Humble Pie

This post is a recount of my first DNF which occurred at the San Diego 100 a couple of weeks ago. It is ironic that I had prepared more for this 100 miler than for any of the previous 100 milers that I had completed. This year my goal was to break 24 hours in a 100 mile race and to help me achieve this goal I hired a coach and trained more than ever. I was and am still confident that I started the race in the best shape of my life. What happened? In a word heat. I had hesitated to choose San Diego as my 100 mile race for this summer since historically I have not fared well in hot conditions. When we ran the Zion Traverse in April, afternoon temperatures reached the 90s and although I did OK during this run, it was a wake up call that I needed heat training to prepare for San Diego. For the next 6 weeks leading into the race, I did 2-3 sauna sessions a week at 170 degrees starting for 15 minutes and building up to 40 minute sessions. I also did 1 or 2 runs a week overdressed in several extra layers of clothing. In May, I went down to San Diego to pre-run sections of the course with my friends BJ and Gonzo who do most of the course marking for the event. I held up well to the 90 degree temperatures we experienced out on the course that weekend, so I was optimistic going into the race that I had achieved some measure of heat acclimatization.

I have already blamed the heat for my DNF, but Jimmy Dean Freeman has argued on his blog that heat didn't cause runners to drop. He argues that runners dropped because they failed to properly adjust for the hot conditions. I will review the issues that I had during the race and the adjustments that I attempted to make in the hopes that other runners preparing for hot race conditions may learn something from my experience.

Pacing: I started the race wearing my heart rate monitor to help make sure that I didn't get carried away and run too fast. The goal was to keep the heart rate between 140 and 150 with an upper limit of 160. Since hot conditions will cause the heart to beat faster to push blood to the skin to help with cooling, monitoring heart rate helped me maintain an appropriately easy pace even in the hot conditions. My pre-race plan was to take the monitor off at the first drop bag (mile 23) and I stuck to that plan. My average heart rate for that section of the course was 152, so a little bit high, but I am confident that my issues were not primarily caused by starting the race at too fast a pace.

Hydration: I started with two bottles of fluid, one filled with water and one with Ultrafuel (300 calories/16 oz). My plan was to drink at least 1 bottle per hour and I think I averaged about 1.5 bottles per hour. At the first drop bag I picked up a 3rd bottle which I had originally planned not to fill until the big uphill at mile 36, but given the conditions I filled the bottle at mile 23 which was good because I had finished all 3 bottles when I reached the next aid at mile 30. I don't think dehydration played a significant role in my downfall since I was not thirsty when I eventually dropped out, nor did I drink more than usual the evening after dropping out.

Nutrition: My primary fueling plan was to get calories from the Ultrafuel (mixture of maltodextrin and simple sugars) dissolved in water. I had gels and chews as backup. It did not take long for calories to become an issue. The first bottle of Ultrafuel went down easily, but about halfway through the 2nd bottle, my body just rejected it. I probably should have taken this more seriously. At the time I decided to drink only water for 45 minutes in the hopes that with the extra time my stomach would begin processing some of its contents. I then tried a gel which went down fine, but about 5 minutes later my stomach begin hurting so badly I switched to walking for about 10 minutes until the pain subsided somewhat. I never managed to solve the stomach shutdown.

Electrolytes: This may make me a heretic, but I do not normally take salt pills during ultras. The first two times someone talked me into trying them, I immediately felt sick. I have used Nuun occasionally and I had some Nuun with me just in case. About mile 27 when I first started struggling to continue, I tried a bottle of Nuun, but it did not help.

Staying cool: I learned from my friend Bruce a couple of years ago during our first Wonderland Trail attempt to use a bandanna filled with snow or ice or dipped into cold water and then tied around your neck to cool off. I started using a cold bandanna at mile 23 and also put ice in my hat. I think my biggest problem was an elevated core temperature that prevented my stomach from absorbing calories. The one thing I would definitely do differently if I were back in the race was around mile 27 when the noble canyon trail crosses a cool stream. I stopped here and wet down my hat and bandanna a couple of times and rested in the shade trying to get my body temperature down. In retrospect, I can't believe that I didn't just sit or lie in the stream which would have been far more effective at lowering my core temperature and might have brought me back to life.

As it was, I walked from that stream crossing 2 miles downhill to the Pine Creek Aid Station at mile 30 intending to drop. It's funny that now I can't explain or remember why I felt so bad that I would have dropped, but that was definitely my intention. I sat at the aid station packed in ice for 45 minutes until I managed to get down 3-4 small cups of coke and a few pringles. The volunteers at this aid station were the best! When I returned to this aid station after a 5 mile loop, the aid station had turned into a hospital with runners laid out all over the place. I started up the biggest climb of the course, about 2500 feet over the next 7 miles. I was not up to power hiking, but walked at a steady pace except for when I drifted too close to a tree along the right side of the road and was enveloped in a cloud of angry wasps. I was amazed that I only got stung once. About 2/3 of the way up this climb after the route turns right off the road onto some nice single track, I started hyperventilating. I remember thinking that my body had decided panting was the only way to cool down. I was desperate for some shade but this is one of the more exposed sections of the course. Finally a small shrub offered some shade and I crouched down in the shade next to the trail. I don't really remember what happened next very well, but some other runners stopped to check on me. I could hear them, but my field of vision had gone white and I could not see them and I struggled to communicate with them. I finally insisted that I would be OK and that they should continue. I have no idea how long I was there, but eventually my breathing slowed and I decided to try to stand up. I started walking extremely slowly towards the next aid only to find my calves cramping so badly that it was hard to walk. About 2 miles later I encountered a runner coming towards me. The aid station had sent Karl to check and make sure I was OK so we walked the last 2 miles together to the aid station at mile 44. Karl went on to meet his runner at the mile 51 aid station to pace and I dropped.

I did not make any attempt to regroup at the aid station at mile 44. The temperature had definitely cooled by this point and it is certainly possible that if I had managed to get some food down at this aid station that I would have revived, but frankly I was too scared by my collapse on the trail to consider continuing. It is interesting to me to compare my reaction after this DNF to my experience at Coyote Two moon in 2011 when the race was canceled when I was at mile 83. After Coyote Two Moon, I was itching to start another 100 and get the finish experience. After San Diego, I was mainly scared. I never wanted to feel that way in a race again and I am not in any hurry to start another 100.

I did not complete enough of the course to provide any useful information for someone planning to run the race, but I found the following reports the most helpful in my preparations: Rick Gaston's writeups from 2012 and 2010 and Tim Long's writeups from 2012 and 2011.

How to get a skunk to cross the road

I started running Friday night at 8pm. It was about 3 hours later and I was running down the dirt road through Sisar Canyon under the brilliant full moon when I saw two small eyes glowing in the darkness by the side of the road. I yelled and smashed my trekking poles together and whatever it was took off. Emboldened, I ran another 1/4 mile or so down to the aid station and turned around to come back up. Again, in the same spot, the eyes glowed at me. I stopped and tried to see what kind of animal it was. A calico cat! I was surprised it wasn't a wild animal, but relieved to see there was nothing to fear.

Ever since last year's Coyote Two Moon was canceled when I was at mile 84, I wanted a chance to go back and finish the race. This year the SMSA 50K race was held instead, but the race director was kind enough to offer us Coyote Two Moon belt buckles if we came back and did a fat ass version of the 100 miler. After the blizzards of the two previous years, it was slightly disconcerting to have a perfect weather forecast of clear skies and warm temperatures. I finished the climb back up Sisar Canyon and started the long 5 mile stretch of gradually uphill road to the turn down Horn Canyon. Again a pair of eyes glowed by the side of the road. Not another cat I thought, just as my headlight focused on a white stripe. Definitely NOT a cat. Retreat!

I stopped just out of sight of the skunk which was on the uphill side of the dirt road. I briefly thought of running as quickly as possible along the other side of the road and hoping for luck. But I really didn't want to get sprayed. Or even a near miss. And it seemed like the skunk would feel trapped given that it would have to scramble uphill if it wanted to get away. After a brief paralysis, I decided to bombard the skunk with small rocks while yelling like crazy from as far away as possible. It didn't take long for this siege approach to convince the skunk to run for safety across the road and down the hillside. Whew, that was a relief!

Having led with the most amusing anecdote, I am going to switch from a race narrative to a list, in no particular order, of lessons learned. Although this 100 miler was my slowest to date at 28 hours and about 10 minutes, I think it was one of my best efforts and considering the 28,000 feet of climbing, not really all that slow.

Looking up Rose Valley towards the Ridge Line.

1) I have never felt this good the day after a 100 miler before. This could be due to many factors, but I am attributing a significant part of it to the Hoka Bondi B shoes I wore. My feet and legs are still sore, but not nearly as bad as after previous 100 mile events.

2) Heat: I don't do well in the heat which bothered me last year at Zane Grey. I did push a bit to climb up from Gridley Bottom before it got too hot on Saturday, but once the heat settled in I decided to prioritize nutrition and hydration over effort coming up from Cozy Dell. I decided that once the sun went down I would be able to move faster again, but only if I kept up on food and water. So coming up Cozy Dell I stopped in occasional shady spots to stay on my nutrition plan. I think this is the best approach to the heat for me. Trying to push through the heat only seems to result in the inability to take in food/water and subsequent bonking.

Feeling the heat.

3) Crew: I had a crew person for the first time ever. My wife Francine was generous enough to come with me and meet me at all of the accessible spots: miles 43, 57, 70, 77 and 100. It was great having her support, but given how smoothly the weather, nutrition and the race went in general this year, I am thinking that the real value of crew support is when something doesn't go as expected. Unfortunately the race may have been harder for her than me as she had pulled something in her back the day before the race and she ended up in the emergency room the day we returned to Seattle.

4) Nutrition: I managed to stay right on my nutrition plan for almost the entire race. A gu packet on the 1/2 hour and stinger honey chews on the hour. Every 2-3 hours I would switch to a bottle of Perpetuem or Sustained Energy instead of gu/chews. This combination really seemed to work and I did not get the food cravings I normally get although I did eat a couple of mini burritos and a grilled cheese at various aid stations.

Approaching Howard Creek aid station at mile 70.

5) Melt down: For some reason near the end of the race, I decided that I was tired of dealing with gels and thought the adrenaline of coming to the finish would carry me the rest of the way. Half way down the last big descent of Lion Canyon, I completely melted down. I kept having to blow my nose only to finally realize it was a nose bleed. My new gloves were soaked in blood and I stopped moving to try to arrest the bleeding. I even sat down to feel sorry for myself and was just about convinced to walk the rest of the way when I realized that I wanted to get it over with too badly to just walk. Next time I will keep eating all the way until the end.

6) Training: I felt better than ever during this 100 miler, but I put in significantly fewer miles than I had for the two 100 milers I did last year. I will write a more detailed subsequent post on how my training has changed, but I have been doing a significant amount of strength and speed training and reduced overall mileage this year. For example, last year in Dec-Feb heading into Coyote Two Moon, I ran 814 miles. This year I only logged 647 miles in the same 3 months. A lot more 50 mile weeks this year compared to 75 mile weeks last year.

7) Garmin: I love my Garmin 310XT except for the 18 hour battery life. I had been having success working around this limitation by carrying a USB battery and recharging the Garmin during races. This time, the watch turned off when I added the charger so I thought I ended up recording the race in two separate files. However, when I went to upload the data, the primary file with the first 18 hours has disappeared. Definitely time to get the Suunto Ambit with its 50 hour battery life!

The coolest belt buckle in ultrarunning. Worth all of the 184 miles it took to achieve.

Finally, a big thanks to Chris Scott and the gang of volunteers who worked harder than ever to support a much smaller group of runners. Hopefully we will all get the chance to run in the mountains above Ojai again in coming years.

2011 Coyote Two Moon: Omens and portents

The alarm went off at 2am and I jumped out of bed to dress quickly and grab my stuff. I had gone to bed at 8pm and managed to get at least 4 hours of sleep. I had decided not to try to eat anything before the start. I got into the rental car for the 15 minute drive to the start and was cruising between citrus orchards when a bunny jumped out in front of the car at the last minute and with no time to react I winced as I heard it thump under the car. Was this an omen of things to come? I had trained harder for this event than any previous and had even asked to change from the midnight to 3am starting groups--was I going to get run over by the 27,000 feet of climbing?

Coyote two moon bills itself as an event rather than a race. It is certainly the most unique ultramarathon I have participated in due to the mad genius of race director Chris Scott. There are numerous pre-race activities including two dinners, bowling, fun runs, and lunch. One of the most unique characteristics of the race is the staggered start. Instead of starting all or most of the runners together, runners are grouped according to expected finishing times and start in waves ranging from 6pm Friday night and ending with the elites at 10am Saturday morning. The staggered start has several advantages over the traditional format: the trail isn't clogged with runners at the start, you meet the people who are likely to run at your speed prior to the start, you encounter more and more rather than fewer runners as the event progresses, and finally, everyone finishes within a 3-4 hour window on Sunday morning so everyone is together at the end for brunch/awards.

Last year I did the 100K option at Coyote Two Moon as training for my first 100 miler and had a great time so this year I decided to return for the 100 miler. In fact, this was my Christmas present to myself and I won bonus minutes for registering for the event on Christmas Day. There was a blizzard last year and the finish rate was only about 20%. I kept telling people that lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice, so we wouldn't have snow again this year. I don't know if that is just wrong, a bad analogy, or what, but nothing could have turned out to be further from the truth. The forecast prior to the race was rain on both Saturday and Sunday with snow levels down to four or five thousand feet and a National Weather Service Advisory. I had arrived in the area on Tuesday to sunny skies and 70 degree weather so the forecast was hard to believe and by Friday it sounded like the worst of the weather wasn't going to arrive until Sunday after the race was finished.

Finishing the Coyote 100K in 2010 as the sun rises over the remains of the blizzard (Photo by Leslie Gerein)

I think there were 9 of us starting at 3am which gave us 27-31 hours to finish the course in the 6-10am finishing window. Although I really hoped to finish within 30 hours, I was nervous about being in this start group since some of the runners in the group had finished other 100 mile races several hours faster than I. My pacing strategy for this event was to go out a little harder than I had in my previous 100 milers. We walked most of the first 4 mile climb in the darkness and this turned out to be the only time during the race when I could see the moon. I was surprised to meet several groups of people coming down the hill. Apparently there was a whiteout when they climbed Topa Topa, the highest peak of the course at 6300 ft and the combination of snow, wind and low temperatures made them too hypothermic to continue. Apparently the flattened bunny and the frozen runners were not enough of a hint for me to figure out what was coming and we continued climbing.

Map of the route as recorded on my Garmin (the last 3-4 miles were in the car after the race was canceled and I forgot to turn the watch off). Double click on the picture for a better view.

Weather:

To cut to the chase, although the sun rose brightly over Topa Topa as we climbed it in the early morning, the nice weather was not destined to last.

The view from Topa topa looking to the ocean and the Channel Islands.

View overlooking the green Ventura valley.

Topa Topa behind me as I stop at the Topa aid station for the third time.

Shortly after passing Ridge Junction aid station around mile 40, snow flurries started. The flurries didn't last long and I had not really worried about the weather. As I left the Cozy Dell aid station (~mile 65) just after 7pm and turned my headlight on, the rain started. It was so nice to climb out of Cozy Dell without the steep mud slope where I fell and slithered in the mud last year! But the rain became more and more persistent. When I arrived at the top of the ridge, the rain had turned to snow and the whiteout conditions reminded me of last year. I felt a little cold and looked down to realize that my jacket was unzipped because I had been hot climbing up to the ridge top. My fingers had gotten so cold in the few minutes I was on the ridge, that I could not get them to zip the jacket up! I was sure I was going to get pulled from the event at the next aid station (fortunately only two miles away) for being such an idiot and so obviously not prepared for the weather! I was forced to run the entire way including the uphill to stay warm and the wonderful folks at Gridley Top soon had my jacket zipped up and my headlamp batteries changed and I was off to Gridley Bottom. The trip down was uneventful but the rain continued. When I arrived at the aid station I changed into a dry T shirt, put a warm long sleeve shirt on over that, changed into dry socks and then put tights on over my wet shorts. This was more or less what I wore during last year's Coyote Two Moon blizzard and I thought I was set. I started back up for the third and last trip to Gridley Top aid station and made it about halfway when I passed a group of people on their way down who informed me the race was canceled and I needed to turn around and go back down to Gridley Bottom. At first I didn't believe them, but the next group of people got me turned around and headed down. I had made it 84 miles on the course in 22 hours. In retrospect it is funny that I was thinking furiously on the way up of all the reasons why I would be able to make it the 8 miles along the ridge line in the blizzard despite the fact that I was cold at lower elevations and was completely soaked. In particular my gloves were soaked and I don't see how I would have kept them from freezing into a block of ice once I was back in the snow storm. Despite all this, the 100 miler brain fog had me convinced I could run through anything even though in retrospect I don't think I really had the right clothing/gear for the combination of heavy rain alternating with snow and high winds.

After turning around, I had to go about 3 miles back down the mountain to the Gridley Bottom aid station. I felt bad for the people who had made it all the way to the top before being sent back down, but even worse for the volunteers who were stuck on the ridge top for the night. The volunteers at Gridley Bottom quickly got us into cars as they became available and my running adventure was over, 87 miles and 23 hours after it began.

Pacing:

I was worried about my calf going into the race since I had strained it at the Orcas 50K in early February. It held up fine and overall I felt the best ever during a 100 miler. I completed the first 25 miles in 6 hours and the first 50 miles in 12 hours. I knew I wouldn't hold that pace and I think I was on pace to finish in about 26-27 hours if the weather had not turned. I'm not sure the weather slowed me down much except at the aid stations where I definitely needed more time to change into dry/warm clothes. My elevation corrected Garmin showed 26,000 feet of climbing and I still had a a few thousand feet of climbing left, so I am wondering if the course is closer to 28,000 feet than the 27,000 feet quoted on the web site.

Highlights:

Getting to Ojai in time to participate in most of the pre-race activities (bowling, Friday lunch) definitely was a big improvement over arriving Friday evening as I did last year.

Roch Horton leads the group in a sing along at Friday lunch.

The climb up Topa Topa at sunrise with the light glistening on the ice coating everything definitely made the climb worthwhile and convinced me that the 3am start was the right choice (it still would have been dark going up Topa if I had started at midnight).

Magical views from Topa Topa shortly after sunrise.

Seeing Jeff Browning bombing down towards Cozy Dell with Justin Angle in pursuit was amazing. Browning is an animal! I had thought I was going fast enough that the fastest runners wouldn't catch up to me (despite the 7 hour head start I had) but as with so much of my thinking during the race, this idea was wrong and it would not have been long before I was passed by the elites. Last year I learned to trust Chris Scott when he decided not to cancel the race during a blizzard and this year I am sure that he made the right decision to pull the plug. Despite my confidence in the decision, it does leave a feeling of unfinished business. I will be back to Coyote Two Moon, and I may have to sign up for another 100 this summer. Big Horn anyone?

The happy crew at Gridley Top station an hour or two before darkness and the storm hit. So was the bunny flattened by my car a warning for these volunteers? Or a sign that the race was not going to make it?

2010 Cascade Crest 100

My first experience at Cascade Crest was volunteering to work at the Mineral Creek Aid Station at mile 73 in 2008. That was also my first exposure to a 100 mile race. I must say that I didn't leave the event thinking I needed to enter the race. Quite the contrary! People arrived at our aid station pretty beat and they faced an 8 mile uphill climb on gravel roads at that point. Watching them climbing up the road out of the aid station as we told them 'only a marathon left' looked painful. Too painful. The best part of volunteering at the aid station was meeting Rich, Scotty, Linda and Terry all of whom returned to Cascade Crest in 2010--Rich and Scotty volunteering, Linda pacing and Terry racing. I'm still not sure why I decided to try first one and then ultimately two 100 mile races this year. I guess the struggle to finish the Where's Waldo 100km last August convinced me to step my training up a notch.

Cascade Crest is a loop course that starts and ends in Easton, WA just east of Snoqualmie Pass as you can see on the map from my Garmin recording below (we ran the loop in the clockwise direction):


My pre-race thinking about the course was dominated by two words. Sustainable pace. Trying to figure out how to target a sustainable pace in a 100 mile race has been driving me crazy! And then, even if you figure out a reasonable target, how do you try to achieve/maintain it in the event knowing that your pace will vary all over the place due to mountain climbs, downhills, technical terrain, aid stations, etc? Now that I have been recording and logging my runs for over a year using Garmin devices, I decided to review some of the data to try to look at "sustainable" paces.

Here are the average paces I ran in a variety of races over the last year:

Where's Waldo 100km (2009): 14 min/mile (~10K vertical)
Coyote 2 moon 100km (2010): 15:46 min/mile (~19K vertical)
Massanutten 100 miler (2010): 16:30 min/mile (~16K vertical)
White River 50 miler (2010): 11: 55 min/mile (~9K vertical)

It was clear at White River that the pace I ran was not sustainable for the entire 50 miles, much less longer. So looking these data over it seemed reasonable to pick a target pace of 15-16 min/mile for Cascade Crest. That still left me with the problem of how to decide during the race if I was on track or not. Unfortunately I still don't have an answer for that. The initial section of the race has two substantial climbs, so I decided to hike these climbs without attempting any uphill running and then see how I felt. You can see the elevation profile for the beginning of the course below:


The weather for the race turned out to be pretty much perfect. Highs around 60 and lows around 40. The cool temperatures made some of the exposed climbs much nicer than they sometimes are. Here is a picture of me at the starting line about an hour before the start. Unlike most 100s, this one starts at the highly civilized hour of 10am! And they even feed you pancakes before you start. Charlie (the race director) gave an excellent pre-race briefing recognizing all the people who helped put the race on and reassuring all the runners that we were there to run in a supported event. If it didn't turn out to be our day, we should stop rather than push too hard. My favorite line was "by the time you need course markings, you will know what they look like". That probably saved 20 minutes compared to the typical detailed explanation of the course that you immediately forget anyway!


We started off on a couple of miles of dirt roads leading to the first climb up Goat's Peak. You can see where we were headed below--Goat's Peak is the mountain with the rock formations at the top:

After hiking for an hour or so up the narrow switchbacks leading to Goat's Peak, we were rewarded with gorgeous views like the one below:

By the end of the race, we had to make it to the far side of the big lake and then loop back along the mountain ridges on the other side. I had hiked up most of Goat's Peak chatting with BJ and we stayed together through Cole's Butte before I lost him somewhere on the way to Blowout Mountain. Shortly after Blowout Mountain, we turned onto the Pacific Crest trail (PCT) which we would run on for the next 30 miles. What sweet single track! On a clear day, there would be some nice views of my favorite mountain (Rainier), but during the race it was playing hide and seek behind the clouds. Below is a typical trail view from this section:

I made it to Stampede Pass (mile 33) and my first drop bag around 5:15pm and took a quick break to change socks due to a slight hot spot on my left heel. I picked up my headlamp and a jacket for the coming nightfall and expected cool temperatures. So far everything had been going extremely well--I was eating regularly every 30 minutes or so and staying well hydrated with water and Nuun. I continued on the PCT and eventually climbed up a wall to arrive at Mirror Lake at sunset. Despite a lot of tents/campers, the sunset over the lake was a beautiful way to end the day. I turned on my headlamp around 8:15pm just after I had passed the lake.


My all time favorite food at an aid station came next. I had never heard of pirogi before and have to admit to some hesitation when the crew at the Olallie Meadows aid station offered some. They are a homemade pasta or dumpling with (in this case) a potato filling. Piping hot and served with a cool yogurt sauce on the side, they were a miracle. I had two helpings and then set off for one of the nastier sections of the course. There was a climb up gravel roads to the top of one of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas at which point the nearly full moon emerged above the mountains across I-90 and made for a beautiful moment to set off bushwhacking down one of the ski runs which was extremely steep with very poor footing. Fortunately we had been forewarned about this section and I just took my time and tried (successfully) not to add to my record number of face plants for the season. After a short road section to cross the highway, I arrived at Hyak aid station (mile 53) about 11 pm. Scotty and Rich were at Hyak and it was great to get their encouragement and be waited on (that was some good hot chocolate Rich!) while changing into a warmer shirt and picking up my gloves and re-stocking gels/food from my drop bag. I had done the first 53 miles in 13 hours for a pace of 14.7 min/mile which was just slightly faster than my goal of 15-16 min/mile.

The next section of the course was probably one of the faster ones for me as it was mostly dirt roads with a moderate uphill for 5-6 miles followed by 6 miles of fast dirt road downhill. I just felt like I was floating down the hill and apparently passed some people I knew without realizing/acknowledging it (sorry Matthew!) I quickly paid the price for a 'easy' section when I started on the next section which is also known as the 'Trail from Hell'. I have to admit I had assumed the difficulties of this section were exaggerated. Well I can now say for certain that they are not exaggerated and in fact for me, are probably understated. I did not just walk all of this section. I literally inched along the route. I can't call it a trail because it wasn't. It started as a bushwhack, but even after there was supposed to be a trail, it was so narrow, washed out, and covered with fallen logs that I can't call it a trail. I mentally fell apart on this section and was passed repeatedly by other runners--all of whom were walking. It definitely didn't help that the course guide said to go 4.6 miles and then turn right onto a real trail. In reality (at least Garmin reality), it was 7 miles until the junction with a real trail. I took advantage of this slow section to use a neat trick that Brandon clued me into--I had brought along a Duracell USB battery which allowed me to re-charge my Garmin 310XT while it was recording the route, thus enabling me to record the entire 100 miler, rather than just the first 18 hours or so that a full charge would cover.

About halfway through the Trail from Hell came one of the harder tests of the course for me. I have to admit that I have a significant case of acrophobia. I discovered this as an adult when I tried to go up the ladder to the roof over the 2nd floor of our house. I made it to the 1st floor roof at which point I became catatonic and could not go up or down for over half an hour. I learned that the acrophobia wasn't limited to ladders when visiting Moran State park on Orcas Island and foolishly trying to walk across a fallen log. I made it halfway across before lying down in the middle as my friends tried to coax me back. Laying in wait for me in my own personal Trail from Hell was a deep gorge with a sheer rock wall on the far side. The route was clearly marked to cross by walking over a conveniently placed fallen log. I'm sure to most people this was perfectly reasonable, but to me this seemed too much to ask. I scouted around on both sides of the log and thought I could cross the gorge/creek, but couldn't see a way to climb up the wall on the far side. I seemed to be stuck with walking across the log. I thought about sitting down and essentially crawling over but there was a large protrusion 2/3 of the way across where a branch had been that was going to be harder to crawl over than walk. I knew that the more hesitant I was in walking across it, the more likely that I was to slip, but rational thought didn't really help. In much less time than it took to prepare to do it, or than to write about it, I walked over and continued on the Trail from Hell.

I had thought that I would reach the Mineral Creek aid station (mile 73) with dread of the 8 mile uphill gravel road section that awaited, but after clambering over and through 7 miles of fallen logs and washed out 'trail', the prospect of smooth gravel road seemed positively delightful! After a quick refueling at the aid station, I headed up. The road was not as steep as I remembered, and after some bouts of sleepiness, I started to alternate running with the walking to stay awake. Sooner than it seemed possible, the moon began to glow much more brightly and before long the sun was coming up. This definitely gave me a new boost of energy and it was a delight to reach the No Name Ridge aid station and see Laura and her crew. I think this is the aid station where they had peach slices which were so ripe and juicy I just couldn't stop eating them. I felt bad for the volunteers here who had clearly frozen in the night as you could still see frost scattered all around the aid station. Next up was a section of repeated steep climbs as you can see in the elevation profile below:

The 5 small peaks at the top don't look that bad on the elevation profile, but believe me they don't call them the cardiac needles for nothing! This section of trail was beautiful and is supposed to have some of the best views along the course, but there was significant fog Sunday morning. Watching the views peep in and out of the fog was made for pretty scenery, but not so much for pictures. I took one shot near sunrise:

The food treat for me upon reaching the French Cabin aid station was bacon. Yum! They say everything goes better with bacon, but in this case the bacon alone was perfect. One more short climb and then it was downhill/flat for the remaining 10 or so miles. The downhill was more technical than I had hoped so I couldn't make particularly good time on this section but I was still running. I made a brief stop at Silver Spring aid station after telling them how happy I was to see them (they were the LAST aid station), and then it was 5 more miles of flat dirt/paved road to the finish. At some point on the dirt road I looked at my watch and realized it might be possible to finish in 25 hours. Why didn't I check this sooner? It was amazing how much motivation this gave me and I went from trotting along at 10-11 min/mile pace to running the last two miles in 8:14 and 7:37 respectively. I finally crossed the line in 25 hours and 37 seconds. Close enough to call it 25 hours, right? I did the final 47 miles in an average pace of 15.3 min/mile compared to 14.7 min/mile for the first 53 miles. So I still don't know how, but I managed to maintain a fairly even pace for the entire course. Rich and Scott were there to congratulate me at the finish and Francine arrived shortly thereafter to take care of me and get me home safely. I was all smiles at the finish as you can see in the photos below:



Finish line photos by Scott Railton. From left to right: with Rich, moments after finishing at the finish line, and soaking my feet in cold water.

Yes, I really ran all night for a belt buckle. I am so skinny now I really need one!