The Bad Thing 50K – Race Recap – Racing Smarter, Not Harder
I almost quit running altogether.
From 2009 to 2018, I did well in school. But I struggled to be smart when it came to running. After hitting the final straw with a torn hamstring in 2018, I took four years to fall back in love with the sport. Normally love like this would be doomed to fail and fall back into the same traps, especially since I only fell back in love as a coping mechanism.
Just a little over a year ago, I left a job I loved for greater money and career progression. For some reason, I never anticipated how much of my identity, community and love for my own self had been built around that job. So when I left, the decision naturally devastated me, and my two best friends.
About a month into the devastation, we tried to have brunch together. It went horribly wrong. Later that day I tried to find something in life that I could cling onto and remembered a dream I had in high school of becoming an ultra runner.
After a quick google search, the first race to pop up was The Bad Thing 50k, which I recognized from a book I had in high school. I decided to give myself a full year to train for the event and make sure I was ready to run the obscene distance.
Naturally, love like that would be doomed to fail and fall back into the same trap. I went too hard, too fast, without any knowledge of fuelling whatsoever, and made the Plantar Fasciitis I already had at that point explode. While cycling on the sidelines of the sport, I discovered the Golden Trail World Series and realized that ‘Trail Running’ was a thing.
It sounded perfect for me. It also sounded like what I had already done my entire running career, having grown up next to Medway Valley in London.
I started to research more and more, and The Bad Thing fell slightly off my radar as I devised my plan to get back healthy and start racing.
In my first year of competitive ultramarathon/trail running, I wanted to run the most competitive trail races in Ontario.
When devising my 2023 scheme, The Bad Thing 50k, being so late in the year, felt like somewhat of an afterthought. Sulphur Springs, being the most competitive and professionalized would be my ‘A’ race. Falling Water, being the most adjacent to my own strengths of downhill and technical trail running, would be my ‘B’ race. Tally in the Valley 6-hour, being a unique format, would be something fun I tacked into the mix. Notice anything missing? The Bad Thing remained an afterthought.
But after Sulphur Springs, it only took a few conversations with my coach Brett Hornig to forego Tally in the Valley and sign up for The Bad Thing later in the year instead, ensuring I’d have more time to focus on running my best race at Falling Water. Leading into August, everything played out as planned.
Fast forward to the months leading up to The Bad Thing, and I had a few things on my mind. Times were historically slower. Matt Farquharson had run the two fastest times (both in the 4h16-4h20 range). Together (for a few seconds), we ran 3h46 at Sulphur Springs. So something wasn’t quite aligning.
Seeing the elevation profile and the amount of road time, I wasn’t sure why times were historically slower. Was it the early start with the headlamp? Did they make you come to a complete stop at aid stations to mark your bib number? Was the trail really that ‘Bad’? I wasn’t sure, but I thought a 4-hour finish and course record could be within reach.
At the same time, I knew that I ran so hard at Falling Water (and Sulphur Springs) that my legs eventually exploded and I couldn’t really walk after either race. I knew that I had missed a few key runs in The Bad Thing block with illness, that the old hamstring hadn’t been particularly happy, and my abductor on the other side constantly knocked on the door to try and join the party.
A smarter race strategy I thought, would be to hold back a bit in the first 30k, stay strong but slower on the technical bit from 30-40k, and then hammer the final 10k on the roads. To some extent, that’s exactly what I did.
A group of us started at the front around 4:40/km pace, keeping consistent with slightly above what I intended to average. Eventually Matt Suda and I peeled away. I told him I’d take the lead when we hit the trail, using the excuse that I had the brighter headlamp.
Feeling comfortable, I got lost for the first time, thinking that a pink flag was pointing me to the left rather than the right. I quickly realized my mistake and turned back. At that time, Matt passed me. But thinking myself to be some trail technicality wizard, I hadn’t anticipated that the gap I put on Matt might have only been a few seconds. So when we hit the road, I started to stress that Matt had actually gone the wrong way himself and cut off some of the course.
It didn’t take long for me to catch up to him when we hit the next section of trail, and I told him to stay confident and politely asked that he let me by (I knew it was narrow for the next 2k or so and that I wouldn’t be able to politely pass him). He politely obliged, and I immediately wiped out on a bridge. It had been raining (possibly snowing?) for the whole race…and the two weeks leading up to the event. The conditions weren’t amazing. Not muddy. The leaves covered all that up. But the tight turns and excessive stairs were slippery, and the bridges were basically un-runnable.
Again, the worse the conditions the better for me. So I felt confident I could make a nice gap on Matt after picking myself back up from the embarrassment.
Then Matt did something I didn’t quite expect.
When we hit a flat section of the trail, he caught back up and put on a surge. He was breathing heavily so I could tell he didn’t want to overtake, but just hang on. I responded by comfortably putting on the fastest kilometre of my entire day, before easing into The Bad Thing Hill. At the top, I had to wait a bit for the bracelet and for them to take down my bib number. Maybe that perturbed me a bit and I sent it back down in what Strava thinks is the second fastest descent ever (oops).
The next bit was technical and I knew I could continue to increase my gap. But at the same time, the leaves entirely covered the trail, and the amount of white blazes and pink flags didn’t make up for that from a navigation perspective. That, combined with Matt’s flat speed, allowed him to catch back up again.
“I was just thinking of you.” I said, before we hit another technical section and I again made a little separation. The cat and mouse game continued for a while until we hit the next flat section. At that point he wasn’t breathing as heavily as before.
“Do you want to go, or stay?” I asked, thinking of Elhousine Elazzaoui from the Golden Trail circuit, who always clings onto second and stays there with the lead runner.
“I’m comfortable staying here.” He said, referring to the pace/effort. I said the same. Psychologically, I could tell that gave him the confidence to make his first big move of the day. We hit the roads at Ben Miller Inn and he took the lead for the second time in the race.
I checked the watch to see that I had averaged 4:58/km across the first 25km, and was very much still on course-record pace. Meanwhile, Matt opened about thirty-seconds on me on the road, until the 100m of downhill stairs at the start of the next trail section allowed me to reduce the gap entirely. But that didn’t entirely matter, because we had reached another impasse – and one where I could not pass.
“This is going to get very interesting if you keep making moves like that on the road.” I said, before we mused about the flatness of London’s trails. Moments later, he took us 5-metres off trail, and I capitalized on the moment to pass him. At that point, I’m fairly positive that he took a break to use the washroom. I knew I was fine, and I knew that I could make enough of a gap that I likely wouldn’t see him again.
It was a dangerous decision. For all the back and forth, I likely would have chilled even more in the first half, had I not had him pushing me. So making a gap would be risky, as it would mean I’d have no one pushing me on the trails until I gave him the chance of catching back up on the road for the final 10k.
Coming so close to the aid station, it felt like the right call. AND THEN they didn’t have anything with electrolytes. Luckily, thanks to some smarts from Brett, I had a final bottle of just powder that I could fill up with water, plus two XACT Nutrition Bars and two gels (although I could only locate one!). I knew I’d be fine for the next 10k, but worried I didn’t have enough for the final 10k. I’d been doing close to 80-90g of carbohydrates per hour at the time, and knew that would tail off in the final 10k when I needed it most.
I downed some coca-cola and orange crush for the first time since childhood and made my way into the most technical bit of the course. I also figured out how to go to the washroom without slowing down, which felt like the coolest accomplishment of the day.
Since working with Brett, I’ve made an active effort to focus on the long-term rather than the short-term, and be smarter about every aspect of the sport. At Sulphur Springs, I probably would have been willing to die out there. I simply never stopped pressing on the gas.
But on this particular day, somewhere along the way, I got comfortable. I chilled out thinking I had executed everything I wanted to, and was going to get that course record. I think this is where I took it too slow, staying safe on the bits that were dangerous, hiking more of the uphills than I needed to, and taking some extra time to fuel with oranges and bananas at the 40k aid station. I had an extra gel somewhere in my pack, but I couldn’t remember where. In my deprived state of mind, I didn’t think to rid myself all of the garbage to find it.
I was too focused on what the feelings were going to be like at the end of the race and long afterward, and not focused enough on how much I actually had left in me to push. And even though it was only a few seconds here and there, I wasn’t stopping for the right things (like to find that gel rather than to eat an orange).
The 25k runners started to fuel me on, which provided a nice boost until I hit the road and prepared to hammer.
But then my heart rate immediately got high at the increased pace/effort, and I worried that I wouldn’t sustain that pace without enough carbohydrates. So I stayed comfortable until I picked up a final gel at a surprise aid station at 45k. At that point, I wanted to hammer it to the line, but wasn’t fully confident that I only had 5k to go. In my mind and the data I’d seen, the race would be closer to 52k, and the record would still be attainable (notoriously not great at math).
From 45k to 52k, I fought a battle in my mind of not wanting my hamstrings to blow up, but also wanting to lay down the hammer like my university cross-country days. I wanted to try using the washroom again without slowing down, but I also wanted to speed up faster than the last time I figured it out. I wanted to break the course record, but also wanted to walk after the race this time.
Safe to say, I had a lot of conflicting thoughts in my mind, and instead of hammering, I cruised at a pace that I probably could have held onto for several more kilometres.
That only solidified what I had been heading toward, a 52k day where I wouldn’t break Matt’s record (although we had different starting locations and I ran faster by pace, I think our days are really comparable.)
By the time I hit the river at 50k, the course record had gone. The shock of the knee-deep cold water caused my legs to buckle to a halt and the first hamstring cramps of the day. So by the time I escaped the shackles of the river, I cruised to the finish in a fashion I can’t really remember ever doing. I don’t know why, but I’ve always given an all-out effort to the line of any race I’ve ever done. Even at Falling Water, knowing I was going to finish second, I murdered myself with a 3:20/km finish – a pace I didn’t even know I had in me for flat workouts.
This time, I simply clapped for the volunteers and spectators all the way across the Halloween decorations until the line.
It resulted in a 4-hour-22-minute finish – what I amount to be the third fastest time ever (excluding the 2020 COVID year which was a significantly different course). I felt happy enough that according to our watches and Strava data, that I had run faster by pace than Matt’s two course-record times. But I still felt like I could have given more if I really wanted to break the time. Maybe I got too complacent in the second-half about how smart I had been up to that point and chilled too much. Maybe I would have benefited from one other runner to push me more in the second-half (either in front or behind).
Either way, I walked away happy with the effort, but slightly disappointed with the time, even though I won and had nothing to be truly upset about. Sometimes racing smarter isn’t always racing harder, and that will be an important lesson ahead of a big 2024!
It’s been a cool first year in the sport and I’ve learned so much that continues to set me up for long-term success. Now I just need to figure out when I can make risks in these events and when it’s safe to focus on the short-term as opposed to the long-term. This sets up an exciting 2024, where I’ll compete in my first international race since university cross country. I’m coming for you, Gorge.
Thank you again to Brett Hornig and XACT Nutrition for the support leading into this event. Thanks also to Race Huron and Jeremiah, for a really cool community feel to the event and making this day happen! & of course to Matt Suda for the push in the first half. I will be back some time in the future at the very least for the 25k, hunting down John’s new record instead.
Thanks for reading & see you soon!
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