Running Addiction: Vegas Baby… Jackpot USATF National Championship 2024

It’s been a while since I’ve set a goal for myself at 100 mile race. Sometime in 2023, after returning from the 48 hour World Championship race, where my performance was distinctly mediocre, I found myself frustrated with my running and appalled at how my speed (never my strong point) had deteriorated to something that just didn’t feel like running. The deterioration had been steady over the past few years, and I’ve attributed it to being a post-menopausal woman. I also was somewhat resigned that my best running was behind me, and that there was nothing that I could do about it.

Still… my endurance was still good, I could still pull off second place finishes in multi-days, and with a more balanced approach to running and a move to Seattle where I regularly get to run with a bunch of crazies (the BIRCS – Bad Influence Running Club), my joy quotient has improved recently. It was somewhere in the last quarter of 2023 that I decided I’d see if there was something I could do about the deterioration.

I got a coach. Shannon McGinn, of Creating Momentum coaching, had previously coached me during my best running years. At that point, however, she refused to give me a plan. Rather, she let me guide my own training, knowing that I’d probably ignore much of what she said, preferring to just run big weekly miles. And for a long time, that worked.

Until it didn’t.

And I needed a change.

So this time around, I told her I needed not just a sounding board and a nutrition/life coach, but I needed a plan. And that is just what she gave me.

Starting sometime in early November, I started building in two structured speed workouts a week. Which was two more than I had been doing. Unlike any efforts I’d done on my own or following what works for friends, Shannon’s approach was perfect because it eased me into speedwork in a way that felt achievable and comfortable. Instead of dreading speed workouts, I looked forward to them. It also made the runs in between more enjoyable because I could just relax. I'm also doing strength and flexibility as well as plyometrics.

My first chance to see what this approach yielded was at ATY over New Years. During 2023, the best 48 hour performance I’d pulled off was 150 miles. This was not just a speed issue--it also had to do with goal setting and motivation. My goals were probably unrealistic, and my motivation was decidedly absent. So, I’d go into a 48 hour race with a goal of 190, and when it started to slip through my fingers, I really had no other significant goals that felt meaningful. Also, I found that my “all day” pace was no longer sustainable “all day”. There would come a point when I could no longer comfortably do the alternating jog walk that has served me so well for so long...I'd start to feel gassed, like I just couldn't get enough energy every time I'd start to run.

At ATY, both of those things changed. First, I set a goal that I knew was both a push, but achievable. Secondly, I saw a profound difference in my endurance after doing all the speedwork. I wasn’t “faster” per se at ATY – however, I could keep the same pace up for significantly longer without ever feeling like I was flagging. I comfortably hit my 170, my biggest 48 in almost two years, and came away from that race feeling (finally) that things might be turning around.

Going into Jackpot, my friend John said “what are your goals?”

Goals? For 100? Huh?

Because hundreds are not a race where I tend to be competitive, I have just not really set goals recently. Rather, I’ve run to comfort. Generally I can come in right around 24 hours, but it’s been a few years since I’ve been much faster than that.

But, at ATY, I’d seen the difference it made in my performance just having a solid goal to work for. So I set my Jackpot goal at 22 hours. I’d certainly achieved that (and better) previously; my 100 mile PR is 20:20. But again, it’s been years.

The weather this year at Jackpot looked ideal. Not too hot during the day, with some light cloud cover. Night time temps looked to be high forties. Really couldn’t have been any better.

I arrived in town Thursday and immediately met up with Jaide Downs—my partner in crime last year at Jackpot. We stayed on the strip and had a great meal and a wicked roller coaster ride at New York New York Thursday night and headed over to the race venue well fed and well rested on Friday morning.

Pre race shenanigans

If you look close you can see the roller coaster

Obligatory pre-race showgirl photo

Michael Tatham, a Bay area friend who now lives in the Vegas area, graciously offered to crew us, and we were very happy for his help. We got our pictures taken with showgirls, said hello to friends, and lined up at the start.

Early on in the race, I realized that I probably had not tapered enough. A 115 mile week the week before, culminating in a 50K just five days prior was possibly not a good setup for fresh legs, despite light mileage Monday through Thursday. Still, I was running strong and steady, and although the sun was hot, I was managing my pace and my hydration. I figured I could maintain twelve minute miles up to about the fifty mile mark, and then I’d just have to be in the fourteens for the rest of the race to hit twenty two hours.

This is not exactly how it went, but I’d say it was pretty close. I started dipping into the thirteens sooner than I would have preferred… however, I resisted going into a dark place the way I sometimes do when my pace dips earlier than I'd like, and just I focused on keeping positive. Any time I felt gassed, I’d just slow down by maybe a minute per mile until I regained some energy, and soon enough my pace would improve for a while again. Mid afternoon on Friday started feeling a bit rough, because (as always) my stomach got squirrely once my core was overheated. An ice bandana made things manageable, and I was able to keep up with my hydration, but I was grateful for the evening hours when it started to get cool.

Bill Schultz says “manage the day, and own the night.” And that’s just what I did.

It took hours into the night before my core temp cooled down. Michael kept telling me to put on a jacket, but I was running hot. In the USATF race you were allowed headphones if you weren’t in contention for an overall podium spot (I wasn’t), so on occasion I’d use tunes to give me motivation. Other times, I just turned them off and ran in silence, talking to the other runners.

One of the challenging things about this race was the timing. Prior to this year's ATY, I had not ever experienced timing issues at Aravaipa races—they are a stellar company, put on fun and interesting races and have great aid station support, but at ATY, the first Aravaipa race I've attended without Mike Melton timing, and now at this race, there were laps that appeared to get lost, and we had to speak to the timing tent to ensure they got added back in. Nobody wanted to run any longer than 100, so this was frustrating. Lots of folks were grumbling on the course. Particularly in a national championship race, I couldn't fathom why there wasn't a double timing mechanism in place.

This was the first time I’d run the “short course”. Jackpot has two courses— the certified short 1.2 (or so) mile loop for the USATF and “short course” 100 mile race, and a longer two plus mile loop for the multi-day races and the 100 that starts on day two. I vastly preferred the short course. I also didn’t really need a headlamp on that course, which was nice.

I’d see Jaide with some regularity— she and I were in different races (she was running the “short course 100”), and I saw Stefanie Bernosky, a friend from Seattle who was looking to PR and break twenty hours. I was thrilled to see both of my friends also running strong and steady.

The pain set in probably at about mile fifty, which I did NOT hit in ten hours, but closer to ten and a half. That made twenty two hours look a little more challenging. I kept moving, but it definitely took more effort than I was used to in recent hundreds. Had I not had the twenty two hour goal in my head, I likely would have backed off on pace and spent a lot more time walking just to keep things comfortable. But the twenty two was whispering to me… at least… let’s get sub twenty three…. And so despite the growing pain in my feet, and the constant pushing that just kept me on the edge of nausea, I would say I ran to my limits, ranging to mild to moderate (but sustainable) discomfort all night long.

One of the things I was acutely aware of was the position of the “live stream”—the camera that catches the runners as they come by, so your friends can watch from home (for folks who apparently like watching paint dry). It was positioned right after my walk spot, at the top of a steepish little hill leading into the start/finish. So anyone watching probably thought I was always walking, when in fact, I really only had a couple of short walk spots. Towards the end of the race, though, I was hurting almost every time I walked up that hill, and I expected anyone watching could see it in my face.

For most of the night, I was thinking I’d probably come in closer to twenty three hours than twenty two, but I kept pushing to see how much below twenty three I could pull off.

Dawn came, and it was brilliant. The sunrise was pink and orange and just spectacular. On my last lap, I stopped a couple of times to capture the moment.

I finished the race in twenty two hours thirty minutes and fifty six seconds. Not quite as fast as my goal, but significantly faster than any recent hundreds. It was good enough for sixth woman, fifteenth overall, and the title of age 55-59 national champion, as this was a national championship race. I also finished knowing I had given it my best.

It was a good feeling.

Jaide got the sub twenty four she was looking for, and more. She came in two minutes behind me at 22:32 and change, first woman in the short course 100, with close to a five hour PR. Stefanie killed her race, pulling off her sub twenty goal. Friends Jill Hudson, Tony Nguyen, Sue Glesne, Kit Brazier, Laura Range, Kim Sergeant also killed it out there, some gutting through lots of pain to get those buckles.

It was a good day.