FKT: Zack Beavin - State House to State House (MA, RI) - 2025-09-20

When sitting down to plan my Fall 2025 race schedule, I anchored my plans around building towards my first 100 mile race at Tunnel Hill this November. In years past, I would have set out a big training block toward the race without much racing baked in. But, as life has gotten busier, the body older, and the competitive fire dimmer, I didn't trust myself to lock into training in order to be properly prepared for my first 100 miler. The love is there, strong as ever, but between a cranky achilles and life marching ever-forward into "real" adulthood, the competitive fire to grind day-in and day-out just doesn't burn quite as bright these days. Putting a flurry of 4 races on the calendar seemed like a good solution to have fun with the summer/fall and force my hand into training simply by showing up to the events I had put on my calendar. 

This FKT was the third in this series of 4 races in the lead-up to Tunnel Hill and was intentionally positioned 6-7 weeks out (within a 2 week window pending how the weather looked) as my biggest single effort. The forecast looked great for the 20th, so I decided to go ahead and jump on the opportunity 7 weeks out. I set off from the Boston Statehouse at 6:43 AM and scampered off into the Common and towards Rhode Island.

The goal with this run was to have an honest day, post a respectable result, but ultimately keep it in control so it didn't leave me in a hole afterwards. So, I settled into a tick under 7:00 range, with the idea being that the crew spots and stop lights would likely push the total average up to just at/slightly over 7:00 pace for the whole thing. I had established spots mapped out for my husband David to provide fueling support at miles 15, 25, 35, and 43, so I just focused on knocking each section out, one at a time (David was the real MVP of the day, covering world champs for Citius  and crewing me simultaneously).

Things were pretty uneventful through the first 2 crew spots, rolling through 25 miles just a couple ticks ahead of 7 minute pace based on total elapsed time. I lost maybe 90 seconds to stoplights and another 2-3 minutes to refueling through the first half of the run, but things were going well and I felt solid. I still thought I would be able to get under 7:00 total pace without tipping into race effort territory based on how my legs felt leaving the mile 25 pit stop. But as I made my way toaward the next crew spot at mile 35, the achilles started to get a bit cranky, the day got a bit warmer, and the stop light luck started to turn a bit for the worse. I managed to keep myself in the game at mile 35, but as I gave back another 90s to refuel and left the aid spot bang on 7:00 total elapsed pace, I knew I'd have to dig deeper than I'd like to keep the total pace under 7:00.

So, over the course of the next stretch I gave myself permission to relax a little bit and let the pace slip. I ultimately think this was a good move, as the day got even warmer (nothing crazy, but 70 and full sun on exposed roads 40 miles in isn't exactly perfect conditions) and my achilles a bit more cranky. I kept things pretty well together to the mile 43 pit stop, but was definitely in a bad mood and ready to be done at that point. I took an indulgent 3 minute break to drink a coke and complain to David about my self-imposed suffering before heading off for the final stretch. Between my dour mood, cranky achilles, and no desire to fuel more (so I just didn't over the remainder of the run), I let my legs carry me at whatever pace they wanted. I didn't press, but even running "easy" at mile 45 isn't exactly fun. I dutifully trudged to the finish, hitting a few more stop lights and a couple confusing navigation spots as I entered Providence, and touched the Rhode Island State House at 6:07 elapsed time.  

With it falling on September 20th, this effort was 2 weeks removed from the TARC Fall Classic 50k and 4 weeks removed from the Green River Marathon. I haven't truly "raced" any of these to the well, but I've treated them all as honest efforts and have been happy with how the body has been responding to these consistent, big doses. Despite the miserable last few miles into Providence, the physical fallout from the effort has ultimately been pretty minimal - a slightly tender achilles, but otherwise no DOMS at all to speak of. My self preservation instincts the last 8-10 miles, while giving back a good chunk of time, seems to have kept this in the proper "training effort" zone I was after with this run.

I'm glad this FKT was out there to get me to commit to such an effort - I think the fitness bump  will be critical going into Tunnel Hill, but more importantly I think there was value in remembering that it's ok to be a bit miserable when running efforts like this. A good lesson to learn again and again is that there is not a 1:1 correlation between the in-run misery and the actual fallout from a long effort like this; it just takes a little bit of demon taming!