I usually train for marathons. I did for the one in that pic above. I haven’t been tracking my miles post-Bandera, but it feels like I’ve slammed on the brakes these last four weeks. Still, my weight is holding steady at 165. Ten pounds more than in college. 165 is as fit a weight I’ll ever get. I feel good.

As you can imagine, I think about the 50K of the Bandera 100K that I ran, before begging my crew to let me DNF. To not force me to run another segment. I dwell on the course when I’m running. There was a moment when my crew (Brittany Noel) lost track of me because she was planning some crew math for crewing Eric in her head.

I walked up to these people who were standing where race officials might stand. Nothing else about them indicated they might be race officials.

“How do I DNF?”

“You let me take the ankle bracelet off of you,” the lady said as she bent over and clipped the race chip off before finishing her sentence.

And just like that, I was free. I would live to run another ultra. An ultra with a trail. I’ll admit, Camp Eagle had a course. I saw some animal trails, and a few gravel roads. But a runner’s trail? There was some but you had to be looking for it.

While I’ve been training apres-Bandera, my thoughts query the neurons in my head like a dense neural network LLM on an inference cycle. Lately, the search has been on for segments of those 31 miles four weeks ago. Why did I reach the point of exhaustion halfway through?

Like anything, there is dense logic to all the contributing reasons. Top of a ranked list would be because it was my first 100K and I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d look there first. That led to running too hard, too early.

Followed by a trail I wasn’t prepared for, but out of the randomness of the weather, which just seems to be screwing everyone lately, was not the trail I signed up for. Did I just say trail? I mean course.

Then, I think it’s fair to throw gear into the fray at ranking number 3. I chose the wrong pair of shoes. I think the soles of my feet would have been less bruised with a cushy pair of Hokas. I wore my Bushida III GTX Sportivas. To show you the numbers, the Hoka Speedboat 5 has a stack height of 32mm, which is considered soft, versus the Sportiva Bushidas with a stack height of 19mm and considered firm. I won’t throw those Bushidas under the bus though. I could run in them for distances under a 50K. Their grip was unbelievable.

As I approached one rock, oh, let’s be honest, a 2 foot wall, or cliff if that term can apply to mid-thigh-level jumps. I planted my left foot on an adjacent wall of similar proportions, and half-way up, I launched my right foot over the top half of the rock I ultimately needed to climb. It had a Kung-Fu wall climbing vibe. That move alone was such a joyful athletic feat that it was worth running the entire 31 miles, so I think of that memory a lot. Back to point, those shoes had incomparable grip, but they weren’t very soft. My feet felt as if they’d walked over 31 miles of burning coals. They were toast.

More important than poor decisions on gear was that my inexperience led me to run too hard too early. I ran almost the entire distance in heart rate zones 4 and 5. Sure, that’s partly from getting caught up in the excitement of the other trail runners. The narrowness of a single-track trail, course, doesn’t allow for an easy pass and you feel trapped into running fast with runners on your back. You can’t help but keep pace with those around. That single-track trap is avoided by starting in the very back of the corral. I’ll do that next time.

My thoughts are now turning toward the Austin Marathon next Sunday. I didn’t maintain the miles, but I did a really good job retaining my bi-weekly strength and steam sauna routine. My core is still as strong if not better than last fall’s Boulder Marathon. The core can compensate for weak legs, and I don’t think my legs are necessarily any weaker. My goal for the run will be to break four hours. I was on track for that finish time last fall but let myself get low on electrolytes. I demonstrated proficiency in the hydration game on the Bandera run. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t crowed on and on about the absolute unrunability of that course. There were some wins that have me happy and that knowledge will power me through the Austin Marathon.

My other thoughts are on how I’ll run. Hard? Or easy? I’m motivated to break 4 hours and I think I’ll have to push myself a bit, maybe some heart rate zone 4 running. Maybe some zone 5 if I push the rolling hills over Enfield and W. 15th St. Not sure how I’ll run the first 3 miles up South Congress, but I plan to run strong, with gravity, down South First, for the next 3 miles.

That will average out the first 6 miles to maybe an 8 minute pace. That would be too fast for me to run the first 10K of any other marathon, but if you’re in a mood to race, and Austin usually gives me a race vibe, then you want to optimize your pace and form for a surge down South First. Whether or not I’ll maintain a strong pace will become known to me once I hit the rolling hills. Hills are really good at giving bio-feedback. If I run those strong, I might remain strong up to 20 miles. I’m too experienced to ever try predicting anything after 20 miles in a marathon, so that’s my race plan.

My marathon story below began at 16 years of age. My finish times have been slower but trending faster post-apocalypse.

Marathon History

1978    Dallas White Rock (1)          Unknown

1980    Dallas White Rock (2)          3:08

***30 years***

2010    Denver Marathon (1)            3:36 

2011    Austin Marathon (1)             4:23 

2012    Denver Marathon (2)            3:48 

2012    Boulder Marathon (1)           3:58 

2013    Steamboat Springs                4:13 

2013    Denver Marathon (3)            3:47 

2014    Austin Marathon (2)              3:45 

2014    Denver Marathon (4)             3:31

2015    Austin Marathon (3)              3:39

2015    Boulder Marathon (2)            3:30 

2015    Denver Marathon (5)             4:05 

2017    Colorado Marathon  (1)         3:42

***Apocalypse***

2021    Boulder Marathon (3)            4:35

2023    Boulder Marathon (4)            4:30

2024    Colorado Marathon (2)          4:23

2024    Boulder Marathon (5)            4:03

2025    Austin Marathon (4)               3: