When I started planning my 2020 race season, I was interested in adding an international race somewhere I had never raced before.  I enjoy racing internationally to experience new trails and cultures all over the world, so I started looking around for options.  My wife (Karen) and I have been fortunate to travel quite a bit internationally, and to this day, my favorite country on earth is New Zealand.  We had been there twice before, and I was always excited about the possibility of returning for a third time.  So, when I received an elite invite to the Tarawera Ultramarathons, it was a no-brainer to accept and I promptly signed up for the 100-Miler!

Ever since I became a sponsored ultrarunner in 2016, my forte in the sport has been the 100-miler.  I love everything about that distance and while I thoroughly enjoy running races of any length, this is the one that fills my soul and fuels my fire.  I quickly found out that New Zealanders refer to this distance as “The Miler,” since the 100k is known as the “Hundred” (metric system and all).  I found that especially funny because hearing that put me right back in sixth grade gym class, getting mentally ready to run four laps around a track!

The thing that made this race different from previous 100-milers was that it was so early in the season.  Prior to this year, the earliest I’ve ever run a 100-miler was when I ran Western States in June of 2018.  So, this race fell a full four-plus months earlier in the season than any prior hundo I’ve run, which dictated a different approach to the preparation.  Coming off a long 2019 season that started with some injury issues, I knew it was especially important to take some proper rest and recovery time at the end of the year.  That meant my build to Tarawera would be really light, relative to where I would like to be in the middle of the season.  Knowing that, I took a much different mental mindset heading into the race: I felt healthy, I was stoked to be running in New Zealand, and I accepted that I would be undertrained (but motivated) at the start line!

Race day arrived and the weather, although warm, was not as hot as the prior days and what was initially projected.  I went for a short warm-up run prior to the race start at 4am, and the body felt good, but I didn’t feel the energetic bounce in my step I was hoping for.  Nonetheless, I headed to the start line feeling fired up!  After an amazing cultural dance performance by the Māori people, the Race Director, Tim Day, set us off on our journey.  From the jump, the eventual winner of the race (Vlad) set off at a blistering pace while I settled in with the second group of about five other runners.  We spent the first miles just chatting and getting to know each other, running through light rain in the dark on the jungle-esque trails of Rotorua, New Zealand.  When we hit the first aid station less than ten miles in, I was already pretty wet from the humidity and rain, so I reorganized my kit and fueled up.  Thankfully, Karen was there to crew me the entire way, because the day would not have been a success without her!

Since I took an extra minute at the first aid station, the group of guys I was running with forged on ahead, and I spent the next 25-30 miles running solo.  I felt good, but my legs just felt generally fatigued, which I presumed was because of the lack of volume in my build up to the race.  So, I was grateful to be running my own race at that point and focusing on nutrition and hydration.  I always like to tell my athletes to “focus on what’s within your control,” during a race, and at that point, I couldn’t control how my legs felt but I could certainly keep up with fueling!  Around the 50k mark, after a beautiful water crossing in a boat, I came into an aid station a couple minutes behind Zac and Carl, two of the guys I ran the first ten miles with earlier.  I kept them within my line of sight until the next aid station, when I met up with Karen one more time before we had a big gap of about 60k until the next crew accessible aid station.  I loaded up on everything I needed and started to chase them again.  Around the 40-mile mark, I synced back up with Zac and we settled into a nice pace together.  At that time, I was still feeling pretty flat and Zac was having some stomach issues, so we both were running strong, but at sub-optimal pace.  Around the 50-mile mark, we were caught by the eventual female winner, Ailsa Macdonald, one of the best female ultrarunners in the world.  She was running very strong and she took off ahead of us, while we maintained the effort that was working for us.

That continued for another ten miles or so, and then a little before the 100k mark, I was running up a hill while Zac hiked, so I told him I would meet him on the other side.  When I crested the hill, things started feeling easier, so I slowly started pushing a little harder.  From that point on, everything started to click.  That’s the funny thing about a 100-miler: sometimes you feel better at Mile 62 than you do at the start!  I rode that high for most of the remainder of the race, passing Carl at the next aid station and then finally catching Brendan (also from the original group I started with) around Mile 70, which put me into 4^th overall and 3^rd male.  I would venture to guess that I ran that final 50k as fast as anyone else in the race, moving really well all the way until the finish at just over 18 hours.

This was a sneaky hard course, without a lot of vert but with plenty of sections that were not as runnable as the course profile made it seem.  With winding, narrow single-track, filled with roots and rocks, it was often hard to maintain a fast rhythm.  But what the course took away in speed, it gave back tenfold in beauty!  And I’ll take that trade off any day.  This was the first 100-miler that Karen ever crewed for me solo, and on top of that, she was doing it in another country!  Without our usual team (namely, my friend Josh who crews most of my races) to help her, she shouldered the burden of taking care of me all day, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.  Special shout-out to Barry (Ailsa’s husband) for letting me borrow their chair at the aid station after the boat crossing.  I told Barry “Sorry I’m going to get this chair so wet from my sweat,” to which he replied, “it’s okay…my wife was going to do that anyway!”  In the end, I finished with my seventh 100-mile podium at a race where it took me almost 100k to feel like I had finally hit my stride.  But if there’s one thing I know about 100-mile races, it’s that the only thing you can expect…is the unexpected!

On Friday, October 11^th at 5:15am, I set out just a mile from my home in Tahoe City to attempt to break the Fastest Known Time for the Tahoe Rim Trail.  I was running from Tahoe City clockwise all the way around Lake Tahoe, hoping to finish in under 38 hours and 32 minutes and break the record set in 2009 by Kilian Jornet.  Ultimately, however, I ended up finishing the 172-mile trail in 45 hours, 36 minutes and 36 seconds, good for the second-fastest time ever recorded around the trail.  The trail in 2019 is a full seven miles longer than it used to be (as it was originally created at 165 miles), so I believe I set the fastest time on the most updated version of the trail!  When I set out to run this trail, I knew that GPS watch battery was going to potentially be an issue, since I didn’t have a watch remotely capable of recording for that long.  Enter the Coros Vertix.

This is, without question, the best watch I’ve ever owned.  Here are the primary reasons why: user interface and watch setup; ease of uploading and connecting to third-party apps; and of course, battery-life.  First, the user interface and setup.  When the watch arrived in the box, it had very few settings options to navigate.  It wasn’t until you download the app and sync your watch to it that the real fun begins.  At that time, through the “Custom Interface” of the app, you can set up multiple screens on the watch to utilize whatever data you want to see!  For me, I chose a six-slot design for the primary screen.  The six items I chose were Distance, Lap Pace (pace for that individual mile), Pace (current speed at any moment), Total Ascent, Elevation and Time.  And that was just for the first screen!  You can spin the dial on the side of the watch to switch between other screens, all of which are customizable.  Pretty rad.  Second, the ease of uploading and connectivity to other apps.  I am a big fan of the fact that anytime you record an activity on the Coros Vertix, it uploads to the app super quickly.  So, as an avid user of Strava, it’s nice to know that I will have my activities posted in no time.  Lastly, the battery life.  What more is there to say?  The Vertix is good for up to 60 hours in full GPS mode!  Insane.  When I ran around the Tahoe Rim Trail, I was out there for over 45 hours, and still had close to 10% battery life when I finished.  I’m thrilled to know that every 100-miler I run in the future will be more than covered by the battery life, and I will no longer need to worry about swapping out watches during a race!

A few other positives to note.  The watch is quite quick to pick-up GPS outdoors, something that has occasionally caused me frustration in the past.  It also has a wrist heart-rate sensor, something I’ve never had before in a watch.  I don’t worry too much about HR data personally, but it’s still a nice feature for sure.  I also like that there are so many activity functions, ranging from “Run” and “Bike” all the way to “Gym Cardio” and “Mtn Climb.”  While I have yet to use many of those functions, I’m stoked to have them!

Lastly, I only have two comments in the way of improvement.  First, when you set up the interface of the watch, you get to choose a “Watch Face Setting.”  I found one that I really like, but I do wish there were some more options to choose from in case I want to mix it up more often.  Or, perhaps there could be a way for users to customize that outside of the pre-chosen options.  The other thing is that the back of my wrist will sometimes touch the dial and send me to a different screen.  It happens infrequently, but it does occasionally happen.  In that case, I just have to turn the dial back to the home screen where I want to be.

When it comes right down it, I LOVE this watch.  I’m a relatively simple user of GPS watches, so battery life, easy interface, and simple navigation of the tools are my top priorities.  With the Coros Vertix, you get all of that and so much more!