Evan Honeyfield – 2011 Wasatch 100 Champ Interview
September 14, 2011 by Bryon Powell · 11 Comments
Evan Honeyfield won the 2011 Wasatch 100 as a relative unknown. He also managed to run 19:31:59, the third fastest time in Wasatch’s 32-runnings behind only Geoff Roes and Karl Meltzer. In the following interview, you’ll get to know a bit more about Evan, his training, his race, and why he’s sure to log a couple trail runs at 11 or 12 minute per mile pace before a 100 miler.
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Filed under Interviews and Profiles, Races, Video ·
Bryon Powell is the Editor-in-Chief of iRunFar.com, which he founded five years ago. Also the author of Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons and a contributing editor at Trail Runner magazine, he's quickly approaching 10 years as an ultrarunner and 20 years as a trail runner. These days he calls Park City, Utah and its trails home.
All posts by Bryon Powell
Great job, Evan!!
The 11 – 12 minutes miles on the flats … very meaningful … and great to hear it from a runner like Evan (what an awesome run at Wasatch!)and a video I’ll recommend for my students for sure. To add, I had a student this last year who hired me for a year to take him from Ironman to his first ultra and then on to Leadville. He was an ex-4:09 miler who, I suspect, did not know that is was possible to run slower than 8 minutes a mile. One of the early challenges was to dial down the pace at times to include walking (walking???!!!!). The question was “How do I get ‘faster’ by going slower??” Well, therein lies the ‘secret’ to running 100 miles … by getting stronger by piling on the miles (which initally means going slower), the vertical and becoming more efficient/learning new skills/getting additional ‘gears’ (and knowing when to use them) equals less fade on the second half = faster over a ultra distance … especially 100 miles. Analyzing his training year that resulted in 2 50-mile race finishes and 3 100-mile finishes (Rocky Raccoon 100; Big Horn 100; Leadville 100) his pace averaged 9:32/mile for 2500 miles of training & racing.
Thanks for these interesting and informative interviews!
Great interview Bryon. Congrats on the hard work Evan. Nice jacket….stellar performance at the BH50 too.
Awesome!
To Byron and the above posters, thanks for all the support. I would like to make a point of clarification: I don’t run 12min pace on roads. In the weeks leading up to the Bear last year and Wasatch this year I did do a few runs at 11-12min pace on trails that I could have run 9-10min pace comfortably. Reverse speedwork! I’d certainly adjust that for a faster or slower course.
Thanks for the interview and the clarification, Evan. I’ve modified the text to reflect your actual utilization of the slower paced runs.
Good job Even this is your cuzin Keaton
Hmmm… Honeyfield – Honeybadger?
Great interview-thanks Bryan.
Evan’s use of some slow mileage training makes me think of the mantra I hear from Triathletes-”Train your weakness.” He obviously has speed and makes good points regarding the adaptations/benefits from the slower training. Do you think that this principle also ties to the point, counterpoint section in your book regarding speed work? I remember (correctly I hope) that Geoff Roes felt speed work less important than others-in my mind this makes sense for Geoff, he has great leg speed and can concentrate on other aspects of training. If I translate that to myself (not great leg speed) I wonder if the take-away is yes to speed work as I balance my total training load?
I’m good at running 11 min/miles, so bring on the sub 20hr mountain 100 miler next year! lol Huge Congrats to Evan, he’s no longer flying under the radar. My parents live in Idaho Falls and it is super flat. What an accomplishment.
I am in the last few weeks of training for Grindstone 100 and to hear this interview was the boost I needed to get me back in the groove. The slow running/power walking training is not the funnest but in the end, it gets guys like me across the finish line and hopefully my first buckle. Thanks Bryon, for being the best ultra-source on the web.