Brandon Fuller

The Race Plan

I have covered taper, aid stations, hydration, buckles, competition, communications, nutrition, crew, pacer, recovery, gear and training plans. Only one thing left. The actual race plan!

Remember when I warned you that this was going to take a while and you would be sick of me talking about this race? Yep. We are almost there. This is the last post on my plans for the race.

What a journey. Went from not a runner to me finishing me first ever race in 2005. Now, we leave for Leadville tomorrow.

The race plan? Yeah, more like the mental plan. Unfortunately, it wavers a lot day to day. Never done this type of distance before. I have to run twice as far as my longest run ever. So I guess the goals are the best way to look at this.

Just finish! That was always the baseline. Get through this and be a Leadville Finisher. I have full confidence in that. As long as I don’t break some load bearing bone or just get wicked sick or weather gets evil, I feel like completing this is in my reach. Its not going to be easy but I think I have a formula that will work for getting me to to the finish. Worst case, I have a good first half then walk it in.

Moving up the ladder, the 25 hour goal is so I can be in the big buckle club. I have gotten comfortable with the fact that I think this will happen. I know other folks that have the buckle who I feel like I am on par with. I have met other non-big buckle finishers who I can out race on other stuff. If the day goes anywhere according to plan, this should be a reality. There will be some tough spots but I feel like I can deal and this race is so long that I will have plenty of time to recover from a few mistakes, if any. I just have to execute the plan and stay on track. I have tended to slow down in the crux of ultras before but there is so much on the line here that I hope staying fired up will be easy.

That being said, my real focus tends to gravitate towards that “what if”. What if I ran smart but as hard as possible in the last half? What if I told myself I never had to run again if I left it all out there? (That mental game works for me) What if I am just on? This is the big deal. I have thought about it a lot. What is possible for me? Part of this conundrum stems from Boston where I was so fixated on 2:59 that I ran 2:59. I am 99% happy with that result but part me knew I held back. I don’t think I want to leave Leadville after finishing 24:59 and knowing I held back. But I don’t want to blow it early either. Everyone…everyone….says don’t go out too fast.

The 25 hour pace plan put me into Winfield (1/2 way) at 10 hours and 30 minutes into the race. Looking at finishers from last year, that seems about right for me. The top 40 finishers all came in under but close to that mark. You have to look at top 25 finishers before you start thinking about 10 hours or less. So that 1/2 way time seems solid. That means I should about stay on splits all morning and maybe pick up a few minutes here or there. Leaving Winfield on my return no later than 2:30 PM.

The race back to Leadville seems to be the true game. If I hit 10:30 outbound, that gives me 14:30 to get back to Leadville for sub-25. If I took it easy to run 10:30, how can it take 14:30 if I push hard? Well, having 50 miles under my belt already is the variable there. Plus, its going to be dark for 1/2 of the journey. I will have my trusty pacer and crew to see me through and and I am genuinely excited about this. Ready to be tested.

Here are some quick estimates just to put things together in my head for what is realistic. Projected times are kept at 15 minute increments for ease of calculation.

Segment	25 Hour Goal Split	Projected Split	Notes
Start - WF	10:30	10:30	Maybe cut 0:15 or so but more might be pushing the pace too hard.
WF - TL	3:15	3:00	Hope itself (no WF) was about 2:30 in camp during a double crossing. Was tired. Don’t expect a big cut here.
TL - HM	2:45	2:30	Guessing. Never ran this direction. 1:48 in camp the other way. More uphill this direction.
HM - FH	1:30	1:15	Guessing. Never ran this direction. 1:15 in camp the other way but walked some. More downhill this direction.
FH - MQ	3:30	2:30	Brownie and I covered this in 2:00ish at the night run with stop and go.
MQ - Finish	3:30	3:00	Brownie and I covered this in 2:30ish with a good run lakeside but then walked every step of the Boulevard.

So bust out the calculators. 10:30 + 3:00 + 2:30 + 1:15 + 2:30 + 3:00 = 22:45:00

With 32 responses so far in the poll, the average Brandon finishing time prediction is: 24:27:08

Not much to say. Looks like the predictions show I may have a good day. But I gotta go run it now and see.

Thanks for sticking with these posts. I felt like it would be a fun way to go over the various details that I learned about, planned and put together over the last few years in dreaming of this race. Got plenty of comments about being “too anal” and “stressing out” over this stuff. Probably some truth to that. But I planned and now I am done. Time to have fun and race. Will let the day play out. I have strategies and options that I have thought through for race day. Some racers write manuals for their crew. I didn’t want to keep it a secret so I blogged it all for them and others benefit. That’s what its always been about for me. Telling my story but later getting the dividends when I meet random folks who say “I read your blog on that and I am racing/raced it”. Pretty exciting for me when that happens.

I will leave you with one last thing then we are done with the planning and the party begins. One day last winter, I met up with Tony on Green Mountain, we were going back down and I asked for the wisdom on how to complete this race since its partly him who inspired me to undertake this thing in the first place. He is a 2 time winner of course. That fall in his LT100 race report he said, “On a good day, running 100 miles is fucking hard. Period. On a bad day, it’s borderline impossible.” I probed on this statement and asked how do you or I overcome that. He told me simply that you go into the race with your mind set on this statement:

Nothing is going to stop me from finishing this race.

Touché! See you in Leadville.