A Sub-23 hour 100 at 13? I Hit the Jackpot!

The Jackpot 100 was a blast, I saw a lot of friends and got a huge PR! The course is a most flat 2.38 mile loop that features crushed gravel and concrete. My original goal was to average 15 minute miles, as you read on you will see that I did much better! The race weather was perfect, it was warmer then Colorado and there was cloud cover! I had my friend Terry crewing me and her husband Louie pacing me.

At the start with my Mom and our friend Rob

When the race started I was extremely excited, there were so many familiar faces! I wanted to go really fast but my Garmin helped me realize that I needed to slow down. As the race got started, I adjusted my strategy was to maintain 12 minute miles as long as possible and then slow down to 15-18 minute miles during the harder miles. My strategy worked well until around mile 27 when I hit a wall, I didn’t have any energy! A fellow runner (who I didn’t know) solved this by giving me a GU. I later found out that his name is Tony and that he has ran Badwater 5 times! He helped me a lot.

Photo Courtesy SweetM Images

When I was getting close to 50 miles I realized something... I was going to get a huge 50 mile PR! I also found out that Louie was ready to pace me at 50, my morale skyrocketed. I ended finishing the first 50 in around 10 hours 15 minutes that was a hour and a half PR! Between Louie starting to pace me and a PR I was feeling really good. It was great to have him with me. Louie held my flashlight, reminded me what I wanted when we came into the aid station, talked to me, and was overall positive.

When I hit the 100k mark I realized something again... I was only 12 hours 30 minutes into the race, that meant I beat my 100k PR by 2, hours, 17 minutes! Tanner, the race director’s son also decided to run a lap with me. It was nice to run with Tanner. We talked about school, his last 5k, and future races. Before I knew it I was in the dark miles... It was late at night I was tired and kind of said forget running I’m walking a lap! But when I hit the aid station I discovered an amazing combination -  pumpkin pie and cheesecake worked wonders. I stopped thinking about walking an entire lap and pushed myself to run/walk.

Something I realized at ATY was that you can run when you are tired. You can run when you think you can't. I focused on that at Jackpot and even when it hurt, I was able to run and maintain my goal pace.

I decided that I would run 100 steps and then walk 100 steps. My strategy worked well, I could do 15-16 minute miles at mile 80. When things got hard I tried to calculate how long I had left and say something like “only 6 hours until bed time!” I also did things like mix song lyrics and see what happened, playing games in my head kept me distracted from what hurt. Before I knew the sun came up and I was feeling brand new, all I could think about was that buckle and a sub-24 hour finish.

On my second to last lap I was extremely excited, the buckle was so close yet so far. The last 4 miles of a 100 is like winning the lottery but then getting in an accident and having to wait to cash in the win. When I finally go to the last part of my last loop adrenaline kicked in and I ran hard into the finish!! My final finish time was 22:29:21!! I GOT A 7 HOUR PR!!!! I was overjoyed!

Special thanks to:
    Terry and Diane for crewing me
    Louie for pacing me
    My Mom for the bringing me out
    And all of my friends and family!!! thanks for all the support!