Rails To Trails 100 2019

We’ve mostly settled on the Kansas Rails To Trails 100 Mile race for our first 100 mile attempt this year. This is October and I’ve mapped out our training plan which starts up in May. We’ll obviously run between now and then but the actual plan starts then.

This is about as first timer friendly as 100 miles can get. The route is flat, it’s mostly a straight out and back, it’s in cool but not freezing temperatures and it averages 8′ wide so there’s plenty of space to run side by side for 2 or 3 people. The surface is non-technical being mostly crushed gravel. So if we DNF it won’t be due to the innate difficulty of the race course but the sheer difficulty of running 100 miles at one time.

There’s also the problem of gear selection and choices. It’s hard to determine the best gear for a 100 miles without actually running a 100 miles so there’s a lot of unknowns there. For example my Altra Paradigm 4.0’s are good shoes up to 30 miles. After that they don’t work so well. This is something I had to find out the hard way. Gear for 100 miles is only going to be harder to figure out.

In 2020 we’ll be going after more challenging races with some vertical and better terrain/scenery. The next logical step forward in building skill sets and pushing limits.