On June 21st at 8:00am I headed out to run a 1.06ish mile loop at Crissy Field in San Francisco for 24 hours.
I went the the New Balance 980's for this event and wore them for the entire 24 hours. |
The event was starting off without a hitch, I saw my friend Ed before the race started, and he and I ran the first 10 miles together. It was nice seeing Ed and catching up with him. My friend Jack also managed to stop by and run a couple laps with me early on in the event.
As the day went on I found myself lacking in motivation and I honestly just wanted to stop and go home. Mile 30-38 was pretty tough. I managed to keep pushing and told myself to try to just make it to hour 12 of the event. As I pushed passed mile 38 I started to realize that my problem might be my calorie intake. I started to think that I simply might not have been getting enough calories in for the amount of time that I had been running. I immediately grabbed a fist full of Twizzlers from my gear bag and got some fast calories. Within 5 mins of eating some Twizzlers I felt re-energized!! My pace started picking up and I was feeling ready to run again.
I used this bottle made by Simple Hydration for this event. It's become one of my favorite pieces of running gear. |
Two weeks prior to the event I detoxed from caffeine so that the caffeine would be more effective during the race. Somewhere around 13 hours into the event I opened up a bottle of Dr. Pepper and I started using some caffeinated Gu packs. I tried to introduce the caffeine as late into the race as I could. I feel like getting in a good caffeine detox before any events is important for me. Caffeine seems to be way more effective if I detox from it 10-14 days before every event. There wasn't one time during the run that I felt sleepy.
During the evening the wind settled down and I was able to move at a decent pace and get a good amount of ground covered. I was still questioning if I was going to hit 100 miles or more, but I just kept on pushing forward.
This is buckle I received for running over 100 miles in under 24 hours. |
The awesome coaster all the runners received for running for 24 hours. |
I really just wanted to stop after I hit the 100 mile mark, but I took John's advice. After I hit the 100 mile mark there was still time left on the clock, so I kept running. By the time is was all said and done I ran an official distance of 102.98 miles.
One of the things that kept me motivated during the event was the fact that I had friends contributing money to the Bakersfield and to the Central Valley Ronald McDonald House for the effort that I put out at this event, and my good friend Chris told me before the event that he was going to donate $1.00 per every mile that I ran.
If any of you would like to still donate to the fundraiser I did, you can still do so at https://www.fundraise.com/micasa/24
My next race is the Cool Moon 100 this coming August, so now that is my main focus. Last year the Cool Moon 100 kicked my ass, so I want to go in ready for it this year.
Until next time...
KEEP RUNNING!!!!
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