It's a metaphor, fool.

I read something once that discussed, evolutionarily, why we run (why we do any activity of heavy exertion or focus, really), basing it on an inherent need to find strife and struggle in our modern, mundane, first world. Basically, life is too easy so we invent problems...just so we can solve the problems we invented.

Running, for most of us, is a constant.  I've you've been running regularly for long enough--be it months or years--eventually the act becomes habit. I've never felt the "runner's high," but I have felt newfound peace after a day spent alone in the woods with only my thoughts to keep my company. I love, I cherish ultrarunning because even now, 39 races later, I can find new meaning in familiar places. Running is a metaphor for life, and the converse is true as well. Any run can apply to this, but some do so better than others.

I signed up for Bighorn 50 in January and told a few friends even that day that I planned to win. I've never won anything before, but after a frustrating finale to running at the hypothermic Bear 100 in 2016 and for the first time since I trained for Western States in 2014, I wanted a real goal that required effort to succeed. I toyed with the idea of aiming for the record, though thankfully conditions on race day did not allow any even feigned attempt at that mark, as I think trying for it would have cost me the win.

Anyway, let's get back to the metaphor. Prior to my very first ultra, and long before we became good friends, the venerable Eric Grossman gave me the most trite yet sage wisdom: it doesn't always get worse. The light at the end of the tunnel, the rainbow after the storm, whatever you will; it doesn't always get worse. I camped at the 50 mile start line Friday night with my friend Chrissy, who was also running the 50 mile, so as to see several friends turn around there in the 100 mile race that started that morning and to avoid an abhorrent 1:45 wake-up call for the bus to the start line. On Friday, tracing our way westward along the course, the weather was stellar: blue skies and a little cool (55-60 degrees at Dry Fork compared to 85+ last year). However, as if summoned, as we turned off the highway toward the Jaws trailhead for the night, the rain began. It rained, and it rained, and then it eased off slightly for 20 minutes with a brief lightening of the cloud hues to the west, teasing us, and then it rained some more. It rained as the lead men came through and stayed nearly 30 minutes in the aid station fighting hypothermia, it rained as the only friend I managed to see before my bedtime, Colleen, came in cold but casual halfway through her first hundred. It rained as we broke down our pop tent. It was not raining when we woke up at 4 am for race morning, but by 4:45, the rain had begun again. By the time we stood at the parking lot edge listening to the race director announce "these are [sigh] the worse trail conditions we've seen in the 25 years of the race," sleet was falling.
My friend Leonard, who had paced a friend up in the night to drive my car back to town after we started, told me that afternoon he woke up at 7:30 am to a fresh 3 inches of snow on the car. It doesn't always get worse. 

The director said the magic words and we started running down the road into unknown levels of mud. A group of three of us settled in together as we transitioned to the initial notoriously boggy singletrack that crests the short climb from Jaws. For that first mile, the bogs felt familiar. "It's this muddy every year" I thought. Then we crested the short climb and began the 16 miles of descent to Footbridge. I glanced up searching for a view and fell. Then I fell again. I reache to change songs on my iPod and fell. I shot a glance to gauge my distance to the second aid station and fell. That time I slide a couple feet face first, somehow unhooking the safety pins of my bib and leaving it in the mud. After taking the time to repin my now illegible number, I fought with all my might to stay upright two more miles just to misstep and go down again. Finally I wandered off trail to fertilize some trees and collect myself. I stays there until I had calmed down; being this frustrated 8 miles into 50 could not bode well. It doesn't always get worse. If anyone feels the need to peruse my Strava data, you can actually see the succinct shift from mile nine to mile ten. From then to Footbridge at mile 18, I spent my energy on control, restriction. Staying comfortable and, more importantly, upright. A day later, my arms and core are just as sore and tender as my legs from the work staying upright. Seeing Julia Combs nearly at the aid station was a breath of fresh air and I think our hug was what we both needed then. Seeing Crewmaster Rush Combs at Footbridge, shouting my name through the toothbrush wedged in his mouth, was a much needed relief. The coke he filled my bottle with was even better.

The climb from footbridge to the Bear Camp aid station is notorious at 2,300 feet of gain in about four miles. Last year, at the torrential Rut 50k, I discovered after a certain threshold of muddiness, running provides more purchase than hiking. In a hiking gait, you find yourself precariously tiptoeing upward, placing far too little weight on each footfall. Running by definition places all your weight onto every footfall. Though much more energy intensive, the trade-off is there to run instead of hike if you do not mind the risk of burning out the engine. And, if the fitness is there, the engine only requires enough gasoline to keep burning. I bumped up my food consumption on the climb and afterward to keep the fire going, filling my bottle with coke at every aid station and eating whatever looked best off the table (mostly cheez-its and bacon), being sure to take in a cup or two of caloried fluid before leaving any aid station. I passed who I found of after the race to be Ryan Burch (in the early morning miles, I was paying too much attention failing to stay upright to have any idea who was around me) before both Bear Camp and Cow Camp aid stations only to see him ahead of me not long after leaving, having passed me as I stood around stuffing my face.

The start times for the four Bighorn races (100M, 52M, 32M, 18M) are set up so that runners finish in the park in Dayton, Wyoming throughout the day Saturday. This means that, starting at the furthest away point, we spent the day catching up to the tail end of the other three races. It also meant that I did not know for certain that I was leading (or that I had won) until I checked the results thirty minutes after finishing. I passed people of various distances with obscured bib numbers, many of whom were running very well, and I did not know if they were in my race or not. At Dry Fork, with 18 miles remaining, enough people told me I was the first 50 miler there that I had confidence in the idea, but then several people running around my pace up the road from the aid station that I was again uncertain and knew not to ease up. Plus, somehow, thankfully, the mud significantly eased after Dry Fork, allowing for some actual running. I had told myself leading up to the race, and reminded myself on the slight descent into Upper Sheep Gulch, that if I was leading or even within striking distance when I began the ridiculous 3,500 foot descent to the finish line, I could actually win the damn thing. I trust my ability to beat my quads into submission late in a race; that is one skill I have at very least. I ran down the road to town (a magical road that seems to trend uphill even though it traces a river downstream) as best I could into a solid headwind, and crossed the finish line relieved. I had atually done the thing. I set a goal, made a plan, and even with the universe throwing a wrench into everything, I got it done. Scrolling through results, this is my slowest 50 mile time since 2012 when Mountain Masochist had two feet of wet snow on course, and yet it's the first time I've won.

Somewhere in the narrative I might have lost the metaphor. Sometimes life knocks you down. Sometimes you fall in the mud. Sometimes you fall again and cut yourself, and then fall again to get mud in the wound, but you are not sure if you fell in mud or cow shit, and you feel bad enough that you don't really care which. But if you put your head down and trudge forward, focusing on the little things and taking care of yourself, doing your best to simply stay upright, it won't always get worse. Doing your best ever is irrelevant if your best on the day is what you need. The clouds clear, the sun comes out, and you just keep running.

HUGE thanks to Salomon for providing me with shoes (Sense 6 Softground) that did their best to help in the worst mud I've ever run through and with shorts that held all my goodies through the day.

Bighorn 100 Race Report--These Will Never Get Shorter, Sorry.

Grindstone 2012—the last time a hundred mile race that I attempted went well. I suffered to a finish at Cruel Jewel in 2013 aided only by the generous cut-off there, and at Western States last year I hobbled along for 70 miles to what—while still a decent time—was not what I had either hoped or was trained up for.  So, while Bighorn this year was not without hiccups—it is a hundred miles after all—it is what I’d call a very well executed run and, individually, my best executed in a long time. After feeling stagnant and a bit without direction for the past year with my running I feel like I’m back finally.

Something felt right about this weekend—start to finish; an intangible feeling of just being at ease and comfortable.  A leisurely drive up to Sheridan, Wyoming on Thursday led into a lazy evening with friends—over thirty of us were sharing two houses for the weekend—and I woke up Friday morning later than I would have on any other Friday after a solid nine hours of sleep. 

The only real issue for the entire weekend reared its head early into running on Thursday.  The hundred at Bighorn starts at 11 a.m., opening with a long climb up a canyon into the oppressive mid-June heat.  This year was hot, the opposite of all weather beta I’d been warned of for Bighorn (mainly to be prepared for true cold at night)—someone told me Saturday that the temperature broke 100 in the canyons and, confusingly for the Rockies, there was humidity along with the heat. Trotting up the first climb that rose nearly 3400 feet at what, in the dense heat, was a frustratingly runnable climb that I was not running, I actually had trouble breathing, feeling similar to asthma though I have never suffered from asthma. I assumed, foolishly, that the heat would mellow as we made the ridgeline well above 7000 feet. It did not.  The heat followed us through the day onto the north side of the broad Bighorn mountain range.

I ran for a couple hours through this section with my bro Ryan Lassen, and we joked about seeing someone sitting on the edge of the trail, cooked and nauseas, at only mile 15. In true karmic timing, for almost two hours starting at mile 18, I puked. I puked up basically anything and everything; even swigs of water came up within minutes.  Thankfully, even though I was concerned, my only ‘DNF’ thoughts came in the form of “well if I pee blood I’m calling it.” The seething fears of inability never crept in. Thankfully after crawling barely six flat miles in that whole time I managed to force down a Zantac, and in about thirty more minutes I felt famished.  I cruised down the steep, technical descent to the Footbridge aid station at mile 30 running on fumes but confused as to why all the people I saw on the descent were walking down it. At footbridge, well over my split projections, my good friend Rush, there hanging out until his runner made it back from the turnaround, quickly put me back together with a pile of potatoes and watermelon—I was likely much easier to handle than our friend Tim who, running his first hundred miler here, immediately upon entering the aid station passed out and puked on himself like a scene from Pulp Fiction.

Three RMR—Tim, John Knotts, and Neeraj—left that aid as I was wrapping up my dinner of sorts and still had a few minutes of prep before I would follow. This was actually a nice progression for me as I enjoy chasing people—it is great motivation—and I was coming around from my heat-induced nausea, ready to do some real running into the long eighteen mile climb up to the turnaround at Jaws.  I worked up that climb methodically, not pushing but maintaining a solid cadence and effort, stuffing my face as I went. I managed to catch back up to several RMR at the aid station prior Jaws whom I had not expected to see until much later in the race—this provided a nice boost for the frustratingly slow last few flatter miles into the turnaround at mile 48.

At the turnaround, Keely and Elena got to work cementing themselves into possibly the best crew I’ve had. Elena made several trips to the food table, fulfilling my various whimsical requests while Keely got to work cleaning my feet and replacing my shoes and socks, refusing to actually let me do it myself so I could focus on eating and getting out the door. Planning for actually appropriate Bighorn weather, I donned a long-sleeve shirt and glove, packed my fantastic Nike Terra Kiger jacket into my pack, and headed out into the night with Keely in-tow.  I lost the gloves in the first mile and slid my sleeves up not long after, wishing I was running sans-pack so I could go shirtless as the temperature felt warmer in the long, dark downhill than it did in the previous dusk-lit climb.

Keely and I—though looking back I am disappointed in the actual splits for the initial lengthy downhill—made nice work of our time together all the way to Dry Fork (Mile 83).  Most of the time I left headphones off and just enjoyed the conversation with one of my best friends, cruising along and picking off people and ticking off miles as we went. I ate well at the Footbridge aid station in preparation for the initial steep, then gradual uphill trend of the next 16 miles.  This aid station seemed littered with dejected athletes seeking out whatever magic might keep them moving forward. Bad Juju. We ate and bolted up the steep climb toward the next aid station—2000 feet in 3.5 miles; which, while standard on a usual daily run, is truly a cold bitch at mile 66.  This is where the headphones came back. My ipod was on point for the majority of its choices through Bighorn and gave me a solid mix of Dead Kennedys, Blink-182, and Kap Slap to power up the climb without any thought to how hard I was likely working. I knew the entire race leading up to this point that, no matter how I felt at this point, this climb would be hard. So, since I felt good, I decided to overwork and get it done with as quickly as possible. 

Out of the aid station following that climb, We trotted along again, elated at how smoothly that had gone and reveling in the early morning dawn rising up from the long canyon as we traced our way toward Dry Fork.  Only two hiccups arose through the entire section with Keely—one after another.  At the next to last true aid station before Dry Fork, I accepted some soup that ended up being entirely too saturated and came right back up not even five minutes after leaving the aid station.  Then, we somehow blew right past the (fantastic) spring that counted as the next aid station. No big matter, just a little added incentive to move faster (or, as is the case in a 100 miler, less slow).

Dry Fork was the last true stop of the race for me.  Changing into some fresh Nike Lunaracers I was truly smelling the barn. [Editors note: ‘barn’ initially read ‘bar’ as a typo. Take your pick.] I left everything behind here aside from a single Simple Hydration bottle filled with rocket fuel (slightly diluted Mountain Dew—my fuel for the remainder of the race). Elena and I charged out at a steady clip, keenly aware of the meager 3:03 remaining for 18 miles to slip under 24 hours.  I have to say: road flats feel fan-fucking-tastic during the tail end of a 100, particularly on forgiving dirt roads. The final descent of this went slower than I had hoped, feeling much, much, much steeper on the return descent than as the opening climb a day prior. I had no quad issues, but I just felt very uncomfortable at my fatigue level attempting to lean into the descent…at all.

Elena and I hit the road with 35 minutes left to run the five final road miles and finish under 24 hours and I decided I wanted it—a laughable thought in hindsight; we surged down the road as hard as I could muster (which, looking back, was only about 7:30/mile).  Fairly quickly, Elena decided she didn’t feel like running that pace (I’m not counting this as having dropped her) and I was running alone. I passed Silke and her entourage en-route to a killer first female finish with about 3.5 miles to go, and met Keely coming to meet me from the finish with about 2.5 miles to go. Meeting her forced me to accept that sub-24 hours was unreasonable and I settled into a lazy walk toward the finish line, only jogging from time to time as the last person I had passed on the road came close to catching back up to me.  We trotted across the finish line with 24:11 on the clock—only 18 minutes from my 100-mile PR and performed on a much harder course.

Looking back, I am so pleased with finally being able to execute a race well, regardless of where the times fell in comparison to my initial time goals. I am publishing this report so late as I wanted time to muse on the race and let my true feelings regarding my run simmer over the subsequent weeks. This race gave my some excitement to finally get back to work and find my racing legs again.  There are a couple races in the fall that have piqued my interest.

Gear:

Simple Hydration Bottles

Ultimate Direction Jurek Pack

RMR Pearl Izumi Singlet (hey Patagucci, make some green singlets please)

Patagonia Strider Pro Shorts (tried and true, never going back)

Random socks

2 different pairs of La Sportiva Bushidos (due to mud) and Nike Lunaracers

Gas Station American Flag Cap