Western States 100 - 2014

Late in 2011, I found myself at iRun, my local trail running store, at a pre-release viewing of JB Benna’s film, ‘UnbreakabIe: A Western States Story’. The store was packed with experienced ultra runners who all seemed to know the famous runners documented in the film. I had only been trail running for a few months and had only been running less than a year. I wasn’t even familiar with this “Western States100” race. It looked cool, but with a distance of 100 miles, it was nowhere in my future.

Fast forward to June 28, 2104 and there I was, standing at the same starting line as many legendary ultra runners had done before me. The field this year was just as deep as perhaps any year previous, if not deeper, in both the men’s and women’s category. It was humbling to know, as I stood at the starting line listening to Gordy Ainsleigh quote Shakespear (I think), that the front runners would be finishing 10 hours or more before me.

The gun (yes, an actual gun) went off and the crowd of nearly 400 runners surged forward with me somewhere near the middle of the pack. Considering the volume of runners, the climb up to the top of Emmigrant Pass wasn’t too crowded. We all reigned it in an power-hiked almost the whole climb except for a few runnable sections. Only one section near the top had any of us with hands on knees, but it was a short scramble and we were soon running through beautiful mountain flowers on what was probably the most technical section of trail.

*As an aside, in most of my race reports I focus on recounting the race from aid station to aid station, but Western States has a lot of aid stations …a lot. This race report will be more of a summation of my experiences between major points in the race*

From Emmigrant Pass to Dusty Corners the trail is more technical than anywhere else in the race. I was feeling strong as I ran the ridgelines, through beautiful trees and vegetation, occasionally startling a squirell or a mouse. Knowing that the majority of the race is downhill, I held back on the downhill portions in order to save my quads for later in the race. The short climbs were already a welcome break through this section.

I came into Dusty Corners with a fellow first timer who I had been running with for the last few miles. It’s always nice to run with someone else because it allows me to focus more on the trail, sharing navigation duties as we both look for sometimes elusive ribbons in the trees and bushes. We both had the same goal and the same strategy and decided that it was a good fit. He didn’t wait for me at Dusty Corners and left a full minute or two ahead of me. Scott was waiting at the aid station with my food and a new bottle — he was on top of things. This is going to be a good day. I left with some extra calories in my stomach and a refill of Tailwind in my hand.

Things went south on the way to Robinson Flat. I had been moving along strong and had caught up to my buddy and a few others who he had joined. One of the runners in our pack was going for the Grand Slam and it was exciting to run with her and listen to her stories. I must have got caught up in it and forgotten to fuel correctly because I began to notice significant swelling in my hands, cramping quads on the uphill, a sudden drop of energy, some wooziness and a little bit of nausea. I backed off a little and let the others go on ahead.

The climb to Robinson Flat left me feeling flat. Normally, I attack the climbs feeling good, but today I had nothing. It was just a slow fight from bottom to top. It was great to have the scenery around me that I did because it helped take my mind off the issues I was facing. Here I was running Western States; who cares about anything else? This is WESTERN STATES! I forced down more Tailwind and kept climbing.

When I came into the aid station, I was met by a set of scales. I stripped off my pack and stepped onto a scale. Hmmm… I was down 6 lbs already. Not good. I told the doctor about my hands and other symptoms and he told me to sit for 20 min and work on normalizing and hydrating. He wasn’t going to pull me from the race, but he didn’t want me to go any further before checking out with medical. This wasn’t good news — I was going to be 20 more minutes behind my goal pace. Greg jumped into action and did about everything he could to get things turned around, but there wasn’t a quick fix for this. As I was sitting in my chair, mulling over my approach to the rest of the race, Deron came into the aid station and worked wonders with the medical crew. Deron assured them that we would stick together through the next section and that I would be fine. They let us leave and we started walking to Duncan Canyon.

I started to pick up after Robinson Flat and the 20 min walk that followed. We started running again and I got back to enjoying the course. The extended descent into the canyons had already started to take a toll on me, and my quads were feeling the relentless pounding workout they were receiving. When running this much downhill on a long race, there’s a fine line between reigning in the pace and braking too hard. I was trying to ride that line without blowing up my quads from pushing too hard downhill and hurting my hips or my knees from braking too hard. I was completely unsuccessful. Not only were my quads still cramping, but at some point (I don’t exactly remember when) I came down hard on my left foot and felt a shooting pain go from side to side across the top of my foot. From that point on, I fought the same tendinitis symptoms I had fought (successfully, I thought) before the race.

Deron and I cruised through the aid stations as fast as possible and kept up a good pace to Duncan Canyon. I’m sure Scott felt a little overwhelmed as he was now responsible for taking care of two runners. If he was, he didn’t show it; he had us both back out on the trail and on our way to Michigan Bluff very quickly.

The canyons weren’t nearly as bad as I had imagined them, but the temperatures this year were more moderate than in previous years. Highs in the mid-80s were warm to most runners, hot to some, but moderate to those of us from Phoenix. We took advantage of the water on the course and kept hats, shirts and Buffs soaked. There were honestly a couple of times on the course where I was a little chilly. On the climb up from Swinging Bridge (a cable assisted river crossing this year) I shivered and realized I needed to push a little harder just to keep warm.

At the aid station before Michigan Bluff I noticed a hot spot on my middle toe. I made sure to stop at the aid station to get it attended to, but wasn’t expecting the long stop. The volunteers there patched it up with second skin and athletic tape and I was on my way. When I came in to Michigan Bluff to get it fixed properly, I was seated in a reclining chair, stripped of my shoes and socks, and the expert crew went to work. A huge popped blister and a hot spot between my toes on my left foot, and a small blister on my right foot resulted in a good 20-25 minutes further delay. Deron patiently waited with Scott and Greg while I lounged in the medical area eating grapes. What a life, huh?

They finally finished up and sent me on my way. Deron was itching to get moving, and I wanted to get to Forest Hill before dark. We pushed the next section just enough to keep a nice maintainable pace. I think we both knew that our pacers were going to be itching to run. I knew Greg was going to be a great pacer because he had been full of energy all week. I think he may have been more excited about the whole deal than I was, and it felt like Christmas to me.

We came in to meet our excited pacers at Forest Hill, partook at the aid station buffet, made some pack adjustments, setup our headlamps and hit the trail again. It was dark now as we left Forest Hill and I was fine with that. I had been told that the trail out of Forest Hill was some of the smoothest, most runnable on the course. Greg took the lead and was like a race horse shooting from the stall. He started picking off runners and pacers right and left, leading us at a solid pace down the trail and through the darkness. “Woot! Woot! Four runners coming through on your left!” He was a man possessed. All Deron, Kent and I could do was oblige and try to keep up. I lost track of how many runners we passed, but we were making good time now.

I hate to be the party pooper, but during this section my gut suddenly decided it was a good time to lose some of the watermelon from Forest Hill. There’s a quick clip in Unbreakable that shows a man running along a trail and puking with seemingly no warning. Yeah, this was a lot like that. Deron and Kent ran off ahead while I was running, dry heaving, running, etc. So, Greg had to go catch them to beg some ginger root from Deron. That was the last time I would see Deron for the rest of the race — his headlamp at least.

I finally tamed my stomach and started moving along. I was getting frustrated at my progress and was now battling blisters and tendonitis, which was altering my gait and preventing me from moving as fast as I would like. We were still passing more runners than were passing us, so I counted that as good progress.

After being tortured for some time by the sound of rapidly moving water below us as we ran toward Rucky Chucky (or, Ruck-A-Chucky, as the signs showed it) we finally came into the aid station. Greg and i were both looking forward to this iconic river crossing and didn’t waste time on the near side. We took off to the river and grabbed onto the cable. Wow! That water was cold, but it sure felt good. I had been hearing all day about how the water was low and would likely only be knee deep. Wrong. At the halfway point I took a step and the water quickly swallowed me up to my ribs. I was now looking forward to the dry clothes on the far side.

The Rucky Chucky river approach at night.

The far side of the river crossing was another long stop. Changing clothes resulted in a change of blister dressings on my toes and I was back to medical tape and second skin to get me through to the finish. Changing was a little awkward there, too. There isn’t exactly anywhere to get some privacy while changing and Greg discovered that when the European girl next to him bore it all, without warning. The poor guy never saw it coming.

The rest of the race was a game of me trying to play catch up to Deron, and Deron trying to stay just ahead of me. We had no idea where each other was along the course, so it came down to running whatever we could, as fast as we could, in order to gain on the other. I felt good running to Brown’s Bar, and I wanted to get there before daylight. This meant it was time to try and drop my pacer. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I wasn’t going to drop Greg, but I sure was going to try. We ran strong in the miles leading up to the aid station and it was all going great until I sprained my right ankle, twice.

All I could do was laugh at my misfortune. I was a mess. Blisters, tendinitis, a sprained ankle, and now my right heel felt bruised due to all the pounding my altered gait had inflicted on it. Every step hurt. There’s no point in stopping when you’re 85 miles into a 100 mile race though. Mark Hellenthal had told me before the race, “If the bone ain’t showin’, keep on goin!” That’ll have to do.

I have to say that opposite the stories I had been told about the climb to Hwy 49 and Robie Point. These were significant climbs. Mark Cosmas needs to run Western States again if only to refresh his memory of how big these climbs were …especially late in the race. No Hands Bridge was sweet though.

The exhiliration of arriving at the top of the Robie Point climb and knowing that the finish is just up the road was intensified by the volunteers and the people of Auburn along the course cheering and congratulating. Arriving in at the track was the only thing that could top the past mile. Before the race, I thought that running the track would be anti-climactic — it was anything but. As I circled the track, I reflected back on the last 27 hours, on the struggles that I had overcome to get me to the finish line, and further, to the progress I had made over the last three years. Just a little over two years prior, I was watching in awe as Geoff Roes cross the finish line of the 2010 Western States 100 and set a new course record. The amazement didn’t cease as I saw runner after runner continue to cross the line through the night and into the next day until, finally, Gordy Ainsleigh crossed the line just after 30 hours. And now it was my turn. 27:10:41. I was done. What could top this?

On to the next adventure...