Training for Fat Dog 120m

my training plan for fat dog 120m was mainly centered around running few big races and training runs, along with few back to back runs, ending with a high mileage weeks in May, Jun and July.

I had following races as ramp up plan for the race, my plans aligned very well with Bipul as well . he was running TRT 100 in July.

Mar: MUC 50m race (13hrs)

Apr: Quad MP run (9hrs)

May: Qs 100k race (14:45hrs)

Jun: PCTR SF 12hr run (50 miles), Mt Rose 40m run (10hrs)

Jul: TRT 100m race (going back after 10years) (DNF @ 62m)

Aug 11th: Fat Dog 120M (Finished in 46:40hrs)

Fat dog claimed to have about 28000ft of climb over 120 miles, so my focus was mainly putting as much elevation gain as possible in months leading up to the race, so my goals of running about 40K gain and 200 miles in may and jun were accomplished.

TRT 100 DNF

TRT 100
Jul 15th, 2017

Bipul and myself drove on friday morning for TRT race checkin and race briefing. We had a good drive leading to race , made up for the pre-race just in time and after meeting fellow runners, Sandy Baker, CJ, Karl Jensen, we headed to pre-race dinner.

1st 50M loop went  little too fast, I ended up doing in about 13:20, which was much faster than my planned pace, I felt the fatigue at turn around my friend Gautam was planning to pace for next 30 miles until Diamond peak. I made a mistake of not refueling well at 50M AS, and hurried up with night gear and slow hike towards Hobart, not sure what happened but pretty soon I hit the wall and Hobart section seemed much longer than expected, I took a nap break at Hobart, and continued onto to Tunnel, by this time my sleep exhaustion was getting worse and on top of it I wasn't fueling enough, Gautam encouraged me to keep moving but I was mentally lost, made my mind to drop at Tunnel. I came across another friend Chuck who was pacing one of his buddies, he helped me with some coffee beans.

As we reached Tunnel in about 6 hrs for 12 miles, I was out of it, AS captains tried to discourage me from dropping but I had checked out of the race and dropped out, looking back I lost the battle with my demons. Gautam and myself got ride to Diamond peak where we waited for Bipul (mi 80m), before heading to his house to refresh and turn back at finish. I was thrilled to see Bipul finish strong in about 33hrs.

DNF at TRT put a big dent in my Fat Dog plans, that totally questioned my ability to finish much  tougher race, I had to introspect on my TRT DNF and try to fix the issue.  my theory was I wasn't consuming enough calories during the evening hours and it along with fatigue intensified my sleep deprivation  and once it  gets worse I loose ability to track my calories as well. It becomes a circular loop and only way out of that is to stay on top of calories.

I decided to try other options apart from gels, after some research I decided on Tailwind nutrition which had rave reviews, I took up their challenge package and tried on couple of runs before Fat Dog. This supplement provided vital in my completion in a race like Fat Dog with remote Aid stations and minimal support at some of the AS as well.