Ryan Miller & Katie Asmuth Win Big at the 2021 Bandera 100k | Four Earn Tickets to Western States
by Chase Parnell — January 10, 2021 — 📸: courtesy of Ryan & Katie
The Bandera 100k was exactly the distraction I needed after that week of horrors we all just survived. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed turning all that off and following this race, even though I started off a little salty about how minimal the live tracking and race updates were. Eventually we tracked down some tracking that provided a half-way split after the first of two 50k loops, as well as the finishing results. I’ll go on the record and recommend the race group get another chip timing mat for the 25k/75k mark. Pretty please? As a golden ticket Western States qualifier, the people need updates! Shout out to Calum Neff and Coree Woltering for keeping us updated with some ad hoc play-by-play action out on the course.
And now I need to address my Bandera Preview from last week, which turned out to be not that awesome because many of the runners I spotlighted were registered but didn’t make it to the starting line for one reason or another. I admit I should’ve dug deeper and I’m determined to go the extra mile with my next preview for the Black Canyon 100k.
Anyways! I’ll get to the reason you’re all here. Let me introduce you to those that punched their tickets to the Western States Endurance Run who can now legitimately start using the immensely enviable hashtag, #seeyouatstates.
2021 Bandera 100k Men’s Race Recap
I had the opportunity to follow up with winner Ryan Miller of San Antonio after the race. “Today went almost perfectly to plan, which was to run by feel, never exceed my lactate threshold, consistently take in 350 calories per hour, and smile throughout the day.” By the way, that’s essentially 3.5 gels an hour!
I was surprised to hear he had his fair share of struggles out there, “I did fall twice,” he said. “My headlamp situation for the first five miles was a disaster (worn on my chest and bouncing around), the cap on one of my bottles broke around mile 21, and I rolled my left ankle five to six times (but not the right).”
📸 Roel Gonzales
“I knew that the non-technical flat prairie section from miles 21 to 27 and 52 to 58 would be where I would have the biggest advantage with my recent road running background, and ultimately that’s where I gapped the lead pack in the first 50k.” Ryan is a 2h 14m marathoner and competed in the Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta last year.
Once he separated, there was no looking back. “I was very surprised to receive updates at aid stations that my lead from 50k to 75k had grown from two minutes to eight minutes. I was feeling pretty confident at that point because my energy levels were holding steady and my body was holding up. Coming through the final aid station with five miles to go, I knew that as long as I didn’t injure myself, I had the win in the bag.” That he did. Miller crossed the tape in 8h 10m 8s, the fourth fastest winning time in the race’s 17 year history. “Overall I couldn’t have asked for a better experience in my first ultra!” FIRST. ULTRA. Drop the mic.
Being fairly local, Miller got to play the role of hometown hero. He even had the wife and baby to kiss with pride seconds after a really solid fist pump. Everyone loves a good celebration. Not quite on the level of Zach Miller winning North Face 50, but still some very promising stuff.
Check it out:
Pass the tissues! But seriously, love to see someone let out some emotion after battling for eight hours straight.
With this win, he’s now aiming for Western States where he’ll jump up in distance once again. Seems crazy to have Western States be your first 100 but we’ve seen guys do this before and have success; Matt Daniels, who dropped from this race with what looked like a toe injury, won the 2019 Black Canyon 100k and followed with a 4th place finish at Western in his first ultra season. So I’m not counting out Ryan in June just because he hasn’t ran a 100 miler; with a pedigree like his, anything is possible.
Now I have to give a shout out to my dark horse pick, Cody Lind, who came through half-way in 5th place, seven minutes back, but finished in 2nd just three minutes behind Miller, securing a golden ticket of his own.
Fun fact from Andy Jones-Wilkins on Twitter: Cody is the grandson of legendary Western States medical doctor, Bob Lind. I like it! Cody also paced Brittany Peterson (his girlfriend, NOT wife as I mistyped in the race preview) during the final miles of her epic battle with Clare Gallagher at Western in 2019. You have to think Cody is strongly bonded with that course and race and that he’ll have a well of positive energy to draw from on the day. Really excited to see how it all plays out for both of these seemingly very fine young gentlemen. Congrats!
2021 Bandera 100k Women’s Race Recap
The women’s race, unfortunately, was even harder to follow than the men’s. I couldn’t find anyone putting out good information in real time. At the half way mark we saw these splits: Emily Hawgood in 1st (4h 21m), Katie Asmuth in 2nd (4h 22m), and Erin Clark in 3rd (4h 26m).
First of all, all three of these ladies went out charging hard! Those are some fast 50k times on any terrain and they were only half way through their race. Props for going for it and risking a blowup to keep the pace super honest.
I’d mentioned in the preview that Emily and Katie finished 1-2 respectively at IMTUF 100 last year, and here again they duked it out, surely pushing each other to better races than they otherwise would’ve had. This time, it was Katie that had her day in the sun, passing Emily in the second half and pulling away for the win.
📸 courtesy of Katie Asmuth
Erin Clark also closed well, finishing second and earning her golden ticket. I believe that like Ryan Miller, Erin is a new commodity to the ultra scene. She’s what ultra runners like to call a “real runner” coming off a great track and cross country career with the CU Buffalos and Hoka’s Northern Arizona Elite squad in Flagstaff.
Back to Katie. Apparently she overcame some, how should I put this, adversity? Yes, she overcame some adversity during the race when she fell and smacked her face, literally breaking her nose. David Roche was kind enough to share this clip of Katie stuffing a tampon up her nose and running out of the aid station with her pacer. Fast and resourceful.
It’s funny, us mere mortals tend to think that elites are just out there in the stratosphere, where things always go smoothly, executing their race plans to perfection. But really, shit happens to them too! What differentiates someone like Katie is that somehow she busted her knees and broke her nose, laughed it off, did what she needed to do to regain her composure, and didn’t let it ruin her day. In fact, she passed the leader post-header. Some grit.
Wrap-Up and What’s Next
Alright, again, huge congrats to Ryan, Cody, Katie, and Erin, and really all the finishers out there. Getting a 100k done with all the craziness of Covid is huge no matter how you slice it. I hope as the vaccine continues to roll out and race organizations continue to learn how to put races on safely, maybe 2021 will be largely back to normal and we can continue to follow all these athletes and events that we’ve grown to love over the years.
I’m also going to give a shoutout to David Roche as he, along with his wife Megan at SWAP coaching, coached BOTH of this year’s winners to their victories. That’s crazy, am I right? You can see from the video clips how both Ryan and Katie’s personalities would gel with the uplifting, encouraging, playful modus operandi of the Roche’s. But who wouldn’t really.
Lastly, like I said, I’m planning to do a big-time preview for the Black Canyon 100k, the second of three golden ticket races, which takes place on February 13th. So be sure to subscribe to our weekly Rise & Grind newsletter so you don’t miss out on the preview, new podcast episodes, or any of our other off-topic writings with what feels like routine over-sharing and unsettling sentimentality. It’s what we do.
If you dig it and are feeling generous, consider chipping in a couple bucks a month on Patreon to support us in our efforts.
Hope y’all (as any good Texan would say) enjoyed this recap. Now let us all go running.
“I’ll go on the record and recommend the race group get another chip timing mat for the 25k/75k mark.”
From a participant’s perspective, this doesn’t feel like a race that brings in over $100k.
Oh well.
My thought is that it would be worth the investment. Tejas Trails appears to have 23 events. Just think that more live tracking would be great exposure for race, athletes, and sponsors. And make it a lot more fun for fans to follow along. I don’t think all races need this kind of capability, but IMHO, golden ticket races, where there’s an emphasis on the elite competitive element, quality live tracking is sort of expected in this day and age.
You’re very right. The money is going somewhere, but participants, crews and spectators aren’t able to clearly see it.
There is almost no cell service coverage in the park and for miles around it. Folks with AT&T get the tiniest bit of signal in a few locations. The race pays to bring in its own cell tower to the start/finish area (which is also the halfway split) to be able to upload the splits: even with it their service went down during the race. They’d have to similarly bring in a tower, possibly more, to be able to do a midway split (likely at the road crossing at nachos, ~16.3 miles in to each loop). The cost here isn’t just the mat and the logistics may be too hard to overcome currently.
That’s interesting. I wonder how all the other big races do it? Many also in remote mountainous areas. Pretty common in 100s to have 5+ checkpoints with live tracking.
Ryan’s win is in theory the outright course record as this was a new course this year and comparing it to previous courses it is clear they’ve made it substantially more difficult. (Since the variation won by Jim they’ve added ~50% more vert and increasing the amount of technical trail from ~14 total miles to ~35 miles).
Didn’t realize it had changed that much!!