Batona FKT Announcement

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

--W.W. Bartley--

Later this month, at a yet to be determined date, I plan to run the entire 53 mile length of the Batona trail in a single out and back effort in an attempt to set the self-supported Fastest Known Time (FKT) for the route. As I write this (2 August 2020) announcement, the only existing official out and back FKT for the Batona is the supported record held by Denis Streltsov set on 1 November 2015 with a time of 1 d, 3 h, 2 m, 36 s. So, as long as nothing goes terribly wrong and I finish the route, I will at least have earned the self-supported FKT. If everything goes well, I hope to finish faster than the existing supported FKT. 

If you weren’t aware of what FKTs were before pretty much all of racing was cancelled due to COVID-19, you probably are now. If not, you can learn all you want to know about FKTs at https://fastestknowntime.com/. Everything from existing routes, how to submit a new route, the three variations of support (supported, self-supported, and unsupported), and basically all other guidelines regarding FKTs can be found at the website. 

I’ve never attempted an FKT before. Why am I starting now? Probably for the same basic reason so many other ultrarunners have been submitting new FKT routes and trying to better the times of existing routes, we miss the thrill of racing. We miss being pushed by competition to achieve more than we thought we were capable of and racing the clock on a standardized route is one of the best replacements we have right now. I’m not trying to speak for all runners, but for me personally, these are some of the primary reasons. I had been interested in FKTs before, but the current situation and lack of organized races are what really motivated me to seriously start planning this thing and give it a go. That along with the fact that watching a lot of my trail running friends bettering or establishing new FKTs had me experiencing some serious FOMO.

The other factor that really pushed me to take a crack at this attempt is the uncertainty of the fall racing season. Since all of my spring and summer race plans were either deferred to next year or cancelled, planning for the fall, which should be fun, has become a painful extension of the last five months of disappointments. The first thing I checked for every race I was considering was whether it had already been cancelled. And if it hadn’t, I would pessimistically wonder to myself how long it would be until they do. The situation is upsetting, but it made me think about what I wrote near the beginning of the COVID pandemic:  “When so much of your world changes so drastically and suddenly, fear and panic are natural emotional responses. Focus on what is still under your control:  how you respond.” I realized I should take my own advice. I decided I would not plan on the uncertainty of races which are completely out of my control. I would set a goal that is still completely within my control as to when, where, how, and if I accomplish it. 

The next question to answer is why go for the Batona FKT. There’s a few pretty simple answers. It’s the nearest established FKT route to my home. I’ve had a history of running the Batona Trail. The first time I set foot on the trail was when I ran it in its entirety during a fat ass event. Since then, I’ve done some training runs on it and run it from the north end to south end one other time. So I’m familiar with the trail. And finally, I think it’s doable. I believe the existing supported out and back FKT is within my ability to improve. 

Which brings us to the final question to answer, what are my goals for this attempt? I’ve written before about how I like to have what I call cascading goals. That hasn’t changed for my first FKT attempt. My first goal is to finish the FKT attempt in the self-supported fashion. My next tiered goal is to finish it faster than the existing supported FKT time (27 h, 2 m, 36 s). And my top tiered goal is to do it in sub 24 h. Maybe I’m being a bit arrogant for my first FKT attempt to think I can run a self-supported, 106 mile route in under 24 hours, but I like having an upper tier goal that could very well be out of my reach altogether. Maybe I’m underestimating the additional challenges that a self-supported FKT attempt entails:  the loneliness of the overnight hours, the lack of competition and comradery found during races, the lack of route flagging, the lack of encouragement from aid station volunteers, etc. But the fact remains, I know this is a possible time and I think I have a chance of being able to pull it off if I have a good day. Otherwise, it would not be on my goal list. We’ll find out if I can do it or just how much I have overestimated my abilities later this month. 

Scott Snell

August 5, 2020

2020 Running Goals

My top nine photos of 2019 from Instagram.

Shortly after finishing the Hyner View Trail Challenge 50k last year, I made the decision to change up my race selections for 2020. It wasn’t because of how Hyner went or because I don’t want to run Hyner again. I love the Hyner 50k and definitely want to run it again, but the catch for me is that once I’m registered for Hyner I end up following the inevitable path of running the entire PA Triple Crown Series. I figure if I’m doing Hyner, I might as well run Worlds End 100k and Eastern States 100 as well. I decided the best way to avoid getting caught in that trap and change up my race schedule was to not register for Hyner 50k. I have nothing against any of those three races. It’s just that after three consecutive years of my race schedule revolving around the three same “A” races, I felt it was time for a change.

For 2020 I want to make my “A” race a 24 hour timed event. A 24 hour event has been on my to do list for a few years now, but never a high priority, so it never happened (hence one of my favorite quotes below). I hope to change that this year and see what I’m capable of achieving in a 24 hour race. If things go well at whatever 24 hour event I decide to run, I should be able to finally achieve a second running goal that has eluded me for the last two years: to PR my longest distance in a single run. I’m hoping that if I choose a 24 hour event with an easy course I will be able to average at least 12 minute miles or 5 mph for a total of 120 miles at the end of 24 hours. This will easily be my longest distance run as my current longest distance is finishing the Tesla Hertz 100 miler which was actually about 104.8 miles. 

An additional goal for this year is to run another “last person standing” event. After running my first two events (Run Ragged) of that type last year and for the most part enjoying them while doing pretty well, I want to run some more of these types of events. Ultimately, I hope to get a chance to run at the original last person standing race, Laz’s Big’s Backyard. I realize it may not happen at all considering the growing popularity of those types of races, but I figure if I run races that build my running resume geared towards last person races it will better my odds to hopefully run at Big’s some day. Running Big’s Backyard definitely isn’t strictly a 2020 goal, but more of a long term goal to work towards year after year until it happens. In my opinion, it’s good to have the late game goals working in the background while having the short term goals mixed in to keep things interesting.

A non race related goal for 2020 is to run all the streets of my hometown, Egg Harbor Township, NJ. This goal was directly inspired by Rickey Gates’ project to run every single street in San Francisco. I started on this goal at the end of October this year with the intention of making it a longer term goal and hopefully completing it before the end of 2020. I’ve posted a couple blog posts specifically about this goal and plan to update with posts throughout the year as I make progress. You can get more details and background about the project from those posts (here and here), but the overall concept is just as the project name suggests, to run every single street of the town.

Another somewhat running related goal I have for this year is one just for fun: to run a Twinkie Weiner Sandwich Mile to celebrate the movie UHF. My plan is to do this the same way as I do the Annual Hot Dog Run every year, just with Twinkie weiner sandwiches in place of the hot dogs. If you’re not familiar with the Annual Hot Dog Run, just think beer mile with beer replaced by hot dogs. If you’re not familiar with UHF, go watch it. I plan to do this run either July 21st to celebrate the UHF release date or June 2nd in honor of Channel 62 (6-2), the focal point of the plot of the movie. If you have an opinion on which date is more appropriate, please vote!

My final running related goal for the year isn’t about any race I want to run or hitting a new running time or distance PR. It is to volunteer at a local race with my son and any of the other members of his scout troop that want to come along to help out. This is an idea/project that I had a while back, but have never acted on. I put it off for some time because I thought that he was a little young and having him and a few of his scouting friends volunteering at an aid station would be more of a hindrance than a help to the runners and the other aid station volunteers. I feel like he’s matured enough in the past few years to be able to handle some of the aid station tasks and at least help out and encourage some runners for a portion of a race if I stay with him to provide some guidance. I hope it happens and goes well as I see this as being a great fit for service projects for scout troops. The scouts get to help others stay fit and enjoy the outdoors responsibly while also contributing to another community (trail runners) that values the outdoors and our shared public natural areas. If you’ve brought kids to volunteer at a race, I’d love to hear about how it went for you and would greatly appreciate any kind of tips and advice you can provide that would have improved the experience.

2020, sure to be another great year as a BibRave Pro!

2020 Goals

• Run at least one 24 hour event
• PR longest distance in a single run (>104.8 miles)
• Complete my "Run Every Street" of Egg Harbor Township project
• Run at least one “last person standing” event
• Volunteer at a local race with my son

GAP Trail Relay - Preparing for the Unknown

"Disclaimer: I received free entry to GAP Relay as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!"

How does one prepare for a type of race they’ve never run before? I find myself asking this as I prepare for the GAP Trail Relay having never run a relay format race before. I feel physically prepared to handle the distance without any issues, but what it will be like running that distance as a part of a team with breaks between the legs is what I’m unsure of. Will cramping be an issue during the car rides between legs? Will the overnight sleepiness affect me more taking breaks between legs than when I simply run through the night at other ultramarathons? How do I fuel for a 30ish mile run that is broken into four legs over an unknown amount of time? Having all of these unanswered questions makes preparing nearly impossible. My overall plan is to go into this completely open minded and willing to adjust to changes on the fly. I have read up reports from others on how to run relays. I learned what worked for some teams and what caused problems for other teams. As far as I can tell, that is the best preparation I can do without having any first hand experience. The best case scenario is that things go well and our team has a great time. The worst case scenario I’m envisioning is that we have some problems and I learn something from the experience for the next relay. I’m looking forward to the challenge regardless of the outcome.

Fall Race Schedule, So Far

"Disclaimer: I received free entry to GAP Relay as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!"

With my summer racing season coming to a close after Eastern States 100 and the end of the PA Triple Crown series this past weekend, it’s time to start thinking and solidifying plans for fall races. So far, I haven’t given it a great deal of thought because I’ve been so focused on spring and summer running goals. I’ve got some ideas and there are plenty of options, but so far the only definite I have on my schedule is the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Trail Relay. The GAP relay race challenges teams of 8, 6, or 4 runners to complete the 150 mile GAP trail starting in Cumberland, MD then traversing through the Allegheny Mountains and finishing in Pittsburgh, PA.

When offered the opportunity to run the GAP I was excited for a number of reasons. The first being that I’ve never seen or traveled any of the Great Allegheny Passage Trail and I’m pretty much always a fan of exploring new trails. With a chance dropped in my lap to cover a large section of completely new to me trail on foot and other portions in a pacer vehicle, there was no way I wasn’t going to do my best to partake. After learning a little history about the trail and how it is basically a conglomeration of rail/trail conversions, I am even more pumped to explore it with the potential to see some of the surviving historical railroad artifacts (old railroad stations, telegraph poles, mileposts, and foundations for signals). Also, since the trail is built along former railroads, all of the grades are gentle never exceeding a 1.5% grade. Although I love the challenging and rugged trails PA offers, I would be lying if I did not admit that I’m looking forward to a less strenuous (and likely faster) trail run through PA that still includes the beautiful scenery of the Pennsylvania landscape. Tunnels and bridges will take me through the mountains and over the water crossings that at other trail races I would have to climb over and wade through.

A second reason that I am getting more pumped as the start of the GAP Relay nears is that this will be the first ever team relay race I have run. I like trying new race formats to keep running fun, interesting, and challenging. Working as a team of runners is something I have not experienced at a race yet, and I look forward to how the team dynamic will add an entirely new element to the journey. Additionally, the relay team I am running with is a group of other BibRave Pros, none of whom I have ever actually met before. Getting to know and run with a group of runners that I have only interacted with via Twitter and Instagram adds to the sense of adventure in this undertaking. Thus far, all the BibRave Pros I’ve met are passionate about running and having fun while doing it, so I envision this jaunt along the GAP Trail to basically be 150 miles of an ultrarunning trail party!

If you get a crew together to take on the GAP Relay, be sure to use code “BIBRAVE100” for $100 off the registration fee!

Photo Credit:  Allegheny Trail Alliance (ATA)

2019 Worlds End 100k

Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.

— Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Going into Worlds End (WE) 100k this year my head was not in a good place for both personal life reasons and running related reasons. Advanced warning before you get too far into reading this report, as I begin to write it I fear it will sound like I’m whining and will get into some nonrunning related issues in my life. If you want a more Worlds End running focused report check out my 2017 and 2018 reports. Otherwise if you’re somewhat intrigued with a poor mental state leading up to a race and a lesson learned from it, by all means continue reading. For multiple reasons to be explained, I was battling a lack of motivation, questioning my abilities, and suffering from an overall rather pessimistic outlook in general.

The day before at registration.

I’ll start with the running issues that contributed to me having a bit of lack of motivation and confidence leading up to WE. I was feeling pumped based on my two most recent races before WE. I ran my best time after three attempts at Hyner 50k and a week later I ran a road marathon PR at the NJ Marathon. With basically just a month between the NJ Marathon and WE I planned to do an easy recovery week, ramp up with a decent training week, get in a quality 20ish mile long run, then ease into a taper. Things went as planned up until that quality 20ish mile long run. I got in my 20 mile long run, but it by no means felt like a quality run. My legs felt heavy from the start, I felt tired and sluggish for the entire run, and I struggled to maintain what I felt like should have been an easy pace for flat, nontechnical trails. So I did the only logical thing I could do, I did a 20 mile road run the following weekend expecting it to be much faster and to feel much better about myself going into WE. That follow up long run did not go as planned either. I felt better and was slightly faster (20.08 miles in 2:49:41 versus 20.0 miles in 2:59:27), but the small pace improvement and still not feeling strong while achieving it did very little to improve my confidence.

      

With back to back weekends of disappointing long runs behind me, the next weekend I followed the most logical course of action: I asked for advice from a retired Olympic trampolinist (aka my brother in law). After talking about training cycles, building, peaking, and my lack of all of those things much less a training plan, he said I should just rest the last week before WE. I took that advice and did not run at all for an entire week before WE. I had never tapered that hard before, so I was extremely nervous not even having a couple easy paced short runs the week leading into WE. It also didn’t help improve my confidence at all, but as my brother in law was suggesting, the training and endurance are already there, my body just needs a break to recuperate before being pushed again.

Now to go over the non running issues that were contributing to my less than ideal mental state for the start of WE. I shouldn’t say issues, as it was more so a singular work related issue. For the most part I’m usually pretty good about not letting work frustrations bother me outside of work, but given this situation I could not let it not bother me. In an attempt to not make this a long, drawn out complaining post, I will try to sum up the main points of the situation quickly. Basically, I was offered a temporary detail promotion because the manager of our office had been reassigned to a one year detail. Not long after accepting I was told the position didn’t exist and so I could not have the promotion but I could still do the additional duties that came along with the promotion. Not such a good deal. Not long after that development the temporary detail position was advertised and two other employees from other offices were selected for the three and four month temporary acting manager details. The motivating factors that went into the decision making are still unknown to me. Being passed over for a temporary promotion that I was told doesn’t exist after I had unofficially been doing the additional duties of that position for four months was enough to make me update my resume and start job searching, but not do anything crazy like quit on the spot. Anyway, that’s enough non running stuff to explain why my head was out of sorts.

The view from my cozy car camping.

To add to my disappointment just before the race, my family had a last minute change of plans for the race weekend. We had planned to make an extended camping trip out of this race weekend with our neighbors who have kids that are friends with ours coming along for the trip. I had been telling my family and theirs about how great Worlds End State Park is and how nice the camp sites are for two years. I had finally convinced them to come along for a camping trip and 100k trail run. Unfortunately, the weather reports for extended thunderstorms and rain for the entire weekend caused our neighbors to fear that it would be a miserable weekend for camping so they bailed on us. I got the news Thursday afternoon when I arrived home from work. Making the blow sting even worse, my family decided to back out as well since their friends wouldn’t be coming along. In a flash my weekend went from running an awesome, scenic 100k with my friends and family there to cheer me on and celebrate with afterwards to just me taking off for the weekend.

Between the poor long training runs, last minute plan changes, and the professional life disappointments I was feeling confused, cynical, and worthless which is not a good way to start an ultra. Regardless of the outcome, I showed up even if my attitude about it was pretty crappy. I tried to convince myself that I was excited for it and that even if things weren’t going well in my professional life I at least still had ultramarathons as an escape, but when I woke up the morning of the race after a night of camping the initial thought I had was “time to get this over with.” Not the best mindset to start a gueling 15ish hour endeavor, but I had faith that once I became immersed in the trail running things would start to feel right. 

Just before the finish!

Makes it all worthwhile!

For the most part, that’s exactly what happened. I tried to turn on autopilot and just run the course basically the same way I did in 2018, going out at a comfortable pace while taking in plenty of calories and not blowing up. Pretty much everything fell into place. The course didn’t completely cooperate, but it didn’t bother me. It had been wet leading up to the race and the course had long stretches of extremely sloppy, swampy areas. It reminded me of the conditions from my first time at WE in 2017. That year it really got to me because every stretch of trail that looked runnable ended up being a sloppy mess and I was not able to get into any kind of rhythm. This year was different. Even though the conditions were similar, I managed to still move in a way that felt efficient and consistent. I felt strong on the climbs, my stomach never felt upset, and I was never completely exhausted. It was almost a perfect repeat of last year based on performance, only slightly faster as I finished in 14:11:21 compared to my 14:18:47 finish last year. 

I mentioned at the beginning that there was a lesson learned for me from this whole experience. It wasn’t about how important thinking positively going into an ultra is because I was pretty negative going into this one and still executed better than last year. The lesson for me was that ultramarathons or running in general can’t always be used as an escape from other issues in my life. Or maybe more accurately, ultras and this silly hobby of mine will not resolve other life challenges. I went into this race with a bad attitude. Then the race was going well and I had a great time. I felt even better when the outcome was an improvement over last year. But afterwards all of the circumstances that had caused my mental anguish had not changed. I had just lowered the amount of attention I allowed them for a few days. This may be kind of a sour note to end a report of a positive race on, but that is how this chapter of this ultra season ended for me.

At the finish celebration!

Scott Snell
August 14, 2019

2019 Hyner View Trail Challenge 50k

Third Time Is the Charm, 

Even If It Takes a Month to Realize It

I’m just getting around to writing this race report after over a month has passed since running the 2019 Hyner 50k and less than a week until I will be running the Worlds End 100k. This is less of a traditional race report in the sense of an overall course description and background information on the race, but more of a reflective piece on my expectations and reactions to how the race went for me. The reason being that much of the race is not fresh in my mind at this point and I’m more focused on mentally preparing for WE 100k. An additional reason is that I have written race reports on the past two years of the Hyner 50k and feel like I would just be rehashing the same info. If that’s what you’re looking for, my reports on 2017 and 2018 Hyner 50k are still available. However, this is the story of the 2019 Hyner 50K.

The Hyner course had a very slight course change this year.

I went into the race with the exact same goal as last year, however with one added caveat: to not destroy myself to the point that I thought a marathon PR would be unachievable the following weekend. My goal last year was just to get close to my 2017 Hyner time (5:36:36) in order to be able to better my cumulative 2017 Pennsylvania Triple Crown time (47:47:36). Since in 2017 my Hyner performance was probably my best of all three races that make up the series, I thought just getting close to it would make my season’s goal of improving my cumulative 2017 Pennsylvania Triple Crown time achievable. Since Eastern States 100 was cancelled last year, I was not able to find out if that held true. So, I’m giving it another shot this year with a few additional goals added. One of those additional goals was to improve my marathon PR and the marathon I chose to make that attempt at happened to be the weekend after Hyner. With all this in mind and knowing how last year’s Hyner 50k went where I felt like I gave it my all and was still somehow slower than the previous year, I wasn’t sure if both of these goals could be achieved within the time frame I had set. But I wanted to give it a go anyway.

Strava data for the three years I've run Hyner 50k.

I went into it with the same plan as last year as well, attack the climbs and hammer the downhills harder than 2017, only this time try not to feel like crap around the 20 mile point like I did in 2018. Without doing a lot of homework and studying my splits, it felt like I was accomplishing this even with less than ideal conditions to start the race. Heavy rainfall and thunderstorms were forecasted leading up to race day, but come race weekend, all the rainfall passed through the night before the race. This made a course that is well known for its many stream crossings (or using creek beds as the trail) a bit more daunting. How deep would all the water crossings be? How sloppy would the trails be? Thankfully, other than the first stretch of trail following the initial road section near the start, the trails were in surprisingly great condition. Given the few mini landslides that caused minor bottlenecks and more than one runner’s shoe to be lost in the muck, the great condition of the rest of the course was shocking.

All packed, ready to go!

I tried to be even more focused on efficiency at aid stations this year than last, spending little more time at each one than it took to have a water bottle refilled, grab a couple energy gels (Carb Boom, not my favorite, but what the aid stations offered), and throw out my mess of sticky gel wrappers if I remembered. I also forewent my beet juice plan (chugging some beet juice just before the start and then starting the race with a water bottle filled with mostly beet juice) that I tried to employ last year and apparently didn’t do much good. I used my standard fueling plan that has worked pretty well for me for anything up to a 50k. I ate a gel just before the start and then another basically every half hour. Thankfully, it worked well for me this year and I never had any signs of bonking or just feeling completely depleted.

I ran the early road section harder than I ever have in three years of partaking in the Hyner 50k festivities. I also attacked the climbs in what felt like it may be a risky pace for a tough 31 mile trail run, but I put a lot of faith in the extra gym training I had started at the end of 2018. I really was banking on all of those stair stepper and inclined treadmill sessions paying off on this day. Since this is the first time in years I had incorporated any kind of gym workouts into my training, I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but was hoping to see some benefits. The last secret to improving my time was to run the downhills faster. It sounds simple, but a lot of people struggle with downhill and worry (with good reason) about blowing out their quads due to hammering the descents to hard. For me, downhill running has always seemed to come pretty naturally and I’ve never been too afraid of a nasty fall to try to make up some time by hitting the downhills hard. As tough as I find the climbs at Hyner, the descents are the opposite for me. In my opinion, nearly all of the downhills at Hyner are nontechnical and super runnable, which is perfect for me. The real blessing about the whole situation is that with the race being only a 50k, who cares if you blow your quads up. It will be over before blown quads really matter that much.

The muddy parking lot the morning of the race.

With that philosophy and planning, I cranked the miles out on race day feeling good physically and mentally all day. Hyner is always fun as it is the first race of the year where I see and get to catch up with many of the other trail ultrarunners I have gotten to know over the past few years and haven’t seen or talked to (outside of Facebook) since the previous season. Since I was feeling so good and enjoying the trails so much while racing, I really didn’t look at my watch too often to check on my pace. I checked often enough to know I was close to my 2017 pace, but that was about all. My final race goal before the finish was to run, not hike, the final, steep ascent just before the finish line is in sight after the road section. I was pulling it off until I was about halfway up it and hit a slick spot where my foot flew out from under me and I had to throw my hands out to avoid face planting into the trail. Undeterred, I attempted to continue running it, but my other foot slipped as well. This happened for at least a full three strides where it would have appeared to an onlooker that I was doing mountain climbers in the middle of the trail. After exhausting the last of my efforts with muddy mountain climbers I gave up trying to still run it and got myself some secure footing. Once past that steep, slick patch I hiked a few steps disappointed with the outcome and then switched back to the fastest trot I could manage after giving it all I had to get nowhere just before the finish.

Sloppy the night before the race.

After finishing I learned my official time was 5:32:31. At the time I knew it was faster than my 2018 time which I was happy about, but for some reason I thought I had run it faster in 2017. I continued to believe this untruth all the way up until I was putting together the data for my split times for Table 2. I was comparing the cumulative times from 2017 to 2019 trying to see where I was faster each year. While doing this I finally realized that my total time in 2019 was less than in 2017. Thinking I made a mistake somewhere in my data entry into Excel, I checked my results on Ultrasignup. Sure enough, plain as day, I was about four minutes faster in 2019 than in 2017. It only took me about a month and a half and examining a spreadsheet to realize it, but when I did it sure was an awesome finding. The real beauty of it is that it sets me up so nicely to accomplish my overall PA Triple Crown Series cumulative time goal (see Table 1) for my 2019 season! Additionally, I found out the weekend after Hyner that I had achieved my other goal for the race when I was able to get a new road marathon PR at the New Jersey Marathon! I’m super proud of how those back to back weekends of racing turned out. They both felt like real successes to me and an excellent start to my race season!


Scott Snell

June 6, 2019


Table 1 shows my finishing times for all of the Pennsylvania Triple Crown Series races I have finished as of the publishing of this report.

Table 2 shows my splits and cumulative time for the Hyner View Trail Challenge 50k for 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Mile	Hyner '17	Hyner '18	Hyner '19	cumulative '17	cumulative '18	cumulative '19
1	7:38:00	7:00:00	6:51:00	07:37.6	6:59	6:51:00
2	9:16:00	8:13:00	9:05:00	16:54	15:12	15:56:00
3	15:32:00	13:58:00	14:52:00	32:26:00	29:11:00	30:48:00
4	17:49:00	17:27:00	17:53:00	50:14:00	46:37:00	48:41:00
5	8:23:00	7:56:00	8:04:00	58:37:00	54:33:00	56:45:00
6	13:34:00	12:56:00	13:10:00	1:12:11	1:07:29	1:09:55
7	17:14:00	16:49:00	15:08:00	1:29:26	1:24:19	1:25:03
8	12:47:00	14:14:00	14:49:00	1:42:13	1:38:33	1:39:52
9	9:19:00	9:26:00	9:38:00	1:51:32	1:47:59	1:49:30
10	9:21:00	9:10:00	10:10:00	2:00:53	1:57:09	1:59:40
11	9:15:00	10:29:00	10:26:00	2:10:08	2:07:38	2:10:06
12	8:16:00	8:54:00	9:13:00	2:18:24	2:16:32	2:19:19
13	9:10:00	8:45:00	7:46:00	2:27:34	2:25:17	2:27:05
14	12:15:00	12:36:00	11:41:00	2:39:49	2:37:53	2:38:46
15	16:32:00	19:06:00	20:59:00	2:56:21	2:56:58	2:59:45
16	14:28:00	15:22:00	10:40:00	3:10:49	3:12:20	3:10:25
17	8:35:00	9:30:00	9:35:00	3:19:24	3:21:50	3:20:00
18	8:48:00	10:02:00	9:35:00	3:28:13	3:31:53	3:29:35
19	9:44:00	11:08:00	9:22:00	3:37:56	3:43:01	3:38:57
20	9:54:00	10:46:00	11:45:00	3:47:50	3:53:47	3:50:42
21	19:01:00	19:39:00	19:04:00	4:06:51	4:13:26	4:09:46
22	13:23:00	13:18:00	11:42:00	4:20:14	4:26:44	4:21:28
23	9:02:00	8:46:00	8:29:00	4:29:17	4:35:30	4:29:57
24	23:39:00	24:00:00	21:18:00	4:52:56	4:59:30	4:51:15
25	9:31:00	10:04:00	9:37:00	5:02:27	5:09:34	5:00:52
26	10:16:00	10:13:00	9:34:00	5:12:43	5:19:47	5:10:26
27	10:08:00	8:49:00	7:44:00	5:22:51	5:28:37	5:18:10
28	8:46:00	8:22:00	7:53:00	5:31:37	5:36:58	5:26:03
29	9:28:00	9:45:00	9:34:00	5:37:11	5:42:17	5:32:47

Figure 1 shows my pace (min./mile) for the Hyner View Trail Challenge 50k from 2017, 2018, and 2019.