This may be more cathartic for me than anything else. We'll see.
Greg and I flew out to Salt Lake City together the day before the race. We met my good friend Al, our crew chief, at the airport, and took off together from there in our four-wheel-drive vehicle, loaded to the oh-shit handles with ultrarunning gear. After stopping for a spectacular meal of authentic Mexican food with Greg's long-lost snowboarding cousins, we arrived safely at our hotel in Logan Utah.
After settling in and picking up a few provisions from the local Walmart, I started to feel pretty hung-over. Moderate headache, a little woozy, and a weak appetite. Great, I was worried already, but just tried to relax. At the drop-bag drop-off site, organized chaos unfolded. Lots of wiry, grizzled, ultrarunning veterans roamed the lawn and looked perfectly at ease. I scrambled to put each of 10 bags in the correct pile with 150 other bags. Somehow, they all ended up where they were supposed to, delivered to just the right spot along the 100 mile mountain trail.
That night, we met up with Tommy and Jen to have a dinner at a nice pasta place in town. I still felt "off" but hoped that with a good night's rest, I would be back to normal in the morning. Dinner was great, and seemed like the kind of meal one might have on any random evening. Same with sleeping. No sense in worrying about the next day. Nothing I could do about it anyways. Just another day, right?
Race morning came quickly after a pretty solid bout of sleep. We hit up the hotel's generous continental breakfast, which they were kind enough to start in the 4 o'clock hour. I picked at a bagel and a banana. I wasn't terribly hungry, but the good news is I had slept off my lousy hung over feeling from the day before. Being at 6,500ft was definitely noticeable the day before, but I felt totally normal on race day.
When the gun went off, the throng of ultrarunners charged up a steep road that gave way to single-track trail very quickly. Single file, we picked our way to the top of the first big climb, anxious for daylight to break. After hiking straight up for a few miles, the sun came up in the valley below, and we were treated with the first spectacular sunrise of the adventure. I had to stop briefly to turn around and take in the site. If you don't watch where you're going on this trail, you're going down.
After Al dropped us off at the start, we knew we wouldn't see him for several hours until there was a crew accessible aid station. Along the way, though, the course was well stocked with a buffet of goodies that would have made the hotel's breakfast run away with its tail between its legs. The extra calories were great to see because we were climbing thousands of feet in the intial miles, and it was relentless. The climb eventually gave way to a massive descent, though. Not a meandering slope, either. A rugged, jagged, washed out, kamikaze dive down the side of a mountain. It was hard to run easy and smooth, gravity tugging me down the hill with urgency. But it was harder to move very fast because the terrain was so challenging. This went on and on. Around every corner was a new postcard worthy view. I started to feel very small in the middle of such vast wilderness. It was liberating, and I was having a great time flying down the trail towards Al, who I knew would be ready to greet us with a smile. Everything was going just fine, except the blisters that were forming on my heels. Yes, both of them.
I was hoping to make it to 40 or 50 miles before having to perform surgery, but there I was, hurriedly doctoring my feet so we could take off again. Al kindly refilled our hydration packs and got us plenty of food to eat. Greg waited patiently while I finished applying duct tape to my damaged feet. I was forced to do that at practically every aid station for the rest of the day because eventually tape would get bunched up or come loose. But I was undeterred. We had made great time. We felt strong. It was exciting to be out there!
Each of the first steps after rebandaging my feet were excruciating. Shock waves of pain flowed up my body like lightning bolts. A few minutes later, it was unnoticeable. Back to normal, trotting down the trail, plotting out our next ascent to 10,000ft. The forrest and the scenery constantly changed around us. We would be on tall, craggy peaks, down in cool, shady, pine-laden valleys, then exposed on dry hillsides without shade for miles. Then a few miles later, in a stand of Aspen whose leaves were a magnificent shade of yellow that you almost can't imagine. Occasional splashes of deep reds and vivid greens would provide contrast. We were running through a stunning landscape on a beautiful day.
Al treated us like rock stars whenever we would see him. Thank God he did, too. I couldn't focus on the finish of the race, even though that was the ultimate goal. I had to think about the next checkpoint. Just get there, get refueled, and let the ham radio operators know that I had checked in so the website could be updated with my progess. That was Laura's only way to track me for the entire event. Cell phones don't work in the middle of nowhere. So that's how it went, aid station to aid station. Eat food, drink soda, repair feet, get the hell out of there. Lather, rinse, repeat.
By the time it got so dark we needed headlamps, we were nearly half way done. That was a big boost! It was getting cooler, though, so we made sure our clothing choices would get us through the next long stretch. It was about this point when my knee started to ache in a bad way. There was some general soreness and tireness that was to be expected, but this was something else I just couldn't shake. Ibuprofen was powerless. Still, we kept at it, one aid station at a time. The worst part was how slow I had to go down the rocky descents. I couldn't trust my knee from about 55 miles to the end. I tried everything to find a way I could move efficiently, but the trail demanded two stable legs to navigate. And even that wasn't easy. But I found my stride on the climbs. I could still power hike anything that looked like a hill. My left leg was the workhorse, and it was a champ right to the end. I had never so much looked forward to huge climbs.
Eventually I hobbled into a nice warm hut about 75 miles in. Greg and I sat down, both pretty well exhausted. I was mentally fried from battling the frustration of a knee injury that I had never suffered before. And my feet felt like they were on fire at this point. It was a monumental task to get them back into fresh shoes and shocks. New blisters burned with searing hot pain. This was an awesome aid station, though. There was lasagna, fruit, cookies, drinks. All the good stuff!
The next stretch was definitely one of the longest, as 7 miles is no joke on its own out there. It gets really hard after 3 mountainous marathons! This is when I first noticed people starting to pass us. Greg was kind enough to stay with me as long as I was working toward the finish. I think he could have forged ahead, so I appreciate his sacrifice to go slower that he would have like on all the downhill stretches that he's so good at. If there was another "worst part" to this epic, it was my failure to wear a heavier coat. I had been warned that this area of the course, right about sun rise, would be extraordinarily cold. I really thought I would be fine. But I wasn't able to work hard enough to generate any body heat because by this point, my knee was in an excessive amount of pain. It got cold in a hurry, and it was a kick in the gut. My light jacket was powerless to the sub-freezing temps that we were headed into.
As we arrived at the aid station, I was in a foul mood. Waiting for the sun to come up seemed like it took forever, and mentally, I was about as weak as my gimp knee. I crouched down on the ground carefully and broke down a little bit while drinking some hot chocolate. Only being able to limp was maddeningly frustrating, so embarassingly, I asked if I could get back to the finish if I dropped out of the race there. I had all but resigned myself to bailing right there. 20 yards away, a group of zombie runners were sitting lifeless around what looked like a fantastically warm fire. I wanted to be warm. More than that, I just want to not be freezing cold. The aid station captain told me that I'd have to wait there until they packed up and drove out when the race was over. There was no access to this remote point for crew members.
"Screw it. I'm moving on," I told Greg. I started limping down the road as fast as I could, which was probably pretty slow. I was freezing, too. I can honestly say I've never been so cold for so long in my whole life. Nor have I been in such incredible unending pain for so long. I swung my arms wildly just to keep blood flowing to my hands. I rubbed my hands against my arms as fast as I could, just to keep feeling in them. Nothing worked. All I could do was shiver and limp. Just 3 more miles of it, though. Other runners feeling much better me would pass by and offer encouragement and advice. Kind gestures, but I had tried it all. My knee was done. Greg ran ahead to let Al know that I was still making my way down to the aid station. We agreed that since Greg could still finish in style, he'd better get moving. No reason to put his accomplishment in jeopardy because of me at that point.
As I calculated the time I had left to make a good showing, and the pace at which I was moving, and the extremely dangerous last 7 miles that everybody had been talking about, I knew I had to call it a day. Well, technically, 27.5hrs. The sun had finally come up (again) and taken the chill out of my bones. But it didn't take the sting out of having to quit. I wanted to finish so badly, I can STILL taste it. My stomach felt solid. I didn't have any cramps, dehydration, nausea. I couldn't even feel my feet any more, so that wasn't the problem. I wanted to go on, but the pain in my knee was beyond intense. My right leg had checked out.
So that's where all the emotions that I had bottled up all day came spilling out. All the excitement I was going to feel at the finish line... all the pride I would feel for reaching my goal, was mixed with an awful conconction of disppointment, sorrow, self-pity, and embarassment. This was not my best moment. I'm glad there are only a couple people who saw me have that break down. I'm fairly certain I'll never see the ham radio operator again, and hopefully Al embellishes my toughness a little when he recounts how my adventure ended.
The difficulties kept coming. How do you call home to your wife and tell her that your selfish attempt to conquer the world was a failure... on her birthday? Well, you just do. And you start by appologizing. In the same manner that you can't fake one of the toughest 100 mile races out there, you can't fake that phone call. Luckily for me, I at least got to try. I am grateful for that. A lot people don't finish, I am regularly reminded, but that doesn't make that DNF (Did Not Finish) pill any easier for me to swallow. I wanted to be a finisher. It was an unbelievable adventure, so I don't want the tone to be too negative, but that was the play-by-play of my effort.
After we crewed Greg through the next checkpoint, Al and I indulged in some icecream, and he needed a large coffee, too. Afterall, he had been taking care of 2 lunatics for the better part of 30hrs at that point . It helped a little. Back at the finish line in Fish Haven, ID we congratulated Tommy on his finish, and cheered Greg across the line, too. Those guys know what they're doing. We all sat in the grass of a local park and ate fresh grilled trout from the Race Director's trout farm. Such a unique experience. We drank beers and retold stories from the previous day as if they were finely tuned years-old tales. It was a sunny day, and I laid there in shorts and a t-shirt daydreaming about what I could have done differently, when just hours before, I was on the verge of hypothermia. Surreal.
I'll add pictures later!
