I ran unsupported, but managed to sneak in under Paul Anderson ‘s supported time. 🎉🤗❤️ that was my stretch goal, but I definitely had to push to get it. I played music on aftershocks for the last 20 miles and that was such a game changer. I followed the most up to date NCT route based on their website. As far as I could tell, it is the same route that Anthony Russel and Andrew Borton followed. This does include a small re-route through the Blissfest property that was added by NCT sometime during fall of 2021 (but I could not find it when I did this route as a 2 day run in September 2021), so it does deviate slightly from the gpx that paul submitted when he created the route.
No GI distress, even though my gut still feels messed up after pictured rocks day 4. 🎉❤️🤗
Super pumped I managed to keep running with no walking breaks during the last 5 miles, even if it was mostly pavement with a net downhill.
BMs at ~hour 3 and hour 6.
Really good job keeping stopping time to a minimum for me! This is a place I often really struggle.
I only ate about 250 calories for the first 2 hours because I was worried about my gut acting up. Drank ~1 L across the first 3 hours. Then put 1 L of pond water in Salomon 500 mL filter flasks. Planned for that to be enough for the next 3 hours, but it definitely wasn’t, so I stopped briefly 2 other times to top off one filter flask in a lake & can’t remember the other spot (pond or stream). Then ~mile 30 I sprayed down my head and refilled and drank a bunch at the bliss fest public spigot (they have 2 right on the trail). I was pretty dehydrated at that point. Carried 2L to pleasantville township hall and they have a public spigot too. Thought it would be overkill, but definitely drank it all. Then carried another 2L to the finish. I carried about 250 Cal*12 hours (in case it took long), and I think I ate it all except 1 cliff bar in only 10 hours. I wanted to eat the last Cliff bar in the final 60 to 90 minutes. But it was chocolate brownie flavor and those have enough cocoa powder to keep me up at night. I’m already probably not going to sleep well with all the morning caffeine and the adrenaline and stuff. But I didn’t want to sabotage my sleep even more. So I did last 60 to 90 minutes with just one ~70 Cal skittle packet. But never felt like i bonked.
I felt like I had dull soreness in my quads within the first 5 to 10 miles. That seems strange. I don’t know if that’s because I wasn’t fully recovered or just because I was so relaxed from the early morning that I was extra sensitive.
I think I did get about 5.5-6 hour sleep last night, which is decent for the night before a big event. I was up later than I would want preparing & finishing some work that I procrastinated 🙄🤷🏻♂️.
HUGE thanks to Dad & DD for driving me to mackinaw city!
I had the map on my phone, 935 & 955. As usual, the 955 had short little glitches and freezes pretty regularly that threw off the mile splits on that watch. But the distances ended up being really close between the two watches. Really disappointing that the “upgraded” watch is less reliable than the older model. I may have to send it back, but I really like having two watches during these big efforts.
I ran completely unsupported carrying all my food and only refilled water at naturally occurring sources or public spigots, as noted above.