Jed Smith Ultra Classic - Run

Now that's a long run! I would say that overall, it was not as hard as the marathon I did two months ago. Probably because 1) I've already done a marathon and have that mileage under my belt, and 2) because it was partly off-road. Also, the support was better in terms of the food (except for the Gatorade. Gatorade?! C'mon.) but there were almost no spectators.

I was fine for the first half, then it started getting harder. I almost thought I'd have to drop out because of stomach problems. I knew I would get dehydrated so I drank a cup of Gatorade at each aid station after the first one... until my stomach reminded me that it doesn't like Gatorade (too much sugar, I think). I went through ~8oz of gel and some of my Perpetuem, but lost the taste for that stuff after the half-way point. They had soup (chicken broth) which helped, and I had some more watered-down Gatorade. But what got me through it was a bottle of Sprite (courtesy of a couple of very nice participants), pretzels, and water. I pretty much just had pretzels and water for the last 10 miles. Oh, and boiled red potatoes in large chunks, dipped in salt. That was good.

We did 9 laps, starting with a little out-and-back to make up the extra mile or whatever. Here are my lap paces: 10:15, 10:27, 11:16, 11:57, 14:31, 17:54, 17:18, 16:19, 16:30. All time spent at my "transition" area and/or the feed tent is included in the lap time. I just ran a comfortable pace and walked when I needed to. A couple times I ran with another person and chatted, but most of the time I was running alone. It thinned out towards the end after the 30k-ers and some of the 50k-ers finished.

There was one woman who ran it who was blind. She had a guide who held the other end of a short rope that they ran together with. The guy who set his transition area up next to mine was 68. He'd been doing ultras for about 8 years and was using this event to train for Western States. (Everyone was talking about Western States. I guess that's really the bomb. I'm planning on volunteering for it this year.) Then there was this chubby guy who was doing the 50-miler. I looked at him and said, no way. I wondered if he could do it. Well, long story short, when I finished, he was about to head out on his last lap, looking as fresh as he had looked 6 hours before. Can't judge a book by it's cover in ultra running!

I really need to find a liquid electrolyte replacement drink that I can tolerate for long events (Cytomax?), or experiment with electrolyte capsules.

Walked (or hobbled) a little bit. Packed up my gear. Went over to the lunch tent and had a hot dog (that was good). Afterwards, I went home and took a shower, then got a massage. After that, my girlfriend had purchased a gift certificate for me at the local ice cream shop, so I had a big sundae to celebrate!


I'm not a "fast" runner to begin with, so I wasn't attempting to "race" this event. I wanted to finish under 7 hours, and I would have if I hadn't had stomach problems.


I've never done an ultra before but it was done well. Chip timing was nice. It was put on by the local running club which has a lot of ultra runners, so they really knew what they were doing. There was lots of food. I'd recommend it to others looking to do an ultra.