Third Place (Out of Three)
People keep asking how the race went, and I appreciate it more than I can say. I'm flattered by how kind everyone has been. Thank you. Here's the whole story.
The good news: I finished third in my age group.
The bad news: there were only three of us in my age group.
The full accounting: 9 hours, 34 minutes. 95th out of 101 finishers. That's not a misprint, and there's no way to dress it up.
Saturday was the Tecumseh Trail Challenge, a 50K at Yellowwood State Forest — about 31 miles of trail and, by my watch, about 5,000 feet of climbing. The conditions were absolutely beautiful. About 43 degrees at the start — not as cold as forecast — and then a beautiful day in the woods.
Here's an embarrassment: I've been to Brown County State Park hundreds of times, and I'd never once been to Yellowwood State Forest, which is right there. That alone was worth the trip.
The race was organized as well as anything I've been part of — course marked, volunteers everywhere, everything where it was supposed to be. And I was impressed by the other runners. Serious about it, most of them — but having fun with it too, even on a hard day.
I suppose I should be proud that nobody older than me finished ahead of me. But the man I keep thinking about is the one runner older than me in the whole field: Dick Whicker of Danville. He's 77 years old, and he finished two places behind me in 10 hours and 4 minutes. Impressed isn't a strong enough word. If I'm still out there doing this at 77, I'll consider that a good life.
Everything about the event was perfect, so I have no excuses — except the plain one: I wasn't properly trained. Nine and a half hours is a long time to find that out, but the trail is honest about it.
So I'm training properly now. The Monumental Marathon in Indianapolis is November 7 — flat pavement, 26.2 miles. My goal is to finish under six hours.
What made Saturday possible at all is worth saying plainly. I've been on keto since I was 64. I dropped 35 pounds, and — this still surprises me — I've built muscle at an age when most men are losing it. That came from focusing on nutrient density: high-quality protein I can actually get, in real food. Honestly, that's the entire goal of Tyner Pond Farm. It's why we farm the way we do. None of this happens for me without keto.
And nobody's more surprised by any of this than I am. If I can do something like this, I believe most anyone can take on a challenge like it — and for me, it started with changing my diet.
So there were no bars and no gels on the trail. I ate what I eat. Small 3-ounce burgers made from our Ancestral Blend ground beef — our grassfed ground beef with heart and liver ground in. One-ounce portions of our beef liver. And 2-ounce strips of wild sockeye salmon from our partner, Captain Tony Wood, in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Real food. It carried me for nine and a half hours.
Here's what I keep coming back to. At 66, I was out there moving for nine and a half hours, and I climbed 5,000 feet doing it. I'm disappointed in my time. I'm also proud that I was out there at all. Both of those are true.
If you're somewhere near my age and thinking you could never do something like this: I finished 95th out of 101, and a 77-year-old finished not far behind me. The bar isn't where you think it is.
You could do it too.
— Chris
