MIUT 115 Race Recap
Hello friends!
After a couple of flights and an 8-hour drive, we’re officially back home in Fredericton after our time on Madeira Island! Our bodies and minds are recovering well, and we are grateful for the memories made on this adventure in a beautiful part of the world.
Kelsey returns home after placing 11th in the MIUT 115 women’s race in a time of 19:52:15. Adam comes home after placing 397th in the men’s race in a time of 26:35:24.
While cracking into the top 10 would have been nice, Kelsey is feeling pride and satisfaction about her first big race of the season. She spent the winter months focusing on consistent training, getting her ferritin levels up after dealing with iron-deficiency anemia all of last year, and building strength for the season ahead. The MIUT was a challenging spring race, an exciting opportunity to put that work into practice and learn a few things along the way.
You can see Kelsey’s post about her race here, and keep reading to learn more about her journey through the mountains. After working through a tough first night on the mountain — in the cold, wet, and wind — she dug deep to find a second half resurgence that connected her to the trails and a speedy finish.
It was some first night (and really, rest of the race) out there!
When Kelsey arrived at the top of the second mountain she was feeling the cold — blue lips and chattering teeth — and she was soaked to the bone by sideways rain, seemingly no more than a degree or two away from becoming snow. Upon entering the aid station, she found the one heat lamp but, being a little bit shorter than your average ultra-runner, the heat didn’t quite reach her, nor the soaking wet gloves that she held, with futility, over her head. She experienced a true moment of trail comradery and was thrust into the centre of the circle of heat-seeking runners, and a fellow runner held her gloves aloft to help them dry. After taking a moment to warm her heart, put on additional warm layers, defrost her chilled body, and put something warm into her stomach, she headed back out into the driving rain.
This was a true mountain race.
As the next morning dawned, Kelsey got a boost from the sunrise and birdsong. She still had work to do before she hit the midway point of Curral das Freiras, where runners could access our first and only dropbag for the race. She’d kept moving through the early morning but was also feeling the effects of losing some of her nutrition earlier in the race by, well, you know, puking a couple of times. She reminded herself to be patient, to embrace the experience, and repeated a few phrases from friends Tim (“climbs take time”) and Noortje (“I like big hills and I cannot lie”) to keep moving steadily through the mountains.
When she hit the 63km aid station, she did something that she doesn’t often do, she changed her shoes — switching from a now muddy and wet pair of norda 001s into a super-top-secret, prototype version of a new shoe from norda. She hadn’t run any more than 15km in these shoes prior to the race but she had felt light and speedy in them, and decided that a new pair might give her a boost.
It could have been the shoes, it might have been her mental strength, and it surely included a healthy dose of gratitude for the opportunity to be out on the trails because Kelsey left Curral das Freiras refreshed and with a spring in her step.
She worked her way to the top of the Pico Ruivo climb, the highest point on the course, and said, “okay legs, let’s get to the finish.”
Despite having already run over 75km, her steady pacing in the first half meant she had left something in the tank for the final marathon. She managed to climb the overall rankings and move up into 11th place by the end of the race, finishing in just under 20 hours. In the end, the result was a great achievement, but more than the number itself, it reflected Kelsey’s ability to reconnect with the source of her inspiration and motivation even under conditions that were less than what most people would describe as ideal. Kelsey accepted what the land offered her, let it in rather than fought against it, and came out the other side with an even deeper appreciation for the mountains and their rhythms.
And, when you think about it, there really can’t be such a thing as “bad weather” because what’s bad about the land getting what it needs?
Kelsey was met at the finish line by our friends Jos and Noortje, who helped her to navigate the post-race haze and got her a post-race strawberry gelato. In rather quick succession, she had a lukewarm shower, changed into warm clothes, drank a beer-limonade combo beverage, got a massage that had her groaning in some sort of painful pleasure, napped for two hours in the rest tent, and updated our telegram chat with some brain-foggy messages from the finish line.
Then, came her second ultra — waiting for me to finish my race!
Kelsey stuck it out for another seven hours at the finish line after finishing her race and I heard her cheering as I came into the finishing shoot. I benefited greatly from having her slightly-more-coherent guidance as I got from the finish line back to our Airbnb for the night. You can read more about my race here.
Notable Performances from MIUT 115
Kelsey’s norda teammates Jason Schlarb (23rd), Ethan Peters (14th), and Richard Lockwood (10th) all worked together through the night and had tremendous individual races. Together, they won the team portion of the event. If one of them hadn’t finished, the team would have used Adam’s finish as its fourth, so despite being entirely proud of how I did, I’d say that it was good that they all finished!
Canadian runner Genevieve Asselin Demers finished in 9th place in a time of 18:42:54. We’re looking forward to seeing her again at this year’s QMT race.
Noortje Kunnen from Fredericton, NB (by way of the Netherlands) finished 239th in the 16km race in a time of 03:09:11, with a smile on her face the whole way.
Jos decided to end his attempt at the 42km event at the 26km mark. Ending a race early can be a tough decision and bring many emotions, but we’re proud of him and know that he will make lots of meaning from this experience.
Lastly, the people who subscribe to this newsletter, and our supporters in the lands beyond our subscriber count made the experience of running the MIUT 115 richer for both of us. Your words of encouragement and the sense of community that you grant us let the kilometres mean something a little extra. Thank you for what you contribute to what we do and know that we want to hear about the ultras in your lives.
Happy trails,
Adam & Kelsey
