Eastern States 100: race website | results
August 12, 2023, starting and ending at Little Pine State Park, near Waterville, PA
103 miles, 20,000+ feet of climbing, 58% finish rate
I don’t believe in jinxes, really, but I may have jinxed it.
“I’m feeling really good,” I told my family when I saw them at the mile 43 aid station. “And I’m having fun!” It was true. Yes, I was running slower than I’d hoped, but it didn’t feel very difficult. I had made it through the 20s and 30s, which are usually the hardest parts of a 100 mile for me. I was on track to finish around 30 hours.
But as soon as I left that aid station, the rain started. “Remember, thunder is God’s cowbell!” one of the volunteers shouted as I took off.
Still, I was in good spirits. This race was going better than my last couple, when one issue or another popped up: a messed up ankle for the second half of Gorge Waterfalls, then fatigue during Laurel Highlands that left me mostly walking for the second half.
But at Eastern States, I was surprising myself. I seemed to be in pretty good shape. Of course I had trained hard, but living in flat Philadelphia I don’t have much opportunity to train on long, 45-degree climbs strewn with fern-slippery flagstone. But at Eastern States, you face over 20,000 vertical feet of such climbs. Sometimes it’s like they’ve never even heard of switchbacks—they just send you straight up the mountain. There are long stretches where “trail” is a strong word for whatever this random assortment of rocks is. I guess it’s not for nothing they call this region the Pennsylvania Wilds.
And, perhaps needless to say, in my training I never run in wet shoes. But at Eastern States, there are innumerable stream crossings—once we even crossed the same exact stream five times in a row, back and forth, as if the trail was designed by some kind of insane turtle. Not to mention the waist-deep river crossing over slippery, uneven rock slabs. And this year we had a bonus three-hour thunderstorm to run through, with some monsoon-like downpours to boot. Even when you’re not moving through water, the ground underfoot is squishy as you careen through the valley trails on the way to your next climb.
All that notwithstanding, I was still having fun in this race all through the night, running with my trekking poles, my waist light and my headlamp. I can’t explain it. Usually in a 100 I think more than once about dropping out, about how much this sucks—but in this race, I basically stayed content.
Yes, I’d forgotten to bring food at the start so I had to go the first three hours without eating. And yes, the first ten miles or so were crowded, which made the technical trail that much more difficult to navigate. And yes, when night fell I was annoyed because it was still raining and I’d have to open my pack to the elements to fish out my lights. And yes, because I was so wet, my legs and groin were chafing too much for even Squirrel’s Nut Butter to keep up with. And yes, the way my feet were perpetually wet, trenchfoot setting in, made each step painful. But somehow I was able to set all that aside and keep moving forward. If not always literally smiling, I was at least happy enough.
All I really thought about was Boris Yeltsin. The name kept coming to mind like a Hindu mantra, but I had no idea who he was. (I have since looked him up.)
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| Deer-in-the-headlights look at (I think) the first aid station. Photo by Emily Shaffer. |
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| Just after the second aid station. I realized I only take photos when I can fish out my phone easily, meaning I hardly ever take photos of the really difficult terrain—the stuff that would be most useful to see a photo of. Rest assured, only about 2 of the 103 miles of Eastern States are this cushy. |
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| Loved the Barbie-themed aid station. |
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| Photo by Emily Shaffer. |
What gives? This was Eastern States, billed as the toughest 100-mile race on this side of the Mississippi. I should have expected it to be grueling, not fun.
The gruel came unexpectedly, in the stretch from mile 73 to 80. I had been running happily through the night, counting the toads I saw hopping out of my way (dozens). Some of the adults stood still and watched me leap overhead.
At some point I realized it had been a while since I’d seen a trail marker. For most of the race, they were every 50 feet or so. I went on another quarter-mile and still didn’t see one, and then I turned around. I had been running downhill, impressed with myself by my remaining speed this far into the race. And now it was all for nothing.
Eventually I made it back to a trail marker, where I found three other runners who also didn’t know where the next marker was. Was this marker erroneous? Did the other markers blow away or get taken down? What were we missing?
The aid station was not far away—we could hear the cheering sometimes—but there didn’t seem to be any paths heading in that direction.
One of the other runners pulled up the course description and tried to make sense of it. It sounded like the race just didn’t mark the rest of this section because there was nowhere else to go. So we carried on, perhaps another half a mile, and ended up at a trailhead on a highway. No course markers in sight.
We backtracked again and eventually wound up at the highway again. Frustration mounted, morale waned.
A car drove by, fortunately part of the race, and they told us the next aid station was along the road. With no other option, we decided to run to the aid station via the road—it would be a few miles, according to a road sign that said how far the next cross streets were, which seemed so far to go out of the way at that point in the race.
Soon enough we came upon a dirt road that climbed up to the left. We inferred that the trail must cross this road at some point. A car came by, and the driver confirmed that, but said it crossed about a mile and a half up the hill. So we climbed. That driver came by again soon enough and said it was another four-tenths of a mile, and we kept climbing. At some point, the three runners I was with grew impatient, worried that the driver was mistaken or that it wasn’t the right trail. It seemed too far, and by that point we had wasted over an hour wandering.
We stopped to strategize again, combing over any information we could get with our no-service cell phones. Half-heartedly we kept climbing. The sun was well up now—I’d calculated I should have been at the mile 80 aid station around sunrise, but now I wondered if I’d ever get there.
At some point I got a bar of service, enough to call home and ask for help. Putting up with my desperation, my mom and husband confirmed that indeed the trail crossed this road. It must have just been a little way further.
The other three runners gave up the search. I never saw them again after that, but I think their plan was to go back to the highway and head toward the aid station.
Another quarter-mile up the hill, I found the trail—and it was marked! All said, I had been lost for about two hours, and according to my phone the wandering added an extra seven miles to the already 103-mile race.
Eventually I made it to the mile 80 aid station with about 15 minutes before the cutoff. Before getting lost, I was in no danger of getting timed out, but now the race was on. I would really have to fight for it.
I hauled it as hard as I could to the next aid station, but somehow I was still only doing 20-minute miles on average. I know that may sound slow—but these climbs!
I worried. It was taking everything I had to do those 20-minute miles, and if my body slowed down much, then I wouldn’t make the cutoffs. Sleep deprivation was setting in, and I was feeling dizzy and disoriented at times. Trying to stave it off, I ate and drank as much as I could, and I took a caffeine pill every hour.
Fortunately the next section was easier. I pushed as hard as I could and made up a lot of time. I think I came in to the mile 93 aid station with about 40 minutes before the cutoff. I was safe. But suddenly the prospect of doing another 10 miles started to get to me. I was so, so tired.
Another fortunate thing was that my family met me at that aid station. We hadn’t planned it, but I guess after my frantic 7 a.m. call they decided to come see me at the next opportunity. It was good to see them, and their energy must have rubbed off on me because the next 6.6-mile section went by very quickly. A third fortunate thing: this section wasn’t technical at all, and I could run much of it.
Now all that was left was the final 3.8 miles to the finish. That was the longest four miles I’d ever run. It was almost all downhill, mostly very steep and technical. Apparently part of it went through rattlesnake dens, and I was glad not to see or hear any. (Granted, I was hallucinating by then, so if I did see any I probably wouldn’t have known it.) This section wasn’t just running, but a lot of hoisting yourself down these large rock formations. It would have been fun on fresh legs, but by this point my legs were frozen. I hobbled down the steep, rocky descents. I had put my trekking poles away, but in retrospect I should have taken them out for this stretch. I was just thinking that the finish line had to be right around every bend, but it never was.
Eventually, the trail flattened out and opened onto the roadway of Little Pine State Park and sent me off toward the finish line. I came in about 25 minutes before the final race cutoff, making 35 hours and 35 minutes of running. (That is the longest I've ever run; previously, that record went to my first 100-mile finish, in 31 hours and 40 minutes, at the 2015 Mohican.)
I had finished Eastern States 100, the toughest race this side of the Mississippi, and it really was tough.
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| Finished, finally. Photo by my mom. |
Gear:
- For miles 0–42, I wore my Naked waistband and used a handheld water bottle with an extra Hydrapak bottle stored in my waistband, for a total of about 1.5 L of water. That was plenty for me. I don't mind using a handheld for water, but it means no trekking poles.
- For miles 43–end, I used an Ultimate Direction vest pack with a 2 L water reservoir plus a 550 mL bottle. Fortunately with my new water reservoir fitted inside, I didn't have any chafing with the pack. For this race, I think the vest may not have been needed—I didn't need to carry that much stuff. That said, it was nice to switch out of the waistband just for a change. Maybe I could use a lighter-weight (less capacity) vest.
- For future runs on this course, I think I'd ditch the shoes for sandals at mile 62, since after that it's much less technical/rocky. My feet would also be happier without the trenchfoot!
Lessons Learned:
- Bring a change of shorts and shoes: I usually change shirts and socks during a 100-mile, but never shorts. At this race, that was a mistake. I should have had a dry pair of shoes as well to change into, and more socks. It would have taken more time at aid stations, but I probably would have made it up by running faster—and I wouldn’t still be recovering from trenchfoot as I write this. (Fortunately a mild case—I’ll be fine in a couple days.)
- Trekking poles: This was the first race I used them in, from mile 42 to 93. They were helpful for the steep, technical stretches. But outside of those, I think they may have done more harm than good. I think they help for stability, but they seem to hinder speed. I need to learn more about them. I did have some chafing on my hands from them, though—which I guess is why some people were wearing gloves!
