Laramie 100
			July 2, 2007
Alex Morton
I ran in the Laramie 100 mile Run on June 30th/July 1st and had had about as much fun as I wanted. The reason I stopped after 11 laps of the 5.8-mile loop was because I wanted to stop?it was that simple! I started to think of some ?good? reasons to stop and realized I didn?t need any other than I wanted to stop. So after 63.8 miles and 17.5 hours, I crawled in the back of my car and went to sleep.
Of the fifteen 100 milers than I have run, I have had three 100?s where I didn?t finish for various other reasons, but this one was because I just didn?t want to run anymore. I wanted to try a moderately hard western 100 and I think this one was a good one to try: 8800 feet elevation, (so the air was a little thinner than Charleston air), plus 13,000 feet of cumulative vertical climb, which is more than I have run before.
When I look back at what I might have done different, I think I went out way to fast, something I seldom do in ultras. I have learned that a slow start is best for me. I had had a little faster start at the Umstead 100 miler this year, so I thought I would continue to go out at a little faster pace. (In fact, I know I started out too fast!!!! because I remember thinking this could be a ?20-hour? 100?so I got a little grandiose for a moment and needed to be leveled out or something!)
My first two loops were 1:07 and 1:12, while later I settled into 1:30 to 1:40?s. My last loop was 2:18, which came from several reasons, but mostly from loss of appetite and thus not eating much, so not much fuel for energy. I have dealt with this faze of loss of appetite before and can usually find something that tastes good, but I wasn?t able to find it this time. So I was moving slow!
I don?t know what effect high altitude had on me. I didn?t ever feel short of breath or dizzy. I did feel some mild nausea at times. I mostly had difficulty getting my heart going at the rate I wanted. I usually like to run at 126-132 beats per minute, but had to work hard to keep my heart above 120 while going downhill. Somehow I had left my watch beeper ?on? for the heart rate limits that I have programmed in to help me run efficiently? no higher than 166 and no lower than 120. So alarms was constantly going off from running to slow and again I had to work hard to get my rate up! This may have all been related to food, but possibly high altitude.
This run started at 9;00 AM which is later than most 100 milers that I have run. When I started calculating my finish time based even on my worst laps, I certainly could have finished within the 30-hour time limit, but my projected time would have been about 2:30 PM, which was more than the heat and sunshine than I wanted on the second day. We had had a relatively warm Saturday (90F) and Sunday was projected to be warmer, so I didn?t want to be out there. Those were some of my thoughts and experiences that night. I?m always learning from these long runs.