Mines of Spain 100 Recap
100 miles: 26 hours, 23 minutes, and 51 seconds.
A little over a week ago I crossed the finish line of my first 100 miler. II can do stairs normally and get up at night to go to the bathroom without dreading the first few steps, the skin on my feet is toughening up, and the fall air has me craving a run (I will likely stick with hiking the dogs a bit longer). It all still feels a little surreal and I don’t yet have the words for all of it but wanted to capture it while it’s still fresh. I have always had a love for reading other runners’ race reports, especially about trails and ultras so thought it fitting I share mine here.
Why 100 miles?
I’ve fielded this question a lot this year and honestly I’m still not sure. I remember sort of stumbling across this race a few years ago and it just stuck in my head. I’ve always been enchanted by stories about thru hiking on the Appalachian Trail and ultra races like Western States and The Barkley. As a family we’ve always loved being outside, but I always put these ultra athletes in a different category than myself – “they’re just natural runners” or “that is just a level of crazy tough I don’t have”. I don’t know when the line started to blur but at some point running my own 100 miler started to seem reachable and in quiet moments I found myself starting to work through what it would look like. This race less than an hour from where I grew up continued to call to me.
In part I was curious, I wanted to spend a full day outside focused on this single simple thing of moving forward and really see what my body would let me do. I was fortunate enough to play collegiate volleyball but even that had a time limit, when your eligibility is up, it’s over. Running is different. While I’ll never be an elite runner and am typically racing more against myself than anyone else, running gives me a playground with no expiration to explore what I can do and channel some of that competitive fire that doesn’t result in hard feelings during family game nights. Training for this event has made me so grateful for what my body can do and the lessons I’ve practiced of showing up when I don’t want to for a run, learning to enjoy the routine, and so many more have bled into all areas of my life.
Running has also given me space. I am so grateful to wear many hats as a mom, wife, daughter, friend, business owner and health professional but running has become a little place just for me. Training provides some scheduled time to shift gears, reset, and just be with myself. While I still have my limits on how many times I can ask a person nicely to brush their teeth, I am more patient when I know I’m about to go eat candy on the trails or started my day with quiet miles through our neighborhood.
Becoming a mom has also changed me in many ways, and while sometimes it does make training more challenging logistically, it has also filled me with a purpose to show up fully as often as I can. When I look at my girls, I see strong willed spunky little women. They still believe they can be a unicorn or tiger when they grow up and when those dreams change to something equally as big but maybe just a little more realistic I want to be able to meet that dream with a knowing smile. I can only do that if I go after my own and have a blast doing it.
I share this with you to encourage you that if you have something big you're sitting on, even if the why isn’t crystal clear, it’s in your thoughts for a reason and you can find a way to make it happen.
The Course
The race takes place in the bluffs and woods along the Mississippi River in Dubuque, IA. It’s a looped course made up of 5 loops of 20ish miles with around 14,000 feet of elevation gain. The main hub or “Crewville” for the race this year was at EB Lyons Interpretive Center. This was a slightly different location from past years but “Crewville” provides a community space for runners and their support to set up tents to hang out and really created a community/party atmosphere.They also brought in coffee and food trucks and my husband noted it was a good place to wait and hang out while I was on the course. I can’t say enough good things about the race director and all the people involved, it felt like we were among family the entire weekend. Our girls loved checking out the little nature center and I was quickly taken from the finish line to see the “dead (taxidermy) animals” in the center. The course itself was extremely well marked and they had lots of volunteers on course at various turns to make sure everyone kept heading in the right direction. Aide was available at mile 6, 13.5, and 16.5 ish on the course and these aid stations were fully stocked with all the typical staples as well as hot food throughout the day. By the third loop, I was feeling pretty done with sweet stuff and gels and really starting to crave more real food and started leaving aid stations with pockets full of bacon, cheese quesadillas, and the most perfect pancake I have ever had. There was also a random appearance by a pickle at one point with lots of pickle flavored chips and snacks in the middle of the night .
The terrain was a nice amount of technical, runnable but still needing to pay attention. I can’t count how many times I told myself I need to bring the family back to these areas to hike. The area around the Julien Dubuque Monument (the castle-like thing in their race logo) and horseshoe bluff area were my favorites as well as flat stretches of tree tunnels full of fall yellow.
The Run
Loop 1 was full of conversations with local runners and it was a blast to get to check out the trails and course for the first time. My watch decided it didn’t want to run 100 miles as it stayed on the red battery/black screen the night before and that morning (it’s fine now) but I don’t think this had any real impact on my day. One of the runners I ended up spending a lot of the first 2 loops with knew the area well and was awesome with helping me get by bearings and a feel for the mileage and landmarks. I set my phone to stopwatch mode so I had a running time going and this was helpful as well. Loops 1 and 2 went by fairly quickly and I was able to stay up on nutrition and keep cool with ice at aide stations as the day did get warm. With brief stops after each loop to change socks and refill my pack I think I was headed out for the third loop at around 9 hours.
I ran loop 3 alone and tried to embrace this as I had quite a bit of company on the first 2 loops and knew I would have pacers for the last 2. The farthest I had run prior to this was a 50k so these miles were all new territory and I tried not to overthink what the heck I was trying to do. Rain was expected to move into the area but things stayed pretty clear through the whole third loop. The changing colors and night sky were spectacular out in the more open prairie area of the trail and I heard so many owls in the woods. This loop is where my fueling probably took a little hit, which may have contributed to me taking a picture of a toad because it looked like it was looking at a red balloon (the balloons were real-they led us into one of the aid stations). I started eating more real foods and started to look forward to picking up my pacer but being out and seeing the day shift into night was pretty cool.
Our transition to loop 4 got a little rushed as it started to downpour as we were prepping to head out. Not wanting to get cold I threw on my rain jacket, we got my pack filled, headlamps changed, and my cousin, Gillian, and I headed out. The rain stayed pretty steady and we were treated to some lightning and thunder as the trails started to get muddy. We both did a graceful butt print during a descent but overall got through loop 4 sharing some stories and laughs with spirits high and the rain stopping.
Getting back to Crewville for loop 5 I looked and felt like a wet rat. Crossing the timing mat I see my husband all fresh and clean trotting down to meet us and pace the last loop. He almost looked like he was glowing with a spring in his step and a big smile on his face despite sleeping just a few hours in the car while we were out on loop 4. We did some quick footcare, a sock/shoe change, filled the pack, and got rolling. My feet had gotten pretty wet during the last loop and the toes were not enjoying going downhill in the slick mud but we were still able to move pretty well on the flats. We got to see the sun come up together and he kept me accountable to keep moving asking me to “jog it out?” with a little grin on his face.
We climbed the last hill to the finish line with Macklemore’s Glorious playing and those lyrics seemed pretty darn perfect for the moment. My parents got our girls to the finish line and they greeted their slightly muddy dad and very smelly, muddy mom with big hugs, homemade cards and flowers. Thanks to strength training, bacon, and the adrenaline of being done I could handle the running jump hug from our 4 year old.
The Lesson
Throughout the race my biggest mental struggle was waves of feeling like this was a selfish waste of time. I’d see families out hiking with little kids and dogs and tell myself I was silly for being out here alone for so long. These waves would pass much like the little waves of nausea or the pain from a new blister opening up and that was one of my biggest take-aways from the whole thing was that the tough moments didn’t last forever. Seeing my family at the finish it was easy to see that even if they didn’t fully understand this endeavor they were fully supportive if it was important to me.
It was hard but it was fun. It felt a lot like being a wild kid again. I got to stay up all night playing outside and had great conversations with people who also like to run in the woods eating bacon from their pockets.
I got to test the limits of what my mind and body could do, and I felt so much support from my people. I learned a lot and can’t wait to get more into the weeds with using this new knowledge for the next adventure but I’ll let myself sit with this one for a bit.
Cheers to you getting out there and running yourself RESILIENT.
Katlyn
