2019 USATF 100 km Championships

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In Their Words

Billy Mertens

When I told people I was doing the MadCity 100 km, they looked at me like I was crazy, but it was actually a lot of fun.  As this was my first race over 50K, I had a lot of questions going in, and race director Timo Yanacheck was really helpful in answering those.  Given my workouts, my most recent marathon, and my penchant for long runs, Mark Plaatjes (who coaches my running group Gijima – great people!), and I decided that shooting for a pace of just over 7min/mile seemed reasonable.  Other than a stomach bug that put me in bed for 3 days about 2.5 weeks before the race, and a sticky talus (ankle), I had no major issues in training.  My biggest concern for race weekend was high winds or rain, and we ended up with a pretty nice day with moderate winds of 10-15mph.  
 

The race started well for me except that my talus became an issue around 25 km as it made my calf start to work overtime.  Still, I kept the pace at a little over 7min/mile until I had to make a pit stop around 35 km.  It was a little after this, that I realized that trying to get both calories and hydration in one drink was a bad idea.  It worked somewhat in training, but I never ran anything over 70 km, and as I approached 70K in the race, I could tell these issues were going to lead to dehydration.  It was at this point that my wife Julie and my sister Patty, really came to the rescue by helping me switch my planned nutrition and getting me more soda and salts at the aid station.  I could not have done this race without them.  I had other stops, and I did slow a bit, but the wheels didn’t fall off entirely.  If I were to do another race of that length, I would definitely drink more – probably double the amount that I did in this one.  And even though I think it would be a bad idea to go farther than 70 km in the 2-3 months leading up to the race, trying something over 50 miles at around 5 or 6 months out would be good to practice the hydration/nutrition plan.  
 
All-in-all, this was a really fun and well-organized race.  It was nice running into Jean Pommier whom I met at the Jed Smith 50K a few years back, and I am still awed by true ultra-runners like Jean that can do a race like this and then run Boston two days later!  I am fortunate to come from an entire family of runners and realize that I would have no success without their help, the help of my running group, and many others.

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