Never Summer 100K 2020.

Never Summer 100K, 2020 Gould, CO

Back for round 2 of NS 100K and what a week it was! 

2020 has been a weird year, this race was the only ultra that I did this year and to be honest, the whole trip was a much needed getaway from Nebraska. We used the days before the race to have a family vacation in Colorado. We went white water rafting Thursday west of Fort Collins and did a 14er together on Friday, not sure that was the wisest move w/what was up next but both adventures were an absolute blast!

Ok on to NS100K. I have such a love for this race. It is by far the prettiest race I've ever done, just so gorgeous every step of the way. The race is in July in North Central Colorado in the heart of the Never Summer Wilderness area. It has 62 miles & 17K foot of gain throughout. This was my 2nd time running it. I completed it in 2017 in 21:04. I also paced Sarah, Gabe & Scott in 2018 w/Matt. I did race photos 2018 as well, which are on my blog if you ran it that year or are curious of the course go check them out. It's the race Sarah & I met Gabe & Scott at in 2017 and has become sort of a celebration of our friendship in the mountains type of weekend ever since. Waiting for the year we can all run it together again!

So after the 14er on Friday we got back to the hotel early afternoon, with the race starting Saturday morning at 3AM I needed sleep. I laid down around 6PM and set my alarm clock for midnight. It was a 2 hour drive from the hotel to the race start so I needed a bit of time to get up, get ready and make the drive over. I got to the race start w/out much for nerves. I knew the race from doing it in 17 and sort of knew where I needed to park and all that logistical stuff that is sometimes a little anxiety producing. I saw Cory Logsdon take off with the first group of runners and about 15 minutes later I started w/4 other people at 3:10 AM. I really liked the staggered start, it was nice to having just a few of ya run into the mountains with your headlamps versus a whole big group.

The 1st 6 miles of this race are a 2400 ft climb. The climb really starts to wake up your legs as you  near the end. It took me 1:24 to do those 6 miles, which was 10 minutes faster than in 2017. I felt like I was moving a bit faster than I'd wanted to but I felt it was good to stay with my group for these miles in the dark, It helped not have to stress about getting off course. So after those first miles of climbing you stay up over 10K and have another significant climb until around mile 15. This part has some gorgeous alpine lakes & incredible views. I saw a moose this year and some sheep last time. Such a beautiful part of the race.

Overall, this race has 7 mountains that you summit over the 62 miles. The 3rd one is the hardest, referred to as Diamond Peak. You begin the climb up to Diamond at around 9500K and in just over a mile you hit the high point of the day at over 12K. It is a very steep climb straight up w/no switchbacks, it felt harder than I remembered. I took more breaks this year than last time, at least it felt that way. The data shows that I got to the top of Diamond in 5:20 this year, vs 6 hours even last time. Once you get to the top of this, you are only about 20 miles in the race but you have already done over half of the elevation gain of the day so in a way it feels like half way point. This is a big downhill from here then the remaining climbs are manageable, not easy but not as bad as Diamond. Problem is, typically your legs feel shot & pretty much done for the day here.

But onward. I worked my down diamond in pretty decent time and then started the 4th big climb of the day, this one really took the most out of me and the run back down I had stomach issues and could not make good time back to the aid station. I considered switching to 50K many times but ultimately decided that Mr Randle had drove all the way out here from Denver to pace & I was really looking forward to those miles so we were going to get it done.

Matt picked me up at mile 50ish after almost missing him at the aid station. We got lucky there. I felt good leaving mile 50 and we cruised for a few miles. We were at the 50 mile mark at at 14:07 this year vs 15:50 last time I did this race.  We ended up having a quite a bit of really good miles until my stomach started giving me fits and we had to take it easy for the last like 5 miles or so. There was an incident with a sink hole of mud that was both dramatic and hilarious, as are most things this late in an ultra day. 

Ended up with a finish time of 17:17 vs 21:04 in 2017. Which I was very happy about.

2020 Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/3814963712/overview

2017 Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1097288375/overview

Here was my training leading up to Never Summer. With not being able to travel much I was not getting the vert I typically would of for a race like this.  Starting March 24th I ran at least 7 miles a day for 50 days in a row.