2003 Wasatch Front
100 Miler Race Report
First things first. I’ll get to the race itself in a bit, but before I do that, I owe so much to so many people that they need to be thanked right up front.
My wife has not only tolerated but encouraged me in my ultra endeavors over the years. A year ago, when I was coming off a serious skiing injury and surgery, and I was feeling a bit unhappy about how my ultrarunning was going, she suggested that I consider trying a coach, despite the obvious cost in time and dollars. She supports me tremendously in a sport that seems amazingly selfish and trivial most of the time and I could never thank her enough. My children are my biggest fans and supporters, despite the time that my running takes away from our family. I’m looking forward to spending more time with them as I recover from Wasatch.
My race crew included my wife, my dad, two friends from
Lastly, Kevin Setnes deserves a lot of credit. In August of 2002, he agreed to coach an out of shape overweight runner coming off ACL repair surgery. I had an ambitious goal given where I was, but Kevin put a plan together for me. There were successes and setbacks along the way, but as Wasatch approached, it became clear to me that I was in the best ultra shape of my life. It was a good thing, because I was going to need all of that conditioning to get through this race. Hiring Kevin as a coach was a perfect fit for me and I’m looking forward to working with him through future seasons.
Background
In June, while I vacationed in
In July, Jeff stayed at my house before the VT100. I crewed for him and another friend of ours, a runner I’d been planning to pace originally. I was disappointed to only watch, but I was allowed to start running in a few days, and that milestone made me feel better.
In November, I decided to make a desperate attempt at re-qualifying for Western States. I picked a trail 50 miler that had a concurrent marathon. My wife had wanted to run a marathon this year because of her recent 40th birthday. We did our long runs together and picked this race because it was on a 12.5 mile loop. I could run with her for most of her race and then continue to 50 miles. In the middle of my 3rd lap, it became obvious that I wasn’t going to re-qualify for the WS lottery. My plan had been to quit the race if this goal couldn’t be met. But, I felt good and continued to a comfortable and fun finish. Six months after major knee surgery, I’d run a comfortable 50 miler.
The 2003 Season
So, Kevin and needed to start planning my 2003 season. I wanted a tough test, something to force me
to continue working hard in my rehab. We
came up with a season that included only 3 races, one of which would be run at
an easy effort. The goal was to shoot
for a PR at American River 50 in April, run
I mailed my application for Wasatch to a friend in
Winter was tough. I
skied 50 days while trying to execute a tough training plan. My long runs were usually done on Friday
mornings on a treadmill. I’d often get
up at
By April, I was feeling pretty good about my conditioning
for AR50. I’d lost 20 lbs. since last
summer, going from 205 to 185. I’m still
not a skinny guy and my road PRs were all run at 170 lbs. or so, but it was
progress. I went to AR50, confident that
I was in about
Ski season was now over, but I needed some recovery from AR50. I took it easy in April and resumed my normal training schedule in May. In early May, I ran 31 miles at a six hour event. I’d run 35 miles here two years earlier, but I was pushing that day vs. doing a training run. Still, I was a little bit disappointed in my miles. Was I really getting fitter or not?
My mileage started to increase and in mid-June, I did a very
short taper in
With
In August, the training expanded to include tempo and
fartlek work, while still maintaining a relatively high volume. I was adapting well to the stresses. I was clearly in the best ultra shape of my
life. On August 26th, I left
for two weeks in
Acclimation
I arrived on a Wednesday night in
I worked for a few days mid-week, using my laptop to connect to my office back in VT. In reality, I was working to try to distract myself from the coming run. Despite all of my work, I was intimidated by what I was about to try. I was in the best ultra shape of my life, but I was going to tackle the hardest event I’d ever tried. Did I even belong here?
Three weeks before Wasatch, I’d done a 32 miler with some
other
The Race
Two of my pacers, Janet and Marty, live in
Figure 1 Dinner the night before with most of my crew. I'm the Jerry Garcia-wannabe
On Saturday morning, the alarm went off way too early. Suddenly, it was
My race plan was pretty simple. I wanted to finish. But, I also wanted to run sub-34. I thought that if everything went possible, I might run close to 32, but that would take a perfect day. I was hopeful that I could do the entire race without worrying about the 36 hour time limit.
All year long, I’d been tweaking my in-race food supplies. I’d found that Gu seems to be the best source for me, usually supplemented by whatever aid station food I can eat. I brought about 80 packets of Gu to the race, mostly banana flavor because my stomach doesn’t seem to like caffeine much these days. I had some chocolate Gu as well, assuming that eventually the need for caffeine might take precedence over my stomach.
The bus pulled into the parking lot at the start, we got out, and a few minutes later we were off.
Start to
Based on my projections of a finishing time of 32:30 to 36:00, I’d given my crew a set of times to expect me at each aid major aid station. My goal for this first section (18.8 miles) was five hours. I started very slowly, not wanting to get forced into too fast a pace as we headed up our first major climb three miles into the race. Despite my larger than average size (5-9, 185), I’m a relatively strong climber and not as good on the downhills. I’ve been more tentative than ever on downhills since my knee surgery.
My slow early pace was fine, but regretfully, I was stuck behind many slow climbers as we started the big climb towards Chinscraper. I tried to be patient, but I did spurt past a few people. Suddenly, we were at Chinscraper and the end of our first big ascent. I was there in 3 hours, just as I’d expected. The next section of trail was tough for me. It was a tiny path cut into the side of a hill, barely there and canted a bit, making the footing awkward at times. But, I was still feeling fresh and making good time.
Because the race has no water until mile 14 and no other aid
until
The next 20 miles had an amazing amount of variety. We started with some Jeep roads that were being used by ATVs, hunters in trucks, and dirt bike riders. After a couple miles of this, we made a right turn to what turned out to be my least favorite part of the course. We descended a tight trail that was barely there for a long time, heading to a stream bed. We finally crossed the stream and headed back up. And up. And up. The ups were steep and the trail was dusty. I was listening to the Dead on my MP3 player through here when I suddenly heard some odd noises. I looked up and there were sheep everywhere. I saw the remains of one sheep that had apparently been dinner for a carnivore of some sort. I couldn’t help wondering whether it might have been another runner, but the corpse was way too old.
We finally came up to a Jeep road at the Bountiful B aid station, approximately mile 24. I grabbed some food and headed out and was surprised to see a runner returning to the aid station. It seemed so early to be done for the day. Shortly after this aid station, I hooked up with a few other runners and we talked for hours, it seemed. Marty was a urologist from NY and because he was 60, he had a pacer with him already. I’ve forgotten the other runners’ names in the blur of such a long event. We talked about music, ranging from Ska to the Dead and time passed quickly. We were at the Sesssions Lift-Off aid station soon, mile 28, and I was feeling great.
Here, someone asked me if I was from
To this point, the day had been cloudy and cool, but the sun
was starting to show. Chris talked about
being a second-half runner and seemed to be running strongly. I backed off and continued alone. At the next aid station, Swallow Rocks (just
short of mile 35), I found my favorite aid station food of the first half of
the race – Popsicles! Marty was just
about to leave the aid station when I told him about the cooler full of pops,
so he grabbed one as well. I took half a
ham sandwich with my Popsicle and started walking. The next few miles were very exposed to the
sun and the growing heat. Just as I was
feeling tired and in need of a break, we started down an amazing set of
runnable switchbacks to the
Figure 2 Big Mountain Aid Station. My first pacer, Marty, is on the right.
Big Mountain to
Lamb’s Canyon
Just past the aid station, I
saw Ammon McNeely walking towards me. He
is a speed climber and though we’d never met, I introduced myself. I was sure we had some common acquaintances,
most likely
Figure 3 Pushing hard past
By the time we topped out on
Figure 4 Bald Mountain
Through all of this, Marty had been great company. He and I have known each other as e-mail acquaintances for years, but except for one group dinner two years ago, we’d never really spent any time together. A run the previous Sunday had shown that we had more in common than we realized and he was a great person to talk to on just about any subject. At one point, we were discussing an old German economist/sociologist named Max Weber and his theories on capitalism, the concepts of predestination and double-predestination, and religion. With a 36 hour time limit, the conversation can drift just about anywhere. About the time we had this conversation, we hit a notorious descent on the course that is steep and covered with loose rocks. Luckily, it was short and not as tough as I’d expected. Regretfully, it was a meager warm-up for what awaited me in the last 15 miles of the race, but I still knew nothing about that.
At mile 47, we hit the
Figure 5 Almost to the halfway mark
I was there in
I was about 40 minutes ahead of my estimated arrival time for this aid station, despite feeling bad.
Figure 6 Lamb's Canyon Aid station. It wasn't really dark yet. My next pacer is Janet, wearing the white cap. Why is everyone smiling but me?
Lamb’s Canyon to
Big Water
I told my assembled crew and new pacer Janet about my nausea. But, I managed to get down some soup and some Sprite, I took some Tums, switched my bladder over to PowerAde for calories that water couldn’t provide, grabbed some warm clothes, and we hit the road. There was a fire in Lamb’s Canyon and I remember thinking that it was too bad they hadn’t shut down the race so that I could have gone home with no shame and gotten a good night’s sleep. The DNF demons were really dancing now and it was about to get worse. A mile or so up the canyon, we left the road for a climb that would be my low point of the race. I don’t know the exact dimensions of the climb, but it was long and steep. I would guess 2 miles and 2000 vertical feet but it probably wasn’t that bad.
I was sure I was going to throw up. At one point I told Janet that it was
inevitable that I would throw up, but I hoped to hold it off for a while. I was still able to get down some GU and PowerAde,
so I focused on that. I knew that I
needed calories so that I could keep moving.
At one point, while I was bent over trying not to throw up, Janet
commented on my calves. I think she used
the word awesome. I replied that my
calves looked like that because I made them carry me up mountains all the time
in training. That reminded me of how
much work I’d done to get this far and how hard it would be to give up. I pushed on.
Eventually, the summit came at about mile 57. The descent was slow but I felt better with
every step I went down. Janet and I
talked about college sports and about my first trip to
Somehow, I thought of the word infinite while walking up this canyon. This reminded of a song by They Might Be Giants called Birdhouse in Your Soul. One of the lyrics in that song goes like this:
My story's infinite
Like the Longines Symphonette it doesn't rest
Of course, in my head, it went “This canyon’s infinite…”.
The Upper Big Water aid station was fast approaching, just short of mile 62. This was a key junction for me. If I left this aid station, I was committing myself in many ways. We would have a 13 mile stretch to the next crew access point. At mile 75, my final pacer was waiting for me. He’d run the slam last year and I’d deliberately picked him to go last because he would kick my ass to make me finish. If I left Upper Big Water, I’d be committed to getting to Jeff and if I got to him, I’d have to finish. I still felt terrible and my stomach wanted me to quit. Of course, I knew that there was no real reason to quit, just weakness in my mind.
I arrived at the aid station at
Big Water to
It had taken us more than three hours to get to the aid
station, a distance of only 8.5 miles.
But, I knew it had been a tough stretch for me and I knew the next climb
was easier. I’d run it a week earlier
with Janet. So, I changed into tights,
grabbed a new flashlight, put on my trail shoes, grabbed my gloves, ate what I
could and we hit the trail. This next
session had much easier trail than the last section and the graded switchbacks
felt much better. I had a couple tough
spots, including once when I tried to take two pills at once. I had to spit them out and take them
separately. But, we made good progress
up the hill. Suddenly Janet announced
that we were almost to
We started down the steep descent towards Blunder
Junction. This had been an easy running
descent a week before, but not tonight.
I walked most of it. Then, we hit
the junction, going left, and headed up towards
This was the first aid station where I saw the zombies. Late in every ultra, there are people hanging out in aid stations, lifeless. Some of them may have quit, others may be thinking about it, but they’re mostly motionless, seemingly waiting for some divine intervention to save them from a fate they’ve chosen willingly. I sat down and had some soup and grapes while Janet re-filled my hydration vest. I can’t say enough about how Janet took care of me at each aid station, having me rest for a few minutes while she got me everything I needed. Later in the race, I gave Jeff a hard time for not babying me the way that Janet did.
At this aid station, I was able to eat my best solid food in
a long time. I even grabbed a few potato
chips on the way out and choked them down.
From here, it was a long climb up to a ridgeline and then a long
traverse to the Scott’s
The section seemed longer than I’d hoped and wasn’t as downhill as I assumed it should be. Eventually, the trail opened up to a rocky road, which eventually gave way to a paved road down Guardsman’s Pass. At the bottom of the road, we did one quick climb and we were heading into the ski area. We met Rick Gates, a Wasatch legend and a friend of a friend of mine back east. My friend Joe had told me to say hello to another runner in the race, but not Rick. Rick was not happy that his “friend” had forgotten about him.
And then, we were there.
My primary timing goal for the first portion of the race had been to get
to
I stepped into the lodge and onto the scale. Up six pounds? I had more clothes on now than at the start,
but not that much more. Luckily, no one
was concerned about my weight being up.
I headed towards the bathroom and looked around the room on my way. The zombies were dozing all over the
place. The room was warm and inviting
and a storm was brewing outside. But, it
never even occurred to me to take a break.
I loved the toothbrushes in the bathroom. They were individually packaged and already
had toothpaste. All I had to do was wet
the toothbrush and it was ready to use.
Back to my crew. I sat by the
front door because it was cooler there.
Janet handed me some deep-fried hash brown patties. They were good. I got two down, got my pack re-filled and
Jeff and I stepped outside. It was about
10 minutes before
I had hiked this next stretch a week earlier and it had felt
easy. Jeff warned me now that it’s not
the same climb after 75 miles. Yet, it
seemed easier and shorter to me overall.
Sometime after we cleared the dam at
It eventually became clear that the precipitation that was
falling was not rain; it was hail. And
then, it started to come down harder and harder. But, the lightning strikes weren’t getting
much closer, so we kept going up. And up. We hit the trail junction where you go left
to
The descent was fairly tough, partly because mud started
accumulating on my shoes. But, it wasn’t
too bad and we got to the Ant Knolls aid station fairly quickly. There, I found Marty sitting in a chair. He told me he was doing miserably. He was lying.
I grabbed some quick food and got out of there. It was only 3 miles to the
It was switchbacked and I found it not too hard. Jeff seemed to be struggling with the
altitude a bit though. I suggested to
him that I could go ahead on the ups and he would easily catch me going
down. He was offended by this statement. I’m sure he didn’t want me to report to
anyone that he couldn’t keep up with me during the race. And, I might have done that. But, he stayed ahead and we cruised the
climb. From there, the rest of the trail
to
I had some bacon and eggs. Jeff had the same plus some pancakes. I re-filled my bladder with PowerAde, we ditched our flashlights, and before Jeff was even ready, I told him it was time to go. I’d hoped to change clothes here, but it was still cool and there was still one storm in the distance. I didn’t want to risk hypothermia if we got hit by another storm.
The next stretch was tougher than I’d expected. We had a lot of climbing to do and it was
somewhat mentally tough knowing that the Pot Bottom aid station (mile 93) was
really close to the Pole Line aid station.
But, we were heading out on a big loop of about 10 miles that would take
us to our southernmost point on the route.
Eventually, we started climbing.
And climbing. Par for the course,
I suppose. But, I was still climbing
well and I preferred climbing to descending.
I tried not to think that every step up would mean another step down
later in the race. We eventually saw
Finally, we were approaching the
It was getting warm. Soon, I changed into shorts right on the trail, not wanting to get overheated in my tights. I didn’t care if anyone saw me semi-naked on the trail. Jeff wasn’t pleased at the sight, I’m sure.
Somewhere around here, my race simply ceased to be fun. The descents started to outnumber the ascents significantly. We were almost 4000 vertical feet above the finish line area. Every descent seemed to be the same – a steep narrow rut filled with rocks. Last year, these ruts had been rivers when Jeff was finishing his Slam. This year, they just beat up my feet. I still had four hours to go, but I was wondering if it might take me six hours to do the last half marathon.
At some point, Marty passed us on a downhill. He mentioned wanting the race to be over. I said something about just enjoying being out here. My mouth said it, but I’m not sure my mind believed it. The six miles to the mile 93 aid station seemed interminable. For a while, things got better as we got into a series of small climbs and descents, most of them quite pleasant. Finally, the descents got more serious and I got quieter, simply focusing on moving downhill as fast as my beat up feed could tolerate.
As it always goes if you just keep moving, we got to the aid
station and it was just after
After my relatively slow start 30 hours ago, I’d been picking off other runners for a long time. On some of my slower patches, runners were catching me, but overall, I was moving up in the field. I haven’t seen standings at any aid station, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I was 60th or so to Pole Line Pass. But, since mile 85 or so, the tables had been turned and I was now getting passed. I simply couldn’t go fast downhill. I was talking to myself, trying to stay focused, trying to stay awake, and making sure that I still wanted it. But, the legs just wouldn’t respond. Maybe I was calorie depleted after relying on GU and PowerAde too much. Maybe it’s just the nature of the beast.
There was one big climb left, right out of the Pot Bottom aid station. I passed a few people back on this climb. It would be the last time I’d pass anyone in the race. As we started the downhill, my pacer valiantly started lying to me. He was trying hard to keep my spirits up and keep me moving. He kept telling me that I’d gone further than I had and that better terrain was just ahead. Lies. All Lies. But, I was too tired to realize it until it was nearly all over.
We descended a rutted, rock-strewn “road” for a few miles. Everyone was passing me and disappearing. I couldn’t keep up. A runner with trekking poles blasted past me. The rules apparently allow them, and I would have loved to have a pair right then, but it didn’t seem right. I stopped thinking about them.
A runner came by, running uphill from the finish. She said it had taken her 75 uphill minutes to get there. We got to the bottom of the road and did a short climb. Then, another descent, followed by a left hand turn onto single track. Jeff saved another runner who missed the turn, calling him back and pointing out the turn. I knew we had only a few miles to go.
I needed to run out this single track to the paved road below and then it was one mile to the finish. My initial goal had been sub-34. It was going to be close. I started shuffling instead of just walking, the closest approximation of a run I’d done in hours. I was still getting passed.
Somebody told us it was 2 miles to go. Jeff had said it was less. Liar. Then, someone else told us 1.2. I was hopeful, but Jeff told me that it was longer. We were going down, but we were still paralleling the road too much. I was running out of time for sub-34.
The trail ended at a dirt road. We went left and the paved road was there. I shuffled along the pavement at my fastest speed. Jeff walked alongside me. I had about 25 minutes to go sub-34. I was going to make it. I walked the slight rise in the pavement that seemed like a hill. It was hot. We turned left and I could see the finish banner. I started through a field and Jeff backed off.
Figure 7 Entering the home
stretch. My pacer Janet has her back to
the camera.
I was running alone through a field and 100 or so people were applauding for me. I was 50 yards from the finish and I was in tears. I could barely see the finishing banner. I couldn’t believe it. After the knee injury, the rehab and all the miles I’d done in the past year, I was here, finishing this race. The physical and emotional release was amazing. The last time I’d been in tears like this was a few minutes after finishing my first 100.
I crossed the line in 33:44:45.
My entire race team was there and instantly surrounded me. I barely remember crossing the line, but soon I was in a chair. I looked up to see all these smiling faces looking at me. I’d done it, but they’d done so much to help me. I tried to say “Thank you” to some people, but I could barely talk.
Figure 8 Jeff smiling and me thinking of water just after
the finish
The Aftermath
After a quick drink of water and a short rest, I got moving again. I had to get to the facilities anyway to get rid of some excess PowerAde. I had a beer too and my stomach seemed just fine at that point. A shower and a quick massage made things feel much better. My blisters weren’t as bad as I’d feared. I’ll never beat the blister problems on my little toes. My feet are just sized wrong for that problem to be fixed. Other than that, the blisters weren’t really bad. They’d never limited me during the race, unlike the toll they took two years ago at VT100. I’ll lose a few toenails, but that’s fairly typical.
I spent the next few hours socializing with other runners and my crew, waiting for the last runners and the time when we would eat dinner and get our awards. I was never close to falling asleep.
Figure 9 Getting my awards
The last four minutes of the race were very exciting as three runners finished. It was amazing to me that the last place finisher had 26 seconds to spare out of approximately 130,000 total seconds allotted.
I ended up eating two dinners that night before going to
bed. After not being able to sleep after
I had a massage on Monday afternoon and went for a 30 minute walk afterward. My quads aren’t sore at all. My calves are sorer. On Thursday, as I write this, the main issues seem to be an overall malaise and deep aches in my entire body. But, this race represents the end of my serious running season and I’ll have plenty of time to rest and recover before ski season starts.
The Western States lottery in early December will tell me what my plans will be for next year. Maybe Western States, maybe an attempt at the Hardrock lottery, maybe Leadville. We’ll see. But, even though at mile 50, I was going to give up ultras forever, I know that won’t happen. And, I’m definitely planning on running Wasatch again someday and hopefully faster.
Pacing Chart
Here is the information I gave to my crew before the race for each place where they would meet me and my actual times. They were guesses based on my best estimate of finishing in 34 hours and looking at past split times of runners of similar speeds.
|
Aid
station |
Mileage |
Early
Estimate |
Late
Estimate |
Target |
Actual |
Difference |
|
|
18.8 |
|
|
|
|
+3
minutes |
|
Big
Mountain |
39.4 |
|
|
|
|
+18
minutes |
|
Lamb's
Canyon |
53.1 |
|
|
|
|
+40
minutes |
|
Upper Big
Water |
61.7 |
|
|
0:00 |
|
+49
minutes |
|
|
75.6 |
|
|
|
|
+20
minutes |
|
Finish |
100 |
|
|
|
|
+16
minutes |