where I was basically without running for the better part of 9 days. The first full week of running getting into July was also my first 60-mile week of this block. The goal had been to get 4-5 good weeks of 60-miles in. I didn't quite reach that though with life getting in the way.
Throughout training I was incorporating a lot of doubles with doing hills on the treadmill in the morning and then a moderate afternoon workout. I really think this works for me as a means to get more miles with less wear and tear. I was also doing what I call "base interval" workouts a lot where I would run 4 minutes, walk 2 minutes on days where I just wanted to keep things easy. After dealing with on/off again injuries the last few years I've been really focusing on sustainability for my running. This year's training block went exceptionally well in this regard as I felt the most injury free in many years and it was very liberating to just run as I wanted to without being held back.
I did a 4x4x28 type workout on the Jul 23-24 to cap off my 2nd straight big 60-mile week and I was pleased to come out of it with no soreness and just moderate fatigue for 2 das. Through week 10 of training I felt things were going very well. In weeks 1-8 my watch metrics were showing constant improvement. Weeks 9-10 they showing some plateauing but I was feeling good.
The Tahqua 50K with Seth came in week 11 and it went fairly well fo rme and was a nice confidence boost for endurance. I still felt good at the end. Only downside was I did come out of it with a little more DOMS in the quads for 3 days after than I would have liked. It shortened the mileage for post-week down to 28 instead of the hoped for 55+. The Tahqua race, while a big 50K stimulus, also resulted in 3 straight weeks of lower mileage, weeks 10-12. One week of taper, race week, and then a post-race week. I think if I wasn't racing it with Seth perhaps I could have tapered less and tried to keep higher mileage through it all.
Hopefully the final pieces in the puzzle came at 3 weeks out and two weeks out. At 3 weeks out I did the Woodstock training run. That was at the end of a week where I ultimately did five straight days of 10 plus miles. On that Friday I ran the Woodstock course in the evening before bed. On Saturday morning I ran it again with the training group. 68 miles for the week and the runs went really well. A small bit of quad soreness the two days that follow. Then 2 weeks out I did a back-to-back of 18 mi and 12 mi at home. Those also went very well, The 12 mile run on Saturday morning really felt strong. These big back-to-backs have been going very well and hopefully are a good sign of endurance and that I will not break down on race day.
On race week I took Sunday and Monday off and then had base interval runs on Tuesday and Wednesday of 4 and 3 miles. Legs felt a little sluggish and not as peppy as I might have liked. I had hoped this was just the feel of taper and that they would be ready to go for race day.
Total Miles: 49.23 miles
Total Elevation Gain: 5,133 ft.
Total Calories Burned: 5,896 cals
Total Time: 11:39:41
RACE DAY SPLITS LAP 1
57:04 - Start to Bethel Woods (4.41mi) 1:05 at aid 1:08:31 - Bethel Woods to Food for Love (5.51mi) 2:04 at aid 24:15 - Food for Love to Rosemary Forest (2.08mi) 0:42 at aid 51:37 - Rosemary Forest to Hog Farm (4.16mi) 4:40 at car + aid 3:31:43 lap 1 split (which occurs a little after leaving Hog Farm Aid LAP 2 53:07 - Start to Bethel Woods 1:12 at aid 1:08:47 - Bethel Woods to Food for Love 1:13 at aid 25:54 - Food for Love to Rosemary Forest 0:58 at aid 54:06 - Rosemary Forest to Hog Farm 14:35 at car + aid 3:42:30 / 7:14:13 lap 2 split LAP 3 1:00:52 - Start to Bethel Woods 0:50 at aid 1:25:05 - Bethel Woods to Food for Love 1:40 at aid 36:30 - Food for Love to Rosemary Forest 0:40 at aid 1:15:20 - Rosemary Forest to Hog Farm 4:18 at car before stopping watch 4:25:28 / 11:39:41 lap 3 split + DNF time
Big Splits
3:31:43 lap 1
3:42:30 lap 2
4:25:48 lap 3
The embedded map has my track from race day as well as waypoints for the aid stations, the four major peaks, and a few other notable points along the way.
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