Kevin’s Tampa Bay 100 Race Report
This is a journalized entry on the timeline leading up to and after the Tampa Bay 100
February 2024:
I’m going to go back to the race I did back on February 17,2024. I was running the Painted Horse Urban Ultra. I ended up placing first which was a surprise to me but was grateful that I was able to do so, didn’t have the most impressive time but was good enough to bring home first place. Little did I know at the time Joe Fuller, Race Director of Skunk Ape Events, was watching. And he graciously granted me an entry into the Tampa Bay 100. This race was not even on my radar, I knew about this race as Susan Knudsen and myself had crewed and paced Tiffany Anderson and Shae Merritt for their journey around Tampa. I remembered distinctly how much pain Tiffany was in and how rough this course was. To be honest, I was terrified by this. At the time the furthest distance I had ever done was 60k. I did have some other races coming up and a wonderful coach, Brian Frain, that should have me preparing for what was to come. In April I did the Skunk Ape 50 miler and in August the Badger 100k.
Brian Frain has trained many of my friends and is seasoned at getting runners to meet or exceed their goals. I felt comfortable with this as he had proven to be that and more. I started my training cycle in September for the November 2nd race date. It had a lot of typical runs mixed in with speed work and power hiking. Also had quite a few long runs of 20 plus miles and several multi-hour runs as well. I felt confident to trust the process to get me where I needed to be.
Mid-September 2024:
During this training cycle I started to have some Morton’s Neuroma flare ups, so if you don’t know what this is it is basically the nerve bundle between two metatarsals becomes inflamed and is very painful. Imagine hitting your funny bone repeatedly every time your foot hits the ground. That’s it in a nutshell. I started to get very concerned about my race this was sometime in mid-September. I ended up purchasing multiple pairs of shoes, insoles, and even went to a podiatrist for help. Podiatry ended up doing a series of Corticosteroid injections, there are some benefits here but also some drawbacks, I’m not going to deep dive into this topic, but I certainly could reach out to me if you have questions on it. I was struggling physically and mentally on the upcoming race. I pushed forward! I stuck with my training cycle and had some pretty good runs. I ended up PRing my 50k and did a beer mile right after taking 3rd place male, silly but fun.
October 2024:
I reached out to my running friends to see who would be interested in pacing and crewing me, Susan Knudsen, Shae Merritt and Joe Miller, all wonderful and amazing people graciously offered to assist. I created a detailed 37-page crew book, with maps, crew stops, pacing times and a generalized plan on how I wanted to execute the Tampa Bay 100.
November 1st, 2024:
Friday before race day, I took the day off to head to Tampa early and get provisions and settle into the Airbnb early. Shae picked up Susan and I to head down as Shae would be using her vehicle to crew out of. Typically, the go to prerace meal has been pasta or pizza. I've noticed those have given me an upset stomach and caused GI issues the following day. I ended up finding a nice burger place called Engine No 9, they make a really good burger! This was in St Petersburg near where the packet pick up was at 3 Daughters brewing. After our meal we headed over to packet pickup, showed the race crew that I had all the required gear and picked up my bib. Got some pictures with the race director and friends. I also grabbed a beer just to take the edge off as I was pretty anxious about this distance PR for me. Headed back to the Airbnb, I finished packing all my stuff for the following morning.
November 2nd, 2024:
RACE DAY! I woke up at 300am to eat some breakfast, shower and give myself time to get to the race start. Since my crew loves shenanigans as much as I do, they all had matching shirts with the phrase “LETSS GOOOO!” on them which was super fun, as I was planning on wearing my “LETS GOOOO!” hat. I made myself some bacon, a couple of hard-boiled eggs and 2 croissants into a sandwich. Once I showered, I asked Joe to tape my feet, he is seasoned in foot care and proved himself successful for many others – I knew I was in good hands. I do suffer from what I call “tuck toe” where my pinky toe likes to tuck under and cause blisters. We made sure to tape that up well. I think everyone has personal preferences when it comes to gear, but I’ll outline a few of my favorites and really some must have:
USWE Pace 14L vest
Xoskins underwear
Xotoes toe socks
Coros Vertix 2 watch
In the car ride to the start Shae puts on some hype music to lift the mood and keep me pumped up! As we approach the start line, I see runners and crew everywhere. I checked in one last time with race staff just to be sure I was good, and we awaited the race briefing from Joe Fuller. Obviously, I don’t read race emails, so I think he said something about not playing in traffic – idk. I set my watch since I already downloaded the GPX file from Caltopo app. It was able to provide me turn by turn directions but wasn’t the best to prove which side of the street I needed to be on. Chris Prado, Mike Fronius, and I all kind of decided we were going to run the first few miles together but understood that if one or any of us needed to split off we could. So, for the Tampa/Ybor section I was able to kind of “follow the crowd”. The Official Aid stations are pretty far apart so I knew I was going to need to supplement those stops with crew.
Mile 1-6:
The first stop was approximately mile 6 I felt like this was good to refuel and change out my water, up to this point we had transversed all Ybor and saw many murals and quite a few chickens. As we made it around the hotel and portion of a boardwalk area seeing all the lights from downtown was really cool. Traffic was light and temps were cool overall feeling relatively well. When arriving at the aid stop all three of my amazing crew members were ready and waiting for me, Joe was live streaming the race with Jeff Iosa and the Pacer Travel crew. Shae had my water filled and Susan shoved food in my face, which you will note becomes a reoccurring theme throughout the day. At the beginning of the race, I had decided instead of using a 2L bladder I was going to use 2 500ml soft flasks, this allowed me to run lighter and have better weight distribution.
Mile 6-13:
As we are making our way to the next crew stop we passed by Amalie Arena, it appeared that they were setting up for a 5k which was cool, they had lights and music going so that was fun. We then headed out across Bayshore Blvd into Davis Island, with all the recent Hurricanes and flooding, this area was hit relatively hard. The piles of debris were well over my head at times. We ran into the Davis Island run club as they were out on their morning run. Back over to Bayshore for the final stretch before turning back north to meet up with the crew. The crew stop was in Hyde Park neighborhood, had a few shops and such but mainly was able to eat some food, another croissant and cookies I believe, and swapped out my water.
Mile 13-19:
At the aid station there was a community center I was hoping to be open as the morning breakfast was starting to take a toll on me. So just down the road was a business district and was able to “do the doo.” Chris, as we discussed, kept moving forward and didn’t expect to catch him unless he stops later. The next few miles were relatively uneventful chatted with a few other runners as they came and went. When I made it down to the Tampa River Walk section of the course, I ended up taking a slight wrong turn but wasn’t too bad, so I just kept going. I did start feeling some pain in these miles towards mile 16ish, this was directly related to Morton’s Neuroma. I came to the next aid stop and looked around not to see my crew, thinking to myself that it was possible they were further down the road as parking spaces here were pretty full. As I got ready to keep moving to see if I spot them, here they come, they pulled in quick and like an F1 pit crew they had be back out there. I wish I had a stopwatch here and could have timed how long it took because it was so fast!
Mile 19- 25
This next section was kind of messy, I made a few wrong turns right after I saw my crew didn’t really add any mileage but took me in a round about way through one of the parks. Once I exited the park I saw Scott Hoover of Ultra Ultras, and Gregg Lawson they were assisting with the live stream and cheering people on. Pain was really intense during this section, the course took us out and around Raymond James Stadium, for probably about 2-3 miles here I just sobbed in pain. I did end up sharing a few miles with a gentleman, horrible with names, and he had run out of water about a mile ago and had several more to go before seeing his wife. I did offer some up but refused. I was very happy to see my crew at the McDonalds just before turning on the Cypress St and the first official aid station. They fed me some hashbrowns and exchanged all the things in the vest once again. At this point I was still on schedule, fueling well, and hydration was on point.
Mile 23-28
I was still in a lot of pain at this but now I am starting to feel numbness in my feet, at the time I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not but kept pushing forward. This aid station was one of 4 ran by the race, there were tons of people everywhere and a very well stocked aid station, cool thing here was the airport was just around the corner and had nonstop planes flying overhead, it almost felt like you could reach out and touch them.
Mile 28 – 34
After leaving the first aid station I had a 6 mile stretch before meeting up with the crew. It was starting to get hot, and I was searching for any scrap of shade I could. I was starting to think to myself how thankful I was that the course had a reroute, as this would have been the section where we crossed the Courtney Campbell Causeway, since Hurricanes rolled through this was damaged enough that the parks department shut it down for recreational access. The causeway would have been 8 miles without the crew during the hottest part of the day. Once I made it past the Veterans Memorial trail, I made it to Skyway Park. This was a bit of relief as this park was hopping with people everywhere. I started to check my water supply and found that I was almost out of water, which posed a bigger problem as my crew stop was an additional 3 miles from this point. I happened to look over to a large group of people congregating around a 5-gallon water cooler. I quickly approached them explaining to them what everyone was doing out here and basically begging like Oliver Twist, please may I have some more. They graciously shared this amazing ice-cold water with me, and I was on my way. I continued north to Hillsborough Avenue where there were many gas stations and options I could have stopped at, and it would likely have been fine to get water on my own. But at the time I was grateful that these men helped. Coming into mile 34 was my first real meal stop of the day. My crew was excited to see me at Culvers and had a juicy cheeseburger ready to go. This was a relatively quick stop and continued forward to the next crew stop.
Mile 34 – 39
I believe everyone has a moment when they realize that this is the beginning of the end, well this stretch is where I will put that phrase. The was the hottest part of the day, no shade, and heat was radiating from all the traffic. Shortly after I left my crew, I came across the popup aid station run by the Latinos Run Tampa run club. What an amazing group of people. Since I just saw my crew, I didn’t plan on stopping and chatting here, but they said a few magical words to me that really made me stop in my tracks. Hot-salty-potatoes. Boy was this the ticket they were delicious, I also grabbed a popsicle and chugged along. At this point I wasn’t doing any running; it was just hot, and I didn’t want to use or expel the energy I had so I just pushed forward. I was about ¾ to ½ mile away from the next stop I see Shae walking towards me with her bright orange shirt, in hand she had a fresh cold water and a Gatorlyte, in preparation for the race I bought and entire case of Gatorlyte as I knew it had calories and electrolytes needed to keep moving. When Shae approached me, I broke down, I was bawling my eyes out upset with myself. I was so mad that I mentally knew what I needed to do as I had trained for this many times before, but I just couldn't bring myself to keep running, I was overheating, tired, and feeling very defeated. We walked into the crew stop and Shae kept telling me that Chris was at the crew stop as he was suffering from same things I was going through, that made me feel better remembering that I’m not in this alone. I got to sit down at this stop, I believe this was the first time in the run I sat down. Chris’s wife Laura and Carla, Chris’s pacer, jumped right in to help me with what I needed alongside my crew, they put ice wrap on my neck and gave me some food to eat. I did feel like I was starting to get sunburn a bit so asked Susan to spray me down with sunscreen. This did prove to be a bit comical as she sprayed it directly in my mouth. I was starting to feel better seeing the crew and knowing Chris was suffering too. I headed out towards the next aid stop.
Mile 39-43
I was still walking at this point with very little running but was thankful to get out of the Oldsmar area. I knew Phillipe Park was ahead and looked forward to having Joe work on my feet as I started getting blisters on both big toes. This is a normal thing for me, so I am used to it, but wanted to get this taken care of before it became a larger problem. I did get to sit down and eat more food while Joe popped the blisters through the tape. I did hear Chris yell at me that he was going to keep going while I was getting my feet worked on.
Mile 43-47
I am still not running at this point but there was plenty of tree cover throughout this area so I felt like I should do some running. I made it into Safety Harbor. This was a memorable time for me as there were tons of people everywhere, what a cute little town this was with shops and restaurants at every turn. I didn’t get to run here as traffic was heavy and people were taking up a majority of the sidewalk. I make the turn out of Safety Harbor heading towards the new crew stop, I hear “Kevin! Kevin!” I turned to look at it was my good friend and coworker Michelle, she came to check on me and cheer me along, we shared a few blocks together walking and she mentioned that she would see me at a later crew stop. I originally had a crew stop at the Taco Bell which was approximately 6 miles from the last crew stop, but they decided to see me a bit sooner at the Catholic Church instead. I don't remember if I sat down at this stop, but I do remember refueling and procuring more water.
Mile 47-51
I did finally get a few miles with another runner as it was getting rather lonely on course, we chatted a bit and found out that his previous longest run was 30 miles, and he planned on walking it in from this point. To me that sounded horrible at the time, but I went with it as an excuse to walk. I stopped at the Taco Bell that I originally had as a planned crew stop to have some nice throne time. The other runner ended up moving forward so I was alone yet again. The heat of the day finally started to break as the sun was starting to go down. Still feeling very hard on myself as I had anticipated being much further along that I was. When I got to the WAWA at mile 51 my crew had this turkey, gravy, stuffing bowl that was amazing. Chris had picked up a new pacer, Audri, and I wished him well. This was the last time I would see Chris for the day. My friend Michelle and her husband Andy were also here with the crew cheering me on. I picked up my head lamp and reflective vest and mentally was not ready for the war that was about to come.
Mile 51-56
As darkness fell, I really started feeling down and questioning everything. Why do I run? Why am I doing this? While walking along I started to come into the Dunedin section. I was in my feelings a lot during this time trying to process how the hell I am going to keep doing this for another 50 miles. I did walk up on what appeared to be either a huge party or beer fest or something of that nature at the Clear Sky Draught Haus. I really, really, really, wanted to stop and grab beer and partake in the festivities. Still very much in my feels I kept going and turned on the Pinellas Trail, this section looked familiar to me as I had done the Pinellas Trail challenge a month or so prior. Since I was still sobbing, I could see all the happy people walking around listening to the music, eating dinner while my dumbass is out here running – I use that term loosely here. I make it towards Jeff Iosa’s house and the official aid station 2. So, for me this is where I am hitting my first real low. I am telling my crew I want to quit, and I don’t want to continue as I’m mentally not having a good time. Susan feeds me a quesadilla while Shae changes out all my hydration and fuel in my pack. I do sit down here and chat with Tonya Olson who is working on runners’ feet. Gregg Lawson is also here questioning my choice to quit. As all of you know, that is a very hard thing for me to say out loud. Gregg says the one thing to me that I needed to hear. “What kind of podcast would this make if you quit” – damn that just burned my ass, I didn’t even get a rebuttal as he just walked away from me. I would think about this statement for the rest of the race and days later. I quickly jumped out of my chair and said fuck it lets go. Joe was to start pacing with me here, I originally said I didn’t want a pacer until mile 62 but since I was wanting to quit so early – the crew thought it was best. I told Susan to let Joe know to meet me around to corner as we had to come back that way.
Mile 56-62
It was nice to have someone to sympathize with on these next few miles, I was able to recap the events of the day while Joe and I did some run walk. This was the first time I was to stick to a structured run walk schedule of 4-minute run with 1 minute walk. I had practiced this before and felt comfortable doing so. I told Joe somewhere along the way I had to pee, so we stopped behind a dumpster and Joe was my lookout, this early in the race I was still giving a shit if people were around. As we transversed the Clearwater Memorial Causeway this would be one of the best views of the course, seeing the ocean ahead of me and all the lights from the town. One of the hotels was shooting off fireworks in the distance, Joe had commented that they were shooting them off for me symbolizing I had made it into town. I had a good laugh at that, but it did give me something to focus on rather than quitting and hurting my body. We made it into Pier 60 which is mile 62. I told Joe as we were running along the beach that “there was a cool pair of shoes” he proceeded to tell me that it was a palm frond. We both had a good chuckle before seeing the rest of the crew at the next stop. I was happy to see a chair so I could once again sit down – this will become a reoccurring theme.
Mile 62 – 67
I picked up Susan here and bless Susan she really got the worst of my low. I was at this point not wanting to continue and complained and flat our refused that there was no way I was going to keep doing this for 10 more hours. She did attempt to engage my mind and ask me questions, but I had none of it. I did start to freak out a bit thinking I was hallucinating seeing a full-size lion outside of a million-dollar mansion. Well, I wasn’t hallucinating, and it was real. I probably asked Susan 20 times if it was real while we were walking forward. While in a low point, I know that my crew won’t let me quit in a low. So, I had to trick myself into being in a high state of mind. I’m not sure I had convinced anyone, but I was certain I was dropping at aid station 3. I believe Susan really could tell I wanted to quit. When coming into the aid station I did get to see some very familiar faces, James Mathias, Nicole and Jessee. I didn’t appreciate seeing them at the time as I was set on quitting. James looked me dead in the face and said, “you can’t quit here”. I proceeded to take off my vest, my shoes, everything and was looking for the car. Joe got kind of mad at me and was like you haven’t even given Shae an opportunity to go on with her stint with you. I did start to feel bad that she didn’t get her time so I agreed I would give her 2 miles. Joe massaged my legs, and I was having pain from all the walking, Nicole gave me a cup of coffee and Joe massaged some CBD oil into my legs.
Mile 67-75
I was pretty unruly at this point; I just didn’t want to continue and complained A LOT! I hallucinated and saw an octopus in the road, ended up being gauze. I also played the game of where is the next bench – this would continue to the end of the course. I kept thinking about how I didn’t want to do this for 10 more hours. That would prove different as time went on. Shae tried tricking me by not starting her watch and only making me go 2 miles. I feel like we went at least 7 while her watch said just a few miles. At one point in my infinite ultra brain decided that I was going to try to drop my pacer. Why do you ask? Well, I thought that if I ran faster than her, she would stop, and I could also stop. This tactic was short lived. When we made it to Susan and Joe, they were going to allow me to sleep and get some hot food. We arrived at the Speedway, they had parked where the gas pump was and I wasn’t having it, I'll be damned if I’m walking that extra 20 feet. I really wanted them to park closer to the street. I ended up doing it mainly because I was looking forward to resting. I did end up sleeping for a few minutes and ate some of the best mashed potatoes.
Mile 75-86
I’m sure the mileage is a bit off here as most of this section was very foggy to me. I had picked up Joe for this next stint as morning approached, I started to accept my fate, that I was in fact finishing this race. This did not negate that I was stopping at almost every bench and was basically exclusively walking. As we made it into Gulf Port aid station, I was switching out pacers again and Shae would take me into the finish. I ate some hot oatmeal and rested a bit.
Mile 86- Finish
As Shae and I left the aid station Joe and Susan stayed back to work on someone’s feet. I had asked Joe as the 5-mile stops were proving to be a bit too long to get some breakfast and meet us somewhere on course around 3 miles. Shae and I headed out, as this area was hit particularly hard by the Hurricanes as well, the street was messed up and they had scaffolding up around the sidewalk – me in my infinite ultra brain wisdom said Hey, I should go through here instead of around it. Well, that was very stupid, as I got the end of it, the scaffolding was blocked off and closed. I wasn’t about to walk back the extra 30 feet, so what do I do? I decided to crawl under it and get stuck. I shimmied by behind underneath it only to get stuck on my pack yelling for help from Shae as shes cracking up laughing at me. I had no idea how I got down there or up from the ground at this point. We carried on walking slowly, doing trail math. I had mentioned earlier that I didn’t want to do this for another 10 hours, I was correct, but we should also add that it took me 16 more hours from that point. Very slow going, lots of slow walking. Joe and Susan got us McDonald’s as we sat at 3 Daughters Brewing. Still very much hating life, but there was a lot less bad cop from the crew as I had accepted my fate earlier. The benches I had come to love were quickly disappearing and I started making up new areas to sit, buildings, signs, anything with a flat edge to take the pressure off my feet. At one point, while stopped at a light I told Shae I was going to sit on the retaining wall ahead and she argued that it wasn’t a bench. A very kind gentleman walked by and I politely asked if he was tired and wanted to sit down up there, would he? He quickly agreed and I did get to sit down but I could tell Shae was getting tired and wanted to be done just like I did. We push on, slowly walking still and meet up with the crew around Saint Pete pier, I am familiar with this area as this is where the Pinellas Trail Challenge starts as well as the Dirrty Beer Run. Susan and Joe are waiting for me with food and my friends Michelle and Andy come out again to cheer me on. Shae and I continued down the downtown Saint Petersburg section walking. There were lots of people to share with what we were doing. Just before we turned back north to our last crew stop a very enthusiastic man comes running up to us. He introduced himself and promptly asked if we were running the Tampa Bay 100. As he did this last year, so we shared a few stories and really gave me some motivation I needed. I did have some short bursts of running here but it was short lived. As we are about ¾ to ½ mile away from crew we met up with 3 runners who were also in very rough shape power limping to the finish. Again, we met up with everyone for a quick refill and a sit down. I was just shy of 100 miles and could taste the finish ahead. I stopped taking a picture of my watch being 99.99 miles for our good friend Craig Betz as he finished Western States this year and that’s what his watch said. Sadly, I wasn’t done here though. Just a few more miles to go, a few benches along the way, a perfectly timed porta potty, and we arrived at Vinoy park where everyone would see me to the finish. As I could see the end, I could hear the cheers from Nicole and Jesse, Michelle and Andy, Joe Fuller race director cheering me on. As I got to the finish, I was kind of mad at Joe Fuller for putting on such a miserable race. I may have called him a fucking asshole out of frustration, and he found humor in it and threw my belt buckle in the sand to pick up. Looking back, it was a funny moment. I had done it, I succeeded, against all the mental odds in my head – the heat, the pain in my body, it was done. I was so glad to just sit down and get my shoes off.
I look back today at how thankful I am for my crew and friends supporting me. This was an unreal experience that I've really struggled putting words together to express this experience. I really wish I had met some of my time goals, but you never know what kind of day you are going to have until you have it. I want to thank the race director even though he is an asshole, and we love him anyways, for putting on such an epic journey. I will carry these memories with me for the rest of my life.
Joe – Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being my best friend you have pushed me and gotten me through some of the toughest times in my life.
Susan – You are a gem; I can’t believe you put up with all my shit as long as you did. I would have certainly put me in place well before you did. You are a kind soul, and I can’t wait for you to do your first 100 miler.
Shae – It's unreal to me that you have done so many 100-mile races, and some multiday events. You will never stop inspiring me even though you are a cautionary tale. All the miles you put in with me was one more mile than I would have ever done on my own.
You all three have earned a piece of this buckle and never would have achieved it without.
Thank you all for reading this ridiculously long race report, hope to see you on the trials. LETSSS GOOOOOO!
