First I would like to thank Paul Anderson, Rob Peters, Angela Kessler, and Andrew Broton for their work on establishing this route and my wife for dropping me off/picking me up from the trailheads.
Training:
I had originally planned on attempting this route in the early spring, but a nasty fall led to rotator cuff surgery and took me out of running for most of the spring. During the early parts of my recovery, I was primarily using an elliptical, using the stationary hand holds, and doing strength training on my legs and core which helped ease my transition back into running once I got the all clear from the doctor. After that, I had a pretty successful training block up until getting COVID two weeks before I attempted this route. Luckily, I was able to recover just in time.
Pre-run:
I decided to attempt the route north bound, unlike the previous runners, because my parent's place is very close to the Top of Michigan Trail Center which made starting early in the morning easy.
I packed a bag of with 3,000 calories worth of Tailwind, 4 Cliff bars, and a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I had 4 Solomon soft flasks that I filled before the run and a Katadyn BeFree for filtering water along the way. I was roughly planning for this to take me around 14 hours.
Miles 1-19:
My pacing plan going into this was to continually alternate between 8 minutes of running and 2 minutes walking. For the hillier sections, I switched to walking uphills and running downhills and flat sections. I was pretty successful at keeping to roughly this pattern for almost the entire route.
There were no issues in the first part of this section, but at about mile 16 I started running low on water and became a bit more conservative about about my fluid consumption. I was kicking myself because I had crossed a stream at about mile 8/9, but I didn't want to stop when I still had so much water on me. I ended up coming across a cache of water jugs maintained by the North Country Trail Harbor Springs chapter around mile 19 which I used to fill up my bottles.
Miles 20-25:
I did this next section a bit faster since it was mostly on roads. I got a surprise speed workout when a dog came barrelling out of someone's yard behind me so I kicked it in hard into the Blissfest trails, then I took a bit of a walking break once I was convinced I was no longer being followed by the dog. I filled up my bottles again at a spigot on the Blissfest disc golf course.
Miles 25-36:
During this stretch, I filled up twice - once at a stream near the Wycamp Creek and the other in Lake Michigan near Sturgeon Bay. I ended up sitting a bit in the shade near Sturgeon Bay to do a pack re-organization. The only thing that sticks out to me during this stretch is the series of non-stop sandy hills from miles 33 to 35, which hit me hard.
Miles 37-55:
I had previously hiked the route that goes from mile 36 to 41 last year, so it felt good to be on familiar trails for a while. After that, I was on the Swampline Trail (I believe that's what it's called) and all I can remember is getting swarmed with flies every time I would slow down for a walking section, so I ended up cutting a few walking sections short just to avoid the swarms.
I thought I had enough water to take me in from mile 36 to the end, but around mile 47 I was noticing that I was a little low on water and started looking for sources. There was a long portion along the French Farm Lake, but it looked a bit too stagnant for me to feel comfortable filtering water from, so I decided to hold out for a better source or just try to finish the last 5ish miles without any fluids. I ended up not finding a water source until I got to Mackinaw City, where I remembered there being a fountain near the North Central State Trailhead. I took a few steps heading toward that trailhead, but decided I was close enough that I should just finish and then filter some water out of the lake at the end.
Post-run:
I don't think my lack of water at the end affected my finish time that much, but it definitely made for a rough recovery for a few hours after, which was a bummer because I was feeling really good for the first 50 miles. My finishing time ended up being significantly better than I was expecting. This was one of the first times I have not had some kind of issue (I believe previously they have been mostly related to nutrition/hydration) that really slowed me down late in the event.
This was my first time using Tailwind for an event and I think it made a huge difference in me being able to take in the proper hydration/calories while I was out there. I measured out how much Tailwind I wanted for this effort and then put it in a bag with the little scoop in my pack. If I were to do this again, I would buy the pre-packaged little sleeves of Tailwind instead of relying on the big bag, because it was a pretty big pain to try to scoop and mix the drinks while I was out on the trail.