Aug '25 • General Discussion
Lean Horse 100 Reflections and Lessons
Lean Horse 100 Reflection
I hadn't ever been more excited or felt more ready for an Ultra than I did the weeks leading up to Leanhorse 100. That being said, I did not get the result I had hoped for. It was especially disappointing because my race execution was piss poor. I made too many big mistakes leading up to and during the race that I completely handicapped myself.
Here are my big 3 lessons learned:
- Fueling - This is especially disappointing to me because I have run into this issue on several other Ultra runs. Those have been 50 milers and I was able to suck it up to finish. Not for a 100. Right away I saw the temperatures were going to be between 90-95 with high humidity. Ryan and I discussed some adaptations the morning of the race to help handle the heat.
Mistake 1 was I decided against throwing my camelbak in the back of my vest. The Aid stations ranged 6-9 miles apart so I thought I could get by with my 2 bottles on the vest. BAD IDEA.
Mistake 2 was loading 1 bottle with tailwind and the other with a high carb drink. By mile 4 I was completely out of fluids and probably had started the stomach problems that would plague me later on by slamming all those carbs when I was clearly overheating.
Mistake 3 was not respecting the course. I thought the heat would not be so bad because the course was wooded through the black hills. The first 15 miles had no trees and was a full climb in the beating sun up Crazy Horse Mountain.
- Pace - The race began and quickly groups separated themselves. I found myself up front with about 20 guys. Several of them I had talked to a bit pre-race and they mentioned they were just looking to go sub-24. Before the race had started, I decided my strategy would be a lot of walking and moving slow early up the first big climb then once the sun went down I would start pushing harder.
Mistake 3 was I quickly ditched my planned strategy to run with the group up front. I pushed the first 15 miles at an extremely aggressive pace. Between the heat and the climb and lack of fluids, my HR was running between 145-150 for a long stretch of that. During that time I flew through aid stations, spending less than 5 minutes at both of the first 2 stops.
- Ego - I let my ego or competitive drive or whatever you want to call it dictate the terms of the race. At any point I could have stopped at an aid station and sat down for 15 minutes and tried to reset. At any point in those first 15 miles I could have stepped back and done some power walking to relax the HR and try to get the heat under control. I did not. I had been training hard for this race and I wanted to be up front. I am certain I would have had a different result had I left my ego in the truck. Being in the top 20 coming into mile 15 doesn't matter if you can't finish the race.
Overall, pretty disappointing. I ran myself into major heat issues to the point where I left the aid station right before mile 16 and had to walk 8 miles straight because I could not stop vomiting everything up. Water, food, tailwind, it didn't matter. I couldn't keep anything down. During the race I peed at mile 3, 7, 28. That was it for the course of 9.5 hours. I continued not to be able to keep anything down for almost 24 hours post race.
The biggest takeaway for me is EXECUTION. It doesn't matter how hard or how well you train going into a race if you don't execute. I failed to execute throughout the race and I paid the price.
The good news is….. there's more races on the schedule and I can't wait to line up again.
See you guys in Arizona.
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Lean Horse 100 Reflections and Lessons
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