Prairie Spirit Trail 100 Mile | Galloway Run/Walk To a 22 Hour Finish

On March 25, 2023, I headed to Kansas for the Prairie Spirit Trail 100 Mile Endurance Run. It takes place just south of Kansas City and is run on nearly the entire length of the Prairie Spirit Trail, a 50-mile rails-to-trails trail that connects the towns of Ottawa and Iola. Runners only climb about 1200 feet as they run this 100-mile extremely flat out and back crushed limestone gravel course with a few short paved sections. We would only need to carry minimum supplies as the course was lined with both manned and unmanned aid stations allowing runners access to fluids, nutrition, drop bags, and crew at frequent intervals. I opted to run solo, utilizing drop bags only to avoid having to carry a bunch of nutrition for the entire duration of the race. I did use one larger drop bag for a pair of extra shoes as well as a couple of dry layers that I could access at miles 40 and 60, respectively.

For the first time ever in an ultra marathon, I utilized the Galloway run/walk method. I did no for a couple of reasons. First, a flat fast course requires some prescheduled walk breaks, at least for me as I am used to getting walk breaks during my usual mountain ultras whenever there is a climb. Second, I was just in the early stages of my current training cycle and I was nowhere near the shape I would like for a fast course like this. The Galloway method would delay my demise as much as possible. As it turned out, it worked!

0:18 - Packet Pickup

1:42 - Race Start

4:00 - Princeton AS (Mile 9.5)

5:50 - Richmond AS (Mile 16)

7:17 - Garnett AS (Mile 25)

9:05 - Welda AS (Mile 33.5)

10:39 - Colony AS (Mile 41.25)

12:30 - Iola AS (Mile 51.25)

13:32 - Colony AS (Mile 61.25)

14:25 - Welda AS (Mile 69)

15:14 - Garnett AS (Mile 77.5)

16:06 - Richmond AS (Mile 86.5)

18:09 - Finish Line