Join Live Recap and Q&A - Cruel Jewel 250 Miles Ultra Marathon

2:56 How about now? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, say Cherry in the chat. The sound won't be as good because I was hoping to use the other mic, but it seems it's not working. All right. Yes, you can hear me. Okay. Sorry about that. All right. And then here. Okay. That is interesting. It's too bad. All right. If the sound is really bad, please let me know. But uh we'll use the webcam microphone instead of the big dildo microphone. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that. But all right, let's get going with uh the session today. So, thanks for tuning in. It's been crazy crazy past five weeks. Of course, I was racing this weekend. the Cruel Jewel 100 mile. And it's a big buckle. I don't

3:44 think it's actually a practical buckle. It's actually really, really heavy. And just for size comparison, this is like Canyon Ultra. So, it's like twice the size at least. Uh, and definitely twice the weight. So, that was crazy. But yes, the the past five weeks, Leona Divide, Canyon Ultra, Cocodona, of course, 250, and now Cruel Jewel. And Cruel Jewel is the last one of the series of course, but oh boy, that's a difficult course and didn't go super well for me. So, I'm very excited, I guess, that it's over, but excited to share it with you. And I'm just going to give shout out to everyone in the chat. So, wank. Um, root for Glor, Tony, Steve, CeCe, Steve, and Glor. So, hi everyone. Thanks

4:30 for tuning in. As I said, I'm gonna try to do that more often. And I'm going to work on the format in the future, but I feel it's a really great way to connect, especially that I've been busy lately. Making the movies takes a little bit of time, but kind of voicing that right after the race can give you a little bit more of a real insight. And you can see my eyes are still a little bit a little bit tired tired. Um, and of course in the chat, ask me anything and everything, whether it's about the race specifically, question that you might have. I think that's a great time for us to connect uh to share the experience. And of course in a few weeks I'll be making the movies. Right now my priority moviewise I have a how to run your first 50 mile that is like halfway there. So I might try to kind of wrap over quickly but very quickly I'm going to switch to Coconut to 50 and then I'm going to go

5:16 back to Leona Divide Canyon and then Cruel Jewel. So it might be it might be a little while before I'm able to to make the movie here. But what we're going to do is we're going to go through a lot of footage how the race went, how I recovered or not recovered before moving into this race. But curious in the chat, has there been um anyone in the chat that was there this weekend uh at Cruel Jewel? And if so, feel free to share your own experience. If not, I'm going to tell you if you should or should not sign up for this race. But the summary is that it's it's a great race. I think it's a you know, especially as far as East Coast goes, uh that's a really cool race. like that's that's a really bad badass race. Was it a good race for me though? Uh it was not. It really was not a great experience. I regret a little bit uh

6:01 doing it. Not because of the race itself, but rather because of the whole recovery. And I think that was the the one too many um which you realize afterwards a little bit, but even coming in I had a little bit of worries. And I think these worries were a little bit well funded. And um and yeah, I mean that's life, but that's how it is. So, we're gonna we're going to move I'm going to play the the media in the background so that you can have at least something else than uh my beautiful voice and my beautiful um here we can move that and my beautiful face to to watch. Um if there is sound in the movie, I'm really sorry about that because I'm trying not to have that. So, please let me know if um the the movie has uh any audio because the point is to not have it, but it should be off right

6:47 now. Um all right so I'm going to go to the question right away and then I'm going to start with the start. Uh so yeah like lack of sleep I think uh training for me has been doing my PhD. Um I when I mean pe people sometimes don't realize but I do work a lot. Uh running is obviously not my full-time job and and through work but before that when I was a PhD student uh in Sweden and then eventually when I was working in consulting working through the night is not something that is so foreign for me. So I've been used to that. Uh but the reality is that I think very often when you're racing and you're you're sleepy or sleepwalking it's not just a lack of sleep but it's also a lack of energy. it's being exhausted. Sometimes it's about fueling. So, what works for

7:32 me when I'm really struggling on trail, first of all, five minute naps amazingly help a lot kind of reset the situation. And what works even better is you stop, you drink a little bit, you eat a little bit, you close your eyes, rest for kind of five minutes, and I'm kind of good to go. That will work kind of that's a duct tape solution that will work for a race that is 36 hour, 48 hours like this one. Anything beyond that, then I need actually proper sleep. And I don't know that there's a real way to train for that other than being mentally strong and knowing that like okay like it kind of sucks especially as you just wake up and you're you're trying to shake it off. But eventually it's just about the willingness to move even though it feels uncomfortable and then it will get better progressively better. Um Scott we spent some time over there.

8:18 That's awesome. I hope it was in the first half of the race when well I not even the first half. I hope it was in the first 10 mile when I was doing a little bit better because I really really struggled and I was kind of in a bad mood for uh I would say 90 miles of that and we'll go through that. So, what we see right now is the start. Always exciting, a little bit nerve-wracking on the road, but they actually semi-close the road. Like, the the crews are not supposed to drive off the road, which is a good thing. So, we can take the space, but at the same time, it's not great. And luckily, uh, in the evening when we come back because this is an in-n-out. We don't come back exactly through that, so there's less car. But, uh, but yeah. Um, how the race compared to Coca-Cola? Oh, yeah. We're going to go into detail how that compares to Cocodona. I think I struggled more at this one than Coca-Cola. Unfortunately, um not that it's necessarily harder, but it's

9:04 definitely different in terms of um the type of grind that you're doing. Uh lack of sleep got to me insane time. Yeah, I mean fish gap it's not great. So, lack of sleep. Yeah, lack of sleep is definitely something that was an issue for me coming in. Sorry, let's talk about the race itself or more to the point and people mentioned it already. I was coming back from Cocoodona and it it was literally a week exactly a week since I finished Cocodona. So, I finished Coca-Cola at like 9:00 a.m. the Friday before and then this Friday at noon, it's the start. And through the week, especially people close to me knew that I was complaining or whining a little bit about potential injuries and tendinitis. So, the big issue that I had at Cocoona that were really slowing me down was a lot of pain in my heel and my aches. Uh, so it was flared up and every

9:51 step I made, my heel was kind of compressing and it was really painful. It felt like it's in the bone. Um, and that started relatively early in the race. I would say the second day at Cocoona, and I was worried that would come back. The other issue that I have is, uh, in the front of my left leg, there's a tandem that is really inflamed. Uh, that was an issue at Coadona, and through the week, it was a little bit painful, but um, coming in the race, I was really debating, should I even go to Georgia and race this or should I call it and say, okay, I'm going to race it another year. And I got to say, I feel I might have done the wrong decision or or maybe not for the right reason and I regret a little bit. So I really was looking forward to this

10:37 race and this is a great race and everything was planned already. I had my flight, I had my cars, I had everything set up and just had to go and do it. So I think there was a bias or a sunk cost fallacy where well everything is set up so I should at least go to Georgia and decide Friday if I'm going to race and I was actively looking for reason to validate that this was the right decision. So Tuesday I think or maybe even Monday went for a six mile run. It was feeling okayish and I felt that was enough for me to say okay like let's do it. You're good enough. Good to go. uh despite the fact that I was sleepy all week and falling asleep at 9:00 p.m. 1000 p.m. which for me that's absolutely not normal. Usually I will fall asleep closer to to midnight or 1:00 in the morning. Um so so even just the

11:23 sleepiness was there but also my legs were not 100% but I felt eh it's good enough. I could walk the whole course at Cruel Jewel and be fine. So maybe I don't need to worry too too much. Um but that that was not a great that was not a great decision and we'll talk about it a little bit later. Um, and what's difficult at Cruel Jewel? So, for those not familiar with this race, it's 100 mile, but really, I mean, my watch says 109, and I think officially it's 103 miles. Uh, it's an in and out, so 50 miles out and 50 miles back. Not quite exactly because we do a little extra detour towards the end, which is extremely painful. So, I think it's 40 miles 9, 49 miles out, then we turn around, then we do a little detour, and then we finish. Um, it's in Georgia in the mountain and the East Coast

12:09 doesn't have the 14ers, doesn't have the big climb, the the 5,000 feet climb, you know, it has one or 2,000 feet of climb each time, but it's relentless. It's all the time. Most of the footage you will see, it's either me climbing or coming down, which means that on the way back I was climbing. Not always the steepest. Like for example, what we see right now is decently steep, but on the downhill that would be very runnable. Um, and for East Coast trail, it felt not, at least for for my experience, if I compare to things in Quebec or in the Northeast in New Hampshire, it felt not so technical. It's more technical. There's more roots, more rocks than you would see on the West Coast typically, but it's definitely runnable and those gentle slope, if you have the legs for it on the downhill, you could really, really

12:55 make up time. What makes this race difficult though is that you do have about 30,000 feet of gain. It is Georgia, so it can be really hot and super humid. The the kind of humidity that is super stuffy. You you want to cool down. You're sweating a lot, but the the humidity is trapping you and there's just no way to actually cool down. Makes shaving really bad because you're soaking wet. Makes eating very bad or difficult because you're you're just too hot. And because of these things, it makes everything super painful. It's also harder to take care of your feet because your feet get wet very quickly from sweating. Uh, and then on top of that, we had a little bit of rain, but not enough to kind of be refreshing. It was in the middle of the night for a couple of hours, got cold, then it came back to just being totally

13:41 normal. So, so not great. Um, and that's really what makes this race difficult. What makes this race accessible and I think can be a good choice. Maybe not for a first 100. I mean, it's fine to do it as a first 100, but I think it's a challenging race with with 30,000 ft of gain. You really have to have solid legs. Uh but what makes it accessible? Uh first you have an aid station I would say on average every fiveish or six miles. Uh meaning that you're never on these long stretch like at Cocodona where you spend 20 miles just by yourself and you have to carry everything. In this case five or six miles you have access to everything you need. Not always your crew, not always a drawback, but at least an aid station where you can have food, when you can eat and these things. So, I'm actually on the video I was pointing towards

14:27 where my leg is actually painful. And that's where actually we're just 13 miles in, 3 hours in. And right now, you can see it. I'm walking the downhill. And that will be the the name of the game for the remaining mileage, which is about 90 miles, right? Um, I'm walking 100% walking or 95% walking, including the downhill because every step I was making with my left feet uh was flaring up my my tendons. And at mile 13, things were going fineish before, but 13 is really where things start escalating very quickly. Uh, and I really had to decide at this point, am I actually going to drop this race uh and then make sure I don't get further in injured or am I going to finish? And for me, it's a

15:14 a bit of a binary decision. I didn't want to say, well, I'll continue as far as I can and then maybe at mile 60 you drop because then you get the worst of both words. You aggravate an injury and then you don't even have your your finish. So, I felt if I go past a certain distance, then I'm committing to going through it unless it's horrible horrible pain and it's very clear, you know, the bone is sticking out, but if I'm committing to that, I'm committing to finishing. I'm definitely not going to drop at mile 98 or 90 or or or however that is. I'm deciding am I dropping or not? And that's a decision I had to make fairly early. Uh the good news is that walking although was painful um the the run was maybe a nine or 10 out of 10 pain most of the time. I

16:01 could barely do a few steps before just being in agony. But the walking at least I was able to to go between, you know, one or two pain all the way to five or six. And it stays in there and varied a little bit. Um, now we're actually entering the uh road segment and that's really where it was by far the worst. That that was really really not good. The whole road segment is a segment that is mostly downhill. You can see it now. There's a gentle downhill slope on a dirt road. You're supposed to go like a 10-minute mile or 12 minute mile, especially with the the the fitness I usually have. That's what I would do. Uh, that segment would take me about an hour and instead it took me probably two hours. you can see the pain in my face and and really the the doubt that I'm making the the right thing. Um, but what I had in my mind at that time is I

16:48 started the race with uh Hoka Tecton and I think it's the shoes that really aggravated that because when I think back that injury started when I used these shoes for the first time. It was much milder back then but I think there's a relationship between the two. Maybe it's a carbon plate. maybe my my feet is not used to pushing with that and it just creates a little bit more of uh tension and that's sufficient to to flare up. So my mindset when I was in that segment and the next one was let's get to mile 25 where you have a drop bag. I had extra shoes in there and I decided I'm going to change my shoes. I'm going to make one more push, one more eight station and that's where I decide am I finishing this or not. If the change of shoes didn't help at all, I felt it would be better to just pull the plug and save my

17:34 season. If I felt better with the new shoes, I felt it was worth really trying for it, going for it, and then I have a full solid month um before my next race, which is Tahoe 200. So, Tahoe 200, I really need to be in good shape for that. It's a fast course at the beginning. It's a tough race, of course, 200 mile, but it's in one month. So, it's giving me time to do a little bit of PT, to rest a little bit, to do some exercise, to stretch, and potentially to just reset all of these things. My heel were really painful, but I'm not as concerned about that long term. My tendon is a little bit more concerning because that's not something that I had before. Uh, but I think a month will hopefully be enough. But that's the big question right now that I have to answer starting uh tonight basically. And let's look at the question a little bit. Uh,

18:19 what shirt uh are you wearing and why uh full sleeve? Uh, yeah. So, the shirt I'm wearing is just a bike jersey. I think I have somewhere on my Amazon kind of affiliate link. Um, the link to get the exact same one. Uh, it could be really any jersey shirt. But what I really like about it, and maybe you can see it, it's very porous design. So, for me, it doesn't shave this shirt, which is a big advantage, but also it's drying relatively quickly. Um, even better, there's some pocket because it's a it's a bike jersey. So, on the back there's some pocket. So, if uh if for whatever reason I don't have room for my camera, for example, I can just put it there uh very quickly. So, it's practical. Also, it's also a zipper design, which is practical if I want to air out my chest

19:04 a little bit. Uh, so nothing fancy. It's not one of those Satisfy shirt mud technology that cost like 200 bucks like this. This is a very cheap Amazon design, but it's doing the job. Uh, someone asked about the long sleeve also. So, um, these are just compression sleeves, but mostly for me, I use that when I know a race is going to be hot, I use that 90% of the time. Um, because if it's really hot and they have ice at aid station, you can just slip some ice in the sleeve. And for me, that's the best way to cool down when you have access to ice. It's much better than on your hat. H, it's better than a buff itself. it's really compressing against your arm. And that's what I I used and I learned at Bad Water was the most efficient. Of course, if you have infinite amount of ice, the the best trio would be to have

19:51 a hat where you can really put a bunch of ice on your head. It's going to melt a little bit. Then you have one of these uh bandana. And the the one from Running Rabbit is actually pretty good. At first, I thought it was more of a gimmick, but you really have a good pocket in there that you can slip a lot of ice. It's going to be at the top of your back, and it's really going to help you cool down. But the the strongest and most efficient for me is really the sleeve because it's really pushing the ice on your body and it's melting super fast. The same quantity of ice that I put on my sleeve compared to my hat for example will melt twice as fast on my sleeve. And really the difference here is that it's my body warming the water or in other words it's the ice cooling down my body which is a good sign that it's working very efficiently. Uh recommendation for Mongolian monster. I mean my my

20:37 recommendation is to do it but uh it's a race that is very much stop and go. I think you have some very steep and technical up and downhill that you will walk in both direction and be really slow on the uphill and on the downhill you have to be very careful. But you also have a lot of dirt road and fast mileage on the um on the the rim. So first is to be careful. It can get pretty hot. So check for the weather ahead of time and and um prepare accordingly. Then the other one is just to be patient when it's slow mileage to remember that there will be time for you to push harder later. So be careful in the technical. Take your time. Don't fall down. Don't hurt yourself. And once it's on the dirt road, you really push

21:23 the speed there so that you can make up time and then that should give you plenty of time for a strong finish at Mongolian. It's a great race. It's a hard work qualifier. So, I highly actually suggest it because there's not so many hard rock qualifier that are not um that are not lottery. So, I mean it's a race I I really enjoyed. The only issue for me is I believe it's in early September. Someone can definitely call me out if I'm wrong about that, but I feel it's early September, which is kind of peak season for a lot of really cool race. Last year was to dean. This year will be Swiss 380. So, it's not that I don't want to do it again, it's just that there's other stuff that I really want to be doing. Uh, but if you have the opportunity to do it, absolutely go for it. Uh, yeah. Uh, Mason Ultra Crew Hub

22:09 is saying, "You can't miss me in that jersey." It's actually one of the reason why I got it originally. Um, and and you should check out the Ultra Crew Hub if you're racing and you're looking for more of the logistic side of things. It's not the as glamorous as saying like, "Hey, I ran Coca-Cola." But there's something to be said about understanding where should you fly to, how can your crew support you, where can they go and and that kind of information that is often not shared. Ulcra crew hub uh is a great resources for that. And one of the tip if you're a runner and you have a crew is to be easily to easy to spot. So they need to see you coming in and having this bright jersey that nobody else has um makes me very easy to spot by my lovely Nora so she can see me

22:54 coming in and take the camera out and come out and be all cheerful. Um so I think that's something that that is good to say instead of having kind of generic clothing having something that makes you very recognizable. And unfortunately the the hat nowaday is a pretty popular one so it's not going to be enough to be recognized. Uh stretching. I Bill asked um if I do a lot of stretching. Um well, if my uh physiootherapist is here. Yes, I stretch all the time. Dynamic stretch. Uh but um I've actually I don't have one. I have friends that are PTS. Uh but I should probably see one soon. I don't do enough stretching or dynamic stretch as I should. And I know that would probably help me on my accles pain that I have. Um that that's one of those thing I wish I had more

23:41 time to do those stretch but I focus much more on uh running in my training including speed work and and long distance run strength training I think is pretty important rest days and then the the fourth one that is definitely missing would be dynamic stretch uh in general. So it is a good suggestion. I'm not claiming to have perfect training unfortunately and that's definitely an area that could uh improve. Uh Steve is asking a great question like what's the reasoning between uh you know an injury pain or more fatigue pain and that's unfortunately one of those thing that you need to make the mistake a few time uh because there's no direct proportionality between the level of

24:26 acute pain that you feel right now and how much that's going to last and obviously the insight is 2020 so in retro ect, it's easy to say that pain was actually an injury. Um because the injury is something that just takes longer to resolve when it's part of the normal fatigue, soreness of muscle. Um it will resolve by itself within a few days or weeks, something like that. Whereas the injury is something that can take several weeks, several months, and there's just something that is wrong with you that you need to to change. Uh, but the way I often describe it is if you put an alarm on your phone, um, and you go to a concert and then your alarm is ringing and you're in the middle of a concert, you might or might not hear the beep beep beep beep when you're at the

25:13 concert because there's so much noise around you. Noise that is so much louder and that's the pain. The the the noise level if is the pain. And when you're racing something like that, you have pain everywhere. Like I have pain in my shoulder because I'm using my poles all the time. I have pain on my toes because I have some blisters. Have shafing up my butt crack. And then I have a little bit of pain on my ankle. But the pain on my ankle is really lower actually than just shaving. Shaving is super painful. Blisters can be sometimes really painful, much more painful. Like the the pain is so much higher than that little uncomfortable feeling in your ankle. But the difference is then through times after the race the the blisters the shafing and your muscle

25:58 soreness they get better and better relatively quickly. Whereas your which is the high level of pain whereas the injury maybe the ankle was here it was you know a pain of two or three but it stays pretty constant or even sometimes aggravate when you're trying to get back to training and that's what's an injury. Um, the issue is that if you don't know that it's an injury soon enough, then you you get back to it too quickly or during a race like that, you you decide to push through it because the ankle is actually not that painful. It was much more painful. My butt crack was much more painful, but it's easy to convince myself that look, I'm I'm gonna I'm going to put some lube in the next few days and it's going to be fine. Like, that's okay. The ankle is not as painful, but is more worrisome. And with practice and doing the wrong thing a few times, that's

26:44 where you learn like this one, it just doesn't feel quite right. And I have done that mistake, especially when I was a newer ultra runner. There's one injury that put me out for about three months. One month I could barely walk. Then the next one I could walk, but it was painful. And then the next one I could finally start to jo. And it was the last 10 mile of I think the first time I did um cold water, which I believe was my second or third 100 mileer. I felt something was wrong in my uh knee, but I decided, hey, I can still do the last 10 miles. And I pushed as hard as I could. And I even have the the photo finish kind of a few snapshot back to back to back. And you can see me finish the cross cross the finish line and then already immediately start limping and that was a pretty bad sign that like yeah, the adrenaline helped me push

27:30 through that injury, but that was definitely a mistake. And in retrospect, I wish I hadn't done that. And hopefully that won't be the case after Cruel Jewel, but I do have some abnormal pain right now that is a little bit sketchy and and annoying or scary. Uh, all right. We have question about strength training. I'll I'll talk to that very soon. And uh, ultra lean if so. Okay, two questions from Steve about strength training and the ultra lean. First we have stunt masterlex which says hi from Gatsnau in in Canada. So hey I'm in California but my heart is still in Canada. So nice nice to see you or hear from you. I don't know if you were there actually.

28:16 We had a few kebqua uh that were racing this weekend. Always nice to connect with your folks. Uh it's east coast right? Like if you're on the east coast it's a big ass race to do. Anyway, uh if you look at the background as the same time as I'm talking, we passed at a station at mile 25 uh not so long ago. I didn't see it myself because I was busy chatting your ass off, but yeah, here. So, that's where I changed my shoes. I had a long break. Um I needed to poo poo also, but that's that's a different story. And um and then I decided, okay, I'm going to try with my good old Mafate 4. And it felt a little bit better. Not to the point where running was comfortable, but I tried jogging a little bit and it just felt better immediately, which was a little bit reassuring. So, I was happy with that. And that's when I decided, okay, I'm

29:02 going to finish this race, but already 30 miles in. I don't know how to remove this up. Yeah, 30 miles in 9 hours. Well, that will be the next aid station where we're going now. Uh, I was getting really tired. Uh, really a little bit sleepy already. Kind of zoning out. And I'm sure some people have seen me and tried to chat my ass off and I'm I'm just a little bit more like grunting especially coming in at eighth station and I feel so bad. So I'm sorry for anyone that was at eighth station. I just come in I'm just kind of zombie a little bit. Um it was a tough race. uh both that pain but also the level of energy. I I always when I come in eighth station, especially from now on, you'll see um I was really really depleted of energy and will to go on it. It just felt like such a grind fest

29:49 pushing through pain so slowly going at 2 and a half mile an hour looking at how many miles I have left at 30 miles now. Like I probably have 75 miles to go at 2.5 miles an hour. That's 30 hours. I don't need calculator like man like I'm I still have to go more than 24 hours. There's two full night that I'm going to spend out there right now. It really gets to you and that was really challenging mentally and at the same time I kept telling myself stupid stupid like why are you here? Why didn't you pull the plug before coming in because it feels that once I'm committed to doing it then I have to do it. Uh whereas I could have just as easily decided the week before, hey, I'm not flying. I'm staying in California and it's too bad and we'll never know if I could or could not have done it. Um and

30:36 it's weird because it feels like it's almost ego racing a little bit. Like, hey, I'm so tough. I'm going to do it, which I typically don't think like that, but that was halfway done. That was the trip's already organized and like, hey, like I've done three out of the four race I said I would do in five weeks. Like, and I pretty sure I can do it. So it's kind of ego racing which I really recommend not doing and hopefully I will learn from my mistake. Typically I'm better about it. I have in the past in fact cruel jewel I was supposed to do 100 mile two years ago and I decide to pull the distance to a 50 mileer uh because I I was not feeling great from my last race which I can't remember what it was at the time. I think it was Samo 100 mile which was a difficult race and I had bad water coming up. Uh so I I was really thinking okay let's dial it down.

31:23 Let's not ego race like I know I can do it but let's not be stupid about it. I think that's a decision that maybe I should have uh should have done on that day. Um Ultra Crewhub is asking and he's done the race and he did like at least 10 or 12 hour fast faster than me. Mason um if I have a drop bag at every aid station. So there's two aid station that you can have drop bag here and then there's a few more where you could have a crew. I didn't have a crew nor I was not there. I didn't have a pacer. So I had my two drop bag and then you pass them twice. Uh one of them is that it's station at like 24 25 mile and then you see it again at 75 miles. The other uh drop back is at something like mile 47 that you see again at 51. So that's basically

32:09 like you see it only once when you think about it's not you know it's not enough mileage. So you really have two three spot where you can uh change things. And the way I used that is I knew it could rain a little bit. So, I I had extra layers, dry layers. Importantly, I had um uh backup shoes. Uh mostly thinking they could be wet, but also just good to have shoes sometimes. And then extra pair of socks. And then almost everything else was was a nothing burger in my drop bag. But that was enough. Like changing these shoes. I don't think I would have finished the race if I had stayed with my original shoes. And changing my socks, which I I did at mile well 25 of course, but also I did again at mile 74, really helped me feel so much better and so much fresher. Uh, all right. We're going to go up a little bit in question. We had Steve and No, I'm going to talk a little bit about

32:55 that. So, the night came in super fast. And the reason for that is we start at noon. So, you have about eight hours of daytime before snap back to night. And I don't really like racing like that. I would much rather leave early in the morning. Okay, like 4:00 or 5 in the morning is a little too early for me, but 6:00 or 7 and really have the full day uh where you have the energy to run typically and then you do as much mileage as you can before it's night time. And then when night arrives, you're so far in the race that yeah, you're going slow, but you would be going slow anyway because of the dark, but because of how tired you are and it feels you're, you know, you're almost there. Whereas now, I'm just 30 miles in. It feels the race is just starting and it's already night time. If I had the leg for it, I should be able to run. But in the dark, it can be a little bit

33:41 more sketchy. So, not my favorite. Turned out to be fine for this race. And if anything, the night feels a little bit better because it was so hot during the day. Um, but yeah, I it it's mentally tough to go in the night and think, okay, this is not even the last night I'm going to be here. That's a mindset that you develop at the race like Cookona, but that you don't necessarily expect or want for a 100 mile. Like a 100 mile you do one night out and that's it. So that was a little bit tough mentally and then still being in my head and being so negative about it. And for whatever reason I was with a lot of people in the first uh 25 miles and then eventually it just kind of dried out. I was mostly by myself except

34:26 at a station. So that also felt a little harder than it needed because I felt I need to be with people a little bit more for that one, especially when I was in a dark place. Um, let's go through question again. So strength training, I do have a video about that. So I recommend that you go on my channel. Hey, by the way, if you are listening to this, if you think this is helpful or it's appreciated, of course, I would really appreciate if you hit me up with the subscribe, like, leave a comment, uh, both in the chat, but also in the regular comment that is helping my video be seen. Uh, as you know, I'm I'm doing that, you know, for funsies. This is not my job, but also contribution are really appreciated. I have a Patreon page and the way I see it, look, I really want to make the sport accessible to people, but of

35:11 course, my tips I believe are helpful. I think they come from a lot of experience. I want to make them accessible and free to everyone. But if you think this is helpful, see it like a tip, like just like a little nod like buy me a coffee or whatever that is helping a lot. That's helping you know there there's camera gear that you need all the time. Um and little things like that uh that helps the the channel be sustainable. Of course, you don't have to. I understand everyone is in different place financially and that's the whole point, right? So um so thanks for everything. Um, but don't forget to like because we have 59 viewers. So, I better have 59 likes. Unless it's a bad uh recap, then I I don't mind if you don't uh like my video if it's a crappy crap. Um, so, but yes, strength training on my channel. There's uh I think it's probably called strength training for

35:57 runner. I suggest you have a look because I go through uh my basic routine. It's good to switch it up, but yes, it will be things like squatting, calf raise, um uh wow, I'm blanking. Um I'm I'm wow I'm very much blanking. Uh some core workout of course a lot is your leg but you need to focus on your core a little bit and doing that 30 minute two times a week. It doesn't even need to be 30 minute. Uh it's better to do probably like three times 20 minute than doing two times 30 minute. The most important is that you do it regularly as you switch it up. Uh that's going to very much help you especially on a race like this one where you have so many climbs. And the thing that saved me for this race is that I was so slow on the downhill, but on the uphill, I was efficient. I I was going probably at the same pace on the uphill as the downhill up until almost the end, which really

36:44 helped me keep rolling and have a relatively decent time when you consider that the race was so bad for me that I was walking the whole downhill all the time. Uh, I never had the ultra lean. I don't think that we know exactly what the ultra lean is coming from. I I think strength training is of course something that you should consider for that. But I heard some people say it might be electrolyt balance. I I really don't know. And for those who don't know what the ultra lean is, you see videos sometimes of people that are walking towards the end of an ultra and they're kind of leaning sideway or or forward. And when you ask people about that that had experienced that, most of the time they don't even notice that they're leaning or they're they're sideways. So there's something kind of wrong going on. Uh never happened to me unfortunately. So don't have great tip for that. Uh, I think it's more visually impressive than actually problematic.

37:31 Uh, but yeah, what they say like you should probably have more electrolyte, you should do probably more strength training. Uh, but there there's probably not no uh magic pill for that. Uh, sweet spot for All right. So, Shield is asking, "What's the sweet spot for recovery time between these long races?" I would say that one week after Cookuna might not be the sweet spot. Last year though, and you know, it's not coming out of nowhere that I was trying that. Last year I did something very similar schedule-wise. I had Fuji 100 mile. One week later I had Coconut 250. One week later I had Bryce Canyon. And Fuji and Bryce are difficult race themselves. Um I think probably not as hard as Cruel Jewel but not so different. Like they're pretty similar in terms of difficulty. So I had the same amount of time and it just was better and I think it's because

38:16 potentially my tendonitis is potentially a small injury. So that's the big difference. Um, for me, what feels comfortable is three to four weeks after a 100 miles. It's probably where I'm I'm not 100% I I wouldn't do the best performance of my life after three or four weeks, but I barely notice it. Anything less than three or four weeks, I will notice it. Two weeks is not enough. It's not 100% back. I will feel more muscle fatigue and I will be tired quickly. Uh, that's sleepwalking very often, very early in races. That's when I I race back to back or two weeks apart. that's just not enough time and and one week is only feasible if you don't have injuries. If you have anything that is an injury really that's not enough time like to to recover properly. So sweet spot I I don't know

39:02 but one month is is probably what I would rather do at the same time. And you've seen me on my channel I I don't care about finishing time. I care about having this adventure and having fun which means that if it's going to be three weeks to have a really cool race I'm going to do it. In this case, did I want to pull out of Cruel Jewel because I just did Cocoona? Nah, not really. Like, I wanted to be there. It was probably a mistake because the level of suffering made it a little bit unpleasant for me, but typically that's not an issue. If if we look back, um I did uh which one was it? Canyon Ultra just before Cookona. And in this case, like it was just one week of recovery and that was totally fine. And I appreciate both experience. So, uh so it's a case by case situation. Uh, yep. Stomach. So, stomach issue and

39:48 long run, Bill. Um, how to avoid stomach issue on long run? I think it's practice. I think it's practicing and training your gut to uh accept the amount of uh carbs that you will have. Of course, the choice of food and the amount that you're taking is important. We we say two to 300 um uh calories per hour. A lot of that will come from carbs, but your choice needs to be adjusted to you. So you practice that in your backtoback long run. Even though you might not need to fuel in those long run, uh it's good to practice that and everyone will be slightly different. Uh personally after I would say a 10h hour 12 hour, that's where it starts being very challenging uh to keep fueling at the same rhythm. And the way to solve it for me is that I'm switching from more

40:35 of a carb and simple carb approach to more fat, more solid food, more hot food in general. So at the beginning, I might start more with something like energy gel, tailwind, which are great because you absorb that very quickly. In the beginning of the race, that's when you run quickly. So that's when you have to replenish calories very quickly. But as you go, your gut is just not doing so great. And then that's where I'll start having things like ramen noodle for me works very well. Grilled cheese, quadilla, something that like kind of doesn't fit that description, but works very well for me is Coca-Cola works very well at the start of a race all the way to the finish of a race. I can't really explain that because it's obviously very much just sugar, right? But I think maybe the carbonation or something makes it more easily to to be tolerated. So

41:21 you'll see me have Coke throughout the whole time, even past the time when gels are really just like just the thought of eating a gel is just gross. Coke will be okay by then. Um, but yeah, you got to practice that. And unfortunately, there are people that are much more sensitive. Nora is much more sensitive to stomach issue and and puking. I'm much more sensitive to the other direction. And you will know yourself and you you will know when it's time to dial it down a little bit. Um something that I think is a good tip is you almost always carry two bottles with you and instead of having let's say tailwind in both bottle it's good to have pure water in one of the bottle and then whatever else you have in the other bottle because when it when you start having no nausea drinking pure water just feels better and more

42:07 refreshing. Uh sometimes what I will do and like cruel jewel they they were reconcentrating the tailwind I guess they were doing the real recipe. Um, sometimes it's good to dilute it. Uh, so it's not as strong. People that say that they struggle with Tailwind, I would really highly advise well trying different flavor for sure, trying different brand for sure, but sometimes it's simply diluting it with water. And a way to do that on the run is you take one sip of water then one sip of Tailwind and it mix and then when you're drinking it's more diluted. It's easier to digest or tolerate, I would say. Uh, all right. Let's talk a little bit about the race. So, right now I just made it to Wolf Creek. Uh, Wolf Creek is the last aid station before the turnaround, which is just kind of a two mile in and out. Um, it felt really good

42:53 to be there. I felt like everything is is downhill from there, which is not true, but it it felt like, okay, like my body can handle this. If I can make it to 50, I know I can make it all the way. Uh, so it felt really good um to to be there. And despite walking all the time, I I was not and that was surprising me. I was losing a lot of position at first. And it's not so much the the position that matters. But I people were passing me a lot when we were on that road around mile 13 like zoom zoom zoom zoom. I was like, "Oh my god, like I'm going so slow. There's no way I finish." But by then, by mile 50, even though I felt I was going really slow, I was going apparently at the pace of people around me because nobody would be passing me and I would not be passing anyone, which means everyone around me was struggling. And it's not that I like to see other

43:39 people struggling, but more that you remember that yeah, I have my problems right now. I am coming off Cocodonai and I am all messed up, but people around me are also having their own issues. And if they can finish, then I can finish too. We're in a good position. We're way ahead of cutoff. They can finish, I can finish. And that's a little bit reassuring. Whereas if if people keep passing you throughout the race, at some point it feels like you're bleeding and there's no stopping of that bleeding. Uh and that's a little bit more concerning. Whereas in this case, I felt that I was kind of riding the wave of people around 40 hours u finishing time. Uh all right, let's Oh, a few comments. Sorry. All right. All right. It's And I'm sorry. Usually my comments would be like here, but for whatever reason,

44:27 oops, it's not showing it. Uh anyway, it would be top right, but for whatever reason, it's not working today. So, yes, there's still some tweaking to do, but um do any top racer complete ultra without using pacers? Um yeah, I mean, for sure, not every race allows for pacer. UTMB is by far the most competitive and most prestigious race in the world, and you're not allowed to have a pacer. You can have a crew, but it's fairly limited. So, that's definitely a thing. Um, when you have the option to have a pacer, I would say that it is an advantage to have someone with you, especially when you're a pro and you're really by yourself out there. It's going to be helpful to have someone with you to keep you company, but also to keep the pace to keep you on check on little things like how far is

45:13 the guy behind me? Uh, where am I going? Not having to think about little things like that can be super helpful. Hopefully none of the pros are muing or things like that, but who who knows what they're doing uh up there. if there's a special pride to do it by yourself. I'm sure some people take pride into that. Personally, I I'm happy when I'm by myself because I get to meet more people and I'm very happy when Nara is with me because I get to spend time with her. So, it's just a little bit of a different experience, but at the end of the day, your feet, your legs need to carry you the whole way. And that's not something that the pacer can change. What the pacer can change is being with you and and uh having this experience together. So there's some races though like Vermont and maybe Angelus Crest

46:01 where they do mention when you do solo. So no crew, no pacers. Uh it's part of your kind of record and I think for Vermont there might be two different podium but I'm not 100% sure. Uh Joel is asking what's a comparable race to cruel jewel that I've done beside elevation difference. Um, how does it compare to Leadville? Yeah. Um, it's very different than Leadville. I would say that this course is way harder than Leadville. Leadville is a relatively fast course. And I don't know if you've run Leadville, but Leadville to me feels like you have 40 miles that you're really pushing pace really fast. Um, of course you're climbing Sugarloaf and Mini Helper, so there's some climbing, but it's really

46:48 not too bad. and you can really kind of make up time. And the thing is that you have to make up time. And that's what makes Leadville tough is that it's runnable for these 40 miles. And it's not that it's an option to run. You have to run because those cut off are tight. And they're calculated based on the fact that you are running a big chunk of that. Then you do hope pass, which is a lot of climbing uh in a short 20 miles. I think you get probably 8,000 feet. like someone can correct me, but I think maybe seven or 8,000 feet tall in 20 miles, which is a lot. And it's basically half of the climbing at Leadville is within these 20 miles with the altitude. It's making it tough. Um, and then you run to the finish or or walk your way to the finish. But the the tightness of the cutoff is what makes Leadville difficult in my mind, not the course itself. Uh,

47:34 whereas this race, Cruel Jewel, is basically the polar opposite. climbing all the time. Super tiring, difficult course, mostly on single track. You have to watch your footing. Even though it's non-technical for East Coast trail, it is technical, more technical than Leadville for sure. But the cutoff were pretty generous. Like I walked for 90 miles and I was never worried with cutoff which makes it um easier or more accessible. Um what's a race that would be comparable to that? I don't know that there's so many race that I would find super comparable. One that could be interesting is um Zagonal Deu because it was also very hot and humid and there was a lot of elevation gain and cut off in my mind were fairly generous. However, that race was super

48:21 technical, super super technical. So that's the biggest difference. Uh the course was way harder because of that whereas this one at least like you could kind of zone out sometimes then it would be okay. Um let's go down the chat lane. Uh digging the video, Simon. Hey, I'm glad my videos are helpful. The washed up washed up loc agree with having water. Great during So there the most difficult thing with cruel jewel by far is the combination of a lot of climbing nonstop. The repetitiveness of it. If you look at the footage behind me, it's green tunnel nonstop and it's so stuffy. It just feels like it's endless

49:07 purgatory in there. You're suffering. You're in pain. And for me, this year in particular, I was in pain pain the whole time. And just seeing no progress. Like it's good that I have a watch because I can see that the mileage is moving. But otherwise, if I didn't see here that it says fish gap, I would not know where I am right now. I would not know how many miles are left and it would just feel hopeless. So the the mind game was difficult and the hot humid heat was terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. Um, Nora is asking if I'm answering the the question. Nor, you're always welcome to come upstairs if you hear me. Of course. Uh, folks are always happy to finish. Just finished the 50. The climbs are no joke. Yeah, Joel, the the the climbs are absolutely no joke. Um, congrats on the 50. I mean, the the

49:53 cruel drill 50 is closer to 58. At least the year I did, I think it was closer to 58. So, it's closer to 100k, not 50 ma. So, that's something to keep in mind. Um, do I recommend sitting down at eight station? I would recommend not sitting down if you can avoid it. Anytime you sit down, you will take more time. However, uh, sometimes it's easier said than done and sometimes you do need the rest on your leg. So, myself in this race, I start sitting down at eight station starting at mile 50. I was just taking my sweet sweet time, but it's because I knew I had the time with the cut off and because my heel were so painful. There's race where I never sat down and these are race that I was much faster. So, if you can avoid it, don't sit down. do your little things and go through a routine. I do have a video on my channel about aid station, which you can look up uh how to deal with aid station. But a good reminder is that

50:39 before you arrive at aid station, know what you're going to do and kind of practice it in your head. Because the worst thing that you can do at an aid station is not to take too much time. Like of course it's not great to take too much time, but the worst you can do is you forget to fill your water or you forget your poles or you didn't take food or like forgetting something that major or it's about to be the night time and you forget to take your headlamp or your clothing where at some point you you will have to ask yourself one or two miles out like am I walking back to get these things or not and and it's going to be a tough decision. So having your little routine will help with that. For me, for example, I know that when I come in an aid station, even though I really want to sit down and eat something, I will fill my bottle, empty my trash, take some food, and if it's a special aid station, like before a night time, and I need a headline, I will get those

51:25 immediately. And then afterwards, I will decide, okay, what do I need to eat or drink right now? And do I sit down? But I get everything done before that so that I don't forget one of these key items. A good 100 mile for a first timer. Uh there's a lot of them. Personally, I really like Zion 100 mile. I think it's a beautiful race and the the choice I think should be a mix between what's easy and accessible but also something that is exciting. Uh a race for example like Jackpot Ultra which is a small loop 2 miles loop in a park in Vegas. It's very simple. It's probably the easiest thing that you can do but also it's a mind that we're on YouTube. It's a mind game um to do that which makes it much more challenging uh mentally to keep going uh as opposed to

52:10 being out there in Zion and then having these gorgeous views and really feeling the the distance and the adventure and you're moving out there instead of just doing small loops. So picking something that is like exciting but also logistically that will make it a little simpler both for yourself but also if you have a crew and a pacer something that they will be able to support you. Another one that I like a lot is heavily not 100 mile uh in Arizona. It's 20 mile loop five times custom race. A lot of energy. The fact that it's 20 mile loop is not as exciting, but it makes it much easier to to crew or even to support yourself. You have your drop bag at mile zero and mile 10. So you can have a drop bag every 10 mile and really adjust what you're doing based on that. It's a 30h hour cut off though. So you have to keep moving. But because the course is not so

52:57 uh hilly then it's very manageable. The heat is really the problem with Havalina. Uh all right legend Nora. Thank you. We have some high going on. Of course Nora is there and she's downstairs. Nor you're welcome here. I I will open the door for for you. All right. Franchesco. Uh how did your buddy handle backtoback ultras? Yeah. I mean, Francisco, you might have missed the beginning. Um, usually it was fine and I I think for Koko, I was kind of okay coming in, but I think Cruel Jewel was the one to many or the one that if I could change anything, I would have taken maybe a week extra to rest. Uh, because I was not doing so great. Now, luckily, I have a month to reconsider

53:42 life choices. But yeah, the the biggest issues were not so much muscle stiffness. I was just getting tired very quickly, very sleepy, but mostly my heel were very painful. Oh, something tendonitis in my feet. And you know, you know, I describe it pretty mildly, right? Like, oh, some tendonitis. Um, look guys, if I'm complaining about it, it's because it was it was super painful. It was really, really painful. And yesterday, I could barely walk at the airport. I could barely go to my plane. It was horrible. I had problem driving because, you know, when you're driving, your heel is touching the ground and pressing the pedal and just just resting my heel on the ground was painful uh in the car. So, I had to stop because of that. So, that's the level of pain that I was dealing with. uh during the race. Uh it's hard to convey it because when I'm just in pain and bitching, I don't film usually. Uh but

54:28 it was extremely painful. Oh my god, we have one of the views. Uh feast your eyes because this is one of the rare occasion that you see the gorgeous mountain of Georgia, which are really nice, but most of the time you don't see anything. And then we're going to go back in the green tunnel, but it felt so refreshing to see that. So you really had to to watch that and you have to replay that because yeah, that's that's a rare site. Most of the time it's nighttime or you you have this green tunnel. So it was really exciting to see that uh recovery strategy between Coconut and Cruel Jewel was just to uh to complain all the time and wonder if I should be racing. Uh mostly it's a lot of sleep, a lot of active recovery. So whenever I could, I I would go walk a little bit. Whenever I could, I would sleep more than usual and accept the fact that I'm more tired and take that extra sleep, which does impact things like uh my

55:14 channel. I'm not able to make as much progress on the movies that I would have wanted because it's 9:30 10 I'm in front of the computer doing some movie editing and I just start dozing off and normally I would just push through that but because I want to recover then the decision was all right it's enough for tonight we're going to sleep um also I was eating more than usual making sure I have a lot of protein being kind to myself and then I did do a test run I think Monday or Tuesday a six mile run which was to gauge how bad my body was doing and then decided to pull the pull the plug or not. I think I was looking for reason to race it rather than reason to not race it, which is probably the the biggest mistake I did, but uh but that's all right. Um doing Havina for my Hey, Bar is doing Havalina first time. I

56:00 hope you do have a costume for it. It's pretty important. The way I see it for Havalina, for those who don't know, it's around um Halloween you can go costume. So, look, if you're a pro runner and you're going to get a golden ticket, I think it's totally acceptable that you're not wearing a costume. Otherwise, it's good to have a costume because then you have an excuse to be a little bit slower. And the costume though, if you do race costume, should really have the prime direction is it should not impair your running because 100 miles is a long freaking way. And you see people with like silly costume. I I am impressed by these people. Personally, I try to keep it as simple as possible. Uh, like I I will be dressed up as Luigi. The main part of my costume is just leaving a mustache on, but everything else is running here. Um, I think maybe one year when I'm gonna be famous, guys. Okay, so

56:46 you're going to help me with making me famous, right? So, you're going to like this video, subscribe to my channel, but when I'm going to be famous, I think we should all go dressed up as Simon. I'm going to send you a link to where you can get the hat and the jersey. And then we have a bunch of Simon running Havalina 100. I think that would be fabulous. And this way I don't need to dress up. So I think it's perfect. Um, and it's easy costume. Obviously it's a costume that you can run in because that's what I typically run in. So think about it. Maybe not this this year, but maybe the one afterwards. Um, what did I learn about myself? Um, yeah, Francisco. What did I learn about myself racing so many race so close to each other? It's not the first time I do that. Oh, and by the way, the girl we were seeing, we ran a bunch together. I mean, we were going back and forth. She

57:31 had energy sometimes when I didn't. like now she lead me ahead and then I'm catching up to her. But she did to Jan twice and she's probably sponsored by speed. Um so she was a great runner. Um it was nice to see each other at a station and clearly seeing in each other's eyes that like we were feeling the pain 100%. Actually you can see her like I'm catching up to her. Uh but we were back and forth I think from mile 45 all the way to the finish. Uh and now what you see the people that are running uphill. Yeah that's a 50 mileer. Hopefully you can tell the difference uh in their um ways of running. But yeah, what did I learn about myself? Um it's not so much about how quickly I I run these race. I've learned in the past that I can recover relatively quickly. I think that's one of the things I'm good

58:16 at and good at understanding my body and not pushing past the limit. I think this time though what I learned about myself is that I am susceptible to what I would call ego racing. I think usually I'm good. Usually I would have pulled out of this race and I regret that I didn't have the strength, the mental strength or humility to decide that, you know, my body is not feeling 100% and and not even feeling 95%. Let's just skip it. We're going to come back another time. Yes, I booked my flights already, but you know, it's it's better to skip it and not get injured. Uh because it it was just not a pleasant experience. So I I regret that. But I do notice that I am susceptible to ego a little bit. So, I'm going to have to work on that a little bit and be a little bit more humble. Nora is saying, "Simon dot dot dot." So,

59:02 I don't know what that was about. Nora, was it that I'm inviting you upstairs? Please come upstairs. Um Joel, what long do you do for Okay, interesting. So, we had a question about my Phoenix headlamp. Um, I have great longevity with them. Typically, they will go through the night and then some. With any headlamp, it really depends on the setting that you're using, right? Um, if you want more light, then it's going to die faster. And if it's really cold, sometimes it can drain your battery very quickly. For me, what I did for this race is I had two headlamp. I always carry two headlamp. Like, you have to have your main headlamp and then a backup. If your backup is a full headlamp, that's fine. Or something that can at least get you to the next aid station where you can get help. And then

59:47 on top of that, I had an extra battery. So, I basically had my main lamp and then two backup, like one battery and then one one uh um uh one extra headlamp, which I I didn't use any of that. And at every aid station after the night, I would switch my battery. So, I didn't have problems. But when you look at races like to um and uh Cocoona, then that's what I do also. It's two headlamp plus an extra battery on me. And at station, I will drop batteries here and there. And that's one of the thing I do like with the Phoenix, but it's also true for the Ultra Spire um Lumen, I think. Oh, I'm not sure the name, but it's the waste lamp. They use these batteries that I'm sure have a name, but they're common batteries, but they're not double A or AAA. They're they're very powerful batteries, but they're common. So, you

1:00:34 don't have like the pelt to buy these weird fancy batteries that you can really only use with this specific model. uh which is kind of a little bit annoying when you think about it to buy a $40 battery for just this model of headlamp and then if you have a different one it's just not going to work out and it's practical because I use as my backup the um the ultra spire head uh waste lamp and it it's using the same battery so whichever of the two headlamp actually dies and not the

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