On August 17-18, I ran the Lean Horse 100. This race is run on the George S. Mickelson
Trail in South Dakota. I’ve done this
race twice before, and I’ve also done the 50 mile race three times.
It’s an out-and-back course.
This race used to start and finish in Hot Springs. On the old course, we had to run about 15
miles on hilly, dusty dirt roads just to get to the Mickelson Trail. Then we had to run those same dirt roads at
the end of the race. Four years ago,
they moved the start and finish to Custer.
I like the town of Hot Springs, but I was excited about being able to
run the entire race on the Mickelson Trail.
The Mickelson Trail is a wide gravel trail that follows an
old Burlington Northern railroad line.
It runs north-south through the Black Hills from Deadwood to Edgemont. Ever since hearing they moved the
start/finish to Custer, I’ve wanted to come back and run the new course. This was the first year I could fit it into
my schedule.
In addition to the 100 mile race, they also have 50 mile, 30
mile, and 20 mile races. The 100 mile
race starts at noon on Friday and you have until 6:00 PM on Saturday to
finish. The shorter races all start
Saturday morning.
Deb and I combined the race with a short sightseeing
vacation in the Black Hills. We flew to
Rapid City Thursday morning and drove the rest of the way to Custer. Along the way, we drove through Custer State
Park, where we drove the wildlife loop.
We saw a few buffaloes, and we also saw some friendly burros.
When we were done at Custer State Park, we continued to
Custer to check in at our motel. I
packed my drop bags and got organized for the race, while Deb visited a few
shops. Then we went out to find the
painted buffalo statues that were all over town. Deb and I have a long history of always
visiting cities when they have painted statues on display. It started in 1999 with Cows on Parade in
Chicago. The following year, it was the
Big Pig Gig in Cincinnati. This was
Custer’s version.
Next, we went to the Custer YMCA to pick up my race packet
and drop off my drop bags.
There used to be a Flintstones campground on the edge of
Custer. My family stayed there once when
I was growing up. Many years later, they
added a Bedrock City mock-up. The
campground no longer exists, but most of the Bedrock City buildings are still
there. After packet pickup, we found
them and took a few pictures.
We had dinner in town at a sports bar called the Buglin’
Bull. I had an interesting pizza with
buffalo, elk, and pheasant.
Deb had their fresh burst salad. Besides mixed greens, it included apples, oranges,
berries, and candied walnuts. She liked
it so much, she went back there again twice while I was running the race.
I had an awful time getting to sleep that night. The air conditioner was noisy, and I also had
a lot on my mind. I was still awake for
five or six hours before nodding off briefly.
Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t need to get up early, so I kept
trying to go back to sleep, but without any success.
Deb and I had breakfast at the hotel. Then Deb left to spend the day shopping and
sightseeing in Deadwood, Hill City, and Rapid City. I spent the morning getting ready for the
race. By the time the race started, I
was already feeling a little shaky from the lack of sleep.
I was conflicted about whether to eat anything else before
the race started. I didn’t want to start
the race on a full stomach, but I also didn’t want to skip lunch. I reheated a slice of leftover pizza as a
light pre-race lunch.
The race started at the Custer YMCA. I needed to check in there by 11:45. It was only a few blocks from the hotel, so I
walked.
The first 21 miles and last 21 miles of this course were
familiar to me from other races. I had
never seen the middle miles, but I had a pretty good idea what to expect. The trail surface is the same
everywhere. There are no roots or large
rocks, and there aren’t many places where you can make a wrong turn.
I have a map of the entire Mickelson Trail that includes the
elevation profile. The trail often goes
uphill or downhill for several miles at a time, but the grade is never steeper
than three percent. The elevation is
mostly between 5,000 and 6,000 feet.
The course breaks down into five long uphill sections and
five long downhill sections. I used
different pacing strategies on different sections of the trail.
We started outside the YMCA.
We ran on city streets for half a mile before turning onto the
trail. After that, we were on the
Mickelson Trail until the last mile. I
was surprised to see that a short section of the trail going through town was
paved. I didn’t remember any paved
sections from when I did this race before.
The first five miles on the trail were all uphill. I had run this section in the uphill
direction twice before. On the old
course, these were miles 35-40. The race
used to start at 6:00 AM, so I was used to running this section in the early
afternoon. With the noon start, I was
running it at about the same time of day.
There’s isn’t much shade, so it can get hot. The last time I did this race, it got up to
90 degrees in the afternoon. This year,
it never got out of the 70s. That
helped. I was able to get by carrying
just one water bottle, which cut down on weight.
I didn’t want to go out too fast like I did in the Vermont 100, so I used variable length walking breaks to keep
myself on an average pace of 14 minutes per mile. The Mickelson Trail has concrete mileposts
every mile. I used these to check my
pace.
In the early miles, we had views like this.
After five miles, I reached the Mountain Trailhead aid
station. My bottle wasn’t empty yet, so
I drank what was left and refilled it.
They had water and Powerade. I
was hesitant to drink Powerade for the whole race, because it’s high in
fructose. Given the choice of Powerade
or water, I went with Powerade. I needed
to start taking in Calories.
About a mile past Mountain Trailhead, I had a great view of
the Crazy Horse Memorial. This monument
is so large that the faces on Mount Rushmore would fit inside it. The construction is funded entirely by
private donations. At the rate they’re
going, it won’t be finished in my lifetime.
The trail goes through a tunnel underneath the road that
leads to the Crazy Horse Memorial. After
going through this tunnel, I started the first long downhill section.
The next 10 miles were downhill, but the grade was
gentle. I could easily have run the
whole way without getting tired, but I knew I would beat up my quads. Here I did much more walking. Walking downhill was so easy, I found myself
going at a fast pace. Ever since a high
hamstring injury in early July, I’ve been hesitant to walk too fast. I finally got over that fear and really
worked on walking at a brisk pace. On
this section, my target pace was 12 minutes per mile. I was able to do that with only two minutes of
running per mile.
About halfway through this section, I reached the Oreville
aid station. Here, I started eating
solid food at each aid station. At
first, I just ate PBJs, but eventually, I had other things, like ham and cheese
wraps.
I wore gaiters to keep dust and grit from getting into my shoes
around the ankles. That worked pretty
good, but dust still got through my shoes around the toe box. I had a small hole near the front of one shoe
and small rocks got in there. It was annoying,
but it wasn’t causing major problems, so I did my best to ignore it.
As we got closer to Hill City, we crossed a bridge over the
highway.
There were a number of bridges. Most of them were over streams, like this
one.
The first long downhill section ended at Hill City. On the old course, this was the turnaround
point. To get to the Hill City aid
station, we had to detour off the trail a bit.
This aid station had nice facilities, including bathrooms with running
water.
Going through Hill City, we were on a sidewalk. This is the only part of the Mickelson Trail
that doesn’t follow the old rail line.
There’s a railroad museum here, so a section of the old track is still
in place. They also have some old rail
cars.
As I left Hill city, I began the second long uphill
section. This section is about eight
miles long. The first six miles of it was
familiar to me from the Run Crazy Horse Marathon. My recollection was that this section was
tiring. It’s worth noting that in that
race I was running the whole way. I once
again did a run/walk mix that allowed me to average 14 minutes per mile. I was walking at such a spirited pace that I
only need to run one or two minutes per mile to stay on pace.
Midway through this uphill section, I reached the High
Country aid station (20.6 miles). I’m
not sure, but this same location might have been used for an aid station in the
Run Crazy Horse Marathon. It looked
familiar.
Even though I was only carrying one bottle, I never ran out
between aid stations. I was getting a
little bit hot now, but it wouldn’t be long before the temperature started
dropping again.
After a few more miles of uphill running, I began the next downhill
section. I once again adopted a target pace
on 12 minutes per mile, but it was still mostly walking. After about two more miles, I reached the
Horse Creek aid station. This was the
first of two aid stations where I had drop bags.
I didn’t know for sure if I would make it to my other drop
bag before it got dark, so I got a flashlight from my drop bag and put it in my
fanny pack. While I was here, I took two
pills that I normally have with dinner.
One of them dissolved in my mouth.
They had bacon at this aid station, which helped get rid of the bad
taste of the pill.
Soon, I reached the first of four tunnels through the
mountains.
About 10 minutes later, I reached another tunnel.
I went past some colorful rock formations. I had never been on this part of the trail
before, so I enjoyed the scenery.
At the end of the second long downhill section, I reached
the Mystic aid station (30.4 miles). Then
the trail came alongside a stream. We
were following the stream in the downstream direction, so I wondered if the
trail would still go downhill. We
quickly left the stream, and the trail turned uphill.
Now I was starting the longest uphill section of the
course. It was uphill almost all the way
to the turnaround. This was a long grind. The grade was gradual, but … almost 20 miles
of uphill running.
To get through this section, I had to focus on just getting
to the next aid station. After Mystic,
it was 4.2 more miles to get to the Gimlet Creek aid station.
I ran past more interesting rock formations. I could have taken dozens of pictures like
this.
The third tunnel was preceded by a small bridge. This tunnel was a bit longer than the first
two. As I went through it, I felt a cold
draft.
After going through the tunnel, I came alongside another
stream. It had to be a different one,
because I was following this one in the upstream direction.
After Gimlet Creek, it was just 3.6 miles to get to the
Rochford aid station, where I had another drop bag. I knew there was still one more tunnel, but I
didn’t know how far it was. I was hoping
to get there before it got dark. As I
saw the sun disappearing behind the hills, I knew I was running out of time.
At the Rochford aid station (38.2 miles), I exchanged my flashlight
for a headlamp. I also got some gloves
in case I got cold later. A volunteer at
the aid station confirmed that there was still one more tunnel between here and
the turnaround.
As I left the aid station, it started getting dark. I realized I wouldn’t be able to get a
picture of the last tunnel. Then I
realized I forgot to take my camera out of my fanny pack. I had intended to leave it in my drop bag
until I got back to Rochford on the way back.
That was extra weight I didn’t need or want.
I was excited about the new course, because it gave me a
chance to see sections of the Mickelson Trail I had never seen before. Regrettably, I didn’t actually get to “see”
much between Rochford and the turnaround.
I ran that in the dark in both directions.
There’s a popular race on this section of the trail called
the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon.
It’s a fast course, because it’s mostly downhill. I was basically running that course in the
opposite direction, and it was starting to wear me down. My walking wasn’t as fast now. I had a target pace of 14 minutes per mile,
but almost half of it was running.
Running uphill was tiring, so it always seemed to take forever to get to
the next milepost.
It was 6.1 miles from Rochford to the Nahant aid station. I started getting cold, so I put on my
gloves. That helped, but my arms and
shoulders were still cold. I had a
jacket in my drop bag, but I didn’t think I would need it until I got back to
Rochford. I regretted not taking it with
me.
This section was tough, both physically and
psychologically. I was still going
uphill, and I was running by myself in the dark. I felt an icy cold draft. I wondered if I was near another stream, but
I couldn’t hear any water. A few minutes
later, I felt another cold draft. This
time I could hear the water. I was next
to a stream.
I was about seven miles from the turnaround when I saw the
first runners coming back the other way.
Within a minute, I saw another runner.
Then there was nobody else for about 20 minutes.
At the Nahant aid station, I noticed they had HEED power,
but they didn’t have any mixed up. I
asked them to put a scoop of the power in my bottle and I filled it with
water. I started doing that at every aid
station. It took a few extra minutes,
but it’s a more appropriate sports drink for a long race like this. I didn’t
want to have digestive problems from too much fructose.
I wasn’t perspiring much, so I wasn’t thirsty. I cut my fluid intake. Earlier, I had been taking electrolyte
capsules once per hour. I stopped taking
them.
The last few miles before the turnaround were the most
tiring. With about half a mile to go, I
reached the top of the hill. The last
half mile before the turn was slightly downhill. That was a relief.
I reached the turnaround in 10:52. At first, I was thinking that was my halfway
split, but the race starts and finishes in different places. The distance to the turnaround was about half
a mile farther than the remaining distance.
Bearing that in mind, my 50 mile split was three or four minutes faster.
I was pleased with my time for the first half. My goal was a 24 hour finish, and I was on
pace to break 22 hours. I usually expect
to be much slower in the second half of a long ultra, but I was optimistic that
I could also make good time in the second half.
The first half was mostly uphill.
The second half would be mostly downhill. Also, I had mostly been walking on the
downhill sections. In the second half, I
would be much more willing to run them.
I thought I could run negative splits, but I was kidding
myself. I didn’t realize how much the
first half took out of me.
After the turnaround, it was slightly uphill for about half
a mile. Then I started the longest
downhill section. I walked until the
next milepost, which was just a short distance past the start of the downhill.
My plan for this section was to run about half of it. I didn’t have a target pace. At first, my plan was to alternate between
running a mile and walking a mile. That
way, I didn’t need to read my watch. I
just looked for the mileposts.
When I was going uphill, the mileposts were on my right, so
I hugged the right side of the trail.
Now they were on my left. I tried
to stay on the left side of the trail, but I occasionally passed runners who
were still going the other way. I kept
right when there was two-way traffic, which made it harder to look for the
mileposts. I was afraid I would miss
one, but I never did.
I ran the first full downhill mile. Then I walked the next one. I wasn’t happy with my time for that mile, so
I switched to a run/walk mix. At first,
I tried to walk the first half and walk the second half. That was difficult to estimate, so I
eventually switched to running for a couple of minutes and then walking for a
couple of minutes. I wasn’t looking at my
watch. I just guessed.
It was the darkest night I’ve ever seen. The only source of light was my
headlamp. Everything looked different at
night. In the light of my headlamp, the
pine trees looked like they were covered with snow or frost. The movement of the shadows as I went by made
me think I was seeing movement in the bushes.
Lack of sleep was getting to me, and I began to
hallucinate. At one point, I thought I
saw a small black bear on the trail in front of me. I came to a stop. Then I realized it was just am irregularly
shaped puddle. In the dark, the water
looked as black as oil.
I was getting colder.
At this hour of the night, it was probably in the upper 50s, but it felt
much colder. I wasn’t moving fast enough
to generate any heat.
When I got back to the Nahant aid station, I noticed they
had cups of Ramen noodles in broth. I
said, “That looks good, but I don’t think I have room.” After thinking about it for a minute, I
decided to take the time to eat one. The
noodles were just what I needed, and the broth tasted great.
I had six more miles to get back to Rochford, so I could
finally get my jacket. I continued to do
a roughly 50/50 mix of running and walking.
For the last four miles, I was intolerably cold.
When I got back to Rochford (62.4 miles), I was finally able
to put on my Tyvek jacket. I continued
to wear my headlamp, but I retrieved my flashlight and put it in my fanny
pack. I wanted to take off my headlamp
when I got back to Horse Creek, but I expected to need a light after that.
I felt much more comfortable with the jacket. When I was walking, it felt just right. When I was running, I got a bit warm, but
that was better than freezing. I
adjusted my fluid intake, since I was sweating a bit now.
At Gimlet, I had another cup of Ramen noodles in broth. It was too hot, so it took me about five
minutes to eat it. They had campfires
and folding chairs. I saw another runner
sit down while he ate his noodles. I
resisted the temptation to sit. I didn’t
know if I would be able to get up again.
As I left the aid station, my legs were stiff, and I had to
walk for a few minutes before I could run.
This was the last section of downhill.
I usually look forward to completing each section of the trail, but I
wasn’t looking forward to going uphill again.
The trail bottomed out near the Mystic aid station (70.2
miles). To get to the aid station, you
need to leave the trail and walk across a dirt road that’s right next to the
trail. As I left the aid station, I
mistook the road for the trail. I walked
about a quarter mile in the wrong direction before reaching a fork in the
road. I wasn’t sure which way to go, and
I didn’t see any of the familiar Mickelson Trail signs. In each direction, I saw road signs. Looking back the way I came, I realized that
was also a road. I had to backtrack to
the aid station. In all, I probably lost
10 minutes.
As I got back to the aid station, I saw another runner
leaving, so I followed him to get back on the trail. His name was Justin, and we walked together
for a good portion of the race. He
maintained a brisk walking pace, and I had to work hard to keep up with him.
When I got to the next milepost, I ran for two minutes. Going uphill, that was as far as I could
manage to run. As I resumed walking, I
was slow at first, because I needed to catch my breath. Justin eventually caught up to me. Then I picked up my pace to stay with him.
I continued this pattern each time I reached a milepost. I didn’t ever want to go more than a mile
without doing some running. I worried
that if I walked for several miles, I might have a hard time transitioning back
to running.
After the first two miles, I switched to only running for
one minute at each milepost. Two minutes was too tiring.
The next aid station was Horse Creek, where I had my other
drop bag. I took off my headlamp, so I
wouldn’t have to wear it for the rest of the race. By now, there was just enough light to see the
trail, but I still needed my headlamp to look for the next milepost.
I now had grit in the toe boxes of both shoes. It was getting increasingly uncomfortable, but
I did my best ignore it. There wasn’t much
I could really do about it. Thankfully,
there wasn’t any grit around my heels. That’s where I’m most prone to developing
blisters when I walk.
After two more miles, the trail leveled off, and we began
the eight mile descent into Hill City.
Since the beginning of the race, I assumed I would run the whole
way. On the previous downhill sections,
I limited my running so I wouldn’t beat up my quads. Now that I was finally here, I found that I
couldn’t run the whole way. Even running
downhill was now tiring.
I ran for a minute or two and then walked for a minute or
two. For the first mile or two, I was
doing equal parts running and walking.
By the end of this section, I was only doing a couple minutes of running
per mile. It was now obvious that the
second half of the race would be slower than the first half, but I was still
hopeful that I could break 24 hours.
Without doing any running, Justin still kept up with me. I could feel the sun now, so I took off my
jacket and tied it around my waist. That
caused me to fall behind, and I couldn’t catch up. By the time we reached Hill City, Justin was
about a minute ahead of me. At the Hill City
aid station, I had my third cup of Ramen noodles. These ones weren’t in soup broth, and they
weren’t as good. It was just overcooked
noodles in starchy water.
Justin and I both took a long time at that aid station, but
he left about a minute ahead of me. We
were at the beginning of the last long uphill section, and I didn’t know if I
would catch up to him again.
To break 24 hours, I needed to average about 16 minutes per mile
over the last 15 miles. The first 10
were uphill. The last five would be
downhill. I didn’t know if I could go
fast enough on the uphill section. I was
really feeling the fatigue.
I had two things in my favor. First, I was real familiar with this section
of the trail. By now, I had run it twice
in the uphill direction and four times in the downhill direction. Second, it was daylight, so I could see all
the familiar surroundings.
I ran for one minute at the beginning of each mile. Then I power walked as fast as I could for
the rest of the mile. About two miles up
the trail, I passed Justin when I was running.
I expected him to catch up again when I resumed walking, but he never
did. I’m not sure if he was slowing down
or if I was walking that much faster now.
By the time I reached the Oreville aid station, I knew I
would break 24 hours, but I never let up in my effort. I was counting down the number of times I
would have to force myself to run for a minute.
With only about 10 miles to go, I decided to top off my bottle with
Powerade. That was pre-mixed, so it saved
time. At this point, it no longer
mattered what I drank.
About a mile past Oreville, I crossed under the
highway. Now I was focused on climbing up
to Crazy Horse. When I saw this tunnel
again, I knew I was nearing the top of the climb. This was the tunnel under the road up to
Crazy Horse.
It was still more than a mile to the last aid station. I forgot it was that far, but this mile was
fairly level.
I didn’t bother to eat anything at the Mountain Trailhead
aid station. At this point, any food I
ate would still be in my stomach when I finished the race. I topped off my bottle and kept moving.
It was less than five miles to the finish and it was all
downhill. The first time I did this
race, I ran the whole way on this section. The second
time I did this race, I also ran the whole way.
This time, I wanted to run the whole way, but I couldn’t. I managed to force myself to run about two
minutes of each mile. I had to walk the
rest. Going downhill, I was averaging
about 13 minutes per mile. I would
easily break 24 hours, but the time between mileposts seemed like forever.
This section has very little shade. It was late morning, so it was getting hot
again. Fortunately, I only had a few
miles to go.
After passing milepost 46, I saw two people in the
distance. They weren’t moving, so I
realized they were probably race volunteers.
That was where I left the trail to head to the finish at the high school
track.
I followed the cones that led to the track. I still had to run about halfway around the track. I wanted to run the rest of the way, but I
couldn’t even make it halfway around the track without taking a walking break.
I finished in 23:39:48.
Then I sat down in a lawn chair and drank some water. I was completely spent. While I was catching my breath, I saw a few
other runners finish. One of them was
Justin, who also broke 24 hours.
After finishing, I received my belt buckle. This is my fourth buckle from a 100 mile trail
run. Three of them are from Lean Horse.
When I got back to the hotel, I took off my shoes. I had painful blisters around both
heels. Somehow, I never noticed them
during the race. I had abrasions on a
few of my toes.
Four weeks ago, I had a DNF at the Vermont 100, so it was
especially important to finish this one.
Getting a sub 24 hour finish put an exclamation point on it.
My training includes enough running to run well in a
marathon, but I’m not in good enough shape to run 100 miles. Fortunately, I’m in good enough shape to walk
100 miles. I walked the vast majority of
this race, and it was only on the strength of my walking that I broke 24 hours.
Today, I have sore muscles.
That’s to be expected, but they’re not the same muscles that are usually
sore after a race like this. My quads
feel OK. My calves, glutes and the
muscles around my hips are the ones that are sore. Those are walking muscles.
Race Statistics
Distance: 100 miles
Time: 23:39:48
Average Pace: 14:12
Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:
356
Lifetime 100s: 13
