In 2016, the 100k World Championships moved to an every other year format—decreasing the opportunities to race on the world stage at this distance. When team selections were released for the 2018 world team, I was designated third alternate and I had pretty much written this race off. Instead, I made plans to focus on an Olympic Trials Qualifier at Minnesota’s Grandma’s Marathon in June. Due to some bad luck, I came down with a hip issue. Ultimately, I pulled the plug on Grandma’s, not wanting to race in pain and aggravate an ongoing problem. More on this later.

Fast forward to the end of July, roughly six weeks from the start of the 100k World Championships hosted in Croatia. I was notified I had a spot on the team, if I chose to accept. I was hesitant because my hip was not a hundred percent and I had only four weeks to try to put together any semblance of specific training. I knew that I had a decent base from the first half of the year, but lacked confidence due to the recent missing weeks of consistent training. I sat on the fence for a couple days, but ultimately accepted my position, hoping for the best.

 

It’s been four years since I last was on the 100k team in Doha, Qatar 2014. Unfortunately, I dropped from the race. I had raced the 50k World Trophy Final at the same venue one month before and wasn’t fully recovered.

This year, Team USA’s women’s roster consisted of Meghan Laws, Caroline Boller, Liza Howard, Gina Slaby, Devon Yanko, and myself. For the men, Team USA consisted of Geoff Burns (4th place finisher this year), Matt Flaherty, Anthony Kunkel, Isaiah Janzen, Chikara Omine and Jesse Davis.

 

I’ve done all my international travel solo but this time around Ian, my husband, wanted someone to go with me. He couldn’t make the trip so we all voted my Dad, David Harrison, into the role. Thank goodness he came. He kept me from losing my cool more than once due to several small travel glitches. I’m familiar with these kinds of mishaps though. At the last 100k World Champs, my luggage enjoyed a staycation in Canada for the duration of the trip. This time, our bags also found themselves suspended over the Atlantic. Luckily, our suitcases (and my race gear and nutrition) arrived Friday 12 hours before the starting gun. I had the bare essentials but my nerves were tested. Once again my Dad had to be the voice of reason and bring me back to center. I reminded myself to look at the bright highlights of this trip like the rare opportunity to represent my country, spending a week with my Dad, meeting great teammates and support staff and experiencing a new culture.

Thursday evening I was invited to speak on a panel discussing transcending physical and mental barriers of ultrarunning. I was honored IAU Vice President, now President, Nadeem Kahn included me on this panel with fellow runners Australia’s Brendan Davies, three-time Comrades Champion Bongmusa Mthembu, Croatia’s Veronika Jurisic (national 24-hour record holder) and Sweden’s Frida Sodermark.We had great conversation all around and lots of photo ops afterwards.

 

On Friday, the opening ceremonies took place. We paraded through the host resort, Hotel Golfer, and each country was announced. The ceremony was short and then we moved on to an early dinner. After that I put the final touches on making sure I had everything ready for race day.

 

The race course took place in the town of Sveti Martin na Muri which is located in the northeastern corner of Croatia very near Slovenia and Hungary. The route started and finished at the front door of Hotel Golfer and completed a 7.5-kilometer out-and-back. Crew tables were lined up just before you crossed the start/finish line at the end of each loop. There was also an aid station at the turn around point of the course where we were allowed one support person. Straying from the typical flat 100K course, the total elevation gain was roughly 800 meters for this “hilly” course. Check out this video team member Meghan Laws took of the course.

Race day! The start line was literally at the front door of the hotel and made for a short morning commute. My Dad and I went down early and I did a short jog to start getting my hip warmed up. There was brief talk of race strategy amongst the team members but concrete plans weren’t set.

The first half of the race started out cooler with some cloud cover, and, as I expected, our women’s team ran close together those first few laps of the race. I ran in stride with both Liza and Caroline early on. A few laps in, I separated from them and found myself running behind Devon. We connected and ran a few laps together before I made a quick bathroom stop and let her go on. After this pit stop, at about mile 34, my hip got wonky and I lost my groove. My pace slowed drastically. This was frustrating because, otherwise, I felt solid. Caroline passed me, but I was still running in a scoring position so I knew I had to keep pressing forward.

 

 

Throughout the race, I never really thought about mileage. Instead, my focus was on knocking off the laps and breaking them into smaller sections. Around mile 48, everything began clicking again, I regained my rhythm and my quads unlocked. The timing was good. This was the point in the race where runners were starting to fade and I was making up some ground. By race’s end, I had run out of real estate but I did make up for some mid-race lost ground. You can see the mile-by-mile breakdown of my race on Strava.

I was happy my energy never waned and that race fueling was spot on. Each lap, I grabbed my nutrition from my Dad who was stationed at our team table. My plan was pretty simple:

• I started with Organic Gatorade each lap.
• After 7 laps, I switched to cane sugar cola.
• Every other lap, I took a Spring Canaberry gel.
• As temps got warmer, I took additional water from the secondary aid station at the top of the loop.

 

I ended up finishing 2nd American and 16th place overall in 8 hours and 3 minutes. As a team, both Team USA men and women took 4th place. Japan won both the men’s and women’s team titles.

The out-and-back race format allowed me to witness the nuances at the front of the race. I was inspired to watch Germany’s Nele Alder-Baerens run a very impressive race for second place. She’s the current 6-hour world record holder and is deaf and partially blind. The Japanese teams both ran with a dominating race strategy. I watched them work together and move up through the flagging ranks as the race wore on.

 

All in all, I’m glad we decided to make the trip and that I was able to make the best of the opportunity. Special thanks to my Dad for making the trip with me and being my biggest supporter there, Ian for putting together the training that got me to the start line, Dr AJ Gregg for working with me through the ailing hip and lastly our team USA coaches Lin, Timo, Lion, Ann and Susan.

 

As it turns out, since May, I’ve been training and racing on a grade 3 adductor strain. X-rays show where the muscle was torn from the bone. After an MRI, which will reveal the extent of the damage, I’ll determine my next steps. For now, I’ll be resting the injury and following a smart rehab protocol.