A 10 day business trip to Minneapolis gave me the opportunity to see what a midwest ultra is like.  There is a new fall race in Duluth - the Wild Duluth 100K.  This is a fantastic 100K semi-urban race on the Superior Hiking Trail.  When I lived in Minnesota, I first heard about ultra marathons from an advertisement for the Sawtooth 100 which is a 100 mile race on the Superior Hiking Trail. This started my interest in ultra's, but it was not until moving to Utah that I started running them.  I was curious to see what the race would be like.  Unlike the races in the west where we have trained to settle into super long climbs, in this race, the longest climb would be 3/4 mile and only about 1,000'.

 

One week before the race, the forecast was rain and 35F.  Was I destined for another sufferfest in horrible bad weather?  Checking the weather daily, the forecast slowly improved and by the day before the race, it was forecasted for 44F and mostly sunny.  What a relief.

 

Becky and Christopher (both who helped me out at Wasatch) along with my old backpacking/climbing friend Jesse all went up to Duluth with me.  Christopher ran the 50K race - 2 weeks after Twin Cities Marathon, while Becky and Jesse had the challenge of creweing for 2 runners who would be running opposite directions.  It was great to have crew and friendly faces along the course - THANKS GUYS.  Jesse has took lots of fantastic photos of the beautiful fall scenery which I will post in the Photo Galleries section in the next few days.

 

The 6AM race start was chilly with a heavy frost and 30F.  There was no moon, so the first 75 minutes were very dark.  At the race start, Sean Andrish and I took off setting a hard pace running most of the climbs up to the ridge above Duluth.  On the ridge, we were treated to a fantastic sunrise over Lake Superior.  Once the sun was up, Sean took off and continued to gain distance on me the rest of the race.  He went on to finish in 10:52 which I think will be a difficult course record to beat. 

 

 

I had an interesting race.  The trail was amazing - narrow single track with lots of rocks and roots.  In the morning, the trail was slippery with frost and the wet leaves covered lots of hidden treasures that were attempting to trip you up.  I had a good race, but it was not without issues.  I took a wrong turn which led to a 10-15 minute detour around mile 15.  Around mile 28, I came upon a hunter, at 30 meters back I announced myself approaching to which he responded by turning around with his gun raised and pointed at me.  At mile 52, I had a German Sheppard dog charge me to which I jumped behind a tree while the owner 'attempted' to get the dog under control.  As they say, bad things happen in 3's.  After my third, I was really not able to get myself mentally back into the race.  Having said all that, the course was fantastic, the race was great, and I was able to finish second overall.  My final time was 12:17.  I was hoping to finish under 12 hours, but based on the circumstances, I am happy with my time.