Bandera 100k: The Battle of Jeff and his Expeller-Pressed Legs
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Photo: No Sleep Media
My day racing the Bandera 100k can be broken down into the following three parts:
The first 7 miles where I ran intermittently with other humans
The next 20 miles where I realized I’d been describing the route as “circuitous” for weeks, but wildly mispronouncing it
The final 33 miles when I kept trying to figure out how “expeller pressed olive oil” is made. I wasn’t sure what that really meant, but I was, and remain, fully convinced my legs were “expeller pressed”
To be brief, my race did not go as planned. What instead occurred was a fascinating battle between my mind and my body, my will power and the strength in my legs. I set out to win this race and score a Golden Ticket to the Western States 100 Mile. I knew these were lofty goals, but I also knew they were attainable on the right day. For the less-brief version of my run around the Texas hill country, follow this riveting three-part story.
1. Running with humans is fun
The first few feet of an ultra are so joyous. Hugging friends at the start line, remembering to start your watch (I forgot), and that beautiful awkward silence. You know, that one that comes over a group of 20 people panting together pretending they all don’t want to beat every other person there. Then there’s the dude at mile 1.5 that sprints ahead every time you get close to him and you can literally hear his heart hammering out of his chest. But things settle, the sprinting dude gets tired and starts walking, and lovely conversations and good fun jokes break out. The first half of each 50k loop at Bandera were spent hopping and skipping down paths strewn with chunks of limestone, looking up cautiously to enjoy strikingly splendid views. We ran on the crests of wrinkled earth amongst cedar and cacti, a long string of humans dotted the rough landscape. On the horizon the terrain mellowed to a flat plane of low cedar forest. I couldn’t help but smile and enjoy the miles and occasional conversation. After mile five, I decided I should catch up to my buddy Colton and run some with him, as I kept seeing him just ahead. But I couldn’t seem to catch him. I spent the next 50 miles trying to run with Colton. Solid foreshadowing for how my day went.
2. Circ…circuitouitous?...sir…what? Circuitousssss
Ya know what sucks? Sticky mud. I’ll take sloppy slippery mud any day. But I would sell my soul to rid this world of mud that sticks to your shoes. From miles 15 to 29, the Bandera course was nothing but a strip of mud that graciously applied layer upon layer to the bottom of your shoes. As I kicked around ankle weights for 15 miles, I thought of the course map in my mind. It was so, so, so circuitouitous. Wait. What the hell did I just say? I recalled my cousin pointing at the map after I said “circuitouitous” and saying, “yeah, it’s very circuitous.” It just clicked. I’d been saying a made up word with way too many extra letters for weeks. So for 15 miles, I hated the heavy mud and said the word pronounced “sir-cue-i-tous” in my head over and over and over. People ask me what I think about when I’m running. There ya have it: the mispronunciation of words I’d never really said out loud before and then just barreled through. In part, I think I fixated on this word because it distracted me from some feeling arising in my legs. Not a good feeling. One that made the distance traveled seem miniscule compared to the miles to come. The other reason I fixated on this word was probably because let’s be real it’s super fun to say.
3. Dude, expeller pressed
After the first 50k lap, it was clear my chances of actualizing my Golden Ticket dreams were getting slim. At the halfway mark, I told my cousins who were crewing me “well I don’t feel fantastic, but I don’t feel terrible...” I was sugar-coating the situation, to put it lightly. My legs felt zapped. Squeezed. Put through a meat grinder. Sometimes you can shake that feeling. So I pushed. I charged into the second lap ready to run out of my mind. I pushed and pushed, urging my body to respond to what my mind and heart wanted so dearly. I felt like I was moving ok, but the mile splits on my watch told a different story. I pushed harder and went slower. I was scared of the second lap of this race. There I was, 35 miles into a 62-mile race and I felt fried. So I opted to run gutsy and keep pushing, squeeze every last once out of my legs or go up in flames trying.
For miles, I tried to think about how my legs were feeling. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. But I did. The word “circuitous” left my mind and the phrase “expeller pressed olive oil” tumbled in to take its place. Now let’s be real, I don’t have the slightest clue what “expeller pressed” means. But golly it sounds unpleasant. And my legs felt unpleasant. Whenever I thought to myself, “ayyyy, buddy, how are your legs holding up ol’ chap?” my mind drunkenly slurred “dude, but like they’re expeller pressed, and I don’t even know what the meannsss.”
I came into the Equestrian Aid Station, around mile 40, and learned I was 26 minutes off the lead. The odds of me catching the leaders with my olive oil legs were incredibly small, but I had to try. I left fired up and started moving well. I did a mile at 7-minute pace on the flats leaving the aid station. If I could hold that effort, maybe, just maybe, I had a shot at picking off a few more people. Then I stopped to pee. I started running again, and my race truly fell into shambles as I struggled to maintain a 10-minute pace and my mind yelled “EXPELLER PRESSED.” My legs ached and screamed at me. I grimaced in pain as I slowly trod along the rock-strewn singletrack. Sotol cactus and numerous other spiny plants pricked and slashed at my legs. It had been a long day already, and it was clearly far from over.
I still had 20 miles to go and I was beginning the section of course that shattered my confidence on the first lap – lonely, rolling, muddy single and double track. Very few of the inspiring views and fun technical sections found in the first half of each loop. Those early enjoyable miles felt like years ago. My mind wandered and the one-man pity-party flooded in. I was hot, sweaty, tired, alone, and chasing nothing but a finish. No Golden Ticket. No podium spot. My time goals were out the window. What was the point? For a few minutes, I wasn’t sure why I was still out there. When races are going well, I find pushing hard and grinding myself into dust is almost euphoric. The pain is immense, but it’s what I came for. I came to bury myself in the inevitable pain cave and see what I could push through. When a race is going well, battling through this darkness feels worthwhile, empowering, and is in some strange sense quite fun. The pain is tolerable.
As I left the aid station around mile 47, I was in pain, but it was not fun. My muscles ached, my legs felt heavy, my mind was filled with toxic thoughts of failure and defeat and how olive oil is made. I didn’t know what I was racing for anymore. Then I realized it didn’t matter. I was still in a race. I had to race. I needed to figure out how to still run as hard as I could. I took a moment to let myself feel my muscular discomfort and mental low. I admitted to myself that it sucked. All too often in these moments of darkness, whether a race, long run, or workout, my mind will turn against me and rack me with destructive negative self-talk. Harder than the hundreds of miles run in preparation for this race was directing the dialogue in my mind to be one of acceptance and positivity. We race the way we train. I put my head down with a grunt, forced a smile, and ran faster.
At this point, “faster” didn’t mean much. I didn’t let myself give up, and found the occasional surge of energy and hidden bits of leg muscle that weren’t on fire. I rode those little waves to the end, finding myself in a distant 6th place. A few miles before the end, I said “good job” to a runner still on his first lap. He replied, “you did it, you’re going to finish.” The simplicity in that had never occurred to me. I was about to run 62 miles. Even if I didn’t have the day I wanted, that man was right. I was going to finish, and I reminded myself that being able to run a 100k is still an amazing achievement.
I crossed the finish line with a smile on my face. Shit hit the fan early on but I still managed to have fun. I stayed positive when I didn’t want to and pushed with all my heart when there was absolutely no reward waiting at the end. I’ve never worked harder to fail and it felt so good. But in that “failure,” I finally allowed my mind to win when my body didn’t. This was not the victory I set out searching for, but it’s one that I perhaps needed even more.
Unbelievably huge shout out to my amazing cousins, Andrew and Lindsey, for crewing me all day and walking over 10 miles to do so!!