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Burning River 100 2025 - Nature kicked everyone's butt

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Burning River 100, the 19th edition. Heat, humidity, food baby, and nasty toe blisters. What isn't there to love?  I don't advertise what I have going on it my head regarding my goals. I mean the big goals. I keep those to myself, my wife, and my coach. This year at BR with all the training I did for Georgia Death Race I felt like I may have the fitness to go under 24-hours. A goal I thought I could achieve in my first hundred, in 2020 at the same race. While my training was very good, what I had a long way to go was my understanding of nutrition and knowing how my body reacts to the heat and humidity that Ohio can dish out.  I am a big fan-boy of David Roche and all year he has been quite public about his training, more so on heat training. I purchased the CORE 2 Heat sensor and for 6 weeks did the majority of my runs in the hottest part of the day with the shorter 30-minutes runs wearing a heavy wool layer and a coat with the hoodie pulled over my head. I also have been maki...
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Georgia Death Race

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Truth of the matter is, I registered for this race knowing nothing about it. I saw a friend had raced it, then a few friends registered, and I got FOMO. After I registered, only then did I look at the race details. DOH! Seventy-four miles and 16k feet of ascending and descending.  Whelp, guess I stepped in it this time. Started digging deep and training hard with local friends by doing an absurd number of hill repeats. I may have gotten a little carried away with weeks of over 20k feet of climbing, of which one of those weeks was just over 30k feet. Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed most of those sessions. Type A "fun". The Ohio Crew Fast forward to March 28th, the day before the race. I had dropped off both of my drop bags at packet pickup, had my vest inspection performed to verify I was carrying all of the required gear, and picked up my official railroad spike that we were all required to carry which is meant to represent our burdens we carry in our lives. Leading up ...
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FlintStrike 40 - The GDR Precursor

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In 2024 I noticed a few friends registered for a race I had not heard of, the Georgia Death Race (GDR). Having feelings of FOMO (no beer was not involved in this poor life choice), I decided to register and see what it was all about. Mind you, I never looked to see what the elevation profile had in store for me. Well, it has a stated total incline of 16k feet over 74 miles. Yeesh. I have only run one trail race with 11k (also over 70 miles) and that was in 2020; Laurel Highlands. Sounded like a great challenge to pull me out of my comfort zone and it would be what I had thought to be my first out of state race. Months roll by and I find out there are a bunch of other Ohio running friends that are training for GDR. Cool! At least I won't be alone and so I was added to a FaceBook Messenger group where we can talk about training, the race, and any other fun topics. In the group chat someone mentioned a race called the Fierce Dragon. A 200-mile race that takes place in Georgia in Janua...
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Marji Gesick 2024 - aka Run Forest Run!

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The last few years I have been more passionate about running than riding. Maybe I'm just burnt out on mountain biking when it comes to racing, because I still love to ride. I just have not had that fire in my belly for MTB racing. Trail running though, I have visions of doing all sorts of crazy races and training sessions. I just hope my body can keep up with the sh** that goes on in my head. For my sixth time racing Marji I decided to tap into the 50-mile run. I had been registered for the Duathlon for a third year in a row, but changed my mind over the summer, sold my registration, and snagged a run registration. After having completed the Burning River 100 at the end of July, I thought this would be a good second test of my nutrition plan and ability to handle many hours on my feet. My hope was to be close to a 14-hour finish but was prepared for 16 hours. I really do love the vibe of the race, the shenanigans of the race directors, and the trails and area are beautiful. Well .....
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