Brandon Fuller

Long Lake (2.63 mi @ 30:00)

So exhausted from today’s workout. I shouldn’t have done something so hard so close before race day. I knew better! I have trained and trained but nothing could have prepared me for the endurance it took to pace 4 women and a fat dog to Long Lake. Only 1/4 the way in, I was tested when Sydney asked “how much further it was?”. And I had to carry one of these ladies on my back because she is too lazy to walk herself while she constantly tugged on my shirt and yelled in my ear. I had to squat down with the backpack on and had to pick up dog poop. Then I had to carry it with me the rest of the way enduring the agony of the smell for the miles to come. I had to pose for a multitude of pictures. Then take a multitude of pictures of my group while they posed by every rock, tree, and flower they could find. We had to pretend were were lost. We had to look for moose and other critters. There was even a water crossing involved! And the pace…oh, the agony!

Not. We had a fabulous family day up in Brainard Lake Recreation Area. I had no running on the books for today but I wanted to get up high again. So we drove 45 minutes up to the place and hiked in a mile or so to Long Lake for a picnic lunch. We setup shop on a blanket and laid there and played around the water for a few hours. Soaking up rays all while “training” at 10,500 feet in altitude. This is how training should be all the time!

Wyatt passed along a piece of inspiration to me today. He told me, “If you close your eyes and wish hard enough, sometimes you just feel like you can fly”.

It was great being out in the mountains with the family again. Have been doing so much running myself in hills that its hard to take a moment and enjoy them with the rest of the family — at their pace. I will be able to travel much lighter at Leadville. But after the race, I hope there are many more slow family hikes to come.

I went 2.63 miles with an elevation gain of 227 feet in 01:52:27, which is an average pace of 30:00. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

The Nutrition Plan

In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on the fuel!

A marathon really distinguishes itself over races of smaller distances by being the first race that takes more calories to complete that your body has stored up in glycogen. This is the crux of why people who can run a 1/2 marathon can’t up the game to a marathon easily. You have to figure out how to get over that hump of when you burn through the glycogen store. We call this the “bonk”. Its not hard and its done weekly by runners all over the world who complete marathons. But the basic trick is to eat while running. As the distances increase, the same principles apply but get more dramatic.

Before I get into it, I want to say this is not an exact science as I found out. So we do some rounding and hope for the best. There were options of more testing that would help dial the numbers in a bit, but I opted not to for now.

So the name of the game is calories. You burn them so you need to replace them. The key is how many. For a random hour of running around home at paces much faster than Leadville but still in my easy zone, I often see 600 calories burnt per hour. That can go up to 1,000 if I am really working hard.

25 hours of running times 600 calories per hour is 15,000 calories. That gives us a ballpark for what I need to finish this race. Remember that 1/2 marathon story and saying your body has enough fuel on board? How much was that? Well, the common rule of thumb is about 1,800 calories. Oh, great. I should be all set them needing to eat only 13,200 calories now! How many cheeseburgers is that?

There is another internal source of fuel that gets to play at a race of this length. Fat! Good old body fat gets burnt as fuel when you are doing exercise at aerobic levels. Meaning you don’t get this when you are working really hard. Just at lower levels. Ever seen a “fat burner” level on your treadmill? Its below the “max performance” setting. This number depends as well but 2,500 isn’t out of range. Down to 10,700 calories that I have to consume.

There are 9 major aid stations. So if you divide the race up by those, I should be trying to get 1188 calories per aid station. I don’t mean eating it all there but trying to consume that amount from the start of the journey to each one until I get there and during the stop. Eating on the run is mandatory. The bad part is that eating while running doesn’t feel good in the gut. So you have to take it slow. Eating small amounts constantly.

To get that amount of calories down, I hope to consume 3 different types of things:

1) Calories from hydration. Drinking electrolyte rich drinks like Gatorade give you calories. From the hydration plan, I had 6 bottles of Gatorade listed. Those are worth 100 calories each. I will also down some at all 9 aid stations. Maybe 1/2 the amount. So 6 * 100 + 9 * 50 = 1,050 calories.

2) Fuels, such as GU an Shot Blocks. These are the main source of planned fuel. They are easy to digest and are made to quickly convert into energy. Most of the packets are 90 or 100 calories depending on brand and flavor. I plan to leave each aid station with pockets full and munch on them every couple minutes. I feel like one pack per 30 minutes is about what I can mentally get done and stomach. Maybe more early and less later. Its pretty average for a run. Aid stations on the 25 hour plan are on average 2 hours and 30 minutes apart. That’s time for 5 servings. Call it 500 calories then per race segment. 10 segments. 5,000 calories.

Quick math check: 10,700 - 1,050 - 5,000 = 4,650 calories to go.

3) Real food. Not Real Food (tm) but real food. Back to the 9 aid stations. If we do about 500 calories per aid station again, we get 4,500 which is about what we need. This is the part that I don’t have so dialed in but I know what the menu looks like. I can bring whatever I want and race staff will have food out too. Everything from sandwiches to candy to soup. I will also have cans of Red Bull (110 calories) and Ensure (250 calories) on hand. Salty chips, tortillas, fruit snacks, Nutella, shaved meats. I was going to try to plan out these calories to a T but I just don’t think its worth the effort. Well, I mean it is but the variables of the race will be at play. I think the key message is just knowing that 500 calories should be going down the hatch at each aid station in addition to all the eating down in between. Its not going to be in my best interest to fly out of each aid station and not think about food. Its going to catch up with me. I may be able to tough it out near the end or something but this is a long long event and the numbers don’t lie.

Another tidbit that I picked up in training was about proteins vs. carbs. The studies showed how proteins (meats, etc) took about 8-12 hours before they started providing raw energy to the athlete. Hence, eating that in shorter races is a waste. However, at Leadville, you have the time. But I see that the game to play is eating this stuff early on like in the first 1/2 of the race. Then defocusing it during the 2nd half of the race because its not going to be ready to power you until after you cross the finish line.

So I hope to monitor this intake myself and with the help of my crew to see how I do for a few reasons. Future performances as well as any lack of performance on this race day. I have trained around this but you never know until you actually have to do it. And it may vary from race to race.

Honestly, this is going to be the hardest part of the race. I hope I have conveyed how eating is going to be much more on my mind than actually running. The hope is that I feel good enough to eat a decent amount as listed here, that my body needs maybe a bit less than planned, and that I can tough it out at the end if I am behind. Otherwise, its really just the situation I will put myself into.

I have taken over our dining room table. Made a box for each aid station. I am slowly filling each box with what I need. Counting the calories in the boxes to match the totals. Moving 1 GU from this box to that box because not all segments are created equal. Then rethinking it all again. On Wednesday night, I will bag up each box, label it, and seal it. No more thinking about it. Just do it.

Polls Are Now Open

Back by popular demand, the race poll! We did this for Boston and it was really fun. So here is another one. Same rules. Vote early. Will try and secure a prize for the winner once again.

Here is the direct link, if you don’t see the poll above.

The Recovery Plan

In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on the recovery! Yep, that means life will continue post race and I won’t die. Or that’s the plan anyway.

They say that any good athlete makes recovery a true part of their race strategy. OK, so here are my thoughts so I can say I thought about it in advance.

After crossing the finish line, I plan to collapse and enjoy watching others, such as Brownie, come across the line in the next few hours. Then maybe catch some sleep, go to the awards at noon Sunday, then head back home. From there, I plan on getting my belt buckle mounted and then promptly working in the front yard for hours on end. When people walk by, I will be like “Hey, what’s new? Oh that shiny thing, let me tell you about it. Get a chair.”

Depending on the legs, maybe some recovery walks or jogs later in the week. Kim and I would like to get our fall hiking series fired back up because school will be back in session. This also means my frequency of trips to the Boulder hills will increase because of my school drop-off responsibilities.

But otherwise, I have nothing on the books for the rest of the year. That sounds like disaster! Since starting into this sport, I haven’t ever had a clean schedule. There was always something NEXT. Not this time. On purpose.

I retired from road marathons. Hell, I might retire from 100s after this race. I may randomly work a few shorter distances and pull down some PRs. Or not.

Or I might buy a house in Leadville, train all winter, and scare the hell out of everyone next year. Or not.

So its a bit unclear at this point. What is clear is that the fall should be restful. And that running has opened new doors, taken me to new places, and introduced me to a whole new group of people that I really enjoy. Not interested in stepping away from that. I will figure something out and I will likely pour everything I can into it. Hoping that curve isn’t ready to bend just yet.

Run: Torreys Peak and Grays Peak

Previously, previously.

I didn’t know what to do today after Lance had bailed on the bike race. Had Leadville in my plans. Lost motivation so I figured I would do something closer to home. JV’s sister, Darcie, was out to see Lance race but suffered the same lack of motivation after he bailed. So they planned a 14er outing for Darcie (her first) instead. Knowing I needed to get up high again before next Saturday’s race, I figured this would be a great opportunity so I joined in.

I drove myself instead of carpooling with them because I was under time constraints. The kids wanted to hit Water World in the afternoon so I needed to be on my own schedule. Highly enjoyed driving to the trailhead once again up the 4x4 road at about 40 MPH. Arrived to find the lot full and cars were already a mile down the road. Guess this is where everyone is today. Got my run on and caught up to JV, Darcie, and Nate just a mile or so in. After some quick heart rate work, this was a great excuse to now take it easy for a while. The last thing I wanted to do was over-exert myself today. I just wanted to rev the engine a bit to be sure everything was firing and to stimulate a last effort for acclimatization.

We took it nice and easy up to the trail junction. Darcie was feeling the altitude as anyone from sea level does on their first 14er and only being in Colorado for a day or so. I do this with my own sister so it was great to see JV pulling the same routine. However, past the junction, I decided to run again and get moving. I had never hit Torreys first on a loop here so I went that way so I could do an official Torreys summit and not after Grays. So I made quick work to the saddle, then up to the top.

Obligatory summit self-portrait.

Looking over at Grays. How far over there does it look? 0.81 miles.

The rest of the crew had headed to Grays first so it made it a game to see if I could beat them back over there. Descended quickly and about ate it in MT100s that have zero traction on that loose gravel stuff that this well traveled trail has tons of. Lots of newbies on the trail and I would find people sitting right in the middle of the trail taking a break. Literally, jumped over one kid in a hurdle. In about 20 minutes, I was up on Grays Peak. My 3rd time ever. My most visited 14er summit.

Obligatory summit self-portrait.

Looking back over at Torreys Peak, where I just came from.

Love this vantage point. You can see the trail winds all the way back to the car if you zoom in. Straight up the middle of the photo.

Looking out towards Leadville.

A crowded 14er summit on a summer day.

No sign of the group. That was cool. Glad they were taking their time. I checked the clock and opted not to wait and began to descend. Being that Grays is the usual first destination on the loop, the trail was crazy packed with people. Never really could get a solid run on. Plus, I had to pull up a lot not to be that running guy throwing rocks on 14er newbies. Only a few switchbacks below, I found the group. Stopped chatted. Gave JV splits. Then headed on down.

Quick shot back up the hill after running 1/3 the way back down.

Had a moment on the way down just as I hit that part where the trail flattens out mid-way back. Was just moving along. Seeing people flocking up the trail the other way. Music was cranking. Weather was great. Felt all natural and in sync. At that moment, I realized once again why I enjoy doing this and how its all going to show next weekend. My motivation, which has wandered as of late a bit, felt full once again. I am ready I told myself.

Moved OK on the way down but I was really mentally doing two things. 1) Not going to fall and do something dumb a week before the race. 2) Watch my left ankle. I was successful at both. Reached the trailhead in about 44 minutes with no injuries to speak of. Guess its a PR since this was my first run on this route. But given, I didn’t run the bulk of the ascent I won’t get too attached to the time. Plan on getting back here next year more often.

As I left, that line of cars was even longer. There were 100+ cars parked behind mine in a single file row. Guess lots of people are now getting out to the 14ers — at least this one. So if you haven’t, you should. I see all types of folks out there on these trails getting it done. Just commit to doing it. You won’t regret it.

The Crew Plan

In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on the crew! The behind the scenes group that keeps the runner moving all day and night.

While the race staff provides aid stations at various checkpoints, a crew is wonderful thing to have on race day. They are not required and many runners will complete the race without them. However, having one can make the difference and will make the day more enjoyable and a shared experience for all involved.

As previously announced, Natalee Fuller, my only sibling, will be crewing me. She is a rookie at this as I am. But that’s OK, we climbed Longs Peak together as our 1st 14er 9 years ago and didn’t have a clue what we were doing then but figured it out quickly as we went. Hopefully, that streak will continue here.

Natalee will have help throughout the day from my wife, Kim, as well as pacer JP prior to him lacing up to run with me. There are also opportunities for friends who are coming to spectate to jump in the mix and help. Let us know.

So what is the job of the crew for the day? Well, basically, keep me moving and on track. How will that go? I see a few key responsibilities.

1) Gear - Crew will have to arrive at the aid station prior to the runner. All the things the runner may need and asked for will have to be transported to the race course as parking may be further away depending on crowds at each point. We are thinking of loading a wagon to carry supplies for ease and quickness. Thoughts?

2) Fuel/Hydration - Tracking what the runner ate and drank to keep them honest and clear. Not like counting calories. But if I took 4 gels at the last aid station, did I get them down? If not, then I am behind on calories. That’s going to bite me/us later. Probably write it down after I am gone. Then if I am behind on my hourly totals, you can see the train wreck coming and keep on me about it.

3) Pace - This one could get hard. Math is involved. Only 2 real times to track….25 hour goal and 30 hour cutoff. We shouldn’t be worried about 30 hours BUT you never know. So I would have to stay in front of those of course. Not sure I will even bother printing them. The race staff will track the actual splits in and out of the aid stations so that isn’t so important. Its probably more interesting to just track the total time I am under or over that goal pace. Like if I am 20 minutes under or over. Then I know how much I can coast or make up.

4) A/V - Let’s get some pictures of this thing. Some video. I need a record.

5) Motivation - You are doing great. You look good. Keep going. Only 1 more stop.

The list could go on and on but those seem like the biggies.

I sat down with Natalee in our studios for this interview where I ask the her the questions that I have heard about her role at Leadville.

Q: Are you into this Leadville-thang too?

I caught the mountain bug in 2001 during my first visit to Colorado.  Been a runner since 1993 but the flat lands of the Midwest have expanded my athleticism and desires to triathlons, adventure races and obstacle courses.

Q: What experience does she have?

I have the same level of experience crewing for someone as Wyclef John has to running Haiti.

Q: Why would you want to crew for someone?

It’s a front row ticket to shirtless, toned, sweaty men.  Oh, and watching my brother’s dream come true is pretty cool too.

Q: What are some of the responsibilities?

I will provide all the food, drink and equipment needs for Team Shart which includes but is not exclusive to: Gu, Cliff Blocks, Salt Tabs, TP, Shoes, Socks, more TP, a 9 iron, Fiber 1 pills, Red Bull, Diet Mountain Dew, red dodgeball, pimp cane, water bottles, and 1 leather strap with belt buckle ready attachments.

Q: How often do you have to be somewhere during this race?

I will be at every accessible aid station I can find.

Q: Will you stay awake the whole time too?

If my bro has too, I has to.

Q: Will you be drunk?

No more than usual.

Q: Will you wreck my truck?

No, I already wrecked his moped when I was little.  Lesson learned.

Q: Will you be in a bikini?

Is the Pope catholic?

Run: Green Mountain (6.19 mi)

With this taper funk, I am hesitant to do anything hard in the way of runs because as many say “one run can ruin your race”. However, last night I knew I needed to get something more substantial going in the next few days before the final few days of more rigorous taper.

So JV and I planned to easy run up Green this morning. Is there such a thing? Sort of. GZ was meeting others for a faster run later in the morning. But when I showed up looking for JV, GZ was there and ready to roll with us. Guess this makes sense…the GZ warm-up often involves 2+ hours of running before the actual meet-up.

Went up Gregory and then did some other randomness to get to the top. Pretty much lots of new loops for me today. I was kind of feeling great this morning. I would kick it into gear and cruise up a hill to build a little steam then back it down into a powerhike. Thinking my body is ready to roll in 8 days. And there is still taper to go! GZ bailed on us part way up and JV and I continued on and sat on the clear summit for a while.

We came back down and cut over to the front side to try and find GZ, Lucho, and Tim who were running a fast lap up Green. Found them in the Gregory parking lot and said hi. Good to see everyone again. Then we headed back across the field to Chautauqua where we ran into Tony on his daily outing. Flagged him down and chatted for a while. Says he is making “the call” today. Hope so!

After getting cleaned up, I had to go over to the clinic for my dermatology appointment. I was having this long standing hemangioma taken off my head. Sick of it. So I went in and they laid me down, numbed my head, then cut it out. Instantly, I felt a warmish rush over my head. Blood everywhere. Apparently, there were a few vessels that came together there. You would have thought I had a gunshot wound in my head with all the blood. They were trying to get it to stop for 20 minutes. Scalp cuts like this normally bleed a lot but this was a ton. I didn’t know I would lose all that blood or I might have waited until after the race. Finally, got me stitched up and I got released. Back in a couple weeks to get my blue stitches removed.

Good to see everyone. Good to get back on Green. Great day. Felt positive about running again.

I went 6.19 miles with an elevation gain of 2,764 feet in 01:34:56, which is an average pace of 15:20. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

The Pacer Plan

In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on the pacer! The unsung hero of the ultramarathon.

A single pacer at a time is allowed to runners from mile 50 - 99. On the last mile, you can have as many pacers as you want. Leadville rules state that pacers can run with you but cannot pull, push or move you in anyway. They are also able to carry gear, water, or food for you also known as muleing. The race gets quite spread out late in the night so a pacer helps keep runners on track, on course, and alive. There are various strategies for pacing a runner but the general goal is to be there to aid them and get them to the finish in the desired time in one piece.

As previously announced, J.P. Patrick, triathlete and foodie, will be pacing me to the finish. J.P. has been a competitor himself at Leadville twice and has successfully paced a runner to a top 10 finish.

You can visit his blog to learn more about him but I sat down with him (virtually) at the Team Shart headquarters for this interview.

Q: Tell us…who is JP?

[insert beer commercial theme music here]  I’m a very, very complex individual.  A jack-of-all athletic trades, a master of few. A cyclist, a marathoner, a former Seattle grunge boy (avg lifetime HR while in the mosh pit; 148 bpm), an Ironman, a flower sniffer, a gym rat, a champion baby jogger pusher, a hopelessly devoted IPA fanatic, an ultrarunner with an uncanny ability for tripping on absolutely nothing and falling, a 44 year old with a 32 inch waist who eats more than most people reading this can even fathom, a closed course stunt driver.

Q: Where do you know Brandon from?

Der!  Blogworld!  ….and we’ve been fortunate enough to have met in the flesh and get in a few miles and mountains together!

Q: What’s your ultramarathon experience? Have you raced this race or 100 miles before?

Many organized ultras, never a 100 (DNF’d at mile 70 at Leadville because I was soaked and cold and it was dark and I needed a more surly crew to call me abusive names and kick the shit out of me!) I’ve done enough immeasurable solo cycling and trail running training efforts where I’ve gone too far, too hard or been generally ill-prepared  and had to call my girlfriend to come and rescue me that I think, at times, she questions our relationship. I tell her I’m a guy and sometimes guys do stupid things.  She lives with that.

Q: Why would someone do this?  Pace another person through a death-march. Sounds exhausting!

Aside from the fact that Brandon is an incredibly good looking man and the thought of running shoulder-to-shoulder with him over 50 miles and 15 hours makes me kinda tingly…. hmmmmm.  That’s not reason enough?!

Well…. I started reading Brandon’s blog a few years ago and have loved watching this guy progress!  Don’t believe me?  Go back a couple years and look at some pictures of him compared to the lean, mean racing machine that he is today! I saw him hack 20+ minutes off his marathon PR in a year and run a 2:59 at Boston! (Just so you don’t get too cocky Brandon, I PR’d a 2:50 last year and plan on going faster in October.)  His excitement and laser focus drive towards this race has been addictive!  I paced Ryan Cooper to a Top 10 overall in Leadville a few years back and the excitement and energy of just being out there on this day was too much to pass up.  I know what it takes for him to finish.  It sounds corny, but it’s such a great vibe all day! I’m glad he still had the pacer spot still available when I offered!

Q: Sound like you have a lot to offer. Do you expected to be paid for this?

I’ll be pacing on retainer with huge bonus incentives.  I’d imagine a cold beer will be in my future.

Q: Are you going to be able to keep up with Brandon?

If there is some evil cosmic shift in the universe and Brandon begins to drop me at the 90 mile mark, my plan is to jump on his back like a spider monkey and beat him senseless with a heavy rock! When he comes to, I’ll tell him he fell down and blacked out because he must have been low on calories and should probably eat something before he tries to get up and carry on. This sequence may be repeated as necessary. Seriously, with the training load that Brandon’s done, if I was pacing him on the outbound, I’d be concerned!  This guy could crush me head-to-head in the mountains right now.  But coming back in for the last 50, I’ll be able to help get him all the way back in (and under 25 hours!)  Can’t wait!

Q: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to share your thoughts with us. Anything else?

Could I interest you in my new Breakfast Bake creation?

The Communication Plan

In my continuing look into my upcoming race, the Leadville Trail 100, today we focus on letting everyone know what’s going on during the race!

If you aren’t going to be there, then you are missing out. But we still want to keep you up to date on how the race is progressing. Unfortunately, Leadville race staff does not publish results in real-time. So if you are watching the race web site, you aren’t going to see anything about anyone until the race is over. Way over. Some races (like the Hardrock 100) are doing live tracking and its pretty cool but it hasn’t arrived in Leadville. Yet.

So you can follow the race the way that most of us runners follow these races…via Twitter. Surely, most of you have heard of Twitter by now. A couple years ago that wasn’t the case. But Twitter seems to be the best way to get your information on the race from the “crowd of spectators”.

How does that work?

Well, my crew (Natalee mostly) will have her cell phone. She is a texting kind of girl. So I will setup her phone to my Twitter account. She will then be able to send that text to Twitter during the race. That’s when my network of integrations come in and replicate that information to Facebook and to my blog and more. If you want the updates as they happen, you can join Twitter yourself, follow me, then tell it to text you my updates. You will get them as they happen. Other crews and even racers will be tweeting about their race too. So you can get a taste of who’s up front and where some of my friends and enemies are as well.

In order to find/group these on Twitter, we use something called a hashtag. This means that at the end of every tweet that has something to do with the race, the author will put #lt100 in the tweet. This will make it searchable by that. Given everyone is doing that, you can search for #lt100 and start getting a real-time stream of various race details.

Lots of updates will happen via bib numbers. Meaning people will just post “#313 just came through Twin Lakes #lt100”. That’s me. #313 on race day.

Anyway, I will also see if I can get my crew to do a picture or two during the day and post those live too. They might be kind of busy dealing with me so you never know. Sometimes people do better capturing other runners than their own runner because when you see them, its time to work. Hopefully, they can also meet me at some other places on course for photo-ops and not pit stops.

So what this means for me the runner? I am not carrying anything to communicate. WHAT? Yep, no iPhone, no satellite tracker, no homing beacon, nothing. Some people will be. I am taking the fact that those items are a distraction seriously and not bringing any. This is the race of a lifetime (so far) for me so I will treat it that way. I don’t feel like carrying any of that stuff would aid me in any competitive way. Some people are working out walkie-talkie systems between crews and runners. No thanks. Crews just have to be on their toes. And runners just have to be prepared if the crew isn’t where they are supposed to be.

Oh, and if you are going to be out there and you want to sync up with my crew, let me know. I will pass you the phone numbers. They may be able to use your help for a few minutes here or there as they try fill my water, get me food, take a video, switch my shoes, change gear, take my picture, apply some lotion, ask me how I am or what I need, wrangle my child(ren), check me in and out, and send a text message to tell everyone else how its going. The burden will double on the way back as my pacer, JP, will have needs as well. Should be exciting. Its not a NASCAR event but we will be acting like a pit crew on race day! Go, go, go, go!