Bear 100 recap

I've been home from my road trip to Utah for a week. Resting and processing the experience. It's time for a recap while the memories are fresh.

At 10:45 am on September 27, after 28 hours and 45 minutes time elapsed, and 75 miles, I quit the Bear 100 race. I thought I had enough energy to make it to the next aid station, Gibson Basin, but I wasn't going to be able to beat the 12:45 pm cut-off time there, and since that aid station wasn't accessible to crews, I would be dependent on the race team for extraction. It seemed best to stop at Beaver Mountain.

By distance and time, that was my biggest effort ever. I'm partly disappointed, partly satisfied. Disappointed that I didn't finish, after a promising start, but satisfied that I kept going through season-long adversity to get to the starting line, and kept going through race day adversity to get to 75 miles. In the end, I wasn't in good enough form to finish. An essential piece of fitness was missing.

Recap

Summary.

What I lacked at the Bear 100 this year was fatigue resistance and muscular endurance. Although I started well, my pace degraded too quickly over time. In the past, like in 2021 and 2023, I've developed fatigue resistance with big mountain training blocks. 260 miles and 40,000+ feet D+ in a month, twice. This year, I couldn't do nearly that much peak volume.

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