I raced the Kodiak 100M back on October 9-10 and ended up having a pretty good day. Here’s my story.
Spoiler: I finished in 22:13:57 securing an automatic entry to UTMB 2027
Training/Preparation. After a mediocre Western States run I felt that I needed a little more emphasis on speed in my Kodiak training so I opted for the SWAP 50 mile/50k Champion plan as the basis for my Kodiak training block. I supplemented this plan with some additional high volume days as I felt appropriate but stuck to the workouts prescribed in the plan. I averaged 70 miles per week over the 13 week training block with four 90+ mile week along with two weeks in the 80’s. Fitness wise I was in great shape and that became apparent after swapping the hot/humid Georgia summer days for the cooler/dryer climate in Big Bear Lake. Side note: I drove out to Big Bear Lake early so I would have three solid weeks prior to the race at the 7000 feet altitude that most of the race is at. By doing this I also got to run almost every section of the course at least once before the race. This proved invaluable as I always knew what terrain was ahead, how far it was to the next aid, and roughly what race effort would feel like on each section of the course.
Race Plan: Run at the fastest sustainable effort I could muster for the entire race. The day before the race, while packing my drop bags, my wife asked me if I was getting excited for the race. I told her ‘not particularly’ instead I was focused on getting my mind prepared for the amount of discomfort that was to come. When running 100 miles discomfort/pain/fatigue always occurs and generally starts to hit pretty good in the last quarter of the race. However, whenever you’re trying to extract the most out of your body the voices telling you to slow down or walk start much, much sooner making most of the race a real mental battle with your mind to keep moving as fast as you can.
Nutrition/Hydration plan: I planned to use Carbs brand gels for as long as I could use them. Specifically, I planned on 1 regular Carbs gel and 1 Salted Carbs gel per hour. That would give me 400 calories and roughly 550mg sodium per hour. In the second half of the race I planned to replace the regular Carbs gel with a caffeinated Carbs gel for 100mg of caffeine. For a backup carbohydrate source I packed SIS Beta Fuel electrolyte gels in my drop bags for the second half of the race. Typically I can manage the Carbs gels for 10-12 hours without stomach issues but after that my stomach can get a little wonky with them. On the hydration front I would use just plain water in my flasks since the gels had enough electrolytes for me, and I started with 2 800mL soft flasks (plus an empty 500ml one in kangaroo pocket) and then switched to 500mL flasks once the sun went down.
Start to Doble 1 (Mile 33): For these UTMB series races they have a small barrier separating the pros/elites from the rest of the field and generally give this group a few seconds head start before releasing the main field. At Kodiak they allowed anyone who felt like they were competing for a top 20 spot into this corral. Based on previous year’s results and my goals I moved into the “elite” corral. Looking around, almost all of the non-pro guys seemed to be my age and I was like crap this is going to be more difficult than I imagined. I immediately changed race strategy since I didn’t want someone in my age group to get away early and snap the elastic. A part of me also wanted to be that guy snapping the elastic on the other guys here. Regardless, when the gun went off I rolled out at an almost suicidal pace up the first climb. I figured I could push pretty good on this shorter climb and then recover on the long, 5+ mile downhill dirt road section that followed. That strategy mostly worked, I spent more energy on that climb than planned but felt pretty fresh by the end of the long downhill road section. Side note: the amount of people who immediately went to hiking in the elite corral was out of control - I get it in the steep section but there’s no need to walk the flat switchback sections, ugh. After several miles of downhill dirt road we hit the PCT and I immediately fell twice. Luckily the field was spread out by then so real issues. This section of PCT is rolling and I just tried to cruise along at what I thought was a fast but sustainable effort. Surprisingly, I caught several more people towards the end of this section (and they were walking the rolling climbs!). I fell in line and waited for the road to Camp Whittle to pass. When you hit the road to Camp Whittle, it’s a 3-4 mile gradual climb up a dirt road so I was surprised when everyone in front of me went straight to hiking. I just shifted into ultra climb mode and jogged by everyone - it was crazy. Made it to Camp Whittle (Mile 19.5), refilled my flasks and grabbed my waist light before heading on. Leaving Camp Whittle the dirt road continues to climb for another 1.5-2 miles with some steep sections. It was on these steep sections that I started to feel the early hot pace. Initially, I thought I’d gone out too hard and blown my legs up and went into panic mode. Fortunately I knew the upcoming PCT trail section and knew that I could recover if I just kept the effort in check and stayed on my nutrition and hydration. Sure enough, after several miles of feeling like I could be in for a long day everything just snapped right back. I’m not sure if it was just the body recovering after several easy effort miles or maybe just some high energy songs that came on. Regardless, I went from ultra shuffle to ripping the technical descent to Doble 1 in an instant. Side note - from that point forward if I felt I was bogging down I forced myself to sign along with whatever song was playing on my headphones and and this always kept me moving. Hit Doble 1 at 6:15 on the clock, grabbed my drop bag, changed shirts into a short sleeve wool, threw on wool arm sleeves, changed headbands, put on headlamp (in addition to my waist light), swapped my UV gloves for warm gloves, grabbed a new bag of gels, and filled my flasks with water before heading out on the big loop from Doble 1 to Doble 2.
Doble 1 to Doble 1 (Mile 55). This is a big loop with a mix of trail and dirt road. I was riding a high coming out of the aid station and shifted my strategy to run as fast as was sustainable unless I’m feeling good. If feeling good, rip it. Not much else to say about this loop other than knowing there were a couple of good rollers on the dirt road, and where they were at, and the section from Cactus Flats to Doble was pretty rugged was really beneficial. I knew what was coming and was able to execute accordingly. Reached Doble 2 at around 10:50 elapsed, met my wife for a quick gel swap and bottle refill before heading on.
Doble 2 to Sugarloaf 1: Leaving Doble 2 I began overlapping runners heading out on the Doble loop and picked up a lot of energy from everyone (and hopefully I gave as much back). I caught W2 on this section and we yo-yoed for a while (she dropped me like nobody’s business on the Sugarloaf climb!).
Sugarloaf 1 - Sugarloaf 2: Met my wife at the crew point for a gel swap and then refilled my water bottles at the aid. Drank an extra 500ml before heading out but didn’t think to refill the bottle before heading up so I only had 2 flasks for the big climb. Jogged the .75 mile up the dirt road to the trail (saw M2 and M3 coming in to Sugarloaf 2) and then immediately went into hiking mode. I planned to hike the majority of the Sugarloaf climb and that’s what I did - just hike as fast as possible and jog any flatter sections (there are several flat sections on the top half of the climb). Made the top and started jogging down. By this time my waist light battery had died so I was left descending with just my headlamp (sunrise was coming soon so I didn’t want to stop and change batteries on my waist lamp). That made the going a little slower with the rocky surface but I made good progress to Balky Horse aid where I drank two cups of broth and a good amount of water before heading down to the Sugarloaf 2. My stomach was giving some trouble here so I moved down the dirt road slower than I’d like to have. I almost felt hungry so at Sugarloaf 2 I took in an extra Naack puree pouch (in addition to a Carbs gel and water). At Sugarloaf 2 I changed shirts into a lighter day shirt, swapped gloves to UV gloves, and dropped my waist lamp/battery pack.
Sugarloaf 2 to finish: Coming out of Sugarloaf 2 I ran into the main 100k race field coming down Sand Canyon road. That was a real pick up as everyone was cheering me on and I was trying to cheer them on. After Sand Canyon road the race follows some paved road for a couple of miles before arriving at Bear Mountain. You’d think if would’ve been some nice downhill paved road but no they found the steepest paved roads in California to follow - ugh. I blew past the Bear Mountain aid station turn off and had to circle back a good quarter mile but that didn’t matter - just a little climb up to the Skyline trail and then the Snow Summit climb before a long downhill to the finish. As I approached the Snow Summit climb I began to overlap the 21k racers and that was a good thing. I fell in line with the 21k folks and began the never ending switchback climb that was Snow Summit. Periodically, I would pull over and let the faster 21k runners go by before trying to latch on to them and at least once I had to stop so I wouldn’t throw up from the effort. After an eternity, I reached the Snow Summit aid - 5 downhill miles to go! The first mile coming down was on the 21k course and I was at my limit trying not to get in their way. Fortunately the 100M course broke off on another trail. Unfortunately, it was a super steep mountain bike trail and my my poor quads were absolutely screaming as I tried to maintain a decent pace on the descent. Eventually, I popped out on a dirt road and at that point I knew I was practically finished - just a little bit of dirt road and less than a mile of paved to go. From there I let it roll all the way to finish in 22:13:57 - 17th overall (15th male), age group win, and automatic entry to UTMB 2027!
Post Race: Wow, it’s still kind of hard to believe that just happened. And it’s somewhat surreal for an average guy like me to see an email from UTMB Elite Services inviting me to the UTMB finals next year. Clearly UTMB will be my big race for next year and I’m sure I’ll throw in some good local races along the way however for now I’m going to take a few weeks of recovery and enjoy some down time.
