Last summer I ran a 100 Mile Mountain Race in Europe. There were 2400 runners hailing from
all over the world. I ate LOTS of
cheese and sausage and ran through three countries. I raced alongside ibex, helicopters, and beautiful Swiss
children screaming “America! America! America!” To top it off, the entire experience seemed to be infused
with a potent mix of techno music and cow bell.
Two weeks ago I ran my first 100 Mile race since Europe: The
Bighorn 100 Mile Wild and Scenic Mountain Run. There were 118 runners. The race was contained in (Gasp!) one state and the moose
easily outnumbered the screaming blue-eyed Swiss children. And instead of chest
thumping techno music at the start line, a lone elderly gentleman standing on a
dirt road struggled his way through the Star Spangled Banner. After attempting to hit the high note
of “the rockets red glare” three
times without success, the entire crowd of anxious skinny ultra runners put
aside their game faces to sing with him to the finish. I was without a doubt
back in the US ultrarunning scene!
Not too long after the National Anthem I suppose a gun went
off, or there was a count down, after which we all started our endeavor in an
underwhelmingly slow jog (100 Mile starts are notoriously anticlimactic!). As often is the case, the race started
with a group of a dozen guys up front chatting leisurely while cruising up the
stunning Tongue River canyon. (Seriously. It’s gorgeous!) Upon reaching our first aid station a
few miles into the course, most everyone stopped to top off water bottles. I jogged through into the lead to start
the long 4000 ft. climb into the heart of the Bighorns. I didn’t know at the time, but that was
the last section of trail I would share with another racer that day. In fact,
my last running partner before picking up my pacer at Mile 66 was somebody’s
dog who followed me 7 miles from the first to second aid station!
After parting ways from my K-9 friend, the course, bit by
bit, unraveled in front of me in the form of singletrack trail, doubletrack
road, and vistas of the characteristically Wyoming high mountain plateaus. As an out and back race, the first 50
Miles of the course draw you higher and deeper into the mountains. In your short shorts and tank top, you
cannot help but feel progressively small, vulnerable, and “out there.” Twice,
in fact, I was stopped in my tracks by moose blocking the trail. If you have ever spent time with moose
in the wild, you know they can be ornery. One must be extremely diplomatic in
persuading a moose to move along.
And, you heard it here first, nothing says diplomacy like throwing rocks
and yelling “Git on outta here!”
And that is how the first third of this story went: putting one foot in
front of another, and throwing rocks when necessary.
From mile 33 to 48, the course climbs and climbs and
climbs. That brutal grade that is
relentlessly runnable when all you want is to hike. Cranking away the miles to
the highpoint of the race, which is also the turn around, one gets the feeling
of a tightly wound spring storing potential energy for the long downhill to
come. For most of this climb I
never felt any sort or real rhythm.
The thinner air, and perpetually tricky footing, never really allowed me
to find that cadence and flow. Chipping away at the mileage and focusing on the
stretch of trail between one aid station to the next became the strategy. The
first shot of energy and excitement I received came as I was nearing the turn
around aid station. Through the
mental haze I could hear this obnoxious noise in the distance. Something akin to an extremely
ambitious child blowing into a broken Kazoo. Sure enough, I round the corner to
see Mike Wolfe blowing through the skinnier section of a bright orange
construction cone making a complete scene with his self proclaimed redneck
vuvuzela! As the current Bighorn
100 course record holder, I accepted his cheering as a mixture of grace, humility
and hilarity. A true sportsman!
With the big climb behind me and the excitement of seeing my
crew for the first time in hours, I threw my headlamp on and grabbed a layer
before heading back down the trail. Not far from the aid station I passed the
two closest runners behind me, Jared Scott and Dan Olmstead. By my estimate they were only 20
minutes back. At the turn around I
knew I was only 5 minutes behind Mike Wolfe’s course record splits from 2010, which
meant I was running fast and so were they. I also felt confident I had some fuel left in the tank
though and they were going to have to run fast to close the gap.
So with that came the looooong descent into darkness. I pushed as hard as I could to cover
terrain before the light completely faded and I would be relegated to the
tunnel of light created by my headlamp. I stubbornly waited to flip the switch
and, through the darkness, had to announce my presence to multiple folks still
chugging uphill so that they weren’t surprised by me.
Less than an hour after sunset I reached the Footbridge aid
station (Mile 66) and picked up my pacer, Justin Yates. A quick switch of socks and we climbed
hard out of the aid station with Justin in the lead setting a strong pace. As a
good pacer does, he kept me on a strict schedule of shoving down necessary, yet
undesirable, calories and electrolytes.
As the nights tend to go, the miles between 11:00 pm and
4:30 am just blended together. Powerhiking the steeper climbs, shuffling on the
flats and trying not to completely blow the quads up on the descents. Looking
constantly for flagging to reassure ourselves we were still on course. Praying that each light you see in the
distance is an aid station and not some wayward RV camped on a remote dirt
road. (These are the tricks the
mind plays on you.) Somewhere in
the midst we saw my fantastic crew again.
We put on layers and stripped them as the temperatures varied on
hillsides, valleys and passes. We
ate food, drank water, spooked up unidentifiable wildlife, stared at the
brilliant stars and covered miles.
And then late in the night, or was it early in the morning,
we began the seemingly UNENDING decent back into Tongue River Canyon. This may have been one of the few
downhills I have run in my life that felt longer going down than it did going
up. I guess the 80 Miles between
the two had something to do with it. At this point I began to mentally prepare
myself for the flat 5 miles of nondescript dirt road, which I knew would carry
me to the finish. I knew I was
somewhere in the vicinity of a course record time, but refused to think about
it until the mountains spit me out onto that road.
Sure enough, as the sun was rising and I turned my headlamp
off I was suddenly at the trailhead and last aid station with 5 miles of
dreadfully monotonous road to the finish.
Justin and I did the calculations and I would need to run HARD to
squeeze in under the course record. What happened from there was what, in the business,
we like to call “going to the well.”
And the well was where I went. My favorite game to play from the well is
the “how much pain for how long”
game. 30 more minutes of pain. 20 more minutes of pain. 10 more minutes of
pain. 5 more minutes of pain. This is what all runners alike do. They spread
the last bits of energy as even as possible to get themselves to the finish.
Turn the legs over. Turn the legs over. Turn the legs over.
At first the road was just an isolated ribbon of brown
weaving its way to the horizon with no distinguishing landmarks. Slowly I began
to see houses, and then more houses, and then suddenly pavement, and finally
the finish line. From there the adrenaline took over and I crawled out of the
well to begin my hollering and whooping into the finish. I assume I managed to wake dozens of
people up in the adjacent campground as it was only 5:30 in the morning. When I
crossed the finish line I looked at my watch and I had snuck in with not just
the win, but a new course record by the skin of my teeth, in 100 mile terms,
shaving off just 7 minutes.
And now, three weeks later, I’m sitting here still trying to
process it all. There is something that is so overwhelmingly satiating about
the hundred mile experience. And I’m not just talking about the day of the
race. Or winning for that matter. It’s the preparation. It’s the months of physical and mental
buildup and breakdown leading into it.
It’s the staggering support from a strong community of friends and
family who gracefully put up with the insanity. It’s the fight between
confidence and doubt. It’s the crescendo of it all when you arrive at the start
line. And it’s the going within oneself and embracing whatever that days holds
for you. Whether you are sharing
the trail with mangy moose,
European children, or just your own two feet, a good day in the mountains is
hard to beat!