200 miles is not that far?
This weekend brought me to the Bear 100 to crew a long time friend, Petra Pirc-McDowell. It’s been an eternity since I’ve posted anything on my ancient blog, but this time I figured, what the hell. After seeing many folks at the Bear 100 fight, struggle and swim in the mud, it deserved some love.
Congrats to Brian Peterson on a fine win, just under 19 hours at 18:59.24. Congrats to Anna Frost for doing what she does, and shaving some time of a stellar record, previously set by Bethany Lewis. Anna ran 20:59.24, shaving 16 minutes, and Congrats to Petra for finishing the 100, 11 years since her last one eleven years ago. Her time gave her some sore quads, and third place in 25:45.51.
The mud was ridiculous once it started raining. A shoe sucking nightmare. Anyone who finished this year is a hero in my opinion. I’m not sure I would have been all that happy in the slop for those last 30 miles. I did get the opportunity to run/slide thru the last 8 with Petra, my first “run” since the AT about 4 weeks ago. And yes, I was sore afterwards.
I was hoping this race would inspire me to get back at it. Well, it sort of has……but not in mud like that.
Why is this post titled “200 miles is not that far”? Well, there was one guy who decided to park his car at the finish line and run back to the start to “begin” the race. His name is Ty Draney. Ty decided to run/hike/slide 200 miles over the Logan Mountains to celebrate his 40th birthday. Yah, nice way to celebrate a birthday Ty!
When I heard he was doing this about a week before the race, it reminded me of when Dana, “mud and guts” Miller attempted this at the Wasatch 100 many moons ago. Dana finished, but did not make the final cutoff at Wasatch. Ty made it at the Bear, with many hours to spare. Ty thru down the “backwards” route in roughly 27 ish hours. Ty had some “spare time”, so he took a 5 hour nap, then woke up for round two, and with a few more naps sprinkled in between during the actual “race”, he finished lap 2 in 28+ hours. Not counting his “naps”, he negative split the damn thing. Incredible Ty, just incredible. Now you shall realize, that 100 miles is short.
I guess I’ll go run now, I’m sort of inspired. But it’s gonna be slow, then I’ll go play golf and prepare for my second “World Championship Speedgolf even at Bandon Dunes, Oregon in a few weeks.
