Hennepin Hundred 2025 Pre-Race

I started closer to the front than last year and was able to immediately settle into a pace close to my planned race pace. We had great weather, a little cool with clear skies. I was feeling good, keeping my eyes on my watch to see when I should take a gel or when I would need to refill my skratch while also watching my footing (big walnut type things from the trees).

I bounced back and forth between the same few runners, not really chatting as several were running together doing their own thing. Last year I settled into a group and ended up talking to several people for the first 20 miles. This year, not so much, but I didn’t mind it either, I was in my own little zone. However I did turn on my ipod super early since I needed something in the background to help give me an extra boost of energy. Yes an ipod, that thing can go for 30+ hours with wired headphones, perfect for many, many hours of running

I got to Mile 20/AS 4 where my first drop bag was and quickly grabbed my gels/skratch, took the one gel I needed to take at the AS and was on my way pretty quickly. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to linger at aid stations, for some reason it reminds me of the rush/hurry/’you can lose the race by seconds’ mentality during transitions in triathlons and it seems to have carried over to the aid stations too.

I started chatting with a guy that I ran with last year (I recognized him, small world!) and we both laughed about having to dart into the bushes earlier, and we remembered that last year the trees were bare and the bushes were not an option. I was very grateful for the leaves this year. I kept checking my pace and tried to stay around 10/10:30 pace. As I was approaching Mile 32/AS 7 which had my second drop bag, I remembered how awesome this aid station was last year and was looking forward to the extra energy and boost from the friendly volunteers and music. It did not disappoint and was just as busy and filled with tons of helpful volunteers, I even got a fancy popsicle! They had ice too! I asked a volunteer to pour a scoop of ice down my shirt to help stay cool. At first he hesitated and was like ‘is this appropriate’ and the lady next to him said ‘it’s fine, it’s a trail race’ or something to that effect and he poured it in. Thank you random lady-volunteer. I found my drop bag, grabbed my gels, refilled skratch and was on my way.

This next stretch had zero shade, so it felt extra hot. I remembered it feeling rough last year and it is also one of the longer stretches between aid stations. I decided I was really going to focus and try to keep up with my current pace, knowing that I survived races in much greater heat so this was very do-able. I kept up with my nutrition – gels every 30 minutes and a serving of skratch every 2ish hours (with extra sodium) along with water.

I was very happy to make it to AS 8/Mile 38.7, those 6.6 miles felt like forever. I remembered feeling the same way last year, it was nice to get a break from the heat, drink cold water, coke,.. and ice! I had another volunteer dump more down my shirt – ice in the sports bra really helps. I wish I had my ice bandana as it was the key to surviving my hot races this summer, but I didn’t know if this race would even have ice, so I didn’t bring it. Unsure if it would have helped anyways since only a few aid stations had ice.

On I went and started to feel a little off. Well, my stomach felt a little off. I kept going and hoped it was just a short wave of nausea as it was pretty early in the race to take zofran (nausea medicine). I ran for a few more miles and decided I needed to take it because I was feeling pretty terrible. Shortly after I felt great and was back to moving at a good pace… until I felt sick again 30ish minutes later. Ugh. I started walking and came up to a lady who was also walking and chatted with her for a bit. She said she wasn’t feeling great either but was trying to just ignore it, and figured in a couple of hours when the sun started to go down it would cool off and we would all probably feel better. A couple of hours sounded like a really long time, but I hoped she was right and we parted ways as she was starting to run again.

I was starting to go from bad to worse stomach-wise, while my legs were like ‘let’s get back to this 100 mile party’. My watch went off to take another gel, I did, and practically had it come right back up. I pulled the wrapper out of my pocket to see if it was expired because it had tasted so bad, but 8/2026 was the date. Hmm. ‘Maybe I”ll avoid the orange Sis’ I thought. On I walked and on my stomach sloshed, feeling worse as time went by. Finally the nausea was so strong I pulled to the side of the trail and threw up. Twice. Oh man, all of my expensive maurten gels I had taken, adios. However, afterwards I felt much better. I figured maybe it was just bad luck, and now my stomach was ready to go, so I went back to running and back to my fueling/hydration schedule.

However as I kept running I started to feel awful again. I made it to the next aid station and explained my situation, as this issue was a new territory for me. One lady suggested gas-x which I took – she had a whole kit of things (the ladies at this aid station were on it!), and also suggested trying some solid food. I took some tater tots at her recommendation but gagged while trying to eat one after I left the aid station. My stomach did not want fried potatoes, and I pulled over to the side and got sick again. Then I felt better.

Like clockwork, I hit the next aid station not feeling great (mind you I’m still taking skratch and gels), taking in more water, coke and refilling bottles, and then promptly five minutes later pulling to the side to throw up again. Like what the heck. I couldn’t figure out why my stomach was revolting using the nutrition I had used ALL year. ALL YEAR. Maybe it was the heat? Maybe it was because I took my immodium 45 minutes before the race instead of an hour? Maybe I should stop drinking coke at the aid stations? I pondered all of these things while walk/running to the next aid station. I decided to hold off on the gels for now and try to troubleshoot at the next aid station

When I got to AS 11 around mile 50, I once again shared my predicament of having now thrown up 3x and that my nutrition was not settling. A volunteer suggested bananas, which I took and then saw a guy making quesadillas and asked if they had mashed potatoes and he said he did! Those saved the day last year, they are pretty bland so I was hoping that maybe they would work. Off I went with my potatoes, making myself eat the whole cup before I tried to run again since I was so low on nutrition. I also started wondering if I was going to have to drop. Even though I was feeling better than I did prior to the aid station (pre mashed potatoes), I was still not feeling great, and was a little stressed as to how I was going to take in (and keep down) enough calories to be able to run another 50 miles.

These questions were on a loop in my head as I picked up the pace to a slow run and started to feel really good again, the potatoes helped! I passed several people that had passed me while I was walking which also made me feel like I was turning things around. My watch beeped that it was time to eat, I figured now that I was feeling better and I was super behind on calories, I would take a Maurten. I then drank some water and had some sips of my skratch to ensure I was still getting enough sodium. I kept running but was starting to feel sick again, however I felt ok enough to keep running. My watch beeped as another 30 minutes had passed and it was time for another gel. I took an Sis and continued to feel not great, thinking it was because I was so low on calories. I approached the next aid station, desperate to take in calories that my body could handle, eating some watermelon and drinking some coke. One girl suggested LMNT since I was struggling getting in sodium and it was still pretty hot, so I happily accepted her offer (this was the aid station where I got the gas-x from their secret supply kit).

Shortly after leaving the aid station, I had to pull over and throw everything back up again. Ugh. I’ll spare the details but I kept on trudging, gel every 30 min, some sips of LMNT instead of skratch, still feeling sick. At the next aid station I took some salt stick tablets since they didn’t have anything like LMNT that was not sweet. I chugged some coke, took a banana and a cup of potatoes and carried on. Like clockwork I pulled over and it all came back up. That’s it I thought, it’s got to be sugar = coke (or gels, or skratch…ALL the sugar). NO MORE SUGAR. I finally accepted that I couldn’t force my body to keep taking my planned nutrition because it clearly wasn’t working. It was at that moment that I decided I was going to just eat mashed potatoes and bananas. I would stockpile bananas in my shorts pockets, my vest, whatever I needed to do, but the gels and skratch and anything sweet (looking at you too, Coke) wasn’t going to work.

Once I accepted my new plan, I continued walking with the goal to get back to running once I finished my potatoes. My watch beeped that is was time to take a gel and I ignored it, I kept my gels in my vest and sipped on the LMNT. My stomach felt ok. When I got to the next aid station they let me take an entire banana and I got another cup of mashed potatoes. I also took some peanut butter pretzels as a ‘just in case’ since I wasn’t sure what my stomach might be able to take later on. This was also the aid station where my drop bag was and I didn’t even open it. No need. No gels or Skratch. Continue on, nothing to see here.

I just kept moving, my legs feeling great and finally able to run without feeling nauseous, and was able to keep up a good pace in the mid 10’s. I hit up the next aid station – bananas and mashed potatoes, some water, saltstick tabs and I was on my way. This continued throughout the next two aid stations, not taking too much time at them, getting my bananas and potatoes and keeping on. I started doing running math after AS 17/mile 79.5 since 20 miles is pretty easy math. I figured that if I kept at least a 15min pace/mile, I could still finish faster than my time last year. With how my legs were feeling at this point, compared to how they felt last year, I felt like it was very do-able. My stomach was finally on board and so were my legs since all of the earlier walking saved them.

However, even though my legs felt great, my brain was getting a little fuzzy. I wasn’t tired at all but once again like last year, I suddenly thought that maybe I had made a wrong turn since I hadn’t seen anyone ahead of me for what felt like a really long time. I had passed a guy maybe 10 minutes earlier, but he was enjoying running in the moonlight and didn’t have his headlamp on, so I couldn’t see if he was behind me. After taking a wrong turn at a race this summer, I was pretty worried I did it again. I started running backwards to try and find the guy to make sure I was still on the right trail. Note that there is only one trail. It goes along the canal. I was on a trail next to the canal. My brain. I finally saw him and asked him if he thought we were going the right way as there was some turn aways back that took us to the other side of the canal and was worried we missed something like that. He thought we were still on the right trail/path, so reassured, I turned around and kept going.

Maybe 30 minutes later two guys with headlamps came running from the opposite direction. I was so confused. Who runs at 2a along this canal? What are they doing? They ran by and said ‘Good job!’ and I said ‘Am I going the right way?!’ I could hear them laugh and they said ‘Yep!’. Imagine me in a legit trail run in the woods… I would probably still be lost.

I went to the next several aid stations, just getting water, banana, potatoes. I only got my drop bag at AS 19 (mile 88.1) because I wanted my portable battery in case my phone died. I had switched over to using that for music around mile 45 as the iPod tunes weren’t doing it for me. It still had some battery left though as I had kept it on airplane mode and only took it off a couple of times to send texts to a few people to let them know I was alive. ‘I threw up five times and I’m at mile 90’ was the one I sent to my dad, lol. It was around this time I felt a sharp pain in my left pinky toe and knew that a blister had burst. Ouch. ‘Not today devil’ I said to myself, out loud. Yes, there was some out loud talking to myself during these later miles. The pain was the sudden ‘take your breath away’ kind, but I knew it would subside soon, and it did. I hoped that was the only one for this race (it was).

I got to the last aid station, mile 94.7, still got my cup of potatoes (forgot the banana), and asked a volunteer if it was really 5.2 more miles to the finish. My watch was already over quite a bit (running backwards didn’t help) and I just didn’t want to think about going even further. Plus, I was already cutting it close to my time from last year. They said they were pretty sure it was exact, which, does it really matter? Was I going to start dropping sub 9min miles? At the time it seemed important. On I went, noticing how it was such a different experience running the race at this point compared to last year. This time I was running, (veering from side to side a little if I didn’t pay attention) legs felt good, and everything didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel fresh but also didn’t feel terrible, in fact I felt better than I did at mile 40 for sure.

More running math, and finally according to my watch I had a mile to go and I was still running. Still feeling good and so happy. I started to recognize this last part of the course which goes off the trail onto a cement sidewalk, and knew the finish line was close. I couldn’t believe I was going to finish for a second time, and according to my watch, 20ish minutes faster than last year, YES! Soon I could hear the finish line, and then I could see it, and I smiled as big as I could while running through the finish (however the finish line photos are hilarious and I hardly looked like I was smiling, but I thought I was!). I was given my sub 24 hour buckle, my finisher flannel shirt (Rabbit! My favorite brand, super duper fancy finisher swag), and then had a picture of me taken at the finish.

After sending a text to a few friends, my coach and my dad, I sat down and had some post race food. I was actually really hungry since I’m pretty sure I didn’t hit my planned calorie goals with my new nutrition plan, however it got the job done. I hung out at the finish for a bit, cheering other runners on as they crossed the finish. After about 45 minutes I got up and was able to walk! Hooray! I was in bad shape last year, so I was a little worried how I’d feel this year. I slowly shuffled to the car and headed back to the hotel to try to get a little sleep before driving home.

I am not going to lie. I was dreading taking off my shoes to see what fun things happened to my feet while running, since I already knew about that pinky toe blister. Well, that was nothing, I had made a super duper huge mistake by only taping around my big toes and not along the top and then around – the way I taped it my toenail was held hostage while my toe moved back and forth under it…causing GIANT blisters under both big toenails and all around. It was quite the sight. I did have other blisters on some smaller toes that looked pretty ugly too, but the big toes were the worst. Oh boy. I climbed into bed and slept on and off for a couple of hours and then got up to head back to the finish to pick up my drop bags, eat some more post race food (they had cookies I wanted but couldn’t stomach all of that right after I finished) and cheer more runners on.

I chatted with a few people about our races and got some blister tips from a guy whose feet didn’t look like they had run a mile. I headed out for the four hour drive home, making one stop for 2 red bulls and animal crackers, lol. I made it home in one piece, did some unpacking and after a fast nap headed to my sister’s for my dad’s birthday dinner. I think the drive plus birthday dinner might have been tougher than the race..well, maybe not, but I was pretty wiped.

I walked away from this race with a new PR, however the lessons learned regarding nutrition and footwear/taping strategies were probably even more of a win. While the race was a very different experience than last year, mostly due to the nutrition issues (except the weather was the same, HOT), I still had a lot of fun – from chatting with others during the race, to the quiet solo moments reflecting under the moonlight (even with the slight panic of thinking I was lost at one point). To me, that’s what makes these races so special – the memories created during the many miles while training, the race experience itself, and the lessons learned that I carry with me long after the finish line.

My feet are busy resting and healing, but soon they’ll be back at it as I have IMTX in April 2026….and probably more ultras 🙂